001Good evening and welcome to tonight's regular meeting of the board of education. This meeting is called to order at 5:00 pm. Roll call, please. >> Board member. >> Miss Armstrong >> present. >> Mer >> present. Mr. >> Present. >> Mrs. >> Present. Tonight we do not have requests addressing close session agenda items. At this time, the board will adjourn to close session. Open session will resume at approximately 6:30. Thank you. That's like one too. Welcome. We now reconvene to open session at 6:36 to resume the regular border of order of business. Board clerk Cron will provide an update on closed session topics. The topics discussed in closed session were student matters, anticipated litigation, labor negotiation, and superintendent evaluation. No action was taken in close session. Thank you. Thank you, Clerk. Um, we do not have
002any replacement pages tonight. So, pledge of allegiance will be read by um Ernie Pal, principal, Miss Monique um Pew will lead us in the flag salute this evening. Thank you. Put your right hand over your heart. Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Do we have any corrections to this evening's agenda? >> For President Garza, we have no corrections this evening. >> Thank you. Um, student board representatives, it's time for you to go ahead and update us on what's going on on your campuses. Representing Belf High School, Kaitlin Vera. Welcome. Good evening, board members, member or members of the board. Um, board president and super or superintendent Dr. Simon.
003We are going to start today. This is the January board report. Winterfest and BHS vocal department. Throughout the month of December, our vocal department was very active within the community and on campus. They were they attended the treelighting and sang there and then later in the week held a an event known as Winterfest. It is their last opportunity before break to showcase their talents and hard work and everything that they've done over the semester. They ended obviously showing holiday spirit. Um, moving on, we have honor role. Upon arriving back to school, students were recognized and commended for their hard work and achievement throughout the first semester. Over 1,000 students earned the honoral distinction by achieving a 3.0 GPA and higher for the first semester. These students were rewarded with pizza and given a ticket to
004obviously accept the pizza. Okay, so moving on to capturing kids heart. At Belfflair Middle and High School, our staff and students have embraced the capturing kids hearts excel model to build strong relationships and a positive campus culture by empowering student leaders, exploring ways to celebrate one another, communicating clearly and concisely, engaging with one another through talents, and lifting each other up with appreciation and meaningful challenges. We have created a community of gratitude, growth, and belonging. On the slide, you can see our campus showing examples of each one. We are incredibly proud of the work and commitment our campus has put in to community or to expanding our community. Special recognitions first starting with our teacher of the year and classified employee of the year, Miss Satri and Daisy Cortez. They both exemplify what it means
005to be a bellflower buccaneer. Moving on, we have our AP honor role recognition which was given to us because of our persistent efforts in in um expanding access to AP classes. We provide um support and equitydriven counseling and outreach efforts. This is strengthens within our efforts to strengthens within our efforts through A3G texts on track monitoring and AVID advising which ensures that more students are encouraged and given the tools to successfully succeed in the coursework and the exam. Moving on to our middle school achievement. They have received the Thrively Pro leaderboard recognition which is which is in recognition of our school schoolwide commitment to strength-based learning and student engagement. Our teachers and leaders use playlist reflections, feedback, and portfolios to create joyful and empowering classrooms where every student is seen as capable and given the
006opportunity and encouragement to thrive. Moving on, we have our um school board appreciation. We want to thank you guys for your support and dedication. Leadership and unwavering an unwavering support of our students, staff, and families. Your commitment to making thoughtful decisions in advocating for public education helps create schools where every student can learn, grow, and thrive. We truly appreciate all that you do for our community. And on behalf of ASB, we have given you a Starbucks gift card to show our appreciation. Okay, so our upcoming events next week, the same day on January 29th, we will host our annual Buck Blastoff event, welcoming our incoming seventh graders from our feeder elementary schools. These students will experience firsthand the many opportunities Belfflier Middle and High School has to offer, including our special performances by our color
007guard, cheer, and other groups, as well as student led tours and of our CTE classrooms, and student led testimonies where they will be given the opportunity to hear from peers that are around their age group of what life on Bellfire is really like. The same evening we will host navigation night where parents and students and future families can explore the incredible work of our students and staff will see that they have accomplished throughout the entire school year. We invite everyone to stop by and see firsthand all the great things happening across our campus. Later in the month we have our talent show and college expo. And the following month we have billet night which is a collaboration between our world language club and our bellflower ASB. It is hosted and is hosted for the community.
008So everyone is invited. The event will have dancing, arts and crafts, a piñata, food and more. And that is the conclusion of my presentation. Thank you so much. >> Thank you Miss Vera. Um, now we have from Mayfair School is Gil Freriedman. >> Good evening, President Garza, Superintendent Dr. Simon, board members, district colleagues. My name is Gil Freriedman and here is Mayfair's January board report. So, Beetlejuice the musical opened last night. Thought I would rip. Um, it it was a it was fun. It was a great time. We we did great. The students did great. We have a We >> got something on my face. >> Is that my jacket? >> That's all right, Beetlejuice. Um, you can you can have it. >> Jesus. >> Wasn't expecting this. >> I knew you weren't. Hey, you
009enjoy that? >> I could have told you that. >> Hello. This thing work. >> No. You're saying yes. You're saying no. Like what's going on? >> Hello. Do I give a speech or like what do YOU WANT ME TO DO? >> UM, >> WELL, as you can see, we got a lot of theater spirit in the house. Um, >> Beetlejuice, do you have something to to hand out? >> A dirty napkin. >> Okay. >> I have no many tickets. Now, WE'RE GOING TO DO IT. I WANT TO MAKE SOME MONEY. >> Bele Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. This is That's not appropriate. This is This is a This is a very professional meeting. I think it's only right that we give the tickets to our lovely board members and our lovely superintendent. Superintendent, please. Professional over here. You
010the viewer, come to my musical. It is the best thing you will ever see. >> Thank you, Beetlejuice. Let's wrap this up. Um, can we can we please please give my lovely Dr. We'll do it later. All right. But on the back of the tickets are a couple extra dates if you want to exchange it out for a date if you can't make that. But yeah, our winter sports assembly was on the 16th hosted by ASB. We played a bunch of games. All the sports came out and did their dances and their performances. It was a fun time. Our teacher of the year is Miss Kenazaro. We want to thank you for all your hard work and your dedication and all your love for your students. It's very much appreciated. PTSA had a handful of
011many grants that were given out to some great teachers on our campus and they were able to provide new materials for our students. Open house which is the fair May fair is Wednesday February 4th in two weeks. Come out. We're going to have some food, some drinks, games, live performances, music. come see what the teachers are up to, what the classes are doing, how your students are doing. And coming up, we have our kindness challenge week where students are going to be challenged to be as kind as they can, and you will receive a a reward. Uh coffee with counselors is on the 29th and 30th. The fair and sixth grade campus visits are coming up on the 4th. Abilities awareness assembly is on the 20th and you are all invited to that. It's a
012lovely assembly, so if you can make it, please. And the African-American Jazz and Blues Renaissance Night is on the 20th. Super cool event. Can't wait for that. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Mr. Freriedman. Now up at um Somerset High School, Jolene Lera. >> Good evening, President Gaza, members of the board, Superintendent Dr. Simon and guests. My name is Jolene Lierra and I am a senior in ASB. Thank you for the opportunity to share a quick update about some of the activities happening at Somerset High School. Since it is the school board appreciation month, I want to start by recognizing our school board members and thanking them for their service to the Belf community. This year, okay, this year, eight students from Somerset have earned enough credits to return to Bellflower and Mayfair High School to
013finish their senior year and graduate. We are proud of them for getting caught up and back on track academically. There were 14 parents who participated in parent education classes through Factor this past fall. They learned about teen brain development and behavior, the signs and dangers of fentanyl use, how to navigate AI and education, and other tools for academic and personal success. Parents reported enjoying the program and finding it very helpful. In order to increase attendance and provide fun enrichment activities on campus, teachers at Somerset planned a fun Friday. A day before winter break, students got to select from a v variety of activities like frisbee golf, pickle ball, video games, mural art, mindful coloring, stretching, and breath work. Mr. Guzman is preparing two Somerset students for Skills USA in areas of telecommunications, cabling, and electronics.
