001Good evening. It's 5:30 and I call this meeting to order. Have any blue cards been received for close session items? We do not have any blue cards. Thank you. The board will now recess to close session It is 6 pm and the board is reconvening from close session. There is nothing to report out from close session. Welcome members of the public, board members, and staff. Thank you for attending. As noted in board bylaw 9324, this meeting is being video recorded and broadcast via a link on our website. The recording and broadcast may capture images and sounds of those attending the meeting. I'd like to remind audience members and speakers that it is not unusual for students and young children to be in attendance at our meetings or to watch the recorded broadcast. I invite you
002to model civility and decorum as we go about the business of the board this evening. While I cannot prohibit anyone from using unprofessional language, please think about the students and adults who are watching our proceedings. We invite you to show support for a speaker by waving your fingers rather than clapping or cheering. We begin tonight's meeting with our student board representative, Khloe Johnson, leading us in the pledge of allegiance. Trusty Ward will read from the district vision and Miss Garcia will take the role. To the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Our students are engaged, self-directed learners. They are exposed to different learning environments and pathways. Students aspire to expand their talents and achieve excellence. They are good thinkers, communicators, and
003problem solvers. Thank you. And we will now take role as student board representative Johnson here. >> Trusty COC here. >> Trusty Verbette >> here. Trustee Emory here. Trusty Ward >> here. Trusty Rollings >> here. >> Thank you. Uh we now move on to part four, approval of the agenda. Trustees, are there any questions? >> No questions. May I have a motion to approve agenda item 4.1, approval andor reorganization of the December 10th, 2025 meeting agenda? >> Motion. Second. >> Moved by Trusty Ward, seconded by Trusty Rebecc. Do we have any discussion? >> No discussion. Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. Trusty COC, >> yes. >> Trusty Verbat, >> yes. >> Trustee Emory, >> yes. >> Trusty Ward, >> yes. >> Trusty Rawlings, >> yes. >> Motion passes 5 to zero. >> Thank you. I
004will now hand it over to Superintendent uh Dr. Andrea Nor. >> Thank you. The board is holding its organizational meeting today, December 10th, in conformance with board bylaw 910. At this time, the board of trustees meeting is adjourned for reorganization to elect a new president, vice president and clerk of the board for the 2026 calendar year. The board may do this by verbally making and accepting nominations followed by a motion, a second, and a roll call vote. As soon as a new board president is elected, they will immediately assume the role of president and will commence with the remaining elections and will then proceed with the other items on the agenda. Miss Garcia, have any blue cards been received on any of the items in this section inclusive of items 5.1 through 5.9? If so,
005we'll take all of the section 5 public comments at this time. >> We have a total of one blue card. >> Thank you. Per education code 35145 and government code 54954.3. Members of the public have the opportunity to provide public comment on closed session items. We invite you to show support for a speaker by waving your fingers rather than clapping or cheering. We have received a total of one one blue card. When I call your name, please come to the podium. State your name and indicate whether or not you live in the boundaries of the school district. You will have three minutes and we will have the timer on the screen and your mic will be muted when your time is expired. The first speaker is Scott Davidson. >> Good evening. Uh, as you get
006ready for elections tonight, I just want to remind you of a few things that have occurred in the past year with our current officers so that we can hopefully make some better decisions about who we elect for our leadership today. Um, as we all know from last year, uh, Trusty Rollins refused to step down as president per the you know, outstanding practice for probably decades of rotating through officers. She then proceeded to delete the rule from the governance handbook that actually required the rotation of the officers so that she could remain as president and not be in violation of those rules. Clever trick. Um then what we found is within minutes of her staying on as president, she made an improper request to transfer money out of the reserves, which would have been benefited the
007teachers union. a resulting Brown Act complaint of course found that oh well it's not really a Brown Act complaint because it was just a request for a future agenda item right that wasn't really going to be acted upon. Of course Kathy then in an agenda planning meeting actually directed staff to go ahead and make that request and make that transfer. Right. And Suzanne Oonnell has testified to that. So we know that Kathy, you know, is is not really respectful of the rules. Um Michelle, you know, was actually in the meeting with the in the agenda planning meeting, would have heard trustee Rawlings actually asking to transfer the money improperly after the entire board was made aware that council had recommended that that action had not really been taken. Right? So again, we have a board
008president in place now. We have a board vice president in place now that do not seem concerned with following the rules, do not seem concerned with following fiscal policy and acting fiscally responsible and following the Brown Act. So, um, the next thing we get to is with Trusty Emmery. She made a request in February. Um, that request was acted upon in May, as we all know, to ask for additional paid leave. Of course, that wasn't really what was on the agenda. And so, again, a Brown Act complaint came out. The minutes were incorrect. and instead of correcting the minutes, uh, the board voted to remove Trusty Verbbeth as the clerk because she refused to sign the minutes. So, once again, we have a board majority that seems unwilling to follow the rules, unwilling to act
009in the best interests of our students and the public and our taxpayer dollars. Um, as we all know, even though Trusty Verbs refused to sign the minutes at the time because they were falsified, the minutes were eventually corrected and now do reflect the fact that the board committed a Brown Act violation in voting for that leave policy. So, I just want to leave you tonight with some of that, you know, history to hopefully help you select members who will follow the rules, who are, you know, respectful of the integrity of the board, deserve to be in a leadership position, and understand what it means to be in that president's seat, and understand what it means to, you know, respect different views, respect different viewpoints, and not continue to maintain the power that they have in
010order to push an agenda that even the board majority and oftentimes doesn't respect. So, thank you. Thank you. We now move on to the agenda item 5.2 organization of the board election president of the board of trustees. The floor is now open for nominations for president of the board. I'll take a nomination before asking for a motion. Are there any nominations? Trusty COC. I would like to nominate Gretchen Pereth. Yes, >> I would like to nominate trusty one. >> Do we have any other nominations? Because we have two nominations, we will go through and the process of a motion to second and a vote for one of the nominees. If that does not result in a board majority of three votes, then we'll go through the process of motion second and vote for a second
