Special Board Meeting

001okay come on calling the meeting to order at 5 32 p.m welcome maribel can you help us with the roll call today is a special board meeting of may 20th 2021 at 5 30 p.m members of the board in attendance president corina vice president andres quintero clerk here member linda chavez president member mempham president members of an administration superintendent dr bauer president great thank you and now if you can all join me in doing the pledge of allegiance we can stand if you're able to otherwise because it's fine i pledge allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the united united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty thank you and today's meeting i'd like to open it up in honor of all of our graduates especially those

002are uh promoting from the eighth grade here in alum rock congratulations to you all and speaking of those that are graduating from our district um i also would like to highlight uh carlos which is which is that which who is actually probably celebrating in this time a very uh hard-earned celebration and which is probably why he's not with us um as he has graduated with his aaa from evergreen valley college and so we're very proud of him and all the other graduates of our alum rock union school district family um and so we want to you know have this meeting in honor of you all today as this is probably the meeting prior to graduations happening in the near future so congratulations to the graduates the families and the community because when you all graduate

003we all graduate with you and we're all there along your site so with that we'll go ahead and go on to um our first item our first agenda item um and i don't know i still don't see and i'm sorry andres um dr bauer if you can or maribel you can also help me look in the audience i know sometimes um if you can check there for me please and i sent him a text he's he's still not here to say anyone okay um and then with that um i would say the next person would be um uh i did have two blackouts within the last 15 minutes and so if for some reason um i black out as a president i'm asking you to please if uh and this is not here if you

004can help us facilitate if there's still quorum at the time we black out like your health like you're no no thank you for checking that is important my uh screen just my computer like are you a back up here but just in case i'm out um if you three of you are still on there's still quorum if you can help me uh facilitate i jump back on okay great and with that we'll move on to our first agenda and um item 2.01 madam president thank you um i don't have my phone on me um it's one of those days so i don't have a copy of it and i'm trying to log on to um board docs here so while i log on thank you yes 201 which is um can you read it out

005for us please okay give me a second uh approved third interim report thank you so much dr bauer i'm going to go ahead and um hand this over to you um i'm assuming polvera will be here to help us out but i'll go ahead and knit over to you at this time thank you yes for president uh this is the third interim report i'm gonna turn it over to mr chang so that he can give a brief synopsis of what this is thank you yes good evening and thank you uh superintendent dr bauer um good evening uh board president um members of the board and the alabama community my name is colbert chang i'll be presenting an update of the third interval report if i can have access to screen sharing please you can screen

006share now um thank you okay so okay can everybody see my screen yes perfect thank you um good evening boardian um this is the memo that the staff has prepared and provided to you uh with regarding the update to the third interval report and i'm just going to read it for the records it's also for you to hear we'll start with the background pursuant of ed code section 4231 i'm sorry 42131 the governing board of each school districts filing a qualified or negative certification for the second interrupt report requires under section 42130 or classified as qualified or negative by the county superintendent of school shall provide to the county supreme school of schools the controller and the superintendent no later than june 1st the financial statement projection of the school district's funds and cash balance

007through june 30th for the period ending april 30th the district projects that it will be able to meet the reserve requirements for the current and two subsequent year additionally the districts will remain a positive will maintain a positive cash balance for the remainder of the current fiscal year the districts use the same key assumptions as it did to prepare the second annual report except in the third interim report one significant funding that happened here is the in-person grant of approximately 3.1 million dollars and this fund is reflected in the restricted general fund so the chart you see in front of you um reflects the restricted general fund as you can see here in this restricted general fund we started the year with approximately 2.2 million dollars in carryovers is projecting to generate 38.6 million dollars

008in revenue um a total of 63 million dollars uh in expenditures um 22 million dollars of contribution uh from the unrestricted general fund and this is to pay for special ed uh programs and also for routine maintenance um and with that projecting an ending fund balance of zero for year the district is projecting is it possible sorry to interrupt to scroll i i'm assuming you're going down the chart but i can i don't know if everyone else can only see like half of the spreadsheet there is it possible to scroll down to see the parts that you're waiting uh yes i'm actually going over the chart right now is that what you're seeing on your screen yeah but um i just didn't see some of the numbers that you were saying so i thought maybe

009there was stuff below but maybe not no no this so the charges are going over the the charge um circuit on okay um are we okay yeah sorry correction no problem okay so going into um year 2122 the district is projecting to generate or to receive a little over 33 million of revenue uh with a total expenditures of 57 million a contribution from the unrestricted general fund of 23.5 leaving a zero for ending balance and then for year 2223 the district is projecting to receive 16.4 million in revenue uh 40.6 million dollars in total expenditures um and 24 million 24.2 million dollars um in um contributions uh from the unrestricted general fund and also showing a a zero fund balance moving over to the next chart um this chart reflects the unrestricted general fund for

010this fund for this component of the funds the districts um is showing at the beginning of the year we started the year we started this year with a little over uh 12.4 million dollars we cannot see anything below where it says the first chart beginning balance it ends in total revenue so the stuff that you're talking about probably on the bottom we are not able to see on screen oh well i apologize i'm not sure yeah i think that's what trustee vegeta was talking about and then when you move to the next chart it still just stayed on the same one that you were talking about previously yeah let me try to i thought maybe it was something on my computer i was messing about that here we go and if you don't mind colvera

011i think it would be important to just review that so that everybody can see the numbers you talked about now what's hard we don't see the chart we just see one column oh okay thank you you see that can you think we should start over yeah that's that's kind of what i asked him i'm sorry i missed that yeah you know can you tell me what you're seeing now keep going because we just see the two first lines of the chart okay okay now what you were talking about so if you don't mind colvera reviewing i think that will be important sure sure and this is you're seeing the the chart that reflects the restricted general fund yeah and it ends on ending fund balance of the zeros um and then i also saw andres