014Students in Mr. Armada's digital media arts and calops classes attended the impressions expo at the Long Beach Convention Center. Today, participants got hands-on experience using high techch industry equipment and got to talk to leaders in the fields of clothing and print production. Vision night is coming up on March 10th. The community is invited to come to campus to see what students are learning at Somerset. Coming up soon, Mr. Peralta is taking science students to Newport Landing to go on a whale watching field trip on February 4th. The senior picture day is February 12th. Also, don't forget we are celebrating President's Day with a 4-day weekend on February 13th through 16th. Thank you and have a great evening. >> Thank you, Miss Lra. And now, um, representing Las Flores, Home Education Independent Study Academy is Josana
015Torres. >> Good evening, President Myra Garza, Superintendent Dr. Simon, and board members. I'm glad to be back for the month of January and update all of you on what's been happening since the new year. So recently, high school students, including myself, have been taking a Cerrito's dual enrollment program. So far, we've completed and passed counseling 101A, counseling 101B. We also have an upcoming communications class that starts on the 2nd, which we've all had a bunch of help to prepare for. Um, thanks to our amazing counselor, Miss Shily Johnson. Sorry. How did I fix that? Okay, as you can see here, we had our winter festival/no homework night. This was, I think, back in December. Um, a lot of families and students were in attendance. We did fun games like a candy cane game. I'm not
016sure what else we did, but I know we did karaoke and a lot of people enjoyed doing that, including um middle school ASB president, Maddie. So, yeah, everyone had fun at the winter festival. So, then here you can see this is some of the extended learning opportunities classes that we take at Los Flores. Some that aren't pictured here are pottery, cooking, and I think martial arts. But the ones that you see here are Spanish, gardening or hydroponics, and on the left it's STEM. So, everybody's been having a good time. The classes are really no more than an hour, and they're usually from Tuesday to Thursday, but everyone really enjoys it and it's a fun bonding experience for the students outside of um regular school time. And then we'd also like to take this opportunity to
017have a student spotlight on Aurora Hernandez. So she won or she earned first place in the 22nd annual children's art and short story contest at Cerrito's Library. And we're very proud of her um for her award-winning creativity. So what you see in the slide here is teachers participating in professional development on the use of goardian. So they're basically learning all the tools and strategies to support students online and to create a positive learning environment not only in the classroom but digitally. And then for high school ASB we decided to do vision boards. This activity was super fun. we are going to bring it into next week just so everybody can finish it. Um, this was a good bonding experience as well and I think it brought everybody really close together. Um, but yeah, and then
018finally on our coming soon page, we obviously have a lot of stuff, but tomorrow high school is taking a field trip to the LA library. We also have breakfast with the bestie at Applebee's. Then to wrap up the wrap up January, we have our parent conferences and student work collection. Then going into February, we have our special person's day as well as kindness week, which I know spirit week is the same week. Then um on the 12th again, we have our Valentine's disco dance. Then later into February, we have our TK to1 Aquarium trip as well as the California Democracy School Digital Media Fair that same day on the 20th. Then again to kind of wrap up February, we have again our student of the month and student awards. That's all. Thank you. >> Thank
019you, Miss Torres. Um at this time uh after very memorable reports um we welcome you to Jo stay here for the remainder of the evening but we also understand that you have prior commitments that must be attended to. So you may have a nice night if you so choose to go. Thank you. I don't know about you, but I think I'm going to want to go to that play now. Thank you so much, Stone. Now, um, we have employee representatives reports this evening. And we have, uh, BTA President John Young come forward, please. Good evening. Um, President Garza, board, uh, Dr. Simon, um, Superintendent and Cabinet. Thanks for having me here tonight. Um this month included uh several collaborative efforts that support uh forward thinking and a lot of coordination across many stakeholders. Uh work
020continues with the guiding coalition around developing a graduate uh profile. Um that shared vision for what we uh hope to see in a bellflower graduate uh to know, do and embody upon graduation. Um we believe this work is foundational while not flashy. That is exactly the kind of long-term clarity that pays dividends later. Think uh slow cooker, not microwave. I want to shine a light on collaborating with Dr. Smith on the development of an AI framework, especially with an emphasis on the importance of a unified vision. Alignment here matters. Uh without it, we risk several staff members using the same tools, but speaking very different languages about purpose, ethics, and expectations. I agree with the district also uh the district leadership uh to work towards a single unified message crafted by our district council regarding
021policies on physical intervention and contact with students. Uh looking ahead, I think this also opens the door to thoughtful and consistent training for all staff classified and certificated so that expectations are clear. I appreciate Dr. Romos is including both CSEA and BTA in the development of the workplace violence prevention plan and to actively seek our input on it. Uh early collaboration here is both smart and uh reassuring. Uh finally, I applaud the district for this week's end uh I believe it's an inaugural elementary so showcase. Is that correct? Uh at Steven Foster. Uh it's a positive step towards connecting with families and the broader community and a reminder that good things happen when classrooms and community share that same spotlight. Thank you and good night. >> Thank you Mr. Young. Um it's time for the
022superintendent report. Dr. Simon. >> Thank you uh President Garza, members of the board, cabinet, the BUSD community. First and foremost, happy new year. Glad to see you all. I'm excited to share a truly meaningful milestone as our our BTA president just mentioned. Um this work that we started on the 9th of January in this room. We held our district's first strategic planning meeting that actively included members of our broader community, including our board president Ara Garza and vice president Bradfield. This gathering brought together our guiding coalition, a group comprised composed of students, families, educators, testified staff, administrators, and community partners, each with a shared purpose purpose. In the weeks and months to come, our coalition will engage in deep and courageous work. We will assess where we are today, learning from what is working both
023within BUSD and beyond, and create a shared uplifting vision for what schooling can and should be in our community. And our work will go far beyond visionary thinking. We are moving forward grounded in purpose and united in action. Together we will shape mentioned a clarified vision, mission and core values. A community-driven portrait of a learner. A researchinformed learning model that matches our community's aspiration. Strategic priorities that are bold yet actionable. A clear set of big moves that will accelerate our progress. and success metrics focused on what truly matters for children, not just what's easily measured. So truly excited about that work. I also want to recognize one of our students just recognized this today that Belfara High School earned the 2025 bronze AP school honor role. And I want to give a huge shout out
024to our principal who just left, her principal Jessica Cummings, and the entire Belfflower High School staff for receiving this honor. So, congratulations to Belfflower High School. We also have another celebration today. If you have not heard, we have a new doctor in the house and her name is Dr. Alma UA. Give her a round of applause. who successfully defended her dissertation and I thank her so much for the invite. I was happy to to be there and watch her through that moment and very emotional moment for her as well. This accomplishment is a testament to her dedication, her perseverance and commitment to continuous learning and leadership. Please give her a round of applause. Again, also in the spirit of celebrating, let's celebrate Dr. Ryan Smith. For this month, he was the learner centered collaborative catalyzer
025of the month. We are proud to see Dr. Smith's learning center leadership recognized. And let me just say this. Uh, last night the board and I engaged in my superintendent evaluation, which is one of our special meetings. And I want to say that I am so proud of our board. The board and I have been investing deeply in refining our shared goals. Goals that not only guide my role in evaluation as superintendent, but also reflect our collective aspirations for the future of Belfflower Unified School District. These conversations go beyond compliance or evaluation. They are about forging a unified vision, strengthening our team of six, and elevating what's possible for our students, our staff, families, and our community. I have profound respect and admiration for our board. Their tireless commitment, thoughtful leadership, and unwavering focus on
026the well-being of our community inspire me every day. They allow me to do the work in the team. You can't say that with many other districts. So together, we are not just governing. We are dreaming. We are building. We are leading with purpose. And I want this community to know that our district is in great hands thanks to their remarkable service. and I couldn't be prouder to move this work forward with them. And also congratulations to our board or honoring our board for it being board appreciation month as well. So I thought I'll add that in as well. Congratulations to our board. And last but not least, I want to invite Miss Mon'nique Pew to the podium. And I am pleased to announce the announcement that Miss Pew is now our principal at Ernie Pal.