011nominee. If that does not well, if that doesn't result in a board majority of three votes, then we will continue the process if needed and I'll ask before the nominations. So, we'll start. May I have a motion to approve trustee verb for the position of president of the board of trustees? >> Second motion. I Okay. So, you you nominate, but I need I need the first motion. So, is that motion? >> She nominated and I motion. >> You can motion. Can you? >> Yeah. Ann says yes. And then a second is Trusty Cosc. Okay. Trusty Verbth made the motion. Trustee COC seconded the motion. Any discussion? Okay, Miss Garcia, please call for the vote. Oh, sorry, I didn't see that. I apologize. >> I just um I'd like to thank the public for the the
012communications that we've received on this subject. I think all of us take very seriously our roles. Um and it's always helpful to have feedback so that we get some insight in what people are wanting. And um so that's why I'm um nominating Gretchie for Beth. Thank you. Thank you. Any other discussion? Okay. >> Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. >> Trusty Ciosci, >> yes. >> Trusty Burbach, >> yes. >> Trustee Emory, >> no. >> Trusty Ward, >> no. >> Trusty Rawlings, >> no. Motion fails two to three. Okay, we'll be going through the process again with our second nominee. We have a nomination for trustee Ward. Um, trustee Rollins made the motion and trustee >> technically it's a nomination. So, I will I will make the motion to um approve uh Trusty Ward as
013president. >> Okay. And do we have a second? >> I'll second. >> Trusty Rawlings made the motion. Trusty Emry seconded the motion. Is there any discussion? >> Okay, Miss Garcia, would you please call for the vote? >> Trusty Cosc, >> no. >> Trusty Verbth, >> no. >> Trusty Emory, >> yes. >> Trusty Ward, >> yes. >> Trusty Rawlings, yes. Motion passes 3 to two. >> Okay, at this time we're going to take a fivem minute break so that our new board president can change seats. Um, please let the record show that Trusty Ward has been elected as president of the board of trustees for 2026. And we'll take a short recess and we will be changing seats and providing you with your script. Okay. All right. Thank you. We are now back from the break
014and we'll continue with the organization meeting of the board. But before we do, I'd like to read a couple of words um as board president. So, good evening everyone. I'm glad that you are all here. Um, it is an honor to step into the role of board president and continue the work we do together on behalf of our students, staff, and our community. At the heart of our mission is a simple but powerful truth, and I took this from our board handbook. Our collective moral imperative is to ensure that every child receives an extraordinary education. This isn't just a statement. It's a responsibility that we share as educators, leaders, families, and community partners. Public education is one of the greatest promises of our democracy. It is where every student, regardless of background or circumstances, is
015given the chance to start on the right foot, a truly leveled playing field that prepares them to step confidently into the adult world. When we uphold that promise, we change lives, we strengthen communities, and we shape a brighter future for all through strong partnership with my fellow board members, our dedicated CUSD staff and the many organizations that support our schools. We can continue this important work. So, let's stay centered on what matters most, supporting all students and rise above. rise above all of the distractions. Okay, we will now move on to item 5.3, organization of the board. Election vice president of the board of trustees. The floor is now open for nominations for vice president of the board. Vice pres or trustee Rawlings, sorry. >> I'd like to nominate Trustee Emory. I'd like to nominate
016trustee trust verbath. Okay. All right. So, trustees Emory and COC have been nominated for the position of vice president of the board of trustees. In this case, we'll go through the process of motion, second, and vote for one of the nominees. If that does not result in a board majority of three votes, then we'll go through the process of motion, second, and vote for the second nominee. If that does not result in a board majority of three votes, then I'll ask for further nominations. I'll make a motion to approve. I need that. Oh. Oh, okay. Oh. So, can I have um a motion for Trustee Emory? >> I'd like to move that uh Trustee Emory be appointed to vice president. >> And do I have a second? >> I'll second. Okay. And then can we
017call for Oh, yeah. Sorry. Thank you. I'm brand new at this. Can we And now we Does anybody have discussion about it? >> I do. >> Okay. >> Trusty with that. >> Yes. Um, I would like to, um, have everyone think about just the importance of balance and, um, the way that the handbook was originally drafted and practiced was so that we would have a a balance of power, so to speak, um, and there was a transition that moved down the line and everyone had a chance to train as a as a vice president to then become president. And so I think that in that spirit um since both trustee Emory and trustee Siozi have both um come to the art board at the same time, I'd like to recommend that Trustee Siozi be our
018vice president so she can participate in board agenda planning and be in training for the following year as board president. And um so I think that that way we have a balance um on our board and I think that that's important for our public as well. So, >> okay. Anyone else? >> Um, I I think it's good. I'm so glad that I came in here. Um, and that we'll both have the opportunity regardless of, you know, timing to fill those roles. Um, and I would like to think that both of us would be um, extremely balanced in whatever decision was made. >> Trust, >> I agree. Trustee Marie, I think I've so very much enjoyed getting to know you and I think you would do an amazing job. I think uh I thank you for
019your nomination. I think um that I'm concerned with public perception. Um and perception is not necessarily the same thing as truth. Um but we do have three members of our five member board whose campaigns were largely funded by the teachers union. And there is a perception that goes along with that and and when um we are not um when we're excluding other voices. Sometimes the perception can be that things are not balanced. So I don't think that you per se are imbalanced. Um but I I definitely want to listen to the voice of the public. So I thank you. >> Thank you. Um I would just like to say that um that as a board um not one board member can make a decision, even the president, even vice president. um that it all it
020is all about the majority and there's um I don't think it is a um excuse me um I don't think having one person in a role and not having another person diminishes anyone's voice because we all have a voice. We all have the ability to ask questions. We all have the ability to um let our voices be heard and to attempt to persuade each other as well. So I do think that um I I'm not sure that there's any advantage or disadvantage in being in one position or another. So that's how I that's how I view it. Trustee COC. >> In response to that, the board president and vice president are involved in agenda planning which the other members of the board are not and they can and do prevent things from ever coming to
