Regular Board Meeting

001coule oh that's beautiful it doesn't look too I have a lot of roaches my grandmother and I wear them on my coats all the so no it's not you to me it's what like and all the with me is because there's so many beautiful roaches and like that it's like why not yeah help you no I'm good it down to make something else that's what they did right yeah it's like my kids are always seven you hear some yep I have to I came back too you came back to yeah I got an email and then as I said g be driving by just check in thought about today being busy too I don't want to come I got here just in time Basic Park not okay you no basically SP rush but I wanted

002to communicate with my [Music] stff and Katie um I checked with MJ he's got them all ready to go yeah I came in here earlier he's G be he'll be here he'll be here to make sure think it's GNA be a longe just comment we made some adjustments okay so so sweet thank you oh thank courtesy of HR CH is far away from me now here everybody mute and you still seeing her over here yes all right it's 5:30 and I see quum all right I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting to order at 5:30 uh we'll start off with a roll call uh marel can you um help us with roll call today is the regular board meeting of January 18th 2024 at 5:30 pm members of the board in attendance president

003presid vice president andto president clerk Andrea Flores Shelton I think she's running late um member Linda Chavez present member mimf present members of administration superintendent Dr Bower present okay thank you uh now go on to the land acknowledgement the Board of Trustees of the alen rock Union Elementary School District does hereby acknowledge that the district schools and Facilities sit on the traditional lands of the mo Mone people and the Board of Trustees further acknowledges with respect to and rence the MMA alone people tribe of the San Francisco Bay area for their stewardship of these lands uh please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge Al to the of the United States of America and to the Republic for which he stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank

004you um are there any modifications of the agenda by my peers or superintendent uh I'd like to move up 11.01 to be the first thing we discussed 11.01 uh yeah um uh right after this one right after 103 or after two um I guess right after 103 okay or yeah yeah either want to make sure just gets early rather than Le at um and then just okay any other modification rep yes 11.01 up to uh after 103 and Dr bar does that um include anybody from uh other staff that would have been here that are not here um the Consultants I asked them to be here if there was any questions from the board do you see them they don't they're not here yet okay so hopefully they get here by then um um sure

005okay all right any other modifications of the agenda changes move no all right see none then we'll go ahead in the interest of well because like what if they what if we do have questions um we put it maybe after two yeah give ourselves time yeah they're coming from Oakland from the Oakland area okay just to kind of give you a sense of the the timing the timing do you know if they I told them you're not at the very beginning so I told them take your time I apologized I didn't know I was going to be moved um hopefully they're on their way do you you um let's put it on and 11 let's put it after the two for now yeah and then we need to move it then that thank you thank

006you so much B okay um I am we have a lot of important things and everything's important I'm just wondering um if we move item I know we had a special board meeting last week my guess is dwk will be here Clarissa is also going to be here but we didn't don't see them okay yeah I was just wondering if they're here maybe we can move that up but we'll just leave it then as this okay if I don't see any other modifications or changes um then uh any discussion on the items um comments and then taking public comment on the item or no okay um if I don't see any of the trustees against or not in agreement with this and we'll just move forward with that everyone in agreement with the changes yeah

007yes does this require doesn't this require a vote vote so uh we'll go ahead and vote at this time there's no other modifications um if you are in agreement please uh raise your hand okay if you oppose please raise your hand if you abstain please raise your hand okay so uh everyone is in agreement except for uh Linda abstains um so passes we'll go ahead and move forward with item 103 um I'm going to go ahead and welcome and and explanation to the audience any person May address a board on any item on the meeting agenda persons who wish to speak on an item on the agenda will have the opportunity to do so when that agenda item is introduced and presented during this meeting there is a limit of two minutes of each speaker

008the board has the right to limit total public comment on any agenda item to no more than 20 minutes persons who wish to speak to the board about any matter within the the jurisdiction of the district but not on this agenda well will have an opportunity to do so uh to speak during item 2011 on this agenda as stated below all right so we'll then move on to public members who wish to address the board public members who wish to address the board on matters not on the agenda uh request to address the board provides members of the public an opportunity to speak about any matter under the jurisdiction of the district but not on this agenda if the subject uh you would to discuss is already on this agenda please provide your comment when

009that item is called during the meeting those who wish to speak on within the jurisdiction of the brown act prevents the board from discussing any item not on this published agenda but the board May refer to staff for followup any formal written requests that are not brought before the board at this time all right there is a limit of two minutes for each speaker speaker the board has a right to limit total public comment on any agenda item to no more than 20 minutes written matters may be placed on a future meeting agenda all right at this time I'll go ahead and open it up for public comment um members of the public wishing to address the board welcome Miss Talton good evening evening are we going to have the timer up uh marel if

010you can help us with the timer or staff whoever's back there supporting with the timer keep talking thank you all right good evening board president superintend Balor and members of the board Alam Rock School Community um I'm talking about a couple different things and I have not had the opportunity to properly get my thoughts together so I'm just going to give you some highlights I'm speaking tonight uh in support of prop 28 for our district there is a toolkit which is recently been um released uh for those who don't know in November 2022 California voters pass proposition 28 tonight you'll hear about the Arts discretionary block grant which many people get confused I'm grateful as a create CA Arts now leader for Santa Clara County that members of this District management team will be meeting

011with me and our vapa coordinator next Thursday to work out details so I will be sharing that toolkit with the district to develop our Arts programming I attended a meeting today um with Arts Educators across the state who talked about ways to bring in and recruit Arts Educators and there's some very creative ways in which to do so I'll be sharing that in the meeting as well and I never want to neglect to present uh the need for the board to honor their commitment to African-American Educators the black lives matter and school resolution and I shared with um Human Resources um a letter from the black educator Advocates Network which has very detailed information from the California black educator survey and there is an upcoming seminar webinar style in March on ways to recruit and

012retain African-American Educators um this district has not always been a safe place for African-American students and Educators and I just want to be mindful to uh share that with folks because it may not be top of mind with all the other things that we deal with and I just wanted to bring that before the board this evening thank you very much thank you um do we have any other public address so right see none we'll go ahead and move on to item 1101 I'm not sure Dr bar you audence here but I just saw dri and claresa so if you want to move another item the uh which they are here for item number um where's BS 801 the one where you had the study session last week I know we didn't move it because

013we didn't see them but the board um has the you you you can ask the board if everybody's okay yeah that's what I'm saying we can't just move into it so um seeing that the staff uh to discuss item 801 are here um I'll go ahead and open it to the board to see if you are all open to moving 801 um to now um I don't I think it makes sense we don't want to be paying for lawyers to just sit in the meeting okay so we'll go ahead and uh bring it up to a vote those in favor please raise your hand and those against please raise your hand and those abstaining please raise your hand all right um everyone in favor except for Linda Chavez opposes I'm sorry stains from the vote

014thank you so I'll go ahead and move um item 801 to this time discussion and approval of the delivery method option for the Del for the development of Workforce housing Dr B yes so I'm gonna turn it over to Mr Kang so that he can refresh the board's um memory about you know what you are about to but you're being asked to vote on tonight thank you Dr B and good evening uh madam board president members of the board um for 8.1 you may recall that last week we did a board study session regarding the Three Delivery methods options uh to develop the workforce housing the three options were the design build design bid build and Lease lease back um and at the end of the meeting um or during the meeting the board had

015thought ask additional clarifying questions um to be able to determ and make decision at tonight's board meeting to select one of the delivery method um in order to proceed with development of the workforce housing itself so before you tonight um there an opportunity for the board to make that decision so thank you thank you um I I'll go ahead and open it up for public comment and then um bring it back for discussion of the board I'll go ahead and open it up for public comment um item 801 at this time okay seeing nobody um is here for public comment I'll go ahead and open it up to my trust vice president um I would like if you would accept I'd like to put forward a motion um and I would like to speak to

016to my motion too um is it okay yeah I think um the fact that we had a special board meeting and we talked in late you know that's what I wanted to discuss that way the Public's aware that that's great um people don't feel like it was somehow a rubber stamp um we went through a long very very detailed uh meeting that where we received a lot of information um it was publicly agendized we were all there and so I believe um from the information we received seems like design build was the the the the model that seems to work best in our situation given the fact that it's not being financed being done by the uh taxpayers are paying directly for it and so I would put forward a motion right now to support

017a designb built U uh model um great thank you uh we have a motion and we have a second uh by trusty hor Shelton all right um any questions comments um yeah I just wanted to State um again my gratitude for sort of setting aside that time for that study session because this is a complex set of options we have in front of us um and I just wanted to um so thank you to DW k for that again very very detailed and thorough um and objectively helped us kind of see the pros and cons of everything so you know for folks to understand like the options in front of us right you know why lease lease back isn't something I would support is because financing is required and in this case we have already

018have um funds in place thanks to the taxpayers um the design bid build you know that kind of shackles us to the lowest bidder and we want a really quality product so I I just appreciate um the motion to go design build and it still gives us that kind of um transparency and the cost and it gives us sort of the the aspects that we're looking for and I um just did want I did have one question um so if I could just ask the question in terms of um we're putting forward the method today and then if someone could just walk through sort of what we can anticipate the next steps to to be in terms of what a scope for an RFP would look like and when we would um see that that

019back so thank you uh C do you have a response sure yeah so so the next step would be um as as you know we're uh currently in the entitlement process with the city um the timeline is between probably five to six months to get that through um during that time um you know we would need to hire an architect to do schematic in order to submit um primary plan to the city for uh review and consideration um once that's done then the the RP to select the design build team would occur um and then we would be working with dwk to uh develop the RP and then to issue it and publish it to whoever contractor is interested in working with the district just one follow up question in terms of um architect and

020then RFP and then just for Clarity on our sort of the fac the the long range facility plan for the for the land right we have the whole land this is design build for Workforce housing yes only only right not for any of the other aspects of what's in the um the current plan that we have public that includes the other parts of the um mats and proper correct this only pertains to the workforce housing thank you thank you okay uh trusty you know I'll ask my question and I'll make my statement well um question co I it was mentioned at the at the previous meeting where we discussed the options that uh you know that you and the bonds director were Ming with the uh the building traits Council in regards to uh complying

021with the project labor agreement and I I was the author of the Amendments of the project labor agreement extension that extends to um workfor housing I you know uh just wanted to check in how how did the meeting go with the buing trades Council I don't believe you have that meeting yet no um before you tonight there's a contract with the firm um uh to help support districts and working with the PLA and and the agreement itself um once that assuming that um agreement is approved tonight then we'll initiate the meetings with the the various groups that we we have to meet with and I think you know in spirit of ensuring that our communities B that stay in the community and generate opportunities for uh for you know good job in this community you

022know I you know I felt it was important to to make that know that that we we are working to make sure that local our local tax dollars are reinvested in you know for the benefit of our community and that that produces something tangible for the community and I guess secondly I will say that I you know I'm I'm in support of the motion in regards to the resign Bill and part of it is that I'll say we we only have one chance to get this right so I think that this is the design build process you know doesn't uh gives us an opportunity to to make sure that the make sure that we get we get the building right and in the long run it produces a better value because it ensure that we

023we the district has has quality control over what what what we will be making available for our community and for our teachers and for our staff um so you know you know so it's a it's been a long journey I thank the the administration I thank uh you know the of danis R Kelly for um helping us do that so thank you so much thank you trusty fam um and at this time I don't see any other comments I think the only thing I'll add is um you know thank you staff for uh making sure that we had the time in the special board meeting to uh really dive deep into this specific item before we made this huge uh decision on behalf of our district um and so I'm also in agreement I I

024look forward to supporting um uh board vice president's motion and um you know moving this forward another big step in the process but making sure that we are um looking at all the details and not moving too fast you know it's exciting but uh we need to make sure that we do it right um and then also in regards to the pla I'm in agreement um I think un and I had this discussion with Dr Bower so when we address the pla item in the future I'll make sure to make my comments there uh but ensuring that you know all of our projects um are um overseen by uh labor right and making sure that um we have um we are following that agreement and we are um you know um implementing and having somebody

025um oversee that so I look forward to making sure that that happens so with that I'm going to go ahead and call for uh the vote um if you're in favor of um the motion which is to go with the design build uh please raise your hand at this time all right passes unanimously thank you so much now moving on to item uh 301 unless I'm going to be checking for the 1101 maybe no not yet okay so we'll go ahead and move on to item 301 presentation on ethnic studies implementation plan this is a very um important step fors integrating ethnic studies in our district and I just want to publicly thank all the members of the ethnic studies committee and to sports that have participated and given of their time and their efforts

026to be able to make this a reality and I'm looking at Miss tton because she has been part of this from the very beginning and we're very very grateful to everybody for um bringing this together right it's it's quite an unusual movement for a a an elementary school district usually this is something that happens in in high schools but um we have nothing if we're not throw Blazers in so many ways so thank you very much and I'm going to turn it over to miss Wyatt technical difficulties well good evening and thank you so much for having me good evening president and good evening trustees and good evening superintendent and Community um before we start I just like to let you know this just an update and where our team is at in our fiveyear

027plan uh we have completed the scoping sequence of I made plan for one two three I skipped four because three and four are going to be about the same and then five um I was going to do 1 three five but but two had to get in there in order for me to see the bre um and so thank you for understanding that um I also wanted to acknowledge all of the teachers who have been doing good work um from the ground up Verona who's in the audience tonight she's the only one that was able to make it in person tonight but I know that some of our team members are out there in Virtual land and so I want to say a heartfelt thank you so much for all of your time your effort

028your energy your Insight and sharing your experience and knowledge there's no way that this program would get off the ground without each and every one of and we are furiously trying to up marel can you promote the boardroom video please it might be Miss I'm just saying on your toes it's all your energy almost thank you for your patience thato too do we have a portable chalk board somewhere pressure on you just kidding we're all watching you just kidding thank you thank you for for helping us out otherwise we'd love to hear your voice and you know I know oh there it is great all right thank you friends I appreciate you all right thank you everyone um so I wanted to start off by mentioning that our state superintendent Tony Thurman and the Department

029of Education asked this ask of the State of California to imp studies for students to take one ethnic studies course one semester in high school as a graduation requirement so arusd leaders are way ahead of this curve and a resolution was passed here in June of 2020 that commits us to implementing ethnic studies in kindergarten through 8th grade maybe even TK maybe prek we'll see preparing alen Rock's students for both the graduation requirement coming in high school as well as the real world that they live in and that affects them deeply every single day so here's the resolution that was passed in June of 2020 and before I was hired into this exciting role there was an ethnic studies action team that designed a purpose for our program so that grounded Us in the work

030they also designed a vision for the program that grounded us and they also highlighted for our team coming in um some of the reflections and aspirations from the community members as well as the Educators that were on that team as Dr bow was mentioning we are Trailblazers we are the only ones that I can find anywhere in the state of California that is bringing ethnic studies below sixth grade so congratulations to us because this really shows me exactly what we stand for here we are I'm so proud to be serving with this goal to be the first district to design and Implement prek to 8 districtwide there are some who are doing middle school around us that I am deeply in collaboration with but like I said absolutely nobody has touched this below sixth grade

