3/29/22 Azusa Unified School District Special Board Meeting

001well good evening everyone and welcome to this special board meeting of the board of education for the azus unified school district on march 29th uh 2022 uh we will go ahead and call this meeting to order at 7 p.m and we'll move to 1.2 which brings us to our flag salute let's stand for our flex loop we will then move to a roll call board member rodriguez pena president board member beau here board member cruz gonzalez here board member adianas president and i board member grier i'm also here next we move to item two point area 2.0 and specifically item 2.1 which is the approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda make a motion to approve 2.1 second moved by board member rodriguez pena and seconded by board member adianas

002any discussion hearing none we will move to a vote and the motion passes five yes uh to zero we will then move to area 3.0 and specifically item 3.1 public comment on agenda or non-agenda items this is an opportunity for the public to address the board of education on agenda or non-agenda items individual speakers may be allowed up to three minutes to address the board of education on any agenda or non-agenda items when the public wishes to address the board on an agenda item they may fill out a blue card stand at the podium or raise their hand while in zoom attendance the board will take blue card requests first followed in order by speakers at the podium and then those in zoom attendance i do want to just just remind everyone of of a

003couple things one please keep a close eye on the three-minute timer that you have during public comment um it's it is it is not um the most pleasant thing to have to interrupt you um if you pass beyond the three-minute threshold but i will do that and i apologize in advance and so again i will ask that you please keep your eye on the timer um so that you can stop yourself and i don't so the end of that i don't have to um also i'll want you to take note of the fact that at the 20-minute mark there is a board policy which will allow us to which would require that we vote to allow for public comment to continue i am going to we're going to say that at the 20-minute mark we

004will not take any new comment requests meaning if you have submitted your comment ahead of that 20-minute mark and you got your comment in then the board will vote to to receive those comments that came in prior to the 20-minute mark but if you uh come and try to put in your comment after that then we will not be receiving that comment taking new comment requests at that time so i would ask if you do intend to to make a public comment tonight ask that you submit that comment uh either raise your hand and zoom attendance prior to that 20 minute mark or submit a blue card uh prior to that 20 minute mark to to ensure that when we vote that you would be included in on that vote uh the last thing i'll

005i'll say before we move on into this into public comment is that the format of our meetings do not allow for for back and forth dialogue instead there's public comment on the front end of the meeting and that is the opportunity that you uh the public have to speak into uh the meeting and share your perspectives and your comments and so i know that at times there are comments that come out in the during the meeting um and and i'll again apologize in advance um we won't be engaging in dialogue uh once we've passed really at any point but after we've passed the public comment portion of our meeting um then the the meeting is a is a public meeting between the board of education and so there will be dialogue among the board of

006education but there will not be dialogue back and forth between the board of education and the public and so just want you to be aware of that as well with that said uh we will begin uh with our first commenter uh this this evening um jose padilla thank you my name is jose padilla and i'm here as an advocate and proud parent in support of dalton elementary school and reside in the rosedale portion of azusta for some further context one of the attractions for moving into those approximately 1200 homes was a promise of an elementary school as an anchor point to the surrounding development in light of that never transpiring my family as well as others reached out to the team of educators at dalton elementary and found their comprehensive approach to be what we

007were looking for up trending academic performance full processes and a caring and engaging team all quickly became a factor for my my household specifically and apparently decision makers as well to the 10 of them spending seven eight million dollars taxpayer dollars on renovation recently the notion that this is a school in discussion for closure at this point reeks of ulterior motives and lack of transparency at best you can imagine that even the idea of closing dalton disbanding a well-performing team of educators and potentially squandering millions of dollars already spent in the is a good way to activate those residents of those 1200 homes taxpayers and voters within them who were already shorted to school let alone potentially on path to lose another one nearby full performance and engagement at a school in general is something

008that you haven't even tried to highlight as part of your process thus far showing exactly how out of touch you are with the parents on the ground time does not come back for them and their children and many parents have decided dalton is a better school for them right now as an alternative the idea of closures and possible manipulation of staff positions down to the down the line to address deficiencies does not jive with the parent they need immediate results you all behind the desks here can relate to this i'm sure someone some of you don't even have your kids participate in the schools you work for and preside over let alone and some of them some of you do let me say this clearly we currently have families that are closer to lee and

009some of the other schools that attend dalton because those parents believe that it's a better option based on performance growth in engaging teams and the taxpayer dollars that have already been spent and should not be wasted frankly we can all do better the team of board members superintendent ortega you can all do better and as parents of course we can do better as well i'd like to start that that emphasis by saying that i and as well as other parents in the you know in the adulting community thank you jose thank you your time is expired moving on we have joanne chiles hello my name is joanne style i am a retired teacher and spent 37 wonderful years teaching at charles stately elementary school i also went back after retirement to volunteer until coveted it

010all started in 1976 before a lot of you were born when i was a pen attending apc now known as apu and i was lucky enough to do my teaching at charles lightly school at my teach credential and my master teacher was mr joe rocha and i think you all know who he is i couldn't have asked for a better mentor to guide me while on my journey to pursue my teaching career i was so lucky to be hired at the same year at lee i misspira montes at that time was only 21 years old i have so many sweet wonderful memories while teaching at lee i often drive by the school and reflect on my memories that brought me so much happiness into my life we had the best christmas and sync with the

011mile programs and talent film that i actually documented on video which i like to watch that always brings such a smile and sometimes tears to my face when i watch those videos i see my former staff members that we have lost a lot of our school we have lost a lot of our staff members our school secretary mary garcia teachers gail ortega and recently jesus luna my lisco staff was like my second family who were there for me during my happy and sad times in those videos i see some of my former students like rose garcia and michael ramirez who are now teachers and i'm so proud of them now that i in my golden years i often look back and thank the lord that i was placed there to pursue my teaching career at

012lee elementary school when i heard that the board school board was revisiting the reorganization plan which means at least could be on the list of schools to close again it just broke my heart and i cried why it's such a perfect location conveniently located in the middle of azusa and right down the street from azusa high school to me that makes no sense and i pray that school board will make the right decision and keep charles day police school open i'm not here to give any other i'm more sentimental in what i'm saying healthy there's a lot of other things that are going on that i have from my school thank you so much thank you miss childs next we have sylvia gonzalez you may be sitting here asking where were we when this all

013started but as i always say to my son it's never too late and this is why i'm here my son was student of the month for the month of february and last meeting here a student from ellington was awarded for an essay he wrote and if i recall right a parent was recognized too from where ellington closing us down now keep in mind arrow highway people going to work coming from work tired on the phone or just simply rushing i had mentioned an accident that happened earlier this month on market and arrow now now i want to add the standoff that happened a few years back started at 4 am and ended up until 6 pm next to valley though why risk our children now what can you tell me about ellington's location oh this

014is my son joelle he's gonna i am to welcome starters today i wanna talk about third grade live next to my school i walk with my mom every day to school the area we walk through is safe if my school closes down i would be scared because i don't know the area that the new school is in i cannot trust the other schools personnel because i don't know them but my school knows me and everyone else my teacher is the best there is in the world i love my school i feel safe in my school and not the last meeting you said you you the changes are good and indeed they are but they are not always necessary keep my school open mr miss uh gonzalez um next actually let me just remind you before

015uh as nancy sharma prepares to approach the podium that we're about to halfway mark to the 20-minute mark and so just want to let you know if those who are just tuning in after the 20-minute mark we will not be receiving any additional comment requests submissions so if you do intend to leave a comment uh then you want to make sure that you get your blue card in as soon as possible or that you raise your hand in zoom attendance so that you can get on the list because at the 20-minute mark we're going to be voting and we will only be voting to receive those who have indicated prior to that 20-minute mark that they intend to lead provide a public comment uh mrs sharma good evening respected members of the board teachers parents

016and fellow students my name is nancy stamp and i am a student attending henry dalton element to everyone this school seems like the best school and the same goes for me dalton has given me memories i will never forget it has friendships i always remember and teachings that are on standby there's a saying by steve jobs quality is more important than quantity which is something i've learned at my school which is at the risk of posting i was at this school when i met my best friend and found out for my past reading especially the harry potters my school is the best because of my teachers that dedicates their whole lives into teaching their students i can't say that you won't close down not available but that's a tough one to follow huh all right

017good evening board superintendent and district staff listening to the concerns from parents and even students at various school sites over the past few weeks has made one thing very apparent our community cares and wants to be involved there are parents who prioritize geography location and student safety when they're choosing their schools so uh some parents value the programs and opportunities their schools some parents appreciate the staff and the environment that their schools offer as well there are too many reasons to list obviously there are great reasons for keeping schools open no one reason is better than another but what is not apparent and what has not been apparent in the last three years is what does the board prioritize after delegating a committee with a difficult task of sorting through all of the factors to

018consider when reorganizing i still don't understand or know what your priorities are i still don't know what framework you are working off of when you're voting on this issue and so our community deserves clarity on that issue so when you're voting i would hope that you provide that clarity when you're voting on this issue the consistent word i keep reading and hearing is capacity i'll just say this about that particular objective we're talking about children's education we're not talking about the best way to package soda cans so when making decisions tonight i hope you prioritize student learning and opportunity and not packing efficiency lastly i want to say how appreciative i am appreciative i am adulting teachers and staff i and a lot of parents do not live within the dalton boundaries but i chose

019to send my child to dalton and our decision was not based off of the school in our area in fact that school is great that school has great people but our decision was based solely on the people at dalton and the philosophy for which they actually conduct themselves i value how they challenge my daughter i value how they teach positive reinforcement i value that they focus on stem the extra distance that i have to travel to take her there is worth it and i know full well there are parents that also walk there and i know that dalton is also very important to them that they're also willing to walk extra to make it to dalton so i'll end with this when you vote tonight make your reasoning crystal clear on why you're voting the

020way you're voting our community deserves to know why thank you i'll just see that i just have a quick comment actually um i also am apparent to dalton i'm a parent of dolphin and i can talk hours about how much i love people frozen and of course oh he had other choices but i'm not going to do that i'm actually going to just have one thing which is finance one of the things the big big point of all of this has been about money and about you know of course the attendance and how many kids we have but sorry about it the um dalton has been significantly modernized we put a lot of money into the school and making it the best it can be and now it's back on the shopping block possibly over

021schools who haven't been modernized there's schools who are going to require you if you close dalton you have to spend a ton of money to bring up and modernize some of the other schools that aren't currently apparently being discussed i'm not really sure why but we need to look at that if you're gonna if you're gonna factor that in the money that it's gonna cost to bring other schools up to the level where dalton already is then you have to stay realized that it makes no sense to close down so thank you thank you next we have fran carruthers thank you for providing this evening for us to make comments about the school's closure my concern is what will happen to the site of ellington school is closed as it stands now this pool is

022the center of the community of 500 homes it provides green space an area to walk around with pets and children a park-like area for families to play sports at and support the environment with its landscaping what are the board's ideas for this site will it be abandoned will it be sold for high density housing will it become an attractive site for squatters some suggestions for repurposing the site would be to use it for an art school a tech center a charter school or lease it to a private school why did the board build a middle school on the campus since you had access to projected demographics it seems it was not well thought out if it is must close could you provide buses to take students to another school clark allen and arrow highway are

023dangerous street please do your own research on closing ellington school and not just accept the proposals made by someone that does not live or use ellington school thank you [Applause] next we have gloria romero good evening uh my name is gloria romero and i am azusa high graduate 1974. i was here about a month ago to speak on the change versus the high school and i was told that you guys were going to be voting tonight on the decision to take our mascot away and to me i think you guys are very wrong because all you five people are making a decision that i think the community community should make all the people that went to azusa high school i have never heard i've been out of school like 48 years already and not once

024have i ever heard anybody disrespect our aspect i think you guys should really get together and really think about what you guys are doing you guys are going to be making changes and not good ones and so far you haven't i don't think you have made any good changes at all for a long time you guys knew that our school district attendance has been going down and then you still go make um improvements for the schools that you're closing you guys need to think about what you guys are doing and i hope that some of you guys don't run again for the board because i'm going to make sure that you guys have a fight because you know who you are that are bringing everything up to change history azuza this is a high school

025what's wrong with you guys i don't believe that you guys would just five of you decide to change our master that's really ridiculous and i'm sorry if you guys think i'm upset of course i am upset a lot of people in this community don't even know what you're doing there's only a few people that know what's going on in the school board that's all i have to say thank you very much [Music] so at this time uh we have have reached the 20 minute mark we've surpassed the 20 minute mark and so i will uh direct um again if anyone has a has a card we've now expired the time where we would accept any additional um blue cards and so we will then vote here as a board to determine if we will continue

026to hear more comments for the excuse me yes and uh same thing with hands raised in zoom uh thank you uh so whether a blue card has been submitted or there are no more submissions for blue cards and also uh uh raising hands on zoom so we will now um go ahead and entertain uh uh the direction the willow board if if the board would like to continue with the remainder of the comments that have been received thus far i motion that we extend the time second and then we'll go ahead and any i imagine no discussion we'll go ahead and vote yes yeah and i am also yes and so again we will continue with all of the comments those who have have already requested a comment um we will but we will not

027be receiving any additional submissions uh for comments at this time uh we with that we will continue with uh linda de elia my name is lindalia i've been an azusa president and taxpayer for more than 45 years as a taxpayer i'm outraged that my tax dollars are being thrown away what is your justification for closing all the elementary schools on the east side of town i understand enrollment is down but can we pause the moment and look at the whole picture and make wise choices for our children the children on the east side of town have the right to have a school my tax dollars were used to modernize magnolia and the technology grant was just completed in december some of our students already moved when gladstone street was closed now you're going to send

028our children across town i walk that dangerous walk from magnolia to murray on busy street with especially dangerous frosting at center school we should be concerned about our children's safety if there is an emergency have you considered the bedlam that will exist for parents trying to reach their children many parents and caregivers don't drive and will be forced to walk to murray and back parents are looking to send their children to neighboring schools which will result in losing more students this reorganization plan makes the entire district dependent on buses from the high school to the elementary school does that make sense to anyone morning traffic will be a nightmare buses are expensive and getting more expensive every day have you figured the manpower buses and fuel costs involved in this we are continuing to throw

029away money throughout the district i wish all our schools could remain open but your proposal does not have our children's best interest in mind why close a modernized school and bus our students across town to a school that hasn't been modernized if our students are moved to murray and lee they will be filled to capacity leaving no room for growth i worked at magnolia for more than 30 years magnolia is my school it was modernized with my textile don't waste don't chase our students away give the east side of town the school they are entitled to people will not settle in azusa if they have to educate their children elsewhere please revoke and do what's right for our children on the east side of town and their future next we have rebecca lopez good evening

030i look around and i see people who all care about us is that we care about their students who care about education all this passion these feelings and emotions are all a lot so thank you board members for taking time to dive deeper into this decision we know it has not been an easy one thank you community members for advocating for your families and neighborhoods what an amazing example it is to show your children to stand up for something you believe in these are all great signs of a community that cares and let us continue to care deeply about our students the future leaders of our community ensure that they are the priority in this conversation that decisions are made through this purpose-driven and data-driven perspective that will sustain the future growth and passions of

031our communities the decision is bigger than just today we know the board is trying to plan for longevity and strength and sustainability all great things i encourage you to keep a few points in mind through your decision and discussions tonight first keep schools in as an accessible area of each disease that is possible second make sure each trustee area has an elementary school to support the diverse and unique needs of that community consultants and data have already helped to drive the decisions for the designated future trustee zones so why not also apply that logic to this decision third look at the enrollment projections for not only two years out but also for 10 or more years from now what combined areas will continue to grow beyond sustainable limits is achieving this 85 goal sustainable for

032each school including lunch lines pickups parking and school event or could some areas still function at a lower rate that fits the neighborhood needs if the district as a whole could stay fiscally responsible are there certain areas that already have a low enrollment and are projected to decrease and an even more significant percentage creating a geographically bottom heavy enrollment projection for the future let's look at these things creatively and with fresh perspective and anticipate the needs of the future as well as today board members we know you want to do the right thing we know you see the facts we've taken this as far as we can and maybe a little bit further it is in your hands now please be bold and step out and make a motion for a new proposal we are

033all your constituents and even though we may not all live in your future trustee zone you are voted to represent all of azusa so thank you for what you do [Music] next we have jesus carrillo good evening board members friends and family the community has come out the last few months to voice our concerns and ask the board to reconsider and reward their decision to close magnolia bye for one i'm appreciative and would like to thank the board for the many conversations and email exchanges we have had my ask is that the board please ensure that all communities of azusa are represented in tonight's conversation decision i hope that the board takes into account the many pages of information provided to make an informed decision tonight you have the ability tonight to make things right

034our children's education and families are counting on you thank you next we have melissa fajardo can you hear me good evening i'm a volunteer parent at lee and lee's epa president i'm here once again to speak up for all of our children families teachers and staff at lee i'd like to start by saying that i understand that as parents were put in situations in which we had to make changes and sacrifices for our children two years ago due to full enrollment i had no choice but to put my children at longfellow four times a day i walk back and forth to the streets on the north side of azusa and let me express to you it is a feeling of desperation to have to put your children to the horrible experience my children and i

035had walking on that side of azusa only because that was the only way i had to get my children the education they needed because for most of our families walking is their only way of transportation that is what our families will have to go through if you closely we would have to walk through the train tracks in which we all know as a hazard and walk the busy streets of foothill if buses are provided as many parents feel there is no way i will feel comfortable sending my kindergartner first grader on a bus with minimum supervision and not physically seeing if my children made it inside their school they are surrounded by many apartment buildings many of our families there are low income families those are the community members you should keep in mind and