021the board as a whole for discussion. And that has happened recently and we've had people comment on that. And so that's where the concern for balanced representation. We are all elected, every one of us, by the community that we all mutually serve. And so just recognizing that all of our voices cannot be heard if we have um not equal access to setting that agenda planning. Okay. Any other discussion? Uh, Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. Okay. Sorry. Um, Trusty COC, >> can we clarify what it is we're voting for? I don't know that that's clear. >> Oh, >> so the first one that we were discussing was Trustee Emory. Perfect. Um, for a vice president, >> I'll vote no. >> Okay. >> Trusty Verbbeth, >> no. >> Trusty Emory, >> yes. >> Trusty Rawlings,
022>> yes. >> Trusty Ward, >> yes. Motion passes 3 to two. So, please let the record show that Trustee Emory has been elected as vice president of the board of trustees for 2026. We'll now move on to item 5.4, organization of the board, election clerk of the board of trustees. The floor is now open for nominations for the clerk of the board. Trustee Rawlings. >> I'd like to nominate trustee COC. >> Any other nominations? Okay. Hearing none, Trustee COC has been nominated for the position of clerk of the board of trustees. May I have a motion to approve? >> So moved or motion. >> Second. >> Okay. Trusty Emory made the motion. Trustee Rawlings seconded the motion. Any discussion? Okay. No discussion. Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. >> Trusty COC, >> yes. >>
023Trusty Burbach, >> yes. >> Trustee Emory, >> yes. >> Trusty Rawlings, >> yes. >> Trusty Ward, >> yes. >> Motion passes 5 to zero. >> Please let the record show that Trustee Sioce has been elected as clerk of the board of trustees for 2026. Thank you. Now we move on to item 5.5, organization of the board, appointment of the superintendent as secretary to the board of trustees. I recommend we appoint Dr. Andy Andrea Norman as a secretary to the board of trustees. May I have a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Trusty Verbth made the motion. Trustee Sioce seconded the motion. Any discussion? Oh, sorry. Okay. Okay. Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. >> Trusty Cozy, >> emphatically, yes. >> Trusty Burb, >> yes. >> Trustee Emory, >> yes. >> Trusty
024Rawlings, >> yes. >> Trusty Ward, >> yes. >> Motion passes five to zero. >> Okay, thank you. Now we move on to item 5.6, Six, organization of the board, authorized signatures. May I have a mo motion to approve authorized signatures for the district as presented? >> So moved. Rolling. >> Second. Trusty Rawlings made the motion. Trusty Verbbeth seconded the motion. Any discussion? Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. >> Trustee COC, >> yes. >> Trusty Verbth, >> yes. >> Trustee Emory, >> yes. Yes. Trusty Rawlings. >> Yes. >> Trusty Ward. >> Yes. >> Motion passes 5 to zero. >> Thank you. We now move on to Fi item 5.7, organization of the board school board meeting schedule. May I have a motion to approve the 2026 schedule of the board meetings as presented? >> So
025moved. Rollings. >> Second. >> Okay. Trustee Rawlings made the motion. Trusty Verbth seconded the motion. Any discussion? Okay. So, if trustees, if you would like to request a change to any of the dates or times, now is the time to do that. Okay. So, any discussion? Go ahead. Trusty Rollings. >> Thank you. Um, I just wanted to um thank you for accommodating. I made some requests ahead of time, so thank you for u making those accommodations. And um I just wanted to confirm u Miss Garcia, will you be um sending out a calendar invite once these are done? Um so I don't have to put them in my calendar now. Right. >> Great. >> Correct. Once they're approved, I will um update that calendar tomorrow. >> Perfect. Thank you, >> Trusty Emory. Um uh with
026I don't know if there's a change or not, but with the May 27th um it is actually the last uh Viking concert at Valley Middle School, which in which my daughter will be playing as an eighth grader. So I would either need to miss that meeting, change the meeting, or um leave the meeting early as a note. So we can either look at another date or if it's okay if I you know made that change. Oh, go ahead, Kathy. >> I was going to say I had that was one of the dates that I had requested to be changed. Um so, um so if if it if there was a motion, um I would I would be voting against that um to change it. >> Okay. Any other discussion? Uh Trusty Cos. >> Yes. Um,
027I had uh emailed uh Superintendent Norman about the special meeting times being adjusted to 6:00 p.m. start time instead of 5:00 p.m. It's uh hardship for uh working people's schedule. So, not just for myself, but in general for board members to get here at 5:00 can be a burden. So, for the special meetings to have those adjusted to 6 pm I'm in agreement with that. Trusty COC. Is that a motion? >> Yes, please. >> Okay. So, >> and I'll second that. You're welcome. >> Okay. So, we have um trustee who trustee Siosci who made a motion to move our meeting times from special meetings from 5:00 p. p.m. to 6:00 p.m. And trustee Rawlings seconded the motion. Any discussion? >> Okay. >> I was going to just say um I I don't see any problem
028with that. I just um and it had we had discussed it um and I felt uh it was important enough to bring back to the board to see if that was something that everyone else wanted. So that's why it it wasn't changed that um we felt that that was something that the full board needed to uh chime in on since our special meetings have always been at five, you know, for so long. So I just wanted to explain that to you that it did come, you know, to me as president and and superintendent and then we said, "Well, let's have it come to the meeting and um we can do that." But I'm I'm all in favor. I have no problem with that. so long as everyone else is good with it. >> Trusty Emry,
029just to go back, I know I offered three suggestions. Um, and if I'm the only one imposing the moving, is it a problem for any of the trustees then if I were to >> point of order? Oh, >> there's a motion on the floor. >> Oh, we did it. We did it though. >> Okay. Any any other >> any other discussion? Okay. All right. Um, Miss Garcia, can you call for a vote? >> Trusty COC, >> yes. >> Trusty Burbat, >> yes. >> Trustee Emory, >> yes. >> Trusty Rawlings, >> yes. >> Trusty Ward, >> yes. >> Motion passes 5 to zero. >> Okay. >> All right. Uh, Trusty Amry >> um rather than move or make change to any of the schedules here, is there any issue um with uh leaving early perhaps on
030that one meeting um with you know looking at the schedule in the calendar? I don't know what is um proposed on that one. Um >> so I'm sorry which one? So what is the motion you're making? >> I'm not making a motion. I'm just one pondering to the board >> if I'm allowed to. >> Uh Trusty Rollings. Um, yes, you are. I mean, you would obviously have to excuse yourself and that sort of thing, but that has I mean, it's happened in the past if that is um something you chose you chose to do, but I mean >> yeah, you wouldn't have to you don't have to ask permission from the board. You can do that certainly show up to the party. Okay. >> Okay. So, we're going to leave that. Okay. Great. >> All
031right. So, with the change, u may I have a motion to approve the 2026 schedule of the board meetings as presented with special meetings moving from 5:00 p.m. to 6 p.m. >> moved. Second. >> Okay. Trustee COC made the motion. Trustee Rawlings seconded the motion. Any discussion? Okay. All right. Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. >> Trusty Cioce, >> yes. Trusty Burbath. >> Yes. >> Trusty Emory, >> yes. >> Trusty Rawlings, >> yes. >> Trusty Ward, >> yes. Motion passes 5 to zero. >> Okay. Thank you. We now move on to item 5.8, organization of the board. Excuse me. Board of trustees committee represent representative appointments for 2026. Trustees, are there any questions? Okay. May I have a motion to approve the 2026 trustees committee representative appointments as presented? >> So moved. >> Second.