027She started her tenure at Ernie Pal on January 5th, 2026. And just to read a little bit about her, following a thoughtful selection process guided by community input, Miss Pew was chosen from a strong pool of candidates for her calm strength, her alignment with school's values, and clear educational vision. State quarter feedback played a crucial role in shaping the leadership profile that informed the decision to hire Miss Pew. She brings over 20 years of experience in public education, most recently serving as principal in the Compton Unified School District. Her leadership has demonstrated significant academic growth in a positive school culture. She is known for her integrity, equity centered approach, and her ability to lead through listening and authentic engagement. With a proven background in instructional leadership, including her role as a district level math curriculum
028specialist, Mrs. Pew is deeply committed to student achievement, attendance, social emotional development, and inclusive languagerich instruction. And again, we are so excited to have you here. I know she has her family here as well. I'll let her introduce them as she provides some remarks today. Mrs. Pew, thank you so much. >> Thank you so much, President Garza, board, Superintendent Simon, and Cabinet, all the guests here today. Um, I am truly elated and honored to serve in Bellflower Unified School District and lead the way at Pile. I'm so excited. And I just want to introduce my family. My husband Darren, my son Brandon, my daughter Leah, and my daughter Briana. And then I have my um executive PTA board here. If you all will please stand. So, we're off to a great start. And I just
029want to say thank you for this opportunity. Thank you. and I look forward to lots of success at pile. Yes, you got it. You bet. and the last thing for the board is this evening I would like to report that the district has recently completed the quarterly uniform complaint report summary for October through December 2025 as required by the county as a result of the Williams settlement legislation. There were no complaints received during this quarter in the areas of instructional materials, facilities, or teacher assignments. Thank you, President Garza. Thank you, Dr. Simon. Um, does the board have any ad hoc committee updates this evening? >> Um, President Garza, I have a few. Um, first on honor of on behalf of Cal Apps, I am excited to announce that on December 16th, I was voted in
030as the president of the Calabs board. So, I'm very excited to lead that and my colleague Kirk Critzfield, well, Vice President Critchfield is now clerkfield for our Calabs as well. Um, we look forward to working with our colleagues and CEO Arlene Whitney on the possibility of different pathways, additional classes for specific pathways, and enrollment ideas to strengthen the program. And then my next update is on our climate and culture committee. Um we are working towards bringing the board and um a policy on equity. And so we created two subcommittees this last week, an equity audit team and a timeline and training team. We are dividing and conquering to explore options for equity audits plans and engage in the oversight of the implementation of the audit and communication of findings. and the other team is going
031to explore options for training and timelines. We're developing professional development plans for the future and overseeing the implementation of training and timelines and again communicating these findings. So our next climate and culture meeting is February 4th and we're doing really good work to come up with an equity plan. So those are my two committee updates. Thank you board member um Stewart. So, tonight we do not have requests addressing agenda item. >> I'm so sorry. >> We're done. >> I know. I know. I know. Um, thank you, Madam President. Um, just to add on, uh, uh, to what board member Stewart said with that Calabs, um, couple updates. Last meeting we found out we were awarded a $700,000 grant round eight K through 12 strong workforce grant um which is the Ignite into integrating growth in
032new industries. It's a three-year investment that will expand and modernize our CTE programs and update equipment. Um and then enrollment for spring. Uh Belfflower High had 123 students enrolled in our courses. Somerset had seven. Mayfair had 120. um really want to encourage everybody uh all parents to uh encourage your students to check out these classes. Our highest um enrolled courses were are aviation, auto tech, health occupations, graphic production, while uh we we need to get more enrollment in urban farming, esports, and public safety pathways. Um, but I want to say thank you to Miss Arleene Whitney for all the work in securing the grant and all the work that her and her staff do to promote our classes at the school sites. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, Cler Cridgefield. >> Sorry, Vice President. Um,
033so tonight we do not have requests addressing non agenda items. So we now have a discussion item this evening on school services of California. I'll turn it over to Dr. Sam. >> Thank you so much, President Garza. At this time, I will turn over to Mrs. Argus who will introduce our presenter from School Services California. >> Uh good evening everyone. In uh June of 2025, we partnered with School Services of California SSC to conduct a comprehensive functional fiscal services review. Our goal was was simple to optimize our departmental departmental operations, streamline duties, and improve our communication with the departments and the community. After months of intensive data review and staff interviews, the final report has now been provided. to walk us through the information. I'm pleased to introduce Matt Phillips, associate vice president at SSC.
034Matt brings an impressive depth of expertise to this project. He has served as both an auditor and a practitioner for a district nearly identical to ours in size. On a personal note, I also discovered today that he has impeccable taste in NFL teams. So, please join me in welcoming Matt Phillips. >> Yeah. With with that introduction, I have I feel the need to announce my football team, but I'm in the wrong part of the state to announce which football team I'm supporting. >> No, you're not. >> But but it's not Seattle. I can promise you that. >> So, I'm just going to leave it there. >> Well, good evening, Board President Garza, fellow trustees, uh, Superintendent Dr. Simon, members of cabinet, and the public. Uh, appreciate the great introduction. Um, it really took care of
035the scope and methodology, but I'll go through that anyhow. Um again the the purpose of the review was to take a look uh really at the work distribution within the fiscal services department uh as well as the policies and procedures used to carry out that day-to-day work. Um the the methodology that was used uh over a couple of days sat down with everyone in the fiscal services department uh with each interview. Um, I stressed to the individuals that the interviews were confidential, but they also were not an evaluation of anyone's ability to do their job. It was really about data gathering to understand how the district processes some of its main fiscal transaction cycles uh so that I could better understand how things are done to then make customized recommendations for how efficiencies could be
036improved and how some of those processes could be more effective uh to make everyone's job easier. Um, again, as Miss Arcus shared, lots of data was requested, a couple rounds of data. Um, in fact, reviewing some of the forms, uh, within those transaction cycles. Uh, when I speak of transaction cycles, I'm using a little bit of of auditor language, but um, some of those main ones would be, uh, the payroll transaction cycle, the transaction cycle around accounts payable and purchasing, so how the district purchases items as well as pays for those items. Uh and then a heavy focus on the budget development and budget monitoring component of it, which is so critically important for local educational agencies around the state as we start to see some of those resources uh really becoming more restrictive, not
037a lot of one-time and ongoing dollars coming in. And so we really want to be mindful about how we're using those dollars. And it starts with the business department and how they're monitoring the use of those dollars. Um the other uh component of the analysis in addition to looking at some of the fiscal processes and procedures was a comparative staffing analysis um certainly when we look at comparative staffing and I'll walk the board uh through um determination of how the comparative districts were chosen. Um but a question we always get and you know something we always hear through the interviews is well we just need more people. We need more people. It's a very common reaction. It's a common response through the interview process. And so rather than going off of feeling like we feel
038like we need more people, uh we think it's always important that in addition to looking at the processes, we look at well how is the district staffed with similarly sized districts serving similar demographics of students throughout the state of California. There's some power in those numbers there. Um while we didn't evaluate all of the positions at the other districts, certainly with the job titles, we can make some assumptions on what those positions are are doing. Um, and as Miss Arcus shared on a personal note, I worked in a uh school district very similar in size to Bellflower when I was a practitioner in the field. So, um, just kind of some of the observations uh, and again the full report uh, has been provided to the board. Um, some of those key observations segregated into
039four categories. We'll then walk through some of the recommendations, some of the key recommendations that were in the report and then we'll conclude with the comparative staffing as we collected it from the surrounding districts. So the first component uh with respect to department operations uh it was noted that through the interview process there was an inequitable allocation of workloads between some of the members in the fiscal department. Um specifically looking at the payroll function as well as the budgetary function. Um and so some of the recommendations we'll speak to or I'll speak to in just a moment will address the inequity there and try to rebalance some of that work prospectively so that everyone uh would will be contributing an equal amount to the operations of the school district relative to the organizational structure. Um,
040there's a a I'll say it's not unique to the district, but it's definitely an exception to the rule where a lot of the staff within the department have the same job title. Um, it's a a senior accounting assistant job title. There's five positions within the department that have that title. And I would say that that creates two challenges. Um, one with this job title, well, let me look at it from the one perspective on how it came to be. uh there was a belief that having a similar job title will allow job duties to be interchanged very easily uh without needing to update job descriptions. It provides flexibility from a managerial standpoint. Um I would say that would be the pro for it. Uh the con would be twofold. Um one, it creates ambiguity in
041job roles, right? Um as people are working within their roles, the the job itself could morph with a bunch of different pieces that don't necessarily fit nicely into the overall operations of the department. And then secondarily, when you have the job duties uh that had been assigned to these five positions in many surrounding districts, those positions have very specific titles. Um for example, it would be an accountant position, it would be a payroll technician. Um those positions generally have differing salaries, different uh educational requirements. And so what could conceivably happen is that if we have all of our positions with the same job title, we could fall behind the market rate for some of those positions that require a little bit more expertise, maybe some additional educational experience, and we would have a difficult time
