001six well good evening everyone and welcome to the special board meeting of the azusa unified school district on december 21st 2021 i'll go and call this meeting to order at 7 00 p.m and we will begin with our flag salute i do believe that we have savannah kendrick here with us from paramount hey savannah hi you ready to lead us all right take it away okay please put your right hand over your heart ready begin i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you so much savannah thank you have a good night thank you you too okay then we'll go ahead and move on to our roll call for this evening
002uh board member ariana present i am here today board member cruz gonzalez here board member bo here board member rodriguez pena president and i board mcgreer and here as well uh next we'll move on to 2.0 which is the approval of uh the agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda quotient two approved 2.1 second moved by board member ariana and second by board member rodriguez pena we'll go ahead in any discussion then we'll move to a boat i have to use the new computer because my computer i don't have a link okay we can do a we can do a hand vote so if you just message me remember i remember beau yes i remember ariana's yes board member cruz gonzalez yes and i am also yes the motion passes five yes five
003to zero moving on then to item 3.1 public comment on agenda or non-agenda items this is an opportunity for the public to address the board of education to address the board of education on any agenda or non-agenda items when the public wishes to address the board on any 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 attendant just a few other reminders for for tonight in particular um i i know that there is a a special item that we have on our agenda i do want to remind everyone that you have three minute um and this will be an evening where i'm
004i'm gonna i'm gonna hold you to those three minutes and so i'm gonna ask that you please be mindful of the clock um and that you're able to wrap up your comments within that time um otherwise i apologize in advance but but i will stop you at um right at three minutes um also a reminder that um we don't you will not have the option of yielding your time to someone else and so you can use utilize that three minutes those three minutes are for any individual speaker but if if you were wanting to yield those three minutes for someone else to compound um additional minutes uh that is another that would go beyond be a lot of three minutes per person and and i i wouldn't allow that uh the last thing i'll say
005is um just to be mindful of time it would be helpful if you were mindful of other comments that were made tonight maybe prioritizing the the things that others have not yet said to ensure that there's a diversity of perspective that that comes to the uh to the board as we're looking to make uh some decisions tonight uh that would be most helpful uh just to ensure that um all of those pieces are are covered and and the the insight is provided and opinions are shared to the board with that said we will go ahead and move on to our public comment do we have any blue cards okay first up we have philip via [Music] good evening school board president mr greer and all board members superintendent mr ortega and cabinet and anyone else
006attending this meeting i've come to speak to you all tonight about the school year organization rebranding the rebounding for our district in my eyes is the best thing because of all the new opportunities for the school yes i know this rebranding is a costly thing but this will be a life changer i've been i recently sat in a meeting regarding school reorganization and there were people in that meeting who are very against the idea of rebranding the high school i've had many family members and friends who have graduated from gladstone and ever since i was a little kid i've always wanted to graduate from the g rebranding for the high school is the best thing because no one has to be discouraged when they have to be when they have been going to one school
007for so many years and then all of a sudden have to turn around and graduate in the opposite school that i do not choose to go to a new name would be neutral to the two high school names right now so that way no one has a bad taste in their mouth by the time my career freshman class emerges to one high school the invested amount of time that we have spent as gladiators will feel like as if it was off for nothing we are as important as the classes before us and the classes after us and we deserve to feel like we matter i ask that you strongly consider this rebounding request as we move forward to the changes that will become thank you for your time next we have cecilia ford good evening
008mr president greer members of the board superintendent ortega and audience my name is cecilia ford i am the proud parent of a very well-rounded involved amazing gladiator who will graduate class of 2025. tonight is a night that will change our district from what used to be what will be in the future traditions are a huge part of our district how do i know this i am a proud gladstone gladiator alumni class of 1997 and i have been a district employee since 2009. traditions include things such as azusa gladstone rivalries two graduations each year to recognize our aspects as well as our gladiators among various events throughout the year well traditions are about to change change for different change for the betterment of our district change is always hard for everyone and moving forward will be
009challenging for all but as a whole i believe the changes will improve our district for the future it's time to start new traditions with one high school it's time to move on to new beginnings it's time to look forward beyond the horizon with that being said one high school that our district will have should be rebranded give the school a new name which means a new identity is it going to cost money of course it is when i hear the board say we don't have money we are saying that our that the students are not worth it our kids are the future and every single one of them deserves to be proud of their accomplishment they work very hard every single day from the youngest pk student to the senior that is getting ready for
010their adult life our students at classroom high school deserve the consideration to have a new identity the choice to be moved from one campus to the other is not a voluntary choice but a forced choice in order for our students to maintain a high positive quality of self-worth rebranding azusa high school is a small request for gladiators that have chosen to be gladiators attending a high school of choice in ninth grade within the district is a choice a student makes and feels comfortable doing so being forced to pick up and go somewhere else could cause a disastrous disruption to some individuals let's make our gladiators feel welcome at a new campus as we all merge together with a new identity remember old traditions are a thing of the past and new traditions will be the
011future no longer aztecs no longer a gladiator thank you for allowing to be speak tonight to express my thoughts and personal feelings have a great evening thank you cecilia next we have francisco duran good evening my name is cisco i've uh lived in azusa most of my entire life 30 years now my entire family went to azusa high school as of 96 99 and then myself 2009 um and when i heard about the rebranding i was completely surprised i thought we were uh closing schools to save money and now to embark on a plan to spend so much on things that won't have a direct impact on it and a big benefit especially considering that in eight years none of these students will even remember gladstone as an often um i personally went to center
012middle school before this and i don't know if you all are aware but that's a myth you know center of the district type of school half of my friends went to gladstone while the football coaches were trying to rile up the student body in the azusa versus gladstone rivalry that weekend i went and had dinner with my friends on aero highway and enid who went to gladstone every day i had absolutely no concept of this rivalry my best friends were there some of those friends were at my wedding this past april and the same thing for a lot of my other family members i just don't think that this is an issue at all and within eight years a lot of these students who are filtering through the elementary schools and middle schools they're just
013not going to remember this as an option my alma mater of gladstone street elementary closed and it made me very sad because one of my favorite teachers mrs reese that's out there before she retired and i remembered this but that is my memory my own personal memory and it cost nobody anything for that to disappear if it's going to have a greater impact on future students with the money saved uh so i'd just like you to consider this that this is a high school could use the money to improve the quality of life of future students i mean we still have a hole in the ground that is supposedly a pool and uh that kind of thing so i'd really like you to just consider that the benefit of that money for future student bodies
014in a community that is azusa um i am very proud whenever i hear the word azusa i am from azusa and i don't care uh who might be ashamed of it of hearing the name of a town that was formerly blue collar is still very strongly brew caller i have no shame i love hearing and marching back that azusa high school from azusa california is doing well just like this championship that they won this past season and i would like to continue seeing that i'd like to continue hearing the students from missoula high school have a ivy league school acceptance that the acadeca program has done well because then i get heroes who's a high in the newspapers and it warms my heart thank you francisco next we have diana reyes williams hello can you
015hear me yes we can all right well i was rushing in because i knew the meeting was starting so um if i sound like i'm rambling i know i only have three minutes so here i go hello president greer school board members administrators faculty and the community of azusa my name is dianna reyes williams and i'm a homeowner i'm a taxpayer and i care about our community and our school district uh several months ago i spoke before the school board in regards to an idea that popped into my head being living across the street from foothill middle school and knowing that there was a possibility that the campus would be closed i really don't want to see the campus close but i know that we have to make some hard decisions this evening so one
016of my ideas was to suggest that we combined the campus of foothill middle school with azusa high now i'm hearing discussions about rebranding and what i would suggest is if we we take a look at what the calendar looks like what the plan looks like to see how long it's going to take to actually transition to one school why would we need to brand at all if we allow the students that are gladstone to finish their education at gladstone high school so i'm not sure if this is making any sense but if we start with elementary and then we work with the middle school by the time we get to that point the kids that are in school right now would be graduating so i'm i'm just trying to think outside the box in a
017way to where we're sensitive to the students because of everything that they've experienced and you know we need to meet both ways but i also want to acknowledge that we spent a lot of money on our foot on the football fields azusa and gladstone and to re-brand as i've heard would be costly so i really want um and i hope that the board will take all this into consideration that maybe it's not necessary to rebrand maybe we can keep the high schools the way they are and as we progress then we discuss at that point what's going to happen so those are my thoughts for this evening i know you have a tough decision we trust in your decision and the manner in which you will be making it and i want to say thank
018you very much for this opportunity to speak before you good evening thank you diana next we have alicia rodriguez we have alicia with us rodriguez if you are currently talking you are on mute still okay maybe we can move to sicilia de la torre and if uh alicia is still there we can bring her back on toward the end hello this is cecilia can you hear me hello yes we can hear you okay good evening superintendent ortega cabinet members and board members and community members my name is cecilia delatore and tonight i'm speaking to you as a certificated employee for over 21 years a parent of two current students and athletes a community volunteer for both football and baseball boosters and an alumni of ausd proud class of 1995 azuza high i'm most proud of
019having four generations of ausd schools i would like to express and share that i strongly recommend that you do not spend any monies on rebranding our future mega high school and mega middle school it is time yes it is time that we spend the monies that we would spend on rebranding and spend it on our students our educational programs for our students and our facilities programs that include baccalaureate ap courses stem avid engineering pltw early college program gate dual immersion english learners business programs and integration of trade programs our students of azusa deserve the best the best curriculum the best programs our teachers deserve top-notch training intense detail training from beginning to end no cutting corners no excuses no explanations that we have to settle for 75 of a program because we run out of
020money no excuses that we do not have enough classrooms so we cannot have science labs on site no more excuses our students deserve the money to be spent on our programs and not rebranding let us carry on our proud aztec and proud gladiator traditions teach our future students about our past and bring to our future in a positive productive manner our students deserve the best programs the best sports facilities a top-notch education top buyer fabulous ausd staff members including our administration certificated and classified employees so i'm asking the board members tonight to vote no on rebranding and yes to putting our students first put that money for our students to our programs it's time ausd stands at the top we are the a on the top of that mountain to the north of us and
021yes we are a to z in the usa together we can and we will achieve more again thank you respectfully for your time and your dedication have a wonderful evening happy holidays and thank you celia next we have marjorie avison for president did you want to uh go back to see if felicia rodriguez was there is do we have alicia back with us yes he is online alicia hear me yes we can hear you now perfect um good evening board members president greer my husband and i also uh we're parents of two students at lee elementary school and we are very concerned with the school reorganization that's happening and kind of to chime in with what uh miss cecilia was mentioning i don't understand why there's so much money going to rebranding the high school
022and we don't see any of these funds that are going towards the elementary schools and the middle schools like she said like cecilia said teachers need to get paid better there needs to be more staff at the schools there's got to be better programs science programs you guys it seems like it's all the focus is going towards football and cheerleading and we understand the sports are an important key role in high school but i no point have i heard anybody mention of how you guys are going to help the elementary school students and the middle school students and on top of it some of the models that you have you're leaving one or two schools open above the 210 how are parents going to get to all these other schools is the board going to
023touch on the subject of how you guys are going to allow for students to commute or help the parents that walk their kids to school every morning or kids that walk to school any morning i i haven't heard any of this be mentioned and i'm sorry my voice is cracking i don't know if i'm starting to get laryngitis so my husband's going to help me out a little bit yeah i feel like the education should start in the beginning with elementary it should be focused more there and in middle school can so that they start off with that uh education and that that that they need so that when they go forward into middle school and onto high school they already have that fundamental uh education wise of being able to learn and want to
024learn more so that they continue all the way to college we have the colleges here in azusa and yet with our education and the elementaries and junior high and high school they're very low rated they should be rated at the highest due to the fact that we have colleges here in azusa so therefore we should focus more on starting the kids off in elementary with the best education that they can get better programs better equipment a lot of these schools don't even have staff equipment soccer balls you know basketballs anything so that they get more fundamentals in everything in physical education and reading math everything science music we're just very concerned with everything that's going on and i know our time is coming to an end but we just wanted to address some of these
025issues and some of these issues are also issues that a lot of the parents at lee elementary are worried about we don't know what's going to happen to our kids and what mental help are you going to offer them as they're going to be transitioning to new campuses are their teachers going to be with them staff um thank you for your time thank you alicia next we have marjorie avason good evening president greer members of the board superintendent ortega and cabinet my name is margie avison and i'm the vice president of the azusa educators association and a member of the bargaining team tonight i would like to speak to the issue of cola or the cost of living adjustment the state awards a cola generally on an annual basis to our base local control funding
026formula or lcff to help districts and employees to deal with rising costs due to inflation last school year there was not a cola included in the california state budget inflation is running rampant and the teachers in azusa unified are already being behind the curve because of increased costs for the last two years according to the bureau of labor and statistics consumer price index inflation in los angeles county for the past year was up six percent from december of 2020. on june 28th of this year governor newsom signed the state budget which included a provision for a 5.07 percent cola or a cost of living adjustment to the lcff local control funding formula the cola is intended to cover the increased cost which includes salaries as the board is looking to give direction to the bart
027district bargaining team on how to settle total compensation please remember employees need the cola to pay their increased costs having a strong and fair district proposal on compensation for the 21 22 school year is not only necessary for it's no longer necessary for our current employees but also for ausd to attract new teachers but to ret retain our existing loyal teachers a full cola will demonstrate to our unit members that they are valued by ausd thank you and have a good evening thank you margie board members before we proceed with the next names that we have on the list i just want to draw our attention to board bylaw 93-23 which would say that our public comment is to be uh limited to 20 minutes unless ford gives consent to extend that a lot of
028time but we definitely have some additional names there that that would like to speak um so so i i'd like to see if i can get some general consensus on the board to extend our time i think this is a special meeting for a special reason and therefore i would also agree that we allow our community to seek the board at this time yes i i agree i agree i also agree okay thank you and we'll move on to uh leslie jones good evening can you hear me yes are you loud and clear um so thank you for allowing me to speak this evening my name is leslie jones a long-time azusa unified parent um i wanted to express a concern about the rebranding for the high school i've heard that some board members are