031and so my ultimate objective our team has decided I was really inspired by that story that was shared at I believe it was our November board meeting about superintendent parales earlier this year that moment made me pause and I could not stop but see this is ethnic studies right here live happening and as a part of this process I dream of us Gathering more and more of these stories I found direct alignment within our California history standards that each grade level has which would connect to students being given opportunities to research interview and honor the legacy of those within our community to create a digital and physical Book of allenl Stories who are we so that our students can start to see the power that lives within our people I also look to this to

032to see that this is the first step we would be making in getting this award for each and every one of our schools this is called the California democracy award and from Gaining the historical content Knowledge from their ethnic studies lessons then our students are going to become more empowered and impassioned to help strengthen that agent within them in order to take Civic action in the world around them so when I think about that Paris story and what the family is hoping to see happen as action to honor him our students need to be inserted right in the middle of that story to help that action take place and gain them that Civic knowledge and experience and those those places are the places that all of our units are going to end in so that

033five years from now I Envision every single one of our schools being able to get this award the book that I am mentioning I would like to live at both the Roberto Cruz Library as well as one here in our lobby and a shorter version of all of the people who are honored in it at each and every one of our school sites so it would be a community interactive event that is ongoing and iterative I also dream of it making it into the California room at the MLK Library downtown this is just a couple of links for you to see the work that we have already been up to um the this again more links to see the work that we have been up to on our team we've been meeting regularly since September

034so this is what our Five-Year Plan is comprised of at this point um these are the three major elements that you'll find inside we started by needing to determine the model and structure so we began looking at the model curriculum honed in on this section right here and what we determined as the best option for our school sites is this table that F sets will be attached to and live year round in our prek to grade five attached to language arts as well as history and ELD or grades six seven and eight it will live within the language arts classrooms connected to ELD uh this is our plan document in order for ethnic studies to be successful we really needed to embed it within the existing content standards and so we have determined that what

035we're doing is basically marrying our ethnic studies disciplines across the top with Ela ELD Frameworks our history content standards and the big questions from the hilery Frameworks and then we'll repeat the same for 678 with Ela and ELD instead and in order for all of our AI USD students to have access to this content we will be designing each and every lesson unit within the Universal Design for Learning framework here is the Universal Design for Learning guidelines and everything that we do will be designed within here is our planning template that this template shows you how we will be co-designing these lessons with the content standards along with ethnic studies and Universal Design for Learning because here in alen rock we deeply understand that educational Equity means that each child receives what he or she

036needs to develop to is a her full academic and social the process by which we will be co-designing we are going to be using the liberatory design framework from stamford's K12 lab and the D school here is our plan so we start at year one which we are halfway through and our plan is focused right now on finishing the fiveyear plan as well as team building a lot of training for the members that are on the team and the members who will be part of the writing team we are hoping to have that writing team ready to launch everybody trained in time for right after school gets out in June a two-e writing camp and hopefully we'll have enough units to start launching with in our Middle School classrooms next year year two is focused

037on implementing in middle school lessons iterating on middle school lessons as we prepare our elementary teachers with all of that training background knowledge and a writing team to write the Elementary at the end of year two okay where am I ad that's right so year three years three and four these will be the first two years that ethnic studies will exist in all classrooms districtwide and so this year our communities of practice and our community team will be deeply pting listening to the feedback from the teachers from the students and from the families and iterating more as this is going to be a living breathing curriculum that will change year to year with current events and also change with the changing demographics of the community that we have opportunity to serve year five our PLC

038will focus on deep cycles of inquiry revisions additions to the curriculum and materials it is the Hope by this time our who is alen mock book will be significant and on display for the public to engage with in multiple spaces the other side project that we're working on is uh this is a link to an additional piece where we are bringing resources ideas forp opportunities guest speakers assemblies community events that are all tied to the different resolutions that recognize and celebrate our student population so each month celebration will have a whole host of resources for everyone to dive deep and celebrate big all right and that's that these are just the partners that I've been working with along the way iterating and thank you so much for your time thank you so much um at

039this time I'll open it up public comment and then we'll come to the board with any comments or questions um sure if you'd like or we're gonna yeah open it up for public comment at this time okay all right thank you good evening my name is Veronica Talton I'm going to share a poem that I pinned and it's entitled OD to a black teacher stolen from your native land Heritage erased but here you stand descended from creative minds don't let anyone take away your shine brothers and sisters this old is for you everyone walking solo and sharing truth racial battle fatigue but still fight fighting weary of the struggle there's no denying to many you'll never be seen as an equal by any means necessary is your sequel rise up against Injustice racism and pain

040generational trauma colorism and shame Stand United with love as your banner the blessings of the ancestors is the mantle worn unapologetically yes black and proud honor to our people I'll say it loud thank you thank you beautiful any other public comments at this time all right um I'll go ahead and bring it back to the board any questions or comments from the board uh FL suon trusty FL um just you were talking about your Magnetic Personality earlier but the the progress in which this is moving I think is what the previous board that I wasn't on wanted I'm sure when you all passed this so this is this is fantastic and I think the the depth and breadth that you're you're doing this with all these partners and all the um the folks I just

041did have one question I see oh God there's a lot of pages here um what did you call them writers the writers the writers of the curriculum so you're the writers team so they're going to be taking anti-bias training um is what I see uh have we superintendent talked about anti-bias training for for all faculty of course I mean that's going to be part that's why they're leading us right okay they're going to come to us and they're G as we develop the implementation of this plan right they're going to be the ones telling us now this is what we're going to do this is what going to do so all of us all of us are going to be part of that okay and uh when so if I can't remember what year it

042was but if anti-bias training is for the writers then you would go to scale like it some the next year or something correct so would that be year two or year are we in are we done with year one I yeah we're halfway through year one okay it's my hope that no one attempts at these lessons living in classrooms before they have had deep training on anti-bias anti-racism um structural racism and institutional racism okay great because I know in in my experience at the previously at the county level like just anti-bias training in and of itself isn't you know we're not going to expect you know deep results with that it has to be sort of institutional and and the old piece so I'm glad we're talking about it and thinking about it and that

043it's in the plan so thank you thank you any other questions comments I'm seeing none I have a couple of comments um first of all thank you for bringing the update to our board um as a trustee that championed it in 2020 you know for me um it's important to see thank you the actions right behind our beautiful resolutions that we do up here and the votes and all that like the action behind speaks more than any anything we can do here so thank you for being at the front lines thank you for and and all the staff that you mentioned that are here um for being there making sure that what we you know vote on happens right um day in day out and um bringing the updates um and also although I'm proud

044to be the first district right along with you that has uh implemented and it's in the process of implementing um before sixth grade it also makes me sad that four year four years later that we're still the only District so you know I look forward to our you know um districts surrounding us and Statewide and Beyond right to um also see the importance of implementing this you know from zero to you know the last breath that we take that we um definitely honor each other um and so thank you again um and thank you for being you know on board and taking this and having the energy you know it definitely will take somebody like you to help um spearhead this and make this happen and I look forward to continuing to support um the

045ethnic studies movement here in our district thank you so much president a quick question for the administration um there were talks with s City College about U having trainings for um teachers that hadn't had like ethnic studies background did they go anywhere or just wondering given since we're we're talking about this TR to see if if anything happened are they still going on so I don't know if they responded to because Katie reached out to the original Task Force if you recall some of them were part of that original task force so I don't know I haven't reached out to City College yet but thank you for the thought I've been working with San Jose State but if they are doing anti-bias trainings I'm gonna I'm GNA Link in well they had developed this whole

046presentation that had like a little certificate fabulous uh that um teachers could go and get given that it's a community college I think it'd be a lot more accessible at a couple hundred bucks rather than rather than I'm gonna look into that thank you so much for that idea thank you okay see you then thank you so much um we'll go ahead and move on I think we'll be able to bring item 1101 at this time um so uh bringing it back to item 1101 uh approve contract with Q Communications for public relations marketing Services um if we can call up Q or to Dr yeah I want to give just a little intro to the board and to the public um we have been U flying solo when it comes to um established professional

047uh both public relations and Communications for a while and so as we move forward with all these initiatives I felt as a superintendent that it was important for us to bring professionals um this particular group and they will they are here to answer any questions the board may have but I just want to very briefly High the highlight of their work is to number one re-evaluate all district Communications and provide a critical assessment of all district Communications and as as a result of that there they're going to design a strategic Communications plan for the year that will include the district's website social media parent communication tools newsletters and produce at least two positive media stories per month the second highlight will be to reset the district's narrative kind of rebranding and examine the overall look

048of the district and update as needed and finally which is critical for Alum Rock is the enrollment messaging year round so that we can really reach out to uh Alum Rock students who have chosen their parents have chosen a different um schooling to kind of say hey reconsider alumrock and bring bring some of them back so um every month Q communication will be uh giving me a report of their work that I will be in turn able to share with the board and obviously that will become a public document so that everybody will know what is it what is the work that is being done so with that I will entertain myself any questions from the board or if not we have Stacy and Cass here who are C Communications they are here to answer

049also any questions the board may have thank you I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comments before we bring it to the board um at this time do we have anybody from the public wishing to address a board on this item welcome Miss Rivera hello Sandra can you hear me okay sorry I can't hear out of my ear so I can't hear myself talking right now but I would um just like to say that area did have a lot of apprehension with this contract coming forward um we've heard over and over again especially during our negotiation sessions about how the district needs to be phisically responsible physically physically responsible and so coming up with this number and this contract um I just really want to know how it's going to be

050used I want to see results this time I want to make sure that we get the students into our district I want to make sure that this money is being used responsibly because $180,000 is two teachers salaries it's ways to get more support and academic um instruments and um instruction and curriculum and things into our classrooms it's ways that we can ensure that our students succeed and so while I understand we need to balance everything out at the same time I really want to make sure that we get some positive outcomes and that there is a checks and balance system so that if this is not working alen Rock has a way out in order to make sure that our students dollars are not being spent irresponsibly thank you anybody else okay bringing it back

051to the board any questions or comments from the board okay uh board vice president kto yeah um I wanted to um express my position on the on this item um appreciate the information I acknowledge that we do need support in um in terms of uh speaking to the media or messaging um but I got three three issues uh with regard to this contract and it's I think it's a the process somewhat upside down I think that we should have started off with an internal process that really really recognizes what is that we need as a district that re that um goes out there um does a full assessment of what what is it that we want what we need um rather than bring on a firm to get paid while we go through this process

052and so um that's one of the issues I think that we're we're jumping ahead and we should have gone through more thorough and form like you know internal process to figure it figure out what we want um I think that $180,000 something I'm not comfortable with uh we've been presented with some very uh dire numbers uh in the in the last board meeting uh the loss of aser funds uh CBO told us we're in really really bad uh we're in bad shape and so uh for me that alone is enough of a reason to kind of to put up to do you have concerns enough to not support uh this effort um just recently under the leadership of President fam um the superintendent and president Pam went and sought out U some support financial support

053from the state budget and so I appreciate that was a bold move and I I thank you for that unfortunately I don't think it's gonna come and um and so we're out there looking for support because we're in such a bad spot um what are we going to say when they when when you're dropping nearly 200 Grand on a PR perm um it's 15K a month 3,700 bucks a week 750 uh a day $117 an hour and some change and so additionally as I mentioned before alrock um obviously went through some tough times in the past uh We've um obviously moved from that but we'd establish a process where we would go ahead and publicly hear at a meeting interview firms uh and then go ahead and go through a public process we would vote

054and the Todd vote get ultimately go ahead and move forward and um it I really appreciate board member of hanano who really was instrumental and setting up a lot of the logistics and mechanisms that we used he actually encouraged us to go ahead and display the individual talles up front uh so the public was well aware of what took place and so uh it's another issue that um I have with the process itself and that uh we had been moving forward with this process of being um of have of it taking place here at the board uh interviews taking place votes taking place right here and um this was not the case with regard to this process and so it's for those reasons that I won't be able to support um uh this item I

055as I mentioned I I believe we do need support but I would I would be supportive of a much smaller number and much smaller figure and and this is something that superintendent is well aware of I had concerns about the numbers well in advance of any any item coming forward so it's nothing new um and it's not a personal issue against anybody this is just my position and um so yeah that's my position on the issue thank you board vice president I saw dress Flor Shelton thank you um thank you um thank you superintendent for laying out what you expect out of this contract and um I think those were things that I are important to us and to this board was is my understanding um and thank you trustee or vice president Kinto for

056bringing up your um your concerns I I want to say I you know um I believe that kind of speaking to the results of a Communications plan you know those are hard to come by but I think um the history of this District um we have a reputational issue right and having good strong Communications is a part of um having a strong reputation so that people are aware that people know what decisions are being made um and that people know all the good things that are happening um because again it sort of feels like as a resident here for you know and not on the board for a few years you know it was kind of like come on the board I'm like wow wow wow I mean it's there's just a lot of great

057stuff going on um and and I really think from a from a dollars and cents standpoint we've had a superintendent who's been having to do this type of work and I would much rather her be leading the organization in in the educational sphere and making sure that she's talking to us about what are the priorities that we would want to get out um to the community or how are we responding um to the community in a timely fashion instead of um you know having a superintendent spending that time so um I'm a bit uh I am I'm leaning towards this I understand the cost I understand the financial um environment that we're in um but I also think um this is a huge gap in this Administration that needs to be addressed um and if

058you want quality right we just like you know we're we're we're trying to go there with teachers we're trying to go there we're trying to you know put our prior our funds in priority areas um I think this is a win if if we you want to like renegotiate the dollars I you know um that would be I might be open to that also um process-wise I'm not really you know I think these are administrative functions I'm not I I hear you and that would be interesting um I personally again back to my experience here I would rather deol politicize some of these type of um like still be transparent still be very open and honest but depoliticize things that I think are administrative functions that then come to us for an up and down

059vote on a contract so that's my comment thank you thank you trusty Flor Shelton any other members of the board wishing to address them well not to the administration but rather a question Tod party of the contract just to you know uh in you know having read read read The Proposal uh you know I guess my you know given our you know that that we work closely with our labor you know with our Teachers Association School Employees Association Teamsters uh in the districts that you have serviced have you ever had a contentious relationship with the uh labor unions in those school districts and you're welcome to uh come to the podium and join us here welcome thank you thank you for the opportunity St this is Cass and together we're q and it's just two

060of us and what was your could you restate the question have you ever had a contentious a contentious relationship with the labor unions in the two in the districts you have serviced no no oh and actually the opposite and we work very closely with superintendent manag the board um so at Napa Valle unified as well as San unified um we have a long-standing relationship where we uh worked with both those districts and we did not have any of those type of adversarial in fact it was quite positive a lot of that had to do with the board and superintendent quite frankly um but we were with them every step of the way and I'll just say from our perspective I here um the numbers and we know that we have worked from um Oakland to

061San Leandro to um to Napa to a couple other districts in the Bay Area and where we come to the table having worked with a lot of schools is looking at the comprehensive Communications that are needed having no one really enroll is where um we put really fine-tuned on our numbers and actually from the quality you think we can bring it's fair given the number of hours we would need to provide from a strategic all the way to execution to really make this work so we really did put heart and soul into how we've seen successful school districts move through um through Communications and it does start and I appreciate with what Mr P said about how much can the administration do versus having professionals help guide the process of doing a full audit which