042recruiting uh the the very best for those positions. Um, also people on the outside as they're applying, what does that position do? Right? Again, it's a very vague job title, so it doesn't necessarily lend itself. um you generally don't have folks with payroll expertise becoming accountants or vice versa, right? It's a very uh distinct kind of pathway into those positions. Uh with respect to the position analysis, again um interviewed each of the positions, was able to understand not only what the job duties required from the job description, but then also what the positions actually performed on a day-to-day basis. I do think it's worth highlighting that at the time the interviews were conducted, the director of fiscal services, so the the head of the fiscal team, um, the position was vacant, which really put, um,
043a lot of downward pressure and some upward pressure as well, but more downward pressure onto a couple of the senior accounting assistants where they were carrying a larger workload than they otherwise would. Um, even that was inequitably distributed between those two positions. Um and then as I mentioned um a review of the job descriptions was a part of this and many of the job descriptions were quite old uh couple decades old. So it doesn't reflect the current reality the current business practices and the current processes and job duties required of those positions. And then in speaking uh with the staff during fieldwork just kind of an overall lack of documentation of processes. um folks who had risen up into their roles um while they felt everyone felt supported I will say that right um everyone
044was very forthcoming everyone felt supported uh open door policy so they felt heard at the same time there was a lack of training for some of the folks in the positions and so that was highlighted as well in the report so with those observations um then developed some recommendations so it the the format of the report first documented what each position was doing with the review of the job descriptions and then it moved into the transaction cycles. And what we try to do uh as we document the transaction cycles is apply what we believe to be a standard, right? Things that we would see in a well functioning school district, best practices, if you will, and then an analysis of what the district is actually doing and then the recommendations discuss the changes to get
045from what the district is currently doing to up to the the standard that's reflected in each of the sections. So again I have uh really four categories where each of the recommendations falls into um the first one and I think you know kind of lowhanging fruit is uh to identify and clearly define the job duties of each of the position. It starts with updated job descriptions. Um I know that takes time but it to me it's one of the the easier items on the recommendation list. Um this is especially important for those five senior accounting assistant positions. really clearly identifying what are those positions responsible for. And even within the recommendations, I'm recommending some changes to some of those job duties, which we'll speak to in just a moment. Um, I think from a a
046customer service and a transparency standpoint, I like to see the positions and who's responsible for what listed on the district website. Um if you think about the turnover especially at the school sites um you know uh there's a lot of direct communication between the fiscal services team and site secretary site administrative staff um they are quite busy throughout the day and so if you have a new person who who's coming in they can't even go to the district website to figure out who to call about a payroll question or an accounting question I think that just creates an additional burden on that staff. So a recommendation is um updating the website to identify each of the positions and their kind of general roles. Within the second category um this is really about the budget development
047and budget monitoring component of the fiscal services department. Uh and it's split into two different components here. The first recommendation relates to the position control process. Um position control at the the highest level is a budgetary tool that allows the district at any given point to identify how many employees are in the district. Um how much are they working? So their full-time equivalency or FTE um what funding source is being used to pay for that employee as well as the salary and all the benefits associated with that particular employee. While the district has a database, the day-to-day monitoring of the position control does not what I would u say meet the standard uh which one of those key components is as um changes are communicated relative to employees. The process current process was cumbersome or
048the process at the time was cumbersome. um a heavy reliance on the fiscal team to complete a lot of the information where uh I believe that the fiscal team provided that on the front end to the sites and departments. The sites and departments could actually help out with that process making it a lot more streamlined. The second component or the second and third bullets on the uh budget development and monitoring really have to do with the allocation of duties, the budgetary duties within the fiscal department as well as the hierarchy within the fiscal department. So, I'll speak to the third bullet first. Um, the accounting manager at the time of fieldwork was really responsible for overseeing payroll and accounts payable. Um, two of the senior accounting assistants really held 100% of the budgetary responsibilities and
049they reported directly to the director of fiscal services. And so from a um an alignment, right, when we think about um providing kind of a hierarchy within the department, the folks who are at the senior accounting assistant level, their next step would be director of fiscal service. That's not for everybody, right? Um it takes someone with a a specific set of skills, a desire to lead a whole department. That's a big jump. So, as part of the recommendations, I recommended the accounting manager actually oversee those two senior accounting assistants, which would give those accounting assistants an opportunity to step up into that accounting manager position as kind of a stepping stone to the fiscal director if they wanted to pursue that job title or if they just wanted to get to accounting manager, that's great
050as well. Um, but to me, that promotes a better hierarchy. Also, within that recommendation, the accounting manager really wasn't responsible for any budgetary monitoring. uh no responsibility around the budget. It was solely in the two uh senior accounting assistant positions. So, I'm recommending that the payroll component report to the fiscal director, which would allow the accounting manager to have some hands-on budgetary responsibilities to also then oversee the two budgetary uh positions, the senior accounting assistants. And the third component here, utilizing technology. Um, so something I heard uh relative to purchasing in the district, um, without getting too far into the weeds, an authorization to buy something comes through a purchase order, right? That tells someone they have the green light to go out and buy the the good or procure the service or what have
051you. Um, in most school districts, most eleas, there's a purchase order option, then a blanket purchase order option, right? A purchase order would be for a single item. blanket purchase order would be buying multiple items from the same vendor. And there has been a um apprehension or a lack of use of the blanket purchase orders at the school sites. So when we think about some of those commonly used vendors and Amazon and Office Depot with Staples, the practice has been that school sites were were being informed that they had to use a purchase order every time they wanted to order something from an Amazon or a Staples or an Office Depot. So if we think about the number of items that school sites are ordering from those vendors, uh this is hundreds of additional purchase
052orders that are being created because they needed to put one item for each purchase order versus just doing a blanket purchase order. Uh where a site would say, "Hey, we want to spend 5,000 of our our dollars of our budget at Amazon. That would allow them to apply each purchase against that blanket purchase order without creating a new one each time." >> Could I ask is that the same thing as a like an open purchase order? Is that the those interchangeable blanket purchase order and open? >> They're the close. An open purchase order just means that the item that is being purchased has not been received and the purchase order hasn't been completed. >> Okay. >> So, you could have a blanket and a purchase, they could both be open, which means they're active, but
053the items haven't been received. >> Okay. So, um what that what that does is twofold, right? If a a site is required to create a purchase order for each purchase, not only is that going to create a lot more work for the site staff, but then when we speak to the buyer position who's responsible for taking all those requests and turning them into purchase orders, sending them to the sites, sending them to the vendors, matching up invoices and whatnot, creates a tremendous amount of administrative work on the buyer, which I'll speak to that position in just a moment. um the um finance system that the district uses um see how do I how do I say this without getting too far in the weeds. So, um, school sites, departments, they have budgets, right? We set
054up the budget in the system. And currently, if a site wanted to purchase something, they would submit a requisition to purchase something. They may not have enough money in their budget, right? The system would not prevent that request from going through. That workload would fall on the fiscal team to then have to go in and look at the the requisition, confirm there's enough in the budget, and if there's not, then they send the requisition back to the site. Um, I think just about every financial system these days has an electronic um, edit check in place where if there's not enough budget, the site can't submit the vendor requisition, right? So, again, it's really relying on some of the electronic uh, checks that we have in place now. Um, I can promise you the practice the
055district has. It's a it's a legacy practice before the financial systems had those edit checks in place. Um, but my recommendation is the district should be using that electronic check there, which would prevent the site from even submitting the vendor requisition. Um, kind of stop it at that first step before it gets approved by the principal and a department head and then to the fiscal team to only then be kicked all the way back to the beginning. It just creates a lot of frion frustration for everyone when that happens. >> Can you give me more of a clarification on what you mean by legacy system? >> Uh, legacy practice practice. >> Yeah, legacy practice. So, um I mean if you go back to probably the '9s, I would say um financial systems didn't have that
056ability to check that if a site want is wanting to buy something that there's sufficient money in the budget to buy that item, right? It was a manual process where someone uh generally in the fiscal services team would have to do that manual check to make sure there's enough money. the systems now have advanced quite a bit. And so that is a um I'm going to call it a flag or a switch that can be switched on in the system that would stop that request for a purchase at the site if there's not sufficient money in their budget. >> Can I can I ask you a follow-up question? >> Have you found that these requisitions have just gone unchecked at some times? It's not that they go unchecked, that it requires a manual process, a
057manual check once that requisition gets to the fiscal services team. Um I I would say anecdotally that if the fiscal team doesn't have a leader, a fiscal director and the person who's responsible for checking to see if there's enough budget is There we go. Okay. I don't know what I touched, but it's working now. Um, it is conceivable that if someone has a significant workload, some additional extra work that >> Yeah, I Yeah, I think it's the battery. We also need one for board members in Toronto. And I think I saw um general counsel also needs one as well. All right. What? >> Thank you for your patience. >> Yeah. No, of course. Um, I I I think to address your question, board president, there was nothing identified that suggested that requisitions weren't being checked.