036be helping you are leaving too many gaps in between schools where walking will no longer be an option and for many of our families that is their only option yet you are willing to leave three schools open on our site lee has plenty of space and empty classrooms we have the capacity to accommodate more students than other sports we already accommodate dalton students at lee which we are happy to receive of course so how do you plan to accommodate all of our students onto the smaller campus having to hear over and over from other schools having programs and getting modernized is just a constant reminder of the lack of support he has received from the district the question is why are our children and families not worthy of those opportunities thankfully for us that has

037not stopped our amazing teachers by implementing those skills to our kids the only difference is that it has to come out of their pockets we are leaving living in the same community all of our children should be getting the same equal opportunities are you going how are you going to close the closest school to azusa high school many of our school of our high schoolers walked past lee every day our siblings ali my oldest son being one of them what would they have to see every day and at the abandoned school at the last meeting it was asked by a board member what are we as parents teaching our children i can only speak for myself but what i am teaching my children is to respectfully speak up for what they believe is right the

038question is what are you teaching our children that you can make promises to them and not follow through with them or we as community members go and trust any future votes that you make board members we have waited long enough and i had worked twice as hard it is time that you start supporting our school as you have done with others you voted to keeply open keep your word and lastly i would like to thank board member sabrina who took the opportunity to voice our concerns your time is truly appreciated thank you next we have anna valdez in charleston elementary it's unfortunate to have to be here and try to defend our school i mean what can i say i'm a member of the community i actually went to for myself seeing mrs charles go

039up and she was heartbreaking and very emotional for me and as much as i'm trying not to let emotion like get to me right now really hard but you guys are hearing all these facts and all these other points i don't feel like you're listening to the parents who are actually having to struggle if you close these schools for me personally i struggle finding a job just to make sure i can get my kids to school and pick them back because my mother does not drive which is my only help right now we're just getting by i have to literally be out of work to be able to be with my kids take them to school or do their homework any sort of activity while i at the same time and struggling too have a

040financial stability and you guys are literally not taking in account stress you are putting on parents and family as if the kids didn't suffer enough profit it has been traumatizing for them and then to take a school away from them knowing they're not going to see their friends they're not going to see their teacher that is even more heartbreaking to me because i mean i've been at the school personally and not my kids who lose teachers friends principal an amazing principal that we have that's just not just that and i don't know how to explain that to my daughters if they're about to lose that that they're about to lose their friends their teachers their principal or even any other possibility of knowing what even i got to go through as an experience growing up

041i mean i don't have much to say but thank you for everything for what i did next my name is jennifer ferrone and i'm a sixth grade teacher at dalton i want to thank the board very much the cabinet for the time allowing us to speak hear our opinions all of the school sites can tell you stories that will pull on your heartstrings are extremely passionate about where we were in our school you know and we know that they be our family however we really need to look at what is going to make azusa great in the future dalton is one of the few schools in the past five years that has increased enrollment in fact speaking with um one of our gals in the office today she's telling me that weekly we turn families

042away from dolph i think that we need to make some changes we need to make sure that we the families that are in azusa we need to look for recruiting new families for possible growth because we all love azusa families love dalton because it's a safe beautiful campus and the teachers have hearts the staff has heart laura clark and greg cahill together as a dynamic dynamic team have created a very supportive and safe environment for kids when parents drop their kids off there they walk their kids there the dog pulls them to school they love their they know that they're in a safe place the issues that we've been hearing about with walking families are true but you've got walking families every um i know directly from speaking with stacy that tk's where but too

043long fellow and therefore they got their little selves on their buses they felt safe we believe in our business bus drivers they're loving they're kind they're wonderful we know that if four-year-olds can take a bus so can other other agents i want to thank you tonight for taking very seriously and so much to heart your decision we understand it's not an easy one and you can see from your schools are very well represented thank you so much for considering thank you mr um next we have greg cahill good evening i'm here to share some facts that i hope you will consider if you decide to make changes to the decision that you made in three months ago i want to begin first by honoring the work the reorganization team did they work together for a

044year and a half to two years i believe they met 15 times and often times for several hours they grappled with the tough questions and did the research needed to gather information that would be required to make sound evidence-based decision so thank you to all of you that work so diligently on this committee at the december meeting a board member mentioned population density as a reason why they would not consider closing a particular school i ask that the board look at enrollment at the school that they were speaking about if a vote is being reserved for the purposes of population density i would expect student enrollment in this school to mirror this density in case that information is not readily available i can tell you that it doesn't matter traffic is a big concern once

045azusa high school is home for all high school students in azusa traffic in the in that area will be drastically different this will not only be an issue for the high school but everything in the area including other schools modernization it makes sense to me that when choosing schools to remain open one would seriously consider the cost to finish modernization at the school there is quite a difference between two of the schools you may be discussing tonight money saved here will allow the district to rebrand other properties and update campuses that have already been through the modernization process some 20 years ago the figures i was given today by the district regarding modernization cannot be accurate it showed that both dalton and lee each require five million two hundred thousand dollars to finish modernization this

046can't be true since dalton has one final phase to be completed location i encourage you to seriously think about closing schools along the azusa's border currently you have chosen to close three elementary schools that share a border with neighboring district if declining enrollment is the reason we're in this situation to begin with why would all the schools we are closing be border schools we know many of the families that attend these schools will eventually leave zeus unified and cause our enrollment to decline even further if you consider reversing your decision regarding one of the three schools you voted to close it doesn't make sense to replace it your time is expired on the border thank you thank you next we have guadalupe castregon um la [Music] next we have veronica good evening um some information

047shared with the board at the meeting in early march was misleading or not accurate when the school closes the population of that school does not automatically transfer to the closest school some information you received indicated that murray and lee will be extremely close to if not over their capacity when they re closed this isn't accurate when a final decision is made to close schools the district is going to redefine who enrollment boundaries so for instance if power is still slated to close lease new enrollment boundaries will likely extend to include what is currently power attendance area while at the same time some of the lead boundaries will likely change to expand dalton's attendance boundaries to include more of what is currently at least in this area school attendance enrollment areas will be adjusted across the

048district there has been a lot of talk about families that walk to schools and how school closures were effective on several occasions lee elementary has been referred as the walk-in school i understand this to indicate that lee has many school students that walk to school perhaps more than other schools nessusa i'm not sure if this data has been documented throughout the district but i would guess that some families decided to walk to school for a variety of reasons some have no no other transportation some live close enough to the school that it doesn't make sense to drive especially when considering traffic signals and overall traffic to the area no matter what school close some families are going to be forced to walk further and across busy street this is a fact and it is a

049fact that pertains to all schools that have been identified as schools that are um closing the single ones who out over others may be convenient for argument's sake but it applies to all [Music] next we have danny johnson thank you board for allowing us to speak uh i'm here not to talk to the board since not a two-way dialogue i'm here to talk to the community now one of the things i think we all have to understand is that not all the schools can be saved if it's a budget cut i think the first question we need to look at is the budget and i'm looking at the general fund from 2020 and 2021 which is posted on the internet you'll find that there's some 93 million dollars appropriated to the budget for the salaries

050alone okay and or for the general budget or fund half of that was for salary and so if we have some supposed budget cut i find it dubious if not outrageous that some two people got raises last meeting so one of the things that i want you guys to all understand is not all of the schools can be saved but they can be repurposed if you don't have a plan if they don't have a plan you need to insist on one otherwise it's going to be a hell hole is going to be graffiti ridden it's going to have a lot of loitering and undesirables that will decline your neighborhood most of the schools that we all attend or we purchase near all are in the center of our neighborhoods are they not all right so

051if you don't speak up and ask what is the repurposed plan are you just going to close it while giving yourselves a raise and telling us that it's a budget cut or are you entitled to a fair answer you have at least a year before they're going to do something and i think if you speak loud enough they'll listen thank you mr johnson next we have the ellington community by the next we have alicia rodriguez good evening ausd board members parents students and community members my name is alicia rodriguez a parent of two children enrolled at lee elementary first i want to applaud every person that's here tonight advocating for their child advocating for their school i'm so proud that our community got together for this i'm also here because a lot of parents don't

052have the leisure like some of the board members think to be present at these meetings to express their feelings or ideas let alone to stay through hours just to hear you continue to ping-pong the reorganization decision of the school's closing on that note i'd like to share with you that lee had an online and written petition where 634 families and community members expressed their concerns and signed the petition in hopes that this would touch your heart to keep our school open many of us have already brought to you countless concerns and facts about our school like capacity demographic density and distance don't base your decision tonight solely on money make a decision that will truly impact our children in a positive way show us that you care about our community and our children you claim

053that asusa unified is working to maximize programs and facilities but only some facilities have seen your generosity and others like lee have not we've had to deal on countless locations with your false promises not only from the board but the superintendent where are the programs you speak about how are you enriching our children at the elementary level why haven't you built up our community you have already spent so much money on the high schools it's time we see some of the money go towards our elementary school so we can see our kids thrive lastly don't patronize us and tell us that to reach out to you that you fear for us when we do we're met by many of you with excuses as to why you can't meet with us except for you mr renaud

054we are so thankful for the time that you took to meet with lee parents it's time for you as our board to set the bar for our district thank you next we have diana adkins hi hi i'm a dalton parent i bought a house in a souza because i wanted my children to go to dalton the school was close enough to walk and the school was beautiful and clean i'm an anxious person and dalton made me feel safe the principal learns every child's name in the whole school what principle does that i can email her and get a response the same day and i've done that multiple times and she has always bonded and made me feel safe the teachers go above and beyond the material that they eat my daughter's tk teacher even taught

055her sign language [Music] when we went to virtual we all cried on the last day of school because we felt robbed sorry we felt robbed of our time with that wonderful teacher and next year hopefully if the school continues to stay open my son will also have the same teacher the time that i got robbed the time that my daughter got robbed she's gonna get that with my son [Music] if you decide to close down dalton you are closing down our safe place i will remove both my children from the sousa unified school district if dalton's closed down and i voted for you so i hope that you listen thank you next we have christine wagner hi board i know most of you know my face i've been to so many of things i worked

056with arturo on especially one thing that i'm sorry to say this but we did not keep it and that was being transparent with our community i live in an area at ellington that none of the homeowners have received any notification of what was going on in this district i've heard you guys say that it has been available online but you got to remember some of those don't have kids in our district that's the hard thing it is so heartening to know what you guys are doing behind the community if we are supposed to be transparent where is that where is the flyers i live in that area and i gotta tell you i received two flyers from covina valley unified school district inviting my child to come and join their school and their open house

057i have going to have an 8th grader at ellington and i'll tell you right now she does not want to come back she is hating her school how do you have a child who hates their school when ellington has become a family of a community have no answer for her how do you do that as a parent and you got to remember my child is the third generation at this school at ellington and that's not the purpose for me education is it doesn't matter about this curricular activities of sports what are they going to use that in life to be a team player maybe but isn't that what our teachers do to help our kids communicate i pulled my oldest out of the district she will be 21. and that's because that time they failed

058our disability students they weren't helping her or supporting her i fought all the way and i will do it again because my kids education comes number one and if there's not a district that will support that then i'm ready to do it on my own i've done it for eight years with her from junior high all the way to high school because at that time there was no business for my child to walk from where ellington is all the way to center and i am hopefully invite every single one of you to come and visit the school sites that you're going to close thank you ms wagner thank you [Applause] next up we have richard covington all right hello hi thank you for hearing me um i've been listening tonight and from all the families

059here and everyone i hear a lot of the same concerns we all have for our schools the distance the closing of our schools our communities and i just wanted to throw in that i hope you guys please when you vote do the right thing don't leave the east side of azusa without a school we just want one you know what i mean thank you that's all [Music] next we have daniel carrillo [Music] good evening uh parents grandparents moms staff thank you very much for being here my name is janel carrillo i attended dalton elementary back in 1999. so i'm going to learn upon learning about the possible closure of dalton came as a complete another shot dalton has been a staple in our community for decades the hard work and dedication of past and current

060staff members not only embodies who this community is it transcends in our youth and standard in me and my friends and family i have attended adults dalton will continue to [Music] the future that we continue to strive and improve and protect closing dalton will be turning the backs on this very community's eastward of curve dalton is and always will be the heartbeat of this community we cannot give up on our youth and our community adding additional workload to already overworked and underpaid teachers is wrong and downright fell in closing um got a poem to read to you fifth grade room two miss vigil was the teacher that helped me out this poem 30 years ago about two months back in january in my quest to achieve my goals i stumble and crumble and lose my

061soul those that knew me would easily co-sign there was no life as hard as mine no money no father no chance no guy i only followed my voice inside if it guides me wrong and i do not win i'll learn from my mistakes and try to achieve again don't make that mistake and close dalton's mailman thank you mr next we have sarah serrano is sarah serrano present or is that online is that a blue card okay we will we'll revisit and see if sarah's here uh we'll move on then to april artechi me and my brother started at magnolia since he is now in high school and i am in fifth grade with one more year at magnolia my little sister is in preschool and we want her to continue at magnolia like we'd the

062teachers and staff are great and always there to help when we need th that is mainly because they are not overworked imagine how much one-on-one time we would get with our teachers if our schools were weren't overcrowded with students imagine the stress on both the teachers students and parents if we had to adjust to a new school don't mess with our education and don't overcrowd the schools be magnolia approach the podium [Music] hello okay thank you sorry i had to run through the crowd i'm glad to see how many people made it out tonight i'm a little out of breath so i'll try to make this not so bad um i'm here advocating for magnolia elementary a school with a completely modernized campus on the east side of azusa over the past months community members

063have given more than enough reasons as to why magnolia should stay open dozens of logic based reasons you should all consider when making your decision if any board member feels strongly about the closure of magnolia i hope i hope at the very least you give your reasoning i would like to know why you think magnolia campus should close by campuses that require millions of dollars dollars for updates to remain open i would like to know the research you did to make this decision because it's a drastic change and changes like this should not happen without reasoning research facts statistics and transparency i want transparency from you board members i want to hear your reasoning your logic and i want to hear it clearly i don't want difficult language or jargon i want you to say

064own up to your word and say it in complete sentences that we can all understand because if it's personal i want to know i want you to own up to your choices so your constituents understand so we can clearly understand why these decisions are being made because you owe us that more importantly the students of magnolia deserve a board member to advocate for them to fight for their education and an advocate to say their campus is completely updated i want somebody to talk about the gladstone street school students being forced to move to magnolia and now possibly facing another move the list goes on i want to hear from sabrina beau for the past few meetings i've called out and has said she would not like to speak afterwards i want to hear about your

065charter school if the people of rosedale are coming to azusa schools i want to hear from all of you so we all understand and we want to know why we should continue to vote for you or not vote for you i want to remind you all that we're the reason we're up here we vote them into these positions and we can easily vote them out thank you miss serrano next we have jessica garcia hi i'm really thrilled to be considered a parent with these amazing people um i am a parent of a tk student at dalton um our teachers right here and when i moved to azusa i tried to get out of the zoo i did not want my child going to schools with twos and threes i said get me out of here

066i decided to go to glendora i tried to go to covina and at the end of the day i am beyond thankful that we landed at dalton um every single day i feel safe dropping my child off i'm in constant communication with my child teacher like other parents have mentioned um mrs clark knows their name literally my tk child showed up to school on the very first day and the principal knew her name with the mask like it was mind-blowing how for someone who was so reluctant to join the azusa school district to then be welcomed with such open arms and so obviously we all have these amazing stories that pull on our heartstrings right um we're all shaking while we're up here because it's intimidating you you're you know voted into office you're sitting

067here you're taking notes they've got you know the public access channel happening i think that guy's a reporter taking notes on his phone like we all want to make our voices heard and i feel like the best thing that we can do is just continue to echo and mirror all of the things you know there are teachers retired my best friend her mom was a teacher adult for over 35 years and knowing the legacy that she leaves behind some of these other amazing teachers who've gotten up and spoken the legacy that they leave behind regardless of what school closes we really need to make sure that we ensure the students that are here and as you said now stay in azusa because similarly if i don't get my soon to be you know tk students

068in the same classroom i might try and leave again and it's not because it's close to me it's not because it's something that you know i have against the city now it's just that i really like where we're at and i like what azusa has chosen to offer our students so if i can offer any solace or positive words that already haven't been spoken by the league of parents and teachers here today i just really again encourage you to think with your vote about what is going to further enrich our students and keeping people in azusa unified and how can we continue to build on the confidence that i received by sticking around in azusa um you know we can't expect change with our students unless we actually invest in our students and so again

069i'm so thrilled to be a parent with all the rest of these people and thank you so much for your time thank you ms garcia next we have haley johnson dear azusa unified school board my name is haley johnson and i am extremely saddened to hear about the potential closing of ellington school i have lived down the street for 30 years and i personally attended ellington school along with my brother as a resident and former alumni i am disappointed that i was not informed about the potential and crucial decision for years ellington has served not only as a pillar of education but a center point for community interaction and neighborhood support i'm concerned for the future of our neighborhood if ellington closes our safe and small community would be at stake if the building goes

070vacant unused or torn down ellington is the heart and soul of our neighborhood and serves so many people in a variety of ways because of ellington elementary and our probable teacher-to-student ratio i was able to prioritize my own education i went on to receive a full academic and athletic scholarship i competed in the big 12 conference as a division one gymnast i hope the same opportunities are available for the next generation please consider the impact this will make on our little community when making your decision please vote to keep ellington open at active thank you thank you miss johnson next we have nancy saving hello um my name is nancy sabin i'm a homeowner who didn't know anything about this uh there were no notifications no flyers uh directly to our homes uh but when