032Trustee Emory made the motion. Trusty Rawlings Rawlings seconded the motion. Any discussion? Trusty COC. Um, I'd like to remove myself um from the personnel commission. Uh, those meetings are at 4:30 and they're very brief. So, if you are not there immediately when they begin, you miss it. So, it's just not conductive. >> So, are you making a motion to >> I guess would that be a motion to remove myself from that committee then? I So moved. Okay. >> Second. Okay, we have trustee COC made a motion to remove herself from the personnel commission board representative um as a board representative. Uh Trusty Rawlings seconded the motion. Any discussion? Miss Garcia, please call for Oh, did we do that? Oh, we don't. Okay, Mr. Rawlings. Trusty Rollings. Um yes, I would um I can't make every
033meeting, but I will um gladly uh uh submit my name for that spot. >> Okay. >> Is anyone Yeah. >> Okay. Okay. So, we have Trustee Rawlings who um said that she is available. Is there anybody else that would like to take that position? >> Okay. So I would I would like to amend the motion to um to have uh trustee Seos replaced by trustee Mollings >> if that's if that's amanable to the maker of the motion. >> Yes. >> For the whole point of order. Um it would be a motion on the floor as far as the replacement and then there would be another mo um and then and then you'd ask for another motion for the um for the assignments. >> Okay. >> So motion for the amended motion to replace Kathy Rawlings
034for personnel commission. >> Oh >> Okay. Um, Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. >> Trusty COC, >> yes. >> Trusty Berbette, >> yes. >> Trusty Emory, >> yes. >> Trusty Rawlings, >> yes. >> Trusty Ward, yes. >> Motion passes five to zero. >> Okay. Okay. Okay. May I have a motion to approve the 2026 trustees committee rep representative appointments with the change as presented? So moved. >> Second. >> Okay. Trusty Emmery made the motion. Uh Trusty Rawlings seconded the motion. Any discussion? >> Okay. Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. >> Trusty Cos. >> Yes. >> Trusty Burbat. >> Yes. >> Trusty Emory. >> Yes. >> Trusty Rawlings. >> Yes. >> Trusty Ward. Yes. Motion passes five to zero. Okay. Next one. Okay. Item 5.9, organization of the board, resolution number 18-2526, role and
035responsibilities of the members of the board. May I have a motion to approve resolution number 18-2526, role and responsibilities of the members of the board of trustees, exhibit D. So move. >> Second. Sorry, who second? Okay, thank you. We have Trusty Verbth made the motion. Trustee Emmery seconded the motion. Any discussion? Okay, Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. Trusty Cozy, >> yes. >> Trusty Verbat, >> yes. >> Trusty Emory, >> yes. >> Trusty Rawlings, >> yes. >> Trusty Ward, >> yes. >> Motion passes five to zero. Okay, the board of trustees will now read the resolution aloud. Trustee COC will begin with paragraph 1 and we'll go down the line. As a school board member, I know that my primary responsibility is to the child. I am in effect the adult conscience of my
036community with regard to the welfare of children. The welfare of the child will therefore be my first consideration in my actions as a board member. >> As a school board member, I know that my second responsibility is to the citizens who elected me. I am in effect the will of many people. What I do reflects their concerns about human growth and development. What I do determines the price they will pay for educational services. The concerns of district citizens will therefore be my second consideration in my actions as a board member. As a board member, I recognize that I am a major employer. What I do will affect the capacity of many people to practice the profession or trade in which they have so much personal investment. What I do will affect the material quality of
037their lives and the lives of their children. Justice for the people I employ will therefore be my third consideration in my actions as a board member. As a school board member, I realize that I represent the authority of government. I possess the power to grant and to deny. But the power is not mine individually. It represents the delegated authority of the majority. In a democracy, it should be exercised with concern and care for the least individual in excuse me, least influential member of the society. That is the rights of the minority must be protected. Concern for every individual will thus be my fourth consideration in my actions as a board member. As a school board member, I realize that I am but one element of a policymaking body. As such, I have no authority outside
038the official meetings dependent in part on my ability to work with my fellow board members in a in a spirit of harmony and cooperation despite differences of opinion that may arise. I further recognize that the administration of the educational program and the conduct of school business is the responsibility of the superintendent of schools and his or her staff. A sense of loyalty to associates and respect for group decisions cooperatively reached will therefore be my fifth consideration in my actions as a board member. As a school board member, I acknowledge that I am a separate individual. My feelings and views are unique to me based on my own personal experiences. Like all other individuals, I have something to contribute to the sum of society. Unlike most individuals, I have the opportunity and the responsibility to make
039some of these contributions as a board member and will do so to the best of my ability. My personal feelings and concepts will therefore be my sixth consideration in my actions as a board member. >> Okay. Thank you. We are now back in regular session. We now move on to part six, recognition and performances. Item 6.1, recognition of outgoing board president. At this time, I wish to express appreciation to Kathy Rawlings for her leadership during the past year. On behalf of the board of trustees and staff, I would like to present Trustee Rawlings with a new chair. No, with this plaque to thank you for your service as board president, if you would like to make any remarks. Thank you for this. I I truly appreciate uh and being able to serve the community and
040provide uh leadership for a second year, but I will say I am grateful to uh be moving on and be just being a trustee for the next year. It has been a rough one, but I am glad to be still serving the community and I will always want to serve the community, but I am thankful not to be president again. Thank you. >> Oh, this is exciting. Okay. Thank you. We now move on to part seven, communications. Part one, agenda item 7.1, report by student representative to the board. We're excited to welcome back CVA student Khloe Johnson, who will now provide a report to the board. >> Good evening. Carlsbad Village Academy and Carlsbad Seaside Academy are finishing the semester strong with meaningful learning experiences and post-secary preparation for students. At Carlsbad Seaside Academy, seniors
041have officially completed their college applications and staff are excited to support them as they begin receiving decisions and planning for their next steps. At Carlsbad Village Academy, seniors participated in an informative and interactive financial literacy sess session, sorry, with Luke Dixs. Students learned practical strategies for budgeting, saving, and making informed financial choices as they prepare for adult life. The presentation sparked great discussion and gave students important tools for their future independence. We also welcomed Lieutenant Commander Michaela Sanchez who shared insights about career pathways in the Navy medical field. Students learned about the training, education, and real world experiences provided through military service, as well as how those skills transfer successfully to civilian healthcare careers. As we approach the holidays, both CVA and CSA are focused on supporting students through the end of the semester and
042celebrating their progress and accomplishments. Both schools remain committed to preparing students for college, career, and life beyond high school through engaging instruction and strong community partnerships. Carlsbad High School is currently loving this holiday season. Last Friday, ASB held the Lancer Market where students can set up their very own business right on campus for other students to buy from. We had 13 small businesses sign up as well as Chick-fil-A and Tiki Ice for a really fun Friday back from break. On December 10th, CHS will be hosting a blood drive in the old gym for anyone to donate and help save lives. Coming up, we have an ice skating fundraiser on December 13th at Icetown for a fun way for students to come support CHS and participate in some amazing holiday activities. CHS also held another signing
043day for four of our amazing football players here in Carlsbad. They have bright futures ahead of them, planning to attend amazing schools. The gym was packed to cheer them on. ASB Loud Crowd received an award during the KUSI Prep Pigkin Report event last Tuesday night, presenting CHS as the best student section of the year. Our student body packed out the room and are very proud and excited to be recognized for their dedication. Lastly, our Lancer dancers performed four amazing shows this last weekend on the fourth, 5th, and 6th during their showcase called Merry and Bright. Lancer Dancers, Excalibur, Royals, CHS Dance PE class, Mancer Dancers, and Junior Lancer Dancers all participated at Sage Creek. The month of December kicks off with an off-road protocol meeting for the new trimester. Alongside that, students also participated in
044the ASVAB exam. The month also included a day of understanding assembly, which fostered awareness and connection among students. The month was filled with various fun activities and our annual dodgeball tournament brought energy and took place during lunch during the second week of December. While the winter music concert Solstice showed the talent of our music program, seniors also had the opportunity to take their senior portraits. December is also a time for many firsts with the PTSA Bobcat cooking class taking place alongside the first coffee session in Spanish with our principal Dr. Wei. PTSA also hosted its second financial literacy right after school, giving students more opportunities for financial literacy. Our sports continue to thrive with many of the winter sports like basketball and our new woman's water polo team taking off in the first few weeks.
