AUSD Board - September 29, 2020

001uh thank you okay okay looks like everybody's here so it is 6 p.m so i'm going to go ahead and call the special meeting board meeting of 9 29 2020 open to order and at this point we'll do flag salute 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 and at this point we'll do roll call uh board member rodriguez pena president board member greer here board member cruz gonzalez here lord member ariana's present okay and at this point um you need the approval of the agenda do i have a motion question to approve the agenda second okay motion by gabriella i mean ariana's board member and seconded by board member greer and

002well you should vote on that screen join me okay jerry i think this is the only item we're voting on right right exactly let's just do a hand vote i agree all right everybody uh board member rodriguez pena board member grier yeah there's gonzales board member ariana's all right there we go all right so now um we go to item 4.0 items from the floor public comment on agenda or non-agenda items 4.1 this is the opportunity for the public to address the board on not on agenda or non-agenda items no action can be taken on non-agenda items individual speakers may be allowed up to three minutes to address the board on any agenda or non-agenda item prior to addressing the board please fill out the request to speak public well raise your hand because actually

003go around zoom and zoom we raise our hand and we'll call on you so do we have anybody in the public who would like to speak i see none so at this point we'll move on to item 5.0 5.1 rfq rfp for legal services okay thank you board president at this time we would like to have the firms present to correct their display name to identify their firm's name [Music] and i think we are having one firm having a challenge getting in at this time but i will start with the introduction if that's okay oh thank you so good evening board and members of cabinet and the community the district issued an rfp rfq for legal counsel back in august the results yielded 11 submissions the subcommittee reviewed all 11 firms and ranked them according

004to the agreed upon rubric the the subcommittee based on the scores invited four firms to participate participate in tonight's board meeting the subcommittee drafted four questions in which each firm will have the opportunity to provide a response each firm would have five minutes per question with the exception of the first as we would like to allow time for an introduction as previously shared members of the board or cabinet shall not engage in discussion nor ask any questions to the firms all follow-up questions should be submitted to myself by friday october 2nd and at a future closed session meeting will have an opportunity to review the responses and engage in discussion each firm will be asked the same question and they were selected in alpha order lika can i confirm that we have all four firms

005present uh they have not changed their names so maybe at this point if you are here from one of the legal firms if you can click the raise your hand icon i will give you speaking permission okay now it's now we're working hi this is douglas yeoman from parker and covert thank you douglas cynthia yant from parker and covert thank you cynthia and at this time we don't have to do a roll call we just want to confirm that we have all four firms yeah so far i have everybody who has raised their hand is now given permission to speak do one last call if you're here from a legal firm please raise your hand so i can give you permission to speak [Music] darren command from lozano smith along with my colleagues so we

006have a representative from f3 this is jessica ehrlich from fagin friedman and full frost along with colleagues okay and do we have a representative from aalr [Music] hello this is sharon ormond i'm not sure if my colleagues are also on the line but i am here from atkinson anderson all right thank you so i will display the questions um i will read it can you hang on for just a second i see a uh stephen uh montenegro um i am clicking the allow to talk button but it's advising me that the version of zoom he is using does not allow this um so i don't know if there's a different device he can sign in on or if there's somebody else from the firm who can speak on his behalf maybe i'll invite steve to

007come down to my office okay okay just one second and just to clarify for um context we are expecting to have one speaker at a time um so that way we don't have feedback or cut off but you guys are allowed to determine who would you like to speak at that time when is your firm's opportunity and we ask that if you are not speaking that you please keep your mic muted [Music] i will allow for 10 more seconds [Music] that's what i all am if you all could please mute to hear the instructions thank you so i will display the questions each firm will have the opportunity to answer each question i will call your firm's name when it's your turn to respond after i call your name your time will start when your

008five minutes is up you will be muted and we will go on to the next firm [Music] hey this is douglas from parker and covert should we be doing our introduction at this point no you should not okay i'm sorry okay [Music] okay is my screen visible yes thank you okay so we will ask each firm to provide an introduction we're asking you to identify your firm's name current school districts that you are currently working with and please identify the capacity and area identify notable cases that are related to k-12 education and the first question as schools come back to in-person instruction what issues do you foresee coming up in the area of a special education and how would you support the district and navigating them first firm aalr your time starts now all right

009good afternoon this is joshua morris and um we were expecting steve anderson to be on the call is he i'm wondering he may be having some trouble getting getting in he is on the um i can see him and talking is permitted however he has not unmuted his microphone ah okay [Music] can you hear me yes we can your time has begun okay uh karen gilliard is she with us this evening yes i am on the line this is karen gilliard um as you know the name of our firm is atkinson anderson loya rude and romo uh we represent several school districts in the san gabriel valley i presently represent amongst those districts bonita san marino and duarte um in the area of special education i have also represented azusa unified school district for several

010years in the area of special education student discipline office of civil rights complaints compliance complaints and [Music] office of administrative hearing special education division due process matters with respect to notable cases related to k-12 we have been able to obtain good results in cases regarding attorney's fees and with respect to stay put and with respect to um preventing a student from avoiding the receipt of his or her regular education regular education diploma which has maybe some of you know can result in the exit of that student from special education with respect to the question that schools come back to in-person instruction what issues do we foresee coming up in the area of special education and how would we support the district and navigating them our office and me in particular have been supporting your district

011since the school closure in mid-march with respect to issues related to assessment timelines iep timelines uh provision of special education services to your students via distance distance learning plans we have also been providing uh what we call our webinars fed ed talk uh that started in in april and in our last one was this past friday september 25th we have also been assisting the district and drafting drafting what's called higher written notices to address the different guidance that have been provided by the governor the office of special education programs which is a federal agency in the off in the office of civil rights we have been um providing those prior written notices in different phases um starting with what services to offer to students at when this closure started and we um adjusted them based

012on the length of the closures that were anticipated and as you know those those links changed over time to starting with we felt that we were going to be closed through the end of march and that expanded to may and then it expanded again to including extended school year and then unfortunately a lot of our school districts and careers have not been able to reopen with the start of the fall of this school year we have also provided um prior written notice sample private notice responses to your district with respect to what to offer uh in language to use an iep regarding emergency conditions learning plans um web services will be provided to that individual student based on senate bill 98 we've also provided language to your district regarding assessments of special education students both

013virtually and in person and the same with respect to services providing them virtually and in person as many of you may know some non-public agencies are now sending out emails to school districts including your school district stating they're stating that they are starting to offer in-person in-home services for special education students during the school closure based on state and county public health offices guidance that's starting to allow exceptions for one-on-one services in-home for special education students the primary areas of those services have been behavioral intervention the use of behavioral aids and medical intervention related to education with respect to nurses if you have a student has an iep that requires nursing services when they were in school in the brick and mortar school now parents are requesting that service to be provided in the home

014and depending on the school district those services had been provided um the response to those requests had been provided through prior written notices notice responses some of them had gone through special education due process hearings and and and resolve through those hearings um with respect to the the email that these um non-public agencies are sending out to districts my advice has been specific to your district and in my conversations with your district that's been to uh wait for a specific request from a parent for in-person in-home services be it behavioral intervention or nursing services analyze each request on an individualized basis consider the information from the students teachers and service providers including service laws as to how the student performed during distance learning going back to the spring and also starting in this fall um

015i've drafted sample as i said probably written notices responses to parents in a letter to the mpas and also sample waivers and or consents and acknowledgement the risks that your district can use in responding to those requests and with respect to those requests we're going to be seeing more and more than from parents for in-home in-person services based on recent oeh decisions um in addition we would support your district with respect to um presentations workshops and um the other area and would be with respect to the cohorts that are starting up in some of our districts providing um sample language to send out to the public to send out to parents regarding the cohorts of what they will consist of the composition of those cohorts thank you and lika i'm confirming your tracking time correct

