Special Board Meeting

001all can you hear me I can hear you um I put the name be here over there here on this one okay oh morning good morning hello the last hour where am I okay I can't see the other good see um G have to work so what tomorrow she can't do nothing tomorrow anyways okay so tomorrow the church I got work there too no I do not want to stand in here oh and I'm over there oh okay thank you and I it see I I move the screen one so I can take a look at it so it's nine o'clock and we have Quorum uh we're going to start uh the the meeting today the special board meeting of July 13 2024 um we're going to do roll call Mighty bed can you please

002uh do roll call today's a special board meeting of July 13 2024 at 900 a.m. members of the board in attendance president Linda Chavez pres vice president Andres Kinto not here clerk mfam present member cinera presid member Andrea Flores Shelton not here either members of administration inter superintendent Dr Alazan pres so we have a quorum today and um I've been asked to move uh 202 before 2011 and so we're going to try and move things along quickly today so we're going to do the uh Pledge of Allegiance I'll stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all moving on to item 202 discussion action the community engagement process for

003the consolidation closur thank uh yeah yeah thank you president um Chavez um this is a item that um I would like to uh present to the board and our public um to get more clarification on the process for Community engagement I know at the last board meeting on June 27th um the board had a brief discussion um about um the community engagement piece um in terms of holding two two uh board meetings in July in August and in September um around the community engagement process however um I would like to to have more clarity on what that may look like from the board's perspective and um before uh before I I asked the the questions um for clarity purposes um so that we as an Administration are prepared for um the community engagements uh that

004that are upcoming um I would like to share with the board and the public that um the administration and I my cabinet were able to you know just bring a small small focus group together prior um prior to this meeting just to get um just to get an exploration of a variety of ideas um and and probe their perspective and you know the the folks that we reached out to were um groups that we've worked with before throughout the year um in terms of like our spark our Dak and deac um our Union uh leadership as well as um uh one of our Community Partners um almost almost made for and again it was just um you know it it was a focus group if you will um and again Gathering their their perspective also

005on you know what what this um what school consolidation enclosure process could look like uh from from their uh point of inter you right and they brought up um a lot of great great suggestions and and ideas to think about as we begin the community engagement process right um some of those ideas uh centered around um you know special ed facilities um what the transition you know plan and process could look like um and you know how are decisions going to be made right uh which are which again um are really really good questions and you know we listened uh we listened and wanted to you know share share these perspectives um preliminary perspectives with you um so that again um I wanted to share with with the board and the public um about that

006and so with that in mind um there there are just a few pieces that the my my cabinet and I would like to um get some clarity on in terms of the dates one of them is the dates of the proposed uh meetings and times for um the July July August and September um Community engagement time so that's one the second is you know what's the format of each of these um Community engagement meetings so what what is um what is the structure right what is the structure um as well as you know are there going to be specific um focuses for each of these Community engagement meetings in each of these months right um because again it helps it helps the administration be prepared um to have these these um Community engagement process or

007um meetings with you all with our public so um that is basically um what I would like to uh get some clarity on from from the board uh first of all let the Reg let the record reflect that both uh trustee Andrea Shelton and BP ginto are here um so any truste want to comment on comment uh but we're going to take public comment first um anyone anyone in the audience want to make a comment seeing that there's none trustee um trustees comments um thank you very much uh for the the clarity I think this is exactly what we're supposed to be doing um as we've went ahead uh developed a broad framework and then now we can start filling in the gaps um the way I Envision they obviously regular board meeting or not

008not regular special board meetings so obviously they follow uh Brown Act and the item formats and everything but I Envision those early meetings to be more of an educational process because i' i' I haven't gone through a such a this is a very very drastic step of essentially shutting down 45% of our schools and so at this point I'm going to be relying on staff to bring in all the information all the data that we need to be brought up speed on where we're at in terms of the sites how much investment has been made uh those sites are definitely can't be um considered because of the fact that they're relatively new we just paid them off we have uh major Investments all of those things I was assuming is going to be the the

009first couple of meetings where we're going to get up to speed with a lot of data it's going to be essentially study sessions that's the way I viewed them and then after that um I view the the rest being primarily uh opportunities for folks to start providing their input uh the community to provide their input and their perspective on the the data that's been presented and then eventually those U I'm assuming straw Poes or possible options that are presented then the then the public would be able to speak to those items I've been through well not been through myself but I've observed and been very closely involved in things like redistricting where it's a massive process and they did Statewide Outreach and that was the approach that they followed where they put out proposals those

010proposals then allowed people to start framing their case for why it is that this package should go forward or they would bring forward their own ideas and then put it forward and so I think that that's an opportunity to provide for Community engagement allow people to Pro to provide their input uh but at the very beginning I assumed that the first couple of meetings would be essentially massive amount of studying on our part in terms of the facts all the what's on the ground all the the numbers and everything like that so those are my two sus board president uh trusty cor uh before I say my comments um I know that not all of the uh audience was inside the room when you called for public comment so I'm just wondering uh board president

011if you're open to calling that again before we close this item um but before we move on I wanted to mention in addition to uh vice president gto's points um would I'd like to see included in the process um Dr AR is more of a two-phase um right now I think you know definitely hearing all of our um stakeholders parents um you know it looks like you already started the conversation with some of them and in this focus group that was had um some more um hearing about the actual closures um and whatever it is I'm just thinking of myself as a parent and you know how I would want to express myself and be heard by the district um and whatever that might be and the process could be you know maybe colored dots

012and questions around the room um surveys you know I I trust that you will um be able to do that um in regards to to timing you know like I said at the last board meeting I know that you know um I was one of the few that was pushing for a less Rush process because we're you know we're meeting today we have a a superintendent to hire we have so many things but here we are and so I trust that you know based on the calendar whatever few days are left um that as staff you all will pick the best date that works um with our community to you know better get them and it could be maybe a night meeting on one of them and a morning meeting because of the different um

013workshifts um and so the first phase more hearing from our community about the closures themselves um their input as to you know um in addition to the data that we'll collect um but also that uh um the feelings from our parents right more hearing from them because it's really going to impact all of all of our parents all of our students either way whether you know uh some of our students grow and have you know more students um and some of our parents might have to travel farther or you know some of the schools will actually have to um eventually close and um the next phase I'd like to hear from our community is what they would like to see in those buildings what kind of programs what kind of services what kind of um

014you know Partnerships should we as a as a district be looking at to um bringing into unfortunately some of our empty buildings um that we'll have for a moment in time um but that's a little bit of what I'm thinking of thank you okay so he was next and then you and then are you going to want okay and then after you excuse me truste okay go ahead ump I had sent over my uh suggestions and writing uh and with regard to the meetings that there are folks who uh work um you know in a 12 hour shift and they probably wouldn't be in the best position to come out in the evening meeting and that they might uh wind up being able to come out to a weekend meeting and so my idea was

015that one meeting be held in the evening during the during the weekday uh and then another one be held on a weekend um whatever time convenient for for uh for the to put it together uh in recognition of the fact that some folks are more free on the weekends other folks are available in the evenings and so I would ask that um just would like to speak to the fact that I this has been been discussed the fact of the matters that um we need to give people certainty let people know what's going on and holding out till November till the second week of November is I don't think it's appropriate to allow people to string them along to make them feel as if there's hope there it's better to give folks the information that

016they need so that our staff so our parents so everybody who's going to be impacted has the ability to make the decision that's best for themselves not what's best for anybody up here not any politician not any member of the administration but what's best for them and their family uh for the staff for whatever it is that they have to do to uh to to to deal with this very very uh it's a significant consequence of significant consequence and so individuals should know what's happening sooner rather than later rather than just for convenience of us or any board member here to just hold out till November till the second week of November for some reason November 14th would be the proposed date and I don't think that's fair I think it's important to let folks