029against rebranding the new high school but i just wanted to express some of my concerns in no particular order of why i feel that the heist the new high school should be rebranded the schools on the west side of the district feel left out at times i've talked to many students many parents various sports teams at the schools that feel like we're the red-headed stepchild of the district gladstone students and parents feel that azusa high always gets the first of everything new instruments new uniforms etc if the new high school is kept as azusa high school um it's just a confirmation that azusa high school is the favorite high school of the district whether this is true or not it sends a strong message if we try to create a new high school it's going
030to help unite the students and the families why not start fresh a new name new color new mascot we need to help unite the families that are creating this new high school i know money is a huge concern however azusa unified has not been very wise with its money in the past um i've been involved with the district for many years and i've seen some very poor spending if spending money is going to help unite the new high school why not spend the money um i've heard that it's going to cost less than we originally thought we want our district to get a fresh new start for everybody involved please do what's right for the entire district what message do you want to send to the community please rebrand the new high school thank you
031thank you leslie next we have emily ruiz um good evening president greer board superintendent ortega and cabinet my name is emily ruiz i'm currently a student at azusa high school i'm calling in regards to the rebranding of azusa high school i can see why you think this is decision is the best for a group of students unfortunately it is not the best decision for our community i live in azusa my parents had purchased our home in azusa two years before i was even born i take great pride in representing my school and city everywhere i go as a highly involved community member the name of my city is very dear to my heart i love azusa and the beautiful community that lives in this city i don't just say that i show every weekend when
032i get up early to volunteer at different events with peers saying hi i'm from canyon city high school will leave out our beautiful city's name i want people in different communities to know that youth from azusa care they won't know that if i say canyon city high school i don't know where this rivalry and fear you speak about comes from students from azusa and gladstone work closely every week we clean our cities together we play in orchestra and mariachi together a lot of us are friends we went to the same elementary school and middle school together we enjoy working together if we are talking about being fair then you would have to change the name of every school in azusa during this process if you change the name of gladstone azuza both then i would
033understand my little sister will get to go to gladstone middle school which won't even be in azusa but not to azusa high school in her city the money that will be wasted on this is money we can use to buy things we need for example sport uniforms it's embarrassing to go watch a game that is not football and see our teams with mismatched and old uniforms to fix our instruments and not have teachers have to pick out what instruments get fixed this year fix the restrooms that we actually use at school not the ones that are in the gym and that are always locked up a lot of our extracurricular activities need a lot of financial support i feel bad saying this but it's the truth i hope you take my opinion opinion into consideration
034thank you very much thank you emily next we have griselda berry good evening president greer members of the board superintendent ortega and everyone present i'd first like to thank the board district administrators and all members of the committees that have put in countless hours to discuss the multitude of reconfiguration options tonight's agenda includes three attachments each of which shows foothill is closing i currently work at foothill and would like to share some of the concerns our staff has foothill students would be transferred twice before attending high school how might multiple transfers influence a parent's desire to remain in the district additionally neither center nor slauson has been modernized why move students and staff to a substandard facility for a year only to move them again if foothill is not closed we understand that it might
035be used as an extension of azusa we ask that you consider using foothill for zero period students or after school activities this will enable foothill middle school students to enjoy their last year without commingling with high school students if we mix students we run the risk of losing more middle school students before the final transition many parents have already voiced their disapproval of mixing seven through twelve although the points i've raised were specific to foothill there were other concerns pertaining to the super middle school has the district fully explored how they will support bus transportation rancho cucamonga has had to cancel busing services because they couldn't find sufficient drivers what will be the backup plan for students who are tardy we also ask the board members and district leaders to examine local super middle schools
036our district can use some amazing schools as models specifically ramona middle school and bonita unified which serves over 1300 students please prioritize the number of administrators counselors and teachers that will be needed to meet the needs of our middle schoolers they deserve nothing less than a well thought out plan we trust you will not rush as you deliberate these points thank you for your time thank you griselda next we have michelle hello can you hear me yes yes hi my name is michelle valencia i'm a parent from alice allington michelle we do have a bit of an echo coming from you is it better no okay how about now i'm sorry that sounds good thank you i am a parent from alice ellington currently on the pto board pto as parent um i'm coming to
037this meeting today i have a child that goes to alice ellington and i notice that that elementary was on the chopping board um i'm coming to you guys today to say did you guys take in consideration that we put you guys put all this money into that school to make it a k through eighth grade and then we're talking about closing it and then i hear all the other schools um talking about money but it's just going to waste because we put all this money into that school that's one number two is we have such amazing teachers what's gonna happen with them staff what's going to happen with them are they guaranteed a spot at these other schools our wonderful principal that you guys just gave to us and then now the parents have to
038think our students got used to this person and now they're going to have to go to a different school and then i think about it to all the parents that we're going to lose two different school districts yes i understand some people on the border like no nobody's gonna change out of the school district no they're not yes we spoke to plenty of parents that voiced their opinion at our elementary school and they've all stated we will take our student out of azusa unified and move to covina district that's a big problem because not only will the district lose out but our students will on a good school yes i understand everybody's worried about the rebranding of gladstone high schools and azusa high school but what about our elementary schools just like other parents have
039stated on here what about those those are the kids who have to go to middle school and high schools yes these high school kids are going to graduate but we haven't looked at the big picture of our elementary students we're only i feel like we're only worried about high school and middle school so let's focus on keeping ellington open and using that as a model to show different elementary schools hey we can make it a k through eighth and keep those and not have seventh through twelfth grade at high schools i wouldn't want my child just specifically to go to a high school in seventh grade thank you michonne thank you next we have a sanchez we have a sanchez in attendance hello can you hear me yes hi there good evening president greer superintendent
040ortega fellow board members and cabinet my name is albert sanchez i've been teaching for azusa unified since 1998 and i'm currently a physical education teacher and the athletic director at glaston high school i'm speaking tonight about the rebound branding of the one high school and realized like many other proud asus citizens that this is a hot topic on so many levels as a gladstone alumni i'm speaking up on behalf of my fellow gladiator alums current gladiator students and staff who want to see rebranding take place when we open up the one high school i want to bring the attention or bring to your attention that many of you may not be aware of it's something that i thought of since this rebranding has come to light two local school districts merged their high schools in
041the mid to late 80s and rebranded you had royal oak royals and charter oak lancers they merged their two high schools in um and became known as the charter oak chargers in 1988 the edgewood trojans and west covina bruins merged their two high schools and became known as the west covina bulldogs in both instances the newly formed high schools changed their colors and mascots charter oak blue and yellow who are the chargers and west covina to the burgundy and gold and they are the bulldogs had gladstone high school been chosen to be the one high school and this is very important we know that rebranding wouldn't even be an issue gladstone would be rebranded without question yet this may not be reciprocated this doesn't sit well with the glaston community i totally understand that both
042schools are very passionate about their school's history you know the saiyans gladiator forever forever gladiator or once in a stick always nastic well we need a new slogan to represent both high schools as one i leave you with this i propose that we keep azusa high school because it represents our city and who we are i recommend recommend the district turns this rebranding idea into a contest where the students the staff and the community pick a new mascot thank you for your time and we gladiators are counting on you to make the right decision and rebrand thank you albert next we have uh julie cena stephen hello can you hear me yes yes hello my name is julie sankistavan thank you for the introduction adrian um i am a long time certified teacher certificated teacher
043at gladstone high school i'm asking this please do not vote on this issue tonight rather do a third party demographic demo demographer to analyze the potential enrollment laws that you will lose gladstone students to the nearby covina unified school district you will lose revenue you have plenty of revenue right now because of the one-time money you get from the state and from the gov from the federal government once that's gone you will lose revenue if you lose students please do not vote on this issue tonight rather find a quantitative analysis third-party analysis to evaluate the potential enrollment loss you will gate have from this transition thank you for your time that's my all i have to say thank you thank you miss s next we have nolan sinclair a good evening board president career superintendent
044ortega and cabinet um i just wanted to finish what i was talking about last time i just want to kind of give a different perspective from the outside i've worked in azusa for 17 years i understand the dynamics between gladstone and azusa and the pride between those schools but um i've lived in san dimas my whole life went to san diego's high school played sports family members that played sports band other things and to be honest outside of the city of azusa nobody really knows that there is a gladstone azusa is the brand of azusa azusa high school as the brand of azusa so when we talk about bringing people to azusa the board's been talking about adding programs to bring people from outside the city to go to schools there my fear is that
045if you rebrand nobody's gonna know what it is if you rebrand it canyon city by the time people figure out where canyon city is they've already moved on so you already have a brand there in azusa and a marketing standpoint when you add things and build things up people will see what's going on in the city of azusa growing up northview was known as only the wrestling school nobody really cared about northview all of a sudden they poured money in built great facilities and now we're losing kids to northview and a lot of people go to northview so if we pour money into the high school you're gonna retain the people in azusa bring the city together and i i like what albert said i didn't think of it that way you could rebrand the
046mascot it's still azusa high school but rebrand the mascot and bring the city together i also believe that there's a way for the board or the the district and the high school to recognize and maybe reward the students who are going to sacrifice to bring the city together and make something special for them that everybody will remember that they're the ones that that did the sacrifice to bring the city together i wanted to thank you guys for this process it's been transparent i appreciate the cabinet for all the extra work you've done when the board asks for extra information i appreciate the detailed discussion that the boards had and i think it's been eye-opening with all the you know people having issues with everybody in this world and not being able to get along that
047people can have different ideas and speak about it and work together to come to a conclusion and solution so i appreciate the transparency and as a teacher um i look forward to seeing where this district's going with the leadership we have now thank you thank you nolan next we have melissa wilson perkins hi can you hear me yes okay um good evening everyone thank you um i know it's going to be a long night thank you guys so much for safeguarding ausd for current and future generations by tackling this heart issue of re reorganization um i wasn't really going to talk about rebranding but listening to everyone else's comments i just wanted to chime in to say that as a previous caller mentioned there is a way to there's you know sort of paths in
048between sort of maybe um extending the campus consolidation time the original recommendation was maybe five years and then we changed to two something like three years would allow more gladiators to graduate from their home campus or perhaps as the early earlier the last caller mentioned a partial rebranding maybe with the mascots or something like that um but what i really called in to talk about was um model 3 version proximity um i believe this version has the most even placement of elementary schools it keeps um it does keep the largest the most elementary schools open in our city and maintains decent capacity numbers at 78 percent the second thing i wanted to mention is um the staffing pieces which was presented to the board and the reorganization team please look again at the numbers and
049consider adding um the possibility of a vice principal to elementary school campuses with over 600 students um or even 650 there there's no um there's there's no um limit now in which would ever achieve uh vice principle and as elementary schools are closing they're gonna have we're gonna have larger populations at our campuses and our administration um a more administrative support is needed last thing is safeguarding our vapa program i want to see more programs like this in ausd so if powell was to be closed where would the arts program be transferred to i realized that the greatest asset of the program is the teachers and the staff that implement it and thus it's not as simple as moving some art or theatrical equipment but please keep this program in mind as it is an
050asset to our district thank you again for your time and dedication to this very difficult task happy holidays thank you melissa next we have violet gonzalez good afternoon um as is the board members and community i'm a lee lyon parent one that's in kindergarten and in first grade um i'm coming today to the board to talk about um the closing of lee which saddens myself and many parents ali elementary my question is and concern is that many parents that live around lee are walking parents we lee school is in the middle of azusa around apartments condos and low poverty which many people walk my other concern is of the decision of closing lee and foothill the only high school that we'll have in azusa will be surrounded by close schools what kind of message are
051we sending to our community that we're sending our high schoolers surrounded by closures of schools and if that does take effect what will happen there was one other person i think her name was griselda berry she had such a great idea of what to do with foothill middle school if that decision continues of closing that school lee elementary is a very great school great staff and great teachers and it's right in the middle of the heart of azusa of where many people walk to that school and it saddens me that it will be closing because there's no funding for it that there's no maintenance that has been up to date which is sad and that that's not the school's fault and that's the reason it's closing which is one of the biggest schools and it
052will be closing which makes no sense but and i just wanted to voice my concern because it's just sadness that that school is being one of the choices to be closed and it will be sad to see that the high schoolers will be going to a high school surrounded by close schools from their district and yeah i just wanted to voice that concern thank you so much for your time and happy holidays thank you violet next we have george ingle good evening can you hear me yes we can good evening board members and staff and parents um so so my main concern is the uh closing of lee uh we are new to the district we moved to azusa two years ago and our priority for us as parents was the education of our child
053and what one of the uh main decisions of uh moving where we live now was the proximity of uh being so close to the school which is lee and now hearing that the school is um on the list of schools that will close and there's no option that will leave it open this is a a major concern for me so i do support every single point that uh ms cecilia and alicia brought up before and i am asking that you do not go with any of this uh uh plan uh because a lot of the parents that go to lee or a lot of the students that go to lee their parents do walk to school we are one of them we walk their son to school um so that will have an impact on
054us as parents and any impact on ours on us as parents will also impact our students and my son so i'm asking you to please base your decision and think about how will this impact our us as parents and the students and i hope that the lee is not close and that is all i have to say thank you thank you george next we have anna valencia hello can you hear me yes we can okay good evening everyone i come to you from ellington elementary i am a pto member very involved pto member i come to you with our closure i really recommend that you guys take another look we are a very well school we have very well educated teachers staff and a wonderful new principal that was added to our school he has
055had a lot of changes to our school which are all for the best we have a lot of parents right now that are concerned with this also we have a lot of parents that walk a lot of parents that are talking about if we are closed they will move their children to the kavina district i'm not sure if our district itself understands how much they're going to lose also with the rebranding of the two high schools you're gonna lose so much revenue to the city of azusa and i would hate for that to happen so you guys really need to look close at what you're doing because losing gladstone high school and ellington which is on the border of covina and azusa but we are azusa district our enrollments are going up we have i'm
056i'm so emotional right now because it's fattened me that you guys make us a k-8 we've been a wonderful k-8 i know that a lot of parents feel that a k-8 is kind of odd but it's wonderful and if you guys would come each and every board member come and meet all our staff our students our parents and see our school you would also fall in love with it so i ask you to please consider leaving ellington open and moving valleydale over to ellington and merging them together even if you leave us back at a k5 just reconsider what and how many students you will be losing that's 99 of our parents i have talked to said they will remove their kids thank you and have a good evening and a merry christmas and a
