Azusa Unified School District Board Meeting - October 19, 2021

001and at this time we'll go ahead and start our open session with our flag salute and today we have nancy sharma from dalton hi nancy hello everyone my name is nancy sharma and i'm from henry dalton elementary school today i'll be leading you in the flag salute i love it whenever you're ready 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 nancy for joining us tonight and thank your parents for allowing you to um come on to our board meeting resume and how are you doing tonight are are you ready for the for the halloween holiday coming up yes what are you

002do you know what you're going to be yeah what are you going to be can you share that with us cleopatra nice nice well i look forward to um pictures from henry dalton with the cleopatra on them so good luck and have a great rest of the night and you take care thank your parents good night okay okay thank you i just i i just want to share i absolutely love having our students come and do our flex flute with us so thank you guys for that next we'll go ahead and move on to item 4.2 or roll call we'll go ahead and start with board member career board member cruz gonzalez here board member beau here board member uh rodriguez pena president i'm board member arianis myself i am here we're all present next

003we'll move on to item 4.3 approval of the agenda can i please get a motion to approve 4.3 second we have a first by board member career we have a second by board member rodriguez pena and just everybody joined we can go ahead and cast our vote and we have our board member janet again hannah hamilton hi preferential vote for from our students yes thank you and it passes five zero with the student preferential vote we'll move on to item 5.0 report action of closed session matters at this time we have nothing to report the next item on our agenda 6.1 asusa high volleyball player recognition do we have coach timothy on zoom yes we do coach yep i'm here oh great awesome there you go you have the floor um yes uh we were

004in a tournament um in carpinteria it's a tournament that we do uh every season and i'd like to thank the board for allowing us to keep um you know because we always have to send to you because outside of our distance for allowing us to go to this tournament because it lets us the girls get exposed to teams that we would not regularly see until we see them in cif and so all the teams up from santa barbara in that area and ventura and stuff like that and during our tournament this last october first second and third is when we went up there uh two of our volleyball players got picked for the all-tournament team one of them was hannah hamilton which is your student board member and the other one was alex alexandra acaba

005and they were both picked for all-tournament team so we wanted to recognize them because they were selected by the other coaches that we played against basically what happens is we play all the teams and all the coaches nominate players throughout the day about who they think is best for the all-tournament team from each one of the teams and uh hannah and alex were the two players that were selected by the other coaches so it's a true recognition of their talent and their skill because it was recognized by other coaches that played against them that's awesome to hear and and for you uh coach timothy berzers how long have you been coaching our our volleyball team uh well let's see i've been coaching total in total about 24 years a coaching volleyball between gladstone and azusa

006but i've been at azusa for the last 11 to 12 years uh running the varsity program um so um and then if anybody's free would like to come watch us play we're in the sea we're in cif playoffs this week we're playing thursday away against costa mesa um and at costa mesa high school so it's the first round of cif at uh six o'clock so more than mayor you're out there to support us and support the girls thank you thank you well the board would like to go ahead and um give recognition to both hannah hamilton and alexander caballero and we have hannah here as us our student board members so i will go ahead and read off your certificate at this time the souza unified school district certificate of recognition is proudly presented to

007hannah hamilton for being named to the girls volleyball all-tournament team for the mountain view league october 19 2021 congratulations we give her all about give her and alexandra is alexandra on online uh no she wasn't able to make it tonight okay we do have hannah here hannah would you like to see a few words um [Laughter] i'm really happy with what we did during that tournament especially as a team and being able to be captain on that team is very um i'm very honored to be a part of this team and i'm honored to get that type of certification and a thank you board gabriella do you want to present it to her yes i was going yes i was going to do that right now thank you though um if you can please come

008up to the front i'm gonna go up the front and for alexandra caballero if we can go ahead and send a certificate to the school site for her to go ahead and add up thank you before i move on to the next you know i i have to say um when we recognize students here at our board meetings um there's a special place in my heart because as a stu as a former student of this district um i i remember when you know being in this board room as a little girl or as as a young adult um coming in and and sharing this experience with other board members and so it's something that doesn't ever leave your heart and so by being able to do this kind of i hope that you understand that

009you know you and alexandra you shined that day and you're being recognized for all that you gave that day and you represented a souza and we're very proud of you for that so be proud with for representing your community asusa anybody else would like anything we'll go ahead and now move on to item number 7.1 public comment on agenda or non-agenda items from the public lika do we have anyone up there there right yes to start we have jennifer right i want to remind our um are individuals that are here and zoomed that there's three minutes given to to you to address the board of education and for you to go ahead and make your comments we have miss jennifer miss jennifer yes hello yes we can hear you thank you so much uh good

010evening board members mr ortegan cabinet my name is jennifer varone and i'm a teacher at dalton i was very proud of ms sharma for doing such a great job tonight i've been a teacher for azusa for 32 years tonight i come before you to discuss the testing mandates uh put on azusa staff some of us chose to get the vaccine and others did not i would like to speak on behalf of my co-workers who have chosen not to get the vaccine at times they're afraid to speak so tonight i will be their voice for them according to the cdc vaccine vaccinated people can get coronavirus and pass it on to others why are we only mandating testing for people without the vaccine this clearly constitutes segregation and discrimination and is in direct violation of title

011vii civil rights act in addition the test that is being mandated upon azusa unified staff is under eua which means emergency use authorization it means that it also comes with the right of informed consent california health and safety code 24 170 71 and 72 all state that there needs to be a choice when something is experimental such as this test we already have a shortage of substitute teachers at our sites we certainly don't want a shortage of teachers who have to either quit because of this mandate or are put on unpaid leave i kindly request that the board members look into the details of this mandate as well as the unpaid leave that is to start 10 25 monday we trust that you will protect the rights of all employees whether they're vaccinated or unvaccinated

012thank you for your comments miss jennifer next we have gabriela rodriguez hi can you hear me yes we can hear you you can go ahead and start okay thank you good good evening uh dear board members mr ortega and cabinet my name is gabriela rodriguez this is my fourth year with the cesa unified school district and i'd like to inform and discuss regarding this uh mandate and uh religious discrimination okay uh title seven of the u.s civil rights act prohibits religious discrimination religious creed includes my dress and my growing practices including what i put on my head or face and what i do with my body as part of my religious expression california civil code 43 states that i have the right to be free from harm participating in this or any medical experiment goes

013against my sincerely held religious belief it harms my soul my religious rights and my right to privacy are protected by the u.s constitution and the constitution of the state further participating in a medical experiment such as cova testing or vaccines is also a violation of my religious beliefs masks cova tests and cova vaccines have an emergency authorization by the fda not an approval therefore these are experimental treatments and i have the right to refuse consent without being discriminated against such as being required to stay home no emergency pandemic health orders executive orders policies rules regulations guidelines directives or measures suspend constitutional rights the law is on our side thank you for your comments we'll move on to melissa wils wilson perkins okay there we go unmuted good evening board superintendent and cabinet i'm a parent

014of two elementary students in ausd i'm calling tonight to urge you to look towards the future when considering reorganizing our school district i have a kindergartner who's just beginning his journey in azusa unified school district and high school legacy or prior honoring prior taxpayer-funded projects while important do not compare with the programs and opportunities i hope will be available to him on his path through his ausd education the reorganization committee presented model 4 not only to save money by closing some of our middle and elementary school campuses but also because the 7th and 8th graders are needed to fill in our dwindling high school cohorts we are losing or are in danger of losing high school electives clubs and sports every year this is the catch-22 of model four we don't want our middle school

015and high school students to mix uh however for the district to run two comprehensive high schools and keep our programs the 7th and 8th graders are needed to fill our small high school cohorts i was a parent member on the reorganization committee and i recognize how difficult and complex this issue is the version of model 3 presented to the board needs improving please improve upon it however it does have the best consolidation of our student body and our district's resources i agree with the majority of our teachers who took the reorganization survey and selecting model 3 as my preferred choice i fully recognize miss wilson perkins we cannot hear you can you hear us melissa miss melissa wilson perkins okay can you hear us i think the wi-fi is um you're you're on mute right

016now can you unmute yourself sorry um are you talking to me yes we we lost you for um oh no um sorry i think then i would go over time um we actually stopped the time for you you you were talking about you agree with the majority of the teachers i think that's about where you were that was at the very bottom thank you i agree with the majority of the teachers who took the reorganization survey and selecting model 3 as my preferred choice i fully recognize there are sacrifices bundled up with each of these models and i urge you to prioritize the district's present and our future students thank you for listening and your dedication to our school district thank you miss melissa wilson perkins for for your comments next we actually have someone