016they have two minutes and 10 seconds left okay and the the other thing is that we've provided um a chart for use in your by your district and documenting decisions that have been made by your district concerning the content of distance learning plans holding iep tvs conducting assessments based on your district's ability um during this district school closer due to code at 19. so if you are brought into litigation either through the office or administrative appearance or a court court litigation and has you maybe what it is a pending um class action lawsuit filed in california and there's also one that's been filed in new york that is named a lot of school districts and employers that you will be able to use your staff will be able to use support the decisions that were

017made during this time period of the school closure we've also provided advice to your district regarding sample communications to parents if your district decides to provide assessments in person as opposed to virtually in that communication includes a letter to a sample letter to the parents the parents acknowledgement of the risks safety protocols and the covert risk factor questions checklist 48 seconds left um i'm sorry now you can yield your time if you want okay i i i've exhausted my what we've been doing for your district uh and will continue to do for your district during this um strange time of the closures thank you f3 same question thank you very much miss jamal my name is carlos viegas i'm a partner in the los angeles office of fagin friedman and full frost i want to

018begin first with a few clients um pretty close to azusa that i think you would recognize and if you represent pomona across all different practice areas rialto hacienda la puente south whittier west covina and upland and i'll defer to my colleagues to include some of the notable cases but also start with a little bit of my passion i come from an education family and my dad was a superintendent my mom was a 40-year teacher a big part of what i do is labor and employment work and so part of the kind of in this era of covet is doing a lot of the collective bargaining agreements and coveted mousse over the last six months we've been constantly negotiating and i think that's a big issue that the districts are all going to be facing another

019part of what i do is teacher dismissals and so you may find yourself in a situation where nobody wants to end up in a teacher dismissal but i've been in some truly heartbreaking and gut-wrenching dismissals involving um truly horrible things that have occurred to small children and that's become an area of passion because i feel like my mom was a teacher and so we're honoring the profession by making sure that only the best teachers will remain in the school districts i also do a considerable amount of public records act and so and when i say me i mean the entire firm these are all areas of specialty for our firm as well as student work i did want to talk a little bit about the area special ed and i'm going to hand over to

020my colleague lindsey rogers but before i do it it's it's sometimes not something that you think about but i think one of the biggest issues you're going to face in special education is how do you collectively bargain to have all of these different competing state and federal obligations met by your employees so we all are aware what the federal laws are but one of the biggest challenges to special education during covet has been what are our employees going to do what are their expectations how do we collectively bargain with our employees and how do we meet the legal requirements but also meet the expectations of our communities i'd like to hand to my colleague lindsey rogers to speak a little bit more specifically about other challenges in special education lindsay you were on mute there

021we go did it happen that time okay sorry about that so yes lindsey rogers here and i i do do primarily special education and student work at f3 i'm also from an education family a superintendent's daughter and a speech and language pathologist both retired and so i i come i come by a special education through my family and so we um you know we've been i also do uh work in pomona unified that is i do their special education work and i also do one one client that i don't think was is that is in your area that you know the client uh call carlos mentioned is walnut valley unified it's another client that we do their special education work and la canada unified goodness i you know this this question is there's a lot

022packed in there as ms gilliard certainly demonstrated there are a lot of different areas that we could touch on and i'm trying i was trying to kind of hone in on one what is the biggest thing that i'm thinking about in terms of in-person instruction things that are coming back right now i can say the things that i'm working the most on that i hear most um that i get more most questions about right now are staff coming back for in-person assessments and or if they're coming back to the in-person cohorting so yes so i agree with carlos that's kind of the first thing that we're all going to be dealing with is going to be talking with staff communicating developing new emojis if we need to or communicate communicating with our labor partners to

023discuss how we are going to be bringing back special educators and general educators when that comes as well um and how that cohorting how that's going to work equitably amongst our staff and bringing them back and i do see that coming up right now even in the special education world because so much focus is about right now bringing special education teachers back to do special education teachers and providers back so i do think that that is one area um from the beginning that we're going to be seeing right away is working with our labor partners and bringing back as we bring back the other another issue with them for me in particular near and dear to me is there's a lot of talk right now about how we are going to be assessing student progress

024and possible and loss that's happened over this time so right now i'm working with um i work with i work with school psychologists and work with our directors and with the clients to really start thinking about where are the areas what assessments can we be doing virtually what assessments can we be doing in in person when we can do that and how do we do that safely developing protocols for both staff and for family for bringing students back in to do in-person assessments we really at f3 i would say our a major focus of our special education department and the way that we think about our client relationships is that we engage in in preventive law to the extent that we can meaning we uh i tend to have relationships with my clients where we're

025talking about we're talking about potential problems before they arise so we're definitely here for due process complaints we're here when you get those um the ocr complaints and the cpu compliance movement from those issues we certainly have been handled many of those but we also focus a lot especially in this covet time that we've had these months where everybody is reacting to to the newness and to new to law to new situations that we're in where we're kind of where we talk with our clients about how do we prevent some of these legal issues from arising so ways we do that that were already mentioned is a clear communications with parents and prior written notice letters sometimes we assess uh especially in special education we will assist with developing template letters that then we give

026to our clients to use themselves in that are not necessarily the formal legal private and notice letters but are just good practice to have good communication with your parents uh with your parent community during this time um during this time that is that can stave off a lot of uh litigiousness a lot of litigation a lot of anger and angst that can come about when there's not that communication so we try to work with our clients to ensure they have good parent communication in the special education community i would definitely say that's something that's applicable to the to us coming back to in person right now as we are we're getting i'm sure you guys are too we get we're getting questions every day about what what's the plan what's the plan for in person

027we heard you can do that now what are you doing next so it's really you know right now we do a lot of i would say non-traditional legal work working partnering with our clients to talk through the legal implications of the different in terms of teachers and children so those are the um the major issues that i'm seeing right now uh in terms of planning all of that is really is developing uh clear protocols for staff and clear protocols for parents and parent communication ah let's see you have about two minutes remaining yeah i wanted to do raise two is that that we we are just starting to i would say in the last couple of months last month maybe see more and more due process filings starting to trickle in so that is starting

028to happen um and we so in that situ in those in those instances obviously we are so we have i actually just was notified that we had a few uh successful f3 attorneys that successfully argued to stay put motions where parents were trying to get some in-home services uh as stay put meaning the parents were saying i get an aide at home i should get i get an aid at school i should also get that aid at home and that we have we've had a couple of successful stay put motions where oh has agreed with our argument that the district does not have to provide that service in the home if that's not what the iep said was that the service was required in the home now the law that the oah is handling cases

029is uh deciding cases in different ways so one of the things that we certainly have in f3 is a robust special education department up and down the state that we are weekly if not bi-weekly phone calls uh just you know with amongst us attorneys to keep each other apprised on the latest and greatest uh briefing that we're doing the latest orders that we're getting out of oah that aren't published anywhere else so we can share that information amongst each other and use that to our clients benefit uh throughout the state and if we still have a minute i would like to lindsay give jessica and leslie an opportunity to speak about the district they work within some notable cases you have 30 seconds that's so fast just thank you for having us my name is

030jessica ehrlich i head up our business and facilities and litigation practices in our los angeles office as carlos mentioned we work with quite a few districts in your area as well as up and down the state and handle cases um you know with regard to construction and facilities disputes to brown act matters um if we have public records disputes as lindsay mentioned special ed litigation so we really run the gamut of representing public schools thank you next we will have lozano smith and miss lieke will let you know when your time starts your time begins now hi there my name is darren kamaya i'm a partner in the lozano smith's los angeles office um i have on the line with me my colleagues trevin sims of the los angeles office who's a partner he works

031on facilities matters labor and employment matters governance matters and everything else that kind of comes up desiree serrano is the colleague in the la office she works on labor labor and employment matters student matters and governance matters mark waterman is a partner in our los angeles office he provides litigation support and special ed due process hearing representation uh aaron fraser is on the line from our firm she works on special ed and student and charter school matters and amanda cordova is one of my colleagues in the los angeles office and she works on special happy to be we represent almost 100 percent of our clients as school district or education clients 100 are public sector clients and we're well versed in all things related to school districts we take an approach to our practice that