057happy new year thank you anna next we have alan friend hi can you hear me yes we can hear you great good evening everyone my name is alan french i am a proud graduate of azusa high school and i'm just wanted to bring up a couple of points here uh first i do agree with the previous speaker that i think the board should not make a final vote on reorganization tonight it is clearly a very emotional issue it's a very passionate issue among many and with good reason and there's there has to be another way there has to be a better way for um to come to a final resolution i know this has been a long process i know you have had the board has had a lot of study sessions with this and
058the reorganization team has met many times as you know we've seen on youtube but just given everything i've heard tonight i think the board should wait to make a final decision i don't think tonight is the night that being said i do have a couple of other concerns i wish to bring up i do agree with several speakers that the district might see for lack of a better term a backlash in terms of enrollment and we all want enrollment to go up i mean we all care about this district a great deal that being said i don't believe foothill should close because of its close proximity to azusa high one can certainly make that argument for slauson because that is nearby too but foothill is across the street from azusa high and i do agree
059that closing it does not send a very good message and on those grounds i really think foothill should remain open and as far as the rebranding or reimagining of azusa high and gladstone high i am an agreement that neither should take place uh particularly what emily ruiz said earlier you know everybody that goes to azusa high is proud to say they're from azusa high not canyon city high or or what have you and we have a glendora high we have a covina high we have a pomona high why can't azusa high remain as is and the aztec mascot has been around since the very beginning i don't see a reason for that to change either it pays tribute to the aztec culture and if you want to change the mascot that means more money will
060need to be spent on well remodeling like in the gym and all over the school and that can be better served for uh the education of our students so i am not for the rebranding i think azusa high should be left as is name mascot and all thank you for your time thank you ellen and i believe last uh we have elise hello good evening um board members president cabinet superintendent uh i want to thank everyone for the time put into this i followed since the beginning of the youtube videos of the reorganization committee i've been following along along with all of these meetings as well i just want to emphasize one more time um i noticed that longfellow is still mentioned in all of the options um to be taken out and from my
061understanding going back and re-watching videos it was said longfellow was not to be considered the funding worked differently that was different so the committee did not take longfellow into consideration um and i i once again want to say perhaps we can look at the long term if a concern is enrollment that enrollment starts in preschool that's what's leading to these issues of higher enrollment of heightened high school and if we have full day programming and i believe before covet began longfellow had applied for a cde grant to begin the process for four fully full day preschools if we have the facilities if we have the leadership if we have the collaboration on what has been a long time successful school and serving there are little preschool minds just the way high schoolers need their own
062space just the way middle schoolers need their own space having this space that has been successful that other students from other parts even if they have valley dale nearby still want to come to longfellow how can we grow the programming and replicate it in other areas and just completely take it off um it wasn't considered in the beginning i think it shouldn't be be considered now and i just wanted to bring that up and i thank you all thank you i know the cabinet has been making so many different adjustments and trying to take feedback and all of your effort everyone's work the um it's appreciated thank you good night thank you salisa i do believe that that exhaust all of our speakers for the evening um and so with that we will transition on
063to 4.0 general functions and specifically 4.1 discussion and decision of full reorganization before we begin our our conversation i'll i'll say that um per kind of guidance from from carlos our our legal counsel uh we we will want to be careful in our in our conversation due to the just the vast nature of the the many things that we're going to be discussing um that as we're making different motions as we get to the point where we were making different motions and and uh decisions that we are able to kind of parse it out and separate them so that there's extreme clarity on the direction that we're we're given um kind of in combination with that i i spoke to mr ortega and he he and heard from him laying out what are the pieces
064that that are really in need of decision where there's there is need from the board to provide that that decision and so i have some of those things listed out um some of which would be in order for us to take next steps if if we're moving forward in that direction those decisions would need to be made today some that can wait but would be preferred that there be decisions made and some that actually there are decisions that would be prepared for later so just to communicate what those are decisions on secondary is one of those decisions that is critical that we that we discuss and come to some some understanding and give clear vote and direction um we we've discussed some of this you know in regards to azusa high school as a as
065as the centralized high school gladstone high school as a centralized middle school but we've not taken a vote but that will be one thing that we will we'll need to take a boat and decide on um and along with that the transition plan was this a one year transition is this a two year transition and we'll need to provide clarity there the same for number two which is decision on elementary schools um which sites are we intending to to keep open which sites will consolidate into into other sites and as well as the transition plan for that that a one year that a two year uh we'll we'll need to give direction those are are the two pieces that that if we are intending to move forward that we will need to to ensure that
066we're able to give clear vote and direction tonight there are a few others um branding we've had some of that discussion already and heard a lot of um opinions shared that's one of those things that it would be nice if we were able to provide some direction there but that is something that that could wait but would be hearing from staff it would be preferred that we are able to give some direction and vote on that another piece um which could these are things that could wait till um next year and actually hearing from staff it would be preferred but wait until after the the the new year and having further conversation would be longfellow and exactly what is going to happen with longfellow and also as far as programs are concerned um for example
067the middle years program primary years program dual immersion stem vapa et cetera all those different programs i'm giving some direction so this is what i believe is a is the list of things that we're needing to give direction on and again items one and two it would be most important that we provide vote and direction on those there is a little bit of some some wiggle room um on on some of the other so i guess we can to kind of start things off we can open up with um just leave a little bit of some space to see if there are any general comments that anyone has and if but if there isn't any general comments then i'd actually um walk us through some of these uh kind of delineated points for us can
068i just ask a clarification question so you said there was some need to do some nice to do's and for them preferably later i didn't hear any prefers later so long fellow from staff and we can ask that okay that was nice longfellow and programs um from staff it would be preferred that we wait until later to make those okay i just missed i thought that was with a nice are there any general comments um broadly that anyone would like to share before we we go into some of these specific areas well i have something to share um that i've written up um and again this is just a thought something dare to bring to the table for us to have this very uncomfortable that you know conversation that we need to have can i
069please present sure you have the privileges to be able to do so go for it while you're preparing that um carlos thank you for for being here and we'll look to you please feel free to chime in if um and and give any council if we're veering somewhere that that makes things um not as we're going forward and i think you you've already touched on this um having organization and maybe this one topic at a time is the best thank you i would like to go ahead and share this with all of you guys and like i said this is just something that i would like to go ahead and bring to the table topic you know just for discussion this is not something that i personally would like to get done but since we
070are on the topic of branding i would like to share this this model that i would i went ahead and put together and excuse the writing i did not get a chance to type it all nice and neat for all of you but with that being said i'll go ahead and start with the first column where it says 2021 nowadays our school year so 2021 we make the decision right by our board to the decision in the secondary uh vote with middle schools and and the high school we've been having the conversation but we have not finalized and we have not voted on it and we continue this conversation and we if we look at the months may is five months away um june we have graduations um and pretty much ice you know uh
071seniors checking out we look at the next year uh 2022 2023 and that is to go ahead and um close all the uh the elementaries that we will decide on i put three it could be a different number and start all the students at their perspective at their new sites which will be august 2022 keep middle schools open keep sixth grade at elementaries and either in the summer or during the year depending on deaf best see fit it began to drop off and pick up of students at elementaries we had a discussion about how um at some elementaries the drop-off and pickup is a big mess and we have plenty of field at a lot of the elementaries that will remain open that can be a topic of conversation for us to um you know
072think about how we can go ahead and ease this transition as drop off and pick up for parent and the continued conversation on what to do with elementary sites as they are being vacated when we look at here 2023 2024 all high school students to go to move to gladstone high school and for that uh for that reason um is because i feel that if we are if we are looking to make a souza high our one high school asusa high needs a lot of tlc that quad um needs some uh that whole quad just needs to be done we're looking they don't have a cafeteria the kids are eating outside in the rain and therefore they have you know there's some classrooms that need to be upgraded if we are going to make this
073one high school let's make it a high school that we're proud of let's take the time and not rush things and make sure that we are on the map and if it takes us two years and this is where there's models that i'm presenting it will take two years we have to go ahead and send i don't know if you guys um out in the audience know that we have to send um our plans to the state and it may take about a year or two years to get approved that's the reality i no one's telling you this i'm letting you know right now it's gonna take a while we don't know how long so when we start the upgrades and remodeling at a souza high school without students i've been told that the students
074can be there but what i'm afraid is the safety of our students i would not like to see students when there's major construction going on at isuza high as we're upgrading it um and we're putting things into enrolling things and you know remodeling it and i would like to see all of the remodeling done all at once therefore uh with this model i am proposing that we do not have students at that time at isuza high since we have had the discussion of having foothill middle school be part of our one high school let's utilize that let's go ahead and and again this is just a thought ninth grade you know we can start them off at woodhill middle school we will keep seventh and eighth grade at slauson and center for the time being
075um until 24-25 uh 24-25 all high school students continue at gladstone high school continue the remodeling at isuzu high because again we don't know how long these permits are going to take at the state since we are going to do a lot of remodeling a lot of things that are going to be happening it's just not going to be one um one proposal that we're going to send to the state and therefore we have to account of the time to that we are going to need one example that i want to give is when there was a proposal for and i'm sure all of you guys at asusa high and gladstone remember where the bleachers right um it took like two three years and people were upset were upset at the district not knowing what
076was going on and from the board at that time and that superintendent that the proposal was had already been proposed and had been sent to the state therefore it took almost two three years for us to get approved to get and purchase the new uh bleachers to purchase the new things so you know with that being said this is why i'm proposing this now we look at 20 uh 2025 2026 move all high schools to asusa high school's new campus have a grand opening have a major party because these students deserve the best and we're willing to give them the best and at that the start of that year as well all the middle school students will move to the mega flatstone high school and that's when we that's when center and slauson would um
077not be uh hosting our middle school students and therefore we would have to we're closing the name of the schools we still have to speak on what we're going to do with these sites and the conversation you know this is a conversation that's um i think really important for us as a board and i'm sure we're not going to have it tonight but we we will have it and that is what are we going to do with our empty schools a lot of people have approached me and said well mountain view has been closed for a long time you guys haven't done anything and i understand i see your point of view but at the same time we're going through a major transition and the conversation needs to be started needs to begin so as
078i present this model to you this is a topic of conversation that i would like to go ahead and have there's no right or wrong answers i would love to hear my colleagues input suggestions i know that um when we did start having this conversation back in january 2019 i was the one that did bring and my colleague um did stress that i was the one that did stress and bring up the conversation of having one high school and the reality of it is our low enrollment and this is just not happening in our district this is happening in a lot of districts throughout california a lot of school districts are having to close their some of their schools having to lease out their you know buildings and so forth so this is something that
079we are we are not alone we are in this together in our district and with other school districts and um i will stop right there i have more to say but uh if anybody would like to go ahead and um out before before i stop um like i said uh when i brought up the conversation um of the one high school we even threw out like you know a 10-year plan and then it went down to a five-year plan and then it went down to uh during the reconfiguration committee it went down to three then two i think that what we need to do as a board looking forward is this what is sustainable this is our chance to make things different one thing that i want to bring up at isuzu high i know
080gladstone has their new ada restrooms right by the football field a souza high right by the football field does not have restrooms for their athletes or for when other um schools come and compete at our asusa high school i would love to see our football field have bleachers right stadium bleachers lights these these are conversations you know that i'm getting ahead of myself like adrian would say but at the same time you know what we need to put this out on the table we need to speak about this and we need to have real conversations and i want to thank everybody who spoke tonight you guys are speaking from the heart and i appreciate you all does anyone have any uh comments or a response to the proposal that we that that's here in front
081of us or any additional comments to add broadly the only comment i do have on this model it um i do not agree with it it's it's too long and it's just from my step my opinion it's very messy but it's also too long by the time you go to 25 26 that's a lot of shuffling around um so that's my comment on that and the second one is i was hoping that you mentioned that we were going to stay on this timeline and are we yeah are you um in regards to the five items well we just spoke about tonight yeah so i i'd like to talk on those five things and we can move there if everybody would would like to move there um i'm wanting to give an opportunity if anyone has
082a it has any broad comments to make before um before we move to that i'm sure thank you i have one more thing to say and the whole reason i i i went ahead and just put this together was to also give the um the high schoolers that are at the schools right now um trying to process this as one of our own um mr phillip game today and uh philip via came today and he said you know that this is something that our freshmen sophomore juniors and seniors are going to have a hard time with and so this kind of um we we can go ahead and you know how can we let's have a conversation also too but how can we have these individuals graduate from their respective school where they're attending right
083now um in the eighth graders that are coming in um okay you know tk through eighth um we'll have some time to process this and we'll understand that regardless of how we vote whether we vote this way or that way or how long is going to take for us to be able to go ahead and reconfigure um our decision in the secondary middle mega mega middle school and mega high school um at least they will be able to go ahead and have that processing um already and hopefully have the adjustment okay then i will i would look to move us to these these five items um if what what are the thoughts i'm seeing a nod from feeling i'm saying seeing enough enough not so we'll go ahead and move then to these these five
084items we'll start with the first one which is a decision on secondary um and so specifically a centralized high school as well as a centralized middle school again i'll remind you that the conversation we have been having is that azusa high school be the the centralized high school and that the gladstone high school campus be the centralized middle school um and and in addition to that if if we are looking to make a decision on that we'll also need to look at a transition plan what is the timeline is this a one year two year or more so the floor is open on secondary all right so we're looking at right now we're just looking at black as a heist for the heist one high school in one middle school right well yeah so what
085we're looking what we'd like to do is is uh have to give some clear direction as it pertains to high school ling within the azusa unified school district and our in our middle school um or middle school within the zeus unified school district so i know that we've had conversation which it does seem like we've kind of coalesced around a certain concept but we've not we've not voted and we've also not discussed clearly a transition timeline so i'll just i'll just jump in there so um i mean based on our previous conversations where we all i think came to consensus that we felt that azusa high was the better high school location because of this capacity and as well as the the fact that you have foothill nearby which could become an annex so it