017here um in our in our audience and it is our beloved burke hamilton yes please take take the microphone at the podium i think you forgot my point of order aren't they we'll go ahead and go we'll go oh okay burke hamilton thank you it's always nice to come to a meeting when everybody can be upbeat especially the superintendent for many years i was one of his cohorts in another district and we always worried about the dodgers and we were worried tonight until the eighth inning and we got through okay the thing that i'm excited about is uh this will be the last year of 52 years since there will not be hamilton that has a grandfather or a father or a worker of the zoos unified school district here i would like to thank

018aziz unified school district for 52 years of supporting me my family and my grand grandchildren also and helping them through the field of education i think they've had excellent opportunities they have excellent chances to go to university they have excellent chances to excel in sports and be a part of a community and so i appreciate aziz unified for that particular thing i'm grateful i'm just going to tell you a few things i'm grateful for today i'm not going to hammer you uh i'm grateful for the fact that i can drive by gladstone high school and azusa high school and see a football spiel there they are beautiful they make me proud to be a part of azuza to know that we care as adults what happens to our children and the grandchildren and all of

019the people the kids students that have the opportunity of attending school here i'm grateful for the opportunity of the high school students to come and be a part of this school board and it's a great opportunity for me to have my granddaughter do that elanina and i yolanda and a few people were excited to have that happen i'd also like to recognize uh that we still have a school at slauson that might need to be moved away or taken down someday that will probably come on your agenda again and hopefully it will happen um i'm i'm um grateful tonight to be here with some friends that i've had for many years adrian acosta is someone that helped my daughter become a band member and was exceedingly uh great and his dad is a great great

020person and a great supporter of azus unified school district i was in a restaurant the other day and he said he was going to be recognized and didn't he of course he didn't say he's going to be recognized because he never brings the recognition out but that he was going to be a super principal here and i'm glad for that hannah rojas who is a principal uh here in the district and a great young lady and a great teacher and educator and lover of children to help and support them um a two-time teacher of the year for azusa kathy hendricks who gives nothing but 130 of everything that she has to make sure that kids are successful and happy and learning and being doing the right the right things your school board member that president

021that grew up uh in murray school number not everybody grows up in murray school that grew up at gladstone street school and had a great experience in elementary school and high school and throughout her college career i'm grateful for a mother who loves not only her children but every other child that ever comes to murray school in yolanda and the things that she does and represents them for the other members of the school board that dedicate a great deal of time to read think and apply the principles that come on my granddaughter says well i don't know what they do but they sure take a long time and i said well that's that's kind of what happens at a school board at a school board meeting when they're when they're there uh i hope that

022the closure of schools is something that we've known and as usual is going to have to happen i'm very sad to see that we don't just have hundreds of kids coming and wanting to be uh in these schools they're great schools led by great teachers led by great administrators like great pacified people and and this is the best place that a student can be they live here in azusa or in the san gabriel valley because they'll never receive the amount of love they would get uh any place and i'm just very excited and happy to be here today and i wanted to talk and of course i didn't talk about anything except things that are important to me and i appreciate the work that you're doing and that you're involved in here thank you so

023much for your comments mr hamilton um i want to apologize to mr nate amaya and go back to miss janae amaya on zoom renee uh are you on zoom are you oh there you are okay you can go ahead and take the floor can you guys hear me yes ma'am i'm trying to have my camera on but i don't think it lets me so i'll go ahead and just just speak but um good evening everyone my name is dania maya and i serve as a district representative for the office of assemblywoman blanca rubio tonight i would like to use this opportunity to introduce myself to our community and share information regarding our 2021-2022 young legislators program assemblyman blanca rubio represents the 48th assembly district in the california state legislature she is actively supporting legislation that

024empowers our youth and provides important services to help our students thrive especially during these unprecedented times the young legislators program seeks to provide high school students with the opportunity to become acquainted with the legislative process and integrate themselves within our local communities through service students will attend monthly meetings in person from january to june of next year participate in local events and learn about issues impacting the state of california this program is available at no cost for sophomores juniors and seniors attending high schools or living within the 48th assembly districts applications are now open and the deadline to apply is thursday november 4th by 5 pm for more information please visit our website at a48.asm.c.org and if you have any questions feel free to contact me at danae.amaya that is d-e-n-a-e-e dot a-m-a-y-a at asm.ca.gov

025or you can please feel free to call me at 626-960-4457 i really appreciate this opportunity and look forward to hearing from many of our community members thank you thank you we'll go ahead and move on to our last speaker for today we have meg savella can you hear me yes ma'am loud and clear oh okay thank you um good evening board members cabinet audience first i want to say that it's one of the greatest joys of my life to have served under brooke hamilton as my principal at murray school and so for hamilton thank you thank you for your leadership your mentorship and just being an absolutely amazing boss um i just wanted to clarify a statistic that mrs wilkins wilson perkins gave earlier and that is that the majori she said that the majority

026of teachers preferred um model three and actually um the majority of all staff in azusa the statistic was presented preferred model 3. however teachers in an independent survey which had more teachers participating in our survey versus that of the district um preferred model four and their choice in preferring model four wasn't necessarily the um advocacy of a seven through twelve it was the advocacy of two high schools and so i want to clarify that too um furthermore what i would like to say is that the most important thing ford is that you're taking all of the data now all of the different pieces whether it's statistics the committee recommendation and parent meetings the comments here and making the decision of what's best for our children our community our staff every stakeholder and that all of

027the teachers are going to stand behind your decision whether we like it or not um and move us forward and support what decision is made because that is what's best for everyone and so i i pray for you in this decision that you're making because it's hard and i pray that you have wisdom in making this decision and that god fills you and this is me meg speaking not meg union that god fills you um with that wisdom to do you know what is best and right for everyone so thank you for the opportunity to speak and i wish you all the best of luck thank you lika do we have anybody else raising our hand on zoom we have no other hands raised at this time thank you moving on to 9.1 we have

028commons report by president 8.1 i'm sorry 8.1 thank you yeah we're moving on to 8.1 we have comments reports and requests by the board of education we'll go ahead and start with board member crews gonzalez thank you i'll be brief um just want to say welcome to bert hamilton i asked i asked um the student board member hannah oh when is your grandfather coming in town and she's like he's right over there so great to see great to see you here um thanks for visiting us again um um you're sorely missed but as you can see we have some really great board members here that filled your spot you've built your shoes though um i really appreciate the direction we've been going in the district um and then just one other thing i want to

029mention i just want to praise the district um the signs that we're putting out are so clear and easy to read you can drive by you can drive by and see if there's kindergarten enrollment or adult ed and those signs you just you can just glance and see it and you have to like to try to read it so really appreciate the whoever redesigned those and appreciate that they're up around the thing next we'll go ahead and go with board member grier no comments tonight next we'll go ahead and go with board member beau good evening i'm happy to report on our continued partnership with children's hospital los angeles um in partnership with chphla the district is hosting a blood drive on tuesday november 2nd from 9 00 a.m to 3 p.m at our former

030adult school site located on barranca avenue and i also want to recognize our student board members and encourage you if you haven't already done so to sign up for the student board member governance training provided by the california school boards association it'll be held virtually from three to six pm next wednesday october 27th and the district office staff can help you sign up for that thank you next we'll go ahead and move on to board member rodriguez pena yes good evening everyone first of all i want to congratulate hannah hamilton and alexandra gabriello for their hoodie ausd on the map for your ball your volleyball skills that is one of my favorite sports so congratulations um i just want to uh report that um i wasn't on a zoom on a google or this is

031a high school regarding tobacco and vaping in new uh in youth to educate families on dangers of vaping smoking chemicals found in tobacco different flavors gadgets that they different they come in so um and what you look for in signs of your child is vaping because that's kind of like the new thing well i don't know i don't know if it's new but i i know that more children are doing it and they need to know you know what the dangers are and the parents also so the presentation was shown i feel that the presentation should be shown in the middle schools and all the high schools um i want to thank the ncadd representatives erica gonzalez and and i'm sure maybe we can get the information from um dr gomez you know how how

032they got them to make that presentation because it's a really good presentation um i i also went to glaston high school lunchtime during club rush where zoos are rotary students gladstone high school advisor darla elliott and we had a table signing up students to join the interact club we signed up over 15 students and they have great clubs at glaston high school they have 19 they had 19 different tables with different clubs that i'm i was not embarrassed to say but i was not even aware that they had these clubs and a lot of energy in the air and all these kids we just had them come to our table and they started signing up so we're happy to have to to have them um and i want to thank the students in the interact

