Special Board of Education Meeting - February 26, 2026

001get to do this for a lot of school districts around the state and I can say that you've got some really strong numbers here in terms of voters interest in the projects that you're testing. Every single one of these projects had more than three quarters of voters say that they would favor spending some of the money on that item. U but you can see here as you get to the top you've got some that have kind of a higher overall as well as a bit higher intensity. And it's a combination of things that we regularly see rise to the top of the list when we're doing this type of work in other communities. Um, in terms of voters priorities for school bonds, the very top is basic repairs to your older facilities, right? Uh, fixing

002roofs, plumbing, heating, ventilation, gas lines, sewer lines, right? Older facilities uh need uh care and uptake and voters understand that. So that's the number one priority. That was followed by STEM, career tech facilities, and then also bringing your older facilities up to current health codes, safety codes, and ADA access. So, those were the top um ranked items, but as you can see, a lot of the ones below that are also quite popular. So, if you as a board choose to move forward with a bond in the November ballot, there's going to be an election cycle. And during that election cycle, there's going to be some discussion and debate in the community about this proposal. Uh you'll undoubtedly have some folks who will step up and advocate on behalf of this measure to the community. Go

003out and talk about all the reasons why this is needed and why they should vote yes. You might also get some critics, right, who oppose this bond and talk to their friends and neighbors about, you know, how this is a bad idea and we shouldn't be doing it. For this survey to be a reliable gauge of the feasibility of a bond measure, we need to simulate that discussion and debate in the space of the survey. So we have a good understanding not only where your voters are at on the natural, which was that initial ballot test, but we have an understanding of what happens to their support for your proposal once they hear positives as well as once they're exposed to negatives. And so we do that by first uh presenting the series of posit

004positive arguments that you see here on the slide. Uh the nature of the question is uh supporters of the measure say blank. You insert a positive argument. Do you think this is a very convincing somewhat convincing or not at all convincing reason to support the measure? Here again we see that a lot of these positive arguments get a lot of traction with you know even the lowest rated item at the very bottom had better than 70% of voters say that they would um you know they find that to be at least a somewhat convincing argument. At the top of the list though are some um you know arguments that really just relate to the age of your facilities. So top one there some of the schools were built so long ago that underground clay and

005cast iron pipes and infrastructure are failing resulting in gas leaks, water leaks, sewage backups. Last year alone there were more than 75 roof leaks. I have found that if you can just be a little specific about the condition of your facilities, right? If you can put a number to roof leaks, for example, it makes a big difference. And as you can see here, that wound up being your number one argument here. So at this point in the poll now, voters have heard more about this proposal than they did at the initial ballot test. On the one hand, we talked about tax rates, right? And when we did that as a bit of a wet blanket on support for the proposal, it lowered support, but we had a chance to come back talk in more detail

006about how the funds could be spent. We also had a chance to convey positive arguments here. We've yet to get to the negatives. And so we circle to what we call the interim ballot test. We say, "All right, now that you've heard a bit more about this proposal, we present the same 75word ballot statement. Where do you stand?" And you can see here at the interim ballot test, we check in at 62% support, 29% opposed, and you've got about uh 9% who are unsure or prefer not to answer the question. So at the interim ballot test, we are sitting seven points north of that 55% threshold that's required for passage. And then we get to the negatives. The idea behind the negatives is I want to pressure test voter support for for this proposal by

007peppering them with a series of negative arguments. The kind of arguments you would expect to hear from a critic because I want to know should you get opposition, should they be vocal, right, and get their message out there, how might that ultimately impact voters's opinions about your proposal? Uh you can see here we test a shorter list of negatives than we do positives. And that is by design. We tend to find when it comes to school bond uh campaigns that the advocacy group, right, larger in number in terms of bodies. They are more organized. They raise money. They have a louder voice than do the the opposition. And so we simulate that disparity by testing fewer negatives. That said, the negatives we test are designed to be hard-hitting negative arguments, right? We're trying to figure

008out how much damage could be done if we hit voters with these arguments. And you can see some of these arguments get traction. I mean, the arguments that really center around cost of living, people are sensitive to affordability and cost of living issues these days. Those are the arguments that get the most traction. The real question though is what happens afterwards and that is here. So, at the final ballot test, the negatives cool us down about five points, but we still land at 57% support, which is about two points north of the 55% threshold that's required for passage of a school bond. All right, so what does all this mean? I've just got two more wrap-up slides here. Um, I'm going to circle back first to that overarching question I mentioned at the outset of

009this presentation as being a, you know, a main motivation for why you do this research, which is to answer that basic question of is it feasible? If you, as a board choose to move, uh, forward with a measure on the November ballot, does have a reasonable chance of success? This is what I call a qualified yes. It is a yes, but it it's going to require some adjustments to your proposal, and it's going to require very effective outreach and engagement with the community. So why the yes part of this? Well, that's everything you see under the positive signs, right? We saw that voters rank improving the quality of education, local schools as the most important issue faced in the community. Um there was strong natural support for this proposal. At the initial ballot test, all

010they had was the 75 words. We found that 63% support uh for the proposal at that point. All of the projects and improvements that you're thinking about funding with the bond were popular. we've got positive arguments that resonate and importantly at each point in the survey where um you know we check back in with a respondent we present that same 75word ballot statement and say now that you've heard a bit more where do you stand remains above that 55% threshold at all ballot tests and that was even after we tested opposition arguments. So when we see that kind of pieces in place uh in a poll like this, those are the pieces we want to see in place for a measure to have a reasonable shot at success on election day. That said, there are

011also some challenges that come out of this poll or when you step back away from the poll and you just think about what a November election cycle is going to probably be like. Um we want to be cognizant of these challenges. One is the tax rate sensitivity. It's going to be really important that we choose a tax rate that's within the comfort zone of at least 55% of your voters. And we did see that the community has some tax rate sensitivity. Uh the opposition arguments, you know, if if you were to get opposition, it looks based on the polling here, they cool they cool support down a bit. We were um down about five points after we tested the opposition arguments. And then sort of stepping out of the poll, but thinking about the larger

012climate, you know, we're we're probably headed into yet another one of these hyperartisan elections, right? there might be some, you know, um, other measures on the ballot that can create some anti-ax sentiment. And there's also these unknowns, right? In some ways, I I put the unknown part of, the unparded in parenthesis here because in some ways, we know about these things already, right? We already know about tariffs and inflation. We know that folks are concerned about the trajectory of the economy. Um, these aren't unknowns to us now, and to some degree, all of this is already baked into your survey results. The reality is though what we don't know is what the next eight months are going to hold. Right? And so I raise these challenges and these unknowns not because they are insurmountable challenges

013but it's important that when you go put a measure on the ballot, you want to put a measure on the ballot that can withstand some adversity, right? So should we get some downturns in the economy or should you know you wind up with some opposition out there, you still are in a good position to be successful. So last slide here. So with that I have some sort of final observations and recommendations. Um the first thing I want to emphasize though is it's important to keep in mind that you know as wellcrafted as these polls are they are not a crystal ball, right? They're not looking forward to election day saying you're going to get 62% on election day. They they give you a really good idea of where you are today, right? They also give

014us a good idea of how voters tend to react to the types of information we would expect them to encounter during the election cycle. But ultimately what dictates what happens on election day isn't what your poll says today. It's everything that happens from this point forward. And so it's just a reminder to us that we got to make smart decisions about the measure that you put in front of your voters so it's well aligned with the type of measure they've indicated they're willing to support. And you got to put the work in in terms of communications. That's both on the district side, right? Non- advocacy communications where you can start to have more of a conversation with with your community over the next few months um to sort of help strengthen their awareness of what