086gives a space for growth at the high school um i just want to just reaffirm that that i'm committed to that um i do have questions in terms of transition i'm just in terms and this is maybe a question for staff um what what do you see the benefit of of not doing it for pushing it off for a year but or what are the the benefits and trade-offs of either closing it to start in the year to do the transition 2022-23 or to do it in 23 20 thank you so the the proposal uh and i can put it up if we need to but the proposal uh that we created or the plan that we created uh would have um year i'm sorry to interpret could you please put it up for the
087viewers that are that are not here that way they can actually visually visually see it thank you um so the proposal that we have put forth is that in year one and that could definitely be 22-23 so next school year um is that glaston high school would not receive uh ninth graders all ninth graders would begin their high school experience at azusa high school or the azusa high school campus one of the benefits we see that is that that will give us a really good data point because then we would be able to base all future decisions on what ninth graders showed up how many ninth grade shows up what percentage of ninth graders showed up that's number one number two uh it'll also allow us unlike elementary uh where most of your shifts are
088students families and staff the high schools come in addition to that uh come with a program come with equipment come with a specialized materials specialized room needs and so that would give us the breathing room and the planning time to really make sure and ensure that we are using the campus to its full its fullest capacity and so that's those are the benefits that we saw and then lastly it would impact this would impact two classes uh versus impacting uh three classes and so uh for those reasons um we we did we our our recommendation is to is to phase in uh just by one year right so we're really talking about closing at the second year i'm sorry when you say classes what classes do you mean the classes that glaston high school wait
089years uh so that would be the class so current current ninth graders right the current ninth graders if we just if we just shut it down next year uh then all three classes uh would would be um would be affected if we wait the one year for the purposes uh stated then a a byproduct or a is that we would only be affecting two all classes when you say classes can you specify what grades i i'm having a hard time no worries if we close last one high school next year right then uh the current 9th 10th and 11th graders would be affected if we if we wait we wait one year then it would only be the current ninth and tenth but that wasn't the that that's that's a piece but really the ninth
090grade being a really good data point and then really thinking about facilities programs equipment uh placing uh and those kinds of uh things as well can you speak specifically to the feasibility of of implementing the plan this upcoming year is that even i know we talked about there's there's the potential for dsa approval and if there's even classrooms or other facilities things that we need to address can you speak to the feasibility of uh moving forward this upcoming year yeah we we feel confident especially uh to uh board member cruz gonzalez's kind of summary having foothill middle school become part of of the campus then we feel uh very confident that this plan would be would be feasible to implement and to begin next week so would you require foothills to be closed in order
091to do this transition uh thank you um i only say that because i worry about i mean then your your current seventh graders right but well they wouldn't move five no because they'd been but yeah they'd have to move to another middle school and then they would go to but they would have to they don't mean to okay yeah so is that is that necessary uh no uh so we um we feel um that we can actually coexist for that one year and so um we would actually alter this and put them on the same plan as center in slauson just to clarify when you say coexist do you feel that we could we could house all incoming freshmen at azusa high and not have to put any freshmen at at the middle school camp
092not necessarily um so the foothill campus um there are lots of ideas on ninth grade annex is definitely one of them but there are other ideas that have been kind of floated around and obviously we would bring those two to here but when we're thinking right now for the first year we're thinking that the 9th graders would be able to be absorbed in a lot of their core classes we still feel that having that ability to have foothill as a as an annex or as an overflow or as a you know need um is is beneficial uh but we definitely feel that it wouldn't be the entire campus and that we that we'd be running into problems with coexisting with foothill middles mr taylor what is the size of our ninth grade classes at each
093of the high schools currently i'm sorry can you repeat what is the size of the how many students are enrolled in ninth grade at both azusa and at gladstone currently currently this year i do know at the top of my head i think we can look it up but i'm going to assume that it's somewhere between somewhere around 250 is going to be my guesstimate but we'll look it up right now at each school so um on first year on the first year i'm reading so you see foot of middle school be closed and center middle school in boston will remain open so will the foothills students go to center or stop boston is that i mean is that really going to feed into that was the original idea uh but we uh are altering
094that plan and we think that right right there where it says foothill middle school closed yeah that that should actually remain open and that it shouldn't close until year two when since when center and slauson closes now at the i think that i think i heard what you said and i understand but i just want to express i think um i might be okay with maybe some of the freshmen staying on the campus i think there's examples around the country where you have 7 8th and 9th as a middle high school um but i would have reservations about having some of the classes that have mixed grades so 10th 11th 12th coming over to foothill middle i just want to make sure that's expressed because that would be a concern and my preference would be
095that there would be no mingling right and then we'd fit all the freshmen on the high school camp you said high school campus or foothill high school camp at asusa high and what that's where we in this current model yes that is um we have your data so ghs currently there's there are 234 and ahs 251. so mrtega um let's assume that the class of 2026 is that next year's ninth graders i'm doing the math the inc next year's ninth graders are the class of 2026. that's my math as well okay so can the azusa high school campus take 500 9th graders as is on the azusa high school campus given its current capacity well we believe so um but again we we would want to to have the um the backup of foothill middle
096school as we're thinking about that campus um because again as we're trying to imagine that it's not just the 250 students or 234 in this case right uh students if that if that were the number next year that it's also about specialized programs specialized equipment um and so um as we're thinking about those things and of course we would be bringing this would be uh ever every meeting update on on how these things are are happening um having foothill middle school as a as a campus that's part of azusa high school just relieves um and helps have that safety net there as we start to unravel things that we might not be thinking about right now and also have you thought about um when what remember honest mention regard the dsc approval have have you
097thought about you know how long they will take to make this transition and i know not every item but um we will need a dc approval permit correct that is correct um probably step number seven there um if just thinking out loud um is how we're going to use our funds and make decisions on those funds to your point board member rodriguez pena there are things that will have to be dsa approved and there are things that don't have to be dsa approved and so as we begin those conversations about how do you utilize the remaining measure k and other funds that are available for facilities then we'll be looking to the board for um prioritization on that and would you please um would you mind if you mention uh mention to the community what
098is the dsa approval thank you sure dsa is the division of state architects so any construction or building on public school sites requires that we submit our plans to the division of state architect for approval to make sure that the plans are up to all of the most current codes and beyond and so whenever we submit for a plan then other parts of the campus are looked at as well to make sure that again we are up to the the most current codes so it would be similar to a permit you get on your house when you're going to add an addition to a room or right one thousand percent that is a a perfect uh analogy thank you mr thing i have a question on on the dsa approvals though what we're telling our
099community is that um i just want to be transparent is that you have already investigated during this overtime when people are not in their offices and they're working from home and they're getting these ps3 that we're not going to have any step back is that what you're saying can you further clarify what you mean by we're not going to have setbacks so given the history that um not just this district but in general of getting the approval right at times and i gave the example for you know gladstone high school and asusa high school the bleachers the restroom the ada compliant we were out of compliance it took more than three years and it wasn't during covid so we are doing you know this is during code we're still you know during covet people are
100teleworking so are we sure that we're going to be able to go ahead and get these approved to move forward on a timely manner as we are speaking about a timeline at this time so we cannot assure for an outside entity dsa sometimes approvals go quick and sometimes they go fast latasha if i'm not mistaken uh the uh the glaston high school bleachers is a perfect example how you submit for dsa and then they find out that close proximity there's restrooms and so now you have to bring those up to code as well and so um those are hard to to or difficult to anticipate uh but but we again uh with the direction and the vision uh we we're ready to to move forward in that direction whatever that that may be uh which
101is uh you know still unknown at this at this particular moment mr mull can you um speak to is it would it be possible when we get ready to submit in dsa plans to retain an expediter to help facilitate the process of approvals um so yes and no so it's not so much that we need to expedite the process um so just go back to take three years it's it's not that when you submit the plans it takes three years is when you submit the plans for one project then they assess your other facility then they identify other things that you have to do in order to make that happen so it's not that it takes them three years to approve the plan but it could be that you just want to modernize uh building
102a but to look at it you have to make sure your entire campus and then they give you a pledge list of all the things that uh um all the things you must complete in order to do bill today um but right now um we're seeing that um dsa approval is about a year um it could be longer but a year's time right now is because they're most of them are still working from home in copenhagen but typically you can submit dsa approval and you can get them within six months to a year and do we have an outstanding punch list of items to improve we have a list of items and so what we're currently working on our current architect is to identify um items that we must do for safety and items that
103they recommend and then items that are just a wish list and we're also going to identify on that list what requires dsa because not everything requires dsa but i clearly identify okay if we want to do this it requires dsa once we get to go ahead we'll draw the plans and get those submitted thank you so i i just just for that if we had a parking lot i would say problems working out but i do think um this is a good line of direction to have we should we need to have a conversation in a study session around facilities and around our bond right especially if we're going to make decisions hopefully tonight then we can have clarity about how we move forward with the current dollars that we do have and one one
104thing i would add is in in regards to the outside entity that is dsa and our inability to control just just the process and the timeline with that in mind i would i would say that that should move us to be um to expedite things on our end because we know that things can't maybe unintentionally protracted dealing with an external agency i i would suggest that it would not be most wise to delay our process and then compound it with the potential delay of an outside agency i think it would make the most sense for us to to look to to make these decisions as is most wise and makes the most sense within our uh for our district and then um submit those things in hopes that that they will be approved um expedient
105i do just one more question adrian and that is around the marquee programs that we do have at blackstone high school right um i do want to say that i'm i think we as a board are very proud of some of our most successful programs at our gladstone high school right are early college um our medical pathway which is you know um um it's just it's been a wonderful program and been so um well implemented so have we thought about the impact i know you talked about there's special of um equipment stuff though we so what what is the impact on those programs and probably our other career technical education programs in within this transition um in terms of again this one year um would give us the the ability uh to ensure like again
106you you mentioned those two are perfect examples uh the uh jim hague's uh program i mean he's got constructed a whisper room right he's got the the green screen and all that um so we want to be able to envision and have the time to to really think about where is the best fit for that and and drop the plans of when that's going to happen but it has minimal impact and you don't have a class as a high school but yet you don't have the you know the the equipment or or the room and they want to do the podcast or whatever or the what is it called the table um and here yeah um and so that's why that's why we feel that uh by just bringing the ninth graders that'll allow us
107enough time to really plan those out to have as minimal impact as possible to transition those programs over to azusa high school so are there i mean like we could we may be ready or to the point where we could entertain emotion um if the motion were to include for for high schools and and middle schools um a timeline um does anyone else have any any thoughts or anything to add in regards to um a specific timeline whether it's a one year two year or more and by saying one year meaning implementing it this upcoming fall of 22 or having a plan that that is implement fully implemented the second year out which would be fall of 23. i actually like this plan that superintendent ortega or his cabinet have made out on the proximity
108symmetry three um so i'll make a motion and i would just i'll just say this by saying i came in here want thinking we should just close it and just you know um do a hard transition but i think um i appreciate the input the feedback that i've heard from this from you in terms of the rationale of doing it doing it a staggered posing so um i will make a motion that we will close um so and maybe you can say adrian but we would close gladstone high school in 20 we would remember how would you yeah can i just one sec just based on the feedback from the board member you know we can't you're putting in and out based on the feedback from the board members and it's completely each board member's
109prerogative one suggestion may be to keep the motion separate in terms of the school decision that's made and keep that separate from the timeline that may help us down the road if somebody's in agreement on the main motion but not necessarily the timeline i just wanted to put that out there before any emotions are made okay so then the motion is to close or to consolidate the high schools into one campus at azusa high school and then eventually consolidate all the middles and and then consolidate the middle schools into one campus on the gladstone that would be i think i feel like that was the consensus we came upon a month ago so second the motion and uh by board member cruz gonzalez and second by board member um rodriguez pena is to consolidate the
110high school campus over to the azusa high school location and uh and consolidate the middle school campuses onto the the gladstone high school campus as an initial motion any discussion can i ask for a clarification so all that what we're going to be doing is just voting on the consolidation of the schools not the timeline not the rebranding right anything those are separate separate things that we we we may address thank you thank you declare president i have a clarifying question for legal um so uh i want to clarify and please guide me on the voice to do this this is a substitute motion or if this or what i need to do um i'd like to be able to clarify that the motion is for the middle school for grades six seven and eight
111to operate on the gladstone high school campus for clarity instead of saying middle school because our current middle schools are for grades seven and eight and i think i i i will amend the original motion to clarify that we are referring to a middle school that contains the grades sixth seventh and eighth and yolanda do you agree with that again yes okay so that that's the main motion now and then probably if you're going that route to add the high schools from [Music] 9 10 11 12. is that yeah right on both campuses what grade levels will be um on the campus yes you want to repeat it again and and i'm looking at all this as as board member cruz gonzalez revising her original motion he's got the agreement of the original second so
112the clarifications provided board member i think we're on the right course that sounds correct to me as well so if there's no additional discussion i suppose we'll do a hand vote can you just restate the motion please yeah so the motion would be uh the initial motion would be that we consolidate all of the both high school campuses uh student student bodies and populations uh over to one location at azusa high school and that we would consolidate our middle school campuses and populations over onto gladstone high school's campus and that that would include sixth grade up through eighth grade for for that uh middle school transition so if there's no additional discussion then we'll move to a vote board member rodriguez pena yes board member beau yes board member cruz gonzalez yes board member adianas
113yes and i am also a yes so that initial motion passes passes five to zero the next uh item on this area that we would need to discuss then is the transition plan or timeline so again there is a implementation that begins in fall of 22 uh just under a year from now or full implementation as is recommended by staff that would that would begin the second year out fall of 23 or any other additional um suggestions or emotions and and again one one i'll defer to the board members on their individual individual motions but these timelines can also be separated by the high school and by the middle school and i understand there's a lot of moving parts would you recommend that they are are you just suggesting that they that they can be