062can not be very long and then immediately move into an execution of how parents today need to hear information how the Board needs to hear information how perspective parents need to hear information I even heard today just ethnic studies i o to a black teacher where are those stories out in in in the community where people can start to um hear what's going on there's a lot that Communications can do to move that and move the needle not just on ensuring retention of students andent families but bringing potential families out so that that's sort of where we grounded ourselves and what what we we do sorry to go on thank you for um thank you for answering uh trusty fam any other questions uh no thank you for answering and you know I guess I'll

063just end on this comment you know I you know I understand the strength on the administration but boy you know it's sort of like sort of like being at the Burger King you know when I you know we all like to order the Whopper but sometimes the situation you know sometimes calls for the Whopper Jr so yeah so I thank you for taking the time to answer that and if we can stay because some of us might have some more questions please thank you uh truste Tavis um in the favor of time I would just like to refer to miss Sandra's comments uh for reasons why we should not spend this money um and I agree with Miss fandel that's it thank you thank you trusty Chavez um I have a couple questions um for

064me I and I brought these up in my one one with h Dr Bower um I'm in agreement of a lot of the things that my you know peers have mentioned and for me it was um when I read through the um the information that was provided to us I didn't see outlined what would be provided and so for me for that amount is important to see right what is going to be um provided so um it was helpful to hear Dr Bower kind of outline some of that um and when I hear two stories a month um you know my thought right and social media it's like two stories a day you know versus like a big story a month where it's like publicized um that might take a little longer um maybe with

065you know our local um news papers and things like that so um can you clarify that the two stories a month to understand that better two stories month we would say would be a source story that we would write for you and whether that goes out depending on the story it goes out either via press releases to your local paper we would make those decisions on what story is for that versus social media social media posts we could do would be more that obviously okay yeah the social media post to us is a picture it's not a story a story would be something where the ethnic studies program we would call we would do interviews we would you know somehow secure photographs so it would be an extensive story and whether it's picked up it

066still should be on your website you should be telling your own stories so that could happen I mean given the size of your District you have stories constantly every day happening magic in your classroom stories so that would be sort of at the minimum okay love it and I mean this is something Dr Brower and I have been talking about um and I can't possibly expect her to put like but I'm like where's our stories when are we going to put them out you know we have so many stories like you said um with so many amazing things happening in our district and if we don't tell our story then somebody will pick up and tell their negative story exactly and so for me it's important and so what we've done before is we will

067have an extense of editorial calendar that could be shared say this is our plan on this day there's social media post about this on this day there's a there will be an extensive story on the website that website link goes to your paper I mean it's it's a you know it's a comprehensive look at um at everything going on your inv thank you and I think to I mean naturally right the amount 180,000 it's like whoa um but I think when I when I look at this and I'm able to break it down and understand right it's not to exceed so let's just start with that you know that um it doesn't mean 180 but it's not to exceed and then I see it broken down in two years right we have 23 24 and

068then we have 2425 so um I see for 2425 it's 90,000 and for 2324 also 990,000 is it safe to say that since we're in DEC or January I'm going month backwards in January that the work you know I don't know would start whether it's tomorrow or next week at the end of January it's already started but it doesn't me you but it would start tomorrow if that were the case uh sorry and I didn't ask my question but when you say can you help me now understand what you just mentioned that it already started in a way well okay thank you I was like oh my God you did work we okay thank you thank you thank you okay um and and for me you know when I make my decision and my vote

069these things are going to be important you know um moving forward so is it safe to say that we are halfway through the year school year here so the budget for 23 24 will not be the full 990,000 versus the um your 2425 because it's a full year in May I'm not looking we don't have the document that you're looking at so that's not we do it by month so I don't know how you guys broke that down based on school year and budget they're doing it by month the answer is yes okay thank you the information we're given and you know it's important where we're making the votes so I just want to make sure I'm understanding correctly so I got my answer from Dr Bower thank you so much yes um yeah sure

070I'll come back to you and then I um so for me these things are helpful because when I see the total 180,000 it's like whoa right and I and I get it but I also understand that we need it and we can't possibly put it on our clerk who's also you know responding to the phone calls and you know trying to manage our our calendar and and they've been doing a great job I want to I want to you know say that in public that we've been like you know um making sure that we put what we can and they've been doing an amazing job but they can't possibly um do it and I don't know how they've been doing it quite frankly and so um you know we definitely need it um you know

071we're uh definitely having a lot more um items you know being added Workforce housing a lot more opportunities for our our community to become aware again of the things that we are doing in the classrooms and in our community um otherwise again you know somebody else will be telling our story so for me it's worth the investment um you know in putting in our our school district um the results is worth you know that so I know it's it's not easy you know the decision that's that you you know we're not here for easy decisions but um this is definitely worth that investment for me so I'll go ahead and turn over to board vice president kto just wanted to make sure to clarify because you said up to 180 and there might not be

072that much but in the documents we receive this a monthly retainer of 15,000 in my experience a retainer is upfront you paid 15,000 so that would be uh that would be the total amount uh 180 is what they would expect to get paid by the end of the year um am am I correct in that yeaha can explain that that thank you so the the 180s it's actually based on the mon worth the work um and since the contracts get assuming it starts this year we only have six months left and that's why you have a breakdown of $90,000 budget for this year and then that contract carries over into the next FIS excuse me into the next fiscal year um for another six months that covers the other $990,000 so it's not C for

073the second year well but this okay the contract starts off in 11924 it ends on 1825 so there's a full year there so in order to pay that full amount you'd have to pay 180 Grand to get to that number corre correct assuming that we keep the contract for the whole month term right yeah and from what the contract term says here then that would add up to 180 so I just want to make sure we're clear that we're not because of we talk about fiscal years we don't give the wrong the wrong impress to the public it's only 90 grand and with regard to a retainer when you pay a retainer so you retain a lawyer for 500 bucks an hour you're paying them 500 bucks an hour correct not up to $500 no

074the the payment that we will making to them is on a monthly basis so every month they'll be getting um I believe $115,000 to breakdown okay so yeah yeah it's it's all right so yeah with $155,000 that which adds up to 180 for the full term of the contract correct okay so I just want to make sure we're all clear another another thing that I want to bring up is a concern related to the uh form that was filled out which um if we follow the independent contractor District guidelines uh part two item 10 uh it says that if you answer questions 8 n or 10 yes there's actually a good possibility that an employment relationship exists just want to make sure that we don't run a file of any issue or any laws or

075anything like that by the way that this was answered so if there are concerns or should there be concerns because uh this item is checked yes no we we Ved the this is mainly to ensure that the the their consultant is a contracted uh vendor and not an employee at the district itself so that's just kind of the checklist that we gone through and yeah there was no there was no issue with that yeah um I'm just reacting to the comments by um three of my colleagues and um wanting to just not slow down um or or not wanting to stop this process but wanting to at least make it work for folks um I I'd like to make a motion um to direct the administration to um to renegotiate and return with um a

076reduced a Whopper Jor um but that still gets us to sort of the Strategic outcomes the support that we need the you know making sure that our story is being told because I don't want this to to die I want I want us to do something that's within um that moves us forward but is um that recognizes the financial sort of uncertainty that we're in so i' like the the motion would be to um direct the administration to renegotiate and come back with um a a smaller budget any of my colleagues want to support that trusty Tois off of that comment and if all works well after the first year then you can add some FRS so you second second motion okay so trust chave seconds okay um seeing that we have a motion on

077the floor um I'll go ahead if I don't see any other questions or comments go ahead and uh call for the vote all those in favor of the motion uh raise your hand at this time so the motion is to renegotiate renegotiate and bring it back with a smaller maybe amount can you say that to the public and is that doable and Mar do you have that down because I know it's not um well we have that so I trusty Flor Shelton said direct Administration uh to re you know to renegotiate for a smaller budget and um that's what I captured from the moment return back to the board return back to the board can I add to that sorry uh vice president for me it's important to see kind of itemized what what's on

078the menu what you know we can get um I think you know from previous and I talked to Dr bar about this experiences you know we were um and I'm not saying you're all going to do this I'm just saying to make ensure that we're able to move without this we were getting charged for you know another post or you know and so to ensure that that doesn't happen I know we probably can't itemize everything because some things might come out so maybe there's some space for there but we can get because when I read through here I didn't really see even you know some of that language that's helpful for me to see what I can weize 32 hours a month okay I mean our proposal is fairly extensive but maybe the whole thing

079isn't there maybe and even what uh Dr Bower mentioned today and directly staff to maybe add that um maybe something you gave her but that we didn't see that we can add it to that we had to we had to look at it from standpoint ofation so I'll be happy to amend the motion that it's returning with a um scope of work and a um revised budget that meets that scope of work that's under this budget I'm not I don't want I'm not going to put a dollar amount in um but I just know that we're going for something that's scoped um scope downward okay thank you TR Travis to make it easy and more clearer and concise can we just bring it back because there's a lot of alterations here and that doesn't mean

080that it's going to be negotiated right it's better that you negotiate like that and not do it in public and to rework the plan this there's no rush I think and I think this is Rush so I feel that it would be better that you bring it to the board next month and that we just do a continu if that's okay I would I would agree that rather than taking action and doing a formal vote just the administration just goes back goes back to the drawing board and figures it on their own without any uh without any U engagement from the board and bring back what you think will the board will accept work it out I know we have a motion on the floor second so I guess would that mean that we have

081a substitute motion to just you haven't voted on the first which I would say the first motion is what uh vice president Kino just said we're kicking it back to the administration to renegotiate and given the comments that it wouldn't come back at $180,000 for 12 months that it would be a lesser amount with the detail and hearing that we want um a detailed scope so I just want it to be on the record um if that is what my motion then I second well what I would like to clarify that I'm I'm not supportive of taking action I'm supportive of just letting it die yeah and then go forward do what you got to do and then take take action without having to me too so for that reason I won't be okay so

082seeing that they bring it back then she need chck needs to withdraw yeah seeing that currently we have a motion and a second um if you want to withdraw then we otherwise will'll move forward with a vote because we have it down so if the motion the one that second wants to take it back um otherwise we'll move forward with the vote and then we'll move forward with this item so in I hearing right now currently there's still a motion and a second on this item so when trust made the second motion no there's no second motion because we got to address the first motion I'm motioning to so we have to address the current motion excuse me y so to not act on this yes but to ask the administration to go back and

083renegotiate and come back that's my second so um are you V are you retrieving are you retrieving your second I'm I'm not retrieving my second I'm I'm seconding her motion to drop it and bring it back next month she so that's my understand one second let me just clarify what I'm saying is asking the administration to renegotiate with communicate QE Communications and come back and that's what you seconded are you okay with that so the word drop it I didn't say drop it she I you know it's this so right now I hear nobody's retracting or second we'll go ahead move on with the vote with the second okay so you retracted the second and then there was another motion by King so the I can I go ahead vice president so the it wasn't

084actually a motion it was just uh that we don't take action and then move on with the agenda and the administration does what it has to do then next meeting we'll deal with it are you making the motion if not I'm gonna make Mo I'm making the motion but it's the same motion that Andrea just made no because we would we wouldn't have to take action we just vote down the F let's leave it at that it's a safe time thank you okay all right well at this point either way I think we got the same outcome Dr Bower thank you so much I think you heard the direction from the board uh we look forward to hearing um at the next uh qut thank you so much all right moving on or back to

085item I'm sorry I I'm I'm procedurally and I'll the I don't understand how an item that says uh let's what number was this approve contract so what did we do you did not approve it you did not approve is not no we actually didn't we we we talked about it we didn't not approve it there was no second so it doesn't move forward forward the motion died the motion died correct there was no motion to right so so what would the minute say there was direction to the staff to be no there wasn't direction to the staff I think Dr bow did you get direction I thought I did okay so to me we didn't act on the item we talked about it you didn't so it's not a discussion item it's an action item

086so so because president you just said we got the same outcome so what's what was the issue with the motion and then I don't see an issue with the motion and for me I for me I'm GNA get you can table so I'll I'll be discussing this with roio because I just don't know but you can also table it right if you don't approve it you can someone I make a motion to table the there you go okay there you so the the item has been tabled and the uh staff will be bringing it back for the next board meetings to discuss and act perfect and you don't need to vote on the table I'm not gonna go in well I just trying to follow the agenda and what our our action would be yeah

087a few of these that I'm not again I'm new here so I'm just still trying to understand and even though that are more or have been here longer doesn't mean we know all so just want to make sure thank you for bringing it up to our attention um and so now that we've tabled it do we all feel um yeah okay and the staff will be bringing it back uh trusty Shelton so there was a motion to Table in a second and that's how it goes motion to table yes second Lind L okay so now let's go ahead and vote on the item um those in favor of tabling this item to next month please vote on okay for all those opposed and all those abstained no exstension so um everyone passes except for trusty

088F Shelton um who votes know on the item okay thank you all right that's done um thank you so much bringing it back to item 302 presentation for the California dashboard and data yes um it's that time of the year and I'm going to say a little bit as Miss Campbell goes to the podium um this is um I'm going to publicly say that we need to do better for our kids um I'm taking this opportunity to tell the board that we are looking at the pandemic in the re rear view mirror uh we have been dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic um but to me this was um not what I was expecting which as a superintendent I need to just kind of really look into what what is it that we need

089to do to reset this this narrative right and so um Miss Campbell is going to present to you but I also wanted to say that to the board to the public I am uh I have a heavy burden in terms of how the academic performance has been uh for the past couple of years we have come up with all kinds of reasons why but I think this is the year that we say okay um that's past we really need to reset our our our system so without any further Ado I'm gonna uh turn it over to Miss Campbell thank you good evening good evening board presidenta board members Dr Bower and Alam Rock Community I will be sharing information tonight from our published dashboard for the 2223 school year you have uh in front of

090you an updated slide deck that I will be presenting tonight there was one or two two pages adjusting to what was in your board book so first of all to just to kind of bring us back around because this is the first year since the pandemic that the dashboard has kind of got back to where it was before there are 11 indicators on the dashboard uh Statewide but only nine of them apply to Elementary School District as you can see on this Slide the two that don't apply to an elementary school district are the ones that have the line through them we have state indicators and local indicators the local indicator IND ators were presented to you when we adopted the lcap in the spring the the indicators the local ones are something that we

091do in uh internally and present to the board during the elcap approval and the state indicators come as a result of our Casp testing and data that is submitted to the state under C bits so this kind of gives you an idea last uh for 2122 dashboard we were on the F we were using a new version of the cast test so all we did is we got a status performance think that looks like the cell phone bars this year because now we have two-year comparison of the data we have performance indicators back to the colors that show status and progress and that and that's what they look like down below red being the lowest performance and blue being the highest performance so just before we get started I wanted to kind of give you

092a little demographic information around our um race and ethnicity that is that are represented on the dashboard you have our total and our percentages as you will see as I go through the dashboard each indiv in each indiv individual um tile will break down how our different subgroups did also something that we looked at also is looking at some of our other subgroups that are that are represented under our students with disability are socioeconomically disadvantaged our unhoused or homeless youth our foster Youth and our El students and this kind of gives you an idea here of how the rest of the school districts that are part of the Eastside Alliance and this that all feed into Eastside how they how their um demographics look so when you log into the dashboard we get to this

093homeage as you can see we have the gauges for the state indicators and on the local indicators they all you see the bar that says standard met if we complete that that portion and turn in our data on time and present it to the board we get standards met and then this part comes next so I'm going to go into each each indicator the first there's the first first two indicators are academic indicators this is the first one it's our English language arts and on the left you will see the tile that would that puts up Alam rock as a whole is uh performed in the orange and that is the same as the state but then if when we drill down a bit more we can look and see how our subgroups did and