071voting time comes we get uh about five flyers to a home for all of you that want to be voted in uh we have uh three voters in our house each one gets a fire from every single person that wants to be voted but notifications weren't sent so we were caught off guard and i'm wondering you know why we were caught up hard so uh also i'm concerned with the amount of schools that are being closed all at once we've already closed three schools right and there's going to be a potential of i don't know four to six schools what's gonna happen with all that abandoned property uh have you decided what's gonna happen uh how what is the total amount of square footage that's going to be abandoned and are we guaranteed that those

072properties are not going to be sold to developers to add more population in our area that can't be supported by the infrastructure can you guarantee us that that property won't be sold to developers uh has there been a decision have you looked that far i believe you have i believe the fact that there hasn't been transparency uh transparency is because you don't want us to know uh zeus is a small city havana is going to be affected how could you close so many schools at once i i don't understand that and next time i would like to be informed of these things we are we pay our property tax we support the schools to do what what have you guys been doing for two years what justifies you staying in your positions when you make

073decisions like this first order of business last week everybody voted to give themselves a raise all of you whoever got all those raises 200 000 a year and more to do what to ruin our cities to close our schools to i don't know what's going to happen with all their property who knows the total square footage of all this abandoned property who knows it i don't i wasn't notified i'm a property owner another woman talked about transparency let us know or don't let us know and try to you know get these things done uh behind our backs is all i can tell that's all i can surmise is that it was done uh notifying the least amount of people that needed to be notified and now you're going to vote on it thank you thank

074you seven your time is expired next up we have amber fish hello thank you all for having me tonight um i'm listening to all the parent comments and i want you to know my heart goes out to each and every one of you supporting your schools we're fighting for our children's education here it's important they need to see we are the example we set for our children they need to see us fighting for what we believe but we also have to think about the future and what our future holds um i was a part of the reorganization committee and knowing that the school board was coming back to look at these decisions i took the time to go over the reorganization notes available on azusa.org i look through my notes which are pages and pages

075of notes i appreciate the the board members who took the time to sit down with me and fellow parents previously you guys are doing a great job listening to the community and i appreciate that but i want to share some things currently our school districts our school district has nine elementary schools open putting our elementary schools at 58.25 capacity we were told we needed to have 20 or sorry 75 capacity in order to be fiscally responsible but having 75 capacity means that in a couple years we will be under that 75 capacity and we will no longer be fiscally responsible we need to close schools in order for our community or for our school district to be sustainable we took two high schools and merged them into one and now students don't have to choose

076between which school they want to go to based on programs they're going to have all of that opportunity in one location we took three middle schools that were running at approximately 30 capacity each and we're merging them into one high school gladstone high school which will now be the middle school it's a fantastic idea giving our students our middle school students the best that they they can offer they're going to get a gym they're going to get a full-on track we need to close elementary schools in order to make our student our elementary schools the best to not be spreading our resources then everybody's asking for programs we want programs too but we can't have them if our funds are spread thin across nine schools um comparable cities cities of our comparable size have fewer

077elementary schools in azusa they're looking at five to six city uh schools per city we're running nine we need to close at least three and this is a hard decision nobody is taking this decision lightly i can tell you i played with numbers looking at closing all the different schools and what would be the best i can't tell you that it's a tough decision and our board is not taking this decision lightly and i appreciate you guys coming back to the table and looking at this again thank you miss fish next we have lisa serrano can you hear me yes we can hear you okay thank you um nobody wants their schools to close i don't want to see dalton lee ellington powell or magnolia close but unfortunately unfortunately the district is saying that three

078schools will close so sad as this is this district needs to make their decisions in a logical manner research was gathered years of decision making and planning and within this planning magnolia was not one of the schools that was chosen to close why because it doesn't make sense to close it it is modernized it doesn't need any money to continue it is great and ready to go it is also serving the east side of azusa thank you gabi arianis for speaking up and putting magnolias closer back on the agenda i hope the board votes on these closures with logical decision making thank you thank you miss serrano next we have violet hello can you help me can you hear me okay thank you okay um good evening this is the board members and this is

079a community i come here yet again this evening again on the matter of the revisit of school closures to keep lee's school open my two boys go to lee one is in kindergarten and the other is in first grade lee's school is a great serving elementary school to the community of azusa residents that live north of first slash baseline south of foothill west of citrus and east of azusa avenue lee is right in the center of our city surrounded by large density of apartment conflicts condos and multi-general housing which means it has a large community of walkers lee is also the closest elementary school to what now will be our only high school azuza high lee has the capacity to accommodate more students lee also has room for additions if needed for future expansions um

080i just wanted to tell the board to please make the right decision and to keep that center of our city in mind and i know you guys have a big decision today of what to do but just please keep in mind of our community that lives right in the center of azusa thank you so much for all your time that you guys have had for listening to all our parents and all of our concerns thank you so much have a good night thank you violet next we have anna good evening board members i am a big part of ellington school i was just recognized for parent of the year and parent of the district i have a lot to say at first um but uh one main thing i want for ellington is for miss

081sabrina beau said on the last meeting that if we needed anything we can contact you guys i did several emails did not receive anything back all i want is for every single board member to come to ellington and meet with me let me see let me show you what ellington has to offer i'm excuse me because i'm a little nervous right now because i had just had so much to say and i'm not going to drag it on because parents are just everyone is concerned about their own school my main concern is ellington and what we have to offer and we never get a board member out there all together in one group you guys come out individually i would just like for you to all come and meet with me you can get my

082email from mr adrian acosta our principal and see what our wonderful school has to offer so that's i'll leave it with that and i appreciate the good work you guys are doing i don't wish anyone to be voted off the board because you're all very wonderful people so have a good night thank you anna next we have george ingle what do you mean can you hear me yes we can good evening board members i come to you once again i'm a parent of the six-year-old who attends lee elementary uh we moved to israel two years ago and at the time we had many choices and one of our deciding factors um was being in the middle of azusa having an elementary school and the high school right next to it why because i have a

083son attending lee elementary right now and also have a son attending azusa high school right next to the middle school we are in the middle of the city close to the high school where my son currently attends an elementary where my other son is in first grade we are not the only parents that have a son or daughter at azusa and a son or daughter at lee there are also other parents that drop off their children at azusa high and then drop off their younger children at lee i've also brought up to you the following facts based on all groups in census blocks 40 4301 and 4042.01 there is a higher density of population surroundingly based on that census data there are approximately 2 000 kids under 5 to 14 years old that may attend

084elementary lee elementary just like us many parents walk their kids to school and we do not want to have to cross major or potentially assertive streets and if you closely the possibility to also cross a very busy metro track we are also taxpayers and parents of lee students again a school that is located in the middle of azusa superintendent ortega where we are also taxpayer when is lee's turn to get modernized when do you plan to invest in our school you and every member of the board know that lee can accommodate more students and it has a lot of potential most importantly room for growth you're closing schools now because of enrollment numbers what will you do when all schools are at capacity in in the future and you close the schools that have room

085to build for potential growth lee has a lot of potential keep it open you have to make we understand you have to make choices you need to close you needed to close a high school and decided to keep a souza high located in the middle of azusa we hope that you as elected members of the board will keep lee elementary school open and invest in our school keep your word and keep lee elementary open thank you thank you mr ingle next we have james fuentes lika do we see james fuentes oh can you hear me uh yes oh thank you yes my apologies um hi um uh my name is molly fuentes and my husband and i are parents of a daughter who attends dalton elementary school and we just wanted to thank everyone for

086the opportunity to share a few words tonight we greatly appreciate the comments from other parents and listening because it is very evident that we all greatly care about our schools and where our children attend i also appreciate the board's transparency in making um the the videos on the school reorganization the reading summaries and the viewing slides available and posted on the district website we have definitely reviewed all of them and read them and appreciate having that information accessible and it is apparent that you know just due to the sheer numbers and the enrollment that schools do need to close so based on that i just wanted to share a couple of comments about dalton elementary and our experiences there i've worked over 10 years in public education and i must say when we moved into

087azusa i didn't have any intention of our daughter attending school here our intention was to put her in private school due to concerns we had about overcrowding about declining enrollment and about low ratings on public education rating sites about this district however during the pandemic our daughter showed a strong desire to learn and we thought well you know what we'll enroll her in virtual tk i honestly didn't think that anybody could pull off virtual tk quite as well as dalton elementary school did my daughter was so engaged she learned phenomenally well she was reading before she ever entered kindergarten the culture at dalton truly caused my husband and i to really rethink our educational plans for her and pulling her out of the district and i must say that that was one of the best

088decisions that we have made thus far the quality of her education at dalton has been superior to some of the schools that i've worked in over the last 10 years this school shows great promise one of the top schools in azusa a stem school a pbis school and i can't emphasize much how important it is that you have a school that uses positive intervention behavior supports and looks at a child's social emotional intelligence and learning with the same veracity as they do their academic progress i really really encourage you to keep dalton open and i encourage other parents to get to know dalton and get to know the community and perhaps you'll want your child to attend dalton as much as we do thank you so much thank you miss fuentes next we have annette

089escobar hi um good evening as adult and parent i'd like to express my support for henry dalton and that i am completely against the possible closure our children teachers and staff will suffer families need henry dalton because of location some even go out of their way and out of district so their children can attend i ask that the board members be reasonable and not close our wonderful school thank you mr escobar and next up we have mike siofi please correct me if i said your name incorrectly sorry but president i don't see him online any longer he may have gotten knocked off okay we'll we'll check back in at the end of our list next we have alicia godinez he is also no longer in zoom attendance okay we will check back in um when

090we get to the end of the list although we're drawing down next we have john cogan hello hi hi my name is john cogan um i'm the father of two daughters who just recently started their schooling at dalton elementary school i can only say i mean we brought our kids from uh private school we all had the same concerns that i believe a person two two speakers before had um azusa has low ratings azusa is terrible whatever you want try to get out of there but um i mean we've only been here like i said less than a month with our oldest daughter and i mean she's thriving she is she came from you know um foothill christian school and um the teachers there immediately recognized how you know how to how to i don't

091know how to push your buttons how to get her going and um she hate she did not like reading she was i i don't know how else to say it but um within two weeks uh her teacher had her uh reading maybe two or three levels above what she had been doing she now reads for hours um at a time without provocation or without um requests um and i can only say that that sounds like magic as a as a parent who struggled with some of these kids and um i'm sorry i didn't get to attend inside i mean i'm actually outside in the parking lot but um it's pretty crowded in there so i know the support and i see the support that all these uh parents and educators have for their students and

092i know i i only recently became aware of what was going on in the azusa school district and i realize you guys have a difficult task and i don't wish anything upon any of the other um fellow my fellow residents and parents of other schools and i only hope that whatever decision is made takes into account everybody and is expressed clearly to those especially those who feel like they weren't informed of time thank you mr cogan next we have lisa bisgard can you hear me okay sorry good morning or good evening sorry thank you for letting me speak via zoom tonight i've read and listened to so much regarding these issues right now i'm the pto president at arlington tk8 my family has been with ellington since 2004 my siblings and now my own children

093who are eighth six and tk so ellington is our family i've heard capacity as well as money being the reason for closures yet last meeting i do recall superintendent and others getting a four to five percent raise tell me how that makes sense to close schools due to money what will you do with the closed schools because you already have some that are vacant ones just sitting there especially when you get off the freeway to enter azusa and you just have a school with weeds growing in a vacant building if wellington closes i understand kids would go to valley dell have any of you actually walk from ellington to valley dale in the middle of a median between the busy street where they speed most the time it is unsafe ellington is inside a community

094of homes whom residents watch out for our students the same residents who weren't told about any of these possible changes with the closure our teachers will have to go to different schools if they even get that opportunity because i'm sure there will be pink slips with these closures it's kind of saddening at ellington we have an amazing tk teacher mrs dyer who came from gladstone and now i'm afraid she will have to move again if we close which isn't fair our tk students who are already excited to move on to ms rodon's class for next year with their friends yet they might not even have that possibility of even having a kinder at ellington next year all of our teachers are made for ellington they bring our community together as one as parents we must

095advocate for our students teachers as well the staff we don't want them to move you all need to be transparent with us because we ask questions and our questions aren't answered and our emails are ignored i do recall about three to four years ago meeting with president adrian with the group of us ellington parents and you promising to help ellington with programs and opportunities not just with the school but the whole district now all of a sudden you want to close this down please no more empty promises i'm asking to keep our ellington eagles sorry at our school with an amazing opportunity surrounding commun amazing communities surrounding it think about what you're doing because i've had multiple families come up to me at the school asking me how to do an out of district transfer

096in case ellington closes thank you miss ms garden well circle back uh lika do you see mike siofi online i do not see mike online but we do have alicia beck okay alicia you're invited to unmutant speak uh hi my name is felicia i'm a parent of a lee student like many of those parents who've spoken before i've you know it took me a long time to transfer my son here even after buying our house in azusa so we've lived here about five years and i barely transferred him this year granted it was zoom the previous two years but um it's kind of amazing to hear how great lee is being that it's one of the least you know updated schools within the district and how how amazing they're doing miss lopez has really done

097a number with my son and getting him engaged in school and getting excited him excited to be there so just advocating for him and having some consistency with just changing schools i you know urge you guys to keep lee open as well um that's all thank you miss godinez and so lika before we conclude and close this time i'll ask one more time if we see mike siofi on there i do not see him online okay in that case we will conclude with this item 3.1 and and here in a moment we will move to the only item on our agenda for discussion which is 4.1 discussion and decision on school b organization elementary schools before we go there i do want to once again just remind all who are in attendance that again the

098format of these meetings uh themselves do not allow for back and forth dialogue and so that was the opportunity that we had to receive comments and and i i know that i can safely speak on behalf of the board and thanking all those who came to share their comments and and share their perspectives with the the board of education um with that said as we move forward um there is there again the format for the meeting does not allow back and forth dialogue so i i will ask um and invite everyone to listen um but ask that you uh not not participate verbally um throughout the course of the meeting um as we move on to item 4.1 we will we will begin with uh uh superintendent ortega uh who will make a somewhat of

099a presentation um understanding that there are different people who are joining the conversation at different points and we're wanting to make sure that while we have uh ears here listening and and eyes here watching uh that that we can do our best to kind of summarize um some of the work that has taken place over the course of the past couple years when evaluating this decision as well as some of the data points and and rationale be behind where we find ourselves in the position that we're in at this time board member president um i would like to take this time to actually i have to use the restroom so board president let me excuse myself but i don't want to miss any of this so okay let's uh we'll we'll go ahead and take

100we'll go and take a a five minute recess here we will give it one more minute until we return so heads up okay thank you for your patience uh allowing for that pause uh both those who are joining us online and those who are here in person again just to pick up where we left off from from uh superintendent ortega will be sharing with us a a presentation that will help to um summarize it and and bring as best we can everyone up to speed as far as as far as the rationale some data points around how we are seeing us at the place we are now where we're looking to to make some of these uh school consolidations uh superintendent or ticket thank you uh so thank you board president greer um as you

101stated tonight we want to try to recap why we are going through school reorganization since november 2020 which is when the school reorganization team met for the very first time we have been communicating that our school reorganization is about the ability to increase and improve the programs and facilities that we offer our students staff and community want to kind of paint the picture uh about uh school reorganization as well as you can see from this table in the 2003-2004 school year azusa unified school district had 12 thousand 134 students this school year we have 7084 students that is a drop of 42 percent in four short years after this year in the 25 26 school year we are projected to have 6 3227 students yes this is just a projection but the projection would put

102us at a 48 drop or almost 50 percent of our student population compared to 2003 2004. this declining enrollment uh has a lot of uh things attributed to it uh but some of the some of the factors are low birth rates in the state and particularly our area and the rise in housing costs this declining enrollment that you see here is not affecting only azusa unified school district this is a statewide issue in 2018 2019 the state lost about 23 000 students two years later the straight the state dropped nearly seven times that figure losing more than 160 000 students by 2031 it is projected that in the state of california we will be losing 703 000 students this right here is a graphical representation of the table we were just looking at it that

103we were just looking at just again just to give you a different view of our declining enrollment in azusa if we took our declining enrollment and mapped it to our facilities you will see that in 2003 2004 we had 18 school sites for 12 134 students this school year 2122 we have 16 school sites for 7 00 84 students so while our student enrollment has dropped drastically and is projected to continue to decline our facilities have only seen a decrease of two elementary sites if we look at the our enrollment and our facilities and we look at it and we look at it in a different way we look at it in capacity which is how many students we can serve at our sites if we take our current 16 sites so not the 18

104sites that we had in 2003 our current 16 sites which can serve 15 201 students and we calculate the number of students that we actually had in 2003 2004 which was 12 134 we would be using 80 of our total capacity of our current facilities that's taking our current facilities and taking the students from 2003 2004. excuse me could you please repeat that um how many students you said 15 000 201 201. and those current sites if we were to keep it open is that what you're saying correct so could you please explain it in a simpler term sure the 16 schools that we have right now we can house we can have 15 201 students across the 16 schools with the with the facilities that we currently have right now that's not building anything

105or adding new rooms that's just currently what we have right now if we project this out um i'm sorry in 2122 this school year with the 16 sites that we have and the amount of students that we have um this school year you will see that we are using 47 of the capacity of our facilities by 2526 when we are projecting uh another decline we will be projected to be using 40 of the capacity of our current facilities flip the other way around that means that sixty percent of our facilities uh would not be in full use to um have classrooms uh for student as this data has been unfolding in azusa right we've been talking about since 2003 2004 to now that's a long span our neighboring and local districts are also have also

106been seeing the same type of data for their enrollment and their facilities as well some of these districts have very early on began to respond to this data by closing schools other districts just recently closed schools this school year others are closing schools next school year and others are beginning now to have these conversations in our district in january 2020 the board of education directed the superintendent that was the superintendent at that time to begin the work of making the tough decisions on how to reorganize our schools again that was january 2020 in october 2020 we created a school reorganization team that was made up of 50 parents and 50 staff to look at school reorganization to begin working on this and we launched the team in november in september 2021 the board received the