033club especially elizabeth and emily reese they're from azusa high school and they're almost coming out they're always there to help us they came this saturday to help us uh beautify the community by uh filling 15 free wells with mulch before they had then they had a class at nine o'clock uh apu so these these young ladies are very dedicated today i went to central middle school and to mr aidan's class in the science class they launched the rocket and the students did a fantastic job they had four rockets going up they launched over 100 feet 100 to 150 feet lucky they went straight up and came down right because last week they were going to have it but they counted because of the wind they were afraid was going to go over to a neighbor's

034house and we don't want to get in trouble but they did it today and it worked out well and um and i want to welcome my murray family i can't believe it all these people i mean i like work what's perfect on your cat my sister kathy diana rojas i'm like fantastic but i will leave my comments on the uh and the stores when it's time thank you very much and thank you burke i missed you he's my mentor thank you i i want to start off by by sharing that um i know that we're a few of us are are sharing um and saying uh mr burke hamilton's name and just wanted to share that when i came from mexico and didn't speak a word of english and i remember going to the playground

035and asking for a ball and mr burke hamilton was there and i didn't know how to say ball and he's like and so i remember he would always check the balls he was one of the teachers that would check the balls out for the students and um so i wow i think i was like five and um i watched i have watched him in this community just inspire others as he has inspired me um not only in uh my education in my family in every aspect of my life and so you truly are a hero to a lot of people here in isuzu and your family is just you know your legacy as i heard you today say that this is the last hamilton grandchild you know it it it saddens me because um you

036you should tell your kids to have more kids i know but not too soon um and you know what one of the things that um that even arturo how you turned to him and you said um alton park right so when you left the souza first for a little bit just for a little bit and you went to baldwin park and we quickly snagged you back and um you came back as uh as a school board member and i i've watched you and when when you left i was pretty sad but actually get to see you um all the time from time to time um when we're doing walks around the neighborhood and so it's really nice to see you in our community and um to run into you thank you so much for that

037i do want to share that with everyone that um he is well respected in our community moving on to something that um i would like to address and that has been on my mind you know the question was i want to address something and the question was why i was not at some past meetings and i would like to go ahead and address that and i would like to go ahead and clear the air it is unsettling to hear that a discussion occurred when i was not present at the last regular school board meeting about my two absences in two different months and they were not consecutively for the record over the previous three years i've only been absent three times so i don't understand why i was so sensitive that this issue could not

038be addressed in my presence when it comes to absences we need to find the reason for the individual absence before punishing or asking to take away pay from them and discuss with the board member before this issue is requested to be taken to legal counsel for the record my absences were communicated with the appropriate people and were excusable instances i did not know that my absences had become a problem to some in this room if there was some concern about me a phone call would have been just and to ask how i was doing i want to address and end the negative jabs the attacks on my image passive aggressiveness and bullying here on the diet we should be logical and responsible adults to work collaboratively as board members and should model appropriate behavior we

039have decisions and issues far more critical in our district at this time that need to be addressed board members cruise and solace and beau i was thick in september 2021 in october 2021 i was in the training before my new job i had to attend this mandatory mandatory job training on that day that i was unable to get out of my previous job was lost due to the interference of a board member on this diet and as a result my kids have suffered the replica of her actions i would like at this time to tell her that i forgive her for hurting my family and me as of today i release all negativity that came from that infant i offer peace and respect and i ask for the same in return so at this time

040i would like all of us to take our personal opinions about each other and do our job before i was on the board i saw how some of the previous board members would fight become passive aggressive and go after each other and it would carry into the diocese i'm asking that this needs to stop with us also in the past i remember board members being excused for months when they were ill when their children were sick having a baby or for work matters when board members have compassion and understanding and build collaborative relationships or agree to disagree they can concentrate on the things that need the energy and time to move this district forward we have at this time i would like our board including myself to check ourselves and set a positive example of

041our for all of our employees students and community thank you we'll go ahead and move on to 9.1 we have comments and reports by superintendent cabinet and student board members we'll go ahead and start with our student board members and do we have crystal flamie flamino on on zoom uh yes i'm here can you hear me okay we can hear crystal are you can you hear us yes i can hear you great you can go ahead and start um good morning good evening board members um gladstone high school is very proud of yaziri ochoa who spoke at our rooftop evening fundraiser for the western justice center on october 15 2021 she represented our school and peer mediation program with pride way to go yet siri on october 16th the gladiator alliance marching band placed first

042in music and second and overall scores in their division of the roland field tournament their next event will occur on october 30th at the wilson high school in hlpusd the gladstone guidance office will be hosting in-person fafsa nights on october 20th in english and october 21st in spanish at 5pm all seniors are welcome to get the help they need to complete the fafsa on october 25th 2021 cal baptist university azuza pacific laverne and grand canyon university will be doing on-the-spot admissions at the gladstone high school library for eligible seniors this is a guarantee offered of admission over hundreds over 120 gladiators have the opportunity to apply on monday go glads on october 28 2021 asb is hosting a blood drive from 8 30 a.m to 1 30 p.m in our gym students 15 and 16

043year old need a permission slip students teachers and staff are all eligible to donate crystal are you done uh yes next we have annette camacho yes hello um good evening board members cabinet and superintendent superintendent ortega last week our senior class gathered together at 6am for senior sunrise with hot chocolate and pastries thursdays from 9-10 l.a county department of mental health is offering parent workshops in the sierra high school multi-purpose room the topics for this week and the next are family violence and drug and alcohol prevention on wednesday our spartan football team will be hosting a game at 9 00 a.m against arrow high school the red cross blood drive will take place in our multi-purpose room on thursday october 28th also on the 28th we're hosting our second chick-fil-a fundraiser please stop by and

044be sure to say you are there to support sierra high school thank you thank you crystal and next we'll have our student board member ms anna hamilton good evening board our lady aztec volleyball team is headed to the cif playoff they play this thursday at costa mesa good luck ladies you got it this thursday is our great shakeout drill we are hoping for good weather and the opportunity to learn the importance of participating in this thrill our think together program has recently implemented a gamers club photography club and culinary club our aztecs are super excited about these new opportunities congratulations to our cross country's boys team for winning their past race and for the girls team for placing second congratulations to our football team for beating our rivals gladstone this past week it was a

045great game and we're super proud of our players finally last week we had an amazing outdoor homecoming dance with over 300 students congratulations to our homecoming king and queen alex pena and janeli artiega thank you good evening i'd like to report that last saturday we held a covid vaccination clinic at gladstone high school and uh we had um staff and students and community members participate in getting vaccinations probably the the most exciting part of that morning was that we had 18 gladstone high school medical academy students volunteered to participate in helping out with the clinic they got there early they set up and they participated in some quick on-the-spot training so they were able to welcome patients they were able to check in patients register patients um mercy pharmacy who is our facilitates the um

046the clinic they they trained the students in monitoring for symptoms after the vaccinations um it was it was just truly amazing um they also as i was just observing the students they were also providing translation for the patients as well um i just i just can't say enough about the students and how proud we are of them and on that program and a shout out to their teacher jenny aguirre as well thank you good evening board of education staff and community i want to update the board of education in the community that i have been visiting uh school sites uh to visit classrooms and provide school sites with on-site hr support i also want to discuss our current substitute feature shortage by way of background this time last year we had approximately 145 active substitute

047teachers several weeks ago we reviewed our substitute teachers roster to determine how many are active and as at the end of last week we have 70 substitute teachers uh actively working in our district obviously we lost a very large number of substitutes from last year um some substitutes decided not to return um at all for for this school year and others have taken uh teaching positions here within our district and and outside uh we are in the process of hiring additional substitutes uh we added uh three substitutes this week and we're waiting on several uh substitute teachers to hear back from the commission on future credentialing so we look forward to be adding more substitutes to our rosters in the weeks and months ahead thank you good evening board members and fellow cabin um cabinet

048members um the business department has been currently continuing our efforts of improving our outside facilities for our campuses under the direction of brian allen the mot team has been working focusing on our basketball court so we have been working on either upgrading or painting our the backboard as well as providing net under the direction of shannon norris director of physical services we have been doing road shows where we have been going to the sites and working with the site administrator educating them on how to do budget transfers how to read their budget and how to properly extend their budget additionally we are getting prepared for the great fake out that will be taking place on october 21st all the schools and faculty members all the school students and faculty members will produce participate in this

049district-wide and then lastly we are we have taken a road show where our french french top team where we took them to a neighboring district so we can see how they operate their french job so we can be more efficient and more thank you good evening board staff and community a couple of things i was able to attend our seal training for administrators about a week ago and i am just very appreciative of this particular training for our administrators who will be the ones supporting the implementation at their sites i think that is a a great move uh and i appreciate that um i also want to thank our on track collaborative team that is working on addressing and improving our dnf rates it is it is very inspiring uh and motivating uh to be