015your facility needs are. Start to build some sort of and how these facility um improvements connect to your core mission and the educational opportunities um that students have. And ultimately start to build consensus around a bond proposal. And then ultimately there would need to be an independent campaign, right? This is volunteer-led, privately funded independent campaign that can go out and advocate for this measure during the election cycle once the board has chosen to place a measure on the ballot. Um, so with that, I uh I end my presentation. I welcome any questions from the board if there are any. And I'll go ahead and stop sharing screen. >> Thank you so much for your presentation. Um, board members, board member Stewart, >> sorry, board member Armstrong. >> Thank you, President Garza. Um, thank you for

016that, uh, thorough presentation. I just have one question. Were you able to ascertain what group had the tax rate sensitivity? >> Um, there are some that are more than others, but it's sort of across the board. Um, you know, and we could look into that a little deeper, but we tend to find that, um, you know, when you're dropping down, it's often a little more often to be homeowners, as you might imagine, because they're the ones that, you know, when they, you know, once they read the ballot statement, then you focus in, you start talking about property taxes, you tend to get a little more drop typically among homeowners than you do say renters. Um, but even renters are going to be have some tax rate sensitivity too because they'll clue in that, oh, okay,

017this is a property tax, which means this could ultimately trickle down to to, you know, the rent that I pay. Um, but um, you know, you do sort of see a base level of sensitivity across uh, everybody. >> That's it. Thank you. >> I have a question not about the survey. Are you here to answer questions as well, please? I think it's going to be you, but I'll ask my question. Um, I just am wondering if it's just in thinking of bonds, is it better to go for like a larger bond and go less years or is it better to go for smaller bonds and go more often? >> That's a great question and I think things have changed over time. So, prior to no the November 2018 election, the ballot language that you used

018for bonds only had to say the aggregate bond amount, right? So, if you're raising $200 million, it didn't have to say the tax rate in it, the duration, the amount of the annual levy, none of the things that we see today. And at that time, you would see a lot of cases of districts being able to pass large bonds based on high dollar uh high tax rates, right? Um the Prop 39 max is $60 per 100,000 of assessed valuation. There were plenty of bonds passed back then at that rate where, you know, the reality is that a lot of voters just didn't really dig in to figure out what the rate was. And so even though there might be rate sensitivity in the community, they just sort of never connected the dots. And so you'd

019see these large bonds happening less frequently. Today with AB195 in place, the tax rate is right there in the 75word balance statement, right? So you can't miss it. And it's also a little confusing because it's in this rate of, you know, $45 per 100,000 assessed valuation or something like that, right? So what we have found over time is that has created some downward pressure on the tax rates that voters are for bonds that voters are willing to support, right? And because of that, it's creating a situation where now districts are starting to evolve to doing more bite-size bonds but more frequently, right? as opposed to one big bond less frequently. >> Okay, thank you. Do you want to add or no? >> You want to add? Come on. >> Let me introduce um Mark Frell,

020our senior financial adviser with Dale Scott and Company, and he's here to support questions as well. And I know that Tim didn't know that because he can't see us. >> Hey, hi Mark. Tim. Um, I mean, I think, um, you know, it varies really by community and it varies by survey result. Uh, we have a number of districts that still are able to put bonds on the ballot with a full $60 parcel tax or excuse me, full $60 per 100,000 tax. And then, yes, there's other districts that kind of were reducing that dollar amount shortly, reducing the size of the bond, reducing the term of the bond, various uh various ways to to make the bond more palatable to the particular community. Okay, thank you. That was all I had. >> Vice President, >> thank

021you, Madam President. Uh, with the different tax rates, what what dollar amount does that come to like for the uh 28 per thousand compared to the 49? >> You know, since Mark is there and I know that now, I'm gonna let Mark speak to that because he's the expert on that. >> Thank you. at uh the $39. So the 49 was the 135 that was in the ballot question. 39 is around 110 million and 28 would be around 80 million. >> And do you know what measure BB was in 2012? >> 709. >> It was 79 million. But what >> it was a $55 tax rate. >> 55. Thank you. I'm I'm looking I'm obviously 100% supportive and thank you for doing this work and thank you for the presentation. Um I think uh I've

022kind of like doubled the money 180 because at one point I think I was maybe even pressing you about like you know going big uh you know asking for more because the need is there but measure BV uh was 79 million uh and it passed with 73% which is about 16,500 votes but it was also a presidential uh election. it was Obama versus Romney and the midterm is expected like almost half the turnout. Um, how much of that consideration of it being a midterm and only expecting about 50% of the turnout compared to when it passed with 73%. Um, how much of that should we be concerned with? >> So, yeah, you raised some important questions and I I'll try and take it in a couple pieces here. So, first of all, when you're looking

023back to bond measures that are pre208, sounds like your last one was, and it passed overwhelmingly. I mentioned the AB195 and how it changed the bout language. One of the things that that did was um prior to 2018, we had bout language that was just more bond friendly, right? And when 8195 changed the rules around bond language, we did a ton of research around the state and determined that, you know, over 20,000 interviews testing different different ballot language. And the bottom for the net out of that was that support for school bond measures dropped 7% on average just by the change in the ballot language because they're putting in information in the ballot language that can be a little confusing or off-putting to voters. A lot of voters don't know how to translate the rate

024per 100,000 AV into a meaningful number. It gives them pause. And so we saw that drop. So even if everything else were the same, right, in terms of uh comparing this measure to your past measure, I would expect a 7point drop just because of the ballot language itself. Um beyond that, this question about turnout, you are absolutely right that different elections can have different turnouts and some wind up being great um sort of really positive elections for revenue measures around the state. others wind up being not so great. Um, you think about the November 2018 election. Uh, that was the first midterm after Trump took office in his first uh, term as president. That was the fabled blue wave election here in California where there was just a big push back in California trying to

025flip the house um, to remove United government. The end result of that was you had this turnout among uh younger voters, more left-leaning voters and independents that normally isn't there that was there in that election and it was like a tide that floated all boats and so it raised it up and you had measures that were passing that cycle that probably wouldn't have passed in other election environments. Then you have some examples of the complete opposite. Like the March 2020 election was supposed to be a great primary for uh for ballot measures. And about three weeks before that election, COVID hit, right? And it just sideswiped that election. And it was the hands down the worst election for revenue measures ever because people were really fearful and uncertain about what was happening. And so, you

026know, when I look at if you talk about your old your past bond, um, you got to think about the timing of the election. Certainly, as a presidential, generally speaking, the higher the turnout, you tend to see a little more favorable outcome just because you're bringing into the polls a demographic that, you know, may not be there in the in offy-ear elections and midterm elections, but when they show up, they they tend to be more friendly. And so, you'll see a lot of school bonds on the ballot in the presidential generals. Um but again when you look at this November uh cycle I actually think that you know it has sort of the earmarks of being a better than average um election environment as well. So I don't know if that I'm happy to if

027I missed a part of your question that you you want me to speak on. U just remind me. >> No that was great. Thank you. Anything to add? >> No I mean I would agree. I think November of 26 uh we don't have an incoming governor so that helps. And then you know national politics remain to be seen how that'll drive turn up. >> One more question if I can. Uh I just so before we kind of went through this whole survey which is I'm happy we're doing this uh I was more inclined for the 49 but the it sounds like what other districts have done and sounds like maybe a more uh secure safe practice is to go for regular bonds every so often to keep up our facility needs. Um we we passed