017know as soon as possible while at the same time providing that opportunity for dialogue for Community input taking into account all that information that's going to come from the public and then making a decision that's well informed obviously it's going to be very tough uh but um that gives people the opportunity to take whatever steps they need to be able to deal with this very significant uh decision just thank you uh Madam president uh I'll just say you know what I've said in the Press uh you know this is going to be one big very contentious conversation and that's why I I support uh trusty quo's uh plan on this is uh we're going to get maximum uh Community input you know I'm willing to be here on the Saturday heck I'm willing to you

018know as I've mentioned on NBC bar I'm willing to mention uh go to um parent meetings in the evening if invited uh you know um these are people's futures people's livelihoods the N the future of our uh the future of alam Rock uh and think uh more importantly uh you know why why why why an announcement by the first week of November and I'll just say it out loud I think that it it ensures that there is a democratic back stop so that in November uh on Election Day the people of alen rock have the you know have their right to weigh in and uh you know make a decision on the board uh whether they agree with the board's decision and if not uh you know they have the ultimate right to change uh

019change membership on the board and uh adopt the better plan uh and I look forward to hearing suggestions from Alam rockers I mean I've I put forward my own plan to save try to save more of our school sites and I hope in the coming days uh we find a way to uh you know make savings while saving saving more of our schools saving more of our teachers saving more of our uh equipment for our kids trusty Sheldon thank thank you uh good morning um so I'll restate a couple things that I've said at the past um board discussions on the community engagement process for school consolidation and closure um I agree in full engagement and full transparency and um there's a lot of people to get input from um our parent Community our neighborhood

020community and the other stakeholder group would be possible users of those um facilities so that we don't have um blighted um we don't have blighted buildings we don't have depressed um property values so that we are the best landlords that we can be um so um that being said I do you know we could do this as fast as we want I think using the parent University and openhouse models is another another really important way to get full involvement from people who are going to be impacted by this um whether or not it fits in with timelines I still believe doing it outside of when school is open is a challenge for most of our community um the second thing is I do think we should be having workshops that cater to potential users so

021that people understand sort of what is our footprint what is um because I think to the conversations we've had during budget is if we want to be good stewards of our financial status we have to have the dollars in hand the lease Revenue in hand to say we can keep this building um occupied we can we can drive dollars to our bottom line so if we want to start that if we want to have those dollars in hand for this budget year to potentially save a school from being closed or again to just make sure we're getting revenue and we are good uh landlords um we need to be thinking about who are the potential users the for-profit and nonprofit communities um so where does that fall into I think that's a part of the

022community engagement process as well it's um again thinking about other stakeholders um and then the final thing I want to say is um I I have a day job and I'm a professional uh public servant and a public administrator and um I believe in full transparency but I also believe that there are certain processes that I believe the administration is bringing us their best professional opinion about a timeline that works and politicizing it with having it be the second weekend of November I have no problem with this happening the first week of October I just feel but it doesn't allow for a full community engagement process and the last thing I'm going to say is and this is really hard to say but I'm going to say it now because there's community members and um

023there isn't really a way to to waste any more time but I will be resigning on September 1st from this board um I did receive a promotion at work and I am now going to be the assistant director of the city of San Jose's parks recreation Neighborhood Services and and I will be in charge of making decisions and having um a role in overseeing community grants and neighborhood grants and there are many many decisions that the city of San Jose and Parkson W are do will may be doing with Alam Rock and there will be a conflict of interest um in my current role as a deputy director in parks and wck we've created a firewall so that I am not involved in Alam rock related decisions and now that I'm moving into an assistant

024director role um I will be a part of those decision-making processes so um it is hard because 10 years ago I had to not run again not run and here I am again and it's Groundhogs Day and I did not um really anticipate this there's a retirement um that's happening that opened up this door uh two or three months ago and I did not know that I would um I was notified that I got the position um and it was announced this past Tuesday so I want to be fully transparent that there will be an open seat I have no political um fight what I have is a love for this community and a deep concern um over what large large decisions and impacts are going to happen in a very very rushed um time

025frame so given the fact that schools wouldn't be closed um or you know for a year people should know but we also need to give them the most um useful real data and also make sure that we can get these buildings to be occupied and vibrant um and deciding what is closed without having a possible user in it concerns me and that's why I think time um time could be on our our side uh but I know families if they know in October that their school's going to be closed and I've talked to families that have experienced this in Hayward and other places it's a really hard sad year and it's going to be an uncertain year if you don't know um but it's it's kind of there isn't a whole lot of win-win here

026folks that's I think the challenge um and trying to find um we're trying to find a win um and I think that is with looking for ways to get these buildings occupied I think we need time for that so I'm sorry if I sort of dropped um a bomb here and you'll we'll all have to figure out how you all or you'll have to figure out how you handle that but um I have been um disappointed that there's a politicizing of something that I think is very much a the professional opinion of the administration on how to handle a very um difficult sort of information sharing and decision making process thank you uh congratulations tressy Shelton assistant director very good role um I want to say a few quick comments um this is actually everybody's

027looking at it as a negative thing Alan Rock has been in this situation for at least two decades that I know of that they have been facing closing schools and um it's now actually it is an opportunity to reset the district and make and strengthen it for for the years to come um and in my opinion what I believe just me as a a trustee is that there will be sites that aren't even touched um because let's face it they do have the Adas and um and some will be Consolidated but they're going to be Consolidated in an effort to make them stronger to be able to bring more uh better quality programs and in doing so this will help with the learning and that's my main objective has always been the learning are the

028kids learning um there's was a comment that you know public comment um would be allowed it will be allowed after the presentation the meeting starts at N9 o' we do want to hear from all of you uh after the presentation I'll give another opportunity for uh public comment but that'll be after 2011 thank you um and I seen Dr John manan's hand up first go Ahad Dr I can yield to um tra because mine is just technical logistical stuff actually I would like to hear that first okay that's fine and um I too would like to congratulate uh trusty Flor Shelton um on your promotion well deserved yeah um in terms of then the uh proposed me meeting times and and dates because I know that the board has a very busy schedule um in

029these next few months um I'd like to share I'd like to share those now if I if I may um so July 21st is a Saturday that would be the first Community engagement uh meeting uh proposed time is 11 am oh sorry s s I apologize uh the 20th the 20th not the 21st so let me uh July 20th 11 a.m. uh for that proposed time and July 29th Monday 6:30 for August um August 24th which is also a Saturday 11 a.m. and August 29th which is a Thursday prop post time 6:30 p.m. and for the September dates September 21st which is a Saturday again proposed time 11:00 a.m. and September 26 which is a Thursday 6:30 p.m. thank you thank you president um you know I I keep hearing this November time and I'm

030like oh yeah that's right right that's when the ballot is um and I think you know some of us maybe have that time right in front of us but some of us you know where our children aren't um affected uh you know our jobs we have to take time off from work and things like that we don't think of of those things like we vote because the bot's here and you know we're not planning for November we're not planning for two years from now we're not planning for four years from now so I'm not sure why that keeps coming up um but you know I trust that those of you that are here today took time out of your Liv And if we're a board that really acts on how we speak then we get

031to make time to listen to you all again I'm on the minority side um but board president I would uh plead again that um these parents took time out of their lives they have soccer games they have things to do um and to have them wait hours um after another session that you know already was we were told that it would take at least 60 Minutes I don't think is fair and I think this is an opportunity to really um put what we say in action and even do away with our 20 minute limit and let everybody speak that again I'm only one of um five and so that's my proposal at this time vice president K can we speak next Madame President um I just want to remind us of the process that brought