050able to sit in during these meetings uh and to listen uh the uh how authentic and collaborative uh this team is is working uh on ideas and specific strategies and specific moves uh to address this and just wanted to show my appreciation for that lastly i want to take the time to formally introduce our community to our new assistant principal at center at foothill middle schools mrs donna martin and our new principal at ellington school mr adrian acosta both of these candidates started uh their their journey by being in front of students and parents to be asked questions during an interview process and kudos to the to the parents and students who did an excellent job of that uh after that round uh and surviving that uh they moved on to our round uh here

051at the district office that includes our labor partners and administrators and then finally getting to to cabinet all along although i didn't sit in on every single one of them i sat on number one and the first one and the last one all along uh both uh miss martin and um mr acosta um really showed um their their integrity uh their skill set their passion their desire and their breath and love for this community of azusa and uh we're we're very very very proud so at this point in time i would like to invite mrs donna martin to the podium to say a couple of words good evening board president arianes members of the school board superintendent ortega distinguished cabinet members and those in attendance on site and online first i would like to take

052a brief moment to acknowledge my friend long-time murray mountaineer colleague and most recently my running mate adrian acosta who is now the new principal of ellington k-8 school tonight i stand before azusa with much honor and excitement in the opportunity to be the new assistant principal at both center middle school and foothill middle school i am ready to serve our azusa community in this new capacity this 20-year journey in azusa was no small feat for my family who gave up their wife and mother to support my educational journey and our azusa students so i would like to take this time to say a big thank you to first and foremost my loving husband my best friend and cheerleader my two beautiful daughters ayanna and naila for their ongoing and continuous support in our family's educational

053journey thank you to my previous educational leaders and administrators dr dana mitchell dr cyto valdez dr alexis norman victoria valdez velazquez and especially miss marshmallow fontika i have watched and observed all of you from behind the scenes taking notes of the jewels of leadership and wisdom and crafting it as my own it has and will continue to be a pleasure working with and learning from you thank you kathy hendricks and anna fresquez chung my biggest azusa cheerleaders confident support system and mentors thank you so much to my magnolia family for six years it was hard to say goodbye but i know i will not stop being a magnolia mustang at heart meg zavala the aea president my azusa colleagues friends students family community and my multiple campus homes you always supported me cheered for me

054and encouraged me thank you for your well wishes i will make you proud now to my new middle school family cougar center cougars and educational leader anthony contreras foothill trojans and educational leader stanfordomo this begins a new chapter in all of our lives and as we work through the upcoming successes and challenges together as a team thank you for welcoming me in with open arms so i stand here and i promise that i will work hard to serve our students the faculty and our middle school community with pride humility and honor last but not least to the selection committee who saw something in me and was willing to give me the chance to allow me to evolve into this next once again thank you all for this wonderful opportunity to reserve a unified school district

055thank you so much miss martin at this point i'd like to call mr cosa up to the podium to say a couple of words thank you i don't know how i follow that dr martin but i'll try it for president arianes honorable members of the school board superintendent ortega distinguished cabinet members those presently in attendance here and online a good evening i humbly stand before you as the new principal of ellington k-8 this would not be possible without the help of many people so with that let me begin i would like to begin by thanking and congratulating my friend former murray colleague and new assistant principal of central middle school in foothill middle school dr donna martin to be in the company of such excellence it's truly my honor i would like to thank my

056murray administrators whom i served as under teacher roberta monahan corey james dr seita valdez and the man responsible for opening the door that has brought me where i am today mr burke hamilton and i have found long term my longtime boss murray principal norma camacho who taught me one day at a time one situation at a time my mentor and colleague mr ken stout who believed in me even when i didn't know how to fill out a lesson plan yes i've come a long way to my bit some interest chris medina on paula road for all of your insight your creativity and your expertise and your support to murray the former magnolia school teacher and present resource teacher at lee elementary miss stacey reed whose classroom environment became my own inspiration to make savalan aea

057for teaching me the importance of contract and for allowing me to serve you as a representative i would like to serve i'd like to thank my co-administrators dr tyto valdez and dr anthony contreras stanford doma for the opportunity to serve alongside you as your assistant principal know that you will truly be mad my friend and colleague yvette walker for being there through the good times the bad times and for your mentorship and to john black and blickenstaff what don't i thank you for you've been a longtime friend i call you my bff i would like to thank the center and foothill community for giving me the opportunity to serve you you will forever remain in my heart to that special person for teaching me that not everything is black and white it will be gray

058and yesterday as a reminder that i wore my first boot which was the color gray my friend and former colleague gianna gaithan yes you're coming with me to my ellington predecessors paula road auntie molina dr alexis norman and dr daley rustina thank you for the contribution for making ellington great place that it is my colleague and friend christina sanchez intern principal of ellington k-8 although it pains me to say goodbye to you i feel honored and blessed to call you my friend my friends and colleagues carol fieri ariyama both made the difference and lee elementary principal diana rojas who always believed in me as a teacher as an assistant principal and who always warned me with quote be careful what you wish for when i once told her if i had the opportunity to be

059a principal at any school it would be ellington and finally to my ellington eagle today's a great day every day from here on out will be a great day each day we will celebrate successes we will face challenges head on and we will collaborate to make ellington the great school that it is i can't promise you that i won't make a mistake because i will but i promise you that i will correct them and i will own them i can't promise you that i will fall but i do promise you that i will get up brush myself off and continue moving forward but this i do promise every single morning i will do everything in my power to serve and be the champion for the ellington student staff and the community i will love you

060from the moment i wake up for the moment i go to bed and this will take place each and every day with that said i'm ready ellington that forth i pass that i may follow i serve you each and every day i'd like to say a few words um i just like to congratulate um mr adrian acosta the new principal ellington k28 and miss donna martin new vice principal a center uh middle school and foothill middle school you know i'm so proud of you both um getting emotional but because um i've seen you when you're babies you're growing up you're going to school you're my grand children's teachers you know i've seen you run around with the kids and then i i started following donna everywhere because why are you following me around but she

061did her time she was at every school i don't know probably to the whole district before right and summer school even he was administrator for summer school so i would see her but one thing i do know that one of their i say one of the great mentors from the beginning was mr hamilton they were all born from him he was a principal of murray school i known work over 20 years and most of these people out here in the audience so i'm very proud and i'm very emotional because i think that you know you can do it you know kathy hendrick my sister there you know you guys can do it i'm proud of you they couldn't take a better pair at all congratulations to both um on your new journey with uh you're

062still with us but on a new journey and i i just got to say that what you guys just both said how you guys are just so dedicated i could feel it in your voice um i see it in your passion and the way that you guys deliver um just in everything that you guys do in every capacity that you've been here uh every every capacit every job that you've had in capacity that you just out out do it all the time and so i can't wait to see how you guys will flourish in your new your new role congratulations to both on with our agenda item 10.1 school reorganization thank you uh board president uh this uh this is a part of our um a process uh that we outlined uh where this where

063this is an an info only uh item uh for the board to discuss school reorganization and so i turn it over to to you great thank you as we are moving to 10.1 the school reorganization there there was um there's some things that the board asked um at the last regular school board meeting and previous meetings uh before that we have um everything in front of us you guys all have packets in front of in front of you guys and as we're going through through all of this um would anybody does anybody have any questions that they would like to bring forth any comments yes board member career yeah i'll just i'll say i i'm eager to examine some of the different models um and kind of taking a look at the different models in

064person um but to better see and and therefore envision what things can look like here in azusa um uh i i do want to just say communicate i'm still that that's what you understand that i'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the spread of uh of a 7 12. so and and as and as i continue to have conversations with with parents and other other you know members in the community i'm finding i'm finding that same thing through the case so i am i'm actively working to understand and better grasp that so any any additional contact i know we're gonna we're gonna look at some of these models but any additional context or information that anyone uh might have staff or otherwise would be helpful great thank you anybody else on the board

065you have a board member please gonzalez remember beau remember well i i just wanted to add also yes i i am interested in looking at what the stamina model looks like um because that was my first um choice but now that i know what the model was presented to us not what i expected so i would like to see it in another site see what the setting looks like and and um because i'm pretty much three or four or i mean i i have my own model in mind also but i will present that on the 26th because i know that you know they they gave us a three and four we don't have to go with three and four it's a recommendation we can either add or delete or make your own model i