028one where other districts in our area have passed four or five and I think it's because of that huge gap like our needs we're going through a facilities master plan right now and I have a feeling the what they're going to bring back to us in just you know just the highest priority is going to be more than what we would probably get in a bond. Uh so the and the 79 million that we got last time I mean that was in 2012 79 million wouldn't go as far today as it would then it probably be about 20 30% less right so the buying power is much lower. Um, so what was the So you said like it would be like 80 million for the lowest uh the 28 per 100. >> Yeah. Back the

029envelope about 80 million for the 28. >> Yeah. Um yeah, I think I mean we we definitely need a bond measure. Uh we need the community support for it. Um and I just say whatever we do to make it successful because even though the the polling is favorable, it's not automatic. So whatever uh in every legal ethical way we can support uh you know that independent effort uh is just going to be really important because I don't think it's just going to pass by itself. We need everybody on this. >> I can say in 2012 um if you look at the the survey all told was about 70% yes mean lean yes and he finished with just under 73%. So uh picked up percentage points roughly and I know there was a pretty substantial yes

030on measure DB campaign. So that is something to consider. >> Any other questions? >> Um can you just restate um the amounts that you went over at those different levels? >> Sure. kind of roughly 110 million for the $39 tax rate and 80 million for 28. >> And then you said 135 for the 49 >> 135 for >> Okay, thank you. >> Thank you for that. Um I do have a question. I'm not sure who's going to be able to answer this one. Um it seems like uh in the upcoming election in November um the LA the county has decided to take it to the ballot in November um whether or not cities may increase their local tax. Have you ever seen when like what is the result when there's a school bond on the

031ballot as well as a city tax? Have you ever experienced that? What were the what were the outcomes? >> Yeah, pretty much every election you're going to experience um you know some degree of overlapping measures or competition u because they've consolidated elections. It's just you know gone are the days where you're the only thing on the ballot, right? you're going to be sharing the ballot with other things and certainly depending on what combination of things is on the ballot both the state, county, and then local level. Um sometimes it can create a bit of a tailwind, right? U for your measure. Sometimes it can create a little bit of a headwind for your measure. Um we have generally found though that you know when voters are considering measures they're good at sort of you know

032considering each measure on its own merits and when push comes to shove if they're going to vote yes on something they are more apt to vote for their local measure right something that's going to affect their community like their local school district or their local city more so than they are say a regional measure or countywide measure um that would result in a tax increase but is there's no sort of guarantees that the money stays in their community. It might because it's countywide, the benefits of that might be spent in another part of the county. And so the fact that this is about education, which your voters clearly care about and it's local to your community, that is a plus. Um, I would even go so far as to say even among schools when if

033you get a large school district that spans a lot of different communities, even there sometimes that can create a bit of a challenge because you have people living on one side of the district that may feel like, wait a minute, you know, the schools around my area probably aren't going to benefit from this. It's going to be the schools in the neighboring city or two cities over. that is I've seen that create some challenge for some of these larger either high school districts or unified districts. But um you know I think the fact that the county is going to do something at the county level possibly in terms of sales tax I I I don't think that's going to create much of a sort of an adversity for your measure. >> Thank you for that.

034Anyone questions, comments >> hearing none. Um, thank you so much for the presentation and your very great information. Very detailed. >> My pleasure. Thank you, >> Dr. >> Yes. Thank you, President Garza. And now our next discussion item is the annual audit report. Mrs. Arcus, >> good evening again. Tonight, we are presenting the results of our annual financial audit. This process is vital for ensuring our district remains in good standing with the state and with our community. Thisres represents a year-long cycle of um activities, meaning that already we've started on our current year audit in just just this month. I'm pleased to introduce our audit partner Jessica Miller from Nigro and Nigro audit firm. They have completed a comprehensive review of our financial records and are here to present their independent opinion. Miss Miller has

035a deep background in K12 finance and auditing and I'll turn it over to her to highlight the key takeaways from this year's report. Thank you. I appreciate the introduction. As was said, my name is Jessica Miller. I am a partner with Nigro and Nigro and we serve as your independent external auditor. For my presentation, I'd like to go through a brief overview of our process that takes place throughout the year, a brief overview of the report itself, and then I'm more than happy to answer any questions or go into more detail if you should like. Um actually as was just said we're getting ready for this current cycle of the audit with audits happen in three stages for our firm. They start off with what's happening now which is the site testing phase of the

036audit. At this phase we're going to actual individual school sites. So we take a sample of your school sites and we're visiting those sites. And during this testing we're looking at attendance taking procedures and we're also looking at ASB activities. So obviously your attendance or your ADA is a major driver of a lot of your different funding. And so we want to make sure there's proper procedures, controls, checks and balances when it comes to how attendance is being taken. Uh this would also include independent study as well as regular in-classroom attendance. When we're at the school sites, we also look at ASBs and we pull samples of transactions at the ASBs and make sure there are prop there's proper documentation, approval, things like that when it comes to your ASB funds. Fast forward a little

037bit in kind of the time. We're up to early summer. We do our first district office visit. So, we call this our interim at this point. Books are not closed for the year. We're not at their fiscal year end yet. So, we aren't looking at final financial numbers, but we're looking at controls and compliance. So, when it comes to controls, we're doing a sample of transactions across a variety of different areas and making sure again checks and balances, approval, documentation. We look at expenditures, um, making sure that there's documentation for those, cash receipts coming in, the timeliness, the kind of audit trail of that money coming in. We pull payroll and HR transactions and make sure there's documentation for that. We also do an extensive number of questionnaires with different staff, have them kind of

038walk us through their procedures and see if we note any red flags during those questionnaires. We're also looking at compliance at this time. We do both state and federal compliance. For federal compliance, it's a rotation of your different major federal programs that we look at yeartoyear. For state compliance, that's directed by the state audit guide. And this is a a very, I'll say, a little bit random list of different things that we look at. It can be anything from the allowability of a particular expenditure for a program to whether or not a notice gets posted by a certain day or a policy gets updated annually, things like that. There's quite a bit of different things um involved in state compliance. And actually, our attendance testing that we've already done at this stage is part of

039state compliance as well. Fast forward again, we come back in the fall. At this point, we're after June 30th. Books are closed for the year. And so, we're really shifting our focus to financials, working our way through your unodited actuals, making sure the numbers present presented there can be tied out to support to documentation and they're presented accurately. That's again a little bit of compliance and controls that we wrap up with at our final visit, but really more of a financial focus at that point in time. All of that leads to audit report. Not always the most exciting reading, but I'll kind of give you the highlights as we're going through. Starts off at the very very beginning of the report with our opinion letter. Few pages at the beginning. And this is an a

040clean or an unmodified or unqualified opinion. They can be called, which is what you would want. It's saying that we agree that the financial statements is presented here are presented fairly and all material aspects. That's really what those opening letters are talking about. After that, there is what's called management's discussion and analysis. sometimes call the cliff notes of the audit report about eight pages or so there. It gives shortened or condensed versions of the financial statements but also gives current year as well as prior year. So a little bit of context to kind of help you understand those numbers as well as some very very brief explanations of why certain things went up, certain things went down. So that's what that first section is. After that are the full financial statements with all the detail