012raise his hands a couple of times andres uh welcome and do you have anything to add or ask no no that's fine i just needed to be let in okay thank you okay so it's okay um yes yes okay thank you so again this chart uh reflects the restricted general fund um this chart shows that we begin in the in the current year we begin the uh the year with uh approximately 2.2 million dollars of carryovers from last year uh we're also projecting that we will receive 38 million dollars 38.6 million dollars in revenue and total expenditures of 63 a little over 63 million dollars with a contribution from the general fund unrestricted general fund of approximately 22.1 million dollars which brings the anti-fund balance to zero um for year 2122 the district is projecting

013to receive approximately 33.5 million dollars of in revenue um we're projecting to have an expenditure of approximately 57 million dollars um with a contribution from the unrestricted general fund of approx approximately 23.5 million dollars uh which leaves um an ending fund balance of zero um in year 2223 the district is projecting to receive approximately 16.4 million dollars of revenue and projecting to spend approximately 40.6 million in expenditures with a contribution from the unrestricted general fund of approximately 24.2 ending that year with zero fund balance um cover and i apologize for interrupting i do see ernesto's hand up so just want to make sure you're not done yes that's it is it a good time to ask questions now colbert uh sure yeah um okay other slide the first slide uh let's see are we there

014oh it's not the first slide on expenditures the you know to decrease those expenditures from 2021 to 22 23 from 63 to 40. um is that's what you're gonna get into a little more in depth in the remainder or can you give us a thirty thousand foot of how that decrease is happening yes so um the the the significant increase from um this year to year 22 23 is that this year we're um reflecting all the one-time money um that we're spending or receiving and also spending um in relation to that and so this year you may recall that last week when i presented we received um about 14 million dollars in uh one time um that is reflected in this this this chart right here um and so um that's why in the out

015years you'll see a dramatic increase because we have reflected the one-time money that we know that's coming to the districts that is solidified um and so that's why you know you see a huge difference okay that is reflected here okay thank you okay so can you see the full charge here yes okay perfect okay so this chart here um reflects the unrestricted side of the general fund um as you can see here um for the current year we started the year um with approximately 12.4 million dollars in beginning balance uh we're projecting to receive 107 million dollars in revenue with the total expenditures of approximately 83.8 million dollars a transfer from the unrestricted to this restricted general fund of approximately 22.1 million dollars which projects to end the year um with a ending fund balance

016of 13.7 million dollars that ending fund balance carry over to next year uh beginning fund balance um and for next year we're projecting to receive approximately 109.8 million dollars in revenue um on this chart right here in this column um i do want to point um your uh the line item that says or the road that says other adjustment um this reflects the dollars um that we're projecting to receive an s or two money um you see an adjustment here because um because these are the expenditures in the unrestricted general fund will have to transfer into the restricted general fund because when the cobit money comes in it comes after strict dollars and the revenue will be reported in the restricted general fund but at the time of the preparation of the second interim and

017the third interim we still have not yet identified expenditures to transfer from unrestricted to restricted to be able to utilize the um so with that we're projecting next year a total expenditures of 81 million dollars with a transfer from the unrestricted general fund to the restricted general fund of approximately 23.5 um and ending the year um whether about 18.9 million dollars in any fund balance um that ending that would carry over to next year um and to start up the beginning balance and so for for next year the district is projecting to receive approximately 100 points in revenue um the district is rejecting to have a total expenditures of approximately 91 million um and a transfer from unrestricted side to the restricted side of approximately 24.2 um on this column i do point your attention

018to this negative 14.7 million dollars so um this is the the the amount um that the district is projecting to spend down its reserve amount um as i um mentioned before the districts was able to stay afloat in the current year and next year because all of all the one-time funds one all once that one-time funds goes away you know we're we're projecting to spend uh 14 7 million dollars in reserve that we've been built um from this year and next year and to the next and to the third year and with that spend down the reserve the districts will be left with a little over 4.1 million dollars in in reserve um please note that um you know the reserve requirement uh for the districts um is three percent of the total fudge um

019and three percent is usually around four million dollars so um when you're looking at where we're starting this year and we're what we're projecting to end um in the third year out um you know with the one-time money that we have right now it's keeping us afloat for two years but in the third year out uh once when that one-time money goes away meeting the reserve requirement in the third year out based on the current um projection again so i'm i'm not sure if you want to take questions i'm assuming it's a question [Music] so okay 22 2223 um surplus deficit that 14 almost 15 million um can you speak to uh that the relationship if it exists between that amount and the number that we're that we're considering as we talk about um closing

020and repurposing of schools is there a relationship between that number and those actions that need to be taken um theoretically through that through that process that we've been doing in the past couple months yes uh absolutely um all the action that the board um again it's considering for future consider or because for future consideration will have an impact on the negative 18.7 so um let's say the board has taken action to um reduce cost in terms of um you know whether it's consolidated school or whatnot and it generates say two million dollars this year um that two million dollars would be an ongoing saving for the ongoing year so if you multiply that over a three year period that would be six million dollars that six million dollars would be goes to reduce um the

021budget um death um that we're seeing for 14.7 million dollars so um you know the action uh will and and and have an impact on um you know closing the structural deficit so the sooner um we take those actions um to generate those savings um you know the the the it it prevents or it avoids it just from making a massive cut in one year if it slowly increments and takes action to slowly um close out that budget uh structural deficit okay thank you um if i can um i was afraid this might happen because i know that we all have all kinds of questions and how it relates to you know different things um so i'm hoping if you are all okay with having a presentation of course of course i think we you

022know we'll be stopping at every page or um with those questions that relate to the overall picture for some of us and then some that relate to specific numbers so we can write down our questions and keep them you know handy so after mr covera presents then maybe he talks back to answer some of those questions okay well you said if we're all okay with it i would prefer to do it as we go but as you're facilitating the meeting i i'll respect that um i just okay if you can write them down so you don't forget i'm sure you won't and i'm sure you have them written down all right thank you yeah thank you uh board president i'm actually um this this concludes uh the presentation on the third interim sport i'm happy