032us here we went through long drawn out process to finally get to this point and it involved input from all of us actually I remember my colleague mentioning that um first week in oct the uh that early October would be acceptable because she spends sign she spent a significant time at her grandfather's Ranch where there was no internet and so as a result The Proposal that I brought forward factored that in and now the idea is to continue to move the November deadline came from The Proposal that came from them which said that in November on the 14th which is the only meeting scheduled for November that would be it that's where the comic comes from it's not coming out of out of the air the fact of the matter is that this this this

033desire to push it from early October to November I can kept on why is it why is it why is that happening I'm glad that you brought up the ballet because it happens to be a week after the elections interesting interesting I just kept on asking why is it that this Obsession was pushing it one month out what is going to be the big significant difference and so it seems to be that's the case uh now I'm I'm aware of that interesting uh but to come here and act as if this kind of just came out of nowhere there was a dialogue that took place over the course of several months and I even factored in the comments that were made and the suggestions of maybe early October would be acceptable because of the fact

034that I used to spend Summers out in the ranch where I didn't have internet and then to come here and attempt to reinvent everything reality it's it's not it's it's not appropriate it's not professional I don't appreciate it um just to Simply uh speak to the crowd that's here and give them something to to that something that parish is going on when in fact it happened to be a process that was done in public the most public way we record our meetings we hold them we announce them we we talk about it right here we have to negotiate out uh things that that happen because this the only place we can do that um actually I I wasn't on board with the whole school closure of the wholesale closure of half of our sites approximately

035half of our sites I attempted to bring forward a plan that was a lot smaller that could let us move into it uh but I wound up going in favor of it as a result because I attempted and I I successfully did save aptitude I got the tk8 school so that more of our kids in that area have an option available to it doesn't disappear and so I just wanted to make sure that we uh that I could clarify to you uh some of the comments were made I don't appreciate them uh to make it seem as if something was done by by some one person by their own it factored in the the perspective of my colleague my colleague's perspective was factored in into the ultimate decision that was made um I just want

036to reiterate uh or ask uh Administration uh to lay out a framework uh that um the information examples or um topics that they're going to be bringing forward um uh in preparation of those meetings so that we know what to expect we can do our homework in advance so we can ask the right questions or or be ready to receive the information and so I would expect to receive uh a series of topics that are going to be discussed R discussed at the at the meetings those uh trusty fam yes just two yeah first of all congratulations to trusty Flores Shelton uh you know and the second just to clarify uh do we have a time for you know I if I recall uh you know is uh is there meeting set for early October

037you know in this list of meeting dates uh Dr alazon at the last board meeting the board approved October 3rd okay and was there a time 6:30 or something like that there was no time for that yet okay so I might ask that that that uh you know if possible you know a 6:30 p.m. meeting on October 3rd as well thank you anything else trusty fam no not okay trusty floor Shon thank you um uh since it is good to let folks know how we've um gotten to where we've gotten um I will say given that we're all very uh cognizant of and proud of when the Democratic process works and so I'll just State for the record um your framewor the administration I believe brought forward a plan to um name schools in like

038a December January time frame that's what I recall and then somewhere The Proposal turned into the second week of November I don't know whose proposal that was um and and then you brought forward uh vice president ketto a framework um that you verbally shared and I disagreed with it and I voted against it so yes the will of the board was 32 to move forward with that framework but as a minority voice I am stating again that from a public process um I still don't see where parent University or open houses are a part of it and maybe that's the 21st 26th October I don't know but um I'll just keep stating that I think the minority voice can be heard um the will of the board carries on but that doesn't mean that a

039minority voice cannot be heard thank you uh the last meeting we clarified that I submitted at the at the last meeting we clarified that I submitted the proposal in writing it was submitted writing excuse me please no public comment thank you please be respectful the last meeting at the last meeting it was submitted and I and and the superintendent acknowledged she received in writing it was never placed in the book that's not my fault it was disclosed publicly and to continue to just simply uh disregard the facts or just selectively remember certain things is not appropriate and so it's it's we're we're devolving here I think it's unfortunate okay so um I think stop please I think we've had enough um trustee comments we're going to move on to the dwk um moving on to

0402011 DK presentation discussion action development administrative regulation detailing the process used by staff to put prepare contracts requests for proposals and requests for qualification and bid solicitations and for presenting such items for the board can dwk please step up to the mic thank you I excuse me point of order you had time you decided to come in after the meeting was already started I already said you will be right after human on 2011 yes you are human that's why I'm giving you another chance to speak again after the presentation that's your prerogative thank you thank you thank you um sorry uh good morning um um excuse me can you please uh we have a presenter if you have dialogue can you please take it outside thank you go ahead please thank you okay hi uh

041good morning um my name is DG Sakai andanas wall Kelly I've been asked to uh discuss about contracts how contracts are presented to the board and how contracts go through the board process um so this is a quick outline for what we're doing today we're talking about today going to talk about first the power to contract uh the board Contracting process as an overview and then more specifics about procurement of contracts okay so for the power to contract the reason why this is important is because the district goes through and and reviews and approves several different kinds of contracts we'll do contracts to purchase things like equipment Material supplies Services food Transportation books technology construction energy software licenses we also do it for things to purchase property um and and also I mean for for

042other items as well so um what the district has is um the governing board has is the power to contract so where the power to contract comes from it's usually in a statute and for school boards they have several different statutes that they're in um it'll be in the Education Code um certain sections have been moved to the public contract code and there are also sections regarding Contracting in the government code um I don't I mean um I guess I wanted to say if you have any questions please interrupt me as we go through because I don't want to like go too fast and you guys have a question yes yes more um excuse me president the the monitor is showing there we go okay sorry I was showing the note thanks okay so um

043just you know just to go back on something we've done before when we' talked about Education Code I've been here before to talk about like design build for construction there are Provisions in there to talk about the board's um Power to contract for that um public contract code talks about things about purchasing supplies and those sorts of things government code for example has things regarding um purchasing of energy or when you have professionals or professional or special services okay just wanted to say just I mean I'm sorry for the little you know um hieroglyphics but basically the P to contract is basically the the power to award or ratify contracts that's what's invested in the board the PIR contract is not necessarily the power to do uh to procure uh procurement preparation of the contracts

044including procurement is delegated to the superintendent or staff you have that in your board policies and administrative regulations um you do review what is brought to you by the staff recommended by the staff you can ask questions about it and have that kind of input I mean but it's not normal or the usual course where you will be R reviewing the actual language of the RFP it is one thing to say yes you will do an RFP and that is not outside the norm but it is it is different it would be unusual to have the Board review every single RFP or bid documents before they go out okay so just a quick overview of the board Contracting process so um generally what happens is that the staff prepares procurement documents including the form of

045agreement and depending on the kind of service or um item or product that the the district is planning to ch um purchase or sell um bidding or competitive selection or direct negotiation would be employed then the staff would prepare an agenda item summarizing the background for the contract the procurement process and recommendation and then at a notice board meeting the governing board would award the contract confirming that proper procurement was Pro uh process was followed and in some some instances the statute will require that the board make certain findings like you know if you're doing an energy contract you have to make findings with regard to savings to in order to enter into the agreement so that's when these things would happen and um at that point the the board would either award or ratify

046a contract okay so I'm going to go to procurement was that kind of fast in more details any questions about something you want me to go through okay I actually just in terms of um sorry I just jumped in I'm you to sitting on that side and looking see can you let her do a little bit of more presentation um that might answer your questions actually it i' I've looked at the presentation and it hasn't yeah thank you um what I was in interested in seeing or discussing at some point was the different thresholds also for um you know RFP or rfqs and sure you know um at what point so just different thresholds and whether that's um in the bo that coming up it is in here yeah oh good the dollar amounts yes