066you know that's what we're here for so i i will bring that on on the 26th thank you would you do you have anything to add or the same board member mr thudo ortega right there is no discussion at this time and no additional comment we'll go ahead and move on to agenda item 11.1 approval and consent of calendar can i please get a motion to approve 11.1 board president board president yes um i'd like to pull item 11.5 for advocation of contract for legal counsel from the consent calendar um we'll go ahead and uh okay which one did you say uh poll 11.5 ratification of contract for legal counsel 11.5 moving forward with 11.1 with the exception of 11.5 now please get emotion i'm sorry we'll go ahead and again try it again 11.1

067approval of consent calendar calendar without 11.5 and now please get in motion to move this i make a motion to approve 11.1 through 11.12 with the exception of 11.5 okay we have a first by board member rodriguez pena we have a second by board member rear if we can go ahead and please cast your vote and it passes 5-0 we'll go ahead and move to 12.1 the ratification approval of agreement between us is a unified school district ausd and begin friedman and fulfills llp can i please get a motion to [Music] wordpress and i have a motion um in the interest of maintaining transparency with the community and ensuring fiscal responsibility i make the motion to postpone the contract for legal services and to direct the superintendent to obtain quotes from at least four legal

068firms for a fixed fee contract for one two and three year terms for consideration at a future board meeting at this time um what what you are motioning is actually that was not on our agenda what you're asking is for us to to have an uh open open contract is that what you're asking i'm unclear to what your question is could you please repeat with what you just said so my motion is in the interest of making transparency with the community and ensuring fiscal responsibility i make the motion to postpone the contract for legal services and to direct the superintendent to obtain quotes from at least four legal firms for a fixed fee contract for one two and three year terms for consideration at a future board meeting can i introduce it is are you

069asking to table this item and then look for yes postpone that they caught the table approval of this contract as presented postpone it to a future meeting and direct the superintendent to obtain four quotes for fixed fee contracts for one two and three year term so that it can come back a little legal services contract and come back to the board at a later date right but what the first thing you wanted to be tabled you want to table with the item right this item yeah yeah okay and do you want just so i could be clear as well and you want for uh two years three years with ffb when that what that would look like are you asking for other firms i'm asking for four quotes so from four firms different firms four

070different firms or firm a to give us a quote for one two and three year contracts for a fixed fee and for firms b c and d to do the same and i'm presuming that began frostman would be one of those firms as they are our current legal counsel i i think that this this this right here this is not the um go ahead i i hear her making a motion so that's the motion on the floor i believe it's a matter of whether we have a second or not um there's a lot of discussion with others without us and a motion to postpone is not debatable for that is correct as we have a second we go ahead and speak about this and since i am present i'll go ahead and wait if you

071have some comment yeah so i'll say we um it would be helpful to hear from from staff like your your the perspective of you know the appropriate frequency of of switching out our legal council and what what that is like i know that we just went through a pretty robust process and selected um f3 was that when was was that last year it was less less clear when we did that so we just went through a very robust and sat in on interviews with multiple uh it was more than just a bid for for costs and services but evaluating what they had to offer and and and those off the congruence of those offerings with our with our district and it was a full-on process of weighted and skilled and first choices through fourth you

072know choices and and landed with f3 um and so i would i'm not i'm not sure that that i agree that it'd be wise to every year go through i think that it was a good process that we went through and i think that that it would make sense periodically to go through that process but because we just went through that process not that long ago i i would challenge if if there if enough time has gone by to warrant um going through that process again and just to clarify that we did look at three or four firms maybe even five were impacted quite a bit of them there was quite a bit and then we just narrowed it down so we did do a deep research on picking f3 just recently second it so

073arthur um this this is in terms of process why is this contract coming first now the contract was sent via email uh during the summer uh and it got it got buried and so that's why it's only coming right now so when did our previous contract fire june 30th so we've been operating with our attorney's firm since june 30th and no one has been aware of it that is correct from our side or from the attorneys from who's giving us legal accounts right i would like to go ahead and challenge that motion and return it back to 11.5 the ratification approval of agreement between the souza unified school district and and parade and culmore can i get it first board president i would like the opportunity to also participate in this session will you allow

074that i thought you were done i'm just waiting for my colleagues to speak and also to be recognized um the reason that i would like to send legal counsel the contract for legal counsel back to the back to the drawing board um or at least for a couple of reasons i do know that the the district and staff and the cabinet went through a rigorous process of selection in october 2020 and i appreciate that process um however it is it's concerning to me that it's gone free month with without contract renewal um and so that that gives me a little bit of a red flag in terms of who's washing the ball and if our legal team is supposed to be looking out for the district i really want them to look out for us

075um this is not personal but this is protecting the district and our students and our teachers and our best interests um secondly um i believe that exploring the possibility of having a fixed fee contract though in essence what that would look like would be a fixed term not an open-ended contract as as presented here but for a one two or three year term fixed fee meaning leakout dollar amount number one covers everything every phone call every consultation except litigation and that's that's a fairly common practice with with you know a variety of school districts so it's not as if we would be the only school district that adopts that practice um in the context of school organization and best allocation of resources and dollars spent i think since we're already three months into working without

076a contract i think we should go back to the drawing board look at how we're managing expenses and if we are going to continue our relationship if it ends up being f3 fantastic right and and we can build that relationship but i'd like us to take a deeper look and more critical eye through these lenses and that's why i made my motion thank you since everyone has been has spoken i will go ahead and i may add i think we're going to go ahead and move forward and one of the things that um i think we're just going around and one last thing i'm going to go ahead and allow but i think we're spending too much time on this go ahead so just i mean just just a point of clarification so it would

077be very um it would be the first time we ever had a contract with an attorney that didn't have an end date right every other chinese contract that we've ever adopted had a term whether it was one two i think normally there were three year terms that we adopted um so that would be very that's very i have not seen that in any any um contract with our attorneys that we've adopted um um there's no clear is there a clear the the piece about what we what we start what we're charged hourly rate that's also i think every other contract that i've ever seen with an attorney had a fixed rate attorney rate right where that they were laid out it wasn't you know then it was it didn't say that they were it could

078be changes with 30 days notice based on their rates i believe our previous contracts if you look at them had fixed rates for different types of services um so i think um i think there there's some there are some gaps in here i i you know i would personally i would i'm not sure that i'm comfortable going through a whole we it was a long process to find our new attorneys right so i'm not sure that i'm necessarily saying that we need to find bring another like do a whole process rfp across our rfp process again but i feel like there are a lot of gap in this contract seeing the way it's been um so i don't know if you go back to the drawing board with the attorneys um you know we have

079to we have to spend a lot of time having trust in them right instead of have to have a contract that's not really that's not complete it feels a little con i can make i'm so sorry i didn't know your perspective i started questioning your hand i'm done i'm done yes if i can make it on my first i want to take responsibility this was emailed to me while i was on vacation so it wasn't on f3 so they did send it over so i will take responsibility for that um second this is the exact same contract that was provided in the rfe they're honoring the same rates um the reason not having an end date gives us the opportunity to roll the contract over but they also have on section 9 a 10-day call

080so we can terminate at any time and my last plea is that we can't pay any of the current bills until we have a signed contract so right now we owe for the services that they have provided and we cannot authorize any payment until we have a contract in place so i would like to ask if we can approve the contract with understand if we still want to go out research analyze or revise but currently they've been operating under information that was on the rfp that was previously submitted and approved thank you thank you for that clarification um so one of the things that um that i i would like to go ahead and do is go ahead and motion to approve so it's a point of order but there's a motion on the floor

081we have to first vote on that motion and then you can do another one depending on what happens with it with the current motion on the floor if i'm going to go ahead and challenge that we still have to vote so i'm pulling i'm challenging that motion so a vote so a vote to postpone is not debatable so we actually weren't supposed to have it we're supposed to just vote on it right away so we need to vote on that you can't you cannot yeah you can't do any substitute motion with the vote to postpone our table you have to vote on let's go ahead and vote postpone i would just do a voice vote in case it doesn't you know you don't know let's go ahead and vote online let's cast our votes so

082can you clarify what are we voting for the first time the first time is the motion that uh board member beau put on the table which is postpone and direct four different different law firms that is for motion and it does not pass and we have two boats yes three boats no so now you're able to entertain a new merch we'll go ahead and motion i will motion to approve a 12.1 ratification approval of agreement between isuzu unified school district ausd and again and friedman and full frost llp can i please get a second i'll make a motion on um thank you any discussion yeah so is is there where is there some gray here so so again i'm i'm i vote i voted no because i don't i don't i don't i know that