107official recommendations from the school reorganization team and the board of education at that time began their process to make a final decision through this process the board of education has been asking for data they have had robust conversations they have been listening to public input they have taken all of that into consideration as they have worked on what has rightfully been said tonight making these tough decisions and to end i just want to loop us back to how we began school reorganization is going to allow azusa unified school district to increase and improve the program offerings that it offers its students at our schools this means that our secondary schools this means more course offerings more access more choice activities extracurriculars robust and rounded curriculum in our elementaries they don't have courses per se but

108the same thing a robust and rounded curriculum extracurriculars and activities as well in terms of our facilities school reorganization is going to allow us to concentrate our existing funds for facility improvements it's going to also allow us to increase and improve the maintenance of our sites and the facility and the safety of our sites as well thank you superintendent ortega so uh ford as as we now take on this this next part of our meeting this endeavor of discussing and making this decision there are uh a few things that i i want to communicate and keep in front of us to keep in mind as we move forward um the the first one is it's it's going to be imperative um that as we look at making these decisions that we that we take the

109time this evening and and that we use uh this this time and space that we have to render what will be a final decision um again that's going to be extremely important and um to everyone uh hearing and listening uh as we hear the diverse perspectives and and uh thoughts that people have what that means is there is zero percent chance that by the end of our our discussion today that everyone in this room will be will be happy or pleased um and yet uh board where we're tasked with doing the hard work of making uh a final decision this evening uh the second thing i'll point out is as we are making decisions i i would ask i would encourage um as it has been stated that as as we vote that that we

110do take the time to also express and articulate some of our reasoning and our thinking behind decisions that that we're making um just that there is is uh an added layer of clarity and transparency the third and final thing that i'll add before we begin this conversation is that due to the the ways in which there already was a vote that took place on december 21st uh 2021 there are going to be some specific ways in which we will need to make motions uh and move certain certain motions forward and so let's uh be mindful of that uh as as we are making the the motions and we have our our legal counsel uh carlos here to to assist us with that if if we find ourselves in any any kind of a pickle with

111that said we will go ahead and open up the the discussion around discussion and decision around reorganization regarding elementary schools so so you want to know my views and my vote or what is it you want to hear from me i i would say as as we have the discussion uh so it could be that on the front end of this discussion that there are questions that we have whether it's for staff or or just conversation and that's the and there's room for that i would say when we get to the portion of our of our conversation where we are looking to make uh motions and and votes that that i would encourage us to to articulate our thinking and reasoning behind uh the the votes the motions and the the seconds and the votes

112that that we're going to be taking okay um then i will start so i want to say good evening to everyone and i want to thank my colleagues for tabling this very important item until i returned regarding the school closures um i would like to start by saying thank you for all of you voicing your opinions through all these board meetings and virtually and in person and i want to um thank also the reorganization committee for putting spending so many hours and days on putting together a plan that we needed to look at they also did the research i have been on your side i have been and the other side will put it this way i'm retired for the years of the garvey school district as a classified employee i was a csa union

113job steward and i am a community advocate and i stick my mind when i feel i need to be heard so i do appreciate it that you all come out and speak on what your concerns are and you know what you want to see different because that's really important um uh i became always before i became a school board member so my platform i always use this i was a voice just like you now i'm a vote so i recommend that if you want to make a difference in your community or in your schools then you should run for offices you know join the superintendent's wrong table join the pta pto committees where you can make a difference and you can be that vote on the presentation today that mr ortega gave superintendent ortega is

114the reason why we're reaching this point superintendent and cabinet will give us data regarding budgets on three year projection declining enrollment that uh status due to low birth rates high rents property values and programs and facilities the cunning enrollment is not only happening here that is this unified school district everyone is stacy declining in rome and i have very many um fellow school board members that are talking about the same thing declining enrollment and school closures in their district in the san gabriel valley i have another scenario you know i have four children who are grandchildren all attended azusa unified school district they're all grown i'm still here i have no kids but i'm still in my house so of course i'm not giving any more kids to murray or gladstone or center where my

115kids attend it so um so the job of the school board member is what do we need to do about all this they give us data they we hear people okay us what are we gonna do about it that is our job three years ago the scooper voted on school organization due to the declining enrollment and capacity in our schools looking into school capacities enrollment and facilities a school reorganization committee was formed that included parents management administration classified certificated and personnel union representation they met countless hours which i appreciate 10 days they all went over the budget the data's information on the schools from elementary to the high schools that would bring them back bring them recommendations to the board of education this is the hardest decision that i have to make as a school

116board member how to make our jobs to keep but our job also as many is the budget ausd's budget fiscally solvent 85 percent of our base funds is used for our staff salaries health benefits we do want to and we also don't want the state to take over our district so that can possibly happen if they know that we are not managing managing our funds property properly i have read every email heard public speaking spoke to parents did my own research and did my own data on top of what is given to me uh school closures at ausd is inevitable at this time that being said um i have not changed my mind i am still in favor of model 3 the proximity map for the following reasons anyone everyone wants to hear the reasons

117why we're voting the way we want to vote or where our minds our mind is at well first of all i cannot see spending three to five million dollars on remodeling a school campus when we have schools that have already been remodeled with measure k funds the funds can be used on other projects within the district where schools that are going to remain open location traffic is horrible i was on the morning walking with the azusa walks committee through the city and we went to just different areas this is the you know do they need crosswalks here do they need more crossing guards you know how can we make it safe for the students and the public well there was a parent walking put in your child's hand walking across the street on the west

118side of slauson park right in the middle of the i don't know what you call it the island i guess you want to put guardian you know to get to the school and did not want to walk to the corner where there was a crossing guard so i'm imagining more students well i i think it's it's going to be a safety issue and um also the um the parking lot is very small they have two parking lots in there where it's very small azusa high campus will be adding approximately another 900 students from gladstone high school to me it's a real it's a big going to be a big safety issue benefits of merging programs at a school site can continue at a new campus in 2019 we closed glaston elementary school and they went

119to magnolia only to be moved again i myself was a parent would not appreciate that not to mention i know people keep speaking about the east side the east side but i'm talking about the south side it's also the 210 freeway they closed magnolia last excuse me uh mountain view then they closed glaston street school now they want to close magnolia so i i do not agree with that i think that we need to be fair and make it equal in different parts of the town as you look at the map i wish we would have been able to put the proximity map up there please and the end the map and you could see how it's equal and different parts of town where our students go so i feel that we need to make

120this decision today the community has been waiting since december 21st three months ago it is not fair the parents to the staff of our elementary schools to continue this conversation any longer thank you thank you board member rodriguez uh any other in the thoughts comments questions from the board so i think for my part um and i will say i just differ slightly from from yolanda and i think i made it clear at the last meeting that i wanted to well at least talk to the magnolia community uh i do believe i mean i think we had a set intention set out of this whole process um but i do think that there has to be some balance in terms of continuity of community and um and where the school closures happen i still strongly

121believe that you can't leave that southeast quadrant without a school right and so that's why i think magnolia should stay open um um but i i heard very um i think that there's compelling reasons to both be able to maybe not close three schools but just close to schools right so i would i actually just wanted to be in favor of having a conversation about do we keep magnolia school open or not and not read not talk about all the other decisions that we made and so that's what i was hoping that we would talk about tonight can you please clarify that so what schools exactly are you i'm just talking about taking a vote on whether or not on on reversing the decision on closing magnolia and not address not taking the full motion

122that was done last time and discussed it all that's what i'm proposing and yes it's true that does it means that we only close two schools and not three um but i do think um i'm okay with that at this point any questions or comments from the board i need to disagree on that and the reason why is because okay so then the same thing would happen another two years we'll be sitting in the same place talking to other parents regarding their schools because we look at the capacity we look at the budget we're looking at all these items we will not survive just closing two schools we would have to be doing this i mean if you want to keep it just fine but that means another couple of years we'll be sitting here

123again mr ball i know that you're joining us on on zoom um do you do you have a are are you able to kind of do a sense or or a rough assessment around that that question or conversation around um two campuses versus three remaining uh only only closing two as opposed to three um yes as far as if we would have to be doing this again in two years and just yeah what that what that the potential that that has for our capacity and and the potential impact of our uh the future into the future um yes so um with the goal just using the goal that we set as a target of 75 percent if we only close two schools we'll be drafting um below that market that um goal that we've already

124set for ourselves so we will already be uh having schools that would i will say in the words um not physical sound hi it's marina um mr mall can you can you um help me remember i think i was the one that asked the question about the capacity and what would what percentage capacity we would need to reach or maintain to be fiscally sound and i i thought you told us 85 was that did i remember that incorrectly or was that 75 85 is always our goal um 75 is the percentage that we were using with the school reorganization team that we did not want any schools to be or less our goal was to not have any schools below 75 percent but as far as we're talking financial um being physically solvent 85 is

125the goal so i'm hearing you say that the reorganization committee was given the criteria of looking at individual sites being 75 or more but overall as a district 85 or more was that 85 uh threshold shared or discussed among the reorganization committee we did discuss it um but every model that um when we were looking at it the target goal was to ensure that nothing was below 75 percent thank you you're welcome any other questions comments can we get a minute to process all this okay i i didn't prepare something to speak but i do want to thank everybody that spoke today and i i apologize for those individuals that i have not been able to get back to uh there's been plenty of emails and i appreciate them actually and i should probably have

126like a i don't know like a automatic response or something but i didn't i gave my phone number out and only two people called me and i did speak to them um but everyone that spoke today [Music] you guys are speaking with passion i feel it everything makes sense what you're saying like i'm trying to reason i'm trying to like in my head i you know i'm trying to process all this and this decision of what school i mean we clearly now see that you know uh miss latasha jamal just said the target goal is 85 the reconfiguration team settled at 75 one thing is clear and what is clear is that we need to close schools and that's painful and i'm speaking for myself i'm trying to take emotion out of this and think

127rationally think logically look at the data we're looking at the data we've been going through this and you're right we're back at square one like right why are we here i'll tell you why i'm here tonight why i asked for this boat for us to have this discussion because some of you guys needed to be hurt some of you guys needed to speak and i'm so grateful that you took the time to come in person or on zoom to address your concerns you may think that and i'm gonna again speak for myself because i can't i'm only 20 but i'm not listening but i am listening and we are being pulled here there there here but what is our objective that is what i need to think about working for the district for 20 and

128i'm gonna say i worked for the district for 20 years when the decline in enrollment started happening we needed to close a school every year and we didn't do that now we're here faced we're about you know we're closing seven schools or so for middle schools three elementaries right and one high school this is not an easy decision for anybody to be sitting in this seat right now i made the decision to run i quit my job as an employee here understanding and knowing what was coming again i've been in this district since i was five years old and there's no right choice but the right choice is that we have to look at what's really happening within our community with you know our declining enrollment you know i heard some of you guys and

129i've heard you know we're taking our kids out we're taking our kids out you know it makes me sad of course that anybody would want to leave a souza district i'm a product of a souza district my mother-in-law's a product my father-in-law my brothers and sisters went to isuzu high my kids as much as i would like to keep every single school open we cannot and like board member um adrian greer said some of you guys going to walk out of here not liking our decision i i get that but please understand this is not personal i promised you this for me this is not my political agenda but i'm gonna vote on something because i want you to vote for me again this is not on my platform my main concern are how are

130we going to make this district comparable to other districts because i'll tell you right now i've been here for gosh 40 something years 41 years and we're far behind we're far behind compared to other districts look for those of you that want to stay roll up your sleeves with us and make this work please i welcome you for those that want to leave our district you know thank you for being here with us and sharing the space with us when you're here let me share something what what my son said to me he's he's uh 19 years old and he's at layola maryland right now he graduated from gladstone high school and there was a point i was a i was in grad school and i needed help with my children because between my husband's

131job and and in grad school and my internship and work and i i just i didn't know how my kids were gonna get to school and so of course i said you know for one year your your auntie lives across the street like from san dimas high school like for one year can you just do this for me i need to do so many hours and i don't know how i'm gonna do it and on top of that i was president of the booster club for the football team at gladstone high school i don't know how he did it but i said i need help and i told my son i said can i move you can i move you guys real quick like just one year honestly i thought about it because of you

132know child care and i said to my son can i please move you to bonita high school you can walk from your auntie's house like i don't have to worry about picking you guys dropping you guys off you know because i have to be on the road at six o'clock to get you know pasadena and you know what he said to me it's a good school maybe you know you'll get something you'll bring it back to asusa he sat me and my husband down and he said mom dad the school district and the school doesn't make me i make the school district so figure out how you're going to get me to gladstone and how we're going to stay here in asusa my son challenged my husband and i i was like oh my god

133what am i gonna do how are we going to like i've asked neighbors i've asked people like how am i gonna do i have to hire somebody you know these are struggles that i as a parent have also gone through how am i going to get my child to school how am i going to make this work because i have so much on my plate and my children are part of that plate and juggling too much what am i going to draw so we need a village right and that's what my son challenged me to do so i found my village parents parents here in asusa are amazing teachers hey i got your child after school don't worry i got like i you know other parents hey i'll take your kids to school another parent

134was like hey i'll pick them up i'll keep them you know until you're until your husband gets out of work how much do i pay you nothing what i mean we're a village for those of us that want to stay here for those of us that want to make this district better for our students i invite you look you may not like the decision that i make tonight and i know some of you are not but i invite you for a cup of coffee to have a conversation even after you know why because there's so much history memories excuse me i want to remind everyone here in attendance that uh there is no dialogue and so i will ask that you please refrain from speaking at this time i'd like to just i'm not i'm

135sorry i'm not done sorry we're here and now i'm i'm gonna say it i invite you guys for a cup of coffee i may not get to you right away but i will get back to you one thing i stand on what i said before and you know what you guys have every right be angry i can't take that from you that's that's your emotion that's your feeling but i'm human too and i have emotions and i'll tell you when we made the vote right to close gladstone high school to go all the school i don't want to close any of them again but i have to put emotion to the side i have to look at the data i have to think of what's best for our students and i have to put my

136own emotion to the side and can't take it personal whatever you say to me whatever you guys i can't i can't take it because i understand you're coming from a place of love you love your school absolutely and i would be that parent too i was that parent right but again all that i ask is for respect again you may not like my decision but please respect it and know that i'm not making the decision for because somebody's thinking about their property tax how it's going to affect them right i'm so sorry i have to think of the programs i have to think of the sustainability i have to think of being fiscal responsible i have to think of kind of what board member uh rodriguez penguin said if we let the state come and

137take over they close whatever schools they want and we have no say nothing they can close more than those and and we could be at 95 percent i mean it could be ridiculous so at this time all that i ask again i'm gonna give you guys my number six oh gosh i can't remember it right now sorry six two six six nine one five three three eight please call me text me i work better that way i can't access my email at work i just can't please reach out to me let's have a conversation and again respectfully i thank all of you guys and i can keep going on and on about how much i love this community and i know you love this community too and that's what we have in common so let's

138work together to move forward thank you for remember cruz gonzalez did you have something to add i just want us to be able to focus on the agenda item at order which is to make a decision about reorganization um are there any other comments to add in regards specifically to the discussion and decision for reorganization for elementary schools thank you board president greer um for superintendent ortega and uh miss jamal can you because we're here well all of us are here together now um can you go into a little bit more detail about how our enrollment projections are formulated i know we had asked for the we have at least a 10-year enrollment projection and i know we had asked to see if we could get a longer term but at least for the tenure

139can you walk us through the process of how those enrollment projections are calculated and secondarily do those projections include any population growth due to any new housing developments in the area mr ortega would you like me to start yes yes oh okay so far for projections we look at projected birth rates we look at property development productions and the type of housing that are actually to be developed we contract with a company called decision insight that does those type of assessments for us in addition we do our internal calculation to see if we're coming in in um within a material amount of uh of accounting i would say um this year with those accounts i'm confident with those numbers because we were actually 15 students above our projection um so i know our calculations are

140hitting those marks and with the considerat considerations and recommendations we take in consideration um mr taket we've heard here tonight and also um from members of the community about grades maybe being oversubscribed or wait listed at certain campuses is that accurate so meaning if my home school is dalton which because of where i live currently my home school is dalton and i'm enrolling a third grader am i able to enroll in third grade or is third grade full that that's a very specific example so could you talk about capacity overall at school sites which i think we've heard about but what is the the insight into capacities at certain grade level [Music] i'm not going to be able to speak to certain grade levels but i could speak to um currently when we talk about

141capacity uh of our schools when it comes to like as a parent wants to enroll somebody or is we're not really talking about the capacity of the school we're talking about the capacity of their staff so if just using as an example an easy number the school has 10 teachers and in december we have three new students that's going to require like it's going to push us over um we're not hiring a teacher at that point in time to we have the rooms there's a lot of empty rooms at the school sites so when we talk about those kind of scenarios again depending on what what time of the year that we're talking about it's really about the current staff at that at that school and where their whether their class sizes are at and

142so if uh if a class size is already full and there is no room then that's that's locked right there and so then we would offer a different school site uh to to uh to enroll a student and so that's the school of choice program that you could enroll outside of your home attendance boundary yeah we're very proud of the fact that uh we are very fluid and open in our community and so we allow our community to go to whatever school that they want to go to barring space and our our numbers show that our school our school community definitely takes advantage of that so i have a follow-up question on that so i did make the i was the board member that made the request for the uh the table that shows um

