001good evening everyone watching at home thank you for coming to our special board meeting tonight today is december 7th 2021 it is seven o'clock and we are about to open this meeting and i'm going to go ahead and call this special board meeting um open and uh special board meeting of the susanna flight school district to order i want to go ahead and start with our mission the asusa unified school district equips every student with the knowledge and skills for college and career readiness to fulfill their purpose and positively impact society regular agenda items will begin at seven the board of education encourages public input when the public wishes to address the board of education on the agenda item they may fill out a blue card and since we have no one here today if
002you are on in zoom please raise your hand the board of education will we'll take the blue cards but we don't have any today but we'll go ahead and uh give the speakers a chance on zoom to go ahead and address the board tonight board members are not permitted to respond to public comment a member of the staff will contact you if information is needed thank you for your participation individual speakers may be allowed up to three minutes to address the board of education translation services are available to the public thank you so much for your cooperation we'll go ahead and start with the flag salute if everybody can please rise we'll move on to item 1.3 roll call we'll go ahead and start with board member cruz gonzalez president board member sabrina here and
003board member greer here board member rodriguez pena here and i board member ariana's this year there's five of us thank you for that next we're moving on to 2.1 approval agenda can i please get a motion to approve 2.1 make a motion to approve 2.1 so we have a first by board member rodriguez pena we have a second by board member career let's go ahead and ask our vote i was just informed that we can go ahead and do a and a vote go to that if i can please have um you guys show your faces to go ahead and do this hand vote if i have uh chandelien cruz gonzalez yes we have a sabrina bow board member stupid dupo thank you board member adrian greer board member rodriguez pena yes and now myself
004yes it is 5-0 we'll move on to item 3.1 which is public helmet on agenda or non-agenda items lika do we have anyone from zoom that would like to speak tonight well we do we have amber fish okay can you hear me yeah wonderful um i first i want to say thank you for your time this evening um on these special reorganization meetings i know this has been a lot of work and a lot of um challenges have come from it i i'm reaching out today because in preparation for your meeting tonight i was able to take a moment to look over uh the slides that will be presented and i noticed that longfellow seems to be on the chopping block on those slides and i i was taken aback a bit because as a
005part of the reorganization committee we were told not to look at longfellow that it wasn't something we were going to be worried about and had as a parent i would have if we would have known that it was going to be a possibility for closure i feel like we would have taken a few more steps to really look at that as a possibility during the committee longfellow offers such great programs for our young students um special education programs they have the dual immersion it's a safe little space for preschool students and i just feel like it's really important to our community that it stays open i also have heard from some board members there's a desire to have a day-long day day-long preschools and longfellow offers the perfect location for that because it's a little
006location you could you could possibly leave it open longer um to have the full day daycare uh hodge is a block away and i know many of the parents drop off their littles at longfellow and then walk their children over to hodge um i saw that hodges being considered a preschool through fifth grade um we i feel like maybe if we could look at hodge is keeping it as a tk through five and keeping maybe longfellow is like our extension preschool that that would be a very viable option for the district and very viable for our community a lot of people choose to send their children to a long fellow even though we do have several preschools in the community uh at each location and i feel like for hajj incurring those extra funds to
007to upgrade our facilities to have a place for preschools just seems like a little bit of a waste of resources when when the perfect little preschool is right down the street um i know that they have to be completely separated from all others fences built in they need their own little toilets it just personally feels like unnecessary expenses when we're looking at consolidating so thank you for your time this evening thank you miss fish next we have miss louisa hello thank you good evening esteem board superintendent cabinet i hope you're all doing well upon overviewing tonight's agenda i saw the newest examples for reorganization to be presented tonight i noted on all the examples one of the schools to close his longfellow i understand that these might be examples and specifics of schools may not
008be a factor at the moment but i still wanted to speak tonight i also want to be transparent that i have a child attending now at fellow in the dual immersion program however she is leaving next year the outcome of this decision does not impact my family i am speaking from a place considering the district and future families i would like to ask the board to consider removing longfellow completely from consideration of removal and the current conversation of reorganizing my reasons are the following firstly the rationale of reorganization as stated on today's agenda is quote this is a unified school district has been working on school reorganization as a means to improve and maximize programs and facilities the board of education has received recommendations from the school reorganization team and will discuss and assign next
009steps if this is true at the start of the reorganization conversations with the reorganization team it was stated that longfellow was not included in this and was not to be considered at all therefore all of the feedback surveys etc from community did not consider the school and is not part of any of the recommendations or community discussions also if this is true and reorganization is a means to improve and maximize programs longfellow is a school with a multitude of successful programs with ausd's early education special education program and early dual immersion program secondly considering lcap goal number one of engaging relevant rigorous 21st century learning environments positive safe and supportive school climates longfellow is meeting this el capital through its consistent success leadership innovation teacher collaborations and positive school climate just as developmentally high school
010middle schools need their own spaces the same is true for early education finally closing long fellow would mean closing one of the greater contributing schools to drawing more students to our district and would be one of the least use of vacant building purposes with the lack of parking and size of facilities i invite the board to at a later time consider expanding and supporting longfellow instead and becoming a full day preschool to drive even more students to our district as we lose many families who need full day and go to other districts and fall into the k-12 education system because of this longfellow would serve as an excellent pilot to a full-day preschool program in our district to end and state clearly my request to the board please close conversation on longfellow and reorganizing and
011instead consider if longfellow is so successful how can we in fact replicate its successes at a different location and grow into it grow in the future to a full day preschool program thank you for your time good evening lika do we have anybody else on zoom raising their hand we have no other hands raised okay great thank you we'll go ahead and move on to general functions in our agenda 4.1 school reorganization thank you board president um let me share my screen okay um what i want to do is i want to walk um the board of education through some models um that we put together based on uh what we thought what some of the things that we thought we heard in discussion uh with the board of education uh these are um just
012models to consider as we are talking about uh the elementary school side of these models uh so we're really looking at the left-hand side uh of these models uh all three of these uh samples uh have been named and so i'm just gonna share them in alphabetical order not in any priority order or anything anything like that and then i'll explain how they were created and then turn it back over to the board of education for further discussion so the first model is called the largest capacity model this model takes only into account our largest capacity schools this does not take into account where they are located it does not take into account uh what they're close to or not close to this is strictly looking at what are our largest sites and those would
