Special Board Meeting

001demeter [Music] i'm not sure [Music] all right [Music] i'm hearing some feedback i got the speaker's name can you hear me hello can you hear me yeah we can hear you there's a lot of echo on this end is that better uh say something again is that better yeah it's a little better all right yeah it was just a speaker from the laptops i needed to be muted all right um call us we need to order at 603 pm [Music] um do we have uh translation yes uh all right thank you all right um call this meeting order at 603 already can you call the roll today is a special board meeting of may 26 2022 at 6 00 p.m members of the board in attendance president andres quintero president vice president mim pham president

002corina administration superintendent dr bauer president all right uh according haven't been established we're gonna go ahead and move on with the land acknowledgements the board of trustees of the alum rock union elementary school district does hereby acknowledge that the district schools and facilities sit on the traditional lands of the moek maloney and the board of trustees further acknowledges with respect and reverence to maloney people tribe of san francisco bay area for their stewardship of these lands all right we're gonna go ahead and proceed with the pledge of allegiance please find your flag close to you ready salute i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america america and the republic for which it stands uh item 2.01 discussion approval of the process for interviewing and selecting a firm for energy consulting service

003um dr baugh do you want to go ahead and talk about the process that we've laid out for this i'm gonna turn it over to mr cheng so that he can kind of frame you know why we're here great thank you dr bauer and good evening board president members of the board and superintendent dr bauer um i'll start off with a little bit of the background first and then go through the format and the processes of the interview um in terms of the background you may recall the board uh with the board's erections uh the districts issued an rp for a firm to provide energy services consulting services for the district um and as such we released the rp on april 22nd with a deadline to submit proposal by may 16 which is about a

004three-week window the district also published the rp with challenge news which is a trade journal where a lot of contractor goes and seek proposals such as these were such this one um and also with the help of our program manager uh they were able to send uh directly those rp's to firms that they were aware of um so those are the background in terms of what we did uh with the rp itself um in terms of the format of the interview um it'll be similar to the work to what the board has been has done in the past uh with a slight variation um given that we only have one firm here tonight and so with that uh the format will be uh this form will be allotted a total of 15 minutes for the

005whole interview which consists of the following five minutes will be allotted for the firm to present to the board and then the second part the form will be allotted ten minutes for the board to ask a total five questions with board members asking one question each since there's only one firm there will be no need for the board to submit a score at the end of the interview the board can take a yes or no vote and that concludes the process and what president may i uh staring makers from coming she was going to help us understand you know we have we usually have more firms that have applied and to this process so in order to provide our audience with the explanation of what happened i have asked terry to join us she's on

006soon to be able to tell you you know what happened um and i'm not going to say more so that i can give her some time so maribel is she able is she a passion okay very good yeah hi hi um so we just wanted to explain the process a little bit um what we're finding right now is that a lot of the consultants are extremely busy due to the timing um and the increased interest in solar energy so this is we're seeing a kind of across the board less and less consultants available to actually do the work um this group in particular um we were looking for a third party consultant that could actually give us um a really good overview of what our options were and help us make a final decision in

007exactly what is best for the district so overall we feel really good about the company that uh did submit and we do look forward and the rfp was very well written and and um is really thorough so i think it's we're going to get the information that we need unfortunately right now we're just seeing consultants are just overly busy um so i hopefully i think that gives enough explanation dr bauer thank you terry the rfp so that the board house yes the publication that we use is called challenge news it's a trade journal and this is the publication where a lot of contractor goes uh when they're seeking work and these type of proposals and this is widely used correct yeah and we post it yes and we post it for two weeks straight um

008on that publication all right i see that um well board member knows how to stand up for a while um were there any questions you have committed i'm sorry president uh to me yeah you had your hand up oh yeah sorry about that the sound is really muffled from everybody so i'm just trying to got a mask so we could comply with our yeah yeah because i saw somebody took their mask down and it was clear but other than that it's pretty muffled right now but um the question that i had was um i have a few things but for colvera right now first of all just for clarification i think i heard um both speakers say it at this point but what we are looking for tonight is um a consultant that will help

009us understand our options what's available to us what might be the direct the best direction to go in and not necessarily not the actual contractor who will do any work that we decide to go in that direction is that correct yes that's correct um this is to do the assessment to provide a recommendation and not for the design and build component of the work itself okay thank you for that and then my second question maybe is a two-parter did i heard you i think say mr chang that at the end it won't be necessarily we don't need to score it'll just be a yes no because there is only one candidate that is correct okay so i'm wondering now this i guess opens it up to uh president on the rest of the board um