045That's all. Thank you. >> Thank you. We now move on to item 7.2 by CUC PTA president. Please come to the podium. you will have five minutes to speak. Does not look like she's here tonight, so we'll move on. Um, thank you. We now move on to item 7.3, report by the CEO of the Carlsbad Educational Foundation, Laura Pittz. Please come to the podium. You'll have five minutes. Good evening. Um, I'm Laura Pittz. I'm happy to be here tonight. Um, I wanted to start by sharing that we identified our $500 classroom grant winner for our elementary school teacher. wanted to. It's hot off the press. It hasn't been announced yet until now, but it was congratulations to Miss Rushing at Avier Oaks Elementary. Um, I was so excited. We picked a parent at random and
046we got to surprise the whole class. We picked a time where the late owls and the early birds were all there together and we like snuck in there and the parent that was chosen came and it was it was awesome. So, we will um be posting that on social media in the next couple of days. So, please look for that. Um, I want to highlight a couple of things from our afterchool program. Um we are happy to offer our families that are paying full price for kids care are receiving a 40% discount in December. Um we just really appreciate those that are choosing to use kids care for their after school and before school needs and we were happy to extend that um discount during the holidays. Um and also our session 3 after school
047enrichment will start in January and it is open now for enrollment. So families that are looking for a specialty class after school are encouraged to enroll soon so they get a spot. Um the program I wanted to highlight this month is Biztown. All of our fifth graders are going to Bistown in the month of December and that's a program through Junior Achievement. I believe you're all aware of it, but it's where students step into a simulated city and they get to have a job that they take on. If you have not been to Biztown, you should go. And it's just incredibly well done. It's very fun. And yesterday we were at Kelly Elementary shooting our next um couple of highlights that we're going to do for um social media. And it happened to be right
048when we were wrapping up. The bus came back from Bistown. And so we grabbed two students at random and decided we were going to do a little cameo like interview and it just so happened that the student we chose had been the journalism like I don't know she was like in charge of she was writing the newspaper and so we had her interview her friend and I don't know if she had applied to be in that role because she has previous journalism experience or she was so moved by her job. They nailed it in one take. We made them take it twice because they weren't standing close enough and I was bummed because it really was one take. It was it was unbelievable. But I share this because Bistown is one of these amazing programs.
049In most school districts, that program is um worked on school by school. It is not district-wide and it just depends on which school you're at and the relationships you have that the kids get to go. And so I am proud to be in an organization that is able to put opportunities like that for students that are districtwide. Um those types of programs are just not possible without our donors. And so I really want to give a nod and just really celebrate that program and and share that. Um, and so looking at fundraising, I just wanted to share that Giving Tuesday was a great day to kick off our annual campaign. Our goal is to raise $50,000 in contri in contributed income in this month. And that is ambitious, it is certainly doable with um our
050great community. And it's just a big reminder to our community that while we live in this amazing place, and I know you guys know this because you just went through a big budget discussion last month, um that we are one of the lowest funded unified school districts in San Diego County. And so programs like that are not possible without contributed um giving from our community. And so I just encourage people to give what they can this this month and um really think about our students and I hope that we can get everybody involved. My favorite metric is looking at new donors and the number of donors because if we have a large group of donors giving what they can, it's a really cool way to see them lifting up our students. So cheers to the
051holidays and to the rest of your meeting and we'll see you in the year. Okay, thank you. We now move on to item 7.4 report by the Luna President. Please come to the podium. You'll have five minutes to speak. Okay. And we're going to move on. We now move on to item 7.5 report. Okay. And we're going to move on. Thank you. We now move on to item 7.6, superintendence report. Dr. Andrea Norman. Thank you, President Ward. I have had a great month visiting sites and attending events such as the rising star and the Carl'sbad football game. A highlight that was um something pretty amazing was our recent trip with our trustees to CSBA in Sacramento. This is where over a thousand school districts come together and we take classes and we learn a lot.
052And what we did is we attended multiple sessions on governance, board policies, and instructional programs. I appreciate the board investing so much time to be at this event. It's a 4-day event and it's time away from our families. um multiple colleagues um because I've I'm old and I've been doing this for almost 30 years. I saw lots of friends there from all across my career and they couldn't believe that all five board members and they're like that's amazing. Very few people had their entire board can't come and attend and that's really um something I wanted to note that our board did and they showed up. They were at everything and it was just such a great team building experience and I'm just extremely appreciative of our board and their commitment to Carl'sbad. So, Thank you.
053We now move on to part eight, public comment on non-aggenda items. Item 8.1, public comment regarding non-aggendaized topics that will lie within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board. This is a time that members of the public have the opportunity to address the board on any non-aggendaized item that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board. Okay. And we have we have a total of five blue cards. Okay. Okay. Um let's see. In order to allow speakers to present their comments and ensure that we are able to properly attend to the business of the board per board bylaw 9323 public comments will be limited to 20 minutes. That mean that means each speaker will have three minutes. When I call your name, please come to the podium. Please state your name and indicate whether
054or not you live within the boundaries of the school district. The first speaker is Lisa Deore. Lisa Deore. I'm a teacher at Kelly School. I also live within the school district boundaries. And I came to speak to you today about our full day kindergarten pilot. Um, perhaps someone will tell me at another time since I know you don't respond back to me right now. How did we get to a place where we are piloting a full day kindergarten? And is it because you feel our program is broken? I don't feel it is broken. We've had this program in place. It's a magical program taken from dawn and it's a program that has worked for decades. We love this program. It allows us to work with kids in small groups and make their first year very
055impactful. So if it is because our program is broken, I really don't feel doubling the time and doubling the amount of children in a classroom is something that's going to fix the program if indeed that is why we are doing it. Perhaps that's not the reason. Perhaps it's for convenience and childare. I hate to see it and I I hate to say it, but I and I do feel for all these parents that are working parents and they need to have child care because we have a half-day program. I understand that, but that's a different conversation and maybe something we need to explore. I don't feel that um convenience and child care is really part of our mission statement. Is that correct? Not part of our mission statement. Correct. or is it because other districts
056are all doing it? So, you're all parents, I believe, and we all know what it's like when your child comes to you and says, "Well, Sally has um an iPhone and why can't I take my ebike at night because Johnny's doing it and um Susie over there, she's going to that party, so why can't I go to that party?" And what is your answer? Just because everybody else is doing it doesn't mean we're going to do it, right? So, Carl'sbad has a wonderful program in place. I would love to see that continue. I'm definitely in love with our program. I invite you all to come and see it. Stay more than 5 minutes, stay for an hour. I'll keep you busy. Also, if we are doing this program and you um I've heard a lot
057about play-based learning, which guess what takes a lot of things to implement, I want to know where those are coming from. I have funded every single thing in my classroom. That includes uh classroom library with children's rocking chairs, puzzles, Legos, magnetiles, manipulatives, small toys, and animals of animals and dinosaurs. Lincoln logs, wooden blocks, a play kitchen with play food, a table and a chair, a high chair with dolls, a cash register, board games, a vet play center, and very uh a lot of various other appropriate items. Let's hope that you're willing to put the money in if you vote for it. >> Thank you, Lisa. Okay, we have Don Ess. Yes, I live in the district and I'm a kindergarten teacher, as you know. Um, today we did the task force meeting and I walked
058away from that meeting thinking we can't afford all day kindergarten. We can't. Um, and I was going to get up here tonight. I had a whole speech about how it's affected my finances at home. But as we were walking out, I ran into a colleague in the parking lot and she looked very floor and she's an SDC teacher in our district and she has 11 students and eight adults in one small classroom. And it goes back to we can't afford this. If we're putting eight CDC or 11 CDC kids in one room with eight adults, that's crazy. And every day I was in her room last year and those kids were happy and content. And they're not that way this year. They're not. So, we seriously need to consider CDC if we're I mean, uh,