013be the ones that uh remain open so here on the left hand side in this model you'll see that hodge magnolia murray paramount and valley deal which are the largest of our school sites would be the school sites that remain open in this particular example what we did in addition to this graphic that we've seen many iterations of we have also uh placed it on a map um just to give a different view so here you'll see this model represented on a map and so uh you might say or you might [Music] observe that by doing this model there are four schools south of the 210 and only one school north of the 210. right if this is if this was if this was if we were just going to base it on the largest
014schools um then as as a result of that um this is what this is what happened not saying this is good or bad just pointed out as a as a matter of as a matter of fact um we additionally uh heard uh the desire to see uh we we have been uh keeping our ears to the ground that um we we wish this to go uh faster uh rather than slower and so again this is not something that is a finished product in no way shape or form but this is an idea of how this might be implemented over the course of two years you'll notice that there are no actual years labeled here and that is by design the year one may be 2223 and year two could be 23-24 um it could be
015split where the secondary goes and then the elementary goes or vice versa but this is this is how uh it possibly can happen over a two-year span in essence what happens at the elementary level is the schools that will eventually close would take no new enrollment in year one and then in year two they would be completely shut down uh in essence that's what that's what this that's what this does at the secondary level uh in essence what this does is uh the azusa high school campus um would take on all ninth graders so gladstone high school would not take on any new enrollment either and then the following year it would be closed and shut down at the middle school level we at the board level there was a an idea a suggestion if
016you will that foothill middle school can become part of the azusa high school campus and we think that there is great benefit to that and so in year one we can either close a foothill middle school down and leave center in slauson open or because it's such a small school for year one maybe we can even uh co-exist for uh for a year before it's before it shuts down so this is just again an idea of how this possibly can happen over two years um but but the the emphasis or the majority of the conversation really is about about this model or the sample model uh up here i just kind of want to give you how this how this flows and the and the three different uh attachments that are here uh so again
017this is the largest capacity so then our second model is titled uh northwest north east that's the question yes ma'am so um you mentioned about the high schools how the ninth graders will not um register they would register at the azusa high school campus right but but that's the same for the elements you're right for the pre-k pknk would go into the schools that um we're going to try to understand that is correct including kinder oh yes one through six correct okay thank you yeah absolutely so this the second um model uh to kind of consider or think about again this one's called northwest northeast southwest southeast uh unlike the first model here we're not looking at just the size of our buildings our school sites but we're actually looking at location as well so
018here in this model dalton hodge murray paramount and valley deal are the school sites that would remain open and again if you look at the map in this in this particular model we did want to make sure that in in the for that there was a school in all four uh quadrant uh you will notice uh just uh to show that in the quadrant one or the north um northwest where victor hodges that's the only school in that quadrant in the north east side you do have dalton lee and powell so i will explain why why we chose uh dalton for this model again that doesn't mean that the way we're thinking is correct but we can we can explain why um of the three schools how is the smallest school of those three schools
019and so so then that one was not considered if you look at lee and dalton lee is actually a larger school than dalton but lee is further behind in terms of modernization compared to dalton and so this this north west corner can easily be dalton or lee uh or powell if that was the wishes of the board uh but in terms of lee there is that consideration or that factor that um in terms of modernization there would be uh more investment than than would at dalton because they're ahead in terms of the schedule they're further along than li and that's why dalton was chosen in that quadrant in the south west con quadrant there is only murray so that makes it like hajj that's easy and then in the south east quadrant there are three
020schools and those are paramount valley dale uh and ellington and on this one uh it was uh just because of sight so valleydale and paramount are the larger schools and that's why those schools were chosen for this particular model again these are not sandstone these are just examples for the board to to consider and and and think about the third model that we created we named proximity um in this model you see that dalton hodge magnolia murray paramount and valley dale are the schools that remain open you will notice that this model unlike the first two this model does have one more school open compared to the first two models so this one has six schools open the first two models only had five schools open so let me explain how how we came about
021this particular model and this thinking so for this one what we try to do is we tried to look at schools that were close in proximity uh and had potential for closing because they were either smaller in size or further along in modernization so the first schools that we paired together were dalton and lee again because of how close they are they're both on the west side of azusa and they're both in the north side of the 210 again very much like the northwest northeast southwest southeast uh here even though lee is larger and we typically would have chosen the larger school here we went with dalton because how far lee is in terms of modernization so we took those two schools and we said which one which which one would we keep open dalton
022then we paired up pow and magnolia again very close in proximity to each other that one was purely because of size magnolia is a larger campus compared to powell uh paramount and murray we did not touch uh those are large campuses um with quite a bit of students there already so we looked at valleydale and ellington as our next pair um and so again looking at valley dale and ellington in terms of schools that are close in proximity um valley dale is a larger campus with more capacity and that is why we chose valley dale compared to ellington um so so really again the the these are the these are three um samples if you will uh models for the board to consider discuss hey maybe we like this model but let's swap these schools
023all right any of that obviously is is uh um is agreeable we can definitely do we just wanted to give the board something to to chew on and to have uh and it was a request of the board that we came with with some samples of what this might look like and so um i turned it back over to uh board president thank you mr arthur ortega for presenting these as we have had some time to take a look at this and now that you've explained i i think it's appropriate for us to be able to go ahead and open this up for questions uh comments from the board we'll go ahead and start with board member rodriguez pena okay so as i'm looking at the three models i see that um i just like
024the idea of the model 3 for the purpose of that if we're looking at the students from um how the closest food to them would be magnolia if magnolia was not there then i'm assuming they would go to um murray and that's a distance and i'm thinking about distance and that's the same thing i feel about the students from lee um then they go to dalton i don't want an overcrowded school either you know we need to have room for growth so i like the way this map looks and the proximity of we'll say ellington um to valleydale i'm sorry intern did you say you do like and just for clarification it's model three proximity the one that's on the board right now yes model three proximity that's what i'm talking about yeah because and