010if we might have the opportunity or might consider entertain the opportunity since there is only one candidate and since there really is no selection to be made other than yes or no if after we asked those five questions that we might have the opportunity to ask any follow-up questions or clarifying questions or anything beyond that um typically i wouldn't say in a normal process this would be a good idea just because there's too many candidates and it models the process but since there's only one i just wonder up front if we decide that maybe somebody wants to follow up or get any more clarity if that might be something that we could put on the table as an option uh all right the question um you know especially due to the increased interest in solar

011and you know we only we do have a firm that is committed and we should respect respect the process is laid out and you know uh not uh not add any new variables to this process uh for the comments questions uh whatever travis uh i agree with you he said what's the time and asking more questions um as far as following the process the process has always been that we have to get several firms but being that we do not have several firms i think it's a good idea to ask more questions thank you further questions comments all right um i president okay so just as a clarifier i don't know if it's a statement or a question but i believe with regards to respecting the process um you know usually i am a particular

012for that but i my understanding is that the process itself is actually not in place until we agree to it in this discussion that we're having now so we have kind of like a framework that we use as the guideline for how we end up doing the process in this discussion but this discussion is actually where we are creating a process for tonight if that's my understanding or if that my understanding is correct so yeah we are developing the process and so at this point i am uh interested in we so yes we're developing the process now um i'm going to make my comments at this point we've received an rfp we see a significant amount of information that we can read there we have our questions that we can ask in public and then

013at that time we can go ahead and as the board make our decisions i would hope that the information you received within the rfp and what you glean from this uh presentation to the board will be um you know will be substantial and we can go ahead and base our decisions from that if there's further questions um that you know if they're technical and i don't know something that wasn't included in the rfp i'm sure you can ask after the fact um but i think they've been a significant amount of reach of the fact that they already provided so i'm comfortable proceeding with the with the question uh that we've all developed in advance and asking it here in public and uh and moving forward with what we've been given that's my position uh any

014other comments from members of the board uh yeah this is a new hand all right actually this is um i respect you know i can respect that and i like i said i'm certainly i like to defer to being a stickler to the process so if that's the will of the remainder of the board then i'm okay with that um but i did have a kind of important kind of i guess opinion or statement that i wanted to share about our process um and so just when we created this process for um you know it was about being transparent about our selection process so that the public could see what you know what a company or an individual had that made them the best selection for the district whether it was uh selection of a

015trustee or a firm or whatever and so in order to be more objective about this kind of inherently subjective process we created this likert scale scoring system one to five basically that allows us to judge a candidate on on that scale when the pipe based on the quality of the detail of their response to any given question and so my first observation about how we're kind of moving forward um more recently i guess is that i'm seeing more and more in our question and first of all um you know i this is my opinion and i understand that every one of us has the the right to ask whatever question is appropriate and i respect that and this is not directed towards anyone in particular um so any response to this i guess would be

016telling to me but this is just my opinion and my observation is that more and more i'm seeing kind of close-ended yes or no questions and for me this this for me personally this doesn't really help much with the notion of transparency for the public or if it does it does so at a very basic level um just yes or no and secondly i find it difficult to sometimes score these binary yes no answers on a one to five scoring scale so if they if they provide no answer for me that would be a zero um if they say either yes or no whether regardless yes or no is a five for me because i'm scoring them not on whether their political stance or their position on an item is aligned with mine but whether

017they answer the question that they're asked so if they're asked to ask a yes no question and they respond that's automatically a five for me um and so i guess an alternative that i might suggest in some of these when someone is asking a question like this um an example could be something like have you ever um you know have you ever worked in a way oh wait let me see instead of asking have you ever worked in a way that was not in the best interest of a district which typically would result in a yes or no answer that question could be reframed to ask something along the lines of please explain how you will have the district's best interest in mind and in that way um for me again it becomes more than

018just a yes no answer and it provides us with more information from which to score on that one to five scale the second thing that i have that i wanted to point out and the last thing um i'm a little concerned again me personally that i've observed that these questions seem to be becoming an opportunity or a platform for for any for one of us a board member um to kind of like make a political statement um and obviously again anyone can ask whatever they want i'm not taking that away from someone but i think these types of questions that seem to me to have a political opinion or slant to them um you know it goes against the spirit of the process that we've developed and it makes it more difficult to make an