041and then the bulk of the audit report after that are notes. These are required disclosures about accounting policies and practices. There's notes about actually your bond measures. They are fairly outstanding. The debt repayment on those and fairly extensive notes about pension and oped. The required disclosures in those areas are quite lengthy. Once you get past the notes, there's additional schedules in the back. I won't go through each additional one. A lot of them on pension, a lot on OP. Again, a lot of required disclosures when it comes to those, but the ones that are usually have a little bit more interest. There'll be a schedule of your average daily attendance for the year, a budgetary comparison schedule with budget to actual, um a schedule of your instructional minutes, and then also one of your federal

042awards that were spent throughout the year. Those are usually the ones of a little bit more interest. And then wrapping up with the report at the end, there's three additional opinion letters. So really kind of that opening letter or overall opinion on your financials. The ones in the back are accordance with governmental auditing standards and a letter in accordance with that. And then there'll be one for federal compliance and state compliance is how those letters are laid out in the very back. And then after that we get to any findings that were noted throughout the year and during the audit process as well as any resolution to prior year findings that were noted in the previous audit. And then the very very back any management comments which are things that are not the level of

043findings but just kind of best pract best practice suggestions. It's kind of how we wrap it up. So again brief overview of our process and the report but I'm more than happy to answer questions or go into more detail. Thank you so much. Any questions, comments? Okay. Um, I think I have a couple of questions. Um, you state that we actually need to look into our ADA and the way that we take attendance. Can you speak a little bit more about what measures we need to adopt aside from what we already have right now or maybe we need to change or what are the recommendations? >> Um, sure. I'll break out. There was a two different things on attendance. I'm not quite sure which one you're pulling. There was an actual finding for attendance accounting.

044This one I will say is a little bit less on maybe the attendance taking procedures and more on um actually a little bit of a clerical type of issues with the overall calculations. there's a lot of attendance that feeds in from a lot of different areas and gets recalculated and updated and it is actually quite easy to miss small updates or not be able to get revisions in on time. So I would say that that the finding piece itself is not necessarily attendance procedure say at a school site level more of just making sure all the data is picked up properly. Um that being said the finding actually gives you more money. It doesn't take it away. So nobody likes findings but if you're going to get a finding that's the kind you'd want because

045it's actually saying some small under reporting that needs to recognize it's actually a finding that helps you. In the very very back under the management comments, there are a couple notes about uh just certification timeliness. This is really just dealing with teachers when they take attendance. They're supposed to sign off on those attendance records in a timely basis. And so we did note a few instances where it was taking longer than the recommended amount of time for teachers to go back and actually sign off on attendance. So that would be one that maybe a little bit of an additional training or reminders of timely attendance taking and submission would be beneficial. >> Okay. So it's more of um the finding that you have for us in here is more of the district office level. >>

046Uh yeah the finding the attendance one I would say is a little bit more of the district. It's when they're compiling all the information for the P2 and annual. So those attendance reporting periods just making again really more smaller on the clerical error type of things where different things didn't quite get updated along the way. >> Okay. And then making sure that our teachers are turning in their attendance on a timely manner. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> No other questions for me. >> Thank you, President Garza. Um I wanted to say I did read this entire report, but I have to say after page 80 something. I you totally lost me. So, >> um I just want to make sure that I understand what this report is really reflecting is you're going in and you're

047auditing small things and crossing the crossing the tees, dotting the eyes and making sure that we have the procedures in place that make things flow. >> Yes. So, the >> the gist, >> yes, we're look we're giving an opinion on your overall financials, but as part of that, we are looking Yes. proper controls that are in place in order for those financials to be produced properly. So the recommendations that you give and maybe this is not a you question maybe this is a cabinet question the recommendations that were given in this report that's things that are already being considered or being something's already being done or we're making sure like for example the attendance question I did see it on there to make sure that our teachers are able to sign off on the attendance

048and date it properly in a timely manner and that to me seems like an easy ask but or like check Hi my VTA people. Um but um I wonder have we already addressed this and this was just something that came out now that the report is completed at least at this stage. >> Yeah, actually one of the things that we've already done in response to this report is we've conducted site visits and providing training to attendance clerks at Somerset and I believe we went to Belfflower High School as well. We looked at um standardizing procedures across sites including attendance system controls, weekly teacher attendance certification requirements and monthly reconciliation of enrollment and attendance confirmed. So in response to our audit, we took immediate action and started working with our sites to better ensure that they

049know what the requirements are and working internally to make sure that the data we receive and what we do with it is what we need to do. >> Awesome. I think my only followup, especially because we're always talking about um training for for refresher courses or things like that. Um are we going to have a blanket refresher at some point or in the beginning of the new school year, something like that for not just particular sites, but just for everybody overall? >> It's like you're reading my my next steps. So, we're going to schedule additional site visits. We're going to conduct spot check audits before external auditors come on board so that we can help our sites understand what needs to be done. And in particular, our next step just because independent study is such

050kind of a difficult subject that I think most districts are combating. Um so I didn't I don't want to single us out. I want to say independent study uh you know reaching out is our next step as far as training. And we've actually had our director of independent study work on some she's already working with certain sites and the idea is to come to our principal meeting and talk about what uh independent study procedures are and then work that into site visits and secretarial or I'd say clerical support that is actually preparing these attendance reports at the sites. >> Awesome. So an additional and last I promise last question about this is that um so basically overall overarching is anything that comes out as a concern or a recommendation is going to be considered and

051have a strategy plan moving forward to address it in a timely manner. Yes. As a matter of fact at the end of the audit report they will include next year our responses. they will look at these particular things you know more deeply if I may say or do do you want to address what you guys do? >> Yes. So anytime there is a finding um in the report itself it'll list all prior year findings and then it shows whether or not they were implemented not implemented partially implemented. So anytime we do write a finding we have to then reassess it the next year when we come back and then show that. So um page 88 way in the back there was a single finding actually the prior year and that one was showing it's implemented

052in this current year's audit report because that one had been addressed. So yes anytime there is a finding we are required to then re-report those with a status update of whether or not they've been implemented. So we do have to reook at those types of items. >> Thank you so much. I really appreciate you explaining this a little bit more. still overwhelming, but I appreciate the work you do >> and thank you cabinet for adjusting. >> I just want to say thank you for clarifying all of that because this is not a teacher thing. This could be a combination of a lot of things. So, I'm glad that you trust the clerical staff, the sites, the administrators. I know my data collectors out this week, so it might stall the process. So, there's a lot

053that goes into it. Teachers take role every day, but then they sign off on that. So, thank you for clarifying that for my colleagues >> and everybody else. Thank you. So, I want to jump in. Thank you. Thank you for the work. >> Yeah, I just had a question on the u the finding for the ASB funds. Have you guys um talked with the people who were responsible for that? Because I know like me, I was a part of the band booster uh for um for the high school band. Um, so you know, we had pretty, you know, the way we ran things, it was pretty tight. We didn't hold on to any money at all. It was always counted and and checked. How are we doing with the ASB? Are there are do they

054need training? Do they need guidelines? What? >> Uh, sure. We don't have any findings for ASB this year. >> Oh, look. So, the very very back just a slight clarification. So there's findings that were reported and then in the back is what we call management comment. So these are things that haven't risen to the level of finding but they are things that were noted as kind of more best practice comments. So there were some comments regarding ASB and some areas for improvement. They weren't technically findings in the report. That helps clarify a little bit. >> Yeah. So those that information is being used in the same way the attendance information is being used. meaning we're going to go out um we've already created a checklist for our ASB um activities at each of the sites