025then and then i i feel again that you know we have some schools in the north side and the south side they're not all focusing on one um particular area so it's it's like in this is unified it's like it's north east southwest and i also like that idea too thank you you did a really good job on um knowing what we kind of were looking looking at thank you we have board member bo thank you um i have a couple of uh questions to ask regarding the calculations of capacity and also in terms of um any build-out needed to um meet future needs mr ortega for i know when we started this discussion we talked about having carveout spaces at elementary sites and i think we had previously identified four spaces library innovation lab
026sped and a parent move is that correct uh that is correct uh subsequent to um meetings uh we have uh gone back uh walked the campuses um one more time we have the capacity that was given to us uh what's the name of the company on sasha decision insight decision insight who who walked the campuses mapped them out and so right now these school sites capacities actually have a carve out of six classroom six classrooms um and so what decision insight uh was doing was basically already carving out uh the library in the computer lab and so we went and carved out four additional rooms and so right now these capacities include a carve out of six quote-unquote rooms that technically could be used as classrooms but we have carved them out to not be
027used as classrooms for things like innovation lab parent center um you know sped services and those kinds of things that's a long way to answer your question pretty close to yes sure well i would like to add to that mix then and so i'm glad to hear that we're we're reserving space um not reserving space at each of the elementaries um can you tell me if there's been any thought given to ensuring that each elementary school has a carve out space for a vapa classroom or evapo instructional space yeah um definitely heard that and so we do have uh services currently uh at the elementary school uh for uh for band and and vocal um and yes at some sites sometimes that becomes a pressure point and so we're looking at um the cafetorium or
028you know the stage on there um so yeah as we look to envision those six rooms i mean that's definitely uh a possibility and it has come up in our conversation okay i think it's critically important that when we i know that we have already have flex spaces like a cafetorium or a multi-purpose room and i think as we're creating these um you know the the schools that we vision into taking us into the future that if we're saying that you know art and language are important um i would hope that we can create those dedicated spaces rather than depending on the availability of flex spaces to serve um visual and performing arts yeah and those spaces can also be multi-use uh as well um but but yes we we definitely hear that okay um
029i i have several questions but i'll just ask one for this round and i know we're going to keep going yes i'm going to share your want me to answer your second question sure yes okay um as we have as we have uh stated uh in the past facilities uh all of our facilities no matter what schools remain or which have been modernized or not modernized we feel that there's still investment and so you know we're looking forward to uh thinking about the bond and how that how that helps uh one of the things uh right off the bat uh that we envision um is going to be needed is adequate parking uh and possible cutouts uh for uh kind of like uh drop off and pick up um because that is something that uh
030all of our schools uh struggle with and so kind of envisioning that uh adequate parking and and how we can envision cutouts uh to the campus uh for the community to be able to uh drop off and pick up their students uh in a in a better way than we that we currently have and my follow-on question again and this will be my last for this round is that have you also applied that thinking to renovation of campuses to include preschool spaces using bond money yeah we're very fortunate that right now only hodge and ellington do not have uh preschool uh faces uh but yes as we as we uh double back and loop back on all of her facilities uh can use um investments uh that includes uh the preschool space as well thank
031you so much board member bo if you have other questions um feel free to ask them i'm happy to to go around i wanted to give you that courtesy we have i don't have any hands raised um and i'll step in um i i have a a concern one of the things that we were talking about at our last meeting was um you know the possibility of because we have not decided on this it was just a topic of conversation and that was to to keep the names of asusa high school and gladstone high school and i i have a concern i have been bombarded with emails texts phone calls not just from parents or community members but from students i met with a group of student they're concerned as we are seeing right now
032in both the three um presentations that are presented to us now we would like to go ahead and get this as soon as possible and make this transition the concern that these students have are that they're going to be halfway through their you know middle of their high school experience asking them to turn around and completely immerse themselves into a school on the other side so i asked these students what do you think would be a possible solution and their response was branding we would feel more comfortable going into the asusa campus if it was rebranded i think it is important that yes the conversation was about there there's uh you know lifelong residents that would like to go ahead and keep this i i've been here my you know over 40 years my sisters
033went to a souza high i actually called them as well and i said hey what do you think about this and they said you know what we've already had we've already had our turn we've already been there what matters are the students right now how they feel it's their turn so being able to have these conversations with these group of students not only my family members that have gone to asusa i went to gladstone i think it would be in our best interest to go ahead and rebrand and invest in the rebranding there was a word that there was a um talk about it costing five million dollars so uh miss latasha jamal could you please clear that up and oh and by the way there was another rumor that it was going to be
03410 because we were going to do a middle school and a high school and that number is correct but when we were originally considering the 7 12 model to rebrand and to add modulars that's where the 10 million dollar came from but just for clarification rebranding was not 10 million correct it was 10 million dollars to do model 4 which included new classrooms like included the gym floors including a whole bunch of stuff that had nothing to do with quote unquote brandy so can i just comment on this one then um i was gonna ask that question but you started um so what is the exact problem we heard 10 and we are five and then now you know um whatever the cost is going to be um i feel the same way because i
035have been getting phone calls and people i spoke to students and and and pretty much the answers is you know you know you know one of my colleagues mentioned that it was only fair for the um students of the alums from azusa high to keep the name and what have you well guess what we forgot about the gladiators i mean how do we feel about them i mean fair is fair we have to look at both sides and not just only one i had spoke to students then i'll just put some words out of it they told me you know how do you feel about it number one awkward just walk into a school that they know that they've been you know rivals it's been that way and it's that and it's not a secret
036you know number two they feel out of place they're feeling you're moving us but now we have to go into another now you're forcing us to have to um use that same name as a high school and i i feel that you know we're gonna if we're going to reorganize and we're going to start new we should start new what's the new name what a fresh name what everyone's going to feel and even if we had a contest in the community or involve the community to make that change it's this is historical and they'll feel you know we made that name it's not like just the same school the same name but you're forcing the rivals to go into this boom so we have to think about kids come to the house kiss them without
037alums what have you we're gonna think of everyone not just one you know and and i wasn't done with some of the things you know they said you know awkward they feel out of place they say it's not fair the word rival scared you know and um i i guess you're moving us but now you're well we're board members they're sending it because we're the decision makers that we are forcing them to go there but we're also also forcing them to go there with it with the name of this is a high and that's true i mean they're like well we don't want to go there you know in in its history that's how it's finished it's not a secret so i think to be fair with everyone and i'm sorry i know we didn't