032provides our clients with support not only with legal issues and providing uh analysis analysis and statement of law but also partnership with them to help them achieve their goals and so we do as others have mentioned especially nowadays provide support in terms of advice regarding uh the implementation of laws and rules and regulations that seem to be changing every day and uh it's it's uh interesting work we all come from uh seems like from education backgrounds and that serves us all well my mother's a school teacher my brother and many relatives are also teachers on our staff we have many attorneys who are teachers as well and so they they bring to the craft the knowledge of what has happened and is going on in the classroom and bring that perspective representative clients that we

033have in the area include burbank unified school district where we do personnel and labor and employment facilities matters and some board governance matters san marino unified school district we do personnel and board governance and public records matters west covina unified school district personnel matters los angeles unified school district we work with them on special education matters and labor employment matters realtors unified school district we are advising them on many different subjects and there are clients up and down the state that we uh provide uh assistance to um we have many notable cases related to education um dealing with layoffs of certificated employees discipline of employees and the appeals of those matters first amendment issues um including things uh like prayer in school where we actually just helped file an amicus brief today on an appellate

034uh case involving football and prayer we are involved actively in helping schools and districts provide distance learning to students and to help them when students and staff are coming back to the classroom into the school site so every day it seems like we're all involved in negotiations with unions over the return to work uh notably today the i understand the board of supervisors of l.a county has announced that they are going to or will soon be accepting petitions for uh waivers for tk through second grade and that's my that might be something that you folks are interested in and we can certainly help you with that as far as schools coming back to in-person instruction and special education issues that might come up uh i'd like to i'd like to introduce amanda cordova who can

035speak to that along with uh aaron and mark my name's darren good evening my name is amanda cordova and i'm an associate here in our la office i spend 100 of my day advising and working with school districts throughout the state including some local ones including burbank unified westside and lausd my work focuses primarily on providing advice counsel and trainings for district staff on special education matters and while my clients and i try to work collaboratively with families to meet the needs of children with disabilities there are some instances where that may not be possible and i regularly assist districts with due process matters compliance complaints and federal special education cases recently i've been working with districts on coverage related issues particularly for distance learning including assessing students remotely or in-person social distancing and using

036personal protective equipment we've also drafted some sample language to include in assessment plans and assessment reports addressing addressing the validity of assessments that are done remotely or using ppe that may not be falling in conformity with assessment protocols i've also been working with districts on finding creative solutions to provide instruction and services to students during the physical school closures through distance learning as well as bringing students on campus for small cohorts some of our school districts have already reopened particularly up north and our firm has been providing guidance to those districts on special education issues some issues that we're facing in addition to the assessments and the distance learning services and instruction is providing mainstreaming and inclusion opportunities for our students to have those in our in their ieps while maintaining cohorts as required by

037the guidance from cde and we've been working with districts to identify creative solutions on how we can keep those cohorts together while still ensuring that students have access to typically developing peers to get those peer models in accordance with their ieps in addition we've been assisting clients with responding to requests for me remediation intervention services for students with disabilities and uh responding to requests from both parents and attorneys who feel like their students were not receiving all of their services in their iep we've been working with special education directors staff and iep teams to develop protocols for assessing the need for remediation intervention as well as best practices on how to communicate with parents in providing those either addressing those requests through iep meetings or through prior written notices we also anticipate an influx in

038special education due process filings and we've been working with clients on those due process filings as well as recent class action matters both in new york and california and we've been advising clients on how to deal with when you get you know notice of service whether whether they've been served or not um and dealing with that we've been assisting clients through uh due process better specifically on distance learning issues already and of course that includes you know the regular representation of drafting pleadings motions as well as participating in mediation and settlement negotiations and when necessary proceeding to due process to defend the district's distance learning program and finally our firm has a special education legal consortium that's scheduled for next month where we'll be providing a half day long training to school districts throughout the

039state on how to address covid 19 special education issues as well as recent covid 19 decisions that have come from oah you have a minute and 20 seconds left mark is there anything you wanted to add regarding due process hearings or things that are coming up for uh special ed students that are returning thank you karen good evening my name is mark waterman i'm one of the partners in the la office and for 26 years i've been representing school districts and other public entities with my expertise being in administrative hearings in special education and employing discipline um as amanda alluded to one of the key advantages of lozano smith is that we represent school districts up and down the state um so this puts us in a unique position to know all of the issues

040that school districts are facing including those school districts that have already started back to school we also are in a unique position of knowing pretty much all of the opposing counsel and the judges in the youth process proceedings so we're able to have a good understanding of what is and is not working in in the administrative proceedings uh for special education it also means that one of the issues and one of the places where we often are is at the forefront of law most recently for example amanda and i just finished a special education your time is up okay next firm will be pnc and linka will tell you when your time starts your time begins now are we unloaded let's put the video on thank you my name is steve montenez and i'm a

041partner with the firm of parker and covert parker and covert was first established in 1978 and was the first exclusive educational law firm to exist in the united states our clients include locally glendora unified and bonita unified school district we also represent orange unified la habra city school districts long beach unifor fight and newport mesa unified i have represented orange newport mesa and long beach for over 20 years um long beach unified is where we do most of our special education work and i'm going to defer to cynthia yant at that point uh so that she can explain the special ed emphasis before i go on i want to send um expression of our heartfelt uh expression for those in the local community of azusa unified who have recently been the victims of the bobcat

042fires near the angeles national forest and and we know that that impacts students and and their their ability to come back to school and feel safe and i think an answer to question number one we know we have done negotiations for both the hybrid instructional model as well as the distance learning model and we know that the first emphasis for these special needs students is going to be the district's ability to make sure the students and the communities feel safe and well on all safety protocols are implemented in order to do that and we have done that with other districts and we fully operate with the intention of doing that also for azusa unified and i think that mous that have currently coming out in the various areas that are opening in various stages is

043an important element for special ed students and those that are you know tk and kindergarten and first grade in the elementary because we find that most schools districts either using an av model whether students are coming to school on separate days or the am pm model where you have a student population come in the morning and come in the afternoon we've seen various hybrid models of those as well and i think that we are able to support the school district in either model depending upon which suits the community azusa also has been identified as one who serves basically hispanic latino community and i know this board is facing decline in enrollment and we have assisted districts and also dealing with those issues so not only do you have a pandemic not only do you have

044fires not only do you have you know special needs students from the latino community whose families are really subject to you know the hardships that have been paced in this environment we have catered to those students that are small to those school districts that are small that have a minority community population you know we advance for you know proposition i think it's 16 that would allow for school districts to to service their minority communities without having the hampering of currently existing proposition 209 that bases you know the ability to provide services on on race which prohibits that so we're in tune with those broad range tools that will advance the district's need to service those at need students with that cindy if you could uh address the special ed issues good evening my name is

045cindy yant i don't know if you can see me i turned my camera on and my microphone can you hear me okay yes we can excellent um i have been uh with parker and covert for over 30 years and my main area of practice is indeed special education all throughout southern california my partner stephen montanez comments reminds me that just a couple of years ago it seems our client at wai nimi school district um suffered in their community a devastating fire and some of the decisions that we helped that school district with were unfortunately a precursor to this unprecedented set of events that we've had during covid19 so we were sort of a couple steps ahead in in some regards because of that unfortunate situation our focus has always been to promote proactive measures as

046you've heard my esteemed colleagues talk about tonight we want to be able to mitigate the number of complaints that are filed through due process or because of a section 504 alleged violation or a compliance complaint any type of complaint like that is going to cost the school district in resource resources and time and perhaps even legal fees to address the issues raised in those complaints so our focus has always been to assist our clients with proactive measures such as training staff making sure that as we keep up with changing law guidelines that are coming down that we're able to pass that information along to our clients and offer trainings to suit the specific needs of our clients we do that on a regular basis and and on a pro bono basis so we want to

047begin uh working with our clients on a possible dispute at the iep level to make sure that the staff knows going in what the what the current law is how they want to prepare for that meeting as best they can we want to make sure that if there is a complaint filed that we can represent the client fully by thoroughly examining the records talking to staff who are familiar with the case who are familiar with the student so that we can help the district make good decisions nip things in the bud if you will to keep things from from getting to an unreasonable level such as a due process hearing if a filing for due process is filed we assist the district in preparing for and we represent the district at the resolution meeting to