019objective selection based on merit and not based on the um the political position or response of any individual or firm um so i just those were observations that i made again just personal opinions observations of mine not directed towards anyone in particular but i think for me it was um it's valuable to bring these up and for us to just maybe be wary or conscious of them because at the end of the day we're trying to use this process to make a well-informed transparent selection to the public and um and so i just wanted to put that out there and and thank i thank you all for allowing me the time to do so all right uh board member thank you um and thank you trustee bakarano for that um i know that we all

020took the time to submit our questions whatever they ended up being i know we have a list of those already for this meeting um but thank you for making those points uh trustee nano for future meetings and i think based on our discussion i'm in agreement with uh board president quintero um in regards to following through with um how we have it planned you know the 15 minutes as clover presented um and then at that point if you know there's something big that's missing or you know there's a highlight that we're like you know we must need more information before making our decision um i appreciate it at that point then you might open it up for additional questions so um i'd like to i don't know if it's uh we get to put a

021motion or if we just decide collectively um we can go ahead and move to drive motion to adopt the process has been outlined uh motion to adopt the process a motion by a board member second by foreign all in favor please send each phone staff and there is no public comment all right um further from members of the board i'll go ahead and call you as i see you uh board member travis no board member yes uh board member uh right let's go ahead and proceed with the interview um can sure thank you board president mr russell when you're ready um you have five minutes for the first part to present to the board um let us know and the time will fall thank you [Music] good evening everyone good evening board members and thank

022you so much for uh inviting me down to talk to all of you tonight um my name is russell driver i am a principal with arc alternatives we're an energy consulting firm located in the bay area um and uh i'm gonna keep my remarks hopefully to just these five minutes i think you'll find as we go through the q a you probably won't get a simple yes or no answer out of me no matter the question um we're quite passionate about energy projects and about um supporting our clients and schools in particular so i'm very excited to be here a little bit i thought i'd start out with a little bit about our company what we do i'm not going to go through too much information that was already in the proposal it sounds like

023um you've all seen that already which is great and and i appreciate um that you've had taken the time to do that so um we're we're a small consulting firm that only acts as energy advisors to local governments in california including schools cities and counties and higher ed we are not affiliated with any technology providers or solar or energy efficiency systems um installers or anything like that so we're completely independent and that's how we we sort of make our bread and butter in this business um this slide that i put together hopefully all of you can see it or you have hard copies thank you you can see some of our clients of notes we've done a lot of school district work here in california specific to energy we've done strategic plans we've done prop

02439 planning we've done solar and energy efficiency audit work and feasibility studies we also do we lead procurements we help our clients find the vendors and installers we're gonna implement these energy projects and the layer we have on top of all of that is is the engineering support my two co-founders and business partners are both professional engineers we have a senior engineer who's a professional engineer who does all of our sort of utility analysis and savings analysis so everything we do is really based on a an appropriately conservative view of what these energy projects can really deliver for our customers i'll talk about it a little bit later you know our compensation model is very straightforward we're just an old-fashioned consulting firm that does time and materials sort of work with our clients whether or

025not you proceed with any energy projects doesn't affect what you pay us you just pay us for our time uh and for our advice so that enables us to to really look at these projects in a way that's that's sort of coldly rational and honestly not every kind of energy project is going to result in financial savings um or even much environmental benefit depending on how it's conceived and installed in addition to procurement support we tend to follow a lot of the projects that we help our school district clients with through into construction and even beyond we offer a sort of energy management outsource service where we help our clients oversee their energy vendors and make sure that the savings that were promised at the beginning of the project are delivered over time and we

026try to do this as cost effectively as possible we know um how important um and and how scarce budgetary resources are for all our clients um this second slide i'm on slide uh page three now in the in the presentation just lays out who our team is so you can see it's not just me in the company i wasn't able to to bring my teammates with me um tonight but you see that um we've got curtis schmidt who's a very important part of our firm is the technical engineering lead for a lot of the work we do i manage uh our sort of solar and most of our k-12 portfolio focus on procurement issues contract negotiation um writing rfps and that sort of thing um the the next slide i'm trying to make the the

027point here that our experience is very broad we are we are not we are practically unique in this uh sector among energy consultants in that we deal with energy efficiency solar renewables battery storage and microgrids so we have very broad experience across all different kinds of energy projects we do audits ourselves uh we write specifications we oversee contracts and then on the right hand side i know solar gets a lot of attention so i highlighted on this slide the depth of our experience in the k-12 environment with solar uh 57 different clients over 70 megawatts of solar that we have helped oversee be installed we haven't installed any of it uh with over 16 vendors [Music] uh and then the last thing i'll leave you with with my remaining 30 seconds is is sort of