047oh i s I looked at it sorry oh no that's okay okay so just as the background um I I put the board policy first just because just as a you know just a general overview of it understand the statute usually has more precedence than a board policy but your board policy 3311 says in order to ensure transparency and The Prudent expenditure of public funds board trusty shall award contracts in an objective manner in accordance with the law so what a lot of the rest of the presentation is about is what the law requires um as a general rule School District shall let contracts over the bid threshold so that's why we'll talk about the bid threshold later to the lowest responsible bidder or reject all bids and that's under public contract code 201111 at

048seek um I did want to note for that that um school districts have a particular section in the public contract code and they have specific requirements that are not necessarily the same as counties or cities or other local agencies um it it's not um the normal course that if we are required to do competitive bidding that an RFP would be sufficient because an RFP involves um criteria other than just the price because what normally what we're supposed to do is the assumption is that whatever we buy if we buy um a b or c they're all of the same quality it's just a matter of the price I'm not saying that that's how it actually is in life I'm just saying that that is the theory behind competitive bidding okay so bid thresholds okay for

049the purchase of equipment materials supplies Services except for construction services and repairs including maintenance but not Public Works projects the bid threshold for uh 2024 is $114,500 okay and I have an aster by 2024 because every year the um superintendent of Public Instruction annually adjust the dollar amount when this statute first went into effect like I don't know like 20 years ago or whatever it is it started at 50,000 we're now at 114,500 I think last year it was like 109 and change so it does go up um during lean years where there was a recession it would go up even a couple hundred dollars if not thousands so this number changes on a year-to-year basis but for Construction Services um the bid threshold is $115,000 and that doesn't change from your to year however

050I did want to note that for construction um this district has adopted kupka which is the California uniform public construction cost accounting act and that has increased thresholds um for example where if there was a bid um less than $15,000 we wouldn't have to bid it we could just negotiate a contract but under Cupa we're allowed to have a no bid up to 60,00 ,000 for informal bidding there's um there's a procedure that's not quite the same as formal bidding under kka that anything over 60,000 but under 200,000 would be informal bidding um it just it's 10 days notice um it's still to the lowest bidder you don't need to put it out in the into the community but you could put it out to the trades in the trade papers and it's just 10day

051turnaround or um if it's over 200,000 it's formal bid which is the same thing as the over 15,000 before formal bid includes notice to the trades um advertising in the newspaper and awards to the lowest bidder um just want to let you know there's stuff in the legislature up before the legislature right now to increase these thresholds for kupka the 15,000 nobody touches that but for kupka they're looking to raise it um I think they're raising it to 70,000 in the informal bid they're going to split it up into two different ctions and a formal bid I mean please I can't really remember it correctly but it's about 220 it's not that much more but I just wanted to let you know there is something in in the um legislative um line right now where

052they're looking to raise these prices is is that kind of what you're looking for Tristy yes and then hopefully we'll talk about so what what can be done under the threshold how should that be handled um yes that okay can I can I ask something yes sorry um and and we might be talking about it in the future uh slides but um I see the thresholds for anything related to construction and um you know equipment materials and things like that are we going to be discussing thresholds for resources Services other contracts for our okay so one thing I did want to say is that as a default and if you want to make sure no one ever complains about it you can do lowest bid and services except for Construction Services if you notice is

053part of the 114,500 so if we are talking about other kinds of services it could you could have it bid at the 114,500 but there are certain types of services that maybe you don't want to do the lowest bidder and I mean I'm talking about it later on but I'm just saying right here for certain types of Professional Services or special services you may not want to give it to the lowest bidder there may be other uh qualific ation you may want to consider and um so it doesn't have to be under 201111 this is this whole bid thresholds thing is basically um public contract hold is the default it's the general rule thank you you're welcome okay so there are exceptions to competitive bidding um one of them of course is being below the

054threshold um Child Nutrition um it is still bidding but they have Federal rules the threshold are different I don't know that you want me to talk about it so much but it's like 50,000 and uh 250,000 and there's all sorts of different we're not here to talk about Child Nutrition fors um and one of the other ones is like I said professional and special services and those are covered under government code I put the statute there in case you're curious another thing that's not subject to competitive bidding is emergencies but of course the board would have to declare an emergency first in order to to do that um technology has a RFP which they call competitive negotiation where the board would make a finding to use competitive um negotiations for technology um there is lease

055leaseback design build and also piggyback contracts which I could go on and talk about for a long time but that's not really the purpose of what we're talking about for today okay so exceptions um yes um can you go back to the other one to the screen under emergency do you have any best practices or something so unfortunately we went through a a very big issue turned into a real complete disaster because somebody did some stuff during an emergency and they clearly didn't know what they were doing it took led into all kinds of Investigations a complete disaster are there any best practices that you're aware of where we can make like a checklist or something where people have to go through a process and saying okay it's an emergency but it doesn't mean it's

056a free-for-all or after the emergency you have to do a ABC and D to be in compliance because that that was a real headache and it led to a lot of problems all because I guess this individual claims that he just wasn't aware yeah so actually there are rules regarding um emergency it's written to the statute um there are so there's certain so it depends on whether or not um if this is going to be like a public works where you're fixing some facilities afterwards or not um there's a general rule about emergency under the public contract code that's in the general part where you would actually need to also get the approval of the the county superintendent that it was an emergency and then thereafter you can contract without bidding I've done it I

057mean look we all have emergency someone drives into the building there's a big you know fire or there's um rain that comes in and floods everything there's certain things you probably need to do to make sure that the building and the people and around the school are safe those sorts of things we can do then we probably get it ratified um but for things where you can have the time to bid it those generally aren't considered emergency um under emergency that's not under cupka because kupka has their own emergency procedures you only need to make the board would need to make a finding upfront of emergency and then um you don't have to make another Finding but under cupka if you're doing um repairs to a building per se and it's under emergency you would

058have to make a finding each board meeting that the emergency still exists until the contract's completed um so like I said cupka has different rules like technically you don't have to go to the superintendent of schools in order to ask them for permission to find uh emergency um I know some County county offices still require it I'm not aware that yours does but um you know you you you don't have that step to do but you have the step of having to make finding every board meeting so in answer to your question yeah there are a lot of procedures um if if put BR together a checklist I mean because I know like your purchasing departments and stuff they have checklists for different sorts of things we could always help or assist in preparing checklist

059for these sort of situations I get questions like you know the five minute phone call to say like hey is this still considered emergency or not I do that a lot that's that's often what I I'm talk to people on the phone about so like the first check list item would be call yeah know I mean actually a lot of times maybe the first thing is that you have to schedule a board meeting to make the planning of the emergency right when can everybody meet in order to do it yeah I was just uh imagining that there sometimes we get these like uh handbooks or something like that that give you some sort of guidance that's to that's obviously very like high level stuff but if there was anything out there for staff who's not

060been in education uh then that would be that would be helpful yeah we we we have checklists for certain things and I don't know that we necessarily have one specifically for emergency but we've given trainings and and stuff for emergency as well thank you you're welcome I do have a question um he just mentioned that there's handbooks yes would you happen to have one available and if so could you pass one to the board and we make C kind of I mean handook specifically for emergency yes so that we will know what the process should be um I don't have a handbook per se just for emergency but then we have done presentations that we can put into a checklist for you pretty quickly okay I guess I just wrote down the design code so

061I guess I'll look that up as well thank you yeah than you anything else no okay so um I was asked a question about how do we handle things that are below the bid threshold so this slide is giving more detail about that so if it's below the bid threshold clearly competitive bidding is not required um and the staff is allowed to negotiate what's called like a soul source contract it it gets kind of confusing because people confuse it with soul sourcing with materials where you name a brand in in the bids that's not what this is when you say soul Source contract it means you only went to one person to enter into a contract you didn't have like a big RFP or something like that where people can um all put in um