038get done with the cost but you know there's a way whatever um you know can we get grants for it and we get a lower cost and we look at other bids because that was my big thing at the beginning saying okay well we'll keep it because of course i'm not gonna spend five thousand five million dollars uh you know for myself um as a board member you know uh fiscally solvent that's not it but i hear it's even less than that but can we get new bids you know there's something else we can do i don't know fundraise i'm not sure but is there something we can do so we can make it happen so we can everyone can feel there and want to go there and it's going to be brand new to
039everybody yes ma'am and so thank you yes i'm sorry there's always options and just to um clarify the number that we presented again the 10 million was for model 4 and that was the total cost to implement model 4. um the next we identified the 1.8 million which was the amount that we projected to redo or reimagine the one high school campus now in that included remodeling and so of the 1.8 million dollars that was new branding was 235 000 the gym floor and these are all options the jump floor was 347 000 new turf overlay was 110 000 athletic equipment was projected at 500 000 modernized in the kitchen increasing it by 500 square feet was two hundred thousand dollars and upgrading the locker room was five hundred thousand now these are all options
040these are not all things we have to do to rebrand we can pick and choose we can always understand but we also do have to understand cost inflation but these are the current recommended prices at this time for these items but there's other things that we could think of but these are just the key things that we considered at the time but but even then we can again just to be super clear we can tease out some of those things have nothing to do with rebranding right redoing the kitchen we feel like hey we're gonna we're gonna have a brand new high school we need to redo the kitchen but that has nothing to do with branding but there's a price tag that adds to the one point what was it 1.8 million 1.8 right
041so so the kitchen is not really part of rebranding right so you start taking those things out you're really looking anywhere between 850 000 to you know 1.1 million you know somewhere around that that range that would go into quote unquote just rebranding purposes i just think this though and we should really i mean concentrate on the branding because that's that's what the main big thing is about of the name change is the branding you're not the kitchen and not the floor or what have you but it really has to do with writing the name of the school the um um you know this is kind of what we're talking about um on top of of course all the other things but um i think for us to make the right decision we need we
042should have a um right cost or how else we can bid i mean who knows someone may want to give us the deal i mean we don't we we have not looked into that i don't know but um if we have not maybe we could you know i'm sorry you had said that there's grants out there mr ball i did not use the word grant um i just said there's always options that's funny we should i just said maybe we should look around or something that would help us you know yeah i don't know and so um um board member um yolanda pena um if the desire is for me to provide you exact amount or current projected numbers i would at least like to know exactly what we would like to rebrand and then
043i can dive into those so is it just thank you if you give me that i have no problem with getting that information for you but there are some things that that you would have to do to rebrand and there's just no way around it right you cannot change the name of a school and leave your marquee to still say azuza high school right so you'd have to you'd have to rebrand the marquee you'd have to rebrand the football field you'd have to rebrand all of the painting that currently has so we're talking about inside the gymnasium on some some outer places of the campus and then probably so those are you know some big costs and then your other big costs are going to be your extracurricular activities like sports marching band right cheer
044like those kinds of things those would be big costs because we're talking about uniforms for those uh particular things that's that's another another big cost you mean they would get brand new uniforms correct yeah they can have them with the same name and then some again some further ones again that just off the top of here that we know for sure right um and these are now lesser but still nonetheless right anything that includes the logo currently business cards letterhead right you know those kinds of things but again those become lesser but your big ones are the kind of the ones that that that i that i uh spoke about and and those big ones right now without going out and saying can you give me a quote for this or whatever um we are
045projecting somewhere between eight to one million dollars eight hundred thousand to one million dollars for for those things great thank you i see that we have board member career raising his hand me and mew yes so i have actually a couple a couple areas with with uh questions so one we were talking about elementary schools and some of the different models that were presented to us one and then the other one is the high school so in regards to the uh elementary schools looking at the model that that shows schools in different quadrants i think for the most part from my perspective makes the most sense there is however one piece that i want to point out that from my perspective does seem to be somewhat missing uh yeah board member which model did you
046say the quadrants the north the northwest northeast just along the four quadrants uh yeah um is this the correct one this is the this is the northwest northeast southwest southeast and and if i can point out the only difference between this one and proximity which is the third model is the addition of magnolia that's the only difference between this model that we're looking at right now on the screen and the proximity model that board member rodriguez pena spoke about the only difference between these two is is magnolia i'm mistaking that i was looking at the proximity model yes okay so the same one board member rodriguez pena talked about yeah so so this one this one does make sense to me there does seem to be a that that chunk there in the you know
047in the north eastern side that that does seem to be you know kind of kind of glaringly missing a school there and as i um i'd say northeast so in that area yeah and so it makes a lot of sense looking at lee and the conversation with what it has not been modernized i get that that makes that makes sense i are there are there other options to look at within this space one of the things that was brought up uh last time around was foothill middle school being used as uh kind of overflow or somehow in connection with um azusa high school so i'd love to hear someone speak into the viability of foothill middle school being able to receive some of those uh surrounding campuses to to allow for there to be a
048campus in that area in in that space where it does seem leave where where it's located geographically makes sense but due to the the cost i get that uh associated with uh modernization so i'd just love to hear some some conversation on the the viability of foothill middle school as a as a space and then the other i'll i'll i'll stop there i have questions with the high school and junior high models but i'll stop there for them sure i'll i'll begin that that conversation uh so yes board member greer to your point uh even during the school reorganization team process uh there was the consideration that foothill would become like a mega elementary that and that would shut down dalton lee and powell and that all three of those schools would go there so
049dalton would be shut down lee would be shut down and powell would be shut down that was one of the ideas that that was uh that was brought up um as we stated previously we really again this can go either way but we really do like the idea of foothill middle school becoming part of the azusa high school campus for several reasons number one the azusa high school campus unlike the gladstone high school campus does not have a proper theater the theater that exists at azusa high school is not up to code it's not in compliance and it is it is extremely extremely small so if we were to invest in that particular theater even if we were to invest in it the space is very very small and very limited so it wouldn't be