028our pitch you know why work with our alternatives the advantages that i think we have are that we're very dedicated to deploying best practices uh in what we do and much of that is learned from following these projects all the way through construction what we do isn't theoretical it's informed by real world experience we do some pretty sophisticated stuff with our tools and we focus a lot on risk identification and risk management so we want to make sure that these projects turn out the way we think they're going to at the beginning thank you thank you with that uh we'll go on to the second part which is this opportunity for the board to ask the total five questions uh with board members uh asking one each all right uh remember do you have a

029question right uh no can you ask somebody else please oh wait okay how would you guide the board how would you guide the board to select a solar energy program that won't become obsolete too soon or become hazardous material material as the future unfolds two examples like asbestos later became known it is hazardous to everyone's health and to this day is in some schools another example is in the houses around reed hill view airport have led in the painting in the house on the houses and are affecting children's health as well as the community around it causing more harm than the fuel ever has how would you advise a secure and safe and environmental impact sure um the the you've sort of highlighted almost the first step that we go through which is to understand

030the district's priorities and concerns when implementing a project in the beginning of your question was how would we advise you to select a company and so we're usually pretty um deliberate and robust in the way when we help lead a procurement process for vendors like these and laying out not just the specifications but the selection criteria for them and so if environmental stewardship and and sort of end of life recycling programs are really really important and it sounds like they may be here that is something we would emphasize as a requirement in the specification and make sure that their responses would address those concerns um it's it's frankly a little bit um harder to get your arms around managing um those environmental concerns for systems that are in place and operational right because they're enclosed

031in glass and they tend to be on elevated structures or on roofs and so they're generally considered pretty safe but we would look into those issues and make sure that we had either a communication plan or some other information to make sure that everyone here was comfortable with with what's in those solar modules that are that would be on your sites for 20 plus years in my experience it's mostly been about the end of life kinds of issues and that's where you want to make sure that those those modules are going into a recycling program in an appropriate way other things we've done around end of life is make sure that um there is a plan in place and either money set aside if the district is doing the financing or if it's a third

032party finance project like power purchase agreement for that transition at the end for decommissioning the system and not all projects have that baked in and so you get to the end of the project and there's a little bit of a tug of war about not just ownership of those assets but what becomes them and so we can do the planning up front to make sure that that's incorporated in the contracts um should that be a priority thank you welcome there's a lot included in that question russell i want to make sure to clarify that this board has taken official action to uh with regard to the retail of the airport uh and our position um just want to make sure that you don't receive mixed messages board has already taken action to support the closure

033that airport because of the impact of the lead it's having on the children of east san jose galera then what's that and so now i just want to make sure to clarify our official position of this board given the fact that it was mentioned in this question okay thank you um board member as a community based school district we are in committed to ensuring that our project benefits our local residents as well as honoring the labor movement that has shaped babylon can you provide a clear commitment to using only local union labor for the project uh in that we're not um constructing the project i i i'll answer that question from again the perspective of a a expert resource to help make sure that this district gets its goals met as far as its energy

034projects and i would say we have certainly worked um with districts and clients where um local labor requirements and union labor requirements were included in the contracts um to the extent you know allowable by law um and so we're very used to doing that and and frankly it's just a matter of making sure that's clearly articulated again as a requirement for those firms that are responding to actually build um and and where it's more of a preference and you can't get it as a hard requirement like oftentimes we work in a situation where the board is expressing a preference for local labor and and we can deal with that as an evaluation uh issue as opposed to a contractual issue or both we did a great project supporting the county of alameda which had a

035workforce development aspect to it and each each solar vendor had to had to submit a workforce development plan uh in addition to just complying with things like prevailing wage and those kinds of requirements so again it's something we can work on and emphasize to the extent we need to uh to get the responses you need and frankly where solar is concerned specifically and into a bit of a lesser extent with other energy projects um the most of the the providers the vendors if you will want to pull skilled um labor like electricians from local halls anyway and so there's a lot of alignment in terms of those goals and it's just making sure we check those boxes and get that done for you thank you very much welcome uh board uh board member bad on