114i wanted to remind the board members that they can be i'll defer to the staff as to how those moving parts work but it might be easier for everybody to track exactly what they're voting for and when and then it may diminish the need for revisions of motions and amendments i would prefer that as well okay so we'll move to high school we'll look at high school only for for this term four percent can you give like 90 seconds of processing time yes absolutely um let's can we change the someone is looking at something another insect okay so sting is this is i mean it's info action where we're kind of having some of a fluid conversation is there any are there any other questions or is anyone ready to make a motion as it
115pertains to the high school transition in time i'm happy to make the motion but i'm also happy to defer to someone else i move that we the timeline for high school transition would be to have all members of the class of 2026 which is next year's 9th grade class begin at azusa high school with gladstone high school campus serving only grades 10 through 12. so the class of 2023 class of 2024 and class of 2025 remaining at the gladstone high school campus in the 22-23 school year can we clarify well let me second for a second so motion is that the timeline would include all of the class of 2026 to to move to the azusa high school campus beginning fall 22 fall of 22. yeah mr ortega is um can we get like an
116excel chart put up so we can be like the years in the classes that we can visualize this a little bit better at least i think it would help me is there any discussion i would just like to say it again yes so to clarify the motion and the second is that beginning in fall 22 all ninth graders from both from each of the two high schools would move to the azusa high school campus and that gladstone high school would own only its current um class of 23 24 and 25. now for clarifications though would we would we then assume that the current 10th 11th and 12th graders would would graduate from gladstone high school i need clarification would you want to clarify your or or why don't we have staff answer that question i'm
117so sorry um based on the current let me finish this right here sorry about that did you also make it a little bit bigger too because the people in the back can see this is what this is what we currently right now have in our proposal so the azusa high school campus would host 9th or 12th grade from here on out the glaston high school campus would host 10 to 12th graders next full year the following year they would be a six day camp and so gabriel asked the question i'm sorry yeah can you repeat your question please yes so my question is are we assuming then hold on let me see what you wrote and just clarify the current motion didn't necessarily adopt that model as staff has identified so i don't know if
118board member beau wants to clarify that that was her intention to adopt that plan where you have the 10 11 12 moving over into the point here i think this is the only thing that we haven't adopted is six through eight the other piece was part of her motion maybe just get rid of 60 way because we haven't talked about that timeline yeah and that kind of threw me off because we did not talk about that so then my question was then are we assuming that we are going to phase out 10 11 and 12 meaning that they're going to graduate from gladstone high school poor person i'd like to amend my motion i would like to amend my motion or do i stay all over again and technically i think you're revising your motion
119but you're revising your emotion i believe to adopt the plan the staff has identified clarified here unless um i'm probably jumping ahead of things but go ahead board member vote um i'd like to revise my motion um for it to be the fault to be as follows though for the 2223 school year uh azusa high school will serve grades 9 through 12. the gladstone high school campus will serve grades 10 through 12 and in the 23 24 year azusa high school will continue to serve grades 9 through 12 and the gladstone high school campus will transition to being a middle school campus serving grades six through eight and i accept that revision any other discussion before we vote i think i don't think anybody's answered gabriela's question or clarified that so based on uh first
120and foremost that was not our assumption our assumption based on the plans that we created um is exactly what you see here i'll just fill it out this was this was these were the plans that we brought forth that are on your attachment this is how it would it would it would go i do think that board member beau's motion does answer [Music] okay then we'll go ahead and vote board member rodriguez pena yes board member beau yes board member cruz gonzalez yes board member adianas no and i am a yes i would like to go ahead and speak on why i'm saying no can i be given that right but yeah let me just say though so the motion passes four yes to one one no um please go ahead as i presented the
121model today um which is perfectly okay there was no discussion on it um i was wanting to have a conversation but as the conversation continued um and the motions are going i that is why i said no i think we need a little bit more time i i do have um some notion that just like before there's some things that are going to happen with all these shifts in less than two years not only with staff students with everything that we need a little bit more time maybe not the five years but perhaps another year or so therefore that's why i voted no thank you okay so still within this this first uh major area we we also need to look at at our middle school middle school direction and voting network that we're giving
122so is there any discussion or emotion as it pertains to middle school campus so let me say i i don't i do believe that we've separated we already there is already a motion one motion floor i believe that or or that has already passed that speaks to both high school and middle school but then there's just a motion on the timeline i believe or middle so is there any discussion or timeline as it pertains to our middle school composition so i'll make a motion that we closed center middle school football middle school and lost in middle school well you say well close them for the 23 wait 23 24 school year um and consolidate them at the gladstone site for the 23-24 sport but all schools will remain open just for clarity for the 22-23
123split and then just to clarify sixth grade then would remain on the elementaries for the 22-23 school year and transition directly to the as we're calling it the mega middle school although i will point out that even at that size it's smaller than many of the middle schools in our area that is correct but we mean mega is fantastic programs fantastic food fantastic field volleyball court that's the mega i seconded that um i didn't i don't expect the mega to be in the actual motion to the middle school erase that part okay so any additional discussion then we'll go ahead and vote very fine question um so what in this scenario if azusa high school requires any overflow space mr ortega what will that look like at foothill middle school or any other school site
124um so right now um we definitely would uh have the preference of foothill middle school uh foothill middle school uh with only seventh and eighth graders uh there on campus uh really only use half of the campus at that and so we would again coexist we hear loud and clear board member cruz gonzalez's concerns and so any coexisting would would take that into account like no co-mingling uh we can even put up some temporary uh fencing or or barricades or something like that to make sure that that we keep it that we keep it separate if that's that's what we need uh but it would be a coexistence just for year 2223 at foothill middle school i'm sorry thank you mr tegan i i do want to speak into the record so i do agree
125with board member cruz gonzalez and perhaps others in this room um about ensuring the separation of our seventh and eighth graders from our ninth through twelfth graders um and i trust you and your staff and all staff district-wide to really um look diligently at decisions and how spaces are best used in a transition year so that we are um making the most considering school students and their movement between campuses and ensuring that if we're making upgrades for a year really asking ourselves are those the right upgrades to make for a year or are they upgrades that we'll need for uh the foreseeable future and and i just wanted um to add to that regarding the busting and the transportation for the students from all these different schools all these things that are going on that
126we have a transition that um couldn't benefit the community and the walking parents that they've been uh speaking about and and also even the bus stops where they're gonna be mentioned you know the middle schools not like close to the high school but you know we have to look at the whole picture right but i also would like the buses if feasible to be at the school site where the students already go to pick it up and drop off because they're used to going to that location and it may be easier for the parents to walk into that location thank you i have i have one more request and that is um a request that we reach out to the city of assista um and see how we plan out um frosting the crossing rockvale
127um so where i work down in long beach there's a school in the middle of downtown long beach and during the day they actually have fences and they close off that one block where the kids are going i think it's in elementary's going from one side to street to the other so i would really appreciate if we explore with the city what potential possibilities we have for that crossing um i will just i will stay and it was well before my time or anybody on city council's time um at one point when they were talking about trying to build the stadium there were conversations around even removing that part of rockvale to be able to have space for some you know to give build space but just put that out there too right because i
128think i mean as we see with the metro going in they you know they closed off alameda to create space for a community right so for the metro to come through just think about that not that we're demanding anything but you know hoping that we can explore what city council but what options we have for that space between the between those two campuses and board member chris gonzalez i'm happy to report that those conversations have already started just as a preliminary like hey just fyi may be somewhere but we'll continue with those conversations and can i just add to that please i'm doing that when we did the walking path in front of lisu and azusa high school uh park street uh road decker lee those are across from the um azusa high school campus
129and there's no um crossing guards there's no stop signs you just have to run across and i know these are concerns of the community um the students that go to lee and to azusa high school so i'm sure that we spoke to pretty much he'll be aware of that because they were working on you know how can they make it safer you know with stop steins or crossing guards or what have you so this would be a good time okay and uh speaking on what uh board member rodriguez pena is saying i think the conversation of having crossing guards overall um i know we're not talking about all the other schools but as we are increasing the enrollment in both the uh mega high school and the mega middle split you know and not just
130in rockville but as the students are going to the middle school at gladstone high school that's a very busy narrow highway and um i know it's not as i mean half of it half of error highways azusa half of their ohio is covina so um i don't know who you would have a conversation with either a souza or covina to make sure as you know if parents drop off their kids a block away um as some parents do on aero highway that we would have um we're talking about sixth graders now crossing arrow highway in in large bunches of groups and um sometimes cars do not see the students and i would not like to see something happen to our students so i would encourage that we have that conversation with covina as well to
131have crossing guards there well you've seen that four-way stop then you signal that it's there right that's been very helpful um going into the school after school and before school yes ma'am i'm i i have but i think the crossing garden you know having little sixth graders there on arrow highway worries me um our students for me to be able to cross that you know and so let's have a conversation on that okay so i do so there is a motion and second on on the floor um that and i'll restate it and then call the vote that beginning in 22 fall 2223 um center middle school foothill middle school and slosa middle school will remain as they are with seventh and eighth grade and that beginning in the 23-24 school year those three campuses
132will be closed and consolidated into the gladstone high school uh campus as the one and centralized middle school campus in the azusa university board member can i ask a question as part of that motion was there also clarification that beginning in 2223 all sixth graders will now transition to the mega gladstone but not that's not my understanding okay then we'll go ahead and move to a vote i can ask for clarification because that that's what i heard 2022 2023 sixth grade state elementary and then 23 24 they all consolidate is that what i'm hearing correct so 22 23 our middle school campuses would stay as is which is seventh through eighth grade and 23 24 those three campuses would close and consolidate into the gladstone high school campus uh as the one centralized middle school
133in the azusa university board member rodriguez pena yes board member bo yes board member cruz gonzalez yes board member audianus yes and i am also a yes so the motion passes five to zero so that that gets us through the the first major block there's there's still a second one um now looking at elementary schools and so again we can uh we can separate this looking at middle school site and then uh after we look excuse me thank you elementary elementary school sites and then after we look at elementary school sites we'll take a second open up the second motion on on the timeline so is there any discussion um to be shared in regards to which which sites to have open and which which sites to close and consolidate so are we looking at
134the the models that were given to us the model 3 and the proximity 3 and are we working off the east and the model northwest east west yeah those so those who are working on yeah so those are three models that have been provided to us from staff that we can use as a as starting point so we can make recommendations from there um and or alter them as as we see mr takeover question will you review for us the differences between the proximity proposal versus the quadrant north south east west proposal yes uh and i think it's better suited using the map so i'm going to transition there okay so this is uh the north uh west northeast southwest southeast model um that that we brought forward the idea here was that there would
135be a school in the four quadrants of the city the proximity model is identical to this model except that it keeps magnolia open so the idea in the proximity one was that we were looking at schools that were that were relatively close to each other and then based on those schools saying okay of those two schools then which one which one would we keep open so in this case paul and magnolia because the size of magnolia um we chose we chose magnolia so the only difference between the two models is magnolia the proximity model keeps magnolia open uh for the east side if you will um where the north west northeast southwest south east does not keep magnolia open thank you mr tigger can you uh further comment on if we're looking at the southwest
136quadrant of the district among paramount valley dale and ellington yep um specifically why valley dale and not ellington or vice versa yes absolutely so for the same exact reason when you look at valley dale compared to ellington in terms of the size and the capacity that's why we chose valleydale so i do i do want to express the concern and do you mind going back to the i don't know what just the proximity one i don't know not that one not that one or maybe that one either that one or yeah no go back to the one you had beforehand so i will and you know i know we've had a lot of discussion but i'm just curious in terms of thinking about where then little boundaries will be right and where um density of
137housing and density of student population live and i get a concern because as we think about azusa i think generally we think of this break between foothill north and south and then also below the freeway and so what i see in this there's no where there's a large density of apartments and people who live in in multi-generational housing between azusa between foothill avenue and the freeway we don't see a school and i mean i understand the rationale thinking we're gonna you know we'll save money because dalton has not been modernized um and i mean excuse me that leaves not been modernized and that dalton has been partially modernized right and so that will save this money but i get concerned about um keeping at least low i mean trying to keep community i don't want
138to say community-based but schools in communities with dense populations and i feel that when i go around this district i see more walking and people living in close proximity to lee school than necessarily adults um and so i don't know how that fits in this conversation because it's not something that's on a map but i just wanted to express that and the thing that brought it to me was when we did our map for our voting for our voting positions right and you could see at one point that it you can actually fit every pretty much everybody above foothill in one of five five voting districts and that just tells me in terms of where the density of population population is in our city i just wanted to put that out there for us to
139think about i'll go and add and but i've them i have i have the exact same concern uh and and as i look at at this map and as i look at this composition i continue to feel that there there does geographically as we're looking at where schools will be placed it would make the most sense there was a there was a full campus that was placed near the where where charles lee is currently and i know that that's one of the things that we're looking at considering let me also say for for full disclosure my daughter attends charles carlson he's in fifth grade and um based on these plans of what we're looking at she would be out uh next year and and therefore wouldn't be affected by this herself um my concern is
140not is not about her necessarily my concern is about about that that community and that that surrounding area uh and and just recognizing that there there is a there is a dense population and it's a dense population where there are a lot of walkers and that and and looking at the distance where they where they would go um i i i don't see how this provides a viable uh option for that if if i stand corrected um we were when we looked at the you know the sustainability and how much it would cost to a remodel lee could you please um speak on that yeah i can pull that up i i i think it was the other schools as well yeah i think it was like five five to seven million dollars is that
141correct yeah yeah somewhere between five to seven million dollars uh again um under nor again that aside uh we agree we feel that lee is a bigger school and and serves a better purpose uh in terms of again capacity um that number that five to seven million dollars just influenced influenced us to say that that's a lot of money to bring it up just to where dalton is at right now and so that's why we chose dalton but we do see that lee is a is a larger campus and uh it does serve a different uh um um geographical uh area uh as well also just just for clarity because i'm looking at the at our board update so the numbers that are listed for lee to bring it up to where um dalton is
142is listed at 3.4 million to 5.7 million okay stand corrected then say that again at least three point four yeah it's in the december 10 uh update but it's 3.4 million to 5.7 million and and then how much i mean in order to complete the modernization of dalton what does that require um i don't know off the top of my head i don't know latasha if you don't if you know uh what's left right now um they are the uh classroom right mm-hmm the classroom uh upgrade yeah and their ds um their plans have already been sent to dsa for approval so it's just a matter of do we have an estimated cost of that i'll give you one second while she's looking that up then obviously that would be an add-on to billy as