050a proper theater if foothill middle school was the middle school uh i'm sorry it was part of this is a high school foothill middle school has a cafetorium that cafetorium has a stage and has lighting already in it and so maybe we could imagine that that that space uh becoming a proper theater um that cafetorium also has a kitchen and so when we think about like backstage dressing rooms prop area um it just seems like a like a like a nice fit but let's abandon that idea for a quick second again we do like the idea of of having that part of azusa high school for for various reasons that was just one but if it was to become a in elementary school with which it can we also have to consider the investment that
051needs to go into foothill middle school uh to make it uh an elementary school um foothill middle school uh we'd have to invest in kindergarten um so we'd have to make sure and ensure uh that we have uh spaces uh restrooms uh would have to be redone if we are looking at a preschool that would also have to be reimagined we'd have to actually build out restrooms into classrooms the way that we have been able to build out preschools at our elementary schools um i'm not saying with zero investment but with with minimal investment is because we do have classrooms already that already include restrooms in the classrooms um and so there would have to be um some investment again not impossible uh some investment though into foothill um as we consider making it an
052elementary school there would be there would be some some investment uh in in in that respect um i do not know if that investment would equal uh or be less or were surpassed like the investment that would have to go into lee just to to bring lee up um i i don't know up the top ahead but just initially those are some considerations uh for foothill and turning into an elementary another another another one is playground there is currently not a playground at foothill middle school and so you know we'd probably want to invest in a playground to make it equitable to the other uh elementary schools as well natasha i don't know if i'm missing anything just obvious um no those are key the only other item i would identify is that the capacity
053at foothill is so large um and so that would increase our current capacity goal because that capacity for foothill is whereas most of our elementaries our largest is barely a little bit over 700 so it's almost two elementary campuses in one and again the iterations that we have heard was that that the the three schools would go into that one school uh dalton lee and powell or that would service that area if you will um but again i mean right these are conversations um and adding a couple dots so one i that i hear that it would upset our our capacity numbers with foothill but we could say the same thing with our high school numbers if we if that were to be an add-on to azusa high school and if we were to factor
054that into capacity it it would it would send that you know under uh you know a preferred number as well i i imagine um would it be possible to to to get some cost analysis if we were to look at those three schools as options if we were to look at dalton if we were to look at lee and if we were to look at foothill would you be able to provide a cost analysis on what would be needed to make that school any on each of those three schools the school for that quadrant um that that might be helpful as for us to know um as we're considering which which school makes the most the most sense space and as well as uh additional investment that's that's needed okay can i just clarify um
055remember so we already have dalton listed so are we um is the ass that i look into the cost of either modernizing lee or modernizing foothill yeah so here here's what here's what i would be helpful for me uh and please speak to how feasible this is if we were to look at that quadrant and say that it it makes sense for there to be one school within that quadrant that one school could be uh dalton that one's you know campus that one campus could be lee or that one campus could be foothill what if it were to be dalton what needs to go into dalton to to allow it to absorb and what are the costs associated with that if it were lee what are the things that need to go into lead and
056to bring these things up to my and be modernized what are the costs that need to go into to leave and same with foothill i understand that you can't get exact costs but but having even some type of ballparks for these three campuses would be helpful to determine which which makes the most sense within that quadrant remember greer just for uber clarification uh what we would be doing for dalton as we would be saying here's where it is right now in its modernization these are the things that that we were pegged to modernize it and this is the cost this is where lee is at in modernization to bring it up to where we thought we were going to peg it this is the cost but unlike foothill for for dalton and lee these are
057just not just i don't want to use that word these are these are modernization project foothill it's modernization plus re redoing it to actually become an elementary school so that'll be just i mean just for clarification that would be an additional like cost where there is not that cost at lea and dalton correct and so but what i'm what i'm but i'm seeking to have a handle on is what is what is the ballpark out the door for for adult if we have dalton with its current capacity and that's going to be the school for that quadrant are there additional class classrooms that need to be added to that campus or restrooms are are there other things needed within dalton or is dalton turnkey ready to go to to receive um and so what are
058those costs are are there modernization uh projects not yet completed at dalton that are still on the list what are those to the best of our ability ballpark exhaustive costs for dalton those same costs if it were lee those same costs if it were for you once we have those three we can actually look at and look at those numbers and know what the what the real investment to make each of those uh uh campuses or what would what the investment would be needed to make any one of those campuses the identified campus for that particular quadrant got it and what president can ask my second question about high school yes please feel free okay so um in regards to to the high school and to branding i'm i'm with i'll say i'm with everybody
059in that or i'm with those who have spoke who have spoken so far which is in an ideal world and an ideal scenario we would we would have some rebranding to be able to start fresh and to start new um when we asked questions on some of those numbers last time around i'll say that those num the numbers that were shared last when we discussed it at the last meeting that is it's not the idea that turns me off it's the numbers it's it's the the openness to to spend that you know that percentage of bond dollars that we have available on the purposes of rebranding and so yeah knowing knowing exactly what we're looking at what are the what are the minimums and but then what are those those preferred things that we'd want
060to do for the purposes of rebranding when we look at a kitchen expansion that seems like a kitchen expansion is something that may need to happen either way uh but but branding whether we rebrand or not but those that's that's what we're that's what we're looking at and considering so it would be helpful to know and it sounded like uh mr ortega you said 800 to 1 million um and i i it's my assumption that that's for just one campus if we were to if we were to look at doing that at just the high school which that also makes sense if that cuts it in half if the middle school were to remain as let's say gladstone middle school and if the high school were rebranded to some some new uh high school name
061that would also cut those costs in half i imagine and could someone speak to that um the yeah so that that to me is what it comes down to one last question based off the the way that you have the model rolling out this would only technically technically i mean i'm an alumni also so i i understand how it will affect gladstone high school alumni i am one but i'm not not speaking about alumni for here for a moment just looking at this the students that would actually be affected if i'm not mistaken they're mistaken it would only affect the current sophomores at gladstone high school if so so just for for context and understanding that's by my calculations so if someone sees it differently please please let me know um no i think it
062affects two classes the current i believe is the current freshman and the current sophomores um that it would quote unquote effect that would be moving to a different school the current seniors obviously they're graduating now the current juniors they'd be able to graduate it's the it's the current freshmen and sophomores got it that's right so can i ask my colleagues in what is what is your thoughts if we were to continue to explore those costs if we were to look at just rebranding the high school and not rebranding the uh the middle school campus it would it would need to be rebranded because it's middle instead of high school but but we may not need to change the name and may not need to change their mascot at gladstone out of gladstone middle school you