058Rather, it is the additional requirement of a manual check. That creates an inefficiency within the fiscal team because they are having to stop what they're doing and check to make sure there's enough budget on the line before it then gets processed to the next step turn into a purchase order which could conceivably delay the receipt of the goods or the service that are being ordered. >> I see it just slows down our process. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Could I ask one follow up to that? And this is an issue that I don't see very much more. So I think we probably fixed it. But um you're talking about the check if there's enough budget uh when they make the the purchase order. What about contract do not exceed limits? At what like
059is there a check to when a purchase order is made through a vendor that their contract not to exceed limit like flags? >> I've not seen that limit set within a financial system. um that's more of a once it gets to the fiscal person, if it exceeds a certain amount based off board policy or based off of the the purchasing handbook um that the district is utilizing, they would then route that to the appropriate party for approval. >> Okay. Um and then the third component on the technology for efficiencies is utilizing a digital platform for employee absences. Um, I will say the district is is not unique in the fact that employee absences are still collected and reported manually. Um, meaning every month the site staff I see nod so I think the board is
060familiar with this. It's not unique um but there are um platforms out there um where employees can actually report their absences through that platform. They have apps on the phones um and then the sites would just verify those electronically versus having to manually fill things out after the fact. Um, again, it's it's not that there was any absences that were incorrectly reported that were identified. It's just looking at those manual processes and thinking about how can we be more efficient and effective with our processes. Okay. Um, and then the fourth category, again, this is uh rebalancing um some of the other duties. Uh we already spoke about the budgetary duties within the payroll team. Um, again, dynamite payroll team that you have. Very fortunate to have the payroll team that you do. Um it was
061identified through the interviews that the work does seem to be a bit out of balance. Um classified employees are paid twice a month, certificated employees are paid once a month. So that's twice as much work for the person and the the duties are split between certificated and classified, right? Um what we see quite frequently in LEAs is a distribution based off alphabet. So both employees are processing certificated and classified payrolls. Um, not only does that allow for a more equitable balance of the workload, but it provides cross trainining as well. Should one of the employees be out, the other person at least understands how to process either the uh certificated or the classified payroll. Okay. And then the final one, um, I spoke to this uh, relative to the purchase orders. Um the absence of
062purchase or or blanket purchase orders for some of those high volume vendors is really requiring that the buyers spend 100% of their time just processing purchase orders, right? Turning vendors into into purchase orders. Utilization of blanket purchase orders will cut down the number of purchase orders significantly, which will allow the buyer to do things such as price shop, which is a pretty common um job duty for the buyer position to ensure the district is getting the best deal and the lowest price. um searching for quotes and and things of that nature, right? Okay. So, um let's move on to the comparative analysis component. So, again, through the interview process, the the ask almost 100% of the time is we need more staff. We need more staff. We need more staff. Um rather than, you know,
063pushing back or just saying anecdotally, no, you're staffed appropriately, we gathered staffing from eight districts. Um it was intentional that the districts were outside of Los Angeles County other than Lynwood. Um because what we really wanted to focus on was finding other school districts that serve the same gradespan of students. So unified school districts throughout the state uh with a similar number of students and a similar demographic of students. So the way that we captured the number of students is based off the enrollment number. So between 7,900 and 11,000. You can see Bellflower is kind of right in the middle um of those two numbers. And then um the districts would also have an unduplicated pupil percentage between 70% and 90%. Um just real quick on the unduplicated pupil percentage, that is the percentage of
064students who are identified as either eligible for free or reduced price meals, eligible for English learner services, or foster homeless youth. Okay. Um so each of these districts is between the 70 and 90%. Uh for context, bellflower is at about 80%. Right? So right in the middle of those. So in looking at the the staffing um in looking at the staffing um the way that we categorized the staffing is we broke it down into four categories. Cabinet staff, so that'd be staff at the superintendent's cabinet. Management staff, these would be supervisory staff within each of the fiscal services departments. uh department staff. These are the folks that are really handling the day-to-day fiscal processes, right? The payroll, the accounts payable, the purchasing, and so forth. And then clerical staff. We then um so that's the
065first four rows on the table. The fifth row sums up the total FTE, which again is full-time equivalent. Um if a person is working less than eight hours, they'll have less than one FTE. So that's why you see a couple of the districts with um numbers there that are not 00 on the end. We then take that total FTE divide it by the enrollment or divide it divide the enrollment I should say into divided by the FTE of each of the districts to kind of normalize how many students do we have per FTE in the fiscal services department. So based off that kind of high level analysis the district ranks fourth out of the nine on there. though the fourth most out of the nine. Um only one position away from the middle. I do
066think it's worth noting um and again the detail is in the report. Um the only other district that has warehouse staff on this list is San Lorenzo. Um the district within their 18 full-time equivalents has three warehouse positions, a warehouse manager and two delivery drivers. Um if we excluded those positions from this, the district would actually be six of nine in the comparative group. And so what that tells me is the district is not overstaffed. They're they're not understaffed. They have a comparable number of employees performing the duties of what it takes to run a fiscal services department. So based off that, there's no recommendation to make changes to the staffing within the fiscal services team. um but rather it is a a um reshuffleling of some of the duties uh to not only provide
067a more streamlined hierarchy uh but to balance some of the duties between some of the positions in the department. >> I don't know if this matters but I noticed that in the ranking Mary'sville also has ranking four. So does that push us or >> that is a typo. Let's see. >> I'm sorry. I apologize for that. uh we would still be four because San Lorenzo, Monterey Peninsula, and San Justinto all have a lower enrollment to FTE number. So we are four. That pushes someone. There's no eight on there. So it does not impact our ranking, but it impacts >> some other another district that it was. >> I I think Mary'sville might actually be eight. So I think >> okay >> for edification I think if the trustees replace the four with an eight then
068the table will be correct. My apologies. >> No I just wanted to make sure. >> Yeah thank you. >> Okay so that concludes the presentation. Um are there any questions other questions from the trustees? Anything I can address? Anyone question or member Stewart, you have questions? >> Yeah, go ahead. >> I have a question, but it's for our district staff, not really for him. Um, as far as site funding, I was looking at that bullet on the site funding. Let's say I'm a principal. I'm going to just use Ernie Pile since we were experiencing Ernie Pile tonight. And I wanted to go get services for a certain person and it's within my site budget funding. Is there a reason that that would be turned away? >> From the fiscal perspective, we look at the allowability
069if they have the funds available. It goes through different processes. So, I don't know if a different department would step in and say, hey, this is not in alignment with something, but from a fiscal perspective, we would allow the purchase to go forward if they had the funds available. And then from a site uh perspective, board member Stewart, if a principal felt that it was not in alignment with goals or the work that they're doing, then they could deny the request. >> Okay. And do we um this this might go off just so you guys know. Um I guess my question is if they have a specific person that they've been working with, do we say no and allow them to use the same exact services from someone else? Not sure if I understand a
070question. I'm sorry. >> I'm trying to use a good example. I Let's say I want to hire someone for, I don't know, I guess some specific task at my school. >> What I'm hearing is that sometimes they're being told it's not about funding. They have the funding. They're told they can't use that vendor. they need to use another vendor that's doing the same thing, but they've worked with these vendors that they like and that they've used in the past and they want to use them and they're being told no. And I guess I'm wondering if it's their site funding, why aren't they allowed to choose who they want to work with? Sometimes it could depend on the vendor. if there's something that we learned or if there's um outcomes that we're seeing that are not
071being produced. Let's just say if we're talking about academics um and we're, you know, we vetted, we've looked through another vendor, then that could be the case. Um but we are really trying to become more streamlined number one in who our vendors are, um who our contracts are, um ensuring they're in alignment with our board and superintendent goals, you know, vision, mission, core values. Um, but there are also other aspects that sometimes we learn from the back end in regards to the vendors um, and work that they're not doing um, that is not in support of the contract that they submitted. So, it's it can be a myriad of things um, and sometimes it could be very specific, but sometimes it's a very specific reason that the district is saying, you know, we need to
072go a different way and look at another vendor or contractor. And if they do get told no and they're just very adamant that they really like like to and they don't understand the reasoning, is there an appeal or is there someone else that they would go to or who would they go to for that? >> They would talk to me. So, usually it starts from the chain up. Um but uh the the end conversation would be >> Thank you. >> Um I got the handheld now. So, uh in and this is actually this one's for staff as well. In regards to the the flagging uh the not to exceed limits, what is our process now and has that changed? >> I want to say that what you're talking about is if we get a PO
073or a contract with a vendor that says not to exceed 300,000, what we do now is we create a PO that is um for 300,000. So we have a contract with the vendor, but we still have a mechanism for controlling the amount of the payment and that's the PO. So, we create a PO for $300,000. Once we turn that over to accounts payable and they start making payments on on that $300,000 bill, they're they're on that $300,000 PO. They're looking at each invoice. It comes in, it's processed, it's signed, all of the components, and say they get a hund,000, $100,000, and then 150,000. the system doesn't allow them to put in the 150,000 because it exceeds the amount of the the allowable 300,000. There's a second check now that we are aligned with the LA
074County offices. So we have kind of two checks and balances in place that says the amount of the PO is not to exceed 300,000 and that would require us to go back to board to request an increase in the PO. So it requires the requesttor to put in another request to increase the cost of PO which would appear on the contract matrix for approval. >> Thank you. One more question. I don't want to turn 49er fans against each other but I am curious. Are there any of the recommendations that staff disagrees with and doesn't want to implement? I mean, >> we're re we're reviewing all of the options and we're looking at what's best for our department. >> Such a political answer. That means yes, by the way. Um, okay. So, the the next uh