059our special day classes because I don't think we gave them the thought when we decided to do this pilot and we want to keep her. >> Thank you, Don. Janice Scott. Hi, my name is Janna Scott and I live in Carl'sbad and I teach in Carl'sbad. I'm also a kindergarten teacher and I just want to tell you, excuse me, how absolutely joyful it is to teach in this program, the current program. I'm not in the pilot. I'm in the early bird laid down model. It is so much fun. Every single day is so fun getting to know the students really in the small groups. I don't know about you, but I don't want to wait in line behind eight people at the grocery store. I don't want a 5-year-old to have to wait behind eight
060children before they can share their journal. They have a much shorter attention span. And the larger the class size, the smaller um amount of attention that they get. If you don't teach in the program, it's really hard to understand how it works. And I'm not I mean truly before I taught kindergarten, I really didn't know. And I would just think, well, can't you just do small group in any setting? when you have half the class or a number say 16 my early birds this year 16 of them I can run four groups of four in my reading groups this is incredibly important and um just the amount of impact that it has on their learning for 15 minutes while the other three groups are doing cut and glue play-doh um coloring maybe tying their shoe
061practice there's different um things that they can do in that during that time but if I were to have a group of say 28 cuz I actually have 27 this year. If I had 28 and it was a whole a um not the early bird laid out model to have four in my group I would have to run seven rotations. That means to have 15 minutes with four I have six other rotations that are being ignored. It's not safe. It's not it it just doesn't make sense. And um I love it when you come to visit and I've seen a lot of you in my classroom throughout the years. I would love it and I know it's not feasible but if you could spend a whole day because if you can you know pop into
062for during the early bird time and see how we do those little groups and then when the overlap happens it's a completely different picture and they're lovely and they're wonderful and it's just I don't know how I would run that impactful of a grouping with that large of children a number of children that makes sense. Um, anyway, it's it's just so much fun and whatever the board decides, I will give it 200% like we all do anyway, but I'm just telling you, I don't have a lot of years left in the district. And so, I'm really speaking for the children coming up. It's not about me. I'm going to work hard no matter what. But I just know how joyful they are. They work really, really hard in the short time they're there, and they
063leave exhausted, and they're excited to come back. And if children aren't happy at five years old in school, I'm really concerned for their future. So I'll tell you right now, they're very joyful in the current program. >> Thank you, Jana. Linda Daniels. >> Hi, I'm Linda Daniels. I'm a 12-year resident of Carlsbad. And uh the main reason I came, first of all, I'm going to say congratulations to the new president, Michelle Ward. Okay. And to the new vice president, Miss Emory. Um, I came because I really wanted to thank you all for all your hard work this year. I think that you've done an incredible job. I mean, we've had budget problems. We've had so many issues happen and you guys have been working tirelessly. So, I came here just to thank you for a
064great year and to wish you happy holidays. Okay. Thank you very much. Bye. Sweet. >> Thank you, Linda. Jolene Vano. So, I uh unfortunately thought the general com Oh, I'm Jolene and I do live in the district. Um I thought the general comments came at the beginning, so I had intended to speak about the election, but um I guess I will now provide postgame commentary. Um I had intended to ask for governance change. I thought it was long overdue. Um I just unfortunately think that the outcome that just happened is not going to restore trust in the community. Um, you should know you should know that the committee at large is well aware of the numerous trends the outgoing president has disregarded legal and ethical guidelines and the role that other board members played in
065the cover up. Um, there seems to be a constant closing of ranks around uh to protect union sponsored members and it's pretty evident by the outcome of the election. These things don't get swept under the rug. They don't disappear. These things are talked about in parent circles. When I'm at soccer, on the sidelines with other parents, when I'm at the dog park or nextdoor neighbors, the sad thing is there's really a prevailing, at least I see there's a really prevailing sense of defeat among parents. um when when these issues come up like with the 3 million that you tried to transfer um out of reserves when we talked about that there's like some of the comments parents will make it'll be like well that's power for the course or you know just that happened again
066doesn't surprise me nothing changes it it's like these things keep happening and not and things aren't changing to restore integrity and I think it's unfortunate Um, I will say that as a parent, the one thing I do notice, the one thing that does stand out to me is who responds. Um, Dr. Brockett, Dr. Norman, Gretchen, and Laura. Um, those are the four people who have responded to me. I've emailed numerous times on various issues. Um, and I it it means a lot to me as a parent, as I'm sure it means a lot to other parents as well, when you get that response. um even if it's not the response I want um or you know we disagree and there is a lot that I disagree with you guys on but I do appreciate that
067you four constantly make the effort to show that you're listening and willing to keep that communication opened that it speaks volumes for you guys. I hope I can um see the same come from you other three because I I I have no idea where you stand on the issues that and concerns that I've raised because I've never heard from you. Um, and I will add that your response time is exceptional. Uh, I have siblings across the country who have had horrible experiences with dealing with their own school boards and sometimes not getting responses for like 45 or 50 days. So, the fact that you guys respond within like a week, it's it it's really great. So, I just want to add that, too. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. We now move on to part
068nine, consent calendar. All matters listed on the consent calendar are considered by the board to be routine and will be enacted by the board in one motion. There will be no discussion on these items prior to the time the board votes on the motion unless there is a board request for one or more specific items to be removed from the consent calendar for discussion. Have any blue cards been received? >> We do not have any blue cards. Trustees, are there any items to be pulled for discussion? May I have a motion to approve the consent calendar? So move. Second. Second. I have trustee Verbth made a motion. Trustee Emory seconded the motion. Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. >> Trustee COC, >> yes. >> Trusty Verbette, >> yes. >> Trustee Emory, >> yes. >>
069Trusty Rawlings, >> yes. >> Trusty Ward, >> yes. >> Motion passes 5 to zero. >> Thank you. We now move on to part 10, presentations. Agenda item 10.1, report to the board, District 3. District three-year technology plan annual update. Trustees, this is an information discussion item. I will now hand it over to Dr. Brian Brockett. >> All right. Uh good evening everyone. Uh thank you President Ward, trustees, and Dr. Norman for having us here this evening to share updates on the CUSD technology strategic plan. Uh the current version of the plan has been in place since 2024 and is included as exhibit A under agenda item 10.1. The plan includes seven overarching goals that address three core areas: instructional goals, professional learning goals, and infrastructure and equipment goals. Um, as we sit here tonight, our
070IT team continues to do outstanding work that focuses on the educational impact of technology, keeping current with an everchanging technology landscape, uh, and maintaining and improving a robust infrastructure to support student and staff technology use. I'm pleased to have here with me tonight director of assessment and technology, Mr. Robert Allen, uh, who's going to share uh, annual updates regarding progress towards plan goals. >> Thank you, Dr. Dr. Brockett, nice to see you all. I would push for a semiannual review so I get to see you more, but I'm excited to do the annual review of technology. Uh, thank you for that setup. So, as Dr. Brockett said, the purpose tonight is to say we adopted a new plan last year. Some of those goals were rewarded in very strategic ways. So, this year is kind
071of a baseline of information of how are those goals going. So, the goal tonight is to uh summarize those baseline goals, obviously share details about current projects going on because there are always projects going on, and to answer any questions you may have for me. Again, this is a bit of covering it again, but we adopted it last year, the new three-year plan. We surveyed everyone, uh, students, uh, administrators, teachers in May to see how's it going. So, this is self-reported data along with what we've been collecting through throughout the year and also anecdotal. I will not I was an English teacher and I always said just don't read from the slide the whole time. So, this would be the slide you don't read from. However, um are all board members familiar with the goals?