063know one of the things that um that i'm hearing and correct me if i'm wrong is you know we're looking overall i think the understanding that we as a board need to be realistic is that as you know as i hear you uh board member career asking for the cost of you know uh being able to upgrade everything at dalton lee or having a an elementary at foothill middle schools and i hear uh both uh miss latasha jamal and arthur say there's going to be some cost so i think regardless of how we are trying to save in reality up front there are going to be some but we have to look i think as as a board is that um yes uh you shared that you were an alumni but at the same time
064we have the ninth graders and tenth graders that are really concerned that we want to keep in our district and right now we as a board can invest for the future we're looking to close at least five six schools right the savings that will come from that we're making a sacrifice at this point right now and regardless of how you know like you shared you know i think that that's a great idea to look into but help you know even to look into a cape i mean i'm gonna throw this out there k through eight at foothill you know that that could also be a possibility and i threw that out before you know to on the dyes to to consider if we're going to go into elementary there's 13 if foothill can host 1300
065students right i don't know i'm i'm i know that we have spoken about that it will take some of the eighth grade and i'm speaking more um you know those eighth graders that need that nurturing our sdc rsp um we have a visually impaired um give them that smaller school you know that that's about possibility as well but i think bottom line as we move forward with this conversation we need to take in consideration that this is an investment for the future of our of our school and when we look at it that way you know um i mean we spent five million dollars in in our which they look great are our football fields you know we as a board did pass um that and we spent five million dollars close to 5 million
066knowing that we were going to go into the reconfiguration and we made that sacrifice at for that time being and we had great graduations and people that graduated came up to us and said thank you thank you for this football field and this the current alumni that we have right now and they're concerned one of the things that i heard was um that board member rodriguez penguin said um the awkwardness right we're going to lose these students they're not going to want to go if it's not rebranded and why not give the uplift all around in our district that way we could all start from spratt again regardless of you know if we look at this elementary or we're looking at making foothill um the elementary like like you shared um board member career we
067we have to take consideration that we are going to be investing for the future if we look at it that we're going to be you know spending we can't spend this we can't spend that i i'm sure that um there are there are funds and uh that can be allocated to go ahead and move this forward and the things that we need to um do um and the possibilities that may come from this um are going to be very rewarding i believe for our district board member rodriguez pena yes so what i want to add to that is that um i still like the idea that foothill um would be part of this uh um campus when we put the students there because we did talk about overcrowding and i know uh superintendent ortega mentioned
068about the um the little theater was it is a regular theater um and those students if you those three schools ultimately and um paul will stay you know put them there it it's gonna take away from the other schools the whole idea is that we're going to build capacity we're going to have better programs because there'll be more students there but you're taking them away so the next year or two we're going to close more schools because you're taking those students away and putting them in a k2a foothill that's your idea um and then you're taking kids the seventh and eighth graders from the gladstone campus at middle school the armega middle school and maybe they can have great programs and then it's not the same because it's it's ella um gateway is elementary curriculum
069those students are not going to have the same as the students in the mega middle school at the grassland high school camp so i i'm i'm not really um too down on that i i really still like the way we spoke about it before where it was going to be part of this account and that's the beauty of it because it is so they're so close together we can do a lot with those uh board member career dude i i don't know if you put your hand up again or if it was from before i did put my hand back up but i don't think um has gotten us to speak yet so did you have something chilling you wanted to say i i just oh i thought he was talking about me may i
070speak i'm sorry yes board member cruz gonzalez yeah i just want to say i agree with what you want to just said about um it makes sense to use the the foothill as an annex for just a high school so i still want us to focus on keeping that that way um although i so i i think it's fine to investigate the cost i do think it makes sense to see how much it costs to to um to to modernize dalton uh you know i we're looking at this in terms of the quadrants but i think often people think about um that area between foothill and the freeway really as a as a community well i'll say community of interest because we're generating but but that really has a community identity and so i'm wondering
071about so i i would be in favor of investigating what it would you know just understanding what it would what it would mean to keep to keep lee school open um but then the other seminars says i think i agree with i think i heard adrian saying that he didn't he didn't want to rebrand and i just want to say i agree with that's it okay so i'm saying a couple things i i didn't exactly say that i i don't want to rebrand i'll say based off of the information that we received the last time so if we have if there's if we have new information um i that could change but but the here here's uh board president one of the things we talked about is investment but let's but once they i also
072want to be mindful of the fact that we have monies we have some upwards of 40 million dollars 100 of those 40 million dollars that we have allocated is going to be an investment in our in our students in our community in our schools 100 of that 40 million it's the question that we have to ask ourselves is what is the best use of that 40 million dollars of that 40 million investment we we as a board we can choose and we can say it you know we could say it makes sense to spend 5 million dollars on rebranding we we could make that decision or if it's 800 000 to 1 million what whatever those costs are we can we as a board can can uh uh we can vote and allocate those those
073those funds and that in that that direction but i want to be careful not to think about this as a do we invest or do we not invest because it is all an investment um with that being said when we have this conversation of of rebranding i don't i want to be careful to not separate the conversation of reap of should we rebrand with the feasibility of monies that that we have so to just have a kind of a you know some kind of a soapbox kind of conversation or talk on why why we should do it with we need to recognize that if we can but if we spend those moneys on that then it means that we're not spending moneys on something else and so we can choose to do that and i'm
074open to having that conversation so one of the questions that i have is are we open as a board are we open to looking at just rebranding the the high school and not the middle school because that would cut those costs then in half um and i don't and i didn't hear anything so so where we landed last time it did not seem to be a responsible decision just to allocate those monies toward toward rebranding um so so i'm still wanting to to know what those actual cost costs are so the numbers still remain the same the numbers that we presented before um to re brand including everything that we presented for to redo our high school was the 1.8 million but of that our items like um superintendent ortega stated that it would be