062and I just made a note here that even if you are negotiating directly the conflict of interest will still apply so it's not like because it's um a s Source cont contract you're giving it to your buddy I mean it doesn't work like that um and also so the main idea being for things that are below the threshold or things that don't require bidding the code is a statutory minimum so that means that the the the staff or the district does not need to go and bid it however districts can require put into place um procedures that are more than the minimum so I've had several situations where districts are like well I don't have to be at all but I'm still going to do an RFP because I think an RFP is a more

063transparent process and allows for more competition and um again it's a choice to do that one way or another there's no wrong in it um in in doing that sort of stuff so that's often times where RFP rfps come into place um because competitive bidding is not required because like I said before an RFP is not the same thing as competitive bidding unless your RFP says I'm awarding based on the low lowest price only okay so I wanted to talk about the Professional Services um exception only because there was a case about it and then so um there is a statute in the government code that talks about Professional Services in the sense of like for construction it's the Architects the engineers the construction managers things that are environmental that doesn't really help you for

064things that for other school things right um but there is also a government code section 53060 that says anything Financial economic accounting engineering legal or administrative M matters that is considered special services and no RFP no bidding is required however you do want to make sure that the individual that you're hiring is qualified right how you do that if you just ask them to turn over their their um you do by references you do it by um them turning in some kind of background or CV on their firm to say that they're qualified you make that decision um there is an exception specifically in 201111 for Professional Services there was a case that came out about two years ago that said even if you know because I I read to you there's like Financial economic

065accounting engineering it could be outside of those fields it's usually things that um are not available publicly like say through your County Office of Ed or through your office already if it's not available through there then you can go and do special services and generally you're looking for something with specialized knowledge training or skill usually of a mental or intellectual nature but it doesn't have to mean that they they have a certificate or they have some kind of degree doing it so um can I yes sorry and the conflict of interest rules apply to this as well yes conflict of interest rules apply always and you know I mean again because when you have situations where I know people are worried that if you don't have competition or if it's not a open process for

066that that that um that it means it's being given to like you know their their best friend or something like that and but it still does apply so um regardless that shouldn't be an issue again I mean when we do rfps we put things in the language that it says like you know disclose any potential conflict of interest or you know um this contract's going out and there's no discrimination involved in it we will put language like there in that to you know to make sure that it's understood but you know often when you don't do a formal RFP that's not it's not necessarily written into it and then not to derail the presentation but I think it's very important um if if uh we believe that the conflict of interest rule has been broken

067um what is the steps if you can quickly or maybe at a later date provide yeah it's it's kind of I mean because there's actually like three or four different conflicts of interests that categories of things sometimes if it's a board member U you know they can recuse themselves from the vote so it might be as simple as that sometimes maybe the contract can't go forward or the contract might be void you know um that kind of situation it's it it really it's a factual sort of thing and it depends on what statute you're going under because sometimes it's not really sometimes it's not really always specific conflict of interest but it might be the appearance of of um of having some kind of favoritism which might be the issue it just depends under what

068statute that is and actually the legislature did um amend the conflict advises like the ones that you guys are probably most um aware of is 1090 because that's you got to do your form 700s every year and that's because of 1090 they amended 1090 to talk about situations where if someone is a consultant early on can they then bid the project later on and they laid out the the steps in which they can do that because um there is a review by they're I don't know if they're like quazi governmental but it's the fair um political practice commission and what they provide is advisory opinions so it's not the same thing as presedential like a statute or case but if it should go to the next level um it's pretty like that the court will

069give precedence to it or it be persuasive to a court maybe not precedence but it would be persuasive to them and I think basically what happened is they codified things that were in certain advisory opinions that have been going through the different years and being developed and then they put it into a code this past year thank you so um examples of professional special services I don't know that this is super important I know there's a lot of them are construction related but you know like we could have food service we could have security and traffic Consultants um there's a lot of different ways that you could have special services I think like for security is interesting because um if you are put if you have like the surveillance system and that sort of stuff

070um that's not necessarily special service if it's just the cameras but if it has to be like security guards they can be special services it just sort of depends Okay so um procurement for competitive selection so I kind of talk about competitive selection it's I'm trying to like there's so much Anonymous terms about that so to me competitive selection is not the same thing as competitive bidding because you're selecting something other than just price so it's usually used for qualifications bu based selection processes and the evaluation criteria is established by the district so that the contractors can be and I mean contractors in the broad sense not construction contractors people who you have a contract with is what I mean by contractors may be scored or selected in an objective manner um sometimes people call

071this best value um sometimes best value is defined in the statute but I think people refer to using an RFP a lot of time is picking somebody based on best value so we're going to discuss that a little bit and um and just I wanted to know in these selections the contract may not be awarded to the firm with the lowest price depending on the situation you might might have to explain why but it's not required um and you know because we asked this before professional and special services have no bid threshold so if you're putting together an RFP and you say like hey for Architects I'm going to do them only as an RFP it doesn't matter if their contract is $5,000 or $50,000 you still got to do the RFP if that's what

072the general rule is that's what it means by no bid threshold if it's for Professional Services so again you you're not necessarily required to do an RFP for um the exception to competitive bidding but if you are going to do it it should apply throughout the whole thing or I do know some districts will say like hey for um for Professional Services less than 50,000 we're not going to require an RFP they'll put it like they'll put it in their board policies or their administrative regulations that that's what they wanted to do because there are a lot of contracts and if you guys went through everything it would take a long you guys would get no other business done okay so competitive selection it kind of breaks down into three different types of things the

073first two is sort of like a two-step process and the last the last one is sort of will combine it together and RFQ in this instance I'm talking about a request for qualifications um and then it's uh it results in a pool of pre-qualified Consultants um sometimes you know we use it for Bond the Bond program but you can use it for other things it doesn't result in a contract usually um the district would need to take addition an additional step to award a contract either a formal RFP or an informal request for a particular project where they end up in a contract then the next step with that would be the request proposals like I said and this would result in the award of a contract at The District's discretion because you know just

074because somebody put puts in a proposal doesn't mean and even if it's the only proposal it doesn't mean that you have to accept it you can go back out again um we also have a request for proposals I mean qualifications and proposals instead of having a two-step process where you make I mean sometimes for the RFQ you make a short list right that's what the pool is and then you only go to your short list for your RFP the RF QP process is just like you narrow it down from everybody and end up with one person that youw the contract to so you don't have um like basically um a lot of time it it makes the process go faster okay so the thing about competitive selection is that unless it's required by the statute

075there's no mandated requirement for what goes in an RFQ and RFP so I think you remember when I was talking here before about the design build contracts it does say what goes in the RFQ and it does say what goes in the RFP it talks about the process you need to follow in order to do a design build contract for most things like for an architect contract there's no requirements about what goes in the RFP or what goes in the RFQ and there's no definition about what the qualifications are that's up for the district to determine um generally the process should provide qualified contractors with a fair opportunity to participate in competitive selection process stimulating comp competition in a manner conducive to sound State fiscal practices emphasizing the elimination of favoritism fraud and corruption in

076awarding contracts so that's the fancy words for what the intent is but you know we want to we always want to have a fair process in order to go and do this and um when you're putting get an RFP then you might want to think about whether or not um if you had to review it whether or not it's been applied consistently as well um what you generally are doing is you're identifying significant evaluation factors and you could have the relative importance that means you know when you wait it and we say like say uh price is 50% and then experience is 30% um the people who work on it is another 20% so that's how you have 100% that's what we talk about about putting like weight or in some situations it might be