023to take any questions so can i can i finish up now on the one that i just had then go ahead okay thank you so i i i mean mine is just the final comment cover i want to thank you for clarifying that because you know it's important that i i think it's important that the community that our public that our taxpayers know that when we are having these discussions about consolidation and closure that almost 15 million dollars is what we're trying to address and you know we all don't want to have to make these difficult decisions but they're in black and white and it probably should be read i guess if this is a budget that you know is traditional format or whatever that's that significant number that that is and uh jesse pham

024i'm not sure who did it first so i i did okay go for it uh trustee chavez okay what ada number was used in your projections mr covera and i did i'm sorry and i didn't knew him because i know we were getting some feedback so that's my fault uh thank you mr cobra if you can um help us answer that yes i can do that give me one second trustee travis what bleeding is it just me or is everybody seen like a blue screen i think uh cover is looking for something to put on there cover okay so that's not me okay it's not just you thanks i'm assuming uh mr covera will be sharing a document is that correct mr clever yes i can share okay okay can you see the um enrollment

025projection graph here yes these are the enrollment numbers that we're using for um projecting our um our budgets perhaps i should be more specific maybe i should be more specific um so we are being funded with last year's ada numbers so is this the same assumption that we're the projections are on last year's ada numbers or this year's ada numbers the so this year and next year um you know lcff funding has the whole autonomous revision um we're still um using uh the the the demographic study projections in terms of um presenting to the board but on funding purposes uh we're still funded on the 2019 level for this year and next year and that's why i and and thank you for asking that question because um the whole time this provision runs out in

026year 22 23 and so in year 22 23 we're back to the old rules of how we calculate um lcff which is the greater of the current or prior year so when we're starting to again collect ada for next year um assuming that ada is going to be higher than year 2223 ada um year 2121 2288 is going to be used for the calculation of lcf and so while we have the two-year whole autonomous revision the third year out is where we're going to see the cliff and that's why you see a significant drop in revenue specifically to lcf because going back to your point this year and next year uh we're funded on the 2019 level but in year 22 23 that protections goes away so um you know the the the funding will

027be based on either year 22 23 88 or year 21 2288 in either case since we're we're declining districts um we're going to have lower ada to be able to generate um lcs funding so in the two years you lost 900 students so the projection is what what will be the number in 2223 could you tell me a rough estimate in year 22 2223 um our enrollment projection is on this graph it's 8105. and then in here whoops awesome you apologize trusty fam okay well given that you know the the projected and there there is a projected enrollment drop and a serious one at that for for our school year 20 to 23 and e you know even if we were using the greater of the two uh ada numbers which is you know the

0282122 uh you know no matter how we slice it there is going to be a a drop in revenue uh you know uh you know in in addition to incorporating you know the um what is it uh incorporating the uh the consolidations of skulls um in your experience the uh hello can you hear me yes okay very good in your feedback in your opinion based on your experience with the cost structure of the district uh where where do you see areas we can economize in or areas where we could increase revenues and i apologize clover i'm gonna because the feedback i have to mute you when we're talking otherwise we get a feedback so i'm gonna have to ask you to unmute when you're asked to speak thank you i'm sorry trusty fam can you

029um restate your your comments or questions of course of course so i you know based upon your experience given the you know given the ada numbers we're looking at and the as you know and it's resulting drop in revenues uh aside from the consolidations that that have been discussed the do you see are the you know our areas that we can economize or raise additional revenues well i think um i think the board has taken the first steps um in terms of consolidating schools um and i think with you know excess surplus property there's some opportunity to um to enhance some revenues in terms of leasing opportunities um so that's you know something to consider as we move forward um not only with the consolidation but also you know as we're having discussions around additional

030schools to be consolidated or close okay uh supplemental uh you know i you know uh you know it was an unorthodox revenue source and you know maybe it may not apply to us but uh san ramon unified has uh opened actually subway franchises at its high school and granted it may not apply to us because it is a that's a k-12 district as opposed to us being the k-8 district i mean uh you know uh aside from you know aside from um you know the possible uses of surplus property and you know the the consolidations we've discussed um you know and and dr bauer if you you know feel uh i'd like to hear your ideas also uh uh what a what is then a vending contract help with raising district revenues go ahead dr

031barr i will be very cautious to start discussing that um at this stage of the game trusty fam and the the reason is because we are a uh free lunch district and so having any kind of vending is not um you know proven at this time and i think that there are a million other suggestions and if you remember in the facilities advisory committee the community listed a number of them all of them very viable and i think that that it will behoove the board to you know to start talking about some of them to prioritize them i think it will be a very fruitful conversation in a future meeting uh to be able to do that okay thank you very much thank you trusty fam uh go ahead and uh turn it over to

032our trustee with hanan i see his hand up yes thank you uh so i'm gonna actually piggyback on the past two comments um the the one that trustee fam just mentioned mr chang so in addition to increasing revenues i just would like um if you could confirm it would also be helpful i think we've heard in previous meetings to decrease expenditures to the extent possible that is that correct or still correct i believe yes that is correct and we're still looking at all those i mean those options that you just mentioned um and and many other options that we haven't um you know discussed at the board level but um at some point um you know we'll bring a comprehensive options consider yeah and i appreciate dr bauer's um comment right now just that it

033it merits a more full and robust conversation from uh the board at a future time but um i did want to i guess ask or or put back on the radar you know several months ago we had discussed the possibility of um an energy program specifically solar that um we could look at in in order to reduce our uh expenditures and and so i'm assuming based on your prior confirmation about reducing expenditures that that program would still be maybe even more so now than it was previously when it was brought up a viable thing to look into so i look forward to um pursuing that to try to reduce our expenditure significantly and chip away at that the second thing that i think that i went back on in the form of a question to

034trustee chavez's previous question was so i know that we're using the um demographic study as kind of our you know our guide to to try to predict enrollment and base the budget off of that uh and that's the best it seems to me that that's the best data that we have we paid for that and that was based on some you know a lot of work went into developing that but is there a um uh what's what i'm looking for is there any adjustment that has been made in your budget with regards to the the impact of this cova year and the loss of students and i know because maybe it's kind of like an anomaly it might be super difficult to try to overlay that number over the what we have in a demographic