083i don't want to the idea of going back to the rfq process is is something that again i i wouldn't want to do so soon but clearly there are still aspects of the contract that can be re-examined would there be space to maybe latasha can you can you speak to this so if there was approval tonight knowing that there's a there's a 10-day clause within uh you know section nine what what would that do if we were to approve this tonight what what room is there to make adjustments on the contract in the coming coming board meeting so we can approve the contract as is and then we can open the discussion with the current um legal firm of any modifications that we will like and then terminate this agreement within a 10-day notice or

084we can also explore other firms but we just have to give f3 a 10-day note there's another option as well um and again i mean just throwing things out um this contract could be amended and then an amended contract could come forward as well correct i mean that's again just throwing out all the different possibilities that's a possibility as well so if we amended this contract to this is an open-ended contract if we amended this contract to terminate at a subsequent board meeting where we would bring this back and have this and have this discussion and conversation that would allow us to that would that would ensure that the district is covered under a contract with our legal firm it would allow the district to pay out what is needed to be paid out and

085it would allow us to explore uh addition you know potential changes to our current contract correct but i would encourage us not to terminate until we have our decision of what we want to do so meaning if we're going to negotiate and explore the options to ensure that we have legal counsel until we come to those agreements of the terms of the new amended contract we adhere to the rates here and then we bring forth for the board the new admitted agreed upon a contract if that's the direction of the board and then at that time this contract will be terminated but otherwise from what i'm hearing lsa misunderstood we'll have a gap of time where if we terminate we will not have legal representation or contract to call on legal representation in area 9

086when it says required by law upon 10 days written notice there's a law that says it has to be 10 days so that's just our decision within the contract their decision within the contract these are their terms that they have an rfe so some companies will say within a 30-day notice or 60-day notice they're only requiring a 10-day notice what what i feel comfortable is renewing this contract yes there is there is a gap and thank you so much latasha for for you know um but the integrity and sharing you know with us that it there there was a mix that they're there and you're willing to fix it and you take full responsibility for it thank you for that um i think we're so quickly to to judge um and i think we need

087to take a step back uh for us this this for us to go look for other other legal counsel took a long time and a lot of work and unless you go through it and go through eight different interviews and having to to to to go through it it took a lot and so i think we've already been through that so what i would like to to for us to see is to go ahead and renew the contract and to approach our um [Music] rf llp our legal counsel and you know what um and talk about those things i think that we are developing a relationship and it's a good relationship so since we've already gone through the legwork we've already gone through what we've needed to um i would like to go ahead and

088continue with this contract and like arthur said we can make changes and that's what i would like to see happen can we have timelines on on that if we were to but what specifics do you need from us and what kind of timeline could we have to make uh potential adjustments to this contract if i could receive clear direction of the expectation you'd like me to deliver back to the board and when you will like that then i will go backwards from there what i've heard tonight uh no open-ended so an end date uh typically that would be june 30th i've heard exploring a fixed fee concept [Music] and i've heard no malleable rates like the rates are the rates of the rate those are the three things that i have heard um that we

089can explore if there are others then we can we can definitely add i'm in support of um exploring an amended contract to include a specific end date so i would like to see june 30th 2022 um i would also like to see what a two and a three year contract would look like under a fixed fee so the meaning on retainer covers all the consultations all the phone calls all the workshops except for litigation of course and then having no variability in the rates no variable rate yes ma'am since there has been a first and a second and a discussion we'll go ahead and do a hand vote we'll go ahead and start with board member cruz gonzalez i will say board member career yes board member beau yes board member rodriguez pena yes and

090myself yes and it passes four one point of order it passes four with one abstention not four sorry yes four with one um abstaining moving on our agenda we'll go ahead and go we'll move on to 13.1 approval of change of bank for associated student body asb account for slauson middle school now please get a first move 13.1 second that we have a first by board member career we have a second by board member rodriguez pena then we can go ahead and please cast your vote i'm sorry i didn't ask um any discussions nope and i i'm sorry before we cast our vote student preferential vote yes thank you and it passes 5-0 moving on to item 13.2 approval of the elementary and second school emergency relief free expenditure plan now please get a motion

091to move 13.2 and take a motion to approve 13.2 can i get a second second any discussion seeing that there's none are we gonna have a presentation before we make motions and vote on things i know it's already on the floor okay because it just says action on here it didn't state so we will go ahead and go straight into the presentation at this time thank you for president board members tonight we will be presenting to you the sr3 expenditure plan this was done in collaboration between ed services and business services so here it identifies the 21.9 million dollars that we are slated to receive in sr3 funding uh 20 of the funding will be used for achieving learning loss and the remaining 80 would be used to help with the heating ventilation as well

092as um doors windows and shea structure you can see that we have until september 30th 2024 to expend all the funds but we have to have board action to approve the expenditure plan as we discussed in our previous board meeting these are the allowable uses for s43 funding and in the application process there are three sections of the plan that we're required to complete we have to identify the strategies for continuous and safe in-person learning as well as addressing loss of instructional time which is the allocation and then there's a category where we can use other funds for other sections like the district office that's not student based our school site related any questions so far and i'm sorry we're going to start off with the strategies for continuous safe in-person learning so to address

093this section we are allocating 16.1 million dollars of our sm3 funding so here we're going to start off with our heating and ventilation first i would like to start by saying you see the structure here where it has six seven schools which reflect seven elementary schools and two secondary schools and one sierra high school all of our models based on our spending plan is based on the models that's under the school reorganization based on the current two models all have seven elementary schools and both models have two secondary schools whether it's a middle school or the 7 12 model and additionally we're adding sierra high school as well so the cdc center of disease control recommends a layer approach for helping um come back over 19. and so with this the first layer is improving

094the heating and ventilation system which is the hvac so we're proposing that based on the school reorganization decision we would upgrade and improve and revamp all of our hvac systems at the remaining schools that remain open and then if we do a phased out approach what we would do is we will take the hvac systems that are currently working and the schools that will be getting the new systems and repurpose those and the schools that remain open until we do the phase out if that's the direction of the board any questions here yes ma'am mr mull um mr ortega um back in february i introduced you to uh an energy firm that would have the expertise to provide technical assistance on the ab-841 ventilation and energy program um and i think the response from our

095side was that we were going to have our grant writing team apply for those funds um do we have an update i think it was a may 1st deadline do we have an update did we receive those funds to help mr bryant hvac um has an answer can you please walk okay here we go all right so we just applied this now called instead of baby a41 it's called i'll shape all right um so we have just applied for 1.5 million dollars [Music] monday so we're waiting on approval for that if we do get a word of that of 1.5 million at 5.7 that's thank you for that and and the ab-841 are you are you saying that we did not apply for that or this was we didn't can we have our speaker introduce

096himself because i i don't know who he is oh i'm sorry i'm sorry yeah my name is brian allen i'm the mo i'm so sorry that's okay it's totally everything you know it's the suit it's the singer yes yes and actually when he was introduced to us he was on zoom so yeah i know i apologize it's because he's dressed up too yeah no it's not it's the night it's in my pajamas usually but you know tonight every night so um i do have a question specifically about so like so with the most recently modernized schools when when were those hvac systems installed so the latest uh modernization where hvac business probably please 2015. so we're proposing to replace hvac systems that were installed six years ago no so what what latasha was just saying

097is but we'll take those tools that were modernized in 2015 take those newer units and put them at the schools that will remain open um whatever the board decides to keep open we'll transfer those we'll take them off the train transform to pools that will remain open and so that way we just backfill whatever's left over so we won't need to invest in seven elementary schools hvac no we will we will but but it'll be it won't be all brand new units there so it'll be some of them will be um repurposed from the schools that are closed that make sense right so but then so are those cost estimate this estimates then because why would they why would the cost be the same across all the school sites if we're re repurposing some units

098okay so for here all the schools that based on the school reorganization they will have new units so that way we can have a uniformity we can make sure our team is trained on them we can make sure they're most energy efficient and vice versa but those units that have been recently purchased um under their modernization or that are not at the end of life that we can repurpose we will take those to the sites that are not going to remain open but are having functioning issues which we currently have been having day to day so for example no i'm not going to give us i just admit it's less so what i'm hearing is just as we phase out these schools they're the ones that are going to have um these refurbished data yes

099ma'am okay i understand so what are the let's let's take school three mm-hmm there's 400 400 000 what what is happening with those dollars that will change all of the hvac systems at school 3. so every school all the elementary schools on average to replace the entire system fence and all um to get a more energy efficient system to make sure we're all uh uniform across the board is 400 000 for elementary and for a high school middle school the average cost is 750 000 and that is including whether we need to purchase new systems or and or relocate systems from another site yes this is not the cost to relocate we will be relocating um let's say a school one if there were one of the schools that had a unit that was installed