143where students are coming from would you be able to pull that up and and walk us through what that says and what it may indicate to us sure so while mr ortega is is doing that um the the request for data that i submitted was looking at each of our elementary campuses how many students are in that school's attendance boundary and how many are coming from other parts of the city or other parts of the district that attend those schools um because we're looking at the heart of what we're trying to do and that we we do in many areas but we need to make it overall for the district is to become a destination a destination for the students and families who live here and ideally a destination for the area as other other

144districts have been and i know we have the potential to do that so i'd like to maybe offer my comments around instead of looking at deficits and what we don't have or how many students we don't have or how much space we have what is our potential to activate and expand the programs that are working and the programs that will best serve the students we have now as well as students that may be moving into the area as demographics change over time and i'm not a demographer i'm not a statistician but i am a resident and i shared at a previous board meeting so i wanted to provide some follow-up my oldest daughter is at a public school in a different district and the reason we transferred out of the district was because zoos unified

145at the time didn't have the program that would serve our family and now this fall i have two kids i'm bringing them to the district because now with where we are with my students my kids education and their development this use unified does have the right fit for them so for as many families at and education is highly personal i'm a public school administrator and i know that there are pockets of excellence that we don't see necessarily as board members or as principals or at superintendents but i know it's very visible to families and teachers in your classroom and one of the things that i'd like to see us is to be able to amplify those stories of success because it doesn't mean it's not there so ten years ago or five years ago if

146you looked on great schools maybe the numbers didn't tell the story or maybe the api scores didn't tell the story that doesn't mean it doesn't exist it means that the narrative that we've shared them that we've been promoting doesn't tell the whole picture and so i really believe that as we increase our communication around what we're doing and what we're offering i know everyone many people drive or commute throughout the city you see our banners out advertising enrollment and our different programs throughout the city or that we offer at the district and so i hope that this can be the beginning of a focus on the things that we are doing really well and expanding on those programs i hope that gave you enough time to put up this table yes dr bo um i'm

147assuming this is the one you were referring to yes any chance you could make it slightly bigger i probably can't but we're going to lose we'll just have to slide it over yeah we just have to slide it over i believe yeah can you please explain that graphic how it works mr taylor yes so we'll take the first uh column uh you have here at the top you have a dalton and so what it does is just going across it just tells you how many students attend dalton from dalton that'd be 244. how many students attend dalton from ellington zero how many students attend dalton from hodge 23 from lee 28 from magnolia 10 from 36 from powell from valley dale from center from foothill the reason we have center foothill and slots in here

148is because we do have ellington um and so we wanted to capture those uh how many students attend from outside the district so at dalton how many students are at dalton that don't belong to dalton or don't reside in the area of dalton would be 98 and so that's how the table the table works yep mr ortega what stood out to me from this table and there are there's some there are many things to digest and i'm not making a calculation for each but what stood out to me were that roughly our schools about 30 percent more or less are coming from out of the area meaning out of from another um school district area so school a and approximately 30 percent of the students enrolled at school a are coming from the attendance area

149from school b right and the other thing that stood out to me looking at this and making some generalizations about the data is that our two dual immersion programs those it seems to me from this looking at this data that those are draws that at um [Music] hodge and at valley dale there's a higher percentage of students coming from outside the those schools attendance boundaries and i am assuming that most or some of that at least the majority is because of the dual immersion program you have any um and further analysis on that in terms of percentages of students and the draws of specialized programs definitely uh to circle back to the um the pride that we have in our district to be able to allow parents a lot of mobility and choice i think

150the numbers to your point speaks to that right when you have almost all of our sites have a large percentage of students that don't reside in their area i think that speaks to that mobility for whatever reason that may be might be a program we heard earlier uh from public and remember ariana sometimes it's maybe because it's a about daycare you know whatever those those reasons are i think it speaks to that our dual immersion programs have been uh growing uh we do know that they are an attractor we are very proud to begin our doula immersion programs at preschool and so i think that that's uh that's also a big draw as well and also my my last question for this round is can you tell us about um where and how preschool is

151offered throughout the district and at which sites and what our plans are for expansion i bring this up because we know that preschool is an entry point to the district at as well as their other key points like middle school and high school but preschool certainly is the major entry point into uh public school enrollment yep currently uh at the sites that we currently have we have a preschool program at every single elementary site with the exception of ellington and hodge um and some at some of our sites we have multiple sections because of demand from the community and so we have been growing in our programs in a very short period of time we've actually exponentially grown that program we are very happy uh to be working on a grant right now to be

152able to offer a full day full year programs in our community for for preschool and so we're looking uh at that and we're also looking at expanding to make sure that every single site uh has a preschool program on site i have a question um regarding one of the i'm going to follow up the programs so one of the concerns that um i heard was um from parents this this last week and and today um will the programs be moved from the schools that are going to be closed or are the programs going to be eliminated thank you for that question i believe it was a week and a half ago maybe two weeks ago we did hold an 8th grade virtual parent expo for all students who are going to be 9th graders next

153year and we did announce at that expo that we are working on ensuring that the programs that exist at glaston high school are going to have a life and a space at azusa high school that that particular expo was virtual but we are also having one in may i believe that's going to be in person so that our students our parents our community have the opportunity to go to azusa high school i'm very very proud of both glasgow high school and azusa high school not only the staff and the students but they are working collaboratively to make sure that this expo that happens in may uh is something that we're coming together to really highlight the programs that we have and so right now the idea uh is that uh for the reorganization uh that

154uh the programs would be moved uh to to um to new locations depending on the decisions thank you for that i guess if i could also if i may put a plug um next week is spring break i believe i'm losing track of trying but the week after spring break i believe it's the 12th we're going to dedicate quite a bit of time here at the at the board level to really dive deep into programs and some of the possibilities that we have regarding programs moving forward another thing that i would like to just um also suggest and uh i agree with them board member beau i i don't think that we we publicize all the great programs that we have and all the great things that happen here in asusa so moving forward with

155this reconfiguration i i would like to see more cheerleading on the you know on the website and you know our amazing teachers here our amazing parents our programs that we have you know we have kids going to berkeley we have kids going to stamp stafford i mean we have kids going to great league schools let's publicize that you know it's not only the other city that gets to we have great kids that go you know and it's all the teachers too i would like to see that and if any of you guys i do want to just share one more thing any of you guys ever decide to run for school board do it yes because you know what let me tell you when you have like right i'm being real with you and if

156somebody doesn't want me to be real with you i'm sorry it's not my problem it's their problem and i'm going to sit here and be real until the end and that's it i give you my number and i'm going to sit here and you want the truth i will give you the truth so with that being said i want to go ahead and uh move to move this forward there's no more discussion i think there's a motion for what i would like to go ahead and motion to do what i would like to go ahead in motion and motion for model 3 proximity okay so a couple couple things i'll say uh so there's a motion on the floor we do need to and uh carlos correct me from wrong we will need to be

157mindful of how we make motions due to the way that the that motions uh took place uh last uh on the 21st um and so carlos could you speak to that i think if you look at the actions at december 2021 board meeting there's really two layers to the action there was a layer that left certain schools open and then there's a second action that impacted the transition plan for grades and what grades would remain open in what period of time i think for clarity for the board amongst itself for clarity to the public i think we should start fleshing out the motion itself so that it's very clear if you're going to make a motion for the proximity model which tools will be closing and which schools will be remaining open there is another

158alternative i want to put this to the entire board and to board member ariana as well you also have that pre-existing action that took place in december 2021 so the board could vote to rescind that action in its entirety and that would make a very clean model if you rescind that previous action then you have a an adoption of the new action that would make it clear which schools are closing which was a reopening i think board member cruz gonzalez closed another alternative which is to only have a narrow motion that applies to once i want to throw that all out there's for the board members consideration and um i'll leave it back to the workforce so then can i motion to rescind the vote for december 21st is that what you're saying you can

159move to rescind the the vote now there were several votes that took place in december 2021. so i would i would suggest that you identify specifically which board action and and keep in mind i'll just throw this out there you rescind that entire action then it's going to have to be replaced by something and i imagine we'll look at the district administration for that so do we need the exact wording to be able to rescind the action and who has that i think any board member can move to rescind the board's action and i would just say that which which board action on that december 21st meeting so remember adianas you currently have a motion uh do you want to i actually want to i would like to go ahead um just like uh our

160lawyer said that's fine that's what my family called um actually i would like to go ahead and retract this motion to make it cleaner and i would like to go ahead and move to rescind the action of um number 20 i can't remember that the emotion what was it uh the motion was to i have it right here you find it really quick i apologize i have it in front of me okay perfect thank you even better the the board action was to keep hodge valley dale paramount murray lee and dalton open which by implication was to close magnolia ellington and everybody in agreement that okay excuse me so you mentioned how how did how was the vote what was the outcome of this vote that you just mentioned right now that that particular action

161passed three to two with board members beau arianes and greer in favor and board members gonzalez and rodriguez kenya opposing thank you so i would like to a motion to move to rescind the action of the vote that we took place on december 21st and now is to keep hajj paramountly dalton murray open and to close magnolia ellington and powell did i say that correctly mr did you say valley dale in there as well the valley dell i have it as ours yes valley dale thank you so that's the motion on the floor is there a second second any discussion bringing this is rescinding the action and then clearly we need to do something we'll have to do something subsequent to this no discussion at this time i i will i will anyone else i

162will add um i i recognize that we are at this place that we're at now uh and so there's a motion there's a second in front of us and in order i think to give space to the conversation and to discussion and ultimately a final discussion um i'm i'm comfortable moving forward with this i'm concerned though uh and and not not convinced that um we reached the threshold that would that would have supported bringing this matter back or rediscussion i'm i'm not i'm personally not satisfied with with that but i but again recognizing for a number of reasons uh precedent that it that it sets among among other things but again recognizing that we are where we are now and that this isn't a final vote but on the other side of this weekend we

163can vote and make a decision on on um what model we see um i i'm comfortable moving forward but but i'm i'm uncomfortable again not believing that we reached the full threshold uh to to bring this item back from december 21st and board for president agree i just want to reiterate for clarification for the entire board board has an alternative which is to have a more narrow motion it does not just wanted to make sure i was clear correct and uh the board has that has that option and that is not the option that's in front that's not the motion that's on the on the floor at the time right okay then we will do a we will do a hand vote therefore um to and this is just the motion to rescind the action

164that took place on december uh 21st if you need me to repeat the school sites i can do my best to do that but assuming that everyone has an understanding of what that is this will be a vote just for that particular action uh board member arianes yes what remember cruz gonzalez no board member beau yes board member rodriguez pena yes and i am also a yes so that resends that particular that resends that particular item um which which means that the the action that took place that night will need we will need to replace that action with um the action that we take tonight and i just want to clarify because i think our practice right our dorms is that if someone's going to vote no on something they articulate why and so just

165to clarify why i voted no um as i stated earlier my preference is not to have a fuller conversation but i really was hoping that we could just have a conversation and an action directly related to magnolia school and so that's why i voted now thank you so as as we move forward i know we need to have discussion and board member audience i know that there was a particular model that you were looking to to to move forward i have a discussion i'm sorry but let's have it yeah yeah yeah right um so because i want to express i've not yet shared any any thoughts or or rational reasons that i myself have um and so i'll say one of one of the things that we have looked at over the course of these

166past couple years is not well there is a responsibility that we have as as the board to look at the fiscal solvency and fiscal being fiscally responsible that that is that is real and that is accurate but there's there's more than that more than more than merely being fiscally responsible i do believe that we also have a responsibility to maximize our resources for the purposes of our student so how do we do that we were able to do that through the programs that we offer we're able to do that through the opportunities that we offer um students across the district so so for me as i am evaluating some of some of these pieces what is what is chiefly among them yes the the fiscal responsibility is a component of this but even more than

167that it is just a matter of of resources allocation of resources and how do we allocate those resources in such a way that it maximizes what we what we have to offer our student um second to that i do think that it is it's important for us to to weigh and look at um yeah access to to campuses across across the district and so as we as we look at at models again i'll reiterate there is i have not heard from one parent i haven't heard from from one person from the community who has said my school is horrible please close my school down because of how is because of how bad it is instead every person who i've spoken to who comes from a particular school are all here fighting every person has talked

168about the great teachers and the the friendships and the the relationships the instruction the school culture um and again i think that that's just indicative of uh contrary to to what some may unfortunately believe um it's indicative of of how great our school our schools really are and i think it speaks to that um and so with that being said we didn't have to look beyond i mean we have to consider but we have to look beyond um how great any particular individual feels about their particular school because again everybody feels feels great about their particular school um with that um i had i stated this uh on on the december 21st and i want to be clear and reiterate it um i i myself i have a daughter who attends lee elementary school she

169is currently in fifth grade she's in fifth grade and as we're looking at making some of these these decisions uh the the decisions that we render today will have no impact on her because by the time these decisions are rendered she will be beyond and out of out of the elementary school she will not be there also i want to clearly communicate that i do not where i currently live is not in the lee uh jurisdiction and so so to be clear about about those pieces with that being said i did also communicate at the last on december 21st and my stance still holds that i do not see personally as 20 percent of this of this body i do not see a viable option where we exclude lee elementary school's campus from our from

170our menu and repertoire of school campuses and i understand what that speaks to about the uh the potential controversy around uh the need for added expenses for lee elementary schools uh campus um where i'm concerned is just being somebody who grew up here in azusa and understanding recognizing fully some of the stigmas that are attached to particular areas within uh within this city there there are areas that i knew growing up that you kind of stay away from and you and you and you or or i i i believed that it was not you know that that you should not go into or go around um now being still remaining here in this community i'm grateful for the for the tremendous growth that our our community has had for the record i myself the way

171that i look my my ethnicity there literally would have been some of these areas that we're talking about that would have been unsafe for me to be able to walk through and anybody who's been here long enough knows what i'm referring to um and just just some of the history that exists but again my my continuing to live here serve here speaks to the tremendous growth that has happened and even though there has been tremendous growth that has taken place unfortunately some of those same same stigmas are attached and we see that there are communities um and some of the most vulnerable communities in in neighborhoods within our community that that are still viewed in a certain way and i think that when we come to decisions like allocation of resources it becomes easiest for

172us to look at some of those communities and say let's not invest there let's let's as we project ahead we see that if there is a school uh site that needs to be eliminated it's easiest to consider some of the the school sites in some of the most vulnerable areas um and parts of town um and so again an analogy for that would be if if we were to go around and say that we were going to not water a particular plant in one corner of the of the community and then as time goes on we look and we assess and we say look at how this this plant here is doing it's not doing uh well as compared to the other other plants but that's due to conscious decisions that we've made to water

173some plants and not water and so as a result of that i mean just looking at uh what i believe are our under-resourced areas and higher density areas also my concern about how the split took place around the the communities surrounding lee elementary school and the trustee areas as we look to create continuous and uh and similar demographics within uh uh those voting trust trustee areas again i see that as another example where where uh the the community surrounding lee um was was was split and and i i would say got the raw end of that particular deal so um with that said i'll say i i stand by what i said on the 21st for a number of reasons that i'd be happy to continue to elaborate uh but i'll but i'll refrain um

174uh and i i don't see a viable option um where we would take what we already recognized as an under-resourced area and community and can and and continue to remove resources that we've not not poured into i'm sorry i just want to add but but i think that we can say that about every school i mean every community you know every school community i i can apply the same thing to to ellington i can apply the same thing to magnolia or you know or murray i mean but i i'm just throwing that out there because i understand that the resources right we're stretching are we're stretching our dollars with 16 schools and but what's most important is i think we need to take in consideration you know what the reconfiguration team has done and the

175the time that they've taken you know to analyze this you know to the hours that they've invested um and not and not clearly have you know any emotional or political agenda attached to this simple as that i i i'm just throwing that out yeah and so i'll i'll i will add um that that would be an area where you and i disagree i don't think that it's something that applies across the board i think that there are i think that there is actual data we could look at as far as investment and and even i i think that there is actual data with uh if we look at census blocks if we look at population density if we look at a number of factors i i would disagree that that what i'm saying is we

176evaluate what are the most vulnerable uh communities neighborhoods within this city i would disagree that it applies across the board so i would say we can agree to disagree because i agree i believe and i know because i visited every single school they're all vulnerable communities are you done tonight so i i just want to add something and continue just to um maybe um advocate again for only um keeping magnolia just adding magnolia to the list of schools we open and that's um you know i may be taking a pollyanna a view of this right but i think hearing some of the parents that came tonight hearing about them choosing to come to our community when in fact you know maybe even a couple years ago they would have chosen to go to a private

177school or try to do district transfer makes me feel thinking about the enrollment that we do have and the large new area that was was just built right and thinking about even even you know yolanda you talking about how old you're not your age but you know the fact that you're a grandparent thinking about when our community was built right because most of these many of many of these houses were built in the in the 50s right many of our families and so we do have an aging community and there is at some point going to be regeneration i hate to say it that way right but we're but you know we will have young families moving into the community i and i appreciate that the demographers took that into account but i do think

178i do think that with very very very intentional outreach um thinking about how do we turn these parents that that are so eloquent about our schools into ambassadors to our communities right so that people enroll their students so that people are choosing to go to our schools um i do think that there's there is a pathway to having just adding magnolia and not and not closing and keeping six elementary schools open and not and not just five so i just want to put that out there to your point adrian all thank you board member chris gonzalez i'm also in support of that model and again something has to happen we we know this the data shows this we know that we we have enrollment projections not particular or specific only to azusa but to our

179great the greater san gabriel valley and to the entire state we also know that as wide as we pass the lens there's always going to be new data there's going to be new data in two years and five years and 10 years to the extent that we increase and elevate the profile of what we're doing in azusa that more people know about it i say this i live in rosedale i've lived for five years and i've never received a promote a strictly promotional piece of male for the district and this is an idea that i've shared before and i think we're all generally behind that telling more people in different ways mailing out to families who don't yet have school age kids mailing out to older residents who might have grandkids coming up in the