094our different e uh ethnic groups and as you can see we have a significant number of students in the red that that we need to use it kind of focus on as we moving forward one thing I did want to point out is sometimes on the far right hand corner or bottom corner it says no performance color there are certain subgroups that don't have because the academic indicators it's only our third through eighth grade our chronic absenteeism and our and our attendance data is K8 so sometimes we won't we want of our subgroups won't have enough students for it to be considered a substantial subgroup to be mentioned under our subgroups under mathematics again alamro as a whole we maintained and we are orange uh the state is also Orange in that again we have

095a significant number of our students in the red and orange levels that we need to keep focus on and each one of these indicators you can drill down into each individual school and how they do that so as our sites are doing their database and looking at how they're going to support and address and support the students being able to look at who are their subgroups individually for a site that they want to focus on this indicator is about our English language learner progress our English Learners progress and what this does is it basically we have 40% of our students making progress in at least one level in on the elpac this gives you a little more information but again they're looking at what uh how many students are making progress towards being proficient in

096English we also wanted to be able to share even though this is on is not on the dashboard that last year 2223 we reclassified 206 of our English Learners to being rfbs and um this year so far with the new academic data that came in and we were we so far for this school year 23 24 have reclassified 181 students to our fet and that's not on here that number we're just finishing up with our first round of reclassification for this school year as we do the next elack coming up and our in the spring we will be able to do the next round here you'll see this the the the data for our chronic absenteeism and this is um on the gauge Alamar is red and um chronic absenteeism has been a focus for

097us um for a good chunk of last year and this year so far um moving forward looking at how the absenteeism rates are are coming out at our site and how we are better supporting our students because we all know that if the students are not in school the progress is very hard to make and they need to be there to learn our suspension rate we are in the yellow for our suspension rate and this is one of those areas that we did maintained and uh didn't decrease or increase we kind of maintained where we were um the previous year this slide is very different and the reason it's different is that there's the California science test the California science test this is the first year that we get actual results for the science test

098and it's our it's our Fifth and our eighth grade students that take the California science test starting this the 2324 dashboard which is the one you'll hear about next year we will have our science data on there and our progress indicator for that so this is kind of our Baseline that they'll be able to in next year it will be part of the dashboard this kind of breaks down how each one of our schools is doing in the science piece um for the cast test for our fifth and our eighth graders and one thing as I was digging a little bit into this is that our fifth graders and our eighth graders pretty much did the same around 16.43% met or exceeded standard in fifth and eight and we have 55 that nearly met it

099um so again it was interesting looking just to see that in the in the back in that our fifth and our eighth grade there and um how they're doing so how what are we doing um moving forward and what have we been doing so far so looking at our English language arts to really support our students in English language arts this whole year we have our intervention tosas and they're at um almost all of our sites and they're they're working with students in small groups basically in K between K8 depending on the focus the the toes pull some data they F they they select some focused groups that need certain things around comprehension fmic awareness do cycles of work with them and come back and re reassess to see the progress the students have made

100so that's one of the areas that we've been we've put in places here to support our our our students in language arts and again these as you can see on this slide it shows how we're tying in the work that we're doing with our lcap goals and the Strategic plan about supporting the the whole Child Development and the whole family development in math also we also do have osas are also working with our students in small group in interventions in mathematics but one of the things we did do this year is that we updated our instructional materials for Math and the new instructional materials really emphasize additional problem solving and critical thinking and provide some additional scaffolds that the teachers can use to support the students in classroom English language English learner progress we've Pro

101we're continuing to provide constructing meaning professional develop professional development and materials this is and then also ongoing professional proficiency level designated ELD in class but also with support from the tossas they're also doing some small group instruction with our English language Learners constructing meaning really does does support language language acquisition and academic language acquisition not just for English language learners but also all our students so it's something that we embed in our content area teaching for attendance we have been working on attendance as I said earlier this year and our attendance we're we been working with our site leaders to be holding bi-weekly attendance meetings in teams at their sites to look at the attendance to look at students that are chronic AB chronically absent or they are close to being chronically absent and really

102sitting down meeting with the families meeting with the students seeing how they can support the children and the families to make sure that they get to school our suspensions um also under suspensions to be really to keep those suspensions low and keep our students in school our site leaders and staff have really emphasized creating a safe and welcoming environment at the their sites but also working with their teachers to create that safe and welcoming environment and also we has a have a district as a district have rolled out specific assemblies around student expectations Behavior anti-bullying um things that that really can help students understand how to behave and how we want them to act while they're at school and again challenge is a gift that Force us to search for new center of gravity and

103that's kind of where we're at right now is really looking to see what additional things we can put in place and how we can continue to focus moving forward one thing I did want to say is that as we are starting to site creating their new school plans creating their uh us creating our our new ELC cap that comes around coming in the spring keeping these subgroups are will be something that we'll be doing is keeping these subgroups in the Forefront of how we're going to support each one of these subgroups so that they have a a better success with thank you thank you all right um at this time I'll go ahead and open it up for a public comment and then bring it back to the board for any questions and uh comments

104um anybody from the public wishing to address um this item Cas seeing none I'll go ahead and bring it back to the board any questions and comments from the board trusty fam and then trusty FL Shelton uh well question to the administration superintendent Bower and assistant superintendent cample you know I don't want so I so you know what what what do you what what do you see as the issue behind chronic absent ISM because it is a you know that's sort of like the the first step on the road to recovery right that our children if our children aren't in class for getting the information they won't they will never be able to uh show their learning in an assessment so you know what you know it would help I think it helps us to

105the board to have a idea you know uh the the issue behind chronic absenteeism and you know where we what we can do to find find a way to to get our kids in class again I wish there was an easy answer to why why right um some of the work that we have done this last year as part of really looking at a chronic absenteeism is as teams we've really started to dig into why we're getting the results we're getting but also what are those things that are that are getting in the way or impeding our students from getting to school that's part of these weekly meetings that our principles have been having is to find out what are those things I've been looking at the tracking The Trackers that they have and it's

106we have such a variety of reasons why our students AR getting to school so as we're moving forward forward in continuing to work at our chronic absenteeism we really are going to dig into those exact reasons you know there are things like they needed they didn't have a ride they had to stay home because mom was sick to they they didn't you know it was loud last night there's to you know they weren't able to sleep to there's a few where they just don't feel comfortable at school hunts us focusing on the safe and welcoming environment so it's something that we're always digging into individually at sites but also as a team here in the district office instructional services with our seal Department with our student services department and our academics Department really looking at

107what what is what is interfering what is getting in the way so that we can try to see if there's thing mitigations things we can do to to Really help those students and sometimes it's just a a conversation between the principal and the student say we're here for you you come we'll make sure you're okay or to you you don't have a way to get school let's see if we can work with one of our departments and get you a bus pass so a lot of it has to be some individual work that we have to look at too okay so I guess supplemental question you know one of the factors you mentioned was transportation and I believe there's a recent article in in the spotlight and approximately what 4.7% of our students are are

108busted by the district uh you know uh I I guess that what you know what what are the limitations on our our busing system I guess you know when I was starting out as in kindergarten you know oh the bus the school bus service was a lot more extensive right those are again that's a product of a different era different time of course different levels of funding and of course I understand over the years School bu service has you know over time sort of been uh retrenched to serving the special education students so I guess the thing is you know I mean where for our when know we have school buses so I I guess is do you know is there some capacity for us to improve Transportation that's going to be a very difficult

109question I'm going to jump in trusty F I think we last year I believe we gave the board a brief around transportation in alumrock and it is focused on our special ed students um it is a significant amount and so I mean we have been talking all night about you know the the budget so that is why we are looking for bus passes for the families who have a challenge you know um one of the reasons and and this is one of the the most difficult decisions for me as an administrator as a superintendent and as an educator is that a lot of our families are not necessarily a replica of what you see the average family in the Bay Area and they still walk to school they still have to take buses right and

110and remember board although this has been hard that's why we have kept our schools open even though they are small because we have heard our community say you know we have to walk to school it's hard I'm not saying that that's going to be the reality in the next couple of years but we as a district we have gone above and beyond um to really facil itate our families to be in school um it's hard it's a hard question to answer I I understand H aside from that you know uh last June you know when the issue of test test score for lack of better term came up I I wrote in my cap capacity when War President I wrote a opad in response to County County Board member Joe de Salvo and San Jose

111Evergreen Community callers trustee Karen martinz and so I guess uh you know any I guess i' like you know any you know may you know and I cited you know the recent open you know the the opening that the sayar sh is Early Learning Center in July I mention you know uh uh was it the the dual immersion programs in both Spanish and Vietnamese um you know things to you know uh you know programs to to bring bring our families back and also improve our educational offerings and you know any any curricular or any curricular developments in the PIP well may I answer I think that the the more complete uh presentation for you has a highlight of some of the schools that are doing really well right it's just that it's like the F

112on your report cards right when you have a number of A's but then on the other end you have somebody performing really really low it just bring the district down right but we definitely have um islands of Excellence right that we do have schools like colum like adante onean who are performing and they are serving the kids the way they need to be serving it's just that we do we still are in this area where there are so many challenges for our families and our children and I want you know also say that we you know that we are working to meet these CH I know we're working to meet these challenges I mean I one you know I want to highlight you know uh the English lers reclassification given deis amount of English Learners

113that we have in our district you know getting our kids to language proficiency is is the key to success in other areas of school as well so I you you know I think that you know this I would say that we we definitely have room to improve that like you know and part and I again my questions and comments for it is what do we do to to move the needle and I want to preface that with the getting to getting to Greens and blues is not a it's not going to happen in a day in a week or a month or in the school year but it's going it is a it is a long and drawn out process right and it's sort of like that I think that it's important for this Community

114to know that we you know we are we are trying to to get to move the ball down the field get get more yards and eventually get to the green and blue there so it's sort of like and you know I get you know we have work to do and you know I know that we're working hard and it's just that you know we're we're trying to look for more ways to get to the greens and the bus yeah mhm thank you so much remember um B that we have our strategic plan um with three Focus areas the whole Child Hope Family that addresses these questions and concerns that you just brought I think it's uh more to come around the what we're we're working towards including you know uh focusing on the curriculum developing

115a districtwide uniform lesson plan template things that are in the in the works working with a curriculum council with teachers uh we have multiculturalism and multilingualism as the other area looking forward to figuring out how we increase our fo footprint in our sites in terms of dual immersion emies that has not gone away and finally um The Early Learning and EXP bed learning effort that certainly I'm hoping to be able to Market to other families because we have a very robust um programming you know both on the Early Learning side with being the only school in the state from zero to five and on the other end as far as the I don't want to call it after school right but the the Nour day where different partners come and help and support the learning

116for our students and the opportunities and experiences that they have access to more come truste thank you I just want to go a little bit uh pull on uh trusty fam's thread here thank you for bringing up the chronic absentees and that's where I want to focus so um so two things one is what we're seeing is a dashboard from all of last year and what I would want to understand at this point and I don't like do I click on this dashboard to see where we're at now like right so but but you know understanding so this is a from last year's point in time and the fact that there was a 12% increase it would be good to know like are we have we held the line are we going up or down

117because we're halfway through the school year so it would be good to know in real time like where we're at with chronic absenteeism so I don't know if you have that tonight but I I don't have that but I could get that to to Dr bow to have it yeah I mean contextually it's like so we knew this dear God what are we doing about this right here right now and and so so that pivots to my like second piece is you talked we know I mean and I this is like 25 years of my life kind of like working and thinking about truancy and absenteeism and safe and healthy and non-violent communities right and so this is we know it's like push and pull factors right is it is it the school issue or

118is it the family issue is it a neighborhood environment issue it's all those things right so so I hear you kind of taking it well there's all these individual things but we have to address it systemically right so there are so many partners there are so many um you know I I immediately thought of so if and when we understand the wellness center Grant right you know it's like so how is that going to address chronic absenteeism how are the uh existing uh contracts we have with I'm like Pastor Danny Sanchez and how is that so we're holding people accountable to helping us move this needle because it can't just be us this is about like root cause stuff that's happening in our homes and communities but then what you know and then if we

119address antibullying in so you can more welcome but this I feel like all of our partners all of our providers and all of the money were coming in I know it's there's many there's many things that are important but this to trusty fam's point is like if they're not sitting in the seat or if they're not engaged in the classroom then then we're behind the and just the the sheer numbers of how many subgroups are in the red it's like this should be like top three to like how we move that needle so I'm I I'm very interested in sort of the What the how and and understanding how this you know seeing it once a year I'm glad I'm thrilled you're tracking you're looking you're you know I know you are all doing that

120but this is um a huge red you know flag for all us so again individually systemically all the resources towards this um and helping us understand how it's moving in real time I think would be really helpful I will say that many as you said many of our agencies that are working with us are already have chronic absentees them at the Forefront it is part of the community it's kind of a piece of the community school of Grant if we get it it's part of of our you know Pastor Danny working with designated students rsls coordinators that we have for each um each section of the district that's some of their focus that's working on it so it is it is there's a lot of that in place already that we're bringing together to really

121I think under one there's also um a CW where is Dr alazon so the C child yes there's we also have a CWA that's going to be focusing on attendance so a yeah okay because you know I I think back to back in the day when you know east side and alrock were more flesh you know people looked at the attendance log drove to the home knocked on the door and then you know here there's the whole family experience right there so I I think about the lcap right you know oh there was so many things we're were going to do with the lcap right like family events and stuff but it's like this is like the mtss like top 80% of our time on 20% of the problem like this is this is the

122issue yeah thank you thank you anyone else board vice president yeah I'm glad that thank you for the comments that you all raised um I think it's important that um we continue to push that uh that all of our partners and everybody who's do work here um be held accountable and be asked what exactly is that you're doing I um given this some of the things that by the time they get to us they're pretty serious and so um we were dealing with some things and uh based on that I I run to past Danny who's picking up snack the C and said hey just the I want to talk to Let's F and so we're having obiously no no personal details in being discussed but said hey I I want to know that you

123and your organization are out there actually going and doing the home visits that if there are issues you're not just sending out letters and all these of course and so lays out everything that they do the terms of the the the the um the in-depth casework that they take on so um my question is are we holding other partners that do similar work to the same standard because he's he's a small organization I wouldn't expect that every single big issue is going to be thrown to the peace project and then other folks can kind of Escape by by sending letters to the home and oh well they're just not responding I I'll throw that at you a lot no absolutely and and it is something that you know we're fortunate that that as a whole

124team we have our social emotional learning we have our our student services department special at state and federal so we all come together even our early learning to really see how each one of our all the people we each department works with can support getting our students in school getting our students to make progress so again it is something that we're always looking at and coming back around to seeing is there more that we can provide for those students Jesse Chavez I've also asked and inquired about um treny um is there fency officers that actually um go to the homes once if they're really chronic um we can have that conversation I guess offline uh but yeah is there a government agency right now that does help with that yes and then we also have