143well right we would want to upgrade the classrooms as well so i mean while she's looking that up then you answered my other sort of i didn't ask this question to ask this question and so where do we anticipate that those students that are now because we close mountain view right so now where would those students from between mountain view all the way over to powell so everything and it's just between foothill and the and the foothill boulevard and the freeway where would those student in your mind and i know it will change right but where in our your initial thinking where would those students be going to school we're talking about least specifically no i'm talking about i mean you're going to be shifting attendance boundaries right so where would where would these students
144be going right now if we're looking on the west side of azusa uh between foothill and the 210 i believe that was [Music] a lot of the previous and a little bit north of mountain view and so those students for the most part we do have a lot of in our district all of our schools have a lot of students from a lot of different schools from a lot of different schools in our district which is great that we allow uh choice and not in that matter uh but the original thought was that would they would they would move to the paramount uh to hodge and for those that were interested would move to valley deal so we feel that right now that particular population is already at a at one of those schools and
145so we don't feel that there's going to be a lot of movement there the movement happens on the east side of azusa and so right now uh the idea would be that they would be moving to either dalton magnolia paramount or murray you would would be having asking students because murray is pretty far south or it is and so is magnolia i believe it's about i think it's about a mile i don't know specifically obviously we can do that real quick but i don't know specifically do you have uh i have the figures though in 1819 um the bond commitment project filled 5.2 million dollars allocated for dolphin is that 5.2 just for the modernization of the classrooms for dalton um elementary modernization 5.2 and that was in 1819. my clarifying question though is that
1465.2 to modernize dalton period that was actually the subject line on the um bond project it shows dalton elementary modernization 5.2 million dollars so does that mean that's in addition to what we've already spent or we've already spent toward that uh that a different way what do you mean has a modernization some modernization already taken place at dalton not in the classroom so modernization will be upgrading classroom and building so we've done underground utilities and items such as that but the question on the floor though is that 5.2 million does that include fire alarms fencing underground does it include all of that or no it's 5.2 is only for modernizing the classrooms i would have to research more but my first instinct is going to say it only includes modernization because there was always a
147breakout for fire alarm there was always a breakout for underground utilities and then they had modernization but i will double check to confirm to make sure i'm not given the wrong information okay i would ask as we continue to have facilities updates if we could level set on our terminology when we say modernization what do we what do we mean because i've been operating under the understanding that modernization includes both classrooms roofs utilities hvac squad um but i think we need i i would like to level 7 what we mean when we say modernization mr ortega i have the distance difference between charles lee elementary school in dalton elementary school it is it is point eight miles 0.8 miles did you similarly similarly happen to look at lee the magnolia i can do that right
148now the difference the distance between charles lee and magnolia elementary is uh 1.6 mile any other comments question discussion okay and is there a motion i'm sorry i'm trying to um you know um it's great that we're having this conversation it's a candid and real conversation but i you know um one of the things that you know that i heard today i didn't hear um don't parents speak but i i know that a lot of parents do walk their kids to dalton as well we have section eight um you know at close to lee we have section eight post adult and so this is a very hard decision because we do have it both you know the proximity of um the apartments next to these bulls we have parents that will need no matter what
149where the decision lands they would need us so we have two verbal um uh you know we have vulnerable families at both and um i i think we need to look at being able to make the best decision for you know that is sustainable one of the things that when the dsa approval you said it was um submitted in 1819 and are we just getting it back or when can we start has it been approved or where does that stand i didn't identify a date that one dsa approvals were submitted i'm sorry you gave a date of 1819 i just said right now 1819 identifies the amount that was allocated for um dalton modernization got it so no there has been no dsa approval dalton has been dsa approved there was a previously submitted and
150we received approval this year but i can't give you the exact date they were submitted how long did it take the dsa approval i would have to look and spell before my time okay so just just so i'm processing this correctly so in 1819 you're saying that 5.2 million dollars you're allocated to modernize dolphin right okay and and just to clarify i'm not saying that was the year that it was allocated i'm looking at the allocation that was presented in 1819 and that was the amount that was budgeted for dolphin thank you and then i can clarify for boring revolt modernization is just for modernization dalton has a separate line or a fire alarm and they had a stepper line for underground utilities and that's the same for all the other schools those broken out
151so modernization is just for the classrooms and upgrades of facilitability so utilities and fire life safety are separate yes ma'am based on how it was budgeted out is a separate line item thank you so then my next question is so for magnolia um we have the max capacity but how many students do we anticipate let's say we went with model the one was magnolia proximity um um how many students do we anticipate attending magnolia in the year after we close roughly i can give you the enrollment projections but i can't project out what's in yeah yeah that's fine yes ma'am this is magnolia right so this this is just for current pop the current student population is that just to clarify so right now for the next school year 22-23 we're projecting magnolia to have
152334 students and powell i'm going to make a motion um and you know this may make it we'll see where it goes but i do want so i want to make a motion and to approve a model that includes that i'll just name the schools um and i won't use the title for it um but it will be aligned primarily to the proximity one so it's a oh a um a motion where we keep up with victor hodge valley dale paramount murray magnolia and dalton and excuse me and lee school um and i say that because i'm still very much concerned about density of student population um and and what that what the impact that that has in terms of having is having a desert in the middle of the middle of the city and
153have schools concentrated either north at the north end or the south end of the of the district so that is my motion board member chris gonzalez can you please repeat the schools again ortega can you type that out on the screen please odd here i'm just going i'm going counterclockwise hodge paramount valley dale murray magnolia and lee for visuals it's the map that's up here right now except instead of dalton it's italy this is you're looking at the proximity map yeah it's exactly what artudo just said for a second i second because i'd like to have discussion so we'll open the discussion running the numbers um but i i feel strongly about keeping lee as a school um with in a high-density population to serve a community of families who walk um and i know
154how meaningful that is to be able to walk to school and especially when that's your only transportation option or your only reliable transportation option um i also hear us conflating a little bit about the cost of modernization at elementary schools of what we've already done with dalton and what we would still need to do with lee elementary i think that with all excellent specialized programs investment in the early stages is the is extremely important and given the remaining 40 million approximately 40 million dollars in our measure k bond um personally when i hear three to five million dollars the complete upgrades at dalton or to invest that same amount of money in lee i support that i think ensuring that our not only our preschool but our elementary school students having the best facilities right
155from the beginning um sets the tone for their education um and so i'm [Music] i'm in favor of of keeping lee open and um i would like to have a further discussion about uh keeping both lee and so the motions the motion as it stands but adding back dalton just for clarification if i can ask board members what are their motions i understand the way that board member cruz gonzales frame he ran through a series of schools that would remain open and then the flip side of that coin is that there are specific tools that will be closed i just want to make sure that that's clear in the most itself so just this and then i'll clarify so then that means the schools would be closing would be ellington howell and dalton so i
156i mean i hear what you're saying but what would be the impact on student enrollment if we ended i mean we would end up disclosing two of the smallest schools that's what we would be doing so i'm asking arthur what's the impact if we if we just goes through the small school and then we'll be doing this another couple of years all over again that is definitely one possible impact is that the board uh would find itself uh in a situation in the near future possibly of having this this conversation uh once again uh in terms of um schools and and the capacity at schools uh leaving uh dalton open as well uh would probably significantly also decrease our capacity number um so i mean those are those are some of them obviously as we
157start to consider or think about again when we have small schools the challenges with combination classrooms uh program right those kinds of things those become you know additional pressure points as well those are some possible outcomes by leaving uh by leaving dalton open or another way of saying it by only closing powell and ellington and i just want to clarify so my motion specifically did not include longfellow because i feel like that needs to be a separate conversation remember rodriguez um i do know uh we wanted to reach 85 capacity what would be the capacity if we did leave um lee and dalton open where would we stand then well natasha can do that real quick give me one second to put them all in sorry as she's doing that there is another that just
158came to my my head another possible uh impact um is that we'd be stretching our bond dollars then also um by by adding another school that was that's still not complete uh that that would that would add another layer of the i'm going to go ahead while she's um running up those numbers i'm i'm going to speak on um i i i hear what my colleagues are saying um and how leno lee you know people are walking to lean like i said before if if we close dalton and we keeply open again we're only going to have hodge be up in the northern area and we have people living on 9th street on crescent drive that don't go to hodge that go to dalton i i mean either way it is you know it's gonna
159be one way or another it's gonna hurt families so i i oppose closing dalton and i i i don't agree with that i think we do we do need two schools in the northern area to be able to give services and accommodate those families and in that area you know people think that just because families live above what is it alousta avenue route 66 that these families are not struggling as well well i know a lot of families up there that are struggling that are living in um you know in a one bedroom that are living in garages and so i hope i do not agree with the motion and i feel that we need to keep dalton open to be able to give those families at least that other school in the northern area
160above route 66 since we have all the all the other four schools south i don't think that that's that that's okay for our family i have to agree on that if we're going to talk about um oh we're going to base it on people walking every school you go to people are walking it doesn't matter what part of the city you're on i mean you're based on that there's departments in throughout the city of azusa and parents are walking everywhere right and that's my point remember yolanda i i you know um that that's exactly my point that wherever whatever elementary that we have we have families walking to these elementaries and so therefore i i do not agree i think we need to keep both um you know dalton and hodge and the northern area
161for those families um and keep the bottom ones as they are on the map as we are seeing it right now i just want to clarify i mean i think i talked about walking but that's not that was not the rationale of why i said we should i would i prefer if we can't believe school i i said it because i i'm thinking about um population density i'm thinking about school population density and where that school-age population population lives in this in our in our school district boundaries um and i think looking at previous data right um there's much more density um between below foothill and and the freeway and then we have i mean even though maybe a larger geographic area there's less population density above foothill woodhill avenue so that that's my rationale
162so i don't want us to get caught up in the walking piece because yes i appreciate you just brought that up students yeah i know but i just want to clarify that that's not the rationale for why i am suggesting that we do lee instead of adult i have the capacity so um including hajj lee paramount valley dale murray and magnolia our capacity will be a 76.15 and if we add dalton to that list our capacity goes to 68.33 thank you is that including is that taking long fell out of the picture in both scenarios i did not include longfellow these are just keeping those schools open i will i will add that just looking at just looking geographically where where school sites make sense i i personally am not opposed to the concept of
163of a dalton and a lee both being there i think that it would warrant a conversation around around resources and and what we would do with with with dollars and how those dollars would stretch across those sites with a modernization that is left to be done so while i'm not opposed to seeing dalton remain i don't see i don't due to primarily population density i don't see how we exclude lee from from an option and i actually agree i mean i i hear what you're saying but i i would actually agree with board member beau and and keep them both open and um you know stay at 68 33 and take that chance because we're looking we're looking if we're looking to to look let's be real rosedale's right there we want to go ahead
164and invite those the students to come into our district some of the students that live in rosedale at this moment do not come to our district dalton's right there what is the capacity right now college is at capacity they're at what 700 students six six ninety five ninety eight five ninety eight and their capacity is seven fifty three i still believe we need to keep dalton open because again they're only going to have one elementary above route 66 and you know taking in consideration too that we found an earthquake fault line and that was a big thing before as well um i just don't feel comfortable keeping lee open at this time that did not they did the um right and there's there's no earthquake bot line there well there's no active earthquake outline but
165we did trench at both dalton and natalie so so as we look to modern oh arthur do you want to explain what happened ultimately i'm going to try my best but um as we you know kind of the conversations we were having previously you start a project and then they want to check you know everything else uh one of the things that came up uh was that there was a fault line that was uh running um through part of the city that affected lee and dalton and so one of the things we had to do uh was uh several seismic studies that included um pretty extensive uh trenching and digging uh gosh deep uh to to try and investigate if this uh fault was active or the potential being active and so we had to
166do that at both dalton and lee as part of the condition to continue forward uh with upgrades and modernizations but those were done and concluded at both of those schools okay so we there is a there is a motion and a second on the floor there there has been additional conversation i don't know if anybody is after after conversation is wanting to revise their their position as a motion or a second if if not or or add some additional commentary if not um i'll call them one person can you clarify what you mean by revise your motion or revise your second yes so so there was what's on the on the table the motion on the table now is for victor hodge paramount valley dale murray magnolia and lee to remain open the motion that
167is currently on the floor does not include dalton there has been conversation around lee or dalton lee and dalton and and so that seems to be where the where where there's been conversation but but no revision of motion or second so if there is not a change to or a revision to the motion or to the second um or if there's no additional com discussion then i'll call the vote and and apart from there being a revision by board member who's gonna made the initial motion there could be a motion to amend by other board members that changes that motion motion to amend so i can go ahead and um how would i go ahead and word it that depends on what you're trying to accomplish in the motion i would like to remove lee
168from the schools being open and but and include dalton so then the motion to amend um by board member ariana swap a leaf or dalton and then if there's a second on that motion and then the majority of the board approves that motion that motion that would supplant the original motion by board members my second emotion uh then we'll open that up for the discussion um again i'll i'll say i i don't i i do not see a a viable option where lee is not included just looking at that um at the population density and looking at that area um and the distance where where those where that that high a population of density of where those students would go so i would i personally would be opposed to uh any any solution i i
169don't see a viable solution that doesn't keep deal i agree with board president greer can we call the vote any other discussion okay so we'll do a hand vote um and to clarify this vote is to approve the motion to amend if it's approved it plans back to discussion and there would need to be a final vote yes and the motion and second that's on the floor okay can you repeat that carlos the motion on the floor is to amend the original motion by board member cruz gonzalez and it needs a majority task if that if that motion to a man passes it then becomes the main motion which is open for further discussion and then ultimately and so that motion that that substitute motion that is currently on the floor that motion to amend
170that emotion emotion to amend thank you that is currently on the floor is uh for victor hodge paramount valley dale murray magnolia and dalton to remain open that's what we're currently voting on um board member rodriguez pena why am i always first yes a board member bo no uh board member cruz gonzalez no board member adianas yes and i am a no so that so i believe we revert back to the original motion which is victor hodge paramount valley dale murray magnolia and lee um is there any other discussion before we call a boat yes um i know that this is an extremely difficult decision in considering where students are going to school currently where they've been to school where their brothers and sisters have gone to school the unique school culture at each site