180community they're all many other level communication levers i think we need to press really hard and simultaneously on i think about uh you know we talked we've heard it here and we've talked about it not discuss it as a as an agenda item but what are we thinking about in terms of the disposition of closed campuses no one wants to have a vacant campus with weeds and trash and and vagrant of course no one wants that it's not safe for our community it will tank our property values all of those things are true so how can we quickly again all the mr taka of course all of these have to happen now right so there is certainly needs to be a sequence and followed by an extreme sense of urgency to get things implemented so

181again you know our lens is here but we know that there's going to be something that changes how can we factor in or even leave space to consider the use of our or the disposition of the unused of the school campuses that close what what are the goals right of you know to um identify the highest and best use if not a school what could that be i would venture to say it would be a site that we may that we maintain within the district that we don't dispose of that asset but that we find a very creative and engaging way to establish community partnerships and that they are they become at some level revenue generating site because we've talked about fiscal responsibility right no one wants vacant campuses but we also don't want to

182go into receivership with the state right um so what can we do to start thinking quickly about how we use any number of these closed campuses as spaces that the community can access that can continue to provide green space that a non-profit partner can come in and provide services that are appropriate for our residential community i'd like us to entertain that idea because we when we mr mall when you make budget projections i know you can only go based on you know three to five years on the multi-year projections but there's another unknown that if we do nothing we'll have zero dollars but if we really really work hard i know that we can find partners that want to come into azusa our district is very attractive for a number of reasons and i think

183with more pr more targeted pr both internally and externally to the greater san gabriel valley i think that those partnerships can come and i know we have very strong relationships with our local legislators that can help open those doors for us so all of that to say is that i board member cruz gonzalez i am also in support of um only closing so adding magnolia to the list adding magnolia to the list of schools that would remain so and to say it very clearly closing ellington and powell and those are schools that were part of the reorganization committees on one of the recommendations and the recommendations have come in various permutations right in model 3 it was these two schools or these two schools or these two schools um i've had the opportunity to talk

184to more community members to look at the proximity map i've thought about if we landed on mars right and we had a geographical area the size of our district and we knew we were going to serve about 7 000 kids where would we how many high schools would we have well if we had about 2 000 high schoolers we'd probably have one high school okay so we we got there how many middle schools would we have one or two and where would we put them we wouldn't put them next to each other they might be spread out now of course we have to layer the reality but i'm trying to think about the criteria by which we would create this never-before-seen never-before-seen district how many elementaries would we have we have five or six or

185seven right and so what does that mean would our mother's colony ever grow it might not grow initially but it probably would grow to some extent i don't see us getting to 10 000 students overnight but i think that there is a way for us to build toward that and if we can build in you know if our goal is to attract 200 more students a year that makes a difference and it's it is a concrete goal that we can start holding ourselves accountable to in terms of all of our recruitment efforts all of our communications are all of those things the banners the mailers the ads are they resulting in increased enrollment are they resulting in increased teacher applications coming to azusa we talked about our budget and salaries and benefits we need to

186be competitive we want to not only keep the teachers we have but attract teachers because we're all fighting for teachers across the state i would like to add one of the things that was just mentioned was we are going to have empty lots and i i would agree this is a conversation that needs to be had like yesterday but i i do i do want to also um share that the history of this district has been to put a band-aid on things you know and then here we are um when we were closing glastonbury and mountain view sorry you know i suggested that we we look at other schools my concern with not closing three elementaries is that we're going to be in the same predicament again sooner than later one of the things that

187we as a board two years ago decided on was to look at a ten-year projection right five-year tenure and yes what we're doing is is is drastic it it needs to be done we have uh actually some other board members from other school districts actually calling or superintendents calling our district like hey we're going to have to close like six schools like how did you guys do this can we they've called our school district so i i would say um i would have to disagree with only closing two schools because the reality of it it it's it's there and yes new denim makeup but you know what though i i've seen it too many times in this district that we take the most conservative approach to things and then it falls apart or it doesn't

188go through and i'm a little weary and i'm gonna say this out loud of when we say we have friends that can help us i'm sorry but i would not like any of us to bring friends to the table when we are doing the real estate or leasing no kickbacks none of us should be receiving any money or having our friends come over here open a charter you know try to no fair game this is for our kids so i i disagree with that i think it's very important that we do close three schools and that we do it tonight and we'd be bold about it because this is for our students for the future of our students and i again i you know what i i disagree we need to close three schools let

189me let me just add i i would i would agree with board member audience and that it's important that we look at three schools um and and not to uh personally um but but i that's why i agree i want to say i don't know if i'd say i disagree because because i don't know if you're you're uh but but i do want to be careful um again there's um no no reason to believe if we're talking about friends or kickbacks i just want to be careful with that like i'm not saying or insinuating that this is happening right now i'm just saying future okay that's it thank you i think it is important to my question please yeah thank you um so closing only two schools i i may have missed it but what

190would the capacity be at that time uh compared to i'm looking at we'll just say the proximity map three it's 78 um point thirty percent capacity what would be if they only close two what are we looking at then um i can do that calculation if i know what schools are we what schools would you like me to use is leave and open oh oh it depends on the schools yes ma'am oh okay okay well like they just mentioned um closing we'll say paul in in ellington okay give me one second okay and and okay and then just a second question i mean will we honestly be sitting at this table in two years if we only close to a school my professional opinion yes thank you for that answer but if you give me

191the capacity i appreciate it yes ma'am give me one second thank you yes and and while you're pulling that up mr mall i'll i'll say yeah i think i think that the there has been somewhat of a the can has been somewhat kicked down the road for some time and i do think that yes this is difficult um but but that's that's why i i do think that we need to to consider three as difficult as as that is it's it's it's tremendously difficult but we need to consider three and not two so as to do the the most we can to not find ourselves in this um situation again so then what happens adrian if you don't come to consensus on what those which those three are because i've heard both yolanda and gabriela

192say they they want to do proximity three three and you've you've made a um you made a very good argument for why we could stay open so i don't yeah so what happens when you don't have consensus on what those three schools are i i suppose uh there's a couple things we could do um some of it is we you know i know it's 1005. we have to cross some of that bridge when we get there we do have the possibility of of correct me if i'm wrong here carlos there there is some action we can take if there are things that we are of like mind uh in in and and then we can isolate uh both around around other specific um aspects of this of this boat you could certainly break out these

193motions can i please ask are we going to be talking about model 3 as as promotioning right well so based off of the motion and vote that took place to rescind the vote from the 20 from december 21st we are now at the place where um there is no currently there is no model that that is necessarily in front of us to there's there's um there's open there's open discussion for for what um what course of action to take so first we need to rescind and then we bring a model oh so we already rescinded and so now that we've now that we've already rescinded um we would we would look at what model we would bring so i think we've done a lot of discussion and i think it's just the point where we

194have to start taking votes and let's see where the chips like i'm not sure i'd like to hear latasha's answer okay okay almost there sorry okay that's all right i'm sorry were you going to say something to rina i i well you're not going to take up too much air time but board member honest i think as you well know as a seasoned um at least with a couple more years of elected official experience that our words do matter and our choice of words do matter so i hear you say that you're not insinuating but i think to some it felt like you did so i want to be clear that it's not my expectation that any of us would be personally financially benefiting from any decision that the district made and i i wouldn't

195think that that would come from you or you or anybody i would just like to make it clear if we could if we could let board member go ahead and then i'll respond and i think that um so i'm not sure why you made that comment um because i only have the best intentions of my colleagues i've not seen any behavior to make me question someone's intentions or motives or um violations of the brown act um certainly if i had a very deep-seated concern i would bring it to board president or i'd bring it to superintendent ortega based on our board bylaws and policies i i want to share that with you because we our words do matter my word you know i'm going to have to live and die by what i say and

196what i do as well and i just want i think i i'm sorry i was next no i don't think so no i was next so i'm gonna go ahead and speak so board member beau is sitting here telling me that words matter i'm not done i'm gonna let you finish but i would ask that you please keep i'm gonna ask that you please keep your comment brief so that we can that's that's fine you and i need to have a conversation about that so but that's for another day but if the shoe fits you're gonna wear it i wasn't talking about us i was talking about those people that are watching this right now okay that's that's it all right like don't come after us i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna move the conversation

197forward so we can so we can remain focused on on the uh i love how you roll your eyes i did not roll my eyes i did not i'm gonna ask i'm gonna ask my colleagues i'm gonna ask my colleagues to please refrain from um let's move on let's put a pause this is something that could be reserved for a governance meeting and let's let's move on we are here to do work there are people who are here who are still here and it's 1009. um i i it's important that we stay focused on the agenda item in front of us which is discussion and decision on elementary school campuses so let's please keep our personal thoughts uh and feelings about our the personal interpersonal um interactions uh to ourselves for the remainder of the

198evening can we just move to a motion please please president greer um so i just wanted to talk about the benefits of emerging schools you know there you have a larger elementary schools you have better and bigger programs and you have fewer combo classes i was never oh good with combo classes when there's a second and third grader or third and fourth grade together because i feel that it's not for the teacher but it's also not fair to the student and that's what's happening now because we don't have enough students in the classroom thank you i don't want to say unprecedented go mr mall go ahead please yes so um with the calculation of leaving dalton hodge magnolia powell lee murray paramount and valley dale using those schools and in 2023 will be a 72.28

199capacity based on our current enrollment and then year 22 23 24 we'll be down to 70.99 capacity based on our current enrollment projections so jamal is that is that talking about capacity enrollment at the elementary level or that scooping it with the middle school and the high school no matter that's elementary only that's elementary only mr mull did you include powell in that list no ma'am paramount give me one second let me double check mr ortega a couple meetings ago you were so kind as to throw up a google sheet to type out what we were looking at would you be able to do that so that um when mr mall or any of our cabinet are listing out schools we have that visual aid i can share my screen balls if that helps okay

200thank you thank you um i only have one screen so it may be very small so i apologize in advance [Music] are you able to magnify a little bit i'm going to try give me one second [Music] um how's that ice cream actually a little bigger a little bigger no problem just give me one second please thank you and i just want to confirm that i have the schools correct this is better that's better thank you okay and so this is lieben dalton at 390 um capacity hodge magnolia um lee murray paramount and valleyville and down here i have ellington and palace the two schools are closing so i stand corrected 22 23 will be at 77.46 percent and twenty three twenty four will be at 76.08 i did have powell in their original calculations

201and and you you also spoke of uh were you able to go out as that farm no on this spreadsheet i only have it to i'm 23 24. but i can put that together yeah bring it back bring it down a little bit please um yes ma'am okay is that better yes so the when when we when we set out to do this work um we asked for we asked to look well in advance i i want to say the the the number that we use is five year projections but really it's five year plus and we gathered ten years of projections or demographic data and so i i would it would be imperative to to know what the um the 10-year out projection would be with with these campuses i will stop sharing and

202if i will look to see if i have that with me give me one second please yolanda was that sufficient within with the numbers was that sufficient yeah yeah okay so with that i'd like to make a motion that we um that we keep pod dalton lee magnolia murray paramount and which one am i missing and out and and valley dale open board member vote boardwalk promotion can you please repeat that board my recruits and zelda sorry so dalton lee magnolia murray valley dale and paramount open and if i can clarify for that would be sixth full that would that would mean that the the two schools that are not on the list would be ellington and powell right and the others would remain what did i say seven supposedly then why are we talking

203about five we're talking about three we're closing okay yeah okay all right okay so that's and which ones are closing can you please clarify powell and ellington i second the motion um any discussion i don't agree because we're going to be in the same position as we are and we spoke about uh three schools for some reason um magnolia was just thrown into the loop you know without ever being on the list so now it's like we're changing this all around all over again and this doesn't make any sense to me i totally disagree and i i would be on com i would be uncomfortable voting yes for that um with at least at least not without um uh the data from from michigan on the 10-year projection is is that something that is that

204you're able to gather within minutes mr mall or or would it extend beyond that i would need beyond minutes okay i i would not be able to responsibly vote yes in favor of that without that data but in an effort to move us forward i can't get it done tonight i just need time mr mullen really quick question if we just take the 10-year projection that we have right now uh and plug that number into the spreadsheet wouldn't that suffice it would but by each elementary school the 10-year projection currently includes six so i would have to do it backwards to remove the sixth graders from each elementary got it um so there still is a motion in a second on the floor and so that would if there's no further discussion so call for

205a vote yeah is there any further any additional discussion okay so then we will do a hand vote and this this would be a vote on to make it for the to make it most simple for closing ellington and powell okay so that is that that's the motion that's on the floor so we will do a hand vote on on that uh board member rodriguez pena no or member beau yes board member cruz gonzalez board member board member adianas no and i would also be a no so that motion does not pass and so we are um we're back on the floor there's there's currently not a motion i just want to remind you adrian that it's 10 20 and we have a our board policy about 10 30. correct and just so everybody is

206aware at 10 30 we we would vote to extend the meeting and there's a vote that uh that the meeting would be extended to a time that we would determine at the time of the vote um and there would be no additional extensions for for that particular meeting tonight so i would like to make a motion i'm sorry can we not have private conversations thank you just just for transparency i'm asking for clarification about our process just for transparency thank you uh did you want to ask your question apologize for not turning my mic on um is um do we have a board policy that um prohibits us from going past the calendar day past midnight or could can we go past midnight this is i'm asking it for process we just need to make

207a vote on it at 10 30. if we vote yes we can continue sure but we have to we have to set the time though then 30. that's correct dr bond i'm looking at the board policy now it it only indicates that you're going to extend to a specific time i don't see any limitation in theory you could extend it to 1 am um i imagine that would be problematic for many actually one time we were here to almost midnight okay um so i like to make a motion to go back to model um three the proximity map which um keeps open dalton hodge magnolia murray paramount and valley dale the school closures would be ellington v and powell that is my motion on the floor is there a second second any additional discussion okay

208then we will move to a vote uh board member rodriguez pena yes or member beau no what remember cruz gonzalez no board member adianas yes and i am also a no so the scenario i laid out happened so now let's i mean and at this point right now we've rescinded any closure so at this point right now also let me let me make a motion let me let me try let me make a motion um and this is not intended to be a complete motion this is intended to be a phased motion so so so there there there were i'm asking for there to be additional work on the other side of this um so as one phase i motion that we include of of the schools that we that we uh would close that

209we would include ellington and powell among that list um as we consider if any additional schools on top of that so your motion at this point is to close ellington and powell my motion is to close ellington and powell and it's uh not without the expectation that we're that it's final but excuse me let me be more clear without the expectation that that is the exhaustive list of schools that uh to be closed as an alternative i'm trying to get to the point where we can we can narrow things down to to the specifics of where we uh where of the five of us agree and or disagree and as i hear across the the board i am i'm hearing i continue to hear uh ellington and powell to remain remaining on the list uh

210regardless of where we are i think that there's questions around uh you know magnolias is here which is part of what brought us back to this conversation so magnolia is here uh we've had conversations around dalton we've had conversations about lee there are even other schools if we that the board has discretion to consider but i have heard what sounds like there'd be commonality amongst all the motions is for ellington and powell to be included is there any additional discussion okay so we will vote on this this and and there is still more work to do on the other side of this uh i need a clarification on that so after we after we vote here the the let's let's imagine that we were going to close uh three schools we are saying that two

211of those three schools would be ellington and powell and we have not determined what that third or fourth or fifth school would be but we were saying that two of them would be ellington and powell but to clarify adrian okay but to clarify the essence of your vote is that we are we are opposing ellington and powell that is the essence of my book right of the motion and i seconded it my motion right any other discussion okay then uh remember rodriguez pena yes board member beau yes board member uh cruz gonzalez yes board member adianas and i would also be yes so that place is uh that has two schools that that we have decided upon for foreclosure that leaves still on on the table all of the others i i guess i will

212point out that we have we're here uh because magnolia was originally there and there has been some some discussion um around around some of the others but so i would just i appreciate what you're saying adrian but i also think that i mean this is this is democracy and action right there's five of us we each you know you need to have a majority and so when you have a when you come to a place where there cannot be consensus on that third site that you that you're talking about and i hear that there's not right when does it become not fair to the community that we're just very clear about this is as far as we can go at this point just because we don't have consensus well this is why we have legal

213here i guess right the suggestion i was going to make earlier is that given that mr mall is researching something and you're rapidly approaching 10 30 you may want to consider a motion to extend the time to a set specific time to allow the board to have additional discussion and then maybe take a brief recess for mr mall to complete our computation uh based off that recommendation i'll say that i wouldn't be opposed uh to to to that and i wouldn't be opposed to the idea of of uh the remaining schools remaining open but again i i could not responsibly vote for that without that data from from mr mall okay mr i know i i see you working feverishly is this the kind of thing that we are um minutes away from hours away

214from can you can you speak to that i at least have maybe 25 minutes and five minutes to talk to his article just to confirm that i'm on the right page it probably won't even take the full 20 minutes that's all i ask i i would like to motion to go ahead and take a recess i i need you some restrictions unless we want to come back to this i you know president what do you think um complete this today yeah i really do so if we are if we are agreeing that we're going to complete this today and let's keep in mind i i know but it's because it's 10 25 and we would need to vote to stop it at 10 30. i was going to motion right um so if we motion

215we need to be mindful of the amount of the amount of time because we can only extend it once so if it is our intention to finish the conversation tonight we need to be mindful of that when we when we set the time limit on uh uh when mr mall is saying that she's gonna take her upwards of 25 minutes i would like to motion that this meeting extend to 11 30. if needed not that we're going to end at 11 30 but miss jamal is working but i think it's important that we do allow some room for discussion when she does present numbers it's only fair that you know that that we do that and that we make our our our final vote tonight and i apologize for all the people in the crowd