035study but is there any consideration to this particular year and the loss of students versus what we saw in the demographic study is that any consideration at all just the is that a question for me or for dr bauer um either either or both whatever whoever can answer it if if there's an answer um i can take the first try doc bar if you want me um uh yeah i think this year is the big unknown um you know i think trying to do a demographic study uh during a pandemic um is very challenging um so we can go only go with the data and the report that's been presented we won't know for sure until um you know we start the school and we start counting warm bodies in the seats itself once we

036have that actual data then we can start making some um additional adjustment in terms of in terms of trends that's happened in the past another consideration is also to do another demographic study just to get some really updated numbers because you know prior to this one it's been about five years since we've reconducted one so um and again going back to my comment about doing a a study during a demographic i'm not sure um you know how reliable that's going to be they're only basing their report on what data they have their hands on so but i think it's very telling when the school new school year starts and we have a good count of the warm bodies that are in our seats and then we'll be able to make some adjustment there afterwards i

037think that's wise to consider maybe doing another one when it's the world has returned to maybe a little bit more normal but even if we look at the trend prior to the um to this year it still seems to be trending in that same direction dr bauer to answer that as well or no i'm just nodding because i'm agreeing it's a it's the big unknown i think that for us august just a big unknown um obviously the the data that um the demogra the demographers collected um was taken was collected under extraordinary circumstances right because they conducted the study in the fall of 2020 in the middle of the pandemic so that's one thing to consider and i totally agree with kovera about potentially conducting a second one or another one pretty soon so that

038we can calibrate you know some of these trends and this this is not only affecting alum rock as you know it affects county wide everybody in this area and i think it will behoove us as the board considers difficult decisions right to have a little bit of a a cleaner data if you will thank you trustee chavez we're looking at the trends before um i remember that the district was going by 200 um students lost and instead what was the reflection was 400 students lost so the way we're going to reflect is that number going to reflect more 400 or 200. going forward yeah we have taken a more conservative um projections and um you know we're following kind of the historical trend and that's between um about 400 between 300 400 next year um

039based on the demographic uh the democrats justification that um you know a lot of the young kids might not be entering our school system because of the pandemic um that you know the involvement declining the declining enrollment may not be um may not be as high in a typical year because we're going to start to see a lot of those young kids and and their parents sending them to school once once this situation is over um but going forward we're we're following the historical trends and we're being conservative and using um you know the the numbers around 300 to 400 um declining enrollment number so when you say three to four hundred is that 300 or 400 so that mean i guess what i want to know is it if we're going to be more

040accurate because if year after year was more like so then why would we adjust our budget to 300 when in actuality the ada is gonna um fall short and wouldn't it be better to just make the projections 400 because this year we lost 500. i think it's kind of the same answer if you look at we have to go by numbers from study from something it's not just like uh um our own estimate we need to kind of base these calculations trust each other on solid data more than just like i think i think we're gonna lose four or three colder has to use numbers that are collected you know in in terms like in this particular case he explained to you we're using the demographic study do you see the slide on the screen

041right now no it's blank blank okay is there a way we can edit it to make it bigger because the numbers were so small before i couldn't see any of the numbers when you you brought it up on the demographic study can you enlarge it for us please you see that now wait can you do it a little bit more and just pull it up so we don't have to see the top thank you so like i said it's oh you just moved it it's 400 and something each year uh yeah so uh if i think our numbers will be more accurate reflection if we do start with 400 versus doing it with 300 is all i'm saying thank you yeah as you can see here the other involvement projection we're using to um to

042base to build our budget on so for this year uh we're using the democrat demographic study numbers and as you can see next year um you know the based on the the market for justification in terms of that you may get a lot of the young students back next year um that number is a little lower when compared to um the the trend in other years but if you see going into year 2223 we're projecting um a a decrease of 415 students so those are the numbers yeah because i'm seeing here that just in 2021 uh right here their figures are off because we lost 500 not 400. okay thank you thank you um and i see with harano's hand up i was going to say a few comments and myself but go ahead and

043begin and then i'll go ahead and um i mean you kind of won i've talked a lot okay that's pretty short um mine is just that uh you know i understand we have to use solid data to make these decisions to the extent possible as best we have with these projections and things i also just kind of um along the same lines of what trustee chavez is saying is that if even in using the data if and when the opportunity comes or or the um the need comes to kind of estimate that that uh it can't be completely dependent upon the the data like if we what i'm trying i guess what i'm trying to say here is that when possible i would really prefer that we are conservative in our estimates and i think

044i heard you say governor that we are using that approach but i really would want to emphasize that because i i would rather overestimate and then you know have that problem of of not losing as many kids and then the impacts of that on the budget versus underestimating and then having to deal with that as has been the case previously just because we were maybe working with the wrong data set at that time so i'm just i would like to be conservative as as conservative as possible when possible um but it sounds like we're down that path anyway okay um i do see trustee travis hand up i don't know that was from previous or uh it might have been but just use the facts is what i was trying to say thank you so

045um thank you so in regards to all that um i'm with you all i think it's always best to at the end of the day have you know more money than have to like find more money right because we didn't plan for it um or adjust in that way and i do understand that we're using facts um to project out um and i think you know as i'm sure you do clover right like the facts and what you use and then also the actual right of what happens in the year um you know for as many years as you've been here and then adjust so you know look forward to getting to that magic number where it's the actual number which i don't think any of us here can ever get to but um i

046agree and like if we're able to even if it's you know a few more than the last year uh projecting now um and then you know with that i you know i have some of the same questions as my peers and i just want to highlight some points including that one um you know in regards to some of these tough questions right like this is not one of those meetings but when we make those tough decisions of consolidating and those things that you know we're looking at the totality of this budget and then you know eventually moving towards hopefully whether it's leasing you know some of our buildings um collaborating with you know having partnerships with organizations that can bring in funds i look forward to you know those those uh exciting conversations you know

047uh looking at the list that was provided to us you know some of those great ideas that uh many of our community members had you know some of us have had um to continue to make alimorock better with the funds that we have um and be creative and so with that too um just wanted to put in another little seed in this conversation and not to answer tonight but you know i know you mentioned like the energy program and so many others right possibilities that we can move in to to bring in money for the future um and i just want and i know uh once upon a time i had a very small conversation with dr bauer about um you know grant the grant and funds that are out there that we can bring