072All of our goals are important. This is the one to me that I think hits closest to home because our prior goal number one was uh when we were first rolling out Chromebooks, it was students will basically use Chromebooks. It was this new onetoone program, right? And are we using this infrastructure we've so deeply invested in? And we did. And the survey was yep, I definitely use my Chromebook. uh for as far as students, as far as teachers, co kind of took care of that one for us. I don't know how you didn't use one at that time. So, we felt it was obviously appropriate to evolve that goal. That was a very quantitative goal. Are you or are you not using it? It felt appropriate to evolve that goal toward a qualitative measure. To
073what degree are we using them? What are we using them for? And are we using it for something that involves critical thinking and demonstrating mastery of content and deepening our understanding beyond just my fingers touch keys? So, we were excited to ask this question this year. It was good to get this data. You can see between teachers, admin, and students, we were in like the 70s to 80s range. Before it was in the 90s because of course I use my Chromebook. Right now, it's saying, well, that's not quite as high as using because this is really great baseline data. This is saying like, awesome. This is where we're at. If what we're going to do is push for deeper understanding, critical thinking, and mastery of content, great. It's good to know where we feel we
074are and where we're self-reporting because that totally informs our PD and our infrastructure and how we want to take next steps. Obviously, when it comes to using really powerful tools, there needs to be some element of training and understanding of what those tools do for young people, right? So, our second goal was learning about issues related to the appropriate and ethical use of that technology. I think we can all nod our heads at the idea that that's a good idea to measure and make sure that it's happening. So students, teachers and students generally generally feel equipped to have meaningful conversations around how we navigate the digital world. As Dr. Brockett said, that world's constantly evolving. So is the curriculum and so are the conversations around it. But teachers and students both reported feeling generally equipped
075to do that. We provide a curriculum through common sense media. I don't know if you're familiar with it. It's great. And that's those are one of the tools we use. But let's be honest, digital citizenship isn't that thing that you're like, "Oh, it's May. We better check that box." It's every day is a conversation about digital citizenship. So, it's good to hear our teachers and students feel generally equipped. Um, and then we're working to bolster training specifically around, maybe you've heard of it, artificial intelligence, uh, seems to be the talk of the town for obvious reasons, and that's something that's still generally pretty new to the world. And so, we're excited to incorporate that training already. Common Sense has great media around it, and we're working to bolster that even more. We have really talented
076teachers in this district. I know I don't need to say that but they're learners at heart and so when we hit these moments where there's new technologies there's new ways of doing pedigogy etc support is needed right and not just support from on high but support amongst each other uh Carl'sb teachers are very good collaborators so creating those opportunities for shared knowledge are really important but also at the district level providing the opportunities providing that curriculum etc teachers felt supported with technology teachers felt confident using it and we're working to bolster our training around specifically that AI concept again I am interested to see because we did a big migration. I'll talk more about on goal 7 where the world was forced to go off Windows 10. This year we all had to go Windows
07711. Um it really revealed that some people were still leaning on some equipment that was older. So I'm curious to ask again now that we have full fidelity to our current technology standard. Are we still feeling this way? It seems like year-over-year we've seen increased uh confidence around our current standard. So I'm excited to see what teachers say this year. Same with administrators. uh our instructional leaders at each site obviously set a tone and set an example. It's great to see when instructional leaders as admin are feeling confident as well with technology and how to use the tech standard um and having conversations about using artificial intelligence for appropriate ways to affect workflow, create curriculum, communicate with people. That's been neat to see admins drive that. We want to continue supporting them with that. Tell
078me if I'm going too fast. No. Okay. As far as onetoone devices to all students, that's kind of a carried initiative. That's not new. Uh many many do that. That's the we often call it our new textbook. It's obviously a critical piece of equipment for learning. We wanted to make sure that that we have a full true onetoone program while also monitoring what that has to mean. So right now we have students take home their devices from fifth grade through 12th grade. In first through fourth grade it's one to one, but they tend to stay in the classroom. They don't tend to go home. They're in carts and they're used for very targeted purposes. TK and K are a little bit different. Uh and you can look at usage in um you can see like
079what people are using in Kinder. They're used pretty sparsely and for very targeted programs that we as a district provide. So for those we don't tend to do a one-on-one. They tend to be carts or clusters of available devices that teachers can use in like small groups for example. Uh but it's not technically onetoone because we spoke with them and that didn't feel like something that they were requesting. This was a big one. Um, optimizing our technology for classified and itinerant staff by modernizing devices. Big Windows 11 migration. I notice as I look around the table more and more, we see Chrome devices, right? Uh, Chrome has really made a presence even in a very enterprise professional environment. It's not just that thing the students use. It's actually something that we use pretty broadly at
080this point and we've minimized our Windows 11 uh footprint. But as we did that, we that you see no MacBooks, we're going Chromebooks. Um, anyway, we're still doing investigation to see which pockets that best fits in. There's places like CTE, obviously, where equipment is required to be a certain way, certain administrative positions, but we're excited to uh what was really exciting about this is we could put Chrome on equipment that was Windows 10 and repurpose it. It was a huge cost savings. It's much more secure. It's much easier to manage. So, that was an exciting initiative this year. probably stop. >> It's like the kind of hands-on tech support that we get around here. I appreciate this. >> It's like the unplug and plug it back in. I I promise we're not messing around. There's
081a reason that that works. Um and this is kind of the unplug it. There we go. Implement a single source of grading and communication for families. So, everyone reports grades in AR's gradebook. whether that's being consistently used so that you could check in anytime on your phone as a parent and see that what are the grades in this class has gotten much and much improved over the past couple of years. I'd say most of our teachers now are regularly using area so that you can check in anytime and see what grades are. So that's been great to see. And then parent square is supposed to be what our real focus of communication is. That's not to say you can't send an email. Obviously parents develop relationships uh with teachers in ways that they feel comfortable
082communicating but generally speaking we we endorse parent square as a way of communicating and we're seeing um widely adopted use of that. I don't know if you receive parent square notifications but uh that is our primary mode of communication that's going very well because there are always areas for growth. um unless you want to just stop there. As far as growth, what we're looking at three key areas, and this was based on survey feedback from our the people we serve, um network reliability itself is really high. It's a really interesting trend that when something doesn't work for a moment, it's a completely understandable reflex to say the network is having trouble. And so what we want to do is tease out a better understanding because when we look at uptime on the network, it's 99.9%