055that when we go out we're kind of completing a mini audit on our um ASB sites and looking for the different things that our auditors look for so that we can kind of explain to them what things they need to work on or what things we need in place. And so a couple of things have come out of those um that information in the back of that audit which includes uh more detailed and um kind of checklist for them. And we're also trying to plan multiple scheduled visits throughout the year. Thank you for that question too. >> Anyone else? Thank you so much for your great report. >> Thank you, President Garza. Our last discussion item is the midyear LCAP update. Mrs. Carter will present the presentation to the board. Good evening. So tonight, in

056collaboration with business services, I'll be providing the midyear local control accountability plan update. The LCAP is a three-year plan of which we are in the second year of implementation. Annually, we review the plan with educational partners and determine if any changes need to be made. Tonight's report fulfills the requirement to provide an update on the current status of implementing the plan. The update is to be provided annually prior to February 28th and includes the current status of implementation of each action, the current expenditures to date, and outcome data for each metric that is currently available. Expenditures and implementation information will be presented as not started, in progress, or complete. Some metrics are still in progress as the information is collected from sources that are not yet complete or available, such as healthy kids survey and

057the LCAP survey data. At the time of adoption of the budget overview, which was June of last year, the total projected revenue was approximately $193 million received by funding sources as labeled on the slide. As of January 31st, the projected revenue is approximately 199 million. The difference in funding is due mostly to carryover funds that have been placed online. Our plan has four goals and 27 actions. The actions included in goal one support the provision of safe collaborative conditions for learning. More specifically, actions provide teachers, administrators, and staff instructional support, decrease of combos, infrastructure maintenance, and custodial operations, as well as mental health services, positive behavior interventions, and the ability for staff to collaborate in professional learning. to support students with participating in a broad course of study. Of the 11 actions, one is complete

058and the rest are still in progress. For goal one, data points are collected in five state priority areas. Basic conditions, student conditions, student engagement, school climate, and course access. Basic conditions including hiring teachers with clear credentials, purchasing standard aligned materials were maintained and maintaining good facilities um did decline from the previous year. However, all schools remain in either exemplary or good condition. In the area of student conditions, which measures student suspension and expulsion rates, positive behavior intervention implementation and perception data regarding the safety of schools, eight of 18 outcomes are still in progress. 70% of the completed outcomes are final with no improvement and 30% improved in the area of suspensions. Specifically, African-American and homeless suspension rates did improve in comparison to the previous years. Student engagement data measures the rate of student attendance. One

059of 11 metrics is still in progress. However, 100% of the remaining metrics improved. Data collected to measure school climate including measurement of student connectedness at school, teachers feeling of responsibility for improving school and parents feelings of well welcomeness to participate at school are still pending as the data is collected through our healthy kids survey. In the area of course access, data is collected to measure student dropout rates, expulsion rates, and the achievement of second grade students becoming readers by third grade. Dropout rates and expulsion rates have improved. Second grade students becoming readers are still in progress. Overall, 68% of the finalized metrics improved in comparison to last year. Goal 2 includes 10 actions that support academic programs and achievement. These services include purchasing standard aligned materials, supporting beginning teachers, supplemental academic support and expanded learning

060opportunities, and other programs including early childhood education, college career opportunities, and bilingual dual immersion, implementation of all actions are still in progress. The metrics for goal two measure progress of three state priorities, including implementation of state standards, student achievement, and other student outcomes that include participation and achievement in college career opportunities. Data collected to measure progress toward implementing state standards, including students attaining proficiency of science, math, and English language arts standards, shows approximately 91% of metrics showing improvement in state testing outcomes. Overall, scores for science, math, and reading improved, including scores for English learners and students with disabilities and math and reading. Areas of focus for improvement include homeless and long-term English learners in math. All identified student groups in English language arts, showed improvement. Most of the outcomes collected to measure student achievement, including

061spring semester grades and benchmarks are still in progress. 76% of the completed metrics collected to measure student success and other programs improved or maintained, including 11th grade students being ready, the percent of students graduating state or university ready, the percent of AP exams passing passage, English learners and students with disabilities graduating prepared, and students graduating meeting both ag requirements and earning CTE pathway. Most notable was that the percentage of English learners that graduated meeting EU CSU requirements doubled. Overall, 78% of the finalized metrics improved in comparison to last year. Goal three measures progress with increasing parent involvement in communication strategies. Perception data regarding whether teachers believe they are part of the decision-making process, that parents believe their involvement is promoted in three or more parent workshops are being provided by each school are still being

062collected. Although data for Instagram, YouTube, and the website are still being collected, the current status of all metrics have improved, including website traffic, social media posts, Instagram views, and content interactions, as well as YouTube views, and archived content views. Goal four was created to identify actions to support three schools that receive specialized funding this year due to instability of their student population. To support these populations, services for academic support and college career readiness are being implemented. Over 40% of the metrics collected for this goal are still in progress. However, 92% of the remaining finalized metrics did improve. Over the course of the next four months, the LCAP actions will continue to be implemented and metric outcomes will be collected to deter determine progress in supporting student success. The LCAP survey is currently being developed and

063is scheduled to be distributed in March. In May, final analysis of the current LCAP will be reviewed and final input will be solicited for educational partners prior to June when the updated LCAP will be brought to you for review and approval. That concludes the update for tonight. >> More members. >> One thing I want to say that I love the classroom visits 1037. That's pretty awesome in LCAP 2. Um I'm going to take some of my board report and put it in this. Uh one thing I would like to see in future meetings, President Garz, is if we could get a little bit more data. We have not looked at our test scores for each site, each grade level, each demographic, our plans to make them better. And I just really hope that we see

064more data in the future. No matter how we do it, we've been on the board and done it a few different ways, but I really want to see that data because from what I've seen in the preliminary is we've done better and I think we should be highlighting that for our teachers and for our community. And then the only other thing is um it kind of relates to this LCAP, but I would like more information on the Friday memo regarding our textbooks and where we're at with that. I saw a health book from our elementary that's copyrighted 2006. I mean, come on now. That's like a long time. And I also know that there's discussions about taking health off of the report cards, and I would just like a little bit more information. I know

065teachers are probably excited because it's one less thing they have to do, but I also think health is really important. So, I just want to see what the rationale is with that if we can get that on the Friday memo. Thank you. >> Anyone else? Um Is there something? >> Um, >> okay. >> President Garc, I just had one question about the community schools. What are what are our plans to move forward with community schools? What's going on with that? >> I would have to get back to you once I connect with the team on future planning. I know there's some changes at Mayfair. Um, but I do need to connect with the team at BHS. uh question just just to help me out here. When the the numbers that were p that are on

066this presentation, they should match up with the baseline numbers of the original LCAP or what would they >> So, in the original LCAP, you're going to see the baseline and then you're going to see year one and then these are going to be year two that we'll put in there. So they're not going to match up, but the goal eventually is that when we created that baseline, we created a goal to get to. So we're hoping to get to those goals. >> Okay. Um, and some of them, I mean, I know I saw a couple complete on there, but then there's some of the actions like are complete, like if you look at like website uh traffic, like we've already hit that goal. I know it's still a living document. Would we uh change those

067goals? So, we're continuing to like strive because like some of them we've already like passed up a lot. >> Yeah, we'll reook at that and um update our baseline and where our goals are at and we're just going to continue to try to achieve higher from where we were at anyways. But once we do the three year, we reset everything. >> Um >> so the higher number will become our baseline. >> Okay. Uh is is there anything specific questions for you Bonnie uh that you see in the LCAP where we're not going the right direction that we should focus on? >> Well, I don't know that it's the wrong direction, but I think that there's some areas that we're stalling in and that we're still um looking to make some improvements in. Um our absence