048in to alum rock um and being creative and so looking forward to you know possibly getting our district at a point where we're bringing in you know grants that are out there money that is out there um and maybe not directly through our district but through partnerships you know with some of those services that will be provided you know i look forward to um you know checking off some of those lit things on that list that were great right that were needs in our community that were needs by our children needs by our families um and bringing in the funds to being able to support our district um as a whole and so um with that i i know andres i know you're there and so i don't know if you have any questions or

049comments and i also know that we get to do public comment um so if i don't see any hands up i'm going to go ahead and open it up i just wanted to thank uh cover for a very thorough presentation much appreciate it thank you um and trustee becharano yeah sorry for keeping on saying but i think this is important too that the big picture for me also about tonight's meeting and this budget and the work that we've been doing i think is also um for us to reassure and and to um continue to build confidence with the the community and with our our residents here that this board this district is being responsible and planful and um you know really looking at the long-term well-being of the district because you know there we all

050know there's been some challenges in past years with regards to budget and bond and i don't need to go down that path but it's important that we have these conversations that we ask these questions that we kind of bring in the points that you just brought in right now um madam president and all these things because the public needs to know that you know i my opinion this district has turned over a new leaf we're doing things in a different way we are fiduciary we do have have demonstrated fiduciary responsibility our audits have demonstrated that and all those things so i i continue to say there's always room for improvement but i just want the public to know in the big picture of things that that what you're seeing tonight and these meetings we've been

051having should um you know continue hopefully to develop that trust that you have in in the work that's being done acknowledging the mistakes so i think that's for me kind of the big picture of the work that we're doing here thank you trustee um and with that we'll go ahead and turn it over oh wait i see trustee chavez's hand up trustee travis you're on mute trustee thomas okay in looking at the fake mat health risk analysis of august um it also stated that they were asking a lot of questions and it was either a yes or no answer on 19.6 under position control it says do managers and staff responsible for the district human resources payroll and budget function meet regularly to discuss issues to improve processes um should we um should the district

052be doing so in order to see if they can cut expenses because it seems like the expenses need to be first reduced before before you start doing other cuts in positions is what i would like to see um that's it thank you thank you trustee and just to clarify you said 2020 what's the date on that report everybody got august big mac 2020 august that's correct okay thank you just wanted to clarify okay um with that i'll go ahead and open it up to public comment at this time um unless kovera or dr barry have something else to say before we move on to public comment you know just a reminder madam for president that this is an action item and staff is commenting recommending that the board of trustees approve this item thank you

053so much um and before we uh go to vote i'm going to open it up for public comments so that we can then move on to voting i think jose's on here who's going to be helping us out is that correct with this portion of our meeting welcome okay welcome um do we have anybody who's wishing to address the board thank you good evening madam president yes we have one speaker our speaker is miss brenda sindejas miss brenda you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening trustees i was listening to this interim report and i also looked at it myself and there was a couple numbers that i don't understand for mandated cost reimbursement i think it was eight five five zero on page four um

054it said um original budget 278 thousand and x amount and then it said operating uh budget fee was 276 000 and x amount and then actual to date was 276 000 i just i didn't understand what that meant maybe there was a typo i think on that page um just wanted to bring that up and then i also wanted to say that um it's scary honestly to see um how much of a deficit we will be in 2020 if we continue to spend or even have any one-time spendings honestly right now um i know that you guys are using the ada from previous years but honestly it's probably going to be a lot lower um i will tell you guys there are a lot of students there right now through zoom remain in this district

055because they can't but once we go back a lot of these students have moved to texas and other places so um i do agree with a lot of the trustees that we need to be very conservative with this number and maybe exaggerate a little bit and it's better to do that than to project something we don't have and overspend and keep on um staying on a deficit i think the wisest thing for this district to do right now is to really um don't look at 8 000 but look at 2023 maybe at 6 000 and i know that's extreme but it's better as other trustees said to have that left over than to predict something that will just hinder the district financially more thank you thank you jose is that it do we have anybody

056else at this point we have no more speakers okay thank you so much um and at this point then i'm gonna go ahead and uh come back to the board and um call for the vote and i'll just call your name as i see you on my screen uh trusty chavez no trust hi trusty fam hi vice president quintero hi and myself i thank you so much um thank you was there a motion and a second or did i miss it oh oh no you're right [Applause] uh thank you vice president quintero um second approval okay second by trustee pam um let's go ahead and vote again just to confirm and make sure we follow the thank you uh maribel uh trustee chavez no thank you uh go going on to 301 review and approve

057the expanded learning opportunity grant plan i'll go ahead and turn over to bauer again thank you board president i'm gonna turn it over to miss andre garcia for this part of the of the item good evening uh board president uh dr superintendent dr bauer and board members and community um sandra garcia and i will be sharing some information this evening on the expanded learning opportunity grant so thank you for the opportunity to share this information with you the the action item is to approve the elo grant for this year before june 1st and so this is what i'm bringing to you this evening a little bit of background very quickly on the expanded learning opportunity grant this is a subsection of the um assembly bill 86 that governor newsom signed in march which allowed schools

058to return in in person and it provides funding so that districts can support learning recovery programs in their districts and so my charge was to gather input and put together a plan to present to you on um how we will how we propose to use this additional one-time funding so the students that are to be served under this grant are the low-income students english learners foster youth homeless students students with disabilities students at risk of abuse and neglect or exploitation disengaged students and students who are below grade level which are the students that throughout the pandemic we've been asked to prioritize and provide additional services to and so that's the intent of this grant is to serve these students and provide additional support to them there are seven allowable areas under the grant um that

059we um we can spend the the funding in and i'm just going to give you a brief overview of each of the areas the extended learning time is to provide programs or services that extend the learning opportunities for students these can be done in summer during intersession after school um and again it's it's to try to provide some additional learning time for students the second one is accelerating progress to close learning gaps and in this area we would it would look it would be in the form of extra support for students for example tutoring um small group one-on-one um you know para support that can be pushed in uh and into supporting students or other support providers that can provide this type of support and the idea here is to uh really um intervene and