075items like modernizing the kitchen that's something we already have to do but if we're looking at this key items the numbers that we provided was for athletic um it was for the gym floor which again we would have to do but you do have to do the overlay it was for the football field um so the question remains is that i can provide another question but the statement i can provide any numbers and projections but it'll be helpful if i can understand exactly what we will want to rebrand and then i can provide those numbers and we could be talking factual number and i think i based on the conversation i think i have a pretty good grasp of the the rebranding piece again the overlay the marquee excuse me the uniforms uh the paint
076those are the big big ones right uh the four big ones there are minor ones that we have to do we cannot not do and um and we can we can parcel that out that we can say this right here is strictly only rebranding but this right here as we are re-imagining the high school which does not equal rebranding right we're looking at the kitchen we're looking at these other pieces that we think hey you know this is going to be our one or one high school we should be investing in these particular things as well can only because i'm not looking at those numbers right now i i know that they were stated can if if we were not looking at looks like the things that we needed to do to reimagine the campus
077those things need to happen anyway if we're already giving direction to to move to one um campus so we will need to reimagine some of those some of those pieces but in regards to the rebranding i mean the things that i feel like i heard so correct me if i'm leaving something off if we say the the field the gymnasium uh marquees painting around the campus different murals around campus and i guess unifor extracurricular uniforms and went up so if we were to look at those things those seem to me to be the athletic equipment those seem to be the things that that would be primary and what would those costs be so that we can we can have a conversation not detached from the actual dollars yeah so here on the on the screen
078um i put in uh what we brought to our september meeting and so this kind of hopefully this will kind of help us so so here when i look at when we look at 1.9 million dollars i'm going to use a different word this 1.9 million dollars is to re-imagine the high school not rebrand the high school reimagine the high school right because this includes modernizing the kitchen and upgrading the locker room those two things have nothing to do with quote unquote uh rebranding also if you see here we can debate it should jim floor be rebranding or not rebranding we think regardless of azusa high school or a different name this is a brand new let's reimagine the high school they need a new gym floor right so then when we think about it
079it really leaves this first line item which is the new branding it leaves the turf overlay that has to be done we cannot have that right and it leaves the the athletic equipment we can parcel this out more uh based on the big four and just some of the the smaller things we can parcel out parcel it out more and bring an updated but but but technically and again we we can argue about the gym floor if we wanted to but we we think regardless of name we we we would like to see the gym floor uh redone uh as well so when we reimagined the high school and that reimagination includes rebranding then we're looking at about 1.9 million dollars so the gym was already going to be done we we would say yes
080one thousand percent and then since and if if the name stays the same then it has an aztec if the name doesn't stay the same then it has something else another um just the thorough curve ball though we just recently did the bleachers so that would be a cost that we're because they're color-coded so if we're looking at the colors then if we want to redo the bleachers and that would be another class but he's added so it's just little things that can grow the number but the key i agree with mr ortega it's just four items but beyond that it can continue to grow as you're looking at every portion of the campus but if we identify the key four things we can write those numbers and get those numbers so um what what
081money from um that we have from the different funding that we get um can any of the lcap money be used not at this time we would have to re-um write the lcap to include that into a goal but it can be doable my professional recommendation will be no but um that's just latasha right because we're investing in our community and that they all got money is to reach out and invest in our community correct but for my um in my professional opinion your lcap is primarily your supplemental concentration dollars and it's the meat to improve the needs of the student and i for me personally i would not say that that's improving the needs of the student so where would the funding come to be able to go ahead and um for example you
082know the consideration of of making it was just you know conversation of having foothill be in elementary having to change all the all of the toilets uh you know doing all that so uh or we rebrand where would from what pocket would this be coming from our bond everything would be coming from our bond is there any of the coveted money that we received that we could use um we would have to be strategic but clover funds could be used for things such as ventilation so um it will be our hvac um so for most of the expenditures that would qualify we have already allocated funds through our esther which would be for our windows our doors our ventilation our heating but cold funds would not be appropriate to rebrand great thank you so where
083where does the um maintenance one come in that's not but we do have that one yes mr landa oh yes thank you we could use fun 14. i'm sorry i didn't hear the question can you please the question was um on the maintenance fund they do have if we can use some of their own money yeah so we currently transfer a million dollars this year we only transfer 600 000 because we use 400 000 to upgrade our vehicles um but yes but we are currently using those funds but every year a million dollars is allocated and so we could say the million dollars for the next year's budget could be set aside for school reorganization okay so so you're saying for this year for the school year 2021 2022 that they have already been used
084no i'm saying we transferred a million dollars in and 400 000 of that has been used but we are currently using fun 14 to modernize some of our campus so we've been painting our campuses we're currently upgrading some of our light fixtures and vice versa and could could those uh 1 million dollars be reallocated yes ma'am at any time okay thank you you're welcome we have a board member beau i see your hand thank you um mr ortega you alluded to some deficiencies at the azusa high school theater you said something about not being up to code not being compliant can you give a little background on that um i really can't give background uh but i could tell you that um you you have background natasha i do not have background update okay i
085guess what do you mean when you say that so the background i have is i went many um theater shows and and they always have to be limited how many people go in there because it's it's very small i don't know maybe twenty five seats it seems really small what what i what i could add to that yes it's very very small but there are things in that theater uh that include electricity lighting lighting um that is not to code and so if if we were to say well that's what we want to be the theater again that's fine but we would have to go in there and make sure that that it is completely up to code uh right now it is it is not up to code and so right now we are
086currently uh not using that room because it is out of compliance and um in in the reimagining of the azusa high school campus um have you thought about either a total renovation and or an expansion of that theater or are you only contemplating using the foothill middle school cafetorium as the theater space that theater um is actually part of a cl a wing of classrooms uh so that yeah so that was never you know meant to to be a theater it was just a classrooms that were converted to that um so in in order to use that space and to say we're gonna invest and make this a theater which again we can but we're talking about a three two three row uh theater very very very very small unless you're gonna swallow up uh
087more more classrooms or of course you can build from the ground up but now obviously that's a that's a big investment obviously we have a large property but that would be a ginormous investment to build from the ground up and so that's why only that's the only reason why i said we already have a a building a large building that already has some kind of fundamental um build outs and so it really would just be renovating that and and converting that uh but but all you know again all of this possibility but that's why that's why the mind went to to the foothill to the foothill campus thank you um i know we're talking a lot about investment and we're talking about costs to upgrade or modernize or change spaces in our overall conversation around