216so the motion on the floor is that we extend the meeting till 11 30 and keep in mind that if if this motion passes it will not go to 11 31 even if we are not uh finished with our discussion second um any any discussion uh i will say that i i'm i would be concerned that 11 30 would come closer than we realized i don't want to stay that long but i but it would be more important that we finish the conversation then that we stay past the 11 30. so um i i i would not be in favor of this and would like to see us put it push the timeout further 11 i'm sorry further or further push the time further well i'd be more comfortable with 12. i resent my motion

217and i will motion to extend this meeting till midnight second any additional discussion i'll i will just say i hope that we that we don't take full advantage of this i hope we're done well before that um okay then we'll go ahead and vote uh board member rodriguez pena yes board member beau yes board member uh cruz gonzalez yes board member adianas yes and i i am also yes with that said we will take um a 10 minute recess bye thank you uh mr mull i i don't want to interfere with you getting the work done i had originally called for a 10 minute recess maybe i should have in retrospectively should have called for a longer recess um i don't suppose by any chance you are finished tallying uh those numbers i am not

218uh president group i can have ten more minutes okay then we will we will go ahead and recess for for an additional 15 minute thank you is 10 55 uh which extends we extended our recess for an additional 15 minutes um and so i will ask um mr mall um were you able was that enough time for you to be able to make a calculation yes sir okay would you be able to share the data and also share what data you're sharing just to remind folks since there's been a break yes sir [Music] all righty so i want to make sure you can see my screen i can't see anything yes we can see it uh but but zooming in would be helpful if possible ready so what i have here and actually i'm sorry

219i should say we were able to see it and then it disappeared so oh i'm sorry let me try again [Music] okay mr tasha if you can move it over to the right a little bit uh go ahead and take away the the schools and ellington and paul and move to the table and now i want to see i want to see columns uh i we don't see column i right there you go and then if you can uh scroll down so go ahead and eliminate rows one through five so we don't see those there you go perfect perfect perfect alrighty so what we're seeing here is a projection oh lord i'm sorry give me one second i don't know where my screens went give me one second it completely went away [Music] i'm going

220to try this one more time [Music] i apologize okay i'll try this again you want to share it with me and i can project it i'm sure i can do that as well i'm going to try one more time guys before i try that okay just to see if we can knock this out now am i sharing again yes we are able to see it but with limited so the same thing we did last time go ahead and uh you went too far okay give me one second drop it down to one one um that's it i think that's it right there yeah we're good okay so we're seeing here um i did leave eliminate 21 22 because that's the current fiscal year um so this is taking the current um schools that are currently

221on the table um only powell and ellington this is going from 22-23 all the way to 30-31 um so you'll see in 22-23 which would be the next fiscal year will go to 77.46 percent um if you go down to 2526 we'll drop down to 72.48 and by 3031 we'll be at 68.24 with only closing two elementary schools thank you okay um i'll just let me just remind the board because it's 1058 we did extend out up to the for the limit of of 12 a.m um i i would i think we'd all love to make it sooner than that um with with that said mr mall can i ask you this question we've talked about 85 percent as a threshold the the organization committee was given 75 to work with can can you speak

222to how that number the relevance of that number and and maybe the ways why is that not just an arbitrary number what what is what is what does 85 do you you said your professional opinion would be that if we did not hit a certain threshold we would be having this conversation again uh in a number of years can you speak to why 75 85 is a is a threshold that you're working us toward sure um one um for our current population and our enrollment decline uh at the strength of our decline in the next five years if we started at um with the goal of 75 we will be having this conversation again so we made the target of 85 at this time with the goal of knowing that we're going to improve on

223our programs and our offerings so that we're attracting students and so that way we can go against our decline we would actually be in a better financial position but if we start at 75 with still having the same goal um we will have within the next five years a drop sooner before we are able to realize a gain based on the improved increase in programs and offerings and so specifically my question is so we say start at 85 that way there's a little bit of some there's some some wiggle room if you will why why why is 85 and wiggle room down to 70 or down to 75. why is that a lower limit why why why is that the number that makes you say we would need to be back instead of 78 or

22482 why 85 why why 75 i'm one because anything below 75 you're actually operating a campus and what we call it a physical deficit meaning you're spending more to operate the campus than it is that you receive and from the ada for the students that attend that school um two just the offerings when you have a smaller student population you're going to have an increase in combo classes as well as um smaller um electives that are able to offer our programs um so it's just more that you can do with a compass campus that have more enrollment more opportunities and more enrichment um academic programs that we can offer as well latasha jamal when when when you speak about um you said it was 70 75 uh you said fiscal deficit right for anything less

225than 75 you're basically operating at a deficit so for those that don't know what that means at a school district can you please kind of just share a little bit what that means yes so we're funded off of our students um actual attendance to school um so even if you had 100 attendance if your school is only operating at let's say twenty thirty percent of um capacity the enrollment the ada that that school is actually receiving would not cover the cost to operate that campus mr paul this is um sabrina so in terms of dollars what would the what is the projected deficit and when would that hit when would you i don't have that projected deficit right now dr bar i'm sorry so if if i could pose this this question um so if

226we had a if we had a campus let's let's say we had a campus that could that was that would hold upwards of a thousand students but but our capacity did not allow for it and so and so we we cut it down and we were down to the 300s which meant that there were just wings that were closed if we understood that in the future there is the potential for there to be a resurgence of some numbers um can you help me understand why in closing closing wings and then reopening wings as opposed to campuses closing campuses and opening and or opening campuses would be less viable um so i'm not going to say that's not possible um but typically um even if you have 30 of the students there are still certain positions

227that are required to have um which will be a principle um depending on the mark uh the organization structure you have a system principle if you're talking about secondary years talking about um counselors um you're talking about support aids even if you close a wing depending on the population of students there are still certain positions you have to have and whether you have one student or 30 or 300 students that level of position would have to be there so you want to make sure you're maximizing the number of students on campus so that even if you're just saying i'm closing a wing if you're going to have to have let's say a principal on campus for 200 students you will still need a principal on campus for 500 students am i answering that uh yes

228i have a follow-up but first i have a question regarding so do we have a figure on um saving what is our cost savings closing three schools compared to who schools do we have that and do you have that uh um mr mall yeah i have what we presented um previously which i can share which was um when we based off what was previously agreed upon we did the projection of the closing um along with the facilities of util i mean sorry the utility savings yeah okay give me one second i'm going to stop sharing this and i my mind is going along the same thing that that you're you're asking there uh remember rodriguez what i'm what i'm curious to know is if we were to make a conscious decision to say that we

229are only going to close two schools and instead of three um what what are those real costs so you talked about principles you talked about vice principles you talked about some of those positions that are required what are what are those those per campus baseline costs um that that we would be looking at uh by saying yes to a a or or no to a third school closing so let me start with what we shared um and then i would have to partner um with jorge on what the nexus would be um what i have is just a total based on when we identify the three campuses that we will close and their utilities and the projected management staff certificate and classified staff we had that bulk number of a projection sure but i don't

230have that by school site got it [Music] and you're able to sorry you're able to you are able to yes i'm maybe this will come in your presentation does that um reduction in classified and certificated staff does that already take into account reassigning educators to the continuing schools right because we're so it's i'm trying to clarify that it's not close to school and you lose all of those positions because some will have to go to other campuses corey i don't want to jump in but i'm going to say correct um so we um um jorge and his team looked at seniority and based off the staffing and based off the staffing um formula that we stated each campus would have um then we came up with a projection of the staffing um savings um from

231a reduction of staff due to the closing of campuses yes that is correct and board member beau uh you are correct as well in how you are conceptualizing that as we reduce grade levels and schools closed we will have a student enrollment with change and with that student enrollment that would create positions at schools that would remain open and features that would be placed would be uh moved into those into those positions now there will be um a reduction um based on projections and dependent enrollment that we would have to factor in mr rocco did you did you speak to then what those stable positions those those baseline then positions would be per cap per campus so so some would transfer over some would be relocated and so that's that the the some staffing numbers

232are based off of enrollment but other staffing numbers are based off of number of school sites so if we were looking merely at the additional school site what are some of those those baseline costs per school site i could speak to the positions so we have a principal per um site um a secretary per site uh the clerk position community liaison health aide those are or positions that are specific to those uh individual sites uh resource teacher uh so as we go down to um uh two other positions on the certificated side we have a resource teacher and then many of our elementary sites also have an intervention position as well that's assigned to their site on the classified we also have custodial correct we also have uh custodial positions a a date a day

233custodian position and a night custodian position nutrition correct and we also have our nutrition services positions that are um for for our sites aids age and if i could just add like the custodial position um they're staffed based off of square footage so that would be a perfect example of even if we chose to close off a wing based off the square footage of the campus that's how we hire our custodial staff and assign hours but does that um is that formula hold true if 20 of the campus is not being used meaning that we're not going inside the classrooms to clean those they're not being used i understand that the maintenance the grounds need to still be kept up but with that calculation still hold that would um because right now currently um on

234our campuses though they're 30 40 50 the campuses are still being utilized so we have smaller class sizes or they're using them as a resource room they're repurposing a classroom so they still require cleaning rarely do we have any parts in our classrooms where it's just closed and no one is utilizing it for any purpose so i think where person grew that's where your question your inquiry was going is to instead of dispersing and using all of the spaces on campus is it possible to consolidate the usage of the campus to a a quadrant or a wing of a campus and therefore reducing some of the operating costs for the unused portion i would like to to also bring into and to light that there's there's licensings that we pay for for schooling there's there's

235other costs i think that if we were to go to just do like a wing kind of what you're describing um or remember career there's still a cost we're still paying the lights we're still you know there's still that in accumulation of not saving but still paying that and so i i would like i i didn't hear it what savings would perk you know just in general um do you have miss latasha jamal yes is there any way that you can share um for example something that um some savings that perhaps you generated um before with the schools that were on um you know at the table yes yes i will share my screen thank you um is this large enough or do i need to make it larger yes please okay [Music] mr ortega

236could we have that emailed to us so we could also look at it on our computers is it possible yes that's possible so here we'll see what the current model that was approved in december um we had a projected of certificated staffing for the 22-23 school year of 1.2 million and you'll see that that 1.2 million is carried out over the next five years um in 2324 we had utility savings for electrical water and gas um those are for the specific campuses so that way i have to interrupt you i can't see i'm ready to make it larger i'm sorry um i'm sorry i'm working off a laptop so i can't i'm trying to make it as large as possible if you go back to the where you had it um miss barton radiance is

237willing to stand in and what look you get close is this large enough or do i need to go larger i just want to say a question so can you give me like an example of like using one wing how how like i haven't i don't know yeah well i'm not sure i guess that would be a my the question that i'm getting at is if if we need to retract if if we recognize that we need to reduce one way to reduce is to is to reduce school campuses and so that's one thing we can do and i'm wondering uh just the comparison of keeping an additional school campus while what what savings we might have or what are those added costs of adding a of not adding a third campus on the closure

238list and so that's that's what's being calculated i guess what would that look like probably what we're already seeing happen at some of our some of our campuses now would that be accurate to see that's like super dinner ticket what is an example what school has this model um superintendent could you speak to school campuses that have wings or or areas of the school that are not in use yeah we have quite a bit of schools that have a like foothill as an example one side of the campus is not used at all right so you have the quad and then all the students and the teachers are on one side of the campus [Music] lee also is another what is that because the declining enrollment because it's not enough students that is correct so

239they're not using the whole campus because they're having a student so why are we keeping it open if there's not enough students for that campus is that that's what i'm trying i'm trying to understand what the what the cost would be to to analyze having two versus versus having three um with that and well mr mull did go can we continue before we move on to another conversation absolutely thank you mr mo where is this located so we could email it to the board you're a mute sorry it was the i believe the march for packet but um i can just email it to you right now to the board oh yes i can do that i will need to stop sharing if that's okay just give me two seconds [Music] i think agent while

240she's doing that so what kind of information is going to help you make a decision and where you want to go because i feel like i mean unless i'm not saying i'm i mean i already made clear what i want but what i think should happen i i just i think that if we whatever decision we make it that that we should have the numbers and then become conscious of what that those costs are so if we were to say yes that we are going to choose to only close down two schools if that was the direction that we were going to go tonight it would be important to me that we communicate to the community what then we are saying and and and what those at added annual costs uh not only now but

241into the future would be i would agree i would like to see that as well so there's a reason why we project our costs out just to three years right because our budgets are so variable costs are so unknown like i'm not sure that we that you could what kind of stock you can put into those into those numbers well while i i hear that um because we have already invested in a demographer uh to look at some of this some of this data um as as well as um some of the work that we've done over the course of these past a couple years um i think it's important that we just understand look at those projections even though we understand that they are they are merely projected the email has been sent natasha

242you want to share it again and uh again walk us through that okay and so this is using the nyp from first interim um this still happened on the negotiated um raise that was on the table at that time um so we have projected staffing um savings in 2223 school year of 1.2 million and that was certificated savings um going over to the 23-24 school year we had electrical and water and gas for utilities for the specific sites that were um slated to be closed um the 1.2 million is of staffing carries on and then we have additional um certificate of staffing sorry to interrupt again miss latasha i i'm not following where you're at okay um help me to um how i can point it out to you we're in the yellow rows maybe

243if you if you do it by color okay all right so and by start i'm gonna go back to the 22-23 is that okay yes ma'am okay so the 1.2 which is in the first yellow column on yellow row for certificated staffing that's the projected savings um based off the schools that were border proof back in december um projected savings of 1.2 million dollars um that 1.2 continues on through the um the projected next five years in addition to that going to the blue um rose for the electric water and gas i'm starting at 23 24 school years for those schools that were slated to close we have a projector savings of 266 000 in electrical um 274 in water and six um six thousand in gas and those savings will carry on um for

244the remaining years in addition to that going to the second yellow we have additional certificated staffing based on the actual schools that will close um that will physically close in 2223 carrying over to the 23-24 school year that would be the 2.1 million dollars we will have classified um projected savings of 874 000 um and we will have also in that year in the what you call a brown color um 968 000 and management savings and those savings actually carry on through each fiscal year [Music] again these are all projections and these are just projections on savings so this does not account if we were considering adding anything in bishop i have a question on the projected savings in the gold band old band being certificated staffing and then yeah um for staffing in general

245so each of the numbers is the same starting in the 23-24 and going out to the 26-27 year is that number then not so for example if we kept those positions wouldn't those costs increase every year yes and we kept them so here since um in the expenditures on the how can i if you're looking at total expenditures where you see the um 126 million 122 million then 116 million that accounts for all staffing and it carries over all five years so here if we're projecting to reduce 1.2 million in savings in 2223 in order for the nyp to be accurate we have to carry out that savings every year because that 1.2 million in staffing was already included in every year going forward [Music] does that make sense dr bo say it one more

246time i know you're you're footing this to the nyp but in in in actuality if we reduce positions now it's a cost savings of 1.2 million but if we kept those same positions in five years that stopping cost would increase yes ma'am yes a cost of 1.5 million so i'm trying to understand how the cost savings can be held static um over five years when in actually all the costs will increase so what we're saying here is that we will reduce 1.2 million in certificate of staffing in 2223 and because those certificated staffing were already in nyp in 2223 and the out years we have to reduce that amount in each fiscal year that we're not going to have that uh number of ftes allocated for certificated staffing now in any of those years if

247we're saying oh let's just say this equated to five teachers and then in 23 24 we're going to actually bring back a teacher then that 1.2 will be reduced by the the fte will bring it back but right now this is saying we're reducing 1.2 million ftes um and 2223 and that reduction will be carried out every year now we were do um let's just say we actually made this reduction in 22-23 those um the reduction we realized in 24 and so then the staffing will actually show the total expenditures will actually be reflective of that reduction but right now the total expenditures that's at the top of the line includes the total population of our certificate of staffing that we have today so we're going to carry out this reduction in the in the

248projected year of 2223 and every out year we would have to manually subtract that number out otherwise it will just show we reduced them in 2223 and now they're back in the budget in 23 24 if we did not do this so i mean in simpler terms i mean can we rephrase it like for example we have cable we're paying a hundred dollars a month we cut the cable we're saving 100 a month in the long run it's can you're gonna save a thousand dollars a year um if you don't cut it then you're gonna accrue that you know um you're gonna accrue that that invoice of a thousand dollars a year yes in simpler terms so if your current cable bill is 100 and you're saying you spend let's say let's make it even

249thousand dollars in your own cable and your budget shows that you have that already in there and next year you're saying i'm not i'm going to cut the cable now you're going to realize a thousand dollar savings now net the following year if you bring that cable back you no longer realize that savings but if you continue to not have a cable if you had a budget for five years you need to reduce your budget by a thousand dollars each year you're not going to have that cable expense thank you and as we're looking at these numbers i mean there there are a a number of school sites that we have been discussing reducing these these numbers are inclusive of all of those school sites correct based off of december 21st yes sir yes sir

250oh so to keep one additional campus would be a fraction of this it wouldn't it wouldn't be even close to this would be um it'd be a fraction yes this is not real 100 correct math but i mean if we were just to do sites then possibly around 16 reduction again that's not 100 accurate but i mean just reduction in savings mm-hmm i think he's saying you're taking school six seconds and he's dividing 100 by six and saying each one if if you were saying they were evenly spread with posse then it would be around 16 of that total cost would be realized would be no would be no would not be real life correct 60 less correct just just again just to put a little bit of context again that's not 100 um mathematically