048hopefully narrow the issues or address some of the issues perhaps even come up with an interim agreement so that we can come to some conclusions before we get to that hearing level however at times we go to mediation fully prepared as well but we're not able to resolve all the issues of the case and then we work in earnest with our clients to prepare for due process hearing and try to keep the um the costs uh to a minimum um we try to stay five steps ahead all at all times with special ed issues and of course during covet 19 um this was something that that uh was unprecedented um we assisted our clients with drafting prior written notice letters to parents and we've really spent a great deal of time with our clients in

049helping them to not only maintain good relationships with the parents by keeping them well informed by having them be full participants in the decision making as we've been able to determine what services can be provided in a safe manner we have assisted then with the surge in due process filings that we have seen over the last few months we've seen a few of the law firms that we're familiar with take advantage of the fact that we are not providing in-service uh service excuse me in-person services and they're trying to opt for district uh funding of private services that are providing in-person services same thing with assessments because we're not sending our staff into students homes to observe them and to do in-person assessments we find that they're asking the parents are asking for independent educational

050evaluations from assessors who don't have any restrictions on going into the home and providing in-person assessments so what we've been advising our clients is do uh all parts of the assessment that you're able to do that don't require in person and we will follow up when we are able to do that to enhance those assessments as best we can the other issue that has come up as our clients are preparing for um return to in-person or hybrid formats is making sure that we're making individualized decisions uh for students who we anticipate will have a lot of problems making those transitions back to an in-person format or whose behavior we feel may be problematic in terms of safety measures so we're making sure that our clients are looking at each of these cases in a very

051individualized manner that we have good documentation supporting the decisions that are being made by the district in terms of what can be offered in the same training i'm beg your pardon 30 seconds oh thank you very much um so we're just trying to help our clients as best we can make those individualized decisions so that if those due process filings occur we can defend all of the positions that the district took thank you so much appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this evening thank you we will now move over to question two um i would just ask these questions when you'll have five minutes to respond to each and there are three remaining questions i ask that you also um if you can track your time we will track ours um so that way

052but i apologize we can't display the time but that way you guys can know exactly where we are okay question two we will start with f3 f3 your time starts now thank you very much i think one of the biggest challenges of the new title ix regulations is from our perspective they've changed almost every way that we're going to go about investigating title ix allegations and so i want to highlight that our firm partnered with an illinois law firm to provide national training on title ix issues and to kind of unpack the thousands of new pages of regulations in title ix and the training that that our firm provided which by the way we gave discounts to axa members um it is a training that lasts at least three hours and that's just the initial

053round of trainings and just to kind of give you a sense of where that begins is identifying title ix coordinators within your districts identifying investigators decision makers appeal decision makers and informal resolution facilitators and i think that really changes the traditional way that school districts have looked at title ix in years past where you may have had one person handle all of the different title ix issues for the entire district and so it's definitely going to be a new day when you're looking at title ix issues now apart from just the complexity of the new title ix regulations i think you also have to unpack you know what's the new definition of sexual harassment the new title ix regulations have changed that and in some ways i feel like it's made it so much harder

054to identify what sexual harassment is under the new regulations and one thing that i think overall when you're looking at the new title ix regulations i think one of the biggest takeaway is the boost to the rights of those folks who are accused of sexual harassment and so what does that really mean for the school district as you're doing your investigation it means that you may have to contemporaneously in real time disclose evidence in interviews and things that you normally would keep as a confidential investigation you will probably have to disclose that to the person who is accused of the sexual harassment at the same time you're trying to conduct your investigation now the district's question is how would that uh how would that impact student rights well imagine if you have students who are

055making accusations of sexual harassment what we know traditionally is there's only a fraction really only a percentage very small percentage of students who come forward and have the courage to even make these allegations if you look at the new regulations and you look at the way it boosts the rights of the accused i think what you're going to see overall is probably more students i'm sorry less students coming forward with these allegations and it puts the district in a much more difficult place to hold these people accountable when they get engaged in sexual harassment so apart from just looking at the definition of sexual harassment the scope of education programs and activities you have to really start wondering how are we as a district going to respond to formal and informal reports of sexual harassment

056i think that landscape has completely changed under the new regulations and so our firm we really pride ourselves on providing professional development to the extent that you don't need us anymore and we we consider ourselves true partners with public school districts i used to be a teacher in linux school district and the idea here is that a district that's dependent on its attorneys is not a healthy district so one of the things that we enjoy most is providing that capacity to reduce the footprint for the district and reduce the amount of money that you need to spend on attorneys and we do that in our partnerships throughout the state with both csba and with axa now we're looking at the question i want to unpack just a little bit we talked about student rights but

057also employee rights and so what would this mean for the collective bargaining agreement what would this mean for employee discipline i think the reality is it's going to be that much more difficult to discipline employees who engage in sexual harassment because ultimately we have to disclose all these issues up to them up front and we're probably going to be tied at the hip with the attorneys for the union so i think the districts are going to have to look long and hard at is a new allegation truly sexual harassment can it be processed under some other complaint procedure i think all of that is going to come into play and when it comes to the the title ix regulations it truly is uncharted territory but i think overall you want to err on the side

058of protecting potential victims within your district whether they're students or employees and i think the training that you're going to need to fulfill all these roles is probably going to be pretty rigorous you're going to have to teach your administrators how to serve impartially including avoiding any type of pre-judgment or preconceived notions about allegations you're going to have to also avoid conflicts of interest how is that going to play out for for the district's employees i think the union attorneys are looking at this and they're they're seeing that it's already difficult enough to discipline a teacher and we're all aware that in less than one percent thank you lozano and smith your time begins now hi i'm desiree serrano um thank you for having me here tonight i actually grew up in covina and live

059in san dimas so i really appreciate this opportunity to tell you about our firm you know this is a lot you know mostly we've been doing covid but this has also been a really big thing on our radar we've done several webinars on title ix in helping school district learn all of these new rules and regulations for investigations i just did one this morning for school districts so one of the big things that's changed is that process for the investigation and sharing all the information that we normally would keep a little bit more confidential having the exchange of information and evidence but also allowing each side to submit questions that they would want to ask of the other party that's very different um from what we did before um the roles that we have you

060know we now we have three to four to five different roles there's no more one man or woman show often you know your school district's a little bit larger so you might have a couple of people doing that some school districts only had one person doing this entire process so school districts are rethinking who do they want to be that title knight coordinator because there's rules about if you're the title ix coordinator you can't be the decision maker you can't be the appeals body so who do you want that title ix coordinator to be is it still the same person or do we need to move that to another position in order to make this process work the way it works best in our school district i'd also say you know one of the big

061changes here we used to be able to put it all into our sexual harassment policy whether that be for students or for employees and now we have a different definition of sexual harassment under title ix than what we have under california law so we're going to have to process them a little bit different and re-learn how we handle those complaints um you know does it fall under title ix no okay does it fall under one of these other policies and we use that so kind of reframing how we look at those and then also looking at you know we often had at the school site level as to students a school site principal assistant principal gets the issue someone comes to them and they just start running and they investigate and they solve the issue

062they address the issue and i don't know that they were always really thinking about you know first checking in with the title ix coordinator and i think that'll be really important to talk to your all your school staff about their obligations and reminding them okay if you get a report that looks like any form of sexual harassment let's report it to the title ix coordinator first before you really dive into things the other thing i would say is we you know we work with csba and other statewide organizations and help give input on those model policies so we are kind of involved at the state level the other thing that's different is the rules about exclusion for students we used to you know just investigate discipline right away and now we need to stay take

063a step back and look at whether that is really allowed under these new title ix regulations or do we need to finish the investigation first before we make that determination on whether or not the student has violated the ed code and that this discipline is justified for employee rights i would say that same issue about sexual harassment and what policy is violated i'll also kick it over to darren in case he has any additional thoughts sure with regard to the implication to employee rights uh you know every day i think all of us are getting calls regarding uh demands to bargain over things that are are new and impacting employees and their terms and conditions of employment this is no different and i foresee either um demands to bargain uh or just having new terms