125our own TR and procedures our s procedures here but also our community Liaisons working with their site leaders looking at some of these a lot of times they will go out the principal and the community lison to the family houses see how they can help see what they can do to get the children to school is there a way to make the parent more accountable um other than visiting the home and we'll have that conversation of one I guess yeah thank you and I think trusty Chavez that's a you know good opportunity for working with our systems we have systems in our County and our communities that I think you know know we all could be doing better all of us schools County City you know um unfortunately cuts are coming but you know it's

126like we need to do our jobs and that's our job the safety net the job of these systems the safety net of our community um so thank you all for your questions a lot of them are the ones I had um I think trusty fam took me way back right to those days when we had money for transportation and we also um didn't pass students if they were low grade level so I think that held us as a school district as you know um more accountable right because we're not going to have a sixth grader in first grade you know but now it feels like well they're just passed so here this pretty dashboard that just tells us we want to dig deep we could see but these kids keep getting pasted and really it's

127our responsibility right but we're not I I feel like we're not being held accountable as we were back in those days where students were not passed there you know you had people you had students who were held back um until they were meeting grade level I'm not saying I want to go back to that right I'm just saying I think the pendulum has gone too far and we're here get looking at this and seeing this um they already brought up some of the things that I wanted to bring up another item I wanted to highlight is the suspension rates our African-American students right they're so I mean the numbers you know the breakdown is you know they're not that big of a a group subgroup but they're you know the highest and so um I

128know that I've had some conversations with Dr Bower um so I'm excited about some programming specific you know um to that population so I think also um talking about what we're doing because there's some very exciting things that we're talking about and in the works um and so and I know you don't have a lot of time I'm just saying um I also want to let our community know right that we're looking we're asking these questions s and we have some programming that's um going to be focusing on some of this work um and yeah you know at the end of the day we're just they we will never be at perfect and we will never know everything but if we're you know pushing ourselves every day to be better then we're doing our job

129and so um yeah I look forward to just getting better from this and you know making sure that that arrow goes more towards the blue um and you know the dream is that every arrow ends up on the blue um and that we work towards that um you know I know you talked a little bit about bringing some items back I mean it would be impossible to talk about everything um and I think you know I I'm not going to ask for specific things to be brought back other than I think as a you know board president and a trustee um I I look forward to just keeping you know that pendulum within our district holding ourselves accountable um making sure that you know we are providing the best quality education slash everything else we

130provide right um and also you know our unfortunate unhoused population the reality of our students 140 was the last time I asked I don't know what it is today um and that's concerning right when um it's kind of like when our students are not in class they're not learning when our students don't have a home to sleep in and a warm food you know to go home to I mean all of that how can we expect them to even be in class so I know it's much larger than what we have here and it's a reality and it's a that we each decided to be leaders in this community um and I look forward to contining to push ourselves to continue to serve our communities as we do um so yeah thank you I don't

131know if anybody else has any questions or comments if I could end with one real super positive note is we have just begun a what I call is an amazing collaboration between area and us around really aligning some of the things that we're doing in our classrooms for you know to work on it this year year a group of teachers and then roll it out for the beginning of next year which I think is I mean just an amazing opportunity to really have a strong group of teachers help work do this work and roll it out to everybody which I think will also kind of add some pieces to what we need to do for our students I just have a process question so how often do you does the dashboard get published or come

132here or is it the dash Lish once a year in December it comes out to public in December because it they but we have our own internal you know we know like like if we knew so it's published in December but if we know in June hey we think we brought that 12% increase from 2223 we think we brought it down to zero or whatever it is you know you could tell us that own the fall after you know we get some C data right so that we can kind of get some idea of where we are looking at it wouldn't be colors or performance levels but some some raw data we could get we also can actually get you know raw data about suspension and attendance data that isn't again you never know exactly

133what's how it's going to be laid out on the dashboard but we do get some General ideas uh in the fall early fall yeah I think there would it would be good to have some milestones in between once a year to know how we're doing in these because and it's also back to oh this this intervention that we tried it's working okay let's double down on that or okay we tried that that was that didn't work you know that didn't move the needle literally right so I just think we need to be kind of monitoring more closely and so that when we make budget decisions it's like ah more of that or less of that or whatever that would be helpful thank you try chz actually after report cards come out each time can we

134get a report a report of the report cards yeah because you're getting all the data there right you get grades yes grades have a lot to do with element and also in school and if they're not in school they're not probably earning uh good grades that that'll give you a a big picture is I'll follow up with you on that one if that's okay thank you yeah and um just to piggy back on that I know a question I had a couple years ago to understand more you know um in regards to the grades in our system and if there's a kind of you know place that we have data you know where there's a where we can pull kind of where our students here in elmro are specifically doing um and I think it

135was after the pandemic to really understand how much you know we discussed a lot about you know after the pandemic it affected our kids but what does that look like for Alam Rock specifically um so and and I I I mean in regards to you know grades every time I wouldn't say that if there is a way you know quarter um I'm sorry not quite but semester wise maybe um because I also don't want to add you know just work onto the St have to to to to add but you know whether it's once every other six months once every six months um or quarter if that's a possibility um and I look forward to also discussing this to understand it better and I I do think sorry if I could just add like how

136it embeds in the Strategic plan so the Strategic plan is not over here and the dashboard's over here but because I think you you're working on alignment and so maybe it's through that I don't know but I I just to your point of like not more work but just aligning the things so we're seeing reports more holistically yeah and that's why Barbara's last slide we worked on that this time just to kind of get the the the area right and underneath has in your uh the El Cup goal and the Strategic plan area so that you can see the alignment okay because definitely right that's why I'm saying academic performance goes under whole child whole family right and that's why uh I feel that parents need to be active engaged you know in in the

137learning of of the child right and so how are we you know getting to that and I I love the idea of Milestones I think that that's totally fair um around attendance and around potentially our local assessments so even though we might not have the Casp which is okay but we do have local assessments that we can bring forth which that would be a lot more accurate to see how the predictors of how they're going to do in Casp okay thank you okay uh moving on to item 401 Teamsters comments and Communications you have anybody from Team Mr K Fu was under the weather he sens his regards to the board he didn't have any questions regarding the agenda okay thank you I'm moving on to 402 California School Employees Association uh and Sharon sent

138me an email that I like to read to the board she asked me she said unfortunately I will be unable to attend the board meeting this evening however can you please share this with the board from CCA happy New Year congratulations to the newly elected board officers and to the outgoing officers for a job well done thank you for approving our revised job descriptions last month we work diligently with HR to revise them to hopefully get some of our vacancies filled thank you thank you now moving on to 403 uh elmrock Educators Association area welcome back Mr good evening everybody first I'd like to say thank you to our current School Board during school board appreciation um Alam Rock has not always had a functioning board but our board now listens responds and works towards

139bringing a brighter future to our district I know um being a board member can be a thankless job one that I have now received kind of at times myself um but you hear everything that's always going wrong but we have accomplished some wonderful things together and I look forward to moving together and moving forward as we come back from break I have received a lot of emails from my staff in regards to work orders that haven't been going through the system a lot of the teachers are emailing me and emailing me things that they've had work orders put in for the last two months the last three months the last four months and the matters aren't getting looked at the system is broken and too many eyes need to be on our work orders right

140now the teachers are emailing me and then I'm emailing the superintendent to look up on them and I believe that that's why we have this system in place this system was supposed to fix that and yet there's still a broken Cog somewhere if a furnace is broken on a work order send out a space heater if a AC is broken send out a fan it's cold weather now extremely cold and it's important to get our classrooms to be a warm welcoming space where students can learn when students come in wet from the rain a warm space will allow them to be in the correct mindset to hear and learn cold and wet will not please look into the system and get our students learning spaces ready it is also that time of year again later

141tonight you'll see that area has brought forth our Sunshine agreement and the district office have sunshin as well to start the bargaining process for the 24 through 27 collective bargaining agreement the entire contract language is up for this three-year time period area introduced multiple dates when we are available and the do picked when we can bargain I would like you to know that we are always willing to meet area received an email from the do team to cancel and shift our first negotiation session that was due to be tomorrow due to us moving tonight's board meeting while I understand late hours and early mornings are never ideal teachers do it all the time it was frustrating to get this email when we have worked so hard to prepare please keep this in mind as we

142move forward while we graciously moved our first session to accommodate the district's team it only delays the important work we need to do for this year on an extremely positive note area is proud to have been partnering with academic services on the collaboration and revamping of our District's report card meeting together to review current standards and how to best keep our community parents and students in the loop and understand the grades that will help them look forward and Achieve each year and at each grade level thank you so much thank you uh now we have um elmrock administrators Association AA good evening Board of Trustees St our arusd staff in the alen Rock Community my name is Dr cilia Kio and I'm the pre the principal of Meer elementary school and I'm also the president

143of the alrock administration administr Association sorry it's been a long day it is a privilege to speak tonight to represent a group of vibrant Educators and administrators who work tremendously hard in service to our schools and communities there are exciting developments taking place from a USD and our administrators continue to work to serve their respective sites or departments this December in January um from Cassel they are focusing on the review of their sipsa goals using data to guide practice and reading and math continuing its Cornerstone project character trade assemblies rewarding good attendance in making plans for the delivery of our Valentine family dance on February 9th didn't have many schools report but there's a lot going on um adanta 2 Academy just held a reclassification celebration for 16 of their e students and aptitude is

144planning to have a reclassification breakfast celebration uh at the end of January along with an award assembly for all students in different categories we are excited to announce that we will be having a career day they will be having a career day on February 7th and we'll be sharing an invite uh soon with the district and thanks to miss uh Yenni she's been working with all of us making sure that we identify the students that have actually met reclassification criteria so we can submit the paperwork and they don't have to get tested in February so thank you Miss Yan and that's all for me right now thank you very much for your time thank you uh now moving to 405 superintendent so I'm very formal tonight so I I'm read my comments because I want

145to make sure I capture my thoughts this month has been set aside to acknowledge and celebrate Bo members this board reluctantly accepted in December to bring this resolution because they never want to praise themselves but marivel my assistant and I work very closely with each of them we know the caliber of individuals were blessed to have us our board and we in insisted on bringing the resolution I will read the resolution to remind all of our stakeholders about the importance of a stable ethical and car caring School Board of Education resolution 23-23 24 reads as follow proclaiming January 24 School Board recognition month and I'm not going to read all the words but an excellent and continuously improving public education system is vital to the quality of life in all of California citizens and communities

146and California has nearly a thousand school districts and county offices of Education throughout the state represented by nearly 5,000 school board members accounting for the largest number of locally elected officials in the state and the first school district in the United States was established in 21 and local school districts governing boards and County Boards of educations are a central part of our democracy and whereas the mission of public schools to meet the diverse educational needs of all children and to empower pupils to become productive and thoughtful contributors to a Democratic Society in an everchanging world it's more important now than ever before and local school boards consistently work to ensure that every people's academic socio emotional physical and mental health needs are a priority and each and every day school board members continue to Advocate

147to best save CH serve children and parents in our communities and local school board members are committed to pupils and believe that all pupils can be successful Learners and that the best education is tailored towards providing every pupil with an opportunity to learn and school board members work closely with parents certificated and classified educational professionals and other community members to create effective learning environments where all pupes can Thrive and school board members are responsible for building and maintaining the structures that provide a solid foundation for our public school system and whereas school board members are strong advocates for public education who are responsible for communicating the needs of the schools and for understanding the interests and expectations of the diverse communities that they represent and where a school board recognition School Board recognition month is

148an ideal time to recognize and celebrate The Californians serving on school dist District government boards and County Boards of Education who help guide the educations of the education of pupils in kindergarten in our case Zero all the way to 12th grade inclusive and who prepare these pupils for the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century and beyond now therefore it be a resolve that the alamro Union Elementary School District does Herby declare its appreciation to the member of the school board and proclaims the month of January 2024 a school board member recognition month we urge community members and thank you so much Miss rera to join us in recognizing the dedication and hard work of local school board members and with them create an education system that meets the needs needs of all our children

149I will be the first to acknowledge this is not on the resolution this is for you my governance team I will be the first to acknowledge that leading alumrock Union Elementary School District is not easy but it's a privilege and a superintendent it is a privilege to work with each of you each of you board members being a board member and sandr did not put this together she did her own and I did my own being a board member in many ways is a thankless job most of the time you receive complaints and criticisms however this board of education not excluding past board member Ernesto veano accomplish what many believe to be the impossible you as a group have have stabilized alumrock School District your care passion understanding High ethical standards and complete commitment to

150students and their families are unprecedented for at least past through the F few decades I urge everyone in the audience and in YouTube and wherever you are that at least one time this month send a note to each of these wonderful individuals a note of gratitude and support for the great job they have accomplished please join me in a round of applause to acknowledge these great individuals you don't need to applaud we applaud you thank you very much thank you um I was applauding my pierced um now I'm going to open it up to Board of Trustees any Communications comments at this time fam oh my well first you know thank you you you know uh I I'll just I'll just say a quote from County Supervisor Al Lee that what is it if anyone

151were doing this for of money they're very bad at now uh you know uh I want to wish everyone a a happy New Year although I'll be repeating that in a different language at the next regular board meeting which is you know February 8th which is two days away two days prior to Lunar New Year so uh so I do hope that everyone had a had a have a happy joyous restful holiday season uh you know uh I had a nice nice December I uh was it headlined the adalante holiday patent on Tuesday the 19th uh you know Wonderful crowd wonderful performance uh you know and I I wanted to say that uh I had uh pleasure of uh visiting you know and dropping into uh seora Kim's class which which happened because it happens

152that uh the East Side trusty Lorena Chavez is a parent at anante and that's the you know her child was her child was on stage at the pageant that morning and then afterwards she you know she U she Volunteers in seora Kim's classroom um because her son's in there so she's a you know good to see that you know we have active parent you know uh trust eite trustee Lorena shz is an active parent at uh adalante and a lot of uh you know our kids had a good time our parents had a good time uh you know and Senor Kim had a wonderful class and strangely you know on the topic of multiculturalism uh she's at a Korean immigrant who grew up in South America so she fluent in so so you you know

153I guess if you were to meet her on the street and not know that she grew up in Latin America you would never have expected her to be a teacher in a dual Lang Spanish dual language immersion school but yet there she is so it's sort of like uh you know in a sense what a small world you know life takes us and do but it brings a you know a um very very Multicultural element to our schools and that we have you know uh you know uh a Asian American teacher with you know who had life experiences in South America and she you know she's able to take that language skill and to teach our students the Spanish language right so I wanted to Comm in you know anante for a great holiday patch

154it and Senor Kim for having a great third grade class and you know uh you know a class where yeah you know uh you know you know truste Lorena Chavez is a act you know an act willing and active uh parent volunteer who actually enjoy volunteering in our schools um the other the other holiday C and I got to headline was the uh what is it the painter Elementary School uh the home of our Vietnamese dual language emerging program so I headlined that that holiday patent also and that was a a lovely lovely Multicultural show Jingle Bells and Vietnamese also but last and not least it was a a very not uh was it we had a wonderful wonderful uh minini vento Holiday Program where our district provided gifts and dinners to our most moment

155families and I guess it it it's a uh uh what is it an illustration of what we are called upon to do uh you know we are the you know in many ways the the first the first and most accessible run on the social safety net you know uh uh you know when you know when it whether it's sort of trle at home or diff financial difficulties at home you know it's you know at the end of the day you know we um the the local public school and you know the district is the the the first the first you know the first stop on on you know in the social safety n so I want to express my my appreciation for for what we do for our families day in and day out so