036them you gotta unmute yourself i thought i did sorry about that um let's see okay can you share any examples uh is this the right question they're out of order the ones that i have oh yeah it is sorry about that can you share any examples of when you have been involved with the project where moving forward with some form of solar energy did not make financial sense for the client particularly a school district with regards to your project approach that's mentioned in your proposal how does starting at a high level and progressively working towards more detail help to determine whether a project like this is financially beneficial no it's a that's a great question and it goes to the core of what we think um our offering really is all about and it has

037certainly happened in a couple of circumstances where we've we've worked with school district clients um more most recently with sort of smaller school districts because a lot of the solar economics and the the cost of the solar systems is is sort of volume based there are economies of scale there and so um we did a project at palermo unified school district where we we did all the first phases of the project and the assessments and and ran the economic models and it just simply didn't result in savings and so we recommended not to proceed forward and they did not and and that's sort of where our consulting effort um ended up there um we also look at other criteria we've the other example i can think of which sort of broke the other way was

038for palo alto unified where the project we came up with showed overall savings but not positive cash flow for the first couple of years and that that was a difficult process to go through for them because obviously that affects near-term general fund balance um but they decided to proceed with the project anyway because it showed longer term savings and so there's a bit of a continuum uh around that question and we can help you work through how to do that the other part of your question was about starting at a high level and working down and this conversation isn't dissimilar to the kinds of things we like to do at the beginning of a project namely understand from from our client from your organization what we're solving for you know what are the goals because

039a lot of these sort of elements uh environmental benefit financial benefit use of local labor buy america for components all these things need to be optimized and there are times in conflict with one another and so understanding what outcomes you want and what your your clear goals and objectives are for your energy work helps us tune what we're doing so so we can achieve those outcomes and you can just imagine how trying to put in the most energy-saving solar project or set of energy efficiency projects would be a different outcome from for example reducing the district's carbon footprint to the maximum allow you know maximum possible those are different things so this would look like very different projects and so that's the high level and we work down to specifications once we understand what we're

040trying to achieve thank you uh board member what challenges or issues have you run into with other school districts what have you done to remedy the challenges or issues and what did you learn from it so it does not happen with other school districts in the future yeah it's uh that that's a great question and you know those challenges that you refer to are really different over time and and so i'll focus on the here and now a little bit more and and it probably won't surprise any of you to hear that our biggest challenge with energy projects right now um is the supply chain and the the increasing costs uh in commodities recently combined with other factors that that are causing the vendor community again the folks would actually build these things to have

041trouble retaining their talent uh and their resources puts us in just this resource-constrained world right now and so everything's a little bit more heightened everything's a little higher risk it's harder to get things done on schedule it's harder to get vendors to keep the pricing that they give you and so our lessons learned from all of that is is you know i would hearken that back to the sort of risk identification risk mitigation process that we like to go through is take them one at a time and figure out if we're going to solve that through procurement means or contractual means or schedule means and i'll give you an example of what i'm talking about so it doesn't just seem like greek to you um steel price has been going up a lot and fast

042and and all projects i've been working on i've had solar vendors come back and sort of beg for additional compensation to offset some of those costs the key way to insulate yourself from that is to shrink the amount of time between when they bid and when they procure or order their steel and so there are lots of different trade-offs there but that we would go through a process with you and the vendor to get that risk on them and free them up to secure their tonnage of steel which is a big deal in solar projects because they're usually built on those elevated structures that you see all over and at one of the school right here right i drove by that um and so that's an example of being aware of the risk and not

043just letting the project roll along and find you're in trouble so we have a pretty good handle on where the pressure points are on these projects and so we will identify them and track them with you and the help of the staff and and and come up with with a plan if you will a mitigation strategy for each one as we can has firm ever been the subject of or been involved in an investigation that resulted from your work with client oh uh no never darn that is sort of a yes or no question i don't have a whole lot more to say about it oh let me add to that not only no but but i i think we said it in our proposal i i really do hope that you or your staff

044are able to talk to some of our prior clients because we really pride ourselves in the the kind of customer service we we provide all of them and i i think you would hear that uh in checking our references so how's that first slipping that in all right so the next step is deliberations from the board okay thank you all very much thank you um all right uh what is the will of the board and how do you want to proceed any comments from the book you know what let me take comments from the public board president there's no uh public comment is that what you're asking for right now yes yeah there's no public comment all right you never know from the comments is there any comments yes thank you president i will just