064introduced in bargaining over the regular contract that implicate both your complaints against employees uh or public complaints articles seven o'clock and uh also apologize for that that's my computer um also uh your discipline uh articles that apply to either classified employees or if you have discipline short of dismissal in your certificated uh bargaining agreement but you you do have issues with respect to um the evidence that's uh obtained in a hearing uh that's not required under your title ix policy that could third time is up thank you p and c you will be next pnc your time begins now um the new definitions under title ix have been in effect under the cleric for community colleges for quite some time the new regulations on sexual harassment are consistent with supreme court precedent the clery act

065and the violence against women act and and they have broadened the definition of sexual harassment but they make it more difficult to substantiate the allegations during a title ix investigation so how do we address this well you know to address the change school districts need to update their board policies administrative regulations and title ix documentation to include the new definition of sexual harassment additionally title ix staff including title ix coordinators and all district investigators should be trained to the new standard of sexual harassment for consistency and compliance with the new regulations what's new under the old regulations and constru under under the old regulations any constructive notice of sexual harassment sexual assault or quid pro quo triggered the title ix district's title ix response under the constructive nota standard schools were responsible responding to all

066incidents of sexual misconduct if the school should have known about the misconduct the new regulations have increased this standard from constructive notice to actual notice this means the schools are required to respond to the incidents of known sexual misconduct rather than incidents that were not known but should have been known how do we address these issues the district can properly address the regulations by training all district employees to immediately report any and all incidents of sexual harassment to avoid district liability for inaction employees should seek assistance from the title ix coordinator if they are unsure whether the specific incident is sexual harassment the title ix regulations formally required each title ix complaint to be evaluated using the preponderance of evidence standard of proof under the preponderance standard the burden of proof is met with the

067and the evidence supports are finding that there is a 51 chance that a claim is true this standard is often referred to as the 50 percent or feather standard it is the same standard approved used in civil cases the new regulations allow school districts to decide whether either the preponderance of evidence standard or a stricter standard of clearing convincing evidence is necessary the new regulations state however that whatever standard is adopted it must be used consistently for all title ix complaints we have produced information on our firm blog that is consistent with what i've just said now the implication for employee rights to the new changes are implications that need to be addressed under the collective binding agreement because this in effect is a term and condition of employment as a standard for discipline of

068discipline discipline of both classified and certificated employees um you know what happens you know as a result of that well you just need clear and unambiguous language in order to articulate what standard the district will use for disciplining students now remember that you know sexual harassment sexual abuse and allegations made by claimants and respondents under this new standard require additional scrutiny and therefore the collective bargaining agreement must specifically we believe articulate the standards by which the district will follow and and then in order to do that effectively not only must it be clear but it must also be fair and reasonable um in this day and age of all the things that people are dealing with i think this issue of putting it in the collective bargaining agreement although the policies administrative regulations need to

069have arrested immediately uh you know it's my opinion that you know they're bigger fish to fry in this environment because you know you're coming back in a coveted environment where safety and educational distance learning and all the other models i think are taking top priority in the collective bargaining agreement arena and and those emphasis i i think need to be worked out first because you have to bring the kids back and and whether that be through a transition whether it be now or later is a subject that the districts must decide and and and that's the beauty of the assistance that our firm can provide and that it's fluid you know it may be one day away today and another way tomorrow and and we have demonstrated by our long history the ability to be

070fluid thank you next a-a-l-r-r good evening sharon good evening this is sharon ormond are you able to hear and see me yes excellent excellent um i know we have steve anderson on the line um and before i start uh to address the questions specific to title ix um steve did you want to make some other introductory remarks okay well hearing none i will go ahead and proceed um so my practice has focused on i'm sorry sherry i'm here oh okay go ahead steve yes i'd like to just backtrack just for a moment i apologize for the delay uh this evening but uh we've been privileged to represent azusa for the past 15 years and we have six attorneys working here and with with the district and sharon is one of our attorneys that works in

071general school law and personnel and she'll be doing the presentation on this topic uh briefly we have been in the public sector representing public school districts for the past 41 years we represent about 450 school districts in california and we have nine disc nine offices and the closest one is about about 50 miles away in pasadena so we're close by we also represent about 62 districts in the only personnel council which is most of the school districts in that area so we have a wide range of school districts over the years i just wanted to provide that background in terms of our our extent and depth of experience and let me then turn this over to sharon a partner in the firm please share him thank you very much so title ix of course has

072been around since 1972 but obviously this this new change that's been coming um effective august 14th involves the regulations that are intended to interpret the title ix mandate the goals that have been articulated and what becomes very apparent when you look at the different regulations and the formulation of what is referred to as a grievance process is the the goals to not only strengthen the protections for the survivors of sexual misconduct but also to provide greater due process protections for those who are facing accusations of misconduct um definitely there's been an incorporation of the legal standards that came from davis versus monroe county board of education 1999 supreme court decision in which there was discussion about the circumstances under which a school district would be liable for student on student harassment and generally finding that

073institutions must have actual notice of the harassment and have been responded with deliberate indifference and the harassment must have been severe pervasive and objectively offensive um this standard has now been incorporated into these regulations and um as one of the um attorneys has already mentioned that the definitions for sexual harassment has certainly been changed we have quid pro quo harassment still but it's an employee that needs to be conditioning the aid or service um on unwelcome sexual conduct the hostile environment sexual harassment and other types of misconduct like sexual assault or even stalking um those things are are most definitely now part of the sexual harassment um policies but to get to the question of how they're changed in terms of how the claimants and respondents rights are being treated one thing to look at

074is that supportive measures uh now have to be offered to the com to the complainant but also to the respondent um the idea here is that when we have this process happening that it's an obligation of the district to make sure that both parties are supported um throughout the complaint procedure that no no one party is supposed to be burdened by um measures that are punitive they need to be individualized in a way that will provide help to those to those students things like modified schedules or extended deadlines or counseling another thing that's um been incorporated and just to back up the the supportive measures is not technically something that's completely new before it was referred to as interim protection measures but because they are going to be applicable throughout the process the the terminology

075has changed but the obligation to extend them to the respondents has been articulated um in addition both of the parties will have the um entitlement to have an advisor of their choice and this helps them to navigate the process to understand that thank you thank you we'll now move the question three we will start with lozano smith and your time begins now okay well this is an interesting question um this is darren kamaya and um i would ask my colleague uh desiree serrano and my other colleague mark waterman to chime in with your thoughts on this with respect to the question after the completion of a financial review or a federal program the district has been advised to repay 600 000 for awarding a grant to a vendor without participating in the competitive process how

076would you advise the district with the goal of not paying back this is 600 000 well first i want to thank the board for this interesting question i want to make note that as part of this open session meeting it's typically not our practice to provide legal advice and to applying in great detail on hypotheticals but i would say that if the district had that goal uh and the board directed the uh would you quickly call in contact with uh and see if she can handle this question that's being asked not right now real quick if not contacting it's not leave pause time okay i'm back so if the district uh and the board asked us to advise them we would um first provide as we do with our clients an objective uh analysis of

077their potential liability for not paying back the penalty um or the uh not complying with the order and depending on on whether or not the the district decided to take action with uh measuring its risk tolerance on on you know facing that potential liability or not we would uh look at the potential options and discuss those options um how to do it see if there's a way to work through the situation um with negotiations to reduce perhaps the uh the amount of the penalty and uh and we we would do a fair amount of um exploration regarding options because it's pretty easy to say well we're just not going to pay the money but that's not what you're asking us for advice desiree and mark do you have anything to add i would add that

078you know one of the great things about our firm is we have different at practice areas i practice in labor and employment and student issues and board governance i would you know what i would do with this question is get on the phone and call one of our facilities and business attorneys and check in with them because i don't want to know this is not a question that i have personally dealt with before and i'm not going to spend the district's money trying to become an expert that we already have in our firm and rely on them and you know depending on the district i might just connect the district directly with that person so that they could you know you know cut out any extra time that i might add some districts are really