077more important about the experience the experience would be 50% it may be price to be 10% and you put another other things in there that you think are important um and then it provides provides reasonable procedures for evaluations of the proposals like we'll say like here this is the criteria we'll go through a committee maybe we'll have an interview you know and then it presented to the board you know recommendation will be presented to the board that's kind of what we're talking about in terms of the procedure um and we usually put in language saying like hey you know um we're doing this because we want to award a contract but we're not obligated to award a contract okay what be included in these searchy documents you'll start out with a general background probably of

078the district you would put the project description um when I say project I just mean whatever the contract supposed to be about like you describe what the contract supposed to be about you'd want to write down what the Consultants what kind of qualifications are you looking for um what are the scope of services you're looking for you know so they can say whether or not they can do it you'll have sub middle requirements um hey I want five copies of this and 8 by1 you the font can't be smaller than10 um or I want it on um a flash drive um schedule of events where you would say like hey this is when we release the RFP this is when we're going to make our decision this what we'll do our interviews and this is

079what we plan to award it subject to change and then the form of agreement is something that attorneys always we kind of recommend that you include it you don't have to but it makes it easier because for these kinds of contracts um when when you competitively bid it they cannot um haggle over the terms of the contract if they don't like the terms of the contract their bid is considered non-responsive and they're done but when you do negotiated contracts they they will include things that they'd like to change in the contract that's that is a difference and it does make the process go longer okay um so we've talked before I said like you know what is best value if it's not defined by the statute uh best value is a value determined by evaluation

080objective criteria um best value determination may involve the selection of the lowest cost proposal um and the objectives of the project or selection of the best proposal for stipulated sum or you know you're giving me this much more for the same price that somebody else is giving me or a trade-off between price and other factors for example you know a lot of our best values will talk about technical experience price Fe fees functions life cycle costs or the proposed team past performance Financial strength of the vendor or litigation history you know with districts um and in this sort of um evaluation criteria can be either weighted like I said they can have a percentage or a point score or it could be past fail so this slide is sort of talking about the differences between

081bidding and competitive selection I think I have said some of it but you know I thought it was worth reemphasizing so RPS considers factors other than the lowest price um so it's it's sort of a um it it's a depend situation um qualification SE base selection is not subject to bid thresholds um RPS don't need to be advertised but again you know how I said that um the stat the statute is the minimum some people still do advertise RPS because they want to have more people um reach more people in it um RPS allow for an interview option you're not going to generally have that option for a hard bid uh respondents to an RP are allowed to negotiate in terms of the contract that I mean it'll drag on the process for um several

082weeks probably I mean I always tell people plan for at least a month if you got to negotiate you know before you can get into contract and then and RPS don't require bid protests or appeals but they can still be written in like I said um there are differences between what's required by Statute and what's not any questions about what I've said thus far okay um and then this is kind of like sort of the last really substantive slide regarding RP so some statutes require request for proposals and then like I said there's the technology which is competive negotiation least Le back in design build technology might be one that you're kind of familiar with but it's not just like normal stuff that you would buy off the shelf these are for things that aren't

083off the shelf and the reason for it is that a lot of times in making a decision about what kind of Technology you want to purchase um you have to take into account other factors like is it compatible with your current system um what is the longevity of the vendor you know what is their servicing history in in going through this sort of stuff um and in doing that sort of stuff for technology you can't include Construction Services so oftentimes you'd have to if there's like pulling of wires in order to install the stuff you'd have to have two contracts but at least the technology portion can be done as an RP which I think the IT people are kind of happy about because I know they hate trying to think that they have to

084get it only based on L price um these statutes have requirements that aren't in other things like um lease lease back in technology require advertising you're not required to advertise the um design build um and they have certain mandatory criteria like they'll say like price and um qualifications and safety are required to be considered and that there needs to be board findings made when awarded in the contract um like I said before like if you didn't award it to the lowest price why or you need to make a finding that whoever you awarded ing it to was the best value and that's why you're aing it to them um and like so in each of these situations the governing board approves the procedure as provided by the statute but not necessarily the form of RFP

085like you're not going to go through and say like it needs to be written this specific way I mean I think you guys have communication with your staff that if there's certain concerns that you have to be part of it it can be communicated to the staff and they can include it in it but it's not where necessarily you have have to approve the form of agreement before it goes out you are in effect approving it when you award the contract so here's the point where I was asking if there's more questions and I'm sorry I you know I work with this all the time I'm actually kind of excited about contracts but I know other people aren't and you know I've been doing this for a while so sometimes for me in my mind

086I made the connection but maybe I didn't so um I do have a a question yes what are the most frequently ask questions after you do this presentation if we can run by those first um I don't know that I get like frequently asked questions regarding it I mean it's that's why I had that thing about summarizing the differences um the thing that I didn't talk about is uh the piggybacking thing which is also an exception to competitive bidding and that's more like when we have you use a contract from another school district from Cass the department of general service or even from another through your membership as a jpa and that's more like um bul buying because that's what you're inv invoking although you're not buying in bulk somebody has made a contract for

087purchase by bulk so you can get benefit of the better price um but um what else see people ask I don't know people are usually kind of punch weary when I get to the end of the thing and um because there's just usually so much information in it um you know there are things that what I didn't talk about per se you know a lot is about the board resolutions so I mean the board policies so you have already board policies regarding bidding and Contracting in there sometimes they should be updated um if you want to use but you don't always have to do that again there's another way that you can also do things that people delegate Authority a lot using resolutions which are a lot less complicated to change than than board policies

088and administrative regulations um administrative regulations are usually just further clarifications or more procedures of what's already in the board policy so um and again generally you want to follow what your board policy says I mean you guys have some specific things in your board policies I think based on um what to me appear from past practices I mean you have some very specific things about construction management in your board policies that I don't see because gamut or um csba they'll have like General um board policies and that a lot of people adopt and they just do that but I think what you guys have done is you've also sort of clarified certain things and many things that's been important to you and you've added in there um you know for Cupa if they were to

089change their thresholds I would suggest or recommend updating those um you and again I've worked with your purchasing departments and I know that they have checklist of things that they need to do but you know again we can always work with people to do trainings or reviews checklist and those sort of things too I'm so glad you said about updating the board policies and um I agree that should be done at least every two years if not more frequent on certain items yeah because it doesn't change all the time you know not there's not a change every single year but yes thank you justy Shel thank you um I just want to thank uh dwk and the administration I had requested this steady session um a few months back as we're kind of going into

090some unprecedented um territory with in terms of um whether it was looking for an operator for the old moxa building or what we're going to do with buildings and what and and just other things that um it just seemed again sort of like to just bring it above board and so so the very last thing that you and President Chavez were discussing was sort of what I was thinking the next steps would be or in terms of the administration like the main question I had was are all the board RS and policies um reflective of best practices right and you're saying well it's like gamut and this and that and so it's just sort of The Next Step I would hope would be just identifying are there any things you know that need to be

091updated are we in you know following best practices and and it could be 100% yes right or it could be here are some um recommended changes we need to do and then um I do think there's some there's a question in my mind about how Professional Services is not subject to competitive bidding and so it's like so how how do we handle that and is that very clear on how we handle that because I think past practice versus future practice in terms of um the I I know the past administration did do formal bids for things that were under um that could have been Soul sourced right you know and so we we have done that right we've gone above and beyond the the floor which is good right but I think the question is