075what would be some of the recommendations that we know we we want to make and and what would that timeline look like? What would we expect in the next say 90 days? >> As you know that we have we started this process in late May June and so we've been going back for quite some time and we've had the report. I also during the interim time um he has not got to meet Miss Rachel Dub who is my new fiscal director and um some of her strengths are were completely uh acknowledged in my hiring process when I was looking at this report. So I can tell you things that we've already implemented based on the recommendations of this report um including streamlining process uh processes for monitoring um personnel costs and purchases. We've already put
076the items into the uh financial system so that the financial system is looking at the what we're requiring it to look at and then we have certain areas where we still want to be that visual last person reviewer and we're doing that as well. Um we are um reallocating the responsibilities amongst our staff. That comes also um from looking at the report and trying to figure out what best fits our needs. Um I appreciate that Mr. Phillips indicated he did come at a time where there was a um a pure effort to keep the systems going while we were down a director. And so to his point there was upward motion on the director's responsibilities and downward motion on the director's responsibilities. So the hiring of a new director has really lightened that load completely
077and we've moved on from anybody um you know having not that anybody was doing director duties but it required a kind of everybody come together to figure out how to do these things. Um we have uh already looked at the or organizational structure. Uh we're getting ready to talk to Dr. Omos about our analysis. We've already updated a couple of our job descriptions because as we have hired for them. That's been an important aspect. We are not going out and hiring for a position that has an old um you know description. So we're utilizing that method. And um the again one of the things I think I don't want to miss anything but I know that we have um uh digital we've we've used we've actually increased the efficiencies in regards to digitally um looking
078at all of our procedures. The director has actually made videos of how we do things in our system and there's a Google drive that's devoted to all of the procedures that we're working through. It was exactly her way of learning. So she was able to ask staff, how do I do this? And then she is making videos that are available to all staff in the fiscal services department. So should tomorrow you have to pay a certificated person, there's going to be a video to help you through that. And that's as she goes along. So, I'm not that's an example, but since October, I believe the drive has over at least 30 videos and um screenshots and programs on how to do things within our department. >> Um the one thing that that jumped out at
079me, the recommendation I felt was pretty straightforward was the uh putting on the website the job titles and I think that's a great recommendation. Is that something that we can do or is there any reason not to? I think what he's referring to is within our department, we're going to have a listing of what everyone does as soon as we we kind of reallocate the rest of the duties. We want to make sure that we get a clean listing out there. There's been a lot of people that are here for a uh have been here for a long time. So they do know who to call, but we want to get the alignment out there so the right way rather than putting out who to call now and then finding out, you know, when we
080finish this process, which we plan on finishing in the next couple months, we're going to put out the uh, you know, aligned positions and who to call and how to get a hold of someone. >> Okay, great. And last question that you mentioned the the legacy system and kind of the outdated tech. Would we be looking at uh some level of investment to upgrade our tech? I think at this point we're we're considerably happy with the business plus system as a fiscal system what we're looking into and we are teamed up with our HR department looking into ways to improve kind of our position control processing system and we've already had interviews or or we've already reached out and and had uh several vendors come and talk to us about things that they can do
081kind of in relation to how employees get paid electronically and stuff. So that is something that we are that we consider a high priority and we're working through now. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. Anyone else questions, comments? Okay. Well, this was a very thorough um assignment that you present presentation you gave us. Thank you so much, Mr. Phillips. Um, I think we're done with the question for now. >> Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to present. >> Thank you. Um going on. Do we have any items to withhold from the consent agenda this evening? I know that we I've been given um requested to pull item 12.17. Anyone else? Um, hearing none. That is the only item we will be pulling tonight. 12.17. Do I have a motion to approve the
082consent consent agenda and withhold item 12.17? So moved. >> Second. >> Roll call, please. >> Miss Armstrong. >> I. >> Miss Stewart. >> I. >> Mr. Cron. >> Hi. >> Mr. >> Hi. Mrs. Farza. >> I The first item withheld is item 12.17, the only item for tonight. Does the board have any questions or comments? Miss >> um the only I only had one question about this item. Um so it's on page 18 of Is it on? Okay. Um, I only had one question about the item and it's on page 18 of the report. Um so my understanding is that the contracts and services are different than the indirect costs but the indirect cost can go up to and max of 15%. Correct? So for a grant like this one, all districts come up with
083an indirect cost rate through their closing and their business process. Ours is 5.46%. Okay? >> So many grants have an administration cap cost and they'll say your grant cannot have more than 15% of the grant devoted to administration. So think of a grant that may have like a director that's charged to it and that's maybe administering the program. So from our perspective we have in this grant up to 15% allowed. 5.46 is for indirect cost and then there we could have costs related to administration up to the difference of about 9 I'm not doing the math right now but 9.54. So, this grant allows for up to 15% in in administrative costs, although we're not utilizing that by far. Most of other than the indirect cost rate, there's only um maybe one position that that
084would be considered administrative and everything else is is um for the grant itself. So just to clarify the administrative cost is within the indirect cost is like a line item within that >> the no that is that diff. So I guess just my question is what is and not getting too in the weeds very broad strokes I don't exact like we have line item one two and three um but for the indirect cost just based on the amount that is indicated on the chart what would be or what can someone assume is in the indirect cost. Okay. So, the amount in the chart would represent would be about the 5.46% that we're allowed to charge >> and it would include things like overhead like utilities, maintenance, salaries for payroll, HR, infrastructure like your IT department,
085your compliance. We have to do audits. So, all those things that we have to do are charged to the unrestricted general fund. However, when a grant because we utilize all those things to run a grant, we can recoup some of those expenditures back to um the unrestricted general fund. So, the the 450 is the indirect, so that's operational. And the area of the 600,000, that one position, what we're looking at is adding a counselor to um the program. We have over,400 students and we found areas where we believe that a counselor would be supportive for the expanded learning program. >> Thank you so much. And that was my only question. You're welcome. I appreciate it. >> Move to Oh, I didn't realize it wasn't working and mine may not be for long. Um, since this
086was pulled, I just wanted to ask a few questions. Um, are any teachers doing field trips via ELOP funding? >> Um, there are some that are doing field trips. >> Do we have an approve a board um already pre-approved list of field trips that teachers can take with students? We gave some suggestions of field trips. Um, our state and federal program put together a few things so that there were some ideas for um teachers that wanted to do field trips outside of >> But do we have a board list? because I know some districts have a list of like six pages of different border approved field trip lists. Do we have one? >> No, not that I'm aware of. >> Um, is that something maybe we can look at in the future? >> Sure. >>
087Um, I just think then it would be nice if teachers wanted to take trips, they already know that they're allowed to and then they would know that they could do that because I think the enrichment program for field trips is really awesome. Um, my next question, I don't know. I'm I'm guessing you're probably not gonna have this answer, but if you could maybe it's actually probably more suited for Renee. um if you can get to me how um much unused ELOP money we put back into our general fund last year that was not used. >> So we had a carryover balance of about $7 million. Um that's not um unusual because the first year of the grant and this is what's been kind of happening to all districts and I can and I'm supporting our
088process as we go along with it. Excuse me. The first year of the grant it was implemented so late yet they gave us a whole year's worth of funding. So there weren't a lot of things that school districts could do at that time and that was four years ago if I'm not mistaken. So as you came into the second year of the grant, you had your grant up and running. You started working on things. We were pretty much spending our grant allocation as that came in, but we still kind of again carried over the amount, spent that amount, but got a new award type of thing. So the ed services department and the fiscal department have been looking at things and things that we could do that would um be able to kind of look
089at that carryover and spend it down. What you don't want to put yourself in a position is do some really spectacular things with that carryover and then find out the next year you don't have that carryover to do those things with. So we're being really precautionary. I don't think in any case that we haven't provided the services to the students that the state of California wanted us to provide because we've been utilizing the grant each year. It's just a matter of looking at the carryover from that first year that's kind of moved through the system and figuring out what things we can do to enhance without totally using the carryover up without thinking through a good process for doing that. >> Okay. And then just one question. I know we have to renew it every
0903 years. Is there I didn't see anything majorly different from the last years. Is there anything that we should be aware of that's completely different or changed with this um new update? >> Good question. There's not wholly different, but there are things like adding in a counselor, adding in a behavior assistance to support our students that um have some challenges, but we still want to provide that access to them for after school. We are looking at different um layered services. So, our contract, so um adding in world language opportunities for students, we are looking at sports. Um we are looking at Lego robotics. So there's some different layered services so that we're not continuing to do the same layered services and because we got feedback from our students as well and our parents about what
091they're looking for. So not completely different. Our base program is still the same. We still do have our think together program and YMCA um but we're looking at um putting in some additional supports and different enrichments for students. >> Awesome. I love that. Thank you so much. >> You're welcome. >> Any other questions? comments. Um, yes, go ahead. >> Thank you, Madam President. Uh, one question I have. I know a couple years ago we kind of switched a lot of our ELOP funds from YMCA to Think Together. Uh, but I really haven't seen any data on like, you know, what that's yielded. Um, do we have that data available and have we seen a significant improvement by switching programs? >> Um, we didn't necessarily switch programs from YMCA to Think Together. We've always had Think
092Together. Yeah. And then we've always had YMCA as well. So, there wasn't really a switch. >> There was a movement. >> There was um definitely Think Together did morning. Um, Y and YMCA continued to do morning. So, that was the difference. I think maybe that's what you're talking about. I can tell you that um there has been an increase in enrollment in our think together program um and in our YMCA program. So that's a benefit >> on the enrichment and I saw that data. It's really good. The students that participated and think together their overall attendance was much better. That's awesome. Um but on the enrichment side uh have we seen you know scores go up or have we seen like an improvement as we've as we've increase the the size of our contract with