171is something that is irreplaceable and i think all of us in this room feel that and i want to share that what i'm feeling is trying to navigate all this information in a way that is um responsive to our collective social emotional health as well as being fiscally responsible um to steward this district and set it up for continued success for generations to come and that was my preamble to say that um i'm not in support of the motion currently on the floor and um i have a different proposal in mind carlos are we then would would she be able to make a secondary motion to a man that's correct board member bulk and then make a motion amended that's their intention i think it's easier for me as an individual to talk about in
172making a motion to schools that will stay open the schools that will close you have the floor board member i just wanted to make sure that the record is clear that when we talk about keeping schools open there is schools that are closed sure so um i make the motion to um i'd like to amend the motion to state that the elementary schools that will close will be ellington magnolia and powell is there a second i second that motion okay then we'll open it up for discussion the experience of the motion is to close ellington magnolia and paul that's the motion it's something that the emotions on the floor yes and so the the flip side of that is the schools that would remain would be dalton hodge murray harry ma paramount valley dale and
173lee what what is the current what is our current capacity percentage at murray percentage yeah so so i'm trying to understand what is the size of the school and how many students are currently there because if there are students that if if this motion were to move forward then there are students at magnolia then who would potentially go to murray and i'm wondering what kind of space is available at murray to receive so the capacity of murray is 867 and there are currently 490 students there murray that is correct can you repeat that number again please yes the capacity murray is 867 there are currently 490 students would these students be also able to go to lee i mean you said it was one point miles mr thank you the answer to your first question
174is is yes we have taken a very open approach uh to school choice in our district and really allowing families to for whatever reasons they may have to be able to go to whatever school they want to and not being tied down by uh by boundaries and the difference uh the distance difference between magnolia and barrosley is 1.6 miles and just for the record magnolia and murray if you're able to thank you mr 1.2 miles is the difference between magnolia elementary and murray elementary or present um i just like to add my my um the port of obviously this is my motion um i really want us to ensure that we have a strong and common sense transportation plan for the district and especially for our elementary school students and families i know we've talked
175about it in terms of potential routes drivers and i think as we get closer to identifying campuses i agree with uh board member robert's opinion about using school sites rather than neighborhood pickup and drop-off sites um i think for safety and visibility and just um community comfort to me that makes sense mr mall are you able to speak to what our element with this motion that's on the floor what our elementary school capacity would be 78.79 say that again i'm sorry 78.79 okay any other comment or discussion hearing none well maybe it doesn't matter but then that means there'll be no elementary schools in that brand new board maybe that doesn't matter the conversation was that regardless of where a board member lives or the district that they're in um we service all of the
176elementary so that's true but i i mean i just remind us that those were cut by population density then hearing no further comments i'll call the vote uh yes please i'll repeat the so the the motion that's currently this uh an amended motion that's currently on the table i'm not mistaken it's for victor hodge paramount valley dale murray lee and dalton remain open or remember rodriguez pena yes board member did you have a question on my apology sorry poor person are we voting on the amendment this is a vote on the amend on the amendment which was your amended motion for it to become the main motion all right it would this is for it to become the main motion it would require a second vote yes after that okay and this is then it
177would be open for discussion again and then there could be a final vote so this is just a vote for it to thank you for it to become the main motion board member beau yes board member adianas yes remember cruz gonzalez no or remember roger gaspina no and i would say yes so that rings that brings this as the as the main motion which is now open for open for discussion any additional discussion okay and i will call the vote board member adianas yes remember cruz gonzalez no board member rodriguez pena no board member bo yes and i would say yes so that so the motion passed is three to two um now the second secondary part of this is looking at timeline so again there is a one-year implementation that that we that we
178could take there is also the two-year implementation that has been proposed to us from from staff and so is there any discussion or emotion on the floor emotion that we take the one year but to be specific you're you're you're motioning that everything take place this next year uh fall of 22. yes that was was what was recommended by cabinet and therefore i am agreeing with that you're shaking your head now can you please speak on that uh yes our recommendation and i'm putting it up in the spreadsheet that seems to work better my recommendation is that in year one the open elementaries would remain as is nothing would happen with the elementary schools that are to remain open elementary schools that are going to be closed um would not receive any new pk k
179pk or k students the following year the open schools would become preschool through fifth grade schools because the sixth graders would go to glaston the glasgow high school campus up here and then on this year the campuses would float just for clarification are you saying that it would take then two years um it depends it's a logistical question i mean depending on how you look at it we think it's a year and a half only uh in a year and a half the schools would be close then to be able to go ahead and make the full transition right to make bring the sixth graders to um the mega middle school to have that transition to be able to okay to make all the pieces of the puzzle move right so emotion that we close
180the elementaries in two years and that our students start you know what can you put i'm a visual like what year would the schools close in what year would at the open schools that we have voted on when would those students start when would they all be transitioned into their new schools the next school year 2223 new tk and k students would start at their new school in 2324 all students would be transitioned to new schools let me go ahead and start over a president may i please i motioned that 2022 2023 tk start at their new schools 2023 2024 that all students start at their near respective um just for clarity you would include preschool with that not just tk sir are we are we speak are we speaking about preschool the reason um
181we would definitely preschool is a different is different than tkk and so forth uh because um there are um certain processes that have to take place with the state uh in order to to move and so we would we would start that immediately uh but i cannot guarantee that you know those things would happen and that's why we for sure would say tkk and and if we happen to to be able to get all of the um okays from the state uh then we can start we can start transitioning preschool as well so going back to my motion to include preschool ending including preschool pending the authorization from the state carlos and and i just want to point out again just for the record when we're restating the record and it's something that the board
182president can do also before it falls to a question we can restate the schools because this boat is really based on the previous vote that the board took i just want to connect the two then i will go ahead and motion one word i motioned that year 2022 2023 uh preschool if it if it is approved and tk start at their new respected [Music] we would recommend and k as well okay preschool pk and k right which are hodge valley dell paramount murray lee and dalton and the year 2024 i'm sorry 2023 and 2024 that all students are at their new respected schools which are hodge valley dell paramount murray lee and dalton with the second we got a second on the floor before yeah i know i haven't heard a second yet i had
183a second yeah you still second that you're taking the new most everybody's missing okay then any additional discussion remember thank you mr ortega can you talk a little bit in more detail about the rationale behind this proposed timeline and is it really grounded in the transition for the preschool sites to have their program licensing at new sites or are there other considerations in this proposal yes definitely not definitely not because of the the preschool uh that just again that's just a uh a nice to have um just in case again there's any kind of hiccup on uh on the state in in moving uh preschool programs but much like the high schools uh and middle schools and the magnitude of you know closing this amount of schools from preschool all the way to 12th grade
184this one year serves as a data point sorry but that serves as a data point and a planning point to ensure that in 2324 when this massive move happens that we are doing it uh as effectively and as efficiently as possible what variables do you anticipate arising from closure of elementary school can you repeat that question what variables do you anticipate from arising from the closure of elementary school um so again i think this is a great thing about our district we do not hold families um to their boundaries and so knowing the kindergarten class that shows up and the tk class that shows up at the new schools uh would help us in in better planning for staffing in the coming years is there is there any additional impact in terms of the sixth
185graders having to stand on the elementary side in terms of enrollment at the site if you're adding additional tk preschool tinder and then you have sixth grade that year does that have impact as well um no and you actually brought up uh another point um if we were to close all the schools in 2223 um we would have to decide um are we going to move the sixth graders to the existing uh campuses which which we can um existing middle school campus that's what my question known to the go to the news that's an option right so i see that so in 2223 to the center foothill and swastika all of a sudden become sixth grade through eighth grade again but again that's a lot of of shuffling of students and staff for one year
186uh they cannot go to the 6a gladstone campus because obviously there's 10th and 12th graders there so do we shift them all to the the schools that are going to remain open for one year and then the following year we're going to lose all of that so again it seems like that's another point that um that aligns with the secondary move uh with our six considering our sixth graders that we wouldn't have to worry about if we went with this um this two year or year and a half plan okay can i say it a different way because i know that you're pondering you're good okay just for clarification basically the way that um we have voted the way that it um our our recent votes um basically this two-year plan aligns with that is
187what you're saying yes that is correct okay so if there's no further comment i will restate the best of my ability the motion that is on the floor we are looking at for the year starting in fall 2223 that victor hodge paramount valley dale murray lee and dalton would remain open would you put that back would remain open um for for preschool can you put the excel back up thank you um let me let me restate so victor victor hodge paramount valley dale murray lee and dalton would remain open for for preschool through sixth grade for the 22-23 school year pending state approval and that the elementaries that are slated to be consolidated into the other ones would only remain open for first through sixth grade and that in the 22-24 school year excuse me
188thank you 23-24 school year uh that there would be preschool through fifth grade for the designated elementaries that will remain open and the designated closed elementaries uh will will then be closed so that is the vote uh that that i'm calling now four percent kind of ask for point of clarification so for the elementary schools that are slated to be closed um [Music] what is happening with students in grades seven and eight we've we've made that decision in a prior vote where center middle school foothill middle school and slauson middle school would remain open for seventh through eighth grade for the first year don't we have a tk8 school currently wellington yes so in this proposal ellington would continue would serve next year next year would serve grades one through eight is that what we
189mean to say yes that would make the most that would make the most sense so i would throw it to board member ariana to see if she was willing to revise her i'm gonna look at carlos and you know i by the way i'm so glad you're here and for the people watching um we've never done this and therefore we have our lawyer here um helping us out so we get it right so i will go ahead and add that ellington be open until be opened in 2223 first through eighth grade first and for my the way i heard this was board president greer restated the original motion board member bo pointed out that that didn't necessarily address ellington that has now been lumped in so technically that's the slight revision can i just clarify
190um it would be first or eighth grade regard including in the motion because we're just not bringing in preschool bk and k though first grade wouldn't remain so with the original motion it would it would would it not suffice it doesn't address seventh and eighth grade but you revise the most you revise most so does that mean your revised motion stand yes my revised motion and there's a second then yes is there a need for me to repeat the revised revised motion did you have a question no i'm waiting for you i would i would like to hear it okay restate it right so the motion that's on the table now is that beginning in 2223 victor hodge paramount valley dale murray lee and dalton would be open to preschool through sixth grade pending state
191approval for preschool that all other schools slated for closure would be first through sixth grade with the exception of ellington which would be first through eighth grade and that beginning in all schools slated that i mentioned before slated to remain open will be preschool through fifth grade and those slated for closure would be closed and with that i'll call the vote board member arianes yes board member cruz gonzalez yes board member beau yes board member rodriguez pena yes and i'm also yeah okay so looking then at what what we have left the there are a couple items that are that are it's 1008 there are a couple items that are three and four um which i don't have it in front of me but it was longfellow and programs are uh branding well long fell
192and programs are recommended for a future conversation after after the break branding is one of those is recommended that we address now um but but we did already address the things that are most pressing so if we have the capacity at 1008 to address branding we can do that now if that is the wish of the board for uh president if i just may um if that is if that is the will of the board uh just a reminder that you will have to call for a vote uh to extend the board meeting uh past 10 30. correct i am going to suggest that we move that to the discussion or since we've already tackled the bigger ones that we go ahead and move it i i am i cannot stay after 10 30. right
193so it's 1009 so do we correct so it's 10 09 so we still have there's still uh time 21 minutes that we have to discuss branding or so we can look to do that unless the again the will of the board is to do if you would prefer to not discuss this and push this to after the break i'd rather discuss now i'd like to have a discussion now okay so then as it pertains to the branding there's there's been a little little bit of some some back and forth originally talked about and didn't vote but gave direction on not branding um and then there there had been some conversation around around maybe maybe doing some rebranding and so that's in front of us now um does anyone have any comments any suggestions or would
194anyone like to make a motion yeah i'd like to i would like to suggest that we step we do even more separation and we separate the name of the school and the mascot and vote on those separately okay and so i'd like to make a motion that we would keep the school as azusa high school and that's going to take 15 minutes for us to well i'm making them we'll see what happens that maybe when maybe we don't get to it in 15 minutes but we can at least try you repeat that again please i make the motion i'm not talking about the the mascot but the motion on the floor would be that we would a comprehensive high school that would be cited at this azusa high location right now would remain azusa high
195school thank you about it a second second second by board member beau um and then discussion um board member cruz gonzalez i would ask does that then by default mean keeping the name gladstone in middle school are you also separating that oh no i i would have yes i would keep blackstone high school i mean gladstone has gladstone middle school would you say is there any additional discussion that's what's on the floor now is keeping the name um not not concerning mascot keeping the name azusa high school for the centralized comprehensive high school and keeping the name gladstone in the new soon to be new middle school then i will call the vote or remember adianas i would like to just go ahead and express them things before during discussion and right now as we're
196going this you know through this transition and in a perfect world right um it would be great absolutely great to go ahead and just rebrand every elementary and rebrand everything our high school our middle school the name i get it the change is here it changes now but uh you know after much consideration i i do want to say that the one thing that i do see and that is that i agree that for as much as i want rebranding or the name i do have to say that i i would like to go ahead and keep asusa high school and blackstone heights the board member audience that was a yes yes sir remember cruz gonzalez yes member beau yes rodriguez pena yes and i am also a yes being is how we have separated
197out the names uh that still falls kind of begs the question around around branding um is this something at 10 13 excuse me mascot is this something at 10 if this is something at 10 13 that we would like to continue then i would ask if there's any discussion or emotion uh on the mascot i'd like to make a motion i like to make a motion that um this is a high will be um the new colors the new mascot i just feel that that would we were talking about you know what we heard today was fairness from both sides and i think that keeping this is the name and i know that was very important also but i think changing the mascot and and the colors um and literally um community you know pitch
198in on that i think it would be um wise to do that a second that motion so moved by board member rodriguez pena seconded by board member arianes that we would change the colors and mascot of azusa high school um discussion um would that mean then that left what is bledsoe middle school that that would remain uh that there'd be no change to the mascot or colors i i think it should remain only i mean we're talking about money in in financially you know we would um save money by keeping it that way and i'm making uh this is a high this is high right and it's changing mascot in the colors yes um does that mean you're willing to revise are you willing to revise your motion to include gladstone yes middle school remaining