092does this Administration or does this board you know want to not just be the floor but kind of Identify some sort of ceiling where we have higher expectations right so yeah um so those are the kind of things that and yes you just like gave us a lot um and so I just wanted to sort of Chip Away sort of the things that I feel are the ones that can are a gray area and there are things that we would want to just maybe just clarify maybe not fix but clarify yeah and let me just say oftentimes because boards will give instructions that aren't formal board policies to staff um when you do hire people for Professional Services um they usually work through our office we've given them templates to start working with and contracts

093for them to provide in the situation that includes language in that that could that could be used for the situation so it's um this is just me from my knowledge of working with people here in in in this District they do they do do more than the minimum of what whatever is in the board policy so I mean I I can't say for everything because I don't work on every single contract for the district but I mean in a lot of my experiences with them they do ask us we do provide them we have discuss about what's in it and what the district's wants and needs are and we'll put those things together for them you know um that kind of stuff so it's not like it's without I mean even if there's no fixed

094mandate I do know they do go above what the minimum is yeah trusty thank you um and in addition to congratulating uh Andrea Flor Shelton on her promotion I want to thank you for bringing this uh because you know these are the things as we're bringing in the new superintendent and these changes within our district that we want to make sure that we just get better in so thank you um Andrea for your leadership and um I look forward to continuing to work with you as a partner in the community um and so yeah just with that um I think I have minor questions that I want to dig in and so maybe I'll um schedule some time or ask Dr anasan to help me um schedule some time so I can ask those questions

095and dig deep so we can move forward with our audience yeah thank you thanks um you want to speak uh trusty can um Ju Just wanted to we've I get it there's uh board policies and the that's we've uh in the past because of issues that elmrock has faced have gone like above and beyond for a lot of stuff that other people or other uh districts didn't do um are we precluded from that in any sort of by any sort of uh legislation or anything like that or any code because what for example when we go out to get um law firms or things like sort we'll say hey bring everybody and then we're gonna have everybody interview so it's a very public process and then we actually even vote and then we you know

096go ahead and project the votes was a response to a a very difficult time that Alan Rock went through and so are we precluded from doing that uh by any sort of code I don't think you're precluded from doing that but I think that sometimes I mean this is just a thought because I know what you're talking about um when you're doing an an interview for a position in Open Session um yeah it's very transparent but I think sometimes it makes it difficult to discuss the issues regarding things sometimes um and because it's again it's not just and um it's beyond there's like it's a public record at that point you know I mean it can be difficult in having those sorts of conversations that you might need to have that would be better you

097know if if you had it um separately you know or you know for some certain things too like certain districts they have committees that work on things where like maybe not the whole board but a couple board members are part of you know and you know depending on how many board members that may or may not be subject to you know Brown act too but um yeah like generally when you H when you do that I mean there's nothing prohibiting you from doing that but there's just other practical things that come above that that are a consequence of it you know everything has its pros and cons not illegal uh might being uncomfortable but yeah well thank you yeah my good yeah um does Dr alasan do you have any more questions or okay um

098anyone from the staff okay I just want to make sure I cover all the bases um thank you very much for a very detailed presentation and now moving into yeah uh the public comment uh again I am now at 1022 gonna allow for public comment on this uh does anybody want to speak okay so first one please step up to the mic hi hi good morning my name is Victoria I'm a parent at adant 2 um and I think as you're thinking about these closures I think you need to give us a little bit more guidance you had mentioned that there's already safe schools I don't know what that means if you already know that there's going to be certain schools that are not going to close I think it's um in your best interest

099to let us know so that we're not up here trying to fight why Atlanta 2 shouldn't close right and I know you have said that some schools will not close but I don't know which ones they are so if you can let us know guide us a little better so that we're better prepared to uh provide the commentary that you need thank you thank you next hi good morning my name is Dina Lopes many of you know that I am a teacher in the district but uh I come here as a parent I am a parent of a molum student I am a parent of two oala students I am a parent of a special Edge student I am a parent of a student athlete I'm all of those and so my comments today are

100meant to be the voice of a parent but 25 years of teaching it gets a little blurred so two things that I hope you would uh consider hold meetings in other areas of our district because we have a lot of families who they can't get over here so if you really genuinely want to hear from everyone would it be possible to hold a meeting in some other area of our school district also please please please work to not put us in a situation where our sites are pitting against each other I've seen this happen in the past when we were getting bulldozed by all the charter schools let's not let that happen this should be a time of reflection I've lived in this community for 25 years my daughter went through molum Okala and is

101moving on to high school and I would not have it any other way our community does not know the beauty that this District holds our community doesn't ever see this they only ever see this side of this room and it's hardly ever a pretty sight and I apologize if I'm disrespecting anybody with this but why does our community not know about the wonderful dual ersal programs that we have why does our community not know about the amazing Sports championships and I'll be in Okala moment right now they don't know they don't know that our boys beat Valley Christian they don't know that my daughter beat cross country with schools from here to Gilroy they they don't know those things why do they not know about all of our amazing diversity and inclusion work why do

102they not know about the amazing bands that we have we're sitting here you need to reflect on why we are where we are enrollment is declined for multiple things but one of them is the lack of importance you put on them seeing this versus this so let's fix our enrollment and a lot of that is in the hands of the people who sit up here who don't care about our district I'm sorry I've seen it year after year it's all about the political change it's all about taking a seat in a district where you don't think our families are educated enough to care and that needs to stop thank you good morning Veronica Talton alamro employee and Resident thank you um for allowing me to speak I'm going to share words from Marian Wright Edelman

103when she gave the Stanford backl address in 2017 the greatest threat to America's national and economic security does not come from any enemy without but from our failure to invest in and educate all of our children use your own citizen power your voting power your individual power and speak up to rest our ships of state from that small group who recklessly jeopardizes all of our futures and profess values to a personal gain and greed she ends with a prayer oh god of black brown white and albino children and those all mixed together of rich and poor and in between help us to love and respect and protect them all God of children who can walk and talk and hear and see and sing and dance and jump and play and children who wish they could

104but can't of children who are loved and unloved wanted and unwanted help us to love and respect and protect them all with everywhere we go and everything we do and in our actions recognize that God did not make two classes of children he didn't sort them by faith or color or income they are all sacred and I stand for children today and pray that the superintendent who was selected for this district will do so as well thank you you board my name is andreus and I'm a parent adante and I wanted to take some time here just to kind of set the stage with the big decision you are going to make for four districts the superintendent as well as the closure of schools and as Leaders don't forget that your role is not to

105authorita make the decision it requires listening to stakeholders and Gathering stakeholders so I want to know what is your plan to engage the community As Leaders you are part of making that fr framework what is that framework that you will use to make the decision how will you engage parents I heard um board member I I forget your last name say I'll meet parents where they are where are they they are at schools they are working parents they need predictability on when you will make it these and when you have the discussions you cannot claim that you are engaged in the community if you don't have that mindset because if you're making decisions based on what your schedule's align to what how fast you can move then I'm telling you you are not making the

106right decisions so I along with all the parents here deserve a plan on engagement especially for the school consolidation right we you are here to s so a schedule a plan stakeholders and voices that's how voices are heard so this obviously is a one-way dialogue where is the two-way dialogue thank you good morning um board members and uh superintendent we talk about engaging the commity we've known about this for the longest time we're rushing to make a decision and the parents are really frustrated because there has not been dialogue you flip to the other sidea this is where I'm supposed to be sing my students but I'm making a consci decision to bring them to Alan Brock they started in December they've engaged a committee of 23 members advisory there was a they ensure that

107there is one parent from every school on that committee and there uh timeline is very clear they will meet on a monthly basis have the information engage in dialogue have them come up with the recommendation but the recommendation to the board will not be presented until November at which point time a decision will be made in time to put their um schools the parents know who's going to be impacted it's not a wash it's a process where they have actually engaged the people who are going to be affected when I hear about we going to have this timeline this timeline that being suggested is the board timeline it never request to engage the parents over here what timeline are we okay with a uh coming with a decision in December in January if you engage