093think together over the past couple years I believe >> um our think together uh contract does increase also because of our increased enrollment. So that's a good portion of why think together would increase because they're our base program. Um the enrichment programs that we do are all of our layered services mostly. So um we have invested in our layered services um but it it doesn't have a connection to our think together. We are looking at I think where you're going is um are our students performing better or are they coming to school more and that the is stu our students doing better? We're looking into that. We have a system put in place this year where we're able to um monitor those students. So we'll be doing that. Um but attendance-wise we are seeing that
094they are coming to school more. >> Thank you. >> On that same note, uh Miss Carter, are we only monitoring attendance or are you looking at other factors as well to see the efficiency of this program? >> Well, we're definitely monitoring attendance because we want to see that increase uh in efficiency in this program. we do mostly through surveys of our students and our parents to make sure that we're providing uh the resources and enrichment that they're interested in. What we're going to be looking at a little bit more closely is the possibility of some targeted tutoring. So, we'll want to see if that's impacting our students as well. So, that's why we've put into that system a way to tag our students to see if they're improving on benchmarks based on um possible tutoring
095that we might provide in the future. >> Great. Thank you so much. Um, when do you usually run the these reports? >> Well, we ret we run attendance. They do attendance daily, but uh we look at it periodically. Um, as far as how our students are going to do, we'll tie that together with a tutoring program if we bring that forward. And if we do, we'd bring it through a contract and you guys would be able to see that. >> Okay. So maybe are we looking at maybe um whenever these achievement reports go out is that something that you guys your staff is looking at like having set dates for these benchmarks. It would be set dates based on the tutoring. So if students are involved in that tutoring program, if we bring that forward,
096then we would um monitor their progress every six weeks or um whatever the cycle of the tutoring is going to be. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Anyone else? So, do I have a motion to approve this item? >> So, moved. >> Second. >> Roll call, please. >> Miss Armstrong. >> I miss I. >> Mr. I. >> Mrs. I. It is now time for board of education members communication and reports. Let's begin with board member Armstrong. Thank you, President Garza. Um, welcome back everybody. It's been a while. Um, so, um, let's see what I've been up to. Over the holidays, I I uh attended lots of holiday parties. We had lots of birthdays in December. Um I was able to um participate in a a legislative workshop. Um it was a a two-hour
097advocacy meeting with the National School Board Association. Um, you guys know I do the water education for Latino leaders and uh we're planning for our our annual conference in March. So, at at the the last weekend in March. So, we're still planning to see what we're going going to do for our annual conference. Um h oh and I um there was you um the I attended a chair camp. You know how sometimes uh at Mayfair and um Belfower they'll bring in the uh elementary school kids or just young kids and and the cheerleaders, you know, teach them what's uh you know, a little routine or whatever and they get to they get to perform with the um with the cheerleaders on uh on a at a football game. Well, um I participated in Well, I
098didn't participate, but they also do it for basketball, so I kind of thought that was fun. You know, you don't have to be outside in the cold uh during a football game. But who knows? Um maybe in the future we can uh the schools can probably implement something like that for basketball because it was it was a lot of fun seeing the um you know, the young cheerleaders uh trying to learn a routine and perform. Um I uh attended uh Martin Luther King ceremony in Cerritos and uh one thing that stood out and we recognized we recognized that of um of all the cities in this particular district. Uh um Cerritos was the only one that that had a Martin Luther King ceremony and uh and they've been having it for years, but it was
099my first time attending and it was co-hosted by um um the Greek organizations Delta Sigma Theta and AKA and I tell you we had some dignitaries in the house and um and they were really riled up and excited about what's to come. and they of course they're talking about you know advocating and fighting for our rights and uh you know not to just let those rights go go go away. Um I also attended um I I'm I'm a part of the National Education Association the representative um assembly there. from a delegate. And so we had another we had an engagement update on our ongoing plans and uh what's going on in the department of education. Uh a lot of stuff going on. Um I also attended um a conference with um my um board member
100um Amy. We went to this first the first ever knowledge con LA. Um, it was a really great conference for them to for this to be their first conference. It was it was really well put together. They had a lot of merch merchandise and the presenters were on fire and they were all about advocating for our students and making sure that you know while we are educators and we're planning stuff for the kids. A lot of the presenters were like you know what we have to make sure that we take in consideration what the kids say they need. So we may really we have all the well-meaning in the world to do what we think is best for the kids. But uh some of these uh presenters were on the track of teaching these children
101how to voice what they need and to advocate for themselves. And uh you guys already know uh Dr. Victor Rios was there and he was a presenter. I love listening to him and his story and um and he uh uh he co-presented with another uh partner her name was Cassandra Villa. So it was really nice to hear them and what I got from them again they want us just to remember that the most critical component in a student's success is the combination of emotional relevance and high expectations and you know to be that teacher that you wish you had you know for the teacher not to give up on a student no matter how how how much you think they may be troubled just to never give up on your student. Excuse me. Um there
102was another um workshop that I went to. Um her name was uh Eva Loren uh Charles Jean Charles and she talked about how each year you know schools they roll out these initiatives uh to try to fix issues to try to make uh things better uh to better in uh for better engagement or to address behavior. And again, but the most people that are most impacted by those issues aren't at the table. and she was referring to the students. So, she created um this program called youth participatory action research and it's intended to be used as a restorative tool uh to reimagine um you know the school culture with the student. again having teaching that child to have that voice and uh and being that teacher that's not going to give up to give up
103on them and to teach them how to advocate. So she shared she shared real school-based examples on how it works and um like identifying a challenge and how to guide a student through a solution. So if you have a student that's that's non-compliant for for example instead of being punitive talk that student through it now and support that student and in in a way to say hey you know how is this going to benefit you in in this climate in this classroom um because it's it's for you it's not for me to always try to focus on the student and again just trying to build the students uh leadership confidence, you know, like I'm I'm going to advocate for myself. I do need my teachers help but all the while you know just making sure
104that the students are are develop uh informed strategies to kind of help propel themselves forward to just really support them and boost them. So, um, that's all I'm going to say because I know my board members, uh, Amy has a lot more to say because I can go on and on, but I won't. >> Thank you, board member Armstrong or member Stewart. >> I do have a lot and they've asked me to talk slower than normal, so it might be long. I'm sorry. Can you please stop doing that? I would appreciate it if you stop making gun gestures when I'm speaking. I don't appreciate that. Thank you. Um, good evening. Happy 2026. I am excited to start this new year alongside of all of you. I would like to thank you again for the beautiful
105outgoing president ceremony. I was truly humbled and thank you for all of your kindness. So, the last six weeks I attended the district breakfast. I am always grateful for our employees, our staff, and all of the people who sometimes work so hard behind the scenes to help our district run smoothly. So, I hope you all enjoyed your vacation. December 12th, I did a walkthrough through uh Belfar High School. I would like to say that I'm very proud of the work being done at Belfar High School by our principal, Jessica Cummings, and her amazing staff. It is such a wonderful place to be. There is an obvious amount of respect for our students and our staff and our families, and I believe the climate and culture of this site is changing dramatically and for the best.
106So, thank you to our BHS team. Um, I really also love their capturing kids hearts, the social contracts, the people coming up, the students coming up as class leaders to talk with me. That was awesome as well. Um, I was able to spend some quality time with my family over the holidays and I hope that all of our students and staff had a great vacation. I would like to acknowledge I always talk about Austin Miller from both our high school. Not only was he chosen as our league's offensive player, but he's earned a few more awards since my last meeting. Austin was chosen as the 2025 Max Prep's freshman all-American team, accounting for 1573 all-purpose yards and 22 touchdowns, as well as 36 tackles, eight tackles for loss, and four sacks. He was also named
107to the AllCIF team, as well as four of his other teammates, Amir Perry, Omari Linton, David Nansen, and Amir Neil. So, congratulations to those student athletes for an amazing season. This past Sunday, I attended the knowledge con LA conference. As my colleague said, this was a really awesome event. Um, board member Armstrong and one of our uh vice principles, Miss Lucasy from Woodruff were also there representing Belfare Unified. I attended breakout sessions on lots of different things. The first one was recognizing genius in our schools. It was with Dr. Tyrone Howard. In this presentation, he addressed strategies to recognize the genius that is often overlooked and unrecognized by our scholars of color and he used the acronym genius to remember this. So, I wanted to pass along some of my knowledge to my colleagues and
108any teachers watching. Um, the G is for grounded in knowledge of self-history and criticality. Um, it basically reminds you to connect to cultural heritage and legacy, to draw strengths from community networks, and to recognize wisdom from lived experiences of our elders. The E is for empathy, to understand the accumulation of disadvantage, um, to recognize the centuries of disadvantage, center student voices in an authentic and sustained way, and to center mental health for students and families. The N is for the no N-word zones or racial slurs. Persistence of the N-word has been accepted and normalized and most students do not know or understand the history of the word and the hate language compromises safety and limits our learning. So I would like to request Dr. Simon that we look at our policies on racial slurs and
109if we do not have something in place we add this to our agenda to discuss the policy to develop an anti-slur policy with students that defines slurs list protected identities race religion gender etc and spells out consequences and reporting options I believe that we um need to establish clear norms that bans all slurs in our schools including the n-word and explains why this language is harmful and not just against the rules. Um I believe that we use plain language such as we don't use slurs at this school and we post them in classrooms or hallways or in handbooks so that expectations are visible and consistent because this is becoming an ongoing prog uh problem with some of these slurs. Um I is for inquiry where questions and probing are encouraged. Make every student query a
110core part of instruction. encourage student exploration on why um questions and applaud investigative curiosity, innovation, and imagination. The U is for unapologetic in allowing students to be their authentic selves. Recognize uniqueness of our students, the brilliance that's rooted in being different from the norm and encouraging authenticity. It leads to greater engagement in learning. And the last is the S for success. Recognize the variation of how genius manifests. grades alone cannot determine student success and some of our most brilliant learners do not fit fit in the narrow boxes of success. So that was a really cool session that I attended. I also attended a session on hiphop and music um being used as social emotional tools and making connections with our students. We took two different parts of a song, the lyrics, and we compared and