060and support those students that um have the biggest gaps in learning um there is i want to note on this part that there is um funding that is tied to this grant that calls for us to support paraprofessional and use them first and teachers as some of the support providers for this area the third area is integrated pupil supports and in this area it's other types of supports that students are needing as we return to in-person instruction for example uh social emotional learning support mental health support school meals the additional costs that it costs to provide meals for students can be added into this area the fourth area is community learning hubs and i compare those to our care pods what we have now at the schools where the intent of these learning hubs is

061to provide a place where students or and or families have access to devices and connectivity and support so that students can get the help they need to be successful in their classes the fifth area is supports for credits for deficient pupils you know we do have students that in eighth grade even in seventh grade are already showing signs that they may not um meet the promotion criteria to exit our school district and so this grant would allow support in that area so that we could bring kids up to the level of criteria that they would need to promote from eighth grade and then the next area are additional academic services and you know with all of these types of programmings and support you need to have information on students and so this area allows for

062us to provide opportunities for assessment of students so that we see where they are and keep progress on them and see how much progress they have made in the programs that we offer them so you know things like um assessment tools formative assessments um and progress monitoring type assessments can be um paid out of this this grant under that area and other kinds of supports like programs that would close the learning gap in students maybe for english learners or foundational skills that students may have missed out on during this time at home and then the last one is training for school staff and that could be any kind of training that supports staff to meet kids where they are coming back from um from being at home and being online for so long you know

063of course we know that there's there's going to be needs that we're going to have to address and um training that's going to be needed so that our staff could meet those needs so it could be anything from trauma-informed practices to um you know restorative circles to suicide prevention or any kind of learning type of support or training that they will need to actually again close the learning gap for students okay so the next um this slide just talks a little bit about what uh the plan requires um and it requires the expenditure plan uh how we involve stakeholders um the identification of students you know how we're going to identify students and how we're going to keep track of their progress um how we are going to share this information out to parents and

064let them know that these services are available for their children we also need to include the plan for supplemental instruction and support which is the meat of the plan and then coordination with other funding sources so this is additional funding and again it's one-time funding and it ends august of 2022 as you all know during the school closures all the way till now we have had several opportunities for stakeholder input i think we our district has done a great job of really listening to different stakeholders in our community and gathering input from them on the needs that we're going to need you know when our kids come back fully in person and so in addition to all of the the different town hall meetings and other informational meetings and gathering sessions that we had we

065also had our lcap community forums we had site sessions we had advisory committee sessions and we had specific listening sessions to this grant expanded learning opportunity grant we sent out a panorama survey which gave us great information and then an additional e-log survey that that supports some of the findings um for for this plan um and again you know the methods we use to reach out to parents uh were the the methods we've been using all along you know parent square messages uh messages on the district web page email invitations outreach by our community liaisons and then the stakeholders are are the stakeholders that you see here that we reached out to um in various ways which include our teachers our union representatives our site leaders our middle school students we we met with our

066aces partners to see what kind of input they could provide to us in terms of what they're seeing in the care pods and our parents and advisory groups so in all of that um this is what we come down to um there was a lot as you know there's lots of information that people provide but when you when you look at all of the information you come down to some trends that you see in in the input and i came i'm going to report on the 10 trends that we saw um in the input from the various sessions um and so the top 10 are are here and these are in order of um how do i want to say this of being repeated um and people mentioning it during our meetings and so the

067top one was increased counseling services and then second to that was social emotional learning programs um people are very interested in some kind of homework or tutoring center for students learning recovery programs in the summer and very strongly have asked for enrichment programs as well as learning recovery folks feel strongly that enrichment programs are a way to motivate students and to retain them and to keep them interested and engaged in learning and also provide an opportunity for socialization with peers which has been lacking this past year uh school day support for students you know in in terms of working with students in the classroom being provided in a variety of way through paris through um extending opportunities with our after-school providers to help during the school day um and then the eighth is reading intervention

068trauma-informed practices training needed for all staff and then technology of course was on the list the reason i highlighted those five in yellow is because when we sent out the e-log survey for families to prioritize these areas those came out with the most um the most weighted uh response from parents again increased counseling services homework tutoring centers summer learning recovery enrichment and then school day support were the top five according to the survey that we sent out okay so this is the part that um i'm bringing to you and this is what um you know in in looking at the input and um looking at the different areas that we're allowed to spend uh this this funding on i put together a proposed budget for you to consider for approval tonight and in the budget

069i broke it down in the seven areas that i spoke to you about and this is what i came up with so funding to extend learning time with summer learning recovery and enrichment programs accelerating progress to close learning gaps by providing site allocation so that every site in our district could have a homework tutoring center available to students that need that centralized tutoring of course we always have the need for learning recovery and tutoring district-wide and then looking at the idea of providing some additional school-based support pushing support to the classrooms prioritizing the lower grades mostly and seeing how far that goes but using some of our somperas and our aces staff to provide that kind of support the the next area is the integrated student supports for um to address barriers to learning and

070like i said you know the most common theme in all of the input was the need for more counseling support so i added that into this proposal um since it is one-time money you know we could see about providing some additional support in the form of short-term counselor positions and adding funding in there for their meals for students the community learning hubs i thought was an interesting um opportunity for us to continue that support you know i'm sure our kids are still going to be um having access to their laptops um you know sometimes there's a need for the internet connection or um just to have somebody to go to and ask for support with technology or how to use a certain application we could offer parent classes and training through this community learning hub

071uh and even tutoring so i think it's an interesting option to explore and then the next section uh the support for credit deficient students um is putting some funding aside so that we can support those students those eighth graders and even seventh graders that we see may be on the path to needing that support through after school or saturday academies um in their the specific support would be to raise their grades and um work towards meeting that that create promotion criteria so that they could graduate or promote from eighth grade additional academic services as i spoke of earlier um you know using some diagnostic progress monitoring assessments so that we could keep track of students and know you know where they started where what progress they've been making or aren't making and additional support that