068uh rates, we were declining at a faster rate, but we've sort of stalled there a little bit. And I know there's a lot of work being done at the school sites to try to help with that. And then suspension and PBIS is still an area that we're we're focusing in. >> Can I add too um looking at our UCCCSU requirements and that rate that's something that we are really hitting hard having conversations even how we program kids our our scholars, excuse me, our master scheduling. So really looking at those aspects that's definitely one area that we want to increase in. >> Okay. Um what about uh expulsion rate? >> Our expulsion rate is low and so is that an area that you're saying that we need to improve in or >> No. Have we seen

069improvements in our expulsion rate? >> Oh absolutely. In the last three years we have. It was at 1% and now we're at below 1%. It doesn't even register. It's like zero. >> Yeah. There's not like a lot of room there. Like the baseline was 1% then it was like the goal is to decrease it below 1%. >> Exactly. >> Um but no, just to highlight the the good work that we're doing. Um I I know I I think we're pretty much at a record low expulsion rate at the moment, right? >> Yeah. Knock on wood. >> Knocking on wood. Um, yeah, we are in and dropouts the same. We're doing a much better job in that area as well. And then just for your background knowledge, expulsion rate, you're going to see that on there.

070Again, there's certain metrics that are required to be in here. >> Yeah, I was just setting you up for highlight. >> Thank you, Bonnie. >> Yeah, thank you. >> Anyone else? Um, I do have some questions myself. So, how are we communicating this progress to parents right now. >> Um we have been uh communicating with our advisory committees. So our DAC has seen this data. Our DAG pack has as well. Um obviously there's more in this one because our meetings were you know about three weeks ago. So we'll continue with our advisory and then um our school sites should be doing the same at their school sites with their advisory groups. >> And then do we have updated information on our website as well. >> This presentation will be on our website once this meeting

071is over. Yeah. >> So, anyone can go in there and just take a look at it. >> Absolutely. They'll see the slide deck up there. >> Okay, perfect. If any of the our community members have a question about it, who should they reach out to? >> Um, they can reach out to my office. Perfect. And then we have our all our information from our um different staff members on our website already up and running. Everything's good, right? So people can go ahead and reach out to Miss Carter's office if they need to. >> Yes, they can. >> Her division is listed on our website with her name. No picture yet, but her name is on there. >> Okay, perfect. Thank you. Um I also wanted to ask about um has any have we had any

072unexpected changes in the state funding that would affect our LCAP at this moment. >> So in this midyear presentation we were able to update all of the changes that we know for this year. Um the uh I'll be doing second interim at March 12th meeting and we'll be talking about some updates from the state uh governor released his budget in January and it does some reduced colas and reduced colas will reduce the amount of revenue and therefore impact um our supplemental concentration dollars and I'll be uh going over those projections at our March 12. Thank you. Um that's it for now. appreciate your your help and also thank you so much for working on this. So, um I believe that was our last discussion, >> correct? >> So, we're on to major action now. Um

073we have one major action item this evening on the selection of members to the California School Board Association Delegate Assembly 2026. The board considered the selection of six candidates. First one is John Contes from El Rancho USD, Esther Mahia Rancho USD, Tyrone Kate from Downey USD, Alicia Magnano from Santa Monica Baloo USD and Phillips Londale ESD. Linda Solomon Salana from Downey USD. Does the board have any questions or comments? I have one question question, President Garza. In what month, and it might be an Elaine question. In what month do we have an application for this? Because I would really like to see one of our board members on this. I don't I don't know if we miss it. I don't know what happens or if we don't see it. But if we have a month

074or next time it comes up, you can just, hey, look at this. This we want of our people instead of Downey having two people on there. >> I don't know exactly the month. I know it was I want to say maybe about two months. >> Okay. Okay. >> I can get you that information, >> please. So that next year we don't miss it. We really want someone on. >> I didn't say I wanted to be on. I just said we need someone on. >> Any other questions or comments? Okay. Uh, do I have a motion to approve the six selected candidates for the CSBA delegate assembly 2026? >> You have that motion. >> Second. Roll call, please. >> Student member. >> Hi. >> Miss Armstrong. >> I miss Stewart. >> I miss >> I. >>

075Mr. Critfield. >> I miss >> I. Now we're on to consent agenda. Do we have any items to withhold from the consent agenda this evening? >> Hearing none. Um, do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Roll call, please. >> Student member. >> I. >> Miss Armstrong. >> I, Miss Stewart. >> I, Cron. >> Hi. >> Mr. Hi. >> Mr. I. >> Now on to board communications. Um, we will start with student board member in a while this I'll start broad and then kind of narrow it down so I can save the best for last. Um, for starters, I've been at the district's guiding coalition meeting since I want to say January 9th. Um, it's a group made up of a bunch of different members of our

076community. There's myself, there's President Garza, Vice President Chrisfield, um, Dr. Simon, Dr. Smith, um, Miss Carter, I think. Okay. Um, Miss Arcus, and a bunch of other different members. We have teachers, principles, um, classified staff, counselors, a bunch of different people from different parts of the community. And we're really working on, you know, what our vision is as a district because times are changing and we have to be able to evolve with those times to become a better district. So, I really enjoy that we've gotten a bunch of these different people bringing their different perspectives and different ideas together so we all have one unified vision. Um on 20th, yes, February 20th, I think February 20th, um Mayfair had their month jazz renaissance. It was filled with good music, um good words from members of

077the African-American members of the community, music from our uh marching band. We had clubs, vending art academy, skills, a bunch of different clubs. It was just a nice event overall. Just nice to see everybody, you know, come together, support, and listen to good advice. Um and my last um item was our Skills USA competitions. Those happened throughout the month of throughout late January and midFebruary. We had a bunch of different competitors and the scores were supposed to come out on the 20th, but we had to wait a whole three days. So, we didn't come out on the 20th. They said they were going to come out at three, but they didn't. Um, Saturday, we were waiting. Sunday, we're waiting. And then Monday, I don't know, we're at like am the scores dropped and we have

078an astounding 53 competitors qualified for state competitions including my team which we um competed in video news production. So, I just want to give a huge shout out to all of our schools USA competitors from Bellflower, Mayfair, a bunch of all all the schools in our district that competed and put their blood, sweat, and tears and all that time into competing. And yeah, that's pretty much it. >> Armstrong. Thank you, President Garza. I'll go really quick through this. Um, I attended the Bellflower High School uh navigation night. Um, I attended uh an event that was hosted by the Rotary Club. Uh, it was um where they had uh distinguished guests. Fiona Ma and Betty Ye was there. So, they had a nice little conference there. and I attended a CIF mixer. Um, and that's where

079I guess all the people who all the uh make all the decisions for I guess the sports they they met. So I got a chance to meet um a bunch of new people um and seeing how they were to I guess make decisions for CIF stuff. So it was just new to me and uh I did my little act training. Um I also went to the cheer competition. However, I did miss the um the Mayfair kids because I I I didn't I didn't know what time they went on and it was the whole weekend. But I was up there for my daughter because she's a cheerleader also. And uh and well, I was captivated too, you know. So I love cheering. Uh any and I also went to um Schoolyard Rap. They had a um

080they had a show in LA at the Wilshire Eel Theater. I I really enjoyed it. This was my first time seeing a full show and I met with one of the ladies from LA USD and she was just talking about how how she uses the ELOP funds to fund it and it's for the after school type program. So you know remember uh Stuart, you you've seen Schoolyard Rap. I mean, the whole show. Amazing. So, we'll look into that later and see if we can bring something like that to our to our students. Very educational. Um he has um a curriculum, ethnic curriculum for um the Hispanic heritage, black, uh Chinese, um Native Americans. So, He covers a lot. He's been growing. Every time I see this young man, he's expanding more and more. So, yeah.