079tied to the attorney they work with so i might just consult with that so that's something that i would add i think mark is there anything you want to add to that thank you karen no i would just echo what that's where i said this isn't an area of law that that i have dealt with um but we do have numerous attorneys throughout the firm that um we could um bring in having one minute warning area you have one minute left thank you okay yeah and i think i think that sums up what we would do we would make sure that we have um our a few specials to deal with issues like this uh come in direct contact with the district and do what we talked about before which is provide an analysis of

080the liability and the options uh and risks and then we would move forward and help represent you in whatever you wish to do thank you very much thank you next pnc your time begins now sir you're muted there you go there we go start over um i think one of the first questions i would ask i have not had this particular issue brought before my attention before either is to find out what was the advice of the attorney that was advising the district about the competitive bidding requirement in the first place and was there any exceptions to the competitive bidding process that may have been overlooked or that there could be some way to to justify the process that the district actually followed then i think it's a matter of looking at what the potential

081liability is of to the district what representations if any did the vendor make during the process i don't know if there was an rfp process or what the selection process was for that vendor but since the federal programs have a number of requirements it would be interesting to find out what representations were made whether they were consistent with the regulations for that particular federal program so the district would have um a legal recourse against that vendor versus the district assuming financial liability for something that they may not have known about and would not have necessarily could not have known about based upon what the vendor's representations were made then i think you know from that assessment of all the parties then the district would be able to make an informed decision as far as how

082to proceed on either going finally in an action against the vendor for the reimbursement or to turn it over you know if need be even to their insurance if it's something that the insurance for the district might even cover i don't know if anyone else wants to jump in i think that's about it thank you a-a-l-r-r same question and your timing is now well that's very certainly a very interesting question i'm going to turn to wendy wilds to assist in providing a response wendy thank you good evening um thank you very much for allowing us the opportunity to be able to participate in the interview process we very much appreciate having uh the opportunity to answer some of your questions this evening the question that's been asked is rather an interesting one as you've probably

083already heard from the other persons who have been speaking with regard to this we have had experience more recently we had a school district that had been requested by the state to refund a very significant sum of money because specifically the argument was that they had not complied with the competitive process and what we first did was we went to the basis upon which the district took the action that it had taken so we wanted to investigate what had occurred with regard to the contract that had been entered into with the vendor why had the district taken the action that they had taken um it was in our in the other case we're looking for the facts so we're trying to determine what has occurred previously to determine whether or not the district has in

084fact violated the competitive process uh in most situations when we are looking at a at a claim that the district has not uh complied with a process whether it's a competitive process in a in an acquisition or in some other regard my experience has been that the districts are relying on prior counsel or a misunderstanding of a particular factual situation and so in most cases what we would be doing would be filing an appeal to challenge the request that the monies be returned to whether it's federal program or state program but but challenging the requirement that the district then have to repay these funds in our experience typically there is an explanation and so while there may be a belief that there wasn't a completely competitive process in the one i most recently am speaking

085of what had happened is the district had in fact gone through a process of selecting the vendor with whom they had then entered into the contract with and so while it may not have met the initial concern of the state or federal grant that in fact there were facts that would support the district's actions that had been taken and so what we're looking for is first is there a basis upon which the district can defend the position and if there is then of course potentially appealing that decision so that the district is not then faced with the payment of uh the return of the funds now in the in the chance that in fact what happened is the district did not comply with any procedure at all and in fact would be subject to having

086to repay these funds then we're going to be looking at the potentially council that may have advised them in the past or i think another present presenter had mentioned potential insurance to see if there's coverage for the district so we're looking at other potential sources of funds that might be able to assist the district in reducing the amount of impact that this might be financially to the district but i in my experience it is typically there may be some form of misunderstanding as to what has occurred and the district may be able to appeal a decision and not be subject to having to refund or repay those funds i don't know if anyone else and atkinson wants to add anything but that would be my summary wendy this is sharon and i would like to

087just uh add on that especially when you're dealing with the federal programs one of the things that i've experienced is that sometimes addressing them directly coming to them to say we have found you know a potential issue on our own and these are the steps we're taking to rectify it um can be uh sometimes effective in avoiding any kind of payback this is something that i was able to successfully assist two different districts in doing with respect to indian education programs where funding was coming to the districts based on um levels of enrollment that just weren't there and there was very high exposure and we were able to get um out from dealing with the problem by basically coming forward and self-disclosing and getting out ahead of things we didn't want the department of education

088to figure it out for themselves or then to hear things through reporting and that went a very long way to avoiding the the liability of course this particular question is thank you f3 f3 your time begins now good evening thank you again for having us once again my name is jessica ehrlich i'm a partner in the business and facilities and litigation practice groups in our los angeles office and upon seeing this question from the district i think my first action would be to consult our business and facilities practice group because one of the things that we pride ourselves on at f3 is that we work collaboratively and there is certainly someone who's had a question on point on this in the practice and we have over 100 years of experience combined in the business and

089facilities area in dealing with bidding and procurement and inherent knowledge of the public contract code education code so we really tap into our resources which i think results in a great value to districts in terms of cost-saving measures you know some and one of the other things i think we would do first after you know discussing with the district and doing some investigative measures is is there an informal resolution to this we always work at litigation prevention settlement dispute resolution before we want to jump right into filing an appeal sometimes those things can't be avoided but where we can discuss an informal resolution or other creative measures that's always our first go-to um we also have been faced with successful we've also successfully challenged audits from the state you know in terms of prop 39

090expenditures and other issues that would directly relate to dealing with a challenge to a competitive process usually what we try to specialize in is what are the exceptions to the competitive process that we can provide districts so you know when faced with this situation they have a response and aren't writing a six hundred thousand dollar check um as some of the other uh respondents mentioned insurance coverage litigation those are also always always options but our first is going to be to work collaboratively within the resources of the firm to pull and see hey does anyone experience this before what are your thoughts and those are usually where we get the best answers and also to focus on informal resolution one of the other things we always try to say is we advise the district at

091the outset what are your options for procuring these goods or services what delivery method or competitive process best suits your needs for what you're trying to get and i think that advice at the outset usually ends up saving the district time and money at the end does anyone else have anything they'd like to add this is leslie locker and i am a partner with f3 law and i've been with the firm for over 12 years now and while my primary specialty is in charter schools i do also some business facilities and school construction work and one of the areas that we've had to grapple with is school construction on military bases and trying to reconcile the state and federal grant requirements that sometimes don't always intersect in the same way where they have overlapping requirements

092and so one thing that has been really helpful for for our clients that are dealing with that overlapping state and federal requirements is to really get out ahead of the process ensuring that they maintain constant lines of communication with the representatives of the state and federal levels for example the office of economic adjustment which is through the federal government and ensuring that they have those open lines of communication allows the district to be 10 steps ahead in terms of identifying any potential issues with the competitive process or whether they could go through a more relaxed process such as an rfp rfq type of scenario and so again really ensuring that we have those open lines of communication is the first step to preventing any type of future dispute or challenge as it relates to any

093requirements for use of those grant monies thank you thank you we will go to question four and we will start with p and c your time begins now i think our philosophy with regards to working with school boards is to understand that they represent the community and we are at will employers employees rather as a firm to the school boards even though we work with district personnel we understand who our bosses are and and we have worked directly with school boards on past issues involving you know allegations by staff discrimination claims that lead to litigation and working with school boards as to how to resolve and attack that issue that may be complete may become public for example you know i have a school district that i'm working with the board on where a um

094an individual who was released during her probationary period created a lot of controversy because she's african-american and in the current environment of black lives matter the board is extremely sensitive to that and didn't want and and doesn't want that type of allegation to interfere with the work they're trying to do in this current environment of bringing schools back online and and board members individually and may not collectively have very passionate views and issues that that they as a majority have to resolve and we have to assist them with doing that knowing full well that you know we don't make the decisions the board makes the decisions and i think some law firms forget that and think that we as attorneys are in a position to give them the best advice and and i will have