156uh on that note other than that I hope that my colleagues and everyone else had had a wonderful as much of a wonderful time that I did so uh thank you thank you trusty fam anyone else um briefly just want to reiterate how um house what December just felt like every alen Rock of it I went to I left and my face hurt because it was just smiling smiling smiling so I'll start with um the vapa event was just phenomenal again like there's just a lot of wizards and witches that make that thing work because it's a it was a miracle um so beautiful um so many talented kids um your pianist Veronica and all I mean they were just it was amazing um from the littles to the and I think for the middle

157schoolers it was really um it was really great to see their courage to get out in front and and do that and of course the families were having a great time so congratulations I hope you were rested um some of you are off doing something the next day so um so thank you for that and I know the families are very grateful um the gift giveaway that um trusty fam mentioned I just really think the generosity of the administrators and teachers who um donated from their own Pockets to to put that event together it was um it was very touching shows the generosity and Care um and uh again lots of smiling faces from those families and the kiddos the the the the personal touch right the fact that we knew exactly what families needed

158these gifts and they got to put in a wish list and you met those wishes that was that was really great and um I hope the families enjoyed the Legos uh as well um and I I just really wanted to highlight out of that how much I learned from the two mckin vento um staff you know I I'm very um you know the system of care for our um families that are experiencing homelessness is complicated and um I'm just really interested in figuring out how you know our relationship with the County Office of Ed um and figuring out how we can support those families um because that well it isn't our job it isn't our job to house those families back to Chronic abs and deism and all the other dashboard items uh we have

159a role to play and um and and those two young women whose names are escaping me can we shout them out and yes thank you so much to them um I I look forward to learning more about how we can meet those needs and even just understanding the system and how frankly while we've seen the numbers of our again students and families that are experiencing homelessness go up year toe the more I learn about you know how our families identify I think the number is higher right if yes they may have a roof over their head but they're renting a room with three other families so I I just want to drill deeper into that and again it was an enlightening day it was great to be there to experience the joy but we have

160a lot more work to do so thank you all and I hope you have a great new year thank you trusty Shelton trusty Travis that was great to hear how the teachers go above and beyond thank you all and as well as a community when they um put in their time and effort and treasure towards helping the students thank you all anyone else okay I'll just say a few Happy New Year to everyone um looking forward to an excellent year um that's it just keep it short we got a long agenda thank you um yeah so I won't uh repeat a lot of the things I was uh with at some of these events with some of my um peers here um I do want to sh shout outs to those teachers that are uh

161singing with our students and providing spaces for them to just you know be themselves other than like the math and the sciences and all the things that they learned so thank you um it was awesome to see uh Miss tton there with her students and um in her full element with you know the students and connecting with them um you know uh for me I know that that is as important as a math and um sometimes it's the Arts right that save our students that keep them alive that keep them passionate about coming to school and coming through those doors and so um I look forward to continuing to support uh the the Arts within our our school district um so amazing concert I mean just the movement of the parents of the students of

162the you know little ones to the older ones and off the stage and on the stage and then everybody back on stage I yeah magic so thank you it was beautiful um and yeah happy 2024 off hopefully we're all all off to a great start um and you know I know some of us don't celebrate the Gregorian New Year so those of you that did happy New Year uh those of you that will in the you know um in February and some of us in March um I know we'll say that in the near future meetings um but I look forward to continuing to grow as a board thank you Dr bow for uh your expression um very heart heartfelt um I know each and every one of us we do our best we show

163up with our best and you know I am very proud to be a part of this board uh yes just one I wanted to say that the Alam Rock Ensemble on stage was beautiful at winter vle right yes all the fire and everyone like that it you know I think I think we closed the song out on on H was it wasn't it Jose th yes we all joined yeah that was fun thank you trusty fam all right so moving on to item 501 public hearing District's initial bargaining proposal to open negotiations with area for the period of July 1 2024 through June 30th 2027 like to open that all right um and let me gather my notes back here make sure that I don't miss anything um all right so at this time I'd

164like to open it up for P public comment on this item all right seeing none uh yeah I'll go ahead and close it at this time thank you all right uh 502 public hearing area initial bargaining proposal to open negotiations with the alen rocky Elementary School District for the period of July 1st 2024 through June 30th 2027 all right um opening up for opening and now uh any public comment on this item all right uh welcome back Miss rera hello I just want to say um we're looking forward to a positive negotiation sessions um we've made a lot of progress in the few months that we've been in so far this school year and so with the knowledge that we received yesterday with the budget's report and how much um academic services and HR have

165been working together this year with area we're hoping that we can get some wonderful language that will benefit not only the teachers and the staff but the students in the community we serve as well thank you all right at this time go ahead and close that moving on to item 601 update on RFP affordable housing developers information only turn it over to superintendent I'm looking at Mr Chang I think this you wanna is there any update in specifically around this item I know um just to kind of refresh our memory uh board vice president asked for it to be a standing um item on our agenda and so I don't know if there's any updates for us on this um just a brief recap maybe um yeah you may recall at the last board meeting

166the administration provided a sample RP um we continue to refine that RP uh we've had initial meeting with the city um to get their perspective and Technical Support unfortunately we weren't able to set up followup meetings uh because of the holiday break uh we do have follow-ups meeting in the near future um and to get their input and feedback to uh finalize rpce so we can provide that to the board for consideration questions comments from the board um public comment on this item before we move forward all right seeing none we'll go ahead and move to item 602 approve the request from the board to have all governmental mails sent to the district through the school sites to be forwarded to the district office uh Dr bar this was requested from the board and I

167just respectfully asked the board to approve this so that I can um send a note to the site and any governmental mail will be sent back to the district office okay I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comment and then bring them back to the trustees all right see no public comment uh trustey fam yes uh well first I I'd like to make a motion to approve Sor okay and then if I may say you know this is sort of I brought this to the attention of the board because uh you know just a quick recap you know last October our district and many other districts had a cur uh issue you know our many of our school sites were rezoned with you know without the knowledge of the district office

168and you know based upon you know just say that uh this you know uh the city's process of notifying schools deeply concerns me and you know un uh that instead of sending the appropriate notices to the offices of the school the school you know we were not it wasn't just Alam Rock but Franklin McKinley Evergreen Eide Union High School District uh had school sites zoned with about being popularly notified and it all you know it was a chance encounter at a school in the Oak Grove School District that that set off you know that that that raised the red flag right uh uh uh uh was it uh uh for lack of better term uh a sheet from the city that was sent to a a school in the gr school district and it was

169by the you know somebody in at that school district had the had the knowledge to forward that to uh the oak district office and that was the only way that the other districts found out that our school sites were reson without our without the knowledge of the district office so um you know I find you know given that I I believe that it's necessary that our district has a policy so that uh our our site staff is forewarn that you know if they see if you know so that they know if there is a notice from a governmental agency letter City County state or federal that you know that notice even if it's not directly address the school of school district at then so you know that it be brought to the district office so

170that I so that you know as the uh as the owners of the school sites on behalf of the community that we we are properly notified of action from other levels of government and that you know and that for you know that information you know gives this board and the administration the opportunity to you know to and you know to take the necessary steps to protect the interests of this District so it's for those reasons that I you know I ask my colleagues to approve the motion thank you trustee um any other comments questions all right seeing them we'll go ahead and take a to vote all those in favor of this item raise your hand U item passes unanimously thank you trusty fam for bringing this to our attention uh all right moving on

171to 603 upate on resolution number 21-21 sl22 historical and cultural designation of the Mosaic at 1711 East San Antonio Street information only vice president so um back in 2021 December 16 2021 this board moved forward with resolution number 21- 2122 designating the San Antonio community Brotherhood Manion Mosaic is a historic and cultural Treasure of the district Community as part of the um resolution some of the were um some of the be it further resolved went ahead and provided direct instruction uh to the district uh so that it would go ahead and move forward on this rather than it just being a nice statement and so um some of those things are you declaring a landmark in order to do that then we have we have to have a process um and it also required that

172we go ahead and put forward a plaque uh that provides specific language it says this Landmark Mosaic Shall Not Be Moved altered or destroyed without the express and written consent to the alrock Union Elementary School District governing board and uh additionally it even bumps up the number of board members that it requires uh to be able to take action to do any sort of change to the to the Mosaic and it's for that reason I asked that this item be brought back so that we can go ahead and get an update um I get it it's a mosaic it's been there for a long time um but uh we've seen a lot of our historical landmarks or cultural um you know murals paintings being painted over and I think it's important to put something there

173that clearly CHS everybody future boards and other people to if they're going to do anything they legally have to get the consent of the El school board and so it's for that reason that I'm urging us to take some action so I did receive some information from Dr B I appreciate that um I think that it still needs some tweaks so that he can be in compliance with uh uh with what we said in the resolution and I also want to make sure that it's heavily focused on the children because the Mosaic was produced and it was a product of the work of the kids during that time now I'm I'm still going to do my work to get out there and get some more certainty but um most of them remember that there was

174a governor that showed up that somehow some helicopter landed on the grass or something kind of interesting stories and then it may have been Pat Brown or Ronald Ragan so the stud what site was it San An San Antonio elementary it wasn't rean so it was P up or the Mosaic College that's another story but wasn't Reagan so um so yeah there's a lot of history there and so I think it's worthwhile keeping it and so more a president I'll I'll turn it over back to to you so you can have the administration give us an update okay thank you for uh bringing that um I'll go ahead and open it up to public comment at this time all right seeing none um I'm ready to give the update Dr bow I'll go ahead and

175turn it over to you uh and thank you so much trusty kto to remind remind us you know that uh resolution was brought as we were coming back from the pandemic if I recall right and so I really appreciate the the reminder and so I'm working with roio to be to be able to bring to the board by the February 9th board meeting a dra the first reading of the board policy and just like trusty Kino said um there needs to be a process by which these kinds of landmarks you know are designated as historical and worthy to be preserved and so that's something that I really encourage the board to start thinking about you know because you will be given that first reading on February the 9th so that you can have you know

176ideas obviously we'll send it to you the draft so that you have an opportunity to have discussion here in public uh and whatever ideas the board has that night we'll go back and edit and then we'll bring back that as the final reading hopefully in March so that's the process that we're going to follow for the board policy that's one I also check with our vendor for plaques and um we we need to have you know I a little bit of direction I'm assuming this is a metal plaque and that's what I ask um depending on the legend on the plaque that's that's kind of what the vendor said the size will be determined um and something just to give the whole you know um they it will be ready it will be Mount ready

177so that you know and I know that m is able to do that I'm assuming we will have a special ceremony you know to bring that PL and to uh designate all of that uh so the only question that I had was should we move forward on the plaque right now or should we work wait until the board policy is so that we know what are the parameters I'm just this is just a a question go ahead the the resolution already gives us a precise language that is required so we would be authorized to move forward with black okay um because it's 26 words statement at the very least that that says this is what was going to the pl so language is already prescribed so it's as as the the as it reads yeah

178that's what was approved okay yeah the the precise language is already in the resolution okay and then um can I are you done with your statement I know trusty Chavez has a yeah okay I heard you say twice on February 9th is it isn't at February 8th the board meeting the board meeting for February 8 8th thank you I'm sorry yeah it will be February board meeting good job chavz thank you um okay so sounds like I was just gonna highlight and I see trusty fam and then I'll come back to you um sounds like as of now I'm hearing we have a plaque we've approved that resolution sounds like we get to move forward with that and I'm also hearing board policy um first dra that will come in February 8 8th um for

179us to read where I think I would like to also include you know um this PL that you know any other item that we um determine to be uh historical you know um and cultural designation that we follow that work policy so I look forward to seeing that um and then you know creating those um we have a lot of history here in our area that I I'm in agreement we need to make sure that doesn't just disappear um trusty you know I just wanted to you know thank trusty ptero and the administration for doing this you know I mean it you know it used to be the San Antonio old San Antonio campus it's now luchev you know it's I think it's important for us in uh in Wake of what is it a

180couple years ago there was a famous painting on uh what was then uh Payless Sho Source on story world and unfortunately there was no there was no historical preservation regulations on that one so the landlord the the owner of the property painted over a historic mural and so you know it be you know to to honor our our CH you know our our children's work however you know however long that they have graduated from our district but also a reminder of you know and I've seen that mural up post myself right it's you know the in a sense what our kids are capable capable of but also you know a representation of the hopes and dreams of our kids past present and future so I I you know I look forward to uh the draft

181of that policy at the next regular board meeting thank you all right same vice president yeah we're talking about the policy just wanted to kind of recap or remind us as to what the sense of the board was at the time um we the consensus or the thoughts were that it was supposed to be a tool to preserve significant historical monuments or things of significance it was not intended to be used as some sort of a hammer to beat us over the head withd so um I would ask the administration to just keep that in mind as you're as you're putting forward a draft um because of the business of alen rock is to educate our kids um and if something's going to get in the way of educating the kids and it's not it's

182going to wind up doing it's gonna be counterproductive but uh with that being said I think we can achieve both things so um I wouldn't expect that a policy goes out there and says that we're g to preserve every kid's like little painting on the wall or it has to be like something of substance significance um because there's a lot of art that goes out there um we can't preserve every single thing um so just want to make sure to read uh to as I recall that was kind of the sense of the board uh that evening or that when we discussed it so I just wanted to kind of reiterate that thank you vice president GTO and I'm sure the parents would love that small art from the children so it's important it's important

183thank you um okay so uh looking forward to hearing back um moving on to item 701 motion approve the annual Financial audit report mot I hear a motion from trusty Chavez and the second form vice president GTO um Dr bow any on this item to yes thank you thank you Dr bar um I would like to invite Mr Jeff Jensen from qu who will be presenting the op report to the board um he'll be covering 7.01 and 7.02 um 7.02 I do need to make a a minor edit um it currently States approved the 2223 audit performance and financial audit of the general obligation report for measure S I need to add measure I and measure J on there sorry it says measure J right now I need to add measure I and measure s

184on 71 keep J at I and S um and we'll take it one by one we'll start with 701 701 and then so we're on this motion correct and then I'll make sure to mention that when we come to 702 okay thank you so much I'm not on the agenda P gotta welcome all right thank you good evening it's good to be with you tonight to present the audit report for the end of June 30th 20123 um I have a few slides to walk through that'll boil down the audit report here into the important matters here for you and I think I have uh you know very favorable audit results to to bring the board here tonight so our job as your Auditors is to form an Express an opinion sorry it changed on my

185screen but it didn't change up there just a little slow through Zoom just oh it's on presenter mod there we go all right so our job as your Auditors is to uh form an Express form and express an opinion on the financial statements that are prepared by management as well as to look at federal and state compliance uh procedures every year and render an opinion on those areas uh there's a lot that goes into an audit and starts early in the process uh in the springtime of doing our planning procedures and and reaffirming our understanding of the of the district's processes and procedures and looking at internal controls uh visiting School sites to audit attendance and uh looking at federal and state compliance programs and then returning in the fall to actually audit the financial

186statements of the numbers of the district and come to a conclusion on your financial statements and an audit report that's submitted to the state on time by December 15 this year there was one new accounting standard on gby 996 uh it's kind of the last piece related to leases this is for subscription based it arrangements and so for br Brock it actually was not a significant standard so uh you know all the applicable standards have been adopted and this one didn't really have a significant impact on you very important to bring your attention to where no corrected or uncorrected misstatements as part of our audit so there were no audit adjustments the numbers that you all approved is part of the UN audit actuals are the same numbers that are in this audit report without