1002015 we will take that out so that school one will have a uniform system that is new and current and then the one from 2015 will be repurposed to a school that will remain open but that will be phased out over time so we are we are removing systems that were just updated yes yes sir in that case but not to destroy them but yes relocating so basically you're you're taking i know it's confusing but you're taking the older the five-year-old six-year-old unit from those schools that remain open you're taking those older units to a school that's going to still stay open but you're going to or that's going to close per se and then you're going to take that tool that you just removed it from and put all new units i mean yeah

101what is the life cycle of these units 15 to 20 years depending on their maintenance and preventatively so then my so then my other question probably for you with russia is so as we approve this plan is this like a set in stoneman plan are we able to amend this plan moving forward just depending on the evaluation of what happened yes ma'am we can always amend all right so i just want to say i mean i i understand the necessity of approving this plan tonight but i would i have serious reservations about going through a process of moving recently installed hvac unit to a different school site um and then put i think it just i i don't know how we would do that if they still have at least 10 years on the on

102their life cycles right at least 10 years so so i would just have concerns fiscal like just fiscal responsibility of doing that um so i just i i would appreciate having a conversation before any of this actually happens around what the action and we know which schools it is around what the actual plan will be so that we we before before anything if we actually do anything yeah and and with the plan and because when we say that this includes the what it would take to purchase new units for each tool but you you said it would be on us to relocate but i think we mean that's the staff time is what we're saying so we would we would when we go out for an rfp we would have a contract for whoever be

103installing the new units we'd include that in rfp to say hey we need a crane to move you know unit a from this school that would be included in the bid yeah it'd be helpful to know whether what is that additional cost in order to relocate specifically yeah and can i just get clarification so that will come back after we determine what schools because it could be that none of these schools have the modernized unit on there right okay and then i just i also want to say i i do think this is a very smart investment right because this i mean generally we have to use school bond modernization dollars to be able to do this upgrade work that we know needs to happen and so by doing this we're going to be able

104to leverage the current bond money to do other things that we want to see like performing arts center you know some something very nice for our students so i do appreciate the approach i just i concerned about i was concerned about shifting things and still usability i think completely understand thank you can i proceed yeah i i just want to say i understood what you guys are saying and i appreciate that you guys want to start or you know as we reconfigure and close down and go through that process the schools that will remain open i see i see the vision and i see that we want to start with with brand new fresh hvac and so that report that my colleagues i also agree that it would be great for that communication to come

105through but i i see it and thank you for that thank you and so going on moving forward um the second layer approach that cdc recommends is improving um natural airflow which means opening windows and doors and currently a majority of our campuses this is not an option uh most of um some of our campuses were actually built with windows that were never intended to open and then some were painted over time so this would allow us to install new windows which will also give us a nice curb appeal that would look like the image that we have here where the windows can actually be open and we will upgrade our doors again using the same model um this will be reflective of the school um the conclusion of the school reorganization process and can

106i ask you a question regarding the windows though so as you know and seen many schools that have windows they have they put on construction paper or you know cover them up so are the and i know i i hear a student like the sun coming in and the kids are there are these windows are going to be tinted or clear or yes they collect the glass yeah they will we have the option of tinted and we have another option um there is a new technology that we noticed when we went to the french shop um store or spent it on the outside and it could be the school logo that that's what you see when you're driving by but when the students look out they can see the beautiful trees and everything else so

107we have options with this okay i was going to add to that um so these are the double panes with argon gas in the middle so you get a thermal barrier there so that keep your heat back in the so there's the energy saving yeah thank you great yeah any other questions on windows and doors all right and then our third approach is to have outdoor spacing um for our campuses again going with the same model seven elementary two secondary and sierra high school um our first desire was to incorporate state structures those are the beautiful cells that you will see but that requires dsa approval um which requires architecture fees whereas our approach is when we're speaking to some of our site administrator just having the ability for our students to sit outside have

108lunch or have outside learning spaces these are the uh the models that we are proposing at this time it can be color-coded um the schools will have the option to put more on their campuses um you will also notice that the secondary amount has a lesser amount than the elementaries and that's because our secondary schools currently have already been purchasing outdoor seating so we didn't want to reinvent the wheel we wanted to invest in our elementary schools primarily but also give our secondary schools some funding allocation as well any questions here and of course these also come we'll stay for the secondary they're bigger than the elementary yes ma'am yes you know yes ma'am i mean this thing right yes and also um something they have that texture so they don't write graffiti on the

109seating and yes ma'am right yes or easier to take off yeah yeah and also you know they carve into them you want to think about these things that the good kids do yeah i was a kid once i know yeah and we've been noticing that the ones that have the i'm going to say like the bar approach they really can't carve in it's the ones that are flat first so we're going to do the bar approach to prevent that yes okay do we have a sense of the life cycle or life expectancy of these things because as i'm looking at some of these umbrellas and what the just preparing upkeep is so i know that if we went with with the tsa and architectural approval that imagine more of a long-term solution can we speak

110to the differences there yes i could take that one you want there's about a 10-year lifespan on those umbrellas material bsa you get involved when you start messing with structural firelight safety and ada access that's what psja covers so for those um structures there you wouldn't need the estate so that's why we would go down that road so those material what's that are they material the yeah they're materials you can get them also in hard top yeah but you just wouldn't have to do dsa approval because they're not structural member and so it would streamline that process if there's a with a 10-year life cycle does that mean it comes with a warranty so it should be yeah usually there's a year warranty on most materials um but the labor there's no labor involved in

111those and if i could just add so you are correct dsa is normally on approval means more sturdy more durability but with that um if you submit for dsa approval for any of your sites in order to do even just a sale you would have to bring them up to post let's just say for example a site did not have a ramp that was no longer that was not previously required but just to put up the sale you would have to make your site dsa compliant for all measures even if you didn't want to touch the a-wing but they're saying oh but you know this a-wing it was built in 1946 and so now we need you to bring it up the code you will be required to do that just to put the stella

112yeah it's called grandfathering so what what is the anticipated use of these space does this allow our students to eat outside as as well as have our teachers have the opportunity to have outdoor learning hub so i appreciate that second comment because that was my question around um how did we explore our ideas of outdoor learning spaces i mean i don't think that i would consider ben this type of this type of i guess benches tables like creating an outdoor learning space so have we thought about you know how do we can we create outdoor learning spaces that are that are not usable learning spaces i'm directing that to dana can i can i add a comment after before you see um kind of like what you're saying i i hear what you're saying but

113do you mean like during lunch or just open spaces where um students can go and do their homework yes oh no no i'm talking about so during during covert there are quite a few districts across the state in the country where they've created spaces outside where they can take a class and do a class either a lesson or something either hands-on or even just actually just teach outdoors and it was sort of a way to mitigate it again and being you know being in a closed space but that's what i'm talking about now i heard i i heard that also but i do i also heard pros and cons which is um weather i mean you know depending on the weather of course you you reach outside or do a class but then you know

114it's raining then where do they go or if it's too hot where they go right so there's there's frozen concept but we could probably just discuss it because i know i think pasadena does that i think i'm not i know i'm just picking in the valley but anyways i think it'd be a great discussion though on on outdoor learning yeah um yeah i would echo that i know that our library um received significant grant funding for an outdoor learning space so we could kind of look to see what those plans are and maybe adapt it to a district site i would like to speak actually on this outdoor seating um after visiting both of the high schools um and i saw that they only have four and i saw the students kind of standing around

115and you know they they actually um uh firsthand bases i know that the students at the high schools run to go get these spaces these and to go get the shade and go get the umbrella and so i this is needed in in our even in elementary the kids are you know they have those benches from when um i i mean from like 35 years ago and so they don't have spaces where they can congregate underneath the shade and so i i truly believe that this is a great asset to add to our our schools and i appreciate um because i know students have been asking for more benches and shade um to explore um you know outdoor uh learning spaces it's a great idea as well um i i think you know let's do

116both we most definitely could do that i think we're always interested in um innovative spaces uh we live in southern california and so um helping teachers and providing different ways to take the learning to the outdoor spaces is a is a tremendous idea when we do our project-based learning he did a lot of that over the summer and tested out lots of things and so it was really fun to see students taking their learning outside when they were creating art and all different kinds of things so yeah we're we we want to explore more of that um to see how we can you know utilize on different spaces so we look forward to that okay any other questions all right hearing done so next we go to the category of addressing learning um loss of