095to defer to spencer covert who is not here but he is the master in dealing with school boards because he's been doing it for over 40 years i think personally working with boards is an especial especially difficult challenge especially depending on sensitive issues you know we represented a school district that went on strike and and and the board was torn by the relationship it had with the community the relationship the superintendent had with the community and and we worked through that and and and we understand that dealing with school boards is a very specialized skill because of their commitment to their constituency and commitment to the public and and we try our best to get district staff and departments to work together when there are differences between board members the board and the district we

096dealt with the district who had a crazy board member and and again when you have one board member that is creating attention from the community to that board you know that is also something difficult to manage so i guess in summary i would like to say that this is not something that is unique this is something that happens with boards because of the nature of their composition in representing you know the community and and and we feel committed to ensuring that whatever the board wants we can help them get and overcome the obstacles that is associated with that unique situation some boards work together and work together just fine no problem some boards do not and that's not a reflection on the nature or character of the boards it's a reflection of the nature of

097the characters that comprise that board as an entity and we have experience doing that we we know what our role is in doing that and what our place is in doing that and it may be you know the superintendent or it may be other individuals i mean i i've worked with boards that have disagreed with you know our advice in council and we manage that you know we understand what our role is and and do you have any comments that yeah if i can just interject a lot of it just as our firm does always it's kind of the preventive law so a lot of it is education and so i've done a number of in-services on brown act for boards for conflicts of interest to try to thank you aalr same question your time

098begins now thank you very much i'm i'm steve anderson and josh morrison will be joining me and and also participating i've been in this business for a long period of time and it's an art working with school boards and they're very special and they're important fiduciaries that have high levels of responsibilities uh i have learned over the years that it's very important to connect with the boards and make sure they understand the issues so often for example in the areas of collective bargaining they will take positions perhaps sometimes emotionally and and not recognize the implications of outcome and it's important to spend time with boards for that purpose to make sure that they fully understand the issues and can spend reflective time in weighing the options before decisions are made in that context i've been

099involved in critical issues involving personnel matters and again collective bargaining issues even now collective bargaining issues with respect to you know how soon a district wants to move into a hybrid model and where the public uh the community is wanting to push the the board to move into the hybrid model and if there's a concerns and issues that need to be addressed because you have the unions not wanting to do it this quickly without the proper safeguards and even today this morning i had discussions relative to that issue and my primary concern was not only do we share with the board the concerns but we give them time to fully understand and assimilate the potential risk involved on both sides before decision is made in this context it's critically important from that standpoint time is

100of essence uh josh please share your comments yeah thank you very much steve and thank you very much for allowing us to present uh this evening um i wanted to talk a little bit about uh one aspect of of effectively working boards and that is to protect the board there there's a variety of of situations in which uh individual board members can potentially be at legal risk um uh or can you know be be seen as um doing something improper and so for example maybe the starting point with respect to that would be ensuring brown act compliance making sure that the board is aware of the requirements they've got their meetings agendas properly they're doing things appropriately they're not setting themselves up for uh members of the public uh or unions to to push back

101and suggest that the board is doing something improper um secondly along the same lines um we we do quite a bit in terms of conflict of interest and really work with districts and boards to identify and avoid um conflicts of interest um you know those are situations where an individual board member might have an interest that could be perceived as putting them in a position of uh of having really kind of two or two interests one one the districts but one but on the other hand their own uh personal interest and so um we we work hard to identify and avoid those um also with respect to a number of hearings you know employing discipline charges things of that sort those matters come to the board for ultimate decision in some cases particularly with classified

102employees and in order to avoid prejudicing the board um we do try to be uh cautious and uh ensure that the board um is not jumping in too early at the stage so as to create due process concerns uh it's important that the board have uh some ability to approach these issues neutrally and fairly uh and so we do try to protect the board in that respect certainly at the early stages of those matters so i mean this concept i think of protecting the board individually is something that um that is significant i would also note that the board ultimately is the client we represent the board we don't represent uh individual administrators and so um you know ultimately you know in terms of working with boards it's effect it's important to recognize uh who

103the client is um and we we fully understand that and obviously in most districts the administration is representing the board uh the administration is hopefully in touch with the board the administration is carrying forward uh the program uh approved by the board and typically we do uh work quite directly with with school administrators but but ultimately we do recognize that the board is the client and we need to uh sort of recognize uh recognize that and move forward with that um i don't know if anyone else wanted to jump in sorry your time is up okay thank you f3 thank you your time begins now our philosophy is that the board is the boss and you need to have communication communication communication and i think that's one of the most challenging things when you look

104at certain firms in the way that they interact with the board and they may potentially play board members against one another because their main focus is keeping themselves ingratiated within the districts and i think our main focus is accomplishing the goals of the board collectively and i think it's one thing when you're working with the board is understanding that the board as the majority has to have a single voice so one of the things in and i happen to be the firm's uh chair of the governance practice group that works specifically on governance issues throughout the state and i'm a frequent presenter with csba and i focus on training new board members and what i really focus on is making sure that board members in particular new board members understand civility and how to communicate

105with one another and ultimately accomplish the goals that really they set out to do when they first wanted to be board members now in terms of our firm we work with boards on a variety of issues and i want to move quickly because i want to make sure that my partners have an opportunity to address the different types of issues they face when working with boards for me i'm primarily a labor and employment attorney so i will advise boards on collective bargaining agreements we've talked to the board on very confidential very sensitive investigations including interviewing board members as well as on teacher dismissals that are going to have tremendous impact on the community and the board is going to have to make a very you know important decision about whether or not to reach an

106agreement or to pursue a dismissal even if it's going to have ripples within the community i think ultimately for the board they have to have confidence in their legal counsel and so you never want the board to have the sense that this legal counsel doesn't work for the entire board so our philosophy is our mission is to accomplish the board's mission we have to have constant communication constant training and typically when we on board with with a a school district we offer free trainings to both the administrators and the board so we can get a sense of what the goals are and i think the way that we charge for our legal services and point one increments also ensures that a board member primarily the board president who speaks for the board can always have

107a quick call with one of our attorneys at a point one and doesn't have to spend an excessive amount um for legal advice when they really need it and that responsiveness is absolutely crucial for us i'm going to hand it to my colleague justin thank you carlos just to expand on one of the very unique firms that things we do as a firm is our annual governance training right when the board comes in for the year and i think one of the things that's so important about that is yes we teach you this is what the brown act is and here's robert's rules of order but i think the most important thing is this is how to be an effective board this is how you work collaboratively together um both amongst yourselves with the superintendent

108and his cabinet and i think it really adds value um to the district and the board and then specifically we support boards in all sorts of areas both in open session and closed session whether it's giving a presentation about a new project and what the proper delivery method should be whether it's addressing the board and closed session um to finalize a property transaction or discuss a pending construction dispute and how to avoid litigation we're really there to help support the board the superintendent and the cabinets really work all together as one unit and i'll turn it over to leslie thank you jessica as i mentioned earlier i am the co-chair of our charter schools practice group and oftentimes we're asked to provide board workshops and training on issues such as charter petitions if they're submitted

109so even if your chart or your district does not have any currently authorized charter schools those petitions could come in at any point in time and there is a very focused and detailed set of procedural and substantive requirements that surround evaluating reviewing and considering charter petitions so while we tend to work directly with staff and equip them with various resources such as checklists matrices and other tools so that they can build capacity in-house to conduct these reviews we always like to have that opportunity to conduct a board training or workshop especially for board members who have never received a charter petition and don't know what the board's role is as a potential oversight agency or authorizer of a charter school because when those chart petitions come in there is a legal obligation to consider and

110take action to either approve or to deny those charters so we'd like to get out ahead of that and ensure that the the board is fully equipped and understands again what its legal obligations are what its role is as a board and thank you and the last firm was donald smith your time begins now so we represent you know when we work with school districts we represent the school district and you know on a day-to-day basis that usually means working with administration but on occasion that means working directly with the board um and like any service to a school district the first thing we need to do is really understand what that board needs from us um i like to think about and you know in my practice is what would i want from a