081So, I'm glad I got a chance to to finally see a full show. So, that's it. >> Thank you, board member Armstrong, board member Stewart. Mine's very lengthy. I'm sorry. I'm glad yours is short. Um, good evening. Um, before I tell you what I've done, I want to give a huge shout out to Sebastian Lewis, senior at Bufflair High School for winning the 2026 Black History Month Legacy Maker. I remember seeing Sebastian at a football game last year and he was running around with the Buccaneer flag. If you've seen him, he runs back and forth and I told Mrs. Cummings, I need his energy. And she asked me if I had ever met him and I said no. So, she introduced us and she told me how fabulous he was and how much school spirit

082he had and just what a great kid he was. and she was so right. Um he went on to win homecoming king. Some of us drove two hours to the CIF football game in Santa Apollo and I pull up and who do I see? Sebastian with um Coach Miller's wife and their family and it was awesome. He was there cheering us on and even Mrs. Carter and I saw him at the college and career fair and he was just telling us all about his baking. He had a 4.0 GPA. I mean, he was just highlighting himself and I loved it. It was so awesome. Um, so I'm so proud of him, his confidence and the pride he has in himself. He truly believes in himself and he has such a bright future. So congratulations to

083Sebastian and his family. January 27th, I met with BTA President John Young. And we only talked about a few things this visit, but one was just about communication with our teachers and our staff. And I did talk with Mr. Dr. Simon about this. Just continuing to make communication a priority. We just want to make sure that when we're giving things out or things are being done, especially when it's different than the past that we talk about that and communicate that and I think people will appreciate that and not be so confused when some new things appear. So, I hope we'll continue to work on communication. January 30th, I went to see Mayfair's musical performance of Beetlejuice and it was as always so impressive. The cast was great. Thank you for adding the Cal Apps poster

084to the props. That was really cool. Mr. Saunders always does an amazing job, which he forever credits to his students and their ability to create and just go with it, and I love that. So, thank you for all of your hard work in keeping us entertained every year. Next year is Foot Loose, and I cannot wait to go again. February 4th, I went to the fair at Mayfair High School. Thank you to our amazing volleyball team for their baked goods and to all of the different groups. They had such wonderful food and making money for their program, so that was awesome. Thank you, Dr. Morgan and her staff for hosting a great event and thank you to PTA for as always being there to support our families. February 10th and 11th, I attended a cohort

085for safe and civil. Um, I just want to try to educate a little bit and explain MTS to our public and to my colleagues that may not understand it, Brad. Um, but MTSS is our multi-tiered system for success and we looked at sleep health. So, we know this directly affects student attendance. So what would that look like if we were talking about MTSS? So they asked our group to go to one tiers. Tier one would be you fall asleep relatively quickly. You stay asleep most of the night. You regularly get eight hours more of sleep. Tier two would be you have trouble falling asleep. You have trouble staying asleep. Um you may get a little bit less than eight hours of sleep per night. And then tier three, you have regular bouts of insomnia. You

086get less than six hours of sleep per night. and you sometimes use your days off for weekends and to catch up on sleep. I'm pretty sure you can guess what tier I was in. So tier one, if you think about that as far as students, they don't really need need much intervention because they're all sleeping well. Typically 80% of those students fall into this category. The supports for tier one would be more universal for all students because sleep is important, but they're doing a good job. Tier two, they may need a little bit more help. So it would be designated for maybe that five to 10% of students who fall into that category. We collaborated with the tier one participants and we got ideas from them to just help them maintain good sleep and we

087offered suggestions directly to them as a whole group. Tier three, which again was me, needs a lot of help. So we created an individual plan for those people. We had goals. We had specific things to do for that person to change their habits. going to bed at regular times, staying off the phone a few hours before bed, not eating or drinking, um liquids before bed, blackout curtains, noise reduction. So, they were individual plans. So, when you look at those tiers, that's how MTSS works. You have your strategies for the majority, but there's more focus on the tier 2 and then just individual plans for the tier three. So, I just want to kind of explain it because when they use that analogy of the sleep, it really hit me and I I was really able

088to understand that. And just as a reminder, sleep health is super important for absenteeism. So it's great thing to remind our students. The four main reasons students are absent our health, transportation, financial concerns, and family obligations. So I hope this helps everyone understand just a little bit more about MTSS. Um, and so yeah, that was awesome. One thing I did want to ask and I'm meeting with Dr. assignment next week is we created a chart and we did it in like 10 minutes and it was basically on our chronic absenteeism. We had the numbers of days of school we've been there. We had the percentage of you know the chronic absenteeism. We had all eight of our team members go in really quickly punch in the numbers and we got our tier one, two and

089three within like 10 minutes. It was so easy to do. So, I would love to see some of that date in the future, especially at sites where it really didn't take very long and I don't think it added a lot to our plate that day. Um, okay. So, February 11th, I attended the college and career fair. Thank you to Gil, Dedra, and the others for making this happen. I appreciate this and I know we will continue to build on this. It was beautiful. February 17th, I attended the facilities meeting with the community. February 21st, I met with President Garza and we were able to talk for a few hours about just the next year with her leading. And I really appreciate you asking to meet with me and taking the time to listen to me

090um about just anything that I had to talk to. So, I appreciate that. Um and that was it. The only last thing is I know I I threw this out and I don't know how serious you guys took it, but I really with the budgets and us slimming and taking things down. I talked about data and I really would love to if you would really wholeheartedly think about in a PLC with our teachers, put some chart paper up there, what are programs you can't live without? What are programs you hardly use? You can get data in 10 to 20 minutes. Someone could rush it over to you and we would have so much data from every school so quickly. I know when we're looking at our programs of what we want to cut, I really

091want to hear from our teachers and our staff. So, I hope that we will consider that. Thank you. >> Thank you, board member Stewart, Bober Cro. >> Good evening all. As you know, I like to keep my reports short and sweet. Um, I did have a lot to say about the events um that I heard about and saw about and of course I just to say thank you for how hard the cabinet and the rest of the people in the district are working. Our teachers, our counselors, um and every level of admin. Um that's without saying every week, of course. Here's what's on top of mind from for me. Just this week have I been bombarded by community calls, parents, um, text messages as well about the safety at our schools. And I want to

092say, you know, just based on the committee, um, the u the committee report that um, Vice Chair Critchfield um, gave earlier, we are taking safety very seriously on our campuses and I want everybody to know that um you know we have discussions we're updated you know daily when something happens um we make sure that we follow up if we have any questions we always go to our cabinet and ask but there is some time that needs to happen to investigate why it is things happen where did they come from and then how we can prevent them from happening again. So, I hope that our parents and our community can just be slightly more patient with us, especially with a lot of things happening this week, um to give some kind of safety report or um