117instructional time this is the 20 allocation for here that allocates 4.4 million dollars so here's how we plan to address that so we will have reached um research-based skill model designated to provide high quality education for our english learners um starting in the preschool through elementary school we'll also have still instructional coaches to support the still instructional implementation in addition to supporting teachers with instructional planning and implementation the still coaches would also be supporting the grade level plcs with supporting how to use the data to inform instruction and provide differential differentiated and support throughout our instructional group ausd will also assign its sr3 and the elodp plans to provide targeted support for struggling learners through high dose high dosage duration implementation student achievement data social emotional learning as well as professional learning community will be

118implemented any questions here i do have a question just about the specific i do and i do want to say i do appreciate the way that we're really thinking about these like really a few buckets and going deep with them so it's not like we have like a million so i appreciate that but just i mean that's a pretty broad thing just saying we're gonna do steel right so what what exactly are we going to be spending that money on so this money in particular is for the seal coaches so each of the steel sites would have a steel coach and the coaches would be dedicated to supporting the teachers with their instructional implementation they'd also be working with the grade levels um again on the professional learning community as they're looking at that data

119to determine um what instructional practices we need to implement looking at data for instructional groupings it's very important as we are you know accelerating learning uh whether it's in any of our instructional programs or the seal model that we are really intentionally using the professional learning community as an avenue to um accelerate learning so are we is it going to be um is it going to be coaches across all our elementaries are just the pilot schools we're gonna start with the three pilot seal schools um then eventually as we expand seal we would be providing that to each one of the schools but that will come out of this funding well this funding in particular i believe we have 2.7 million allotted for uh the the three seal coaches over the lifetime of this you

120know particular funding and then we have uh 1.7 million that we are dedicated to a high dosage tutoring plan i'd like to start that um in the elementaries and then be able to expand that as well so that that this bucket of money right now is just for those three schools for those coaches for this um this grant and then where when would we have a conversation about sustainability once these funds run out yeah um so we would look at the lcap for that um so you know we've got we know that we will have some um you know uh some some funds that will be able to i i believe be you know move out of the lcap right with different things coming from the state and so this would be a priority where

121we'd be able to move that into there okay and then the okay so i have a question about the tutoring and we have questions about anybody else but still so with the tutoring how do how are we implementing that tutoring yeah so um i've been talking to different school districts who have been implementing this glendale unified is one of those districts they've been doing it for about a year or so there's different models this model in particular that we're exploring is to do during the day in classroom tutoring right so um based on um the different diagnostic or assessment data that we have we identify students who could use some extra support and so um the tutors would be assigned specifically with you know certain students um they would be working with them um with

122academics during their school day but also they would be really working on mentoring and building relationships with the students as well so that's what we're looking to do and what um yeah so who what type of person are we going to be hiring well we're we're going to um look at hiring college students so we have had a really great i think example with uh apu for example they've been doing azusa calculates with their federal work study program for quite some time we've had an opportunity to see that work where students are going in you know into classes in our integrated wine classrooms and providing you know additional support i think it's a pretty strong model um when you have college students um you know who are again working with our kids mentoring our students

123um that has worked well for us we've got another great example at powell elementary um federal work study students again who um you know are providing extra tutoring and support to our students so it will be similar to like our avid um right it's it is similar right so avid is a is is the way that we hire individuals to come and implement avid is that the way that we're going to go ahead and implement that that's what we're going to yeah right that's the goal i just want us to encourage us to maybe reevaluate that i think the research you know when you look at research around high doses tutoring and the the quality of the of the tutor and their background experience is a big driver of success right and they actually even

124say i mean i think what i've read is it's not good to just use college students because they come and go and they don't have the maybe they may not have the background so i just want us to think about how do we get really get high people in front of them whether it's aids have been trained and understand the work or defecated employees people who have a deep knowledge of understanding and how to teach and how to tutor and not just think we're going to be able to rely on college kids because from my understanding that's not the best way to implement high dose tutoring but i mean that's just that's just from my understanding i just want to put that on the table okay so now we're on am i able to proceed

125and i just wanted to go ahead and add um what one of the things that um when you guys go out and like you were saying apu and and uh just collagen and whatnot um um one of the things that i that i working in the high school and seeing the individuals that were hired um i did see a lot of these individuals that were hired were in education um and so they they were in credential classes and so um i'm just hoping to see that we continue to um explore those options um to make sure that they are you know um that we continue to go ahead and hire those individuals that have knowledge and tutoring um which they we did in the past for that okay so moving on to the use of

126any um remaining funds so we have 1.4 million dollars and we are proposing to follow the same free model from cdc but upgrade our district office so that would upgrade the district office hvac system and we would upgrade the windows throughout the district office where most majority are all paid to set we were also at state structure and seating for our faculty and staff utilized outside in the area and that would account for the 1.4 million dollars that we would allocate of the remaining funds to address the district office all right so here we also um receive community engagement i'm sorry we receive community engagement from our students parents and guardians as well as the youth um survey um so during the 2021-21-22 school year um there have been numerous um stakeholder engagement opportunities to

127gather and streamline feedback in form and development of the elo elogp grant as well as the um lcap plan um the feedback that was received was used to develop the s3 expenditure plan as well as receive community engagement for targeting following stakeholder groups such as our students parents guardians school and district administrators teachers support staff as well as elac and dlac and the partners and guardians of our students with disability with that i'll ask that we have any questions things that seem that there's none and we have already motioned a first and a second and we had presentation and we had a discussion we'll go ahead and move on to casting of the vote let's go ahead and cast our vote on electronically and i'm sorry let me go ahead and go to the student

128preferential vote yes you and it passes 5-0 we'll go ahead and move to the approval of the purchase of 10 maintenance and grounds of vehicles i make a motion to approve second we have a first by board member cruz gonzalez we have a second by board member rodriguez pena any discussion yes support president i have a question um ms jamal can you tell us a little bit more about the budgeting process because i know that this item is to purchase 10 vehicles but it also the proposal on the rationale is to take four hundred thousand dollars out instead of contributing one million dollars to our annual deferred maintenance instead contribute six hundred thousand and reserve the remaining four hundred 400 000 to make this purchase um can you tell me about the budgeting process then

129for transportation and around how we budgeted for transportation this year because i guess i was expecting maybe that this purchase would be in the transportation current year budget rather than taking it taking the funds from deferred maintenance or or reserving funds from deferred maintenance okay so currently the um for the budget development process there was no allocation to replace our replenished vehicles um so this was our opportunity to um explore um one we realized during this school year where more vehicles than usual broke down so now we have most of our um crazed men driving two to a car versus where they all had their cars before and this was the opportunity by doing the piggyback from the cmas that we were able to afford this without decreasing our ending fund balance and so instead

130of we're proposing instead of transferring the full million dollars to deferred maintenance and that we only transfer 600 000 and so that will take the deferred maintenance account i believe we have over three million dollars in the account right now and so we'll just be transferring another six hundred thousand you're saying when we're developing this year's budget maybe february march we didn't identify upgrading or replacing the fleet at all they're what it seems that these vehicles have they're really on their last legs but they weren't showing that six months ago no they were but at the time we did not have the budget allocation for them and so right now we're working on a process under the direction of brian allen where we're identifying all of our fleets and getting a replenish cycle and then

131going forward our adopted budget will reflect that in the maintenance operation budget of how many uh vehicles we want to replace every year and what is going to be that replenishing process thank you you're welcome any more comments for questions seeing that there's none since there was a first and a second let's go ahead and cast our vote but before we do that i will actually ask the student preferential vote where i guess line yes thank you and it passes five zero the next item on our agenda is 14.1 and it's the approval of resolution number 21-2207 red ribbon week can i please get a motion to move 14.1 to make a motion to approve 14.1 okay we have a first by board member rodriguez tanya we have a second by board member greer and

132we could go ahead and ask i just have a question so what is red ribbon we gonna look like um at the schools at this time we're usually outside of the crowd and the police officers so the theme this year is drug free looks like me we provide uh the sites with all kinds of different um opportunities for activities and um the sites you know choose the activities that they want to do um one of the things that we do in september is um we partner up with our um local health organization who provides us with contests their essay poster and video contest for the students so we usually have a pretty good showing with that great thank you now please get the student preferential vote yes thank you go ahead and ask our vote

133and it passes 5-0 we we're moving on to 15.1 but actually we did we have some unfinished business in closed session so we will not adjourn yet um our board will be moving into closed session to finish a matter that we need to attend to we thank all of you guys for being here in person congratulations again to you both um and we thank you guys that are watching at home for tuning in and thank you to all my board for this great meeting at this time we'll go ahead and move to our closed session you