111professional luckily i'm not hiring an attorney um in my normal life but i still work with professionals and what's important there um and what's important is of course someone that's very knowledgeable someone that you trust so building that trust with the board and making sure we understand each other and also someone that serves as a counselor you know helping you think through those issues do i understand your goals and what's important to you so that i could help explain your options in a way that makes sense to you not every school district is the same not every board's the same so the options that i lay out for you based on understanding your goals and needs might be a little bit different so what you heard there is the importance of really listening that's what

112we need to do is listen to the board and understand what they want so that we could come up with creative solutions and give the board their options some of the examples of things i've worked with on with the board is you know boardsmanship training that's a good opportunity especially if we have new board members or new senior administrators is to take some time out to talk about what are our roles what are our expectations from each other um how are we going to operate and you know like any job like any relationship that communication of knowing our roles and what's it what we expect from each other is so important other things are advising the board on employee discipline such as you know a classified dismissal and serving in the role of advising the

113board and helping walk the board through that negotiations is another area or appeal of complaints you know your complaint process sometimes involve an appeal to the board so that's another area that i've worked with boards and helped walk them through um so also invite any of my other attorneys on my team to see if they have anything to add hi this is darren kamea i along with my other colleagues have appeared in closed session and in an open session to advise boards in many districts and um we have many clients and they're all different and our firm's philosophy on the most effective means of working with the school board is two parts the first is to work with the board in the capacity the board wants us to work with them we can't force ourselves

114on a board and tell them you have to do something if they don't want to do it the board is the boss the board is a client and we work for the board but we do believe that the most effective means of a school board to do what it needs to do would be to um to work towards consensus and to have an effective mechanism for board members to talk to each other and to talk to the superintendent and to talk to council so for us one thing that we use as a model would be your csba board bylaws and the policy regarding the board president being the spokesperson for the board and typically we'll speak to the superintendent and administrators on a day-to-day basis but with respect to the board best practice would be

115not to have individual board members contacting lawyers and instead channel that communication through the board president or the superintendent also to treat a question from one board member is a question from all provide an answer to everyone so everyone has the same information to build consensus and understanding of common facts we support the masters in governance program and uh are help helpful in terms of providing training to boards on civility and how to work with each other on a professional level even if um we don't agree on everything we know that board members are on stage all the time we need to make effective use of the time they are together so that we're not squabbling over minor procedural issues if we can avoid it we know that members run for office because they care

116about the school district and we uh believe that it's very effective to have members channel their interests and and their passion in those areas as far as areas that i have advised boards on labor negotiations labor relations employee discipline charter school matters various things and i know i have about two seconds so i thank you very much for your time thank you at this time i would like to thank you all on behalf of the board the superintendent and the members of cabinet for your time and your thorough responses if there's any follow-up questions you will receive those by monday um via email with the anticipated response time by friday again thank you for your time thank you thank you have a nice evening thank you very much yes thank you thank you very much

117thank you thank you thank you be well everybody uh jerry you're on mute i said so apparent thank you so this is where we're going to go ahead and adjourn and start pondering alrighty yes ma'am thank you very much ma'am 7 50 p.m i think i think um uh board member chris gonzalez had a question i believe oh i'm sorry go ahead i'm sorry i was needed twice so you didn't hear me yeah i just want to ask a couple clarifying questions so just in terms of the process you're asking us if we have any additional questions to send to submit them to you latasha by friday is that what you're asking from us yes please and um your responses will be sent to each firm right and then um and then my other question

118for you was in terms of us speaking about this because i see we don't have closed sessions scheduled tonight when when would we be speaking about this then our next um closed session which will be on the 20th of october so not in our next clue session which is october 6th then um no unless i mean so i'm i'm just going to suggest that's a really long time to have a conversation about this okay so i i mean i can i can follow i'm offline with with arthur and jerry but i think that's a really long time to to to talk about this that's no problem i will follow any direction given we can definitely do october 6th we just would have to minimize uh two things a the questions from the board and b

119the time that we're going to give the firms uh enough time to respond we definitely could do the six but we just we would all have to understand that those timelines would have to be uh condensed well can you can you maybe request can we condense our are submitting questions to you to a shorter time oh sorry agent is that what you were going to suggest that's exactly what i was going to say yeah can we make that adjustment now and reverse engineer from the six because i agree i think that that the 20th would be a pretty long time okay so then uh not a pr problem um so what about uh natasha just thinking out loud uh questions from the board uh by thursday um i'm just gonna suggest tomorrow i mean i

120think we just heard it it's fresh in our minds i mean i think if we have questions we should jot them down now and get them to you by tomorrow perfect concur how does everybody else feel everybody you okay with that did we lose gabriella looks like you haven't looked right yeah we just had a glitch i wonder if she got off when everyone was saying bye that may be it okay um so so so then uh questions by tomorrow uh latasha the questions go to the firms uh thursday morning and say we have to get those responses back would it be too late i'm asking the board of education to get those responses emailed to you by the fifth or do you prefer that they have to submit those by friday so you have

121the weekend monday's time with me monday's fine with me also all right so i'm just gonna recap uh and we'll send a follow-up uh email natasha to the board of education so any follow-up questions due by tomorrow wednesday the 30th we will submit those firms first i'm sorry questions to the firms on thursday with a response uh on monday or we can talk a little bit more maybe friday's acceptable um and and that way we could we could do the closed session on the sixth and can i just clarify the time that i will receive the question so we can review and make sure everything's out i think any time on wednesday is fine okay you'll still close it so close the business the reason close the business yeah that makes sense latasha is that

122for you 4 30 what time is that whatever time you send it but but what i mean i mean what are the what are your what are your like i know you work overtime because all every cbo i've known ever does that but um but i mean end of business day is is 4 30 for us if we could have 4 30 is fun yes yolanda has her hand raised jerry oh i'm sorry i was texting gabby to tell her that it would be 4 30. can i just say that you know it's kind of hard for me to ask questions because you know the reception was really bad and they were cut off a lot for a period of time i even got cut off maybe that's when gabby got kind of like got

123then i have to come back again i don't know what happened just but just just saying it it'd be hard for me to ask questions because some of the i didn't hear some of their conversation because the reception was was i don't know who just and my side but a lot of it was cut off in and just it's it's going to be hard for me to to um get any clarification this i just want to put that arthur generally how long does it take to get the the youtube video is it live right away or did it take you a little while to put it up to review once it's completed it it takes about 15 minutes to load onto youtube so it will be up tonight so i think i think um for

124most of us we heard most of it there was like one lady that was sounded very sounded poor but the rest of them i could hear very clearly so i mean there is the video if you want to re-watch it so we'll send we'll send that uh uh board email uh today before we leave here um requesting that all questions come in uh by tomorrow wednesday 30th by 4 30 p.m gabriella's back on again if we want to so i don't know what we talked about oh okay yeah i just finished texting her yeah i my understanding was that we were just only going to listen and then we were going to not speak about it until further notice so yeah no what we're doing is just uh when we want our questions in by

125that's got it justice summer in the timeline joseph memorized um we're going to send an email to all to the board of education tonight uh requesting that any questions that you might have be submitted by tomorrow september 30th by 4 30 p.m we will forward those questions to all four firms and request that those get uh submitted back to us um probably by end of day friday um then we will share with those we will share those with you all and then we'll have a closed session item on tuesday october 6 uh to further discuss uh the firms and the next steps okay thank you or through thank you channeling for uh you know for expressing that for them to share that with me um so we'll be receiving the email tonight and then by

126friday we'll go ahead and submit the questions by four o'clock no later right no by tomorrow submit the questions tomorrow at 4 30. got it so governor the reason the reason we asked them to change it is because if we did it by friday we wouldn't be talking about little council until our october 20th meeting it would take like a month to talk about this oh okay that makes sense okay tomorrow by four got it okay any other questions all right we've ended 757 adios