045say that um i'm sorry i i didn't get your name uh mr uh driver russell driver mr driver sorry i didn't know um but i appreciate you for coming tonight and and for providing us our responses i thought um the responses that we received were very thorough and i'm very comfortable with what we heard even the yes quote unquote yes no answers still were you know expanded upon to provide us some some more depth and context and i appreciate that um so i'm very comfortable with the responses and if uh president quintero would be open to it i would um put a motion on the floor to um what would it be to approve um the firm for um for our consulting services yes article sorry about that all right i'll second i'll have a

046comment i want to [Music] and you know i've read your rfp and i saw your presentation so uh you know it is a very promising proposal so uh we appreciate you uh you know reaching out and hopefully getting the opportunity to work with our district all right let's read a motion in a second uh open up further discussion board member chavez um thank you for coming here today and um all your answers were right on point the only thing i'm uncomfortable with is just that there's only one but i don't want to hold up the process thank you for the comments for the work uh board member [Music] thank you board president thank you so much for applying and taking the time um to go through the process um and also providing very thorough answers

047i feel comfortable with moving forward and the only thing i will ask in regards to the motion and the second um i know that we had talked about a um going through and uh doesn't matter if we vote as a board i mean if it's going to be a yes or no or or do we need to submit the form that we usually do with a yes or no no we adopted the process as we're just going to deliberate at the board okay and we'll take a motion in a second perfect i just want to make sure that we do this make it go uh every step and take note yeah yeah if i may suggest uh to add to the motion is also if the board chooses to vote yes to go for it

048is to authorize staff to negotiate a contract to bring for the board's consideration at a later date well remember do you want to go ahead and add that to your motion yes i would um be fine with adding that to the motion all right so the motion is to approve the contract with our alternatives to negotiate to our authorized staff to negotiate the contract authorized staff to negotiate the contractor three alternatives ah there's a motion a second um i'll go ahead and finish up with my comments uh this process has been um part of a long drawn-out process and now we're gonna go with what is it again their second time looking into this and so this has been incredibly transparent uh process has been looked at more multiple times in multiple settings community meetings

049outside and so i'm very very uh comforted by the fact that we're we're going through a transparent process here um that brings forward an applicant that usually would not even come to a meeting this would take place behind the scenes uh dealt with by staff but i don't know but abundance of caution and because of the fact that this board has chosen to be super duper ultra transparent um we've uh brought in a um a contractor that usually would not probably run into to have any like this to look at a contract it would just take place as a ministerial function of somebody in the district office so thank you for uh attending the meeting and for for answering all the questions i'm very comfortable with what i've heard and i'm looking forward to seeing

050what the results are regardless of what the information is because i know it'll allow us to make an informed decision as we proceed so with that said i'll call you as i see you and we'll go for a vote um board member chavez nothing personal but no board member hi board member boardwatch further fun i work clerk hi with myself we're now the motion passes 421. thank you all very much thank you all right moving on to item 3.01 uh do we have any public comments on 3.01 for president there's no public comment i don't see no rain no hands raised uh see none then we'll go ahead and ask for a do you have motion on the approval of school sponsorship or uh yes just a motion and a comment there uh i wish

051the meyer kids a good time at the carnival parade all right so they're not going to have a blast uh four oh well hold on i need a second second you know second by board clerk further questions or comments or members of the board i see your hand ups board member thank you um i just want to say congratulations to all the students who will be attending not just a carnival parade which is exciting in itself but also being with the le mundo i want to thank dele mundo for opening up and inviting our children to join them um in this once in a lifetime you know well once every four years but you know who knows they won't be um is it fourth graders or so it's like that that's what i wanted to

052clarify it's one student's per site one student is going to be representing the the nations that are going to be playing in the world cup that's exciting um and to you know represent the nations and to um see our community learn and understand beyond alum rock is amazing right and uh to join others in that celebration you know um that i i think you know during these times um although hard sometimes to do it considering everything are important to be able to come together and celebrate as community and do something positive and just raise raise that vibration you know um with one another so hope you all have a good time the staff i will be joining them as well and i wanted to thank the le mundo staff again thank you for the comments

053report well thank you telemundo for your excellent partnership uh appreciate the copita partnership and now just continuing on with this i know that that's going to be a memorable experience for all the children that are going to participate though i had a blast of field trips and then this one's going to be on a whole other level it um it beats the regular mission and stuff like that it's really going to make it happen so it's really really cool uh thanks to staff for i know that it could be easy to say just another more paperwork or something like that and um folks might be able to push back but appreciate the willingness of staff to jump on board and make it happen and be supportive of it rather than saying well i know it's