093community, you know, constant communication with our parents to let them know that their child is safe on campus. That we take things towards our staff very seriously. We're not just, you know, crossing eyes and I mean, you could tell how tired I am, uh, crossing tees and dotting eyes. We really do care about our family here. And so, even now that I'm on the dis, I was getting a lot of text messages about if any of us were going to acknowledge. Um, can't go into great detail, unfortunately. Um, it it just cannot happen. We have to respect, you know, then uh the the people that were a part of any situations that were on any of our campuses. However, for those that know, they know. And I want you to know that you're not being

094ignored or not being listened to. We are acknowledging everything. And our cabinet is working very closely with our staff to make sure that these things get um getting taken care of. Um, and on a lighter note, and I will say that that congratulations to all of our hardworking students that got to um, CIF. If it wasn't the support of our teachers and our support staff that also got them there. I just want to say thank you. Thank you, board member, board member. >> Thank you, Madam President. Um few things. Uh so February 3rd school safety committee uh meeting. February 4th I got to go to uh May fair because they had the sixth grade welcome event. And I just want to say thank you to everybody at that campus because they were so welcoming and

095the staff and all the students uh all the sixth graders that that were there were were super excited. I know my daughter was super excited. She wouldn't even go to sleep. She was so excited. Um and then just a couple days later I got to do Uh I was shadowing Dr. Morgan uh and accompanied by Dr. Simon. It's great to see uh everything on campus, especially the the AVID work being done. I got to sit in some of the intervention classes and uh hear from staff about some of the challenges uh that they face uh compared to some of the issues that I hear on campus including uh restroom uh accessibility um monitoring uh safety and some of the challenges we have there. So, I think we all agree on some of the challenges and

096some things that could be done better going forward. So, that was cool. But that visit was cut short uh by the walk out. Uh I was there for for that. And I I just want to say thank you to everybody on campus because uh although my personal preference would be our students are in campus during uh class time, I will say I was really first of all I was nervous and scared for the students because uh just being out there. Um everybody, especially Dr. Morgan, um, and Dr. Simma was right there, just the level of attention and care uh, from our our staff and everybody on that campus to make sure our kids were safe as they expressed themselves. And I will say uh, being there even when they came to see Hall, the vast

097majority of our students uh, really uh, conducted themselves with a with a high level of maturity. And uh, I thought I was very impressed with uh our students in that regard and proud of them for uh expressing themselves and uh it was just you know once it was over I could relax a little bit but I was incredibly nervous during it but uh just thank you to everybody uh on that campus and everybody uh from uh the the security uh Black Knight our our security and also our partners at the Lakewood Sheriff Station and uh city council and our partners at the city of Lakewood, everybody really came out to make sure our kids were safe and I think that's that's definitely something that uh I know we all appreciate. Um see, college and career

098expo on February 11th, February 17th, the community engagement session uh for facilities abilities awareness month is always one of my favorite uh events every year. This is the first year in three years I didn't cry. Uh because when you hear stories and uh there there's one student that always gets me. Um but it's just a very touching uh event. And this one I didn't cry because it was so fun because they really changed how they did it. They did it. It was more experential learning uh and all the students got to kind of experience the challenges that our our kids with disabilities face. It was a really fun event, but it really speaks to the work that is being done by our entire team, but uh Anarie Sharp, the entire unified program, uh just everybody.

099I mean, even with like our new uhou for Special Olympics, I think we've we've done a lot in just a few years. And I'm really proud of everybody involved in uh not just like preaching inclusion and why it's important, but on that campus and district wide. I think we're walking the walk. So, I just want to say thank you for that. Um, see, Lakewood Youth Hall of Fame, congrats to all of our uh all of our student athletes. Um, and I will do one clarification because I know there was something said about uh cutting a wrestling program. We're not cutting our wrestling. Uh there there was a a statement made about uh CBU cutting the wrestling program and I got a call from a city council member saying, "Hey, you guys cut your wrestling program."

100I was like, "No, no, no, no. I'll bring it up in my board report. We're not cutting a wrestling program." Uh but I I do want to say congratulations to all them. Uh and especially our girls wrestling team, which are uh some of them are at state finals right now, and for winning CIF, um it's huge. Um, you guys just aren't going to applaud. That's cool. That was good. Applause. Um, and legislative action committee on February 24th. And let's see. Oh, yeah. Uh, board member Stewart brought up that the health uh stuff. That's something that I think is super important. Um and I do think when it comes we we talk about how important health is and we are in the education business and you know I think it's great that we have so many

101wraparound services and counseling all those things but when especially in the elementary level uh you know if we have a textbook from 2006 you know one of the biggest problems in middle school is what vaping right uh and if you have a book that that never even brings it up you know they're getting dropped into a situation where they haven't we haven't done our job frankly to educate them on these things. Uh 2006 I don't think there's probably much talk about social media or mental health or things that can really help them. So I'm I'm far less concerned about how we grade these things and more that we are teaching them. So I think it's something that we should be very thoughtful about uh and definitely look into. Um, that's it. Thank you guys. >>

102Thank you, board member Critfield. Um, I'm gonna try to go as quickly as I can through these. Um, the six. Did you want to add >> Oh, no. I was just going to say on the student discipline, uh, because I had it on my notes. Um I I I do think that uh it's something that uh we need to really look at and I think it's great that we've made so many interventions possible and we have a you know a declining expulsion rate. But I think that when it comes to what we allow and uh how we set a standard for behavior, I think that that's something that we always need to And I think we all agree some things are just too far. And no matter you know kids need consequences and I think

103that uh you know me and I I I don't don't speak for anybody else but I think that the fights can't happen on campus. You know I've I've seen the videos. Uh that's just there's no place for that on our on our campuses anywhere. Um, and I I think that we all agree that that's unacceptable and we need to be um very clear on what we allow on our campuses when it comes to safety uh on the perimeter on the on the campus with with other students and and with staff. Um yeah, sorry that was my note. Thanks. Thank you, Barice President Chris. Um, so I also attended the guiding coalition meeting. It's we're doing great work in there. Thank you so much for everyone who's um took a whole day off to do that

104with us. Uh the on the 9th I was able to go visit Backter, Pile and ILC. Thank you to their staff and also those um principles who allowed me to come in um and take just see how things are going. I think I'm going to have to take off a couple more days off so that way I can get to all the other schools. I want to be able to see everyone. Um and then I also attended the town hall meeting on the 10th, the career fair, uh community engagement on the 17th as well for the facilities master plan. um love seeing you know our community come out and give their input. It's really important. Also on the 11th backtrack a little bit, college and career expo was there as well. Love seeing our kids

105um have all these questions and have all these different entities um available for them to give to get information. um the 23rd at the Lakewood Youth Hall of Fame banquet. Great night for our kids and at um Mayfair High School to be able to highlight their success in sports. Um and like you know, board member Crushfield said, we've got the girls wrestling team at CIF right now, so good luck to them. Um and then also I wanted u to talk about uh there was a comment to me by one of our principles who was very thankful that we actually do have Black Knight at this moment um patrolling our campuses outside. It was very helpful when they had a transient on their campus and it was dealt with um humanely and respectfully. So, thank you

106to them. They're doing a great job for our district. Uh so, just really quickly, let me go back to my script. Does the board have any questions? Um, sorry,formational items. Does the board have any questions regarding theformational items this evening? They are about master 15.1 master teacher services and 15.2 request for secondary field learning experience questions. Okay. If the board will not um sorry at this time the board will the meeting is adjourned at 9:14 p.m. until the regular board meeting to be held on Thursday March 12th 2026. Have a nice evening.