187any modification by us as your Auditors so clean audit from uh no adjustments and just some other uh typical communication we provide to you is that we had no difficulties encountered in dealing with management everyone was very helpful and and agreeable to things that we needed in order to be able to complete our procedures we didn't have any disagreements we're not aware of any other uh consultations uh that occurred and there's no other verse events certainly if there were we would have brought them to you much sooner than tonight so again I think favorable news there and as I mentioned there's several opinions that are part of your audit report so the first is your financial statement opinion so for this year end the district received an unmodified opinion that's a clean opinion that's the

188type of opinion you want on your audit report so it's a your financial statements are free of material M statement and comply with all the ethical accounting pronouncements next under Federal compliance because the amount of federal dollars the district expends we're required to do a federal audit as well and so for this year and the district received an unmodified opinion regarding Federal compliance so you had know Federal compliance findings uh the next one is State compliance there's a number of State compliance procedures every year and as usual the state add it even more this year uh and so this year the district did have a qualified opinion regarding State compliance and we'll talk in a second here there a couple of State compliance findings that were in this report and then lastly is the uh

189essentially your internal control opinion related to to those procedures and we have an unmodified opinion there so um again uh there's no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in internal control related to the district's uh Financial operations just some key uh statistics if you will there for your for your leisure there is kind know where the district stands at at June 30th so um again I think the most important line is the last one there which is you comply with the reserve requirements set forth by the state of California and as I mentioned there were two State compliance findings so the first one related to classroom teacher salaries so for an elementary school district you're required to uh expend uh 60% of your current expenses of education on classroom teacher salaries and so for the year

190end of June 30th 2023 the district was at 55.4 one see a deficiency of 4.59% and this second was on attendance so as I mentioned there's a we go visit a number of the school sites uh to do attendance testing and we had found it as part of our procedures one student who was improperly claimed for attendance when there was a note saying that the student was absent so uh that that uh really doesn't affect you at the end of the day uh but it does have to be reported so those are two State compliance by needs in this year's report and just to wrap up these comments here again financial statements are presented fairly nonm Mater respects we had no audit adjustments um there were no findings in the other areas outside of State

191compliance uh and again uh you know we like I said we visit a lot of places throughout the district over the course of our audit and everyone's always attentive and helpful to us to be able to be able to do our work and be able to conclude this report and again be able to file it on time with the state of California so with that I'll pause and take any comments that your questions that you have on this agenda item and then I can move on to the bonds thank you so I'm going to go ahead and take public comment at this time and then bring it back to the board any public comment on this item okay seeing none I'll go ahead and bring it back to the board any questions or comments from

192the board uh trusty Pam yes you know I think you know I covered this in my I had a one-onone with superintendent bow and assistant superintendent Chang but you know in regards to the classroom teacher salary you know I think for public to understand some of challenges our districts you know as a as a what is it as a lcf district we are not a basic a district I you know what are the you know what are the challenges we have in getting to that that 60% threshold to me thank you yes so just um a little bit of background represent it as a part of uh the process of closing our books and present the unod acttion we have to do this calculation um and this calculation was presented to the board back in

193September to identify this finding um and part of the uh well the main reason for school districts like us who has a high unduplicated count that receive high dollars in supplemental and concentration dollars in their lcf entitlement um those dollars are um somewhat restricted they have requirements on school districts to spend on services that are either increasing services or improved services that doesn't necessarily tie to teacher salaries so when you're spending those monies into different programs and services like after school program summer school program counselor psychologist nurse none of that actually goes to the 60% requirement and so um you know this law that was placed has been in place for over a century has never been adjusted um to the to the changes of all the laws that recently occurred specifically um to the

194laws that have been put in place in relation to lcff and so District like us find themselves in this position and so if you look across the state uh there's about close to 60% of elementary school districts that do not meet this requirement and this is the main CA a bit because the law doesn't change um with this respect but in terms of how we use our money um in relation to lcff has caused this friction between um do we meet this requirement or do we not comply with the laws in lcf and so those those are mainly the big reason why thank you than any other questions or comments okay seeing none then I'll take it to a vote uh those in favor of uh the motion to approve please raise your hand all

195right U motion passes unanimously thank you so much now um item 702 approved 2223 annual performance and financial audit of General obligation bonds report for measures JS motion by TR Chavez second by vice president ginto um I heard you have a presentation so get my comments are brief here but uh we're required or you're required to have an audit a financial audit and a performance audit of your prop 39 bond funds on an annual basis you're required to have a uh Independent Community uh oversight committee which you all have and you required to not expend bond funds on teacher salaries those are the full basic requirements in Proposition 39 uh we helped accomplish two of those the financial audit the performance audit for the three Bond measures um and so our job was to select

196a sample of those expenditures and essentially look at this relying support to make sure that they uh are valid Bond expenditures under those Bond measures and uh the conclusions that we reached on all three of those reports were that all Bond expenditures that we looked at were found to be valid Bond expenditures under those measures and we had no findings through a court related to the bond audits for this year so clean opinions regarding the bond audits great thank you um I'm going to go ahead and open it up for a public comment on this item opening it it up public comment seeing none we'll go ahead and bring it back to the trustees any comments questions say another no news is good news item so thank you thank you thank you great job thank

197you um so uh I'll go ahead and bring it to a vote we have a motion in second um at this time if trustees um uh vote um raise your hand if your in agreement to passing this item please ra your hand uh motion passes unan iously all right thank you thank you so much thank you for the opportunity work with the district yeah uh overview of the governor's budget proposals for fiscal 20 fisal year 2425 uh Dr Brower Mr Chang has the update all right Mr chain thank you recently uh return from Sacramento I hear welcome back thank you and good good evening um I'll keep this brief um as you stated uh you know there School Services heeld its budget conference yesterday and so um I want to issue a disclaimer that U

198you know due to the short timing I did borrow some of school Services uh slides to help with the presentation good Al so with that um at a high level um the governor presented um uh the budget proposal back on January 10th or 11th one of those days but um at a high level he presented budget that showed that projected a a 37.9 billion budget deficit um you may recall that in early December uh the Lao also issued its own uh forecast and you may recall a number around 68 billion dollar so um you know the the governor's budget U proposal um better than what the LA is presenting um and mainly it's because um and this I think they use this word um very carefully the governor's budget uses a less pessimistic Revenue projection

199as compared to the Lao um and so because of the budget uh deficit um there are some measures that the um Governor is proposing to reduce or to close that Gap um part of it is is drawing down the third The the Reserve by about 13.1 billion and then another 5.7 from the schools rainy day fund you might hear it that account before and then the the the rest of the balance will be covered by uh borrowing uh fund reductions and nonprofit 98 funding funding the Lays the furos uh most of this does not impact education it impacts other programs outside of Education um there is a consequences of the budget gap of the 37.9 um the end result is that it reduces prop 98 funding prop 98 is the part of money designated for

200k um to 14 uh uh education and so um the 12 billion dollar covers um a two-year period uh remember the you know the the budget window goes from covers last year this year and next year's budget so um when they received their tax collection for uh 2022 um there was a shortfall of about $26 billion uh which resulted in a reduction in prop 98 funding for 2223 um in the amount of about 9.1 billion and then in the current year um about 2.7 um so total almost about $12 billion and reduction in profit 98 so I'll start with the good news first um you know the governor could have used many tools um to close that Gap um uh that would include cuts to um to prop 98 funding which you didn't do um

201the thow has been used in the past he's not proposing that in the current budget proposal um and also he's not sweeping or um clly back any funds um that were unallocated so all these things he could have done to um to cover that budget shortfall but to protect education um you know he he's not proposing to do any of that I want to go back to the first component um it says that budget proposed no Cuts in overall pop 98 funding while I generally um agree with the statement um there's a point I'm going to make that kind of contradicts this statement um and that's with the reduction in Cola um you know as we were kind of well not promised but informed that you know the cola would have been about close to

2024% um now as it stands um it's down to about 76 so um the cola itself is calculated not it's not related to the financial health of the state itself it's a formula that takes in consideration a lot of metrics that are F data um and it just DP into a formula to calculate the cola itself and so um this is not the final Cola um there's two set of datas that needs to be considered um and so our anticipation that um that this Cola would be increasing slightly so the 76 um could be going up we don't know how much um we don't anticipate it's going to be any uh significant so um we'll be on the lookout for that um you know in upcoming months as those data comes in um the as

203you see here the cola um are impacted uh not only in the current year but also in the two years out in 25 26 and 26 27 um and you can see the reduction there as well and so with this new set of assumptions and data from the state um you know staff's going to be working on it second interim um and we'll be able to bring that in March um to present to the board um to update the board uh the financial status of the district itself s um and then critical piece is the May Revis um this is almost a final um timeline of when the board I mean the the state is going to decide many of their priorities and come down with the initial and final proposal um that they can

204uh approve uh later in June um and then that would impact Us in terms of um how we structure and develop our budget development board the outcome year so with that I would be happy to take any questions thank you I'll go ahead and open it to public comment right see none I'll bring it back to the board any questions comments from the board trusting for so the C the just you know spitballing the cola's impact on our budget it would be What U mainly on the revenue side of it because our lcff mainly our lcff um is going to be impacted um because that's the adjustment that we make from year to year in terms of you know increasing that formula or the funding itself um the cola also funds other program outside of

205LC FF like mandate program special Edge ntion all that that impacts us um but the most significant one is the lcf entitlement that um right that will be yeah I was speaking more of a do but we don't we don't know that not yet not yet we typically use bigmat to do that um and there they're also in process of updating that calculator okay um so we'll be working from now until you know march to get everything updated for put for trust you f before I I'll just I like the governor's numbers more than I do to legislate but uh so I guess in a nutshell where does that leave where does that leave us here I mean or we expecting a a shrunk a shrunken budget there Mr Chang yeah I mean we we

206can anticipate that it it's going to exacerbate you know level of spending down the reserve in the coming years um we anticipate that revenue for LC is going to be lower um therefore you I mean but I guess significant I mean you know yeah I I saw that you know the cola was uh the cola for I think 2425 was I is that it 2420 was significantly reduced so yes you know such a large reduction in the all in the proposed Cola that you know for for uh lcf District like ours that is not a Bas District that that's a that's a significant decrease is it not yes so um back in June when the state enacted their budget that col was projected to be 3.94 and now it's at you know um 76 so

207um over a 3% reduction in um in Cola yeah thank you okay seeing no others thank you so much uh for explaining it to us you know and very summ I mean I know you were there all day so thank you for bringing us a summarized uh version of what you got to hear um and hopefully you know we get a pot somewhere that they didn't realize I was there and in May maybe this might change you know keeping uh positive uh thoughts out there um so I know this was on for just discussion um and if I don't see any other questions and comments thank you so much yeah all right moving on to item 802 approv citizens bonds oversight committee appointment motion motion by second by vice president kto um Dr Bower we

208respectfully asked the board to approve the indiv ual okay um so I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comment any public comment on this item see none we'll go ahead and bring it back to the trustees any comments or questions trusty fam yes I'll just say one thank you Mr Ty for for your for volunteering I served on the bond oversight committee and uh you know it's an important job and it it too is I and I know it can be a thankless task also but uh our bond program won't work without without Community engagement so I thank Mr Ty for uh for his generosity and in putting in his time to to to serve serve the alen rock District thank you you trusty fam I Echo that so at this

209time I'm going to go ahead and bring it to vote all those in favor of uh approving Mr Ty for the bond committee raise your hand uh item passes unanimously welcome Mr Ty if you're listening if you're here yeah wherever you're at thank you for your time all right moving on to item 901 approve Arts music and instructional materials discretionary block grat motion by trusty Chavez second by vice president Kinto and um I see yes we have a presentation welcome to the podium another EX exciting moment you know this was the long awaited Arts music instructional materials ground we've been talking about it for a while and now it's before you for approval yeah good afternoon president Herrera theera Board of Trustees superintendent Bower Community my name is Dr Tara Bickford um I am the

210director of academic services and alongside me I have Emily mcchristian who is our Visual and Performing Arts coordinator and we are so excited tonight to be sharing our Arts music and material uh our constructional material block grant um that runs through 2026 and we have an allocation of 4,664 893 to work with over the next several years to make some of these things come to life so you'll see in front of you on this slide is the allowable categories of funds and leas are encouraged but not required to proportionally use their allocations for these areas we were also required to gather input from our community members our stakeholders so over the last few years actually we have been Gathering um input from teachers which they submitted written documentation with ideas and suggestions we surveyed all

211teachers and then we also held a vapa focus group where they completed A needs assessment to determine our Focus areas with the monies that we have allocated and I'm going to hand it off to Emily to share more about it thank you Tara okay so summarizing the staff input music teachers felt that money should be spent on adding lower grade music instructors expanding our current offerings replacing instruments which are Beyond repair as well as music curriculum and subscriptions the staff survey highlighted that teachers wanted more standards aligned Visual and Performing Arts materials and professional development Improvement of school climate materials and more support for ethnic studies the focus group felt that the expansion of Elementary choir art and Elementary and expansion of the instrument inventory were all needs here's our we decided to focus on

212these five areas for the plan that you will see detailed in the next slides standards align curriculum and professional development primarily around art and music and bridging curriculum School climate ethnic studies culturally responsive libraries and intervention Specialists everything in this teal section covers standards align curriculum and professional development including art curricul for all elementary core classrooms middle school art class curriculum classroom music materials and curriculum for the use of all second and third grade students we're looking at hiring additional credential music teachers through prop 28 funds enhancing Elementary band Elementary choir and middle school music enhancing our Mariachi and Jazz Band programs and Bridge materials for ELA and math curriculum the green section covers School climate professional development surrounding classroom behavior and calming Corners yellow is for ethnic studies which will support the ongoing creation

213and planning of curriculum professional development books and print materials guest speakers and field trips pink highlights culturally responsive libraries where we will create grade level teams to research and choose books for classroom libraries and professional development oranges for intervention specialist where we will provide Staffing for tier 2 intervention support to students in math and reading thank you for your time and we request your approval of our plan and welcome any questions that you might have thank you so much um at this time I'm going to open it up for public comment any public comment on this item welcome back good evening my name is Veronica to and I'm a performing arts teacher and just wanted to for the public who might be listening clarify that there are distinct differences between the Arts discretionary black rant

214and prop 28 um you've heard about prop 28 and that this is ongoing money uh that's estimated between 800 million and 1 billion a year beginning in this fiscal year however uh each School must submit an annual board approved report detailing prop 28 EXP es and I do want to highlight that um top 28 should have Music Theater dance art media uh Etc so we do have other areas where we can expand upon in our school districts I'm so pleased to finally see this uh Arts block grant results and hope that it will be supported as well as obtaining additional feedback from the teachers that are currently doing the work who have been doing the work and I also want to highlight that there are many students who are going back to the transiency and

215um the treny the things that uh the students are chronically absent for the Arts address those and students who are um in the Arts are five times less likely to drop out of school there is a community that is built in the art students learn self-expression and there are many many things that could go on and on about many of you saw the work of the entire vaa department and our coordinator at the Showcase so I just want to say that the Arts are essential to building the whole child and I hope that this will be supported going forward and continue having the feedback of those who are in the in the work day day by day thank you thank you any other public comments all right see none I'll bring it back to the