054just too much work other things so uh appreciate that um all right we have a motion in a second uh wherever travis has a question that's okay all right time-lapses we have motion in a second do we um and i'll go ahead and call you as i see you we've already called for public comment or remember travis oh yeah board member hi uh board restaurant aye for clerk aye my sophomore night motion passes unanimously all right um moving on to 4.01 approval ratification to approve let me finish up okay uh item 4.01 is approval ratification of senator grumman between ellen rock union elementary school district and uh elm rock educators association for the period of july 1st 2022 through june 30th 2023 um disclosure major major provisions that may be 1200 i have a motion

055by board vice president found out a second second second by board clerk uh any comments from the public there is one hand raised that's pretty good evening this is jocelyn mers president of the alum rock educators association i want to thank you trustee fam for your enthusiasm and hope that the other the rest of the board will be as supportive and to ratify this contract i apologize i'm kind of losing my voice tonight but um i'm very happy to have this agreement resolved prior to the end of the school year i do believe that it will make a difference in in um retaining some of our teachers and hopefully in recruiting for those positions that we will need to be filling for the fall so thank you for your anticipated approval of this ratification of

056this agreement there's no more further comment all right i'll go ahead and bring it back it looks like for uh four of us further found that santa uh yes well thank you mr president uh you know i'm happy to see this uh it's been a uh you know quite a journey on the at the negotiating table and uh you know this is a symbol of good faith between our district and the finest teachers in the city of san jose and i say that sincerely so uh you know this is uh what within the financial needs of this district and uh in today's times it uh behooves us that uh we show solidarity we understand what it what it takes and and what it means to teach in some of the most challenging times in public

057education so it is with that that i urge my colleagues to ratify the tentative agreement thank you for the comments from the board thank you um i i just want to uh congratulate the teachers the union the staff our district staff you know i know in the short term i'd like to you know being one of the youngers on this board uh that i've been on this board you know um this this job of coming together um to ensure that um our teachers have uh the pay um that you know the the most that we can do as a district and trying to figure out and you know um clover with crunching numbers in the moment and like i i know it um it's not easy um both on both sides um so i just

058want to congratulate everybody who's been a part of this process um and uh dr bauer i just want to ask you um one uh in with you as a superintendent um when was the last time that we um negotiated a contract in the moment from like the next for the next year this is the first time this is the first time so i just wanted to highlight that you know because that's huge and i know um you know we've been in other meetings right where we have you know 10 12 20 uh people coming here to speak um and you know i invite everybody and i i get excited when we have people come out um to share what they their thoughts are um and thank you jocelyn for being here today and speaking um

059in the public comment um but these are the things that i think are important to also make sure that our community that um our public understands you know what's happening here in alamark and where we're at now um and for many reasons you know i also acknowledge that you know uh the state um has been able to trickle down you know a little bit more pennies down to our district and um and that we're able to do these things but um also that you know every staff here is doing what it takes in order to be at a point like dr bauer said right now that it's the first time at least in the past how many years this is my eight year eight years and i'm sure beyond if we look past that that

060we're able to do this so um congratulations unions staff leaders sitting at those tables coming back looking at the numbers talking to your membership everybody you know had a very important part and so thank you for your job and thank you for getting this to where we're at now and i'm excited to um you know have this on our agenda today thank you further comments from the board all right so you know and then i'll go ahead and finish it with my comments um very very excited i haven't been here for the last decade uh to see this come to uh where we were able to resolve this within a reasonable amount of time uh was very um exciting uh and i hope that it's indicative of a new direction from both uh the administration

061uh as well as our bargaining unions and that we all can start uh moving in in a different direction it doesn't require a year-long uh protracted negotiations that we have what we have and we honestly put it out and we come to to an agreement that is fair that is reasonable uh for members of the public um want to make sure that we're all aware that uh we have a teacher crisis taking place um we have uh less people coming out of our teacher education programs every year than we did a decade ago and uh we're having difficulty attracting people into the profession uh because in all honesty who would want to go into a profession where you're being blamed for all the ills of society that somehow they fall squarely on your shoulders as

062the teacher and uh so it's it's all compounded it's becoming a reality now that society has kind of created and then when you start talking about uh teachers that are bilingual or that specialize in special education it's even a worse teacher shortage and so it's a huge price that we're facing so alum rock needs to be uh looking at what the remuneration that we provide our employees so that we can be competitive and attract and retain qualified teachers and so i'm very um heartened to see that there were provisions made to allow us to attract and retain some of our more specialized teachers as well as just the general increase in pay that we were able to provide as was mentioned before vice president found mentioned that that within our means and that it's a