108the parents and parent says I can wait until March 1 then let's do it in March 1st not assume that need to make a uh that's unnecessary decision with an accelerated not engaged process so they meet they have uh representation from the schools and there's a website with all the minutes and information that's being used to make a decision that is an Engaged process model it don't reinvent it okay we don't have a whole year fine exate it compress it thank you very much good morning uh board members uh my name is R uh I've been a parent of vente since the Inception of vente almost uh it's going to be 20 years next year this coming uh Academic Year um both my daughters my oldest daughter she uh was a second class to graduate

109and she now lives in San Diego where she graduated from UC San Diego and she works with uh dreamers and do students um my second child she is in her second year at uh San Francisco State University and um and my son is currently in the in going on to the fifth grade I just want to piig you back off with some of the members already said in the community so I won't repeat a lot but again when it comes to um involving the community with an important decision like like this we need to follow the model that you already have here in the district with the alcat communties where you go out to the school communities and you get the info from the parents and that's what we need to do second thing when

110Eddie was talking about a board like Bara have we need to do that because there's so many parents that have so many talents as far as finances as far as planning as far as just BR it for the community we need to create another Advisory board so we could do that so we can assist this board and the last thing I want to end with this is this is that my dad May rest in peace who was a great Community uh servant in this community as I I am as well you know and um he used to say [Music] know we live in a society where it's easy to complain yes we're here to complain because we're emotional about our schools but we're also here to find Solutions and we're willing to work with you

111please hear us out good morning my name is D gonalez I am a parent of two Al Brock students a community U member but also an organizer I am here not because we don't understand why the schools are closing we do we know that there's a deficit that way that you're running this process it's not okay we such a short amount of time we're doing meetings special board meetings on a Saturday at 9:00 a.m. where you're tatting people on giving their comments based on they didn't arrive early enough because they couldn't how how dare you say that there's people out there leaving their kids finding babysitters trying to be here because we this matters because our Al school districts we care about we are here because we want to express because we want to keep

112it open and our families educating up when these decisions are made our families stay here my daughter just lost an aunt yesterday I should be there with them but I came here because I know this is important too because I have a village there that will support them but if I want to be here then I'm not here because I didn't want to is that the message that you're sending your students your parents out there because I'm not okay with that we should find Solutions we should do an engagement we should have a process where we're thinking what what's cool make sense to close or not how are we going to make sure that whatever schools are closing we're actually using the property to bring Revenue to our schools what bonds measure policies laws can

113we all work together to make sure it that's it in state level and bring more money in here that's what we want to hear when we hear school closures what we want to hear how it's not going to affect our students and our families we're here to work with you to be able to create Solutions together we're not here F because we care Al Ro we care about our students and we care about the future that it's holding thank you hi my name is D and I'm also a parent here at Alam Rock um you know I attended some of those facility meetings back in 2021 online because it was all strictly zoom and you know that was fine getting the intention but you know parent engagement wasn't actually there I mean after I looked

114at the Bara model and found out that they had a representative from each school I was amazed I was like Wow and they're working with a a law firm to to be the facilitators for this you know our parent engagement were maybe two or three parents and we actually have I believe more students than Evergreen so where was the parent engagement you know yes it was Zoom yes it was Co but we need the parent engagement in part of this you know that's what I'm not seeing having a meeting on a Saturday at 9:00 a.m. is not in the summer is not engagement having a meeting on Friday the day after school ends at 7 pm is not engagement you know I was getting text messages I was at a pool party I couldn't come

115you know so that's that's what we mean by parent engagement yes I know under the brown act you can do a 24-hour notice but just because you can doesn't mean you should we need engagement you know I'm I'm the one bling on Facebook I'm the one telling people hey I'm I'm standing outside hover during summer school hey you guys there's this stuff coming up are you coming to the meeting are you coming to the meeting but I'm doing that you know um I'm the one how can we hire a superintendent the first to start September 15th by the time the contract is sign start October 1st they're going to be the face of the district and the first thing out of the mouth is here I just started I have no idea what's going on

116but we're going to be closing all the schools where is the of this new superintendent we're hiring for a reason they don't have a say but they're going to be the faith and I think that's very unfair to that person who's going to be hired we need more time thank you thank you uh my name is Christine viel and I want to apologize first for speaking over uh you all and out of turn we were afraid that that was going to happen at some point and so we felt that there was going to be some need to to represent um how important it is for us to hear from you but I do want to apologize um and I also want to apologize to our contractors who came and did that wonderful presentation um I

117apologize for speaking over you but I do not apologize for what I was advocating for and that part is um we've been in the district this will be our 15th year having uh my four children in the district um live a Stones throw away actually from this building um and we do have um our children here representing because they are part of our fabric they actually come they know this is what we do we're building them as the Next Generation to be civically engaged because it's critical and that means we're here we're ready to be partners um they don't love it two of my sons miss their football games this morning um but they're here to participate and so I think uh yesterday there was an NBC News and N tundo news that went of

118course the clips that talked about collaboration were not put in that um but I do want to share again with what we did talk to uh NBC about and we said we're actually here you have a group of folks who understand we have a problem a couple people have said it already we understand what budget budgeting means we all are dealing that in our own homes right now with inflation and salar not growing we know how to tighten budgets up but we want to be able to do it together um and we have ideas that we think could make sense so I do appreciate board members who have either responded to our emails or reached out to us and said I'll come and chat with you and we hope to take you up on that

119because do see you as the people who can lead us into a better space um alongside advocating together not against but I think what is important to recognize is if folks are not engaged and felt like they're put in a corner the first reaction is to actually push back harder that's not where we want to be and we hope to collaborate instead thank you looks like I'm going to pull up the Caboose here my name is David Williams I'm a parent at adante uh 17 years ago my wife and I bought a home in this community a couple reasons but you don't need to know those now the biggest part is be three years before we even had our first child I did a project over at Okala whoever the yala lady is well we

120worked on the fields I just got some gloves I got a wrench and a hammer and I went over there and helped when they built the new place place the thing over at arante I have any kids there went over there had a pair of gloves do you need some help yeah and I help I worked all day long all right it is about Community it is about leadership leaders lead they don't holler at people they don't send Advocates to come and try to hack at people leaders lead because what they want is to help the bigger aim of everybody if this board is going to truly do its job you have to lead by example I don't recall seeing any of you at any of the events this year cross country and remember I'm

121a coach so I'm going to say these things wrestling any of these other sports I don't recall see any of you there but you're making decisions about what the community and what's going to impact these kids these kids see it they're going to talk they're going to go back and tell about every last one of you you may not like it but your inactions or your actions are the biggest statement to these kids it is about Community I told Dr Bower I may not agree with you all the time but I am here to work I am here for my Community this is my community our black and brown children need to see that we care thank you moving on to uh item uh 301 announcement and public comments regarding items to be discussed in

122close session government code section 54957.6 Dr alasan do you want to read it out item 3.02 recess to close session the board will recess and close session at approximately it's 10:43 now so on that time open session will resume at conclusion of close session 3.03 public appointment uh employment title interim superintendent and principal and 3.04 Public Employee discipline dismissal and release Madam president can I ask for a five minute reset yes we're going to have a uh let's make it everybody's uh over there at 10:50 that'll give you seven minutes thank you e e e okay that b can you hear us smile yes thank you okay so we're back at 11:48 um Mr too can you please uh read out the close session thank you board president on a motion from truste or seated

123by vice president Kinto the board unanimously approved the employment of Sharon Brown as the ex principal of Okala middle school there are no more items to report from Clos session thank you anying a June