216board trustee FL Shelton thank you thank you um for this presentation and um I did so I'm very supportive I love the diversity of it I especially like you sharing the staff input and I just wanted to kind of ask the um because you know we know for a fact right you said it and she said it that the Arts contribute to you know um encouraging students to come to school stay in school I think sports do the same um so I wasn't sure hearing kind of having two separate coordinators I it looked like maybe it doesn't qualify I wasn't sure but is that something that uh and again Financial constraints being what they may is that eligible in this grant or um is that something we considered if you look at the overarching allowable

217expenses um it does cover a broad scope of multiple subject areas that you could however our staff survey and the input that we got from our stakeholders really identified the need for Visual and Performing Art support as well as culturally responsive um books like libraries for the classrooms ways we can support students in and out of that and really the emphasis on Visual and Performing Arts was phenomenal from our staff so that's not really where the need right we have to make hard decisions I totally understand I just wanted to clarify but I mean sorry yeah looking back at um these allowable expenses on the standard align material um physical education is not actually listed so oh interesting okay yeah yep so I just kind of being responsive to because I know this the sports

218has just grown um and I think I recall at kopita you know it's just a lot and overwhelming and so um maybe there's other grants where we could we could cover that and kind of think of it as another kind of tool in our toolbox the general fund may not be able to support this year I understand that but I I do think um you've come up you've taken the feedback and then you have to prioritize so I understand that so thank you just very brief comment we are trying our best to use our Extended Learning uh supports right to create more opportunities for our students to have a variety of sports I'm I'm looking at Sandra Garcia nodding because that's that's part of her so uh Alam Rock has always been at the Forefront

219you know we never I I'm very proud to say that in terms of uh Performing Arts and Music Alum Rock it regardless right that was one of the areas that was never cut you know in the worst in the darkest of nights Alam Rock kept moving right so now the the state is catching up to to us right now finally the state says oh yeah they're important right I think that that's going to happen with sports about how we're using you know all these opportunities for Extended Learning and to allow the students these opportunities that they might not have any other way very proud of Copita very proud of March Madness is coming so uh more more of that to come thank you so much thank you and the only thing I'll add is you

220know those Partnerships that you mentioned right ensuring you know go tundo NBC um and so allowing more for more Partnerships you know for possible um I love you know I'd love to see theater right grow in within our district as well um you know and there's so many opportunities so many agencies that might be really excited to partner with us so I look forward to um looking into that and I just I was just curious in regards to the staff input you know I I it's so important to make sure that those that are going to be implementing are able to you know provide feedback and they know right what what's needed but also the students I'm just wondering where the students as you know they're going to be participating what do you want you

221know we want them to show up so um was that a part of this um and if it wasn't was it because it wasn't a part of the Grant and the reporting feedback yeah I don't believe that the students were um brought into that staff or the stakeholder input but I definitely know that within bappa itself when we're issuing out things and stuff where like a lot of our teachers have um student councils and stuff to help kind of figure out those funds too in some ways but not an overarching districtwide okay yeah and I I think I'd like to you know as we I know we we do and and their voice is important to also include you know their voice moving forward forward this is great you know I'm excited and I look

222forward to growing right and hopefully the sports and all that that the state you know is able to support with that too so thank you for your presentation seeing no more questions and comments we'll um go ahead do we have a motion no no no yes I had a oh I didn't see your hand I see your hand now okay thank you so I uh thank academic services for providing this information and you know I wanted to highlight that you know we uh what is it that this District continuing commitment to providing a well-rounded education uh you know we're not only responsible for teaching the standards but also our relevant education which also means that uh things that our students give our students uh meaning to their to their academic uh journey and I wanted

223to highlight that you know there are uh you know for the first time a additional supports for this District's uh you know famous jazz band you know find you know that we have uh we we begun to to have a solution to to the transportation issue something that Jaz van has has asked of me and when I you know since I've been on this board and I'm excited that we we now have you know transfer you know there's transportation for rehearsals in the plan as well as uh new equipment for you know new uniforms for our district mariachi band as well so uh thank you so much and I you know and I hope that this is a you know a start of you know bigger and better offerings for our kids thank you thank

224you trusty fam now I'm going to bring it to a vote all those in favor raise your hand all right uh vote passes unanimously thank you so much um now we'll move on to item 902 approved Kangle designation of California state peace fol program facility responsibility Cesar Chavez Early Learning Center and CES Chavez Center motion second motion by trusty Chavez second by trusty Flores Shelton all right I'll go ahead and uh bring it to public comment at this time any members of the public wishing to address the board seeing none bring it back to our uh board any questions or comments by the board seeing none we'll go ahead and bring it to to vote all those in favor uh raise your hand all right um item passes unanimously moving on to item 903 I

225think oh yeah yeah sorry it's okay uh California Department of Education expenditure quarter one report from attitud Community Academy at G uh early learning literacy support blog Grant and literacy action plan in the year three of implement implementation Dr B I respectfully ask the board to approve this first uh uh quarter expenditure report for information only information only oh I have item 903 my bad is it just information any I'm looking at Dr BOS yes right thank you yes it's just for for the public to know how the grant is being spent do we have a report on how the there's a report in the book yeah so motion to approve no it's information those of you interested in looking at the details um it is in the board book um it is outlined there

226for um and it's on for information only thank you sorry apologize thank you it's okay moving on to item 904 approve School sponsor sculpture please motion motion by trusty CH second by trusty fam um any public item uh comment on this item seeing none bringing it back to board any comment questions from the board say Enjoy your trips I'll bring it to a vote those in favor please raise your hand those are in favor of the item please raise your hand all right uh item passes unanimously uh item 905 poly report on Williams uniform complaints approval move to approve by trusty Chavez second Flor Shelt I'm sorry trust I figured i' give you guys I at you okay sorry so um second by trusty found all right um any public comment on this item seeing

227none any questions or comments by the board all right um now bringing it to vote all members of the board um who uh voting I on this item please raise your hand all right item passes unanimously item 101 resignations information only please refer to your board book um that's getting late um comments no public comments on there for information only all right um moving on to item 1002 uh job description approv perance worker one so uh for the following items 102 103 104 105 and 1006 um I'm gonna ask Mr Cerna he has a short presentation and he's going to give you a background uh regarding this um revi revisions to the job description he has been working with Teamsters um to achieve this just a technical question because of the written uh the memo

228states that you know it's a revised csca job description and the description says it's a teamers so is this Teamsters or you know uh CCA teamer okay teamer he's gonna leave the presentation on all and then you vote one way go fast so as as he preps we're going to hear the presentation on all the items but we will vote on them one by one so following we're going to be voting on them one by one but he'll do the presentation thank you okay uh Madame President members of the board superintendent Bower members of cabinet um my name Jessa I have still a t here and I'm continue to be honored to be able to work with your team here you know I wasn't going to do this but I'm I'm going to I don't

229have anyone's permission roio can call me later because probably maybe a brown ey I'm going to blame any when Dr Alan um okay as you know I'm from Stockton and I worked for stocking UniFi for a few years which is so important to me um 35 years ago yesterday a man walked on to one of our campuses and killed five children and wounded 12 others that school is um at that time predominantly enrolled with Southeast asan children and the five children that were murdered were Southeast Asian so I just want to remind everyone how precious life is and how important the work that we do that was the first mass shooting in the United States and we haven't learned much since then um came on with a semi-auto automatic we killed five children so I

230I just want to remind you of that um it's important to me as a resident of Stockton and former staff member of stock and unified it can happen anywhere so let's just keep remembering that okay all right so let me move on to something more I think uh not as as difficult as that um as a result of um the 2324 Collective baring agreement with Teamsters the district agreed to conduct a classification study of the maintenance worker series um in addition to that uh that uh agreement included the establishment of a a committee made up of both team Serv and district and I will tell you this um this work was really a pleasure for me for a number of reasons one um my I cut my teach and they called it Personnel back then

231but now it's HR I was a a um classification compensation analyst for saning County and did that initially and then eventually supervised the classification compensation uh unit so it allowed me to continue to do go back and do that work that I did in my early career the other reason it was a pleasure is I I know how important and value that this district has in its Partnerships with its labor partners and this truly was a partnership with teamers and the district so that the the uh committee was formed and the the purpose of the of of that classification study was to take a look at the maintenance series maintenance worker Series update it and ensure that those that classification was compliant with the law and with the accomplishing what we wanted it to accomplish

232just so you know that maintenance worker series was established in 1977 um almost 50 years ago and the core outcomes of a a good classification system should allow you to one recruit should allow you to evaluate should allow you to compensate and then EV and eventually retain talented good staff to to do the work that needs to be done so that was our our Our intention the steps that we took were to um as a committee we met probably a dozen times uh we looked at the old classifications we had some incumbents complete questionnaires and then we interviewed some of those incumbents who were doing that work um and then we completed a report and and and that's what you will we're asking you to approve tonight the the series yeah sorry I don't know

233how I'm I'm an old guy so I don't know how to operate this the arrow there you wow there we go [Laughter] do the classification series consisted at that at at prior to this our recommendation of Maintenance work for one two and three then later on I created um um trade specific classifications IE electrician plumber um and and and so on and then eventually it created a fourth level of trade workers that was done in the late 2000s and and really the the intention behind that which was the maintenance worker four was reallying the artificial classification all that did was to recognize some individuals quite honestly and to to adjust salaries so our recommendation uh at the end of this is to uh adopt the classifications you have in front of us which is maintenance

234worker one two and three and then the lead uh building maintenance worker the lead grounds worker one of the U factors or elements part of the study in our recommendation is if it's not in this report on the slide here the maintenance worker the new maintenance worker one will serve as a maintenance worker one for 18 months after 18 months uh and a satisfactory evaluation they'll move automatically into to maintenance worker too that allows the district to grow its own employees its own staff uh those with those specific trades in addition uh part of the study recommends the that AR official classification of maintenance worker four was being paid at U range 15 of the of the salary structure we're recommending that uh the M the new maintenance worker 3 be that range 15 now

235which a little over a 5% increase with them there's about 12 of them again that will allow those folks to grow that allow them to obain those skills as a the journey level trades person and allow the district to again to continue to recruit and retain staff so staff recommendation is to adopt the new uh classifications of one maintenance worker two maintenance worker three lead U buildings uh worker and Lead grounds worker um happy to answer any that you may have um again this was has been signed off by the team Union they're in full agreement with this study and our recommendation the last thing I want to do I'd like to recognize the team that that worked on this study and that was Trevor EMT Eli vro P Fu Alan Dory and then on

236the district side with Dr Clon and Ed out happy to answer any questions that you may have um do I hear a motion for item 1002 uh approval to for maintenance work motion to approve second motion by truste fam second by trusty Chavez um okay so at this point I'm going to open it up public comment and then I'll bring it back to the board public comment on the item seeing none I'll bring it back to the board any questions or comments from the board all right see uh trusty Chavez I do have a question you said that they automatically move from um from one to two after 18 months um is there what should I say that's fair but in the other move is there it is it the same time and if they

237don't no the the movement from two to a three or to a lead worker is a competitive profit so they will need to that those many years of experience at that level they will then have to interview they'll have to apply and interview for that three level in Job that was my next question if they don't perform proficiently that do they move on to the next level that's correct okay thank you okay U thank you so much for that detailed presentation and also collaboration with our labor Teamsters um Partners uh and so at this time I'll bring it back for vote um if you're in favor of this item please uh show your hand raise your hand all right item passes unanimously I'm moving on to 100:3 any motion to approve motion second motion by

238trusty Chavez second by trusty fam uh open it up for public comment at this time seeing none I'll go ahead and bring it back any questions or comments from the board seeing none I'll go ahead and bring it to a vote all those in favor uh please raise your hand motion passes unanimously uh item 10:4 maintenance worker three approval job description motion second motion by trusty cha um I'm sorry fam and second by trusty Chavez opening it up for public comment at this time seeing none I'll go ahead and bring it back to the board any questions or comments from the board all right seeing none I'll bring it to a vote please raise your hand if you're in favor of this item uh item passes you unanimously uh item 105 maintenance worker approval of

239job description a motion by to motion by trusty Chavez second by trusty fam all right moving it on to public comment any public comment on this item seeing none I'll go ahead and bring it back to the board any questions or comments from the board trusty Chavez I kind of see your hand no you know I'm all right uh seeing none I'll go ahead and bring it to a vote all those in favor of this item please raise your hand all right item passes unanimously uh item 10 uh second motion by truste bam second by trusty Chavez to approve the job description of lead maintenance worker building maintenance opening it up for public comment at this time seeing none I'll bring it back to the board any questions or comments from the board seeing none

240I'll bring it to a vote all those in favor please raise your hand um motion passes unanimously all right item 10:07 approve the adoption of the district's initial bargaining proposal to open negotiations with area for the period of July 1 2024 through June 30th 2026 motion motion to approve by trusty Chavis second second by trusty Flor Shelton all right um opening it up for public comment at this time seeing none I'll bring it back to the board any questions or comments by the board all right seeing none I'll go ahead and bring it to uh vote all those in favor please uh raise your hand pass uh passes unanimously all right great now moving on to item 12 consent calendar second move to approve by vice president kto second by trusty Chavez to move the

241um consent calendar um I'm going to go ahead and open that up to public comment at this time all right seeing no public comment I'm going to go ahead and bring it back to the board uh for any questions or comments seeing none I'll go ahead and bring it to a vote all those in favor please show your by raising your hand all right uh passes unanimously all right thank you so much um uh superintendent Bower um do you have any um announcements on the post session time I'll be happy to uh read aloud the items sure um item 1303 conference with legal council anticipated litigation as stated on the agenda 1304 conference will legal council update on existing litigation as stated on the agenda item 1305 conference will legal council appeal of findings in

242investigation report 1306 conference with labor negoti negotiators employee organization area 1307 Public Employee discipline dismissal release and 1308 Public Employee appointment title assistant principle thank you so much do you think an hour is sufficient to let our public or an hour and a half what do you think I will say to be on the safe side an hour okay so let's have a 10 uh 11 minute break so bring uh conveni and close session at 9:20 and then an hour and a half after that would bring us to 11 I'm sorry here's my math 10 1050 50 so we'll see you all back we need to take comment thank you um at this time I'll go ahead and take public comment on this item all right seeing none we'll go ahead and move uh forward

243to close session thank you so much see you at 10:50 he just wanted all right we have Quorum back in the room calling meeting back to order 11:06 uh Dr Brower do we have any announcements Mr Toro has uh the announcement of session thank you item 13.08 on a motion by trustee Chavez seconded by vice president Kim by unanimous vote the board approved the employment of Jasmine Sylvester as the assistant principal of aptitude Academy effective February 15 2024 there are number items to report from close session all right thank you so much and welcome um congratulations congratulations and welcome uh so number 15 future board agenda requests request from the Board of Trustees and or from the public request shall be submitted in writing to the superintendent or designate with supporting documents and information if

244any at least one week before the scheduled meeting date items submitted less than a week before the scheduled meeting date may be postponed to a later meeting in order to allow sufficient time for consideration and research of the issue uh and I'd like to adjourn the meeting at 11:07 good night everyone