251correct but just to add a little bit of context to that sure so ms jamal can we if you can you help me understand the line just under the orange where it says revised surplus parentheses deficit yes so that is so that's same with uh did you put it back up on the screen all right give me one second so i think we have an understanding of reducing staffing costs and projecting out those savings for each of the next five years and then um if you shift to the the right to the 26 27 school year um in the the negative two point three seven six million so what does that deficit mean [Music] um doctor wilkin tell me which line you're on it's the revised surplus deficit line it's under the orange management staff

252mm-hmm and so we have a i only see a revise of four moon i don't see a 2.3 um i'm opening the document he sent us she's she's talking about the total deficit of that year at the far end below below all of your cost your staffing cost 26.27 yes yeah the last column so what so the revised um uh definition surplus is saying that based off the reductions we prior to the reductions we had a projected surplus of 4.2 but with the reductions in the smooth closures our deficit will now only be realized of 2.3 so it's showing that by i'm reducing this on the savings projections from the school reorganization would um put us in a stronger financial position where our deficit would only be 2.3 versus the 4.2 million that's projected [Music]

253and that is true operating at a there's still an operation a structural deficit even with these cuts yes is that what that means yes but yes um but remember um having a structural deficit does not mean we didn't have enough funds it means that we were already planning to spend our carryover dollars and so as long as we're spending dollars that will carry over from the prior year you will always show a deficit but you also you can also see in the private your previous to that we were projected at 1.2 but with the school reorganization um and the um raise our deficit will go from being a deficit of 1.2 to having a surplus of 597 000. what line is the surplus on uh it's right next to the 2.3 the 597 thousand green

254okay thank you should we be instead of managing on the revenue and expense right because i understand there's a accounting that you need to follow based on the how the funds are expended um the carryover funds is should we be looking at the ending fund balance and the reserve requirement as a measure at more comprehensive measure of fiscal health um yes um i think that's a and instead of if you're asking me that instead of looking at uh the deficit in surplus yes so can you walk us through that line item or that that row of the ending fund balance and the reserve yes it's in gray at the bottom yes ma'am so here we have i'm going to go with the first year or any fund balance um um from the first uh current

255year is 22.1 million dollars um we have our current reserves and our assignments um sorry i raised my hip down can you can you compare so so you're looking at the ending fund balance of the the bottom part the bottom portion there but there's also an available ending fund balance at the at the bottom just three rows of the yellow can you what is the difference between the the two yes so you have any fund balance which is all the funds that the district have and available any fund balance is anything that's available less than any um commitments or restrictions so like we have um so here our current um available anything balance is i want to make sure i'm speaking actual numbers currently available any fund balance is 21. i'm 22.1 million dollars um

256but then we have 25 000 in assignments we have 764 000 and prepaid 7.1 is in restricted resources and then we have our current assignments of 10.2 and that's supplemental concentration the concentration add-on aea reserve and so that's our total assignment and then you have your three percent um reserve of 3.9 and so if you take everything that you add together which is 3.9 and all your current assignments that's what you actually have available as any fund balance because the restricted dollars are restricted for a purpose if i'm reading this correctly this would say that for the for the 21 22 year we would need to have 3.9 but we would have 3.2 so we would not we would not meet that ending fund balance requirement yes in that one year but if we project

257out and look at 2627 the reserve requirement is 3.5 but we would have 16. yes [Music] but the 16 is accounted for with something on concentration so it's not just funds just available but it's assigning our supplement concentration dollars our concentration add-on and then we also have the aea reserve and so is there another is there another number that you are a row that you would direct us to that more appropriately gets at this question oh no you're you're actually where you need to be so yes we this shows you our financial health we have we meet the three percent um reserve requirement um and our actual indifferent balance is actually 16 million but i'm just i was just trying to articulate that our 16 million is assigned for other purposes it's just not readily

258available meaning we can do something with it so also my question is on um 21 well this school year 21 22 we are not going to meet the requirement as a first interim it showed that but this was based off with the raise and the projections at that time so at the second room we showed that we actually met that i'm just using this nyp um to show when i did the projections for the um school reorganization so that means that it's even healthier if if the second interim is is even healthier for this year then that would mean that projecting out to 26 27 [Music] would be even healthier than what is displayed here would that be accurate yes sir okay so it would see i'm gonna i'm gonna go out on a limb

259here mr mall and and correct my correct my thinking if that would if we're looking at these savings year to year and we're recognizing let's let's use a as a safe estimate uh super tenor ticket said 16 less in savings if we kept a uh if we did not add a third school campus to the closure list um year over year which i acknowledge um but it would be in essence we would we would not realize 16 of these of this savings by estimate but we would be working with over 16 million in our ending fund balance when our reserve is 3.5 yes sir so that would that would seem to communicate to me as i look at this that there is that there is some room to to to look at keeping or to

260only closing two school campuses instead of three but i know that that that's not the that's not your assessment um it's your assessment that not going further in our capacity uh liz wood would bring this conversation up sooner can you speak to the discrepancy from what i appear to be seeing and then what you were describing um i won't i won't say a discrepancy um i would just say that um going into the school reorganization process it wasn't about how much money we can save for let's pick enough schools to increase our any fund balance it was about maximizing our capacity so we could do more with our programs so um i know i for me personally it was never about how many schools can we close so i can make sure any fund balance

261was there because without school reorganization our through our current year in our two session years we've always been financially sound [Music] and i think the administration has done a lot of work to ensure that we're fiscally sound but the delta that the potential that we can realize is not stretching ourselves so far so that we can keep all the campuses and be physically sound but if we were to consolidate as we're that's the topic of of this evening we would be able to reallocate those funds to the existing campuses so that we would still be fiscally sound but we would also be able to fund more robust programs and support educators and staff so that we have a living wage and people can afford to live and live and work in azusa so in looking

262at this comprehensive one way to steer this or review this is the overall comprehensive you know fiscal health if um approximately 15 16 percent comes from one campus and i know it's not a perfect example but i'm looking at the back of the envelope that is that difference about 525 thousand dollars i took um three point five times fifteen percent is that five hundred twenty five thousand dollars um which three point five for using doctor i was looking at the um never mind i would and i was a different wrong number i was looking at the required reserve oh okay because i would say if we're trying to figure out the percentage out we would need to add up all of the proposed savings and then times that by the percentage got it and only

263some of it though because as we talked about there's some of the staffing that's really that that's here yes that we would we would retain that staffing anyway whether whether we had two closed campuses or three three closed campuses because it's it's associated with our enrollment yes so really we would be looking at more cleanly potentially 16 on management um 16 on utilities classified properly and some classified i think that's fair i will let jorge answer that yeah that's correct i i wouldn't say it's all classified but i think some classified will fall into that 16 the uh certificate of your your line of thinking is accurate because um many of the certificated positions will follow student okay you know just um listening to the conversation that's that's happening right now um i think that

264um yes the the capacity is is important right being able to go ahead and save this much money is important you know and again when we began this journey we were looking at a five to ten year plan right and so looking at the numbers for me i'm still a solid yes on three schools because there's no reason why a souza high's pool has been down for 30 years there's no reason why gladstone high school has a tree growing out of their pool like you go to clinton and you go to other districts and you see the amount of you know they've had to close schools at the different and so you see the amount of just gosh i don't want to put a district down but priorities right and that is if we want

265what's best for our students our students right now that are in school not me that i graduate not you that you graduated like the students right now what are they going to benefit from if we take that angle and perspective right in the long run three schools make make sense so if three of you still think that three schools need to close then you need to come to an agreement on what consensus on what that third one is and i i think i heard you say adrian that that's happening tonight right we're not dragging this out well we have until midnight i hope so i'm just saying i think i'm i think we're going around and around with a lot of information about numbers um but i think ultimately right people have to you know

266i think you guys have to come to a decision about what you think is best for this for us to move forward i agree with her totally i agree with the process of making it a decision and i think that there will always be more data whether it comes next week or two years from now or 10 years from now and i think it's also important to snap the talk line and decide how are we going to make the best decision that incorporates all the factors that we know are important geography school size communities programs being able to pay faculty and staff so that we we retain staff and we attract attract the staff that's what makes our school district that's why families stay here that's what we heard from all of the parents here

267that you're here because of your teachers and your principal and then taking that lens out and looking at the conversation started had to start with fiscal sustainability and responsibility i really feel that in looking at this and kind of finally piecing it together with the impact of one additional elementary school remember we've made the decision about secondary we've made the decision about middle schools now that the delta that the the crux of the matter is with the vote that we've taken previously tonight is one elementary school i'm comfortable looking at these projections to say i'm i am i'm happy to let our vote stand with our last vote with the closure of ellington and powell as the the um elementary schools to close and and not consider any additional elementary schools i disagree still regarding

268funding i mean latasha mr mall is our cvo right and she did pay we will be here in another two years and you know regarding the funding however we saw this figure so i mean she's the expert she goes through all the numbers and um i believe her and i don't want to be sitting here in two years i was here two years ago when we did the same thing and here i am again in another two years i really don't want to be sitting here going to the same scenario and actually honestly if you called president spur we talked but then we should have closed three schools and we didn't we did too here we are again today only closing two when like we should close three we will i promise you we'll be

269back and i i don't want to be going through this again but that's my opinion i still stand that we need three schools and be bold let's take let's take a chance you know what let's take a chance close that extra school again i i would agree with board member boat board member rodriguez pena that knowing the information that we have in front of us i cannot i don't even know what the word i'm tired i i cannot responsibly vote for only two schools at this time i i'm still sticking to three and and board member career you have the floor you know what um we we need to make a decision tonight and i still feel we need to do three we have to take a risk for our students for for them to

270be able to have and that's where i stand yeah and i and i would say no matter how you look at this no matter which angle you look at there there's there's risk that we're taking because we're looking at projections so we have to make informed decisions and so an hour ago i was uncomfortable with voting for only two schools closing because i did not have this information on the other side of having this this information here i i also would be comfortable with two campuses with uh only looking at two campuses closed instead of adding a third third campus to the list so i know that that's something that we already voted on but because i correct me if i'm wrong here carlos because i was a dissenting um boat on on that item

271i would i would then move that we just keep and i know there's more work to do on the other side with programs um but we i would move that we uh exhaust the list at just the two campuses that we mentioned before as as emotion i don't think you need to take that motion i think you've passed the motion i think ellington power slated for closure i think really if there's not a motion on the floor to close an additional school the board can rest on the accident i would like to rescind my vote okay my understanding of that i'm gonna without that previous motion past four one so so gabriella you can take it you can make you can make a motion for reconsideration you can make a motion-free consideration at this point

272during this meeting i would like to make a promotion for consideration reconsideration consideration of my vote of the motion of the motion of the motion which motion do we have a lawyer here to let us know what we need to do yeah but we also have we also have a chair no excuse excuse me member chris gonzalez we don't have a lawyer here board member yes we also have a board chair and so i'm pleased i will please ask um that that you um be recognized by the board chair before you speak please and i would like not to be interrupted while i'm speaking okay and so that's why i would look to please please direct uh the comments to the board chair so that i can i can determine when someone is speaking when

273someone is not thank you um uh carlos can can you speak to what you see as uh needed for next steps emotion they carried was to close ellington and powell and that carried 5-0 so all five board members could bring emotional reconsideration of that that motion that passed um on the floor would be motion for reconsideration the vote five zero to close ellington and powell that would be the most so if one board member um the one board member is making a motion so so then there would be a motion on the floor but we need a second for that right okay so is there is there a second to rescind the motion uh for the to reconsider that vote second then any additional discussion and i'll remind you it's 11 45. hearing no additional

274discussion we will vote and this vote will be to re reconsider the original motion which only included two school campuses on the closure list which were uh powell and ellington so we'll uh yes can you can you have the attorney clarify what a motion of reconsideration actually does so we're on the same page in in this particular instance i believe the motion to reconsider would be undoing that vote because what i'm hearing i'm not hearing from board member out of giannis it is a if something is replacing that boat it's just a motion to reconsider the board's action to take that vote so if if i hear you correctly if we to take this vote would be to start back to the beginning of the meeting correct uh board member adianas that's what i was

275trying to ask him earlier board president how do i do this and that that's what i was trying to ask i just want to make that clear thank you so i'm sorry i need to ask any question is that okay please go ahead um so just to be clear could you please again say what i need to say because i'm still not clear um one of the things let me tell you what i want to do i was looking forward you know he said well let's go ahead and do this because right these are the two schools and we're going to talk about the third one so i voted yes because okay we're going to talk about it there now that there's no third one i'm not comfortable with this and that's where i'm coming

276from and if i can offer something i i believe this discussion was going to lead towards motion so in this instance you could make a motion to add a third goal and then it would be subject to i don't want to do that okay um so then the question is what would a motion to reconsider be it would be a motion to reconsider to basically undo the five zero vote and then the board member careers point then you would be back at square one so when he's back at square one um our then he could i'm sorry i didn't can i just the point of order so that so when you do i can't ask the question i i'm trying to understand this there was a there was a point so just parliamentary procedure right

277so if we do a motion to re emotion to reconsider reconsider and that motion passes then you actually take another vote on that motion on the floor you don't you don't it doesn't rescind that motion it's not a resist it's not it's not rescinding the emotion if the motion you motion to reconsider then you would do another motion then you'd have to you so if that passes then you have another vote on the motion and people get to cast their votes on that same motion how they want and again the board hasn't adopted robert's rule so i'm fine with that approach so let me let me get that let me say this because because it's 11 48 we can we we can do the gymnastics around with robert's rules of order and and and i

278understand how that's how that's helpful but as i'm as i'm kind of surveying and hearing i i i heard that initially there were there were uh there were not enough votes to carry either side and as i i said i was uncomfortable voting um there were two board members who expressed that they were comfortable with only having two campuses there were two board members who expressed that they would want to have three campuses um have any of the board members change their perspective on so if if there are no if there are if none of those two none of the other four board members have changed their perspective then there then it falls down onto a vote as to whether there's comfortability with retaining two school campuses or comfortability with adding three so we can

279go through the steps we can we can go through the steps of reconsidering motions and and coming back around in new motions but we have we have 11 minutes and and and i and there's there's already enough to see that that there is that there is uh uh enough support on the board to move this forward so so so we can do that but that that's going to push us over and and not not not allow us to arrive at where we need to be by 12. now i'm just going to add i think i need four minutes before 12 o'clock yes exactly so i would say we have even less time just to make sure that the record is clear about the transition so okay so i'm going to say this i know uh

280board member adianas you when you were talking about this you said that you were uncomfortable you were uncomfortable motioning whether we should keep uh whether we should add a third campus to the list or not i would like to motion that we whether it's needed or not for this for the sake of moving forward with the time that we have i would like to motion that we exhaust our list at two at two school campuses and then we not consider a third board member prayer yes can i speak now the lawyer since he's here um yes but but let me just ask is there is there a second and then the motion dies yes i just do not want to attach my yes to that that's it i just want to remove my yes that

281that's it how do we move forward like quick what do we have to say what do we have to motion so we can move forward i like in this in this instance then i like board member cruz gonzalez's approach which is a motion to reconsider whether or not the board is going to re-vote on that and that would have to get a majority vote okay since i made the motion should then i motion to reconsider the 5-0 vote correct whether the board will take that issue up again okay and then that would still need another vote once you get back okay so i motioned to reconsider the 5-0 vote for a rebound there's a motion on the floor to reconsider our uh vote on ellington and powell which was 5-5-0 is there a second second

282any additional discussion i don't think there's gonna be a change so i really don't realize where we're going in circles i mean i already see what's happening what's gonna happen but for the for for parliamentary procedures where we find ourselves here so let's go ahead and go ahead and vote on that so now um this is a vote to reconsider not not this isn't the vote this is the vote to reconsider the five the original vote question i just want to take my vote to a no that's it that's what we're doing so this is passed if this passes then we'll go ahead and vote again and then you guys can vote the way you and i'm going to vote no for the second of this one to vote yes so the motion second is

283to reconsider the original the original vote of powell and ellington um board member rodriguez you want to reconsider you want to revoke on the motion is to the motion is to re-vote on the earlier vote that we took to close ellington and powell no no yes and i am also no so there will be no re reconsideration the five zero vote correct so that thank you so then be beyond that that that then answers i i will take that to me and carlos please please let me know if you see it differently i will take that to mean then that that is exhausted and so there are the only two schools that we mentioned elementary schools i should add are powell and uh ellington that are correct and there's no there's no motion on the

284floor to close an additional school and so when the when the board president allows me to proceed i just want to make sure we're clarifying one issue as to magnolia because it was the previous board action about programmatic transition of magnolia which is no longer relevant or valid and would that be across the board not just magnolia would that be across the board for i think for simplicity for the record it's probably better if you get a motion that adopts exactly what the programmatic transition is going to be for all of the schools in question and i can help with that so at the december meeting there was a 5-0 vote that said paramount for the 22-23 school year paramount valley dale murray lee dalton and hodge pending state approval would have their preschool to

285sixth grade remain open magnolia powell and ellington would have their first through sixth for pal and first through eight remain open and i've been expected magnolian powell would be first through six ellington would be first group now that uh now that then in the 23-24 school year um the school that would remain open would be preschool to fifth grade so the only school affected right now very narrow motion that could be in motion to basically rest in the action for the great transition for magnolia magnolia would be the same as all the other remaining so i move i move that we rescind the action that was originally taken for magnolia and that it mirror the the same as the other cool sites that will run a second is there any additional discussion we will go

286ahead and do a hand vote uh board member rodriguez pena yes board member beau yes board member cruz gonzalez yeah board member audi honest yes and i am also a yes i do believe that that takes us to uh area 5.0 and specifically 5.1 which is adjournment is there a motion to adjourn my motion to adjourn is there a second second then any discussion and we will go ahead and vote uh so we are adjourned at 11 56 p.m have a good night everybody