111contrasted them, but we really used it as a SEO tool on how it made us feel, what stood out to us, and what resonated the most with us and why. And then we had discussions about it. And it was really nice to be able to build. I know you were in that session with me just, you know, creating connections amongst the people that were there. I attended a session called Teaching Money, Growing Wealth, and Partnering for Financial Empowerment in K12. We discussed how we help students build the money skills and the confidence that they need to create real financial progress over time. We discussed the early habit building, the power of rewards and gamification and school community partnerships that expand access to high quality financial education. There's a free app that I would love I
112don't know if we can do it as a district, but it's called Zogo. Zo. It's a free platform that teaches financial literacy through byite-size lessons, quizzes, and trivia. Um, it includes modules on saving, spending, investing, and more. So, I hope that we can share this with our teachers and students. Again, it's a free app, and we all could use to help, I think, at that young age with financial literacy. Rediscovering passion and radical love and education was my last workshop. We explored strategies for preventing burnout while cultivating meaningful sustainable practices in schools. She talked about how we can highlight teachers who showcase creative and intentional moments in the classroom. We explored the roles of feedback and evaluation and celebrating strong academic practices that bring out the brilliance in our students. This conference I thought was
113phenomenal. It was one of the best conferences I've been to. I think the most thought-provoking question I had which we talked a little bit about last night in our workshop with our U governance team and I will ask again with Dr. Simon her staff my colleagues and our own teachers and staff to ask themselves this question every day teachers are your students at an advantage because you are their teacher colleagues Dr. Simon and staff is our district a better district because we are one of the leaders and are we an advantage because we are helping lead this team. So that's something that I know as a teacher I need to ask. There's some days I feel my students may be advantage and there's some days maybe not but I need to do a better job
114and ask myself that every day. And Tuesday I attended an inspiring leaders academy meeting in my Paramount district. We had a panel of administrators and I was surprised and happy to see Dr. Simon walk into that panel. So many of my friends and colleagues came to tell me how inspirational Dr. Simon's advice was for them and for myself and I couldn't agree more. She always does a great job representing our district and there is not a day that goes by that I remind myself how grateful I am that we hired her and for her leadership here in Belf. So I really appreciate that. And lastly, I hope everyone had an amazing day celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King. My favorite quote that I would like to share with you is as long as the mind is
115enslaved, the body will never be free. So, thank you so much and have a good night. Thank you, board member Stewart, board member clerk. Thank you. As always, I'm going to keep this nice, sweet, and short. Um, I hope everybody enjoyed their holidays. Um, I just kind of one thing that keeps popping up and I want to just uh give a shout out to my Craig William families uh for always reaching out to me, you know, on their way to school and on their way back whenever they see me to just let me know how much they appreciate the teachers and the staff at the school site. They appreciate our um our new superintendent for giving joy. And this is a their words giving joy back to the school. I think that they have been
116growing and they're loving it and I could hear the laughter going down my block again and that's really fulfilling for me. So, thank you so much. Um I also want to touch base um about our ICE immigration town halls that we've had. We had one in December and then one recently. Um, one was virtual and one was virtual in person, so hybrid. And I just want to say that not a lot of districts are doing this. Not a lot of districts either they're not able to or they just don't know how to navigate the topic. And I my heart continues to go out to those that are afraid to walk their kids to school, uh, pick up groceries, and just our political climate. And I just want to let you know that I continue to
117recognize you. I continue to hear you. And anything that we can do as a district, we will continue to do. And please continue to reach out to us because anything we can do, even if it's just giving you resources to anything local, I'm more than happy and willing to do that for everyone and so is our cabinet. So, um, just throwing that in. Um, a shout out to all of our student like our student governance. Um, thank you for acknowledging us and the hard work that we're doing. We don't usually get kudos. So, I really appreciate that. Um, I had a lot of learning last night in our special meeting which was encouraging and I just want to say again thank you to our cabinet because we couldn't do the jobs that we do without
118all of your support and I hope that we are giving that much more support to you in any which way we can but you are appreciated. Thank you. and to BTA since I see a lot of you guys out here all the time. Don't give me that face. It's good stuff. Um, I just want to say it's great to hear um at least me personal. So, I'll take a personal note. Um, and our Oh, our legal counsel might kick me later, but I just want to know I just want to say thank you for coming to the district and being open and trusting us. For us that are sitting up here for our new cabinet negotiations especially are always very, very hard. And I get the history and the trauma and the you know the
119discord from the district prior and I just want to say thank you cuz co-c collaboration is definitely what relieved us just to hear that everybody is even in the the the topics that are hard to talk about it's okay and everybody's feeling relieved that they're able to say what they want to say and being able to collaborate with the district. So, I want to just acknowledge that and continue that and continue to encourage um you know that culture of collaboration. So, thank you so much. And with that, um back to our president. >> Thank you, board member clerk. And now we move on to Vice President Critfield. >> Thank you, Madam President. um been a busy I feel like it's been forever since we've had a board meeting. What has it been like five weeks?
120Six weeks. Wow. Um won't go over all the events, but I one thing I did want to put a spotlight on um because I think it's important for us to know. I think this thing's going to die. Um is a AB uh 2927. Thank you. Uh the personal finance graduation requirement. Uh it was signed into law in June 24 and it adds one semester of personal finance course as a new California high school graduation requirement beginning for the class of uh 2030. The course must be a standalone and it's a one semester uh economics requirement. Uh school districts must begin offering the course by 2728 school year. Um and we the state must adopt curriculum by May 31st 26. If not adopted, districts will have to de develop their own local curriculum. Um I think
121financial literacy is something that's really been missing uh in public education. I'm really excited. I was super excited to learn about the bill. Uh but I think it's something that most parents and most people agree kids should know about. uh interest rates, credit cards, mortgage, uh credit score, like all of the financial literacy that that kids need after high school. Um so I would just encourage uh us as a district and and staff like rather than waiting for the state to you know make us do it. I think uh it's something that we can start moving on and prepare ourselves for uh because it it is coming but you know I think every year we don't have that our kids are missing out on it. I think it'd be a great thing to to move
122quicker on. Um, let's see. Athletics. Congratulations to the Mayfair wrestlers. Both boys and girls teams uh won against Downey. I know we have a lot of injuries and a lot of uh wrestlers out right now. Um, so I don't think there's going to be a CIF team run, but I think they're they're resting up and for league and then a CIF individual. So, wishing them the best of luck. Um, another topic, uh, superintendent have spoken a little bit about, um, is, uh, just as, as we move forward and like look at contracts and really figuring things out. I think one thing I've heard is the, uh, you know, with with sped counseling, it's really important that we always make the decision based off of the the best uh, quality and care for our students, especially
123our most vulnerable students. Uh, so I think that's something that we're all aligned with. And I know uh changes happen for one reason or the other, but it's really important that we always, you know, keep that in mind. I think everybody does, but something that's definitely on my radar and and and also the superintendent is making sure that that's right and uh there's no confusion with staff and and clarity to our families. Um so that's something that I look forward to keep working on. Um last thing I'll say is we had we had a special board meeting last night and I thought it was really good. Uh, and I just want to say thank you uh to my board colleagues. Um, I really do appreciate each one of you uh and Dr. Simon and and
124staff. Uh, we had a lot of really good conversations last night and I left that meeting feeling revitalized in a lot of ways and uh I just uh came away with a real feeling of team and uh I I feel really good about the work that we're going to do ahead. So, thank you all for engaging uh last night and uh I'm I'm really happy with it. So, thank you and thank you all for being here tonight. Have a great night. >> Thank you, Vice President Critfield. Um I hope that everybody had a nice three-day weekend that just um went by for Martin Luther King Jr. Um we're definitely looking forward to next month. Um I know I am. But um I want to take this opportunity to kind of piggy back on what um
125Vice President Chrisel said about last night's um meeting that we had as a you know just looking at how we come together, how we show up for each other. Um I want to take this time really quickly instead of giving you an update as to where I've gone and what I've done during this um last couple of weeks that we've been out. I want to acknowledge some very special characteristics that I see within our board. Um, so board member Armstrong, thank you for always looking at the positive. I appreciate that. Um, board member, thank you for your thoughtful feedback. Um, for member Stewart, thank you for your passionate advocacy. for member Critfield, thank you for your courageous openness for conversations and to our superintendent. Thank you for all the skills that you bring with you
126because I really feel that all these this time you have been preparing for us and we are so lucky that you are here with us and that you are leading us into this next chapter of this district and we are so excited to do this work with you. To our staff members, we see you. We know that you come in here and work so hard for everything you do for our kids and we look forward to, you know, rolling up our sleeves and continuing that continuing to work for every single one of those students out there. To our BTA and CSEA, we know where you come from. We see what we've done so far and we really look forward to the future as well with you. I think that we are all headed in the
127right direction. And before I start shedding some tears, I am going to say that this board meeting is adjourned at 8:30. Oh, I'm so sorry. Informational items before general counsel. I've been doing I've been doing it the whole night. Yes. Um, so informationational items. Does the board have any questions regarding theformational items this evening? Perfect. So, if the board will um Oh, one more thing. Um at this time, the board will close the session. Um no um we are going to um sorry, there will be no further action taken um tonight. This meeting is adjourned in memory of Dr. Knox's mother. Um, please keep her in your prayers and um, like we say, we are all a family and I know that you can feel that and um, please just keep her in your prayers.
128Um, this meeting is adjourned at 8:34 p.m. until the next regular board meeting on Thursday, February 19, 2026. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. So I have a proclamation resolution. Okay. So Okay.