088school and district reorganization and now as we're refining possible models mr ortega and mr mall can you speak to the categories of cost savings that you have identified yeah so some of the costs cost savings some of the the more uh obvious ones um is going to be in personnel and staff that would run across um all of the uh different uh bargaining units and associations uh starting with management and moving to certificated uh and classified uh so that that would be a bulk a bulk saving savings then you have things like your utilities so those would be cost savings as well we have recently [Music] parceled out our utilities uh previous uh in the short short pass those were not parceled out and so we had one giant bill to pay our utilities and
089so it's a little bit harder to decipher uh usage and so we we have been doing that so that becomes your your next uh set of savings and then there's other set of savings that um that can come across the the world of a program uh subscriptions um by site licenses uh things of that nature um there's quite a bit of contracts that we have that we would that we pay by by sight that obviously would would render some savings as well go ahead natasha i'm not sure if there's anything else after tomorrow uh mr octagon and ms jeremiah and mr as well um for the benefits it might be an easy question to say well if we have if we're reorganizing our physical spaces but we're serving the same number of students um what
090does the reduction what's the rationale for reduction in staff can you talk to that i'll let mr rokio pick up some of the pieces so i'll start off with um though for instance um there are some compositions some key positions that every school site has right every well let's start with elementary just right there right so every elementary school has a principle so if we went from nine schools to five schools uh then that means four principles that would be a reduction of four principles right because even though the students are moving to another school right unless we were considering having co principles then then that's a reduction right every school site uh has a head custodian every school site has a secretary uh every school site has these these positions that are our one
091librarian would be another one community liaison would be another one and so those types of positions that are the the the positions that a school has one of um those are the ones that would be would be the ones that that for sure would be a reduction but i think your question more may be around like teachers or aids or new needs or stuff like that so i'll let jorge uh answer uh that piece yes thank you mr ortega and thank you dr bill for the for the question uh the as you start um transitioning to campuses that are um have greater capacity you in effect can become more efficient with your staffing so you start seeing um less of a reduction or more of a reduction in a number of combo classes and you
092start maximizing the number of students that can be in a classroom for uh specific grade bands and that's most true at the at the elementary level and you start moving into the secondary levels uh you start being able to maximize the number of students in uh the different content area classes um so you'll start seeing classes that may be currently sitting at a um at a class size of about 14 15 students to closer to 30 students 35 students uh and in some cases 36 students which is a contractual maximum and i know when we were talking about models and it as elementaries reach a certain student enrollment enrollment threshold and middle schools and high schools as the same there would be an additional either an fte or a 0.5 ft of counselor or assistant
093principal can you just refresh our memory on some of those some of the thinking behind that as school sites serve an increased number of students on any one campus i just want to make sure i understand the question so if the the question is uh we have presented at the uh i don't know when we were looking at different models and the different configurations and i had shown that once we get to certain um enrollment band or capacity we would transition to um like three assistant principals at the at the high schools and i don't i could look up the number that we we identified but it was i think in the neighborhood of 1200 students was when we would transition to a three assistant principal um high school uh and then i could look
094up the other the other um uh positions some of them on the top of my head were definitely an increase in custodial staff as we again start to invest in our facilities in the main and several facilities i think that was an increase i think there was also some some some bands increase on community liaison and so i don't remember everything all the time ahead but yes there were some increases in investment in in staffing to support the site yeah board member rodriguez can you mr o'hare it would be helpful if you can uh put that in the pocket or put it um because i know i do have that and you did give us that information and i don't know where it's at now but yeah just to remind us on on what breakdown
095you did have okay yeah absolutely absolutely this is really self-explanatory when you see the breakdown on that it was it was really good thank you thank you i i will i'll um put this in this next uh this week's uh board update and then board president if i may i have a final question and final comment for this round uh yes board member beau thank you um mr ortega can you uh re remind me um at which campuses do we currently offer preschool programming i know it's longfellow and what are the other elementary campuses i'm an answer in the reverse manner board member beau uh the only two campuses where we do not have preschool are hodge and ellington so all the other elementary schools except hodge and ellington offer preschool that is correct okay
096um so then my final comment this goes back to um the beginning part of the meeting and looking at the the three models here um at this time i i do not support the closure of longfellow i think that um it is it's a unique space where they're doing very specialized work and if anything i think they have room to grow and expand their programs especially to continue pursuing i know ms lee was in the process of pursuing a cd grant to fund an all-day all-year program and i think that would be a major win for the families of our district to be able to bring a program like that there and to be able to do it in a specialized preschool campus i think provides a very safe and comforting option to parents of
097the district thank you um i have a question can and the grants that have been written for um preschool can they be distributed to the other goal um i believe so but there is a process uh that that you have to go through it's not just like we can't just do that unilaterally uh it's a it's in partnership in conjunction with the um with the state uh to make sure that that that that they they grant us that that ability to take a a current state preschool let's say from from dalton and say well we're going to move it to over here again that is possible but it has to be with us in conjunction and partnership with the state department of education okay so as i see that it is 8 30 there's no
098more hands raised no more comments from the board we have a is it one one meeting december 21st right so one of the things that i would like to go ahead and ask since we asked for um more things to uh you know to get some cost and so forth um what does the timeline look like for us we have been um we have been doing pretty good and turning this around relatively quickly uh most of the requests you have gotten the same week and so we're going to continue to really push to be able to do that in this thursday packet and those that we can't then the following great thank you for that as seeing that there's no more comments or questions from the board we're going to continue with your agenda and
099move to the next item in our agenda which is 5.1 can i please get a motion to adjourn this meeting tonight make a motion to adjourn 5.1 i'll go ahead and second and let's go ahead and show by a hand vote or a voice vote we have board member cruz gonzalez yes board member greer i'm sorry i remember did you we didn't hear you yes i heard you then okay we have board member bo yes yes board member and i myself yes it is 5-0 and it is 8 35 this meeting has been adjourned thank you everyone at home for watching and again if you guys have comments or questions make sure that you guys get here at the beginning of our meeting you guys have three minutes to address the board with comments concerns
100or questions that you may have on items on our agenda have a great night and we'll see you guys at our next meeting good night