063responsible and reasonable remuneration that we can provide here at elim rock and so as a result of that we see that we are able to continue to move forward with a positive budget that we're not qualified in all honesty for many years it seemed like that was the only thing that we were able to put out here on the rock and so it's the ship that allows us to be able to provide a responsible uh offer and that was accepted by our bargaining units and so i appreciate all sides uh the teachers for negotiating strongly for their members as that as rightly as they should i happen to be a member of the california federation teacher they're very proud member and they advocate for me so that i have the ability to provide for my

064family with the remuneration that i receive in my profession and so i completely understand uh the position of our partner needs here advocating for their members and i appreciate that i also appreciate the the administration's work to ensure that we're physically solvent and that we can provide what we can within our means and um and so i'm very very glad that we were able to reach a place where that works out for both sides and uh looking forward to to the future just seeing uh how we can continue in this uh in this direction in this in this manner so uh that said i'll go ahead and call you as i see you uh uh board member chavez no board member hi board vice president hi uh i with myself 49 motion passes 4-1 with

065chavez dissenting all right um uh uh we'll go ahead and move on to item 4.02 i've proven that okay uh 4.2 is being pulled uh per the administration's request we'll go ahead and move on to item 5.01 dr bart you want to go ahead and announce uh [Music] the items that will be discussed in closed session the following items will be discussing closed session uh item 503 all the way to 5 0 our conference delivered negotiations with different groups including teamsters csea and unrepresented employees item 506 is conference when they were negotiators agency designated representatives board of trustees employee organization unrepresented employee superintendent discussion action public employee discipline dismissal release as per echo 508 public employee appointment employment and those are a number of principal positions all right um is there any public comment with

066regards to any of these items that have been announced there is one person with their hand raised it is hi i am a teacher at renaissance at fisher it's not about anything on here but i sent an email out the other day to all of you and i was told to come speak um i'm just here to complain about the air conditioning in my classroom that has not all year has not worked i cannot teach i am not teaching i had an amazing project that i had planned for this week and next week i cancelled it because i just had covid so i had long covered and i'm very weak and in this heat i literally feel like i'm fainting by 12 pm maintenance has been into my classroom at least 10 times this year

067and they're my friends at this point like i know them by name they know me by name because they're always here and it's not an issue about the parts being backed up it really needs to be completely replaced i've moved my desk outside so that we do class outside i've tried switching classrooms like all of these things i'm very creative and i have like i can deal with a lot but i cannot deal with the 90 degree classroom and i am like i'm really over it i'm tired of it i i went to alamog i live down the street and i don't deserve this my students don't deserve this and i teach ethnic studies i'm one of the only like i'm one of the only people teaching this in the district and how am i

068supposed to teach my kids about equity and equality when we really cannot even like like it breaks my heart and then i have to keep my door closed because my kids are afraid that somebody's gonna come shoot us down so it's like i really am begging you all at this point to fix my ac this is ridiculous thank you all right at this point we're going to move on to 5.02 recess to close session uh we will get a 10 minute break yeah all right that makes sense uh we'll go ahead and reset this right now approximately right now it's a and um we'll resume at the end of closed section [Music] what time i'm sorry i couldn't hear that what time did he stay uh 7 21. okay thank you [Music] she was like

069uh [Music] is only one right thank you see if that works all right can you hear me yes that's okay hear me all right moving on to 6.01 [Music] uh reporting on the transfer of uh two staff members um by a unanimous vote um all right can you hear us now we can't hear you he's muted you're from cover to puritan and also by union of the authorized transfer of dr villalobos from cesar chavez elementary to george school ask for war policy 4314 and the appointment of other principles i'm going to ask mr rico to announce i need to be promoted i'm just in seminar mode oh uh somebody promotes are you able to promote okay thank you dr bower yes i'd like to announce the appointments uh to three principal positions we'll start with

070danielle finnen was approved unanimously by the board to be the principal at the renaissance at madison maria lopita gutierrez the principal of atlantic one [Music] i'd like to continue a report of action and closed system the board voted unanimously to release of probationary classified employee id number 300192 all right um at this point uh i would like to um board member uh board clerk and requested that we adjourn in memory of all the children that were lost rob visit rob elementary in weather texas and the teachers and all those who were lost so at this point we'd like to take a moment to silence their memory all right so we'll go ahead and adjourn at 8 11. we're going to