083of the time. So we're wondering like what does that mean? The network's not reliable. And I think when we hit moments where uh we like to cast in this way and as you saw sometimes that requires a reset etc. That's not necessarily a network problem but I understand the perception is so one thing we want to work on is better understanding what the feeling is behind the network problem and make sure we're communicating with teachers and staff that we are bolstering that network as much as we can while making casting reliable. In the event that uh casting there are interruptions to it. We've uh provided HDMI cables to teachers in like some problem areas. We've noticed certain learning environments have interference. You can imagine when all these wireless things are doing things, everything down to
084a fluorescent light bulb can cause interference. If we got these problem areas, we have HDMI cables. Teachers connect. It's not our favorite thing because the idea is you can be flexible around the room and that kind of tethers you. But what's more important is you can do your job that day. So, we make sure that we have that backup while we troubleshoot the problem to create reliable casting. Um, this I'm really excited about. There are always projects going on. you as you can imagine it's not that fewer things are getting plugged in more and more things are getting plugged in all the time so we are constantly keeping an eye on is our infrastructure going to support things being plugged in more and more we did our current projects are a server refresh servers basically
085allow all the stuff around us to work constantly it hums in the background those were quite old and we were able to be uh creative with an initiative to bring those up to speed so it feels good to have those not only are the servers up to speed shout out to system support and network team, they created redundancy. So now if servers go down, primary ones, backup ones automatically kick on. It used to be that it took us about a day to bring a campus back online. Now it should take about 15 minutes. Of course, now that I've said that, I've just jinxed us. But um we're really excited that we can give that assurance to people when they say the network doesn't work. Sometimes it's those moments we need to show them that it
086does. We also did a switch refresh. Um all the blinky lights in the network uh closet that make the internet work, those are all refreshed perate. Thank you to Debbie Miller and her team for helping us make that happen. -ate cuts our funding in half. We get 50% of that subsidized. So, that's huge to be able to afford that. We're currently looking into a camera upgrade. Uh we're still in talks about what that will look like around the district. We have a bit bit of an aging system and so we're talking about how we can bring that up to snuff. Uh we're streamlining the surplus process. It's really easy, I've noticed, to get things in. It's hard to get things out and stuff piles up in a way that's insane. and it goes and lives
087in closets and hides everywhere and then when it comes time to move it, it's a herculean effort. That used to take a very long time to get that stuff out and we've streamlined that process. So, that's exciting. Um, we have a data governance initiative this year. The state of California is noticing that the reason everyone gets hacked is because data is super valuable, right? And if we aren't doing what we need to do correctly to either protect it or have high quality of it and report to Kalpads correctly, the state is now saying that is a mandatory thing. Um, big shout out to our data admin team for taking the initiative to form that. We now have a committee of over 25 people. We're trying to get representation from each of the departments here, from
088every school site, from every position to say what does data mean in your world and how are we making sure it's secure and quality. So that's a really exciting initiative. Um and then I this I'm really excited about the student ambassador program. Every month we have a technology advisory committee meeting. Constituents from all over Carl'sbad, parents, administrators, technicians. It's great. There's a missing voice there, right? It's the classic let's talk about the thing that affects the end user, but don't ask the end user what their experience is like, right? And so this year, every school site picked one student to come be part of TAC meetings. Not every month because it's kind of disruptive to be out of class, but they it is so much fun to speak with our students about you tell me
089about your experience and what should we be considering if we're finalizing these artificial intelligent guidelines this next month for use in Carl'sbad. You tell us like take a look at the guidelines. Put a comment on there. What do you think? And of course, they say the most thoughtful things. this one student I won't say her name but I didn't even think about the part of students leaning on AI for even like emotional support with things and we need to keep an eye out for what does that mean what tool are we endorsing and are we endorsing that it was great I love talking to students so I'm really happy to have student voice more directly connected in our conversations around technology and how we use it and then again we'll finalize those AI use guidelines
090this next month just because I think teachers are looking at us going I'm not opposed I just what are the rules right we're always looking for like what are the guidelines what do you endorse what do you recommend what do you support so we're excited to finalize that this next month. >> Did I do under 10? >> Very close. Yes. Thank you. But uh that's with that I I think you know the one thing that I want to come back around to is the the big pockets we think about the the educational piece of technology which is really the tip of the iceberg. And so much of what director Allen does with his team is is that under the water infrastructure, the protocols, the the thinking about being thoughtful about how we use that that
091portion above the surface. Um, so I thank him and his team for their uh continued great work. And with that, I'll hand it back to you, President Ward. >> Okay, this is a time for public comment. Have any blue cards been received? >> We have one blue card. >> Okay. When I call your name, please come to the podium, state your name, and indicate whether you are whether or not you live within the boundaries of the school district. You will have three minutes. We will have the timer on the screen and your mic will be muted when your time has expired. The first speaker is Rachel Marino. Thank you. Good evening, trustes. I'm Rachel Marino. I'm the cutie union president. I do not live within the district. I wanted to address two pressing issues with
092the current district technology plan. Neither of these issues are new to the district. I have had multiple conversations regarding these issues with most of the people sitting at this table without any satisfactory response. The first, in order to log into our district issues devices, we are told personal devices are necessary for two-factor authentication. Yet, this requirement is inherently compromised by our current unstable infrastructure. Our site access to Wi-Fi is constantly failing, ma making reliable access necessary for two-factor authentication to function a struggle. We're forced to rely on personal data plans and devices simply to log in, defeating the purpose of a professional security system. This problem has a fairly easy solution. USBC security keys or fobs are readily available to serve as dedicated two-factor authentication devices. This technology allows staff to securely authenticate without ever
093needing a personal cell phone or relying on unstable Wi-Fi connections. We should not be asked to be use our person our private property to enable district security. Uh finally, so these technology goals were updated to reflect the modern world charging us with ensuring students learn about AI ethics, enhanced focus, and good digital citizenship. This is an admirable and necessary goal. However, our current technological environment and tools are making these goals virtually impossible. Um, my colleagues and I believe that our ability to instill good digital citizenship habits is now incumbent on our ability to restrict student access to chaotic aspects of the internet. We must acknowledge the truth. We can't compete with the siren call of the unfiltered internet. And our strategy must shift from one of permission to one of protection. Um, the board policy
094requires us to cite relevant research in our plan specifics. Research in cognitive psychology consistently shows that task switching driven by notifications and distraction significantly degrades student attention spans and working memory. Additionally, the introduction of large language models fundamentally threatens academic integrity. In every case where we have attempted to teach students to use I in the right way, we have found that at least one student is unable to resist the temptation to outsource their learning to a machine. This is not a failure of character. It's a failure of system control. We're told that blocking every new LLM will be game of whack-a-ole. Yet, our existing internet filters