072they may need and then like i said earlier other literacy support programs um to close the learning gap the last area of this plan is training for school staff and some of the immediate needs that i i believe and we all believe that our staff needs is that trauma-informed practices and that would be for all staff it would be for teachers for you know principals for district office staff for support staff at the schools you know anyone that works with students should should be trained in that area and that's what's written into this plan as well as other types of training that would be useful as we return to in-person instruction so that's my um proposal and um i'll open it up to any questions you may have thank you sandra um and as uh

073my colleagues here raise your hand um i just want to clarify and this money is for this school year 2021 to use or 2122. we can start using it now through this summer through the school year and through next summer and the ending date is august 30th um 2022. thank you for clarifying that i'll open it up um for any questions comments uh trust me with haranno yes i just had a kind of random question i think but um on the your first page of the budget stuff that you presented i think it was the second item i think almost all of the items have a round number but there was one that that second one is like a specific number ends in like 288 or something i was just wondering is there a is

074there a certain dollar amount for that category that we need to spend or just was that the remainder that you just needed you couldn't round that number and no that's a that's a great question no actually what i did was um just in thinking of the proposal i actually got some um i actually got some quotes from some of our aces providers to see what it would cost to provide additional services during the school day and also what it would cost to hire some paras and just all of those different costs so it's just a round number it's and it's not a number that you know it is a definite number if they're all estimations um that's why that number came out that way so it's just a little more specific because you actually were

075able to do some work and okay thank you thank you trustee chavez you're on mute thank you i have a question on the um diagnostics progress monitoring um isn't that done by the teacher and bringing in somebody else would it be as accurate if somebody else is doing it versus the teacher doing it and could we save more money putting that money to mental health because a lot of the kids have a lot of issues there is what i've been hearing from the community thank you and thank you for the presentation sandra you're welcome um so so the progress monitoring would would be done by um staff at the school site uh it's more of paying for the services like the materials or the service that would actually be the diagnostics on the students and

076um all these monies are movable i mean it if we do see that we need funding in certain areas we we can move the funding but um we would need to explain why that funding was used in other areas yeah i like i like that idea that it's not solid it can be moved thank you i appreciate that thank you um and since i don't have to see any hands yet i'm gonna go ahead and ask her make my comments right now and then uh give my peers here and that's our fam a couple of minutes to see if you guys uh want to raise your hand before we go on to the next um thing so i'm glad that i heard in regards to moving um because well first i wanted to ask on

077on page on slide seven um and maybe i missed it in your presentation what the highlighted when you highlighted those areas out of the ten what the highlight what the highlight mean um so the ten areas came from the actual um lcap sessions the um i guess my question is you're highlighted yellow so the ten areas came from that and then we actually sent home a survey asking families to prioritize the areas and the the highlighted yellow are the areas that came out the highest in the service from the surveys on the service yes okay do you know how many people were in the first category the 10 and then how many people did the surveys um i want to say let me see i don't have the exact numbers i can get those for

078you but um so these are this information is from our lcap sessions and our expanded learning listening sessions so overall i would say about um maybe 180 parents took part in all of these sessions but we also had the different stakeholders we had students we had teachers we had principals we had our aces partners all of these different stakeholders also provided input that's great and i guess um the only reason why i noticed that the social emotional learning programs were not highly highlighted so then that explains why um but at one point it was you know people thought and and it sounds like you said it was an order initially that that was second to the highest at some point by some of our um areas where i can see the need um and so

079with that you know just in regards to the numbers on the um on our on the what you're proposing in regards to the budget um you know the 200 000 on the bottom is where i see the the social emotional learning programs more you know that fall under there um because you know even though like you know let's say the short-term counseling positions you know that's that's more one-on-one that can maybe address some of those needs but i think that social emotional learning you know which our community also thinks is important um you know it's least heavy on there and so just you know just some thoughts in regards to you know our partners and what they can provide because i am thinking of some of our students and you know when we provide summer

080learning recovery you know when we provide all these other areas for them to learn or to test and to see where they're at and to get them more help you know those social emotional needs aren't met then we can't really expect them to focus on the other things right it's like there's some basic things um and then those things so anyways like a match right um or when when you talk to some of these partners and we can keep some of those things in mind and i'm sure you are but i'm just looking at what's highlighted in the and the bullet points that are um outlined there um and i only see more of the social emotional learning highlighted more at the end which is a 200 000 so maybe you know shifting some of

081that money and providing our students with that um that need um so that was my thought um for now and i see trusty pam if i if i if i can clarify real quickly um christie um so so yes you're correct that at the end is the 200 000 for the training but um the the two million dollars in the integrated student supports would include um support for social emotional learning so that's through the um these two things aren't the only things that would support that area the mtss support multi-tiered systems of support which and sel would fall into this area as well i just want to reassure you that that that is a priority area and and because it was number two on the list in the forums um we made sure that we

082uh put that as a priority in the plan great i mean i look forward maybe i can learn a little bit more about that specific um you know the integrated student support um i look forward to you know reading more about about it and learning more about the programming that would be available for our students um because definitely the training is important for our teachers and counselors available you know but i'd like to see you know what else it includes um so thank you for pointing that out uh trustee pam ah thank you madam president uh and thank you sandra for putting this together uh you know uh i'm intrigued about the after school and the saturday academy because i realized that you know one of the concerns throughout this pandemic was learning laws and

083you know and i get it that it is sometimes very hard to learn through zoom and through the computer so you know if you could explain you know for us in an in a nutshell uh what what does so how what does the the after school and the saturday academies entail so uh the after school would be more we already have our um after school programs which provide a robust you know kind of homework help enrichment program right this is in addition to that for years we've heard parents asking for a place where kids can go and get some tutoring support or homework support on their school campus and so we found that this is an opportunity to do that that where you know um it could be a drop-in um where kids can go