199the same colors and the same mascot yes i'd make a motion to um change your mascot and color at azusa high school on isuzu campus and keep the name blackstone middle school at glaston middle school campus and is your second year a second okay any additional discussion yeah i have a question a clarifying question so in this in this proposal we've decided to keep the name azusa high school and transition to gladstone middle school by changing colors and or the mascot the funds used for rebranding would still be needed is that correct mr ortega the same level of funding would be needed because we're changing the mascot on the colors on the field on uniforms i would say that is accurate there might be a tad bit of savings on on some things but uh
200not not much and the only thing i'm thinking of like if anything has ahs that again if there's like a mural or something that says hs that we don't need to worry about that then i guess i said tad bit some uniforms might have ahs but if we're changing the color then that would need to change as well one of the things that we heard earlier was that our students the uniforms are falling apart so i think that's a great opportunity to you know to bring new uniforms to it to our sport they've had these for for several years and um this is a great opportunity to you know bring that and at least give we're we're asking the ninth graders right we already voted on this to go to a respected new school right
201asusa high school and take in that name the least that we can give them now is a little bit of sense of pride in unity and equity and that is by you know changing the mass thought as some people i i took in suggestion that came today and and spoke on this if we were willing you know i i think it's great we'll keep a souza high school let's go ahead and change the mascot let's go ahead just do a tiny bit to be able to unify these students together keep the asus name are we able to speak to the as we consider the you know jerseys and sports equipment that that is kind of on the pipeline to be updated where is that in its lifecycle anyway is this something that needs to be
202addressed in the in the upcoming year 2-3 anyhow the question is you're asking um the uniforms at azusa high school in terms of what's new and what's not new yeah so um we could get more information on that but my understanding is it's in various cycles though some teams will have had new uniforms and others have not so uh the band for example um they got i think they got new uniforms i wanna see four years ago um and that was actually a two-year process so i think that's about about and when you say four-year for example with band when you say four years ago about how long are those expected to a be question i i wouldn't be able to answer that one i don't know any other yeah so i just want to
203make some comments um so i i would be opposed to this and and i and i want to be you know i i i understand and respect the request to want to create a new you know a new thing for the for the students that are coming from gladstone but i really oppose it for a couple facts um first i oppose it because um i don't think it's fiscally responsible i think when we were having conversations about the school sites and modernization the funds that we use to modernize pools primarily come from modernization bonds right which are separate levies that we have our ask our community to pass to be able to pay for that if we do a rebranding process some of it if it's related to facilities can come from that kind of
204funding although i'm not sure if the criteria that we set out for measure the last measure we passed measure okay whether or not that would fit so that would i'm so i'm not sure with that but for sure many of the things that would have to happen would be coming out of funds that are being generated by our student population so those are students that are in our schools this year and we would be instead of spending it on programs for them or opportunities or instruction we would be spending that on rebranding and so the the question we have to ask ourselves is are we okay spending dollars that are meant for students education to change some color and and for me i have to say that i just i'm not comfortable with that i
205think i mean i think that's the point that's that's that's the first thing and i mean i guess i'll just leave it there but that's my that's my primary concern i would like to remind um cabinet and the board that we we received some money from the city from them selling some bonds and that was for facilities used and don't quote me on the amount this was about eight eight million dollars and that was from the rosedale the the the contract to refresh everyone's memory the contract that this district never received the school that was promised we sued the developer not we but the board did or the the district did sued the city the case was thrown out because of the fact that there was contingency of 300 students from rosedale residents that needed
206to bring 300 students to our school district which never has happened and has not happened we lost both times and lost 8.5 million dollars fighting a fight that we were never gonna win now the city we negotiated and they were kind enough to give us an olive branch and say here you know what we serve the same constituents which is you guys here's some money so i believe that we do have we can take some of that money and some of the i remember last week when we asked latosh for me if i'm wrong maintenance right did you stay we have deferred me deferred maintenance right but we do have some money to at least change the mass thought therefore i stand with re you know with just changing the mascot we had even a
207teacher today mr uh sanchez sanchez mr neil both from two separate schools flat stone one from asusa them coming together in a green on this that speaks volume our kids deserved this spend a little to unify our students at our new respective school that we have agreed on today we've made a lot of sacrifices today a lot of sacrifices we have the money i know we do and if not we'll find the money that i know we can do because there's also grants out there for facilities and if it's going to cost you're saying a little bit less but mr arturo you said it a little bit less awesomely right so our students are worth it mr mull um can can you speak to the the funds that we're that we're looking at the the
20830 39 million that we have um which i assume includes any any dollars that would have come from from um any any settlement that that we had is i think it's not inclusive of that it's not okay so can you can you speak to in speaking to either of those two kind of um pods can you speak to the the appropriateness of utilizing those funds for this purpose or would that indeed as board remember cruz gonzalez is mentioning would that need to come from a different fund um so we cannot use bond funds for this um because the bond project was written with fond language and identified the type of projects we're going to do and um rebranding was not one other project we cannot use deferred maintenance to buy uniforms the bird maintenance is
209to upgrade your facility um so if we were repainting the whole school then you probably could tie in putting a new logo up but you can't just stay as for the purpose of rebranding the rosedale funds we would have to um consult with legal to see if rebranded will qualify um again that was part of developer fees that was not received and developer fees are supposed to be used on based on growth so i would have to say a board member recruits gonzales is correct that we will be using general fund dollars for rebranding purposes um because most of the other funds are tied to upgrade to me mr tasha tomorrow can i ask a clarifying question um first and foremost i uh i think the majority of of uh rebranding does not fall on
210measure k or deferred maintenance or rosedale uh but just for super transparency would re would uh uh changing the overlay uh on the football field would that be considered uh or uh part of the part of a bond no no because they've already used bond dollars to pay for the initial upgrade okay and my question to my board is are students worth it as we're going through this reconfiguration our students are worth it we're talking about you know what i heard both sides at least we're coming in the middle we're not you know we we did not change a souza high school's name i strongly believe that we should keep it a souza high it's in asusa and we should keep it a souza let's come in the middle and let you know let's just
211come in the middle at first i wanted the full rebranding and changing the whole name you know what i'm willing to come to the middle i think that we owe it to our students that are here currently i think they've gone through enough these last two years ovid and now this transition you know what let's make it exciting for them they're worth it they're worth that changing of that mass thought to unify them again remember this for this for the sake of time um because it's 10 27 i know that you had a comment board member rodriguez pena i did um so you're willing to spend um 3.4 to 5.7 million on on lease school and i know it's stupid money and i understand what you're saying but the best way to honor tradition on
212our both high schools is to make that change we're going to keep azusa heist with the name i think it's only right and it's a difficult um decision for all of us but let's not choose from one school to the next school you know who's better who's color and and i've been hearing this i've been on board for 10 years and i've been hearing the same thing and i think that it would um now is the opportunity to unite the schools to unite the students by merging them and you know we'll send a message we're not choosing one school after another school yes i know it's gonna cost it's under a million dollars it started at 2.5 million then we heard 1.8 million now i seen it under um 1 million so i mean why
213why can't we honor our community and our students and we had a young man when he spoke to them he was almost crying because you know and he's a young man you know he's a freshman but you know it's only right we you know we we're going to move to that camp fine we're going to keep that fine why can't we meet in the middle and and and make it happen so i just want to respond to the your first question about why am i okay spending money on modernization versus this um and i i'll just repeat what i said at the outset um we we went to our community we asked them to pass measure k and within that measure we said we are going to make a commitment to modernize all our unmodernized
214schools which include both dalton and lee right so we already have that funding um that's been um allocated to do that work and it's coming on modernization rebranding will be coming out of our general fund so when we think about lcff we think about our our base grant and supplemental concentration and i'm gonna suggest we don't spend supplemental concentration dollars on this you're talking about this is coming out of our base grant it's supposed to fund all of our teachers all of our textbook adoptions all of our our base programs that we offer that we're required to offer by under ed code so that is why i make i make a distinction between rebranding and the modernization and it can yeah let me just and so it's clear that we're not going to be able
215to this is not going to happen tonight because we're going to end in a minute so i don't want to i say we vote tonight we're already here so i mean i did well if we're not if we're going to continue this conversation i did want to ask arthur um if it's even possible to think about because i'm just thinking about both that sophomore and junior class right is there some way that we can co-locate the two high schools in name and so those students those students can graduate as gladstone gladiators and then retire that and maybe it's not feasible because i'll be on one site but i just want to know if you can investigate that if we're if we continue this conversation and that way we protect those two grades that we're most
216concerned about it doesn't it doesn't address issue about you know i guess this the supposed rivalry that we have i feel that we're one community um but i think that that might be an option but let me let me just ask this question because it's 10 it's 10 30. so before we before we even move forward no hang on before we even move forward at all and take any next steps or decide the vote we first need to need to determine if we're going to extend our time or if we're going to end so so i'm first i'm first calling a vote to see if there's willingness to to continue this uh this meeting or or um or to adjourn question to continue or president i if i'm not mistaken per the board by law
217number one if there's a motion to extend i think there has to be a time uh specified so as an example i motion to extend the meeting to 10 45 11 whatever that is and then if i'm not mistaken in the board by law that only happens once and then so whatever that time is once we hit that time then her board bylaw then the meeting is over at that time so is there is there a motion on the floor to extend our meeting to extend our meeting 10 55 is there a second second um board member rodriguez pena second um thank you is there any discussion then we'll go ahead and vote board member rodriguez pena yes remember beau yes uh board member adianas yes board member chris gonzalez yeah and i would actually
218be no but uh the motion passes four to four to one i was gonna be no i changed my vote to no i'm voting with okay um so the so we will continue till 10 55. yes and just remember you have a current motion still on the floor order i would call the vote and the vote on the floor is to rebrand to change the mascot and the colors okay um so let me just say i would be i would be on if if we're if we were going to move forward with this under the if we were going to move forward with rebranding without clear understanding of where dollars are coming from like just simply saying we'll find the we'll find those dollars to me is is is would be fiscally irresponsible so if
219if we were so that's part of why i would have voted to just um and part of the reason why i would vote to end the meeting to collect information because without knowing without without clear understanding of where dollars would come from in order to suspend the the monies for for rebranding i i i see it as irresponsible for us to take and i agree with you for um for president grier also i mean is there any grants that we can look into or there's other funding that we can you know that you can maybe bring bring to us i mean is that possible um we don't know if it's possible but we did reach out to our grant uh company uh and asked a specific question uh to please uh search uh far deep
220and white to see if there were any grant opportunities for rebranding they have come back with a possibility it seems like like a little stretch it seems like a stretch but said we might try again i did look i did take an opportunity to look at that particular grant and i would say that it does steam uh like a stretch but it seems like the grant writers would be willing to try what is that grant uh was that fort boredom no board member rodriguez penis had a question are you withdrawing your second for the current motion that's on the floor um no why i'm not understanding but i think you just asked the question correct correct i just want to clarify only because you said oh that was a question i'm sorry yes it was
221it was just a part of the question i think um it sounded like you a moment ago sound like you said you were agreeing with something that i that i said about gathering and gathering information yes but you also seconded the motion to the for the rebranding so does your motion still stand to vote on doing the rebranding now or are you suggesting that you would prefer to get one okay yes i i would like to um revise my motion but maybe we should come back and maybe have some secrets about that sorry for clarity right you didn't make the motion you second it so so you can you have the option of commenting retracting your your second and or what i also heard board member rodriguez saying i don't want to speak for you
222board member it also sounded like a motion to postpone so i just want to clarify whether or not board member rodriguez pain is withdrawing her second or moving to postpone this uh yes i would like to withdraw my second and postpone it until we have um more conversation or information regarding the funding if it's a possibility before we make the final decision is there a second second any additional discussion it's not clarity so um so what's the process with drawing your second what i heard was a motion to postpone if she went through the per second then there's no current motion on the floor and then then the board can decide whether or not it's going to bring up any additional business along these lines i heard a motion to postpone more clearly than a
223motion to pull back a second so in that case if a majority of the board agrees then the motion is postponed to a and board member rodriguez opinion we should probably ask for a specific time um i don't know um next year is that good no you i'll clarify if board member rodriguez does not identify a specific date then it'll be at the discretion of the board president and and working with superintendents at the agenda for the next time official i would like to leave it to the board president and the attendant okay so i just want to clarify i i believe under robert's digital orders you have to postpone to a certain time you cannot just postpone so you have to specify the date and i think there i also did some research on
224this before the meeting and i saw some language that said that if you don't identify a specific meeting time then the chairman will have um expression when to set it that's different than if it was tabled it was completely off off but that's not what i'm hearing this issue will come back correct any additional question or conversation well is it debatable i don't believe it's debatable no i think we're just it's just a straight up motion are we going to postpone or not i can't discuss it i'll go i'll call the vote board member this is a motion to postpone and there was no date attached so it would be at the discretion of myself and um mr remember ariana's yes board member cruz gonzalez no board member bo no board member uh roger gaspina
225yes yes i just want to say we found the name it's the parsons foundation from pasadena so the motion passes three to two um which um moves that item there are there still are a couple other items on here that that again i i would recommend that we hold off on it it's recommended by staff and i and i i was recommended by the staff that we hold off on these things until after the break and again that's that is in regards to longfellow and it's also in regards to programs um i would also make sure that we include as we're talking about programs in the future that the decision that we made with magnolia that we have the um there's the uh what is the name of the adult transition program that's that's there
226and so that will be included on that would need to be included on what we're what um there was a um there was a overcrowding when um the adult school and uh sierra went to gladstone street full can we get an update on that and perhaps maybe magnolia's uh elementary that we are going to go ahead and um shut down could perhaps get the overflow of whatever is happening here um i don't know a consideration what does that look like um for a possible discussion would that be okay we could certainly look to discuss it the next time yes is that is that just a board update is an update from staff uh in our minds um and and we're obviously made some big strides here uh we definitely want to begin a process uh
227to identify what it is that we're going to be doing uh with our uh property uh that will be vacant uh we do not want to wait uh we want to start this um right away and so now that a decision has been rendered uh we will look into starting that process uh and uh engaging with the board in terms of next steps for them and that wouldn't i would in my head that would include what board member already just spoke about got it okay in that then i will look unless there's anything else that i would look to move us then to item 5.0 adjournment specifically 5.1 which calls for a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn 5.1 is there a second second any discussion [Music] then we'll move to a vote uh board
228member audionas yes what remember cruz gonzalez yeah board member beau yes board member roger espana yes and i am also yes thank you so much for for joining us have a good night