084and it's staffed by a certificated teacher and or you know some para support um and we can have kids just be able to drop in or or parents come in with their kids and say you know we need some help on my child's homework you know can you help us and um it wouldn't be a full-fledged program like a three-hour after school program like our after-school programs you know maybe run for an hour hour and a half after school to provide that opportunity for students who need it the saturday academies would be more geared towards as i said is preparing our our 8th graders or even 7th graders if we find that some are at risk of not promoting that additional support in maybe they're just behind on assignments right or they um they're not

085passing their tests so they need support on passing a test you know so that they can bring their grades up so it definitely would need to be um something that we work on structuring because i don't have all the answers or structure right now but that's what the intent of the saturday academies would be okay and i think that's that's a great idea to fill in those gaps that we've had throughout this pandemic you know it's a you know a further opportunity for for students and parents to have that in-person support so thank you so much sandra thank you thank you uh trustee chavez and then trustee so um when i went to the lcaps that was like before the cove so when did this stakeholder input take place could you tell me the dates

086um that they took place please and then i have a follow-up question so this year um the lcap sessions happened in march march 2nd and march 9th and then more recently we had um two parent meetings for the expanded learning opportunity grant and those were um i don't have the dates for those but i can get them for you it was more recently this past month so march 2nd and march 9 2021 okay um because what i keep hearing from a lot of the parents is that um there was a lot more depression and a lot more need for the social skills um do you have you heard that as well recently yes and they were number one and number two in um the input sessions so yes absolutely we did hear that thank you

087mm-hmm yeah thank you sandra so um essentially i think what i'm hearing is these monies this is an opportunity for us to supplement or to add to existing services that we've had whether it's homework or um scl or whatever correct okay because i had some similar questions i think to also um trust and some of the other questions specific to social emotional learning and i know some time back for something else we had looked at the number of what we currently spend on social emotional learning so dr barr i don't know if you remember roughly is that like three or four million dollars i think was the budget that we currently have for all the programs that we do were social emotional learning right if you remember we presented that to the board with specifics

088and it's about four million dollars okay so we do so we to kind of address some of what i was thinking and it sounds like others too we still have those significant funds that we've been dedicating towards that and these are on top of that additional based on the feedback that we received to supplement those services yes so so so thank you for making that comment because um if you remember in the one slide i said that part of the plan is to talk about how we coordinate between funds so this is as you said in addition to what we already do and we already do a lot in all of these areas um but yeah it's an opportunity to expand and provide additional support okay thank you for clearing here thank you trustee chavez

089you're on mute i didn't see it allocated for um special ed is this money also going to be distributed amongst special ed students well they're not a specific um dollar amount for special ed but definitely our special ed students fall within these categories so they will be served i think dr bauer wants to add dr barr thank you for president i just want to remind everybody that these are this is the second part of the funding which is above and beyond is covet funds uh the elk cup is going to be brought to the board in june so you will see the bigger part of el cap in june to be brought to you where these monies are going to be integrated also but we need the the board support uh for this six million

090dollars before we're able to app to receive them so hopefully tonight the board um supports our report so that we can move forward requesting from the state uh applying basically for these funds from the state just the one you know wanted to remind everybody that that's how this work this is not the complete el cap thank you thank you um if i don't see any other hands up if i can call for a motion and a second motion to approve thank you and second by mr quintero and so now we'll move on um if i don't see any hands uh to public comment before we go to our vote yes madam president we have uh one speaker first speaker uh or our only speaker is miss brenda sandecas miss endeca so you have two minutes

091your time will begin when you start speaking hi everyone thank you so much sandra for this presentation i appreciate everything that you are doing i did want to piggyback on a comment that was said on mental health i think that um i can tell you firsthand experience how much our kids and i know you know this have been suffering um not only mentally but also socially i think that these programs will be really great for our students and um i just had a question for the summer school programs uh support service are we using well you can't answer but are we using uh think together and you know programs that we already use or are we bringing in new programs because i would love to see new programs um especially with homework and tutoring support

092because i know that a lot of parents do have comments with these programs that um predominantly have younger kids and usually they are overly packed in these after-school programs and they're not able to support all students so i just want to ensure that if we do provide any support for summer that it's hopefully something new we're bringing or more help um and also for communication i did have a comment i know that you used webpage email parent square but we're not using facebook a lot of our parents use facebook um a lot of the times they don't check their email or parent square and i think that we are not using the biggest uh source that we have which is facebook and even possibly instagram i haven't seen our lmroc open uh instagram which would

093be nice to have or even a twitter um to use these methods to communicate with parents because we do need a lot of parent participation 180 is really not much and i would have loved to see more parent participation in these important because this is important these are services for our students and thank you so much for everything that you're doing thank you jose do we have any others yes we have miss veronica miss veronica please submit yourself and you will have two minutes to speak great thank you um and i also um i want to thank santa for having the town halls and really providing um a space for parents you know to go into those breakout rooms to talk about with others um and here are parents and even some staff members were

094in in size different stakeholders um talking about the uh what our students needed and so i thought that was very helpful and definitely we need more of that but i also want to urge that we continue on funding uh you know the social emotional the trauma and form um the trauma and form uh just completely uh we become a trauma and form schools and district um many of our students are also not just facing with covid many of them are facing displacement um and many of the families don't i again staggering and moving into other people's homes um you know the movements that on stability that there is currently um so i definitely want to urge that we focus on the uh and that we also put our focus on the english learners um as

095well as students with in special education um that they become our front four and um that we see schools that have been struggling that we you know prioritize or make our decisions equitable in a way that reflects um who our most marginalized students are and our schools and that they're getting the forefront support that they need and that they deserve thank you thank you is that it mr uh yes at this time we have no more speakers thank you so much um and at this time go ahead and call for the vote um and i'll call your name as i see it trustee chavez hi hi trusty fam hi vice president quintero i and myself i passes unanimously thank you so much yes um there was no motion and there was no second that i

096this time there was there was yes so mr trusty pam motion and i believe vice president keep that all second yes that's that is correct thank you no problem thank you again um and with that we'll go ahead and um adjourning this meeting at 7 10 p.m thank you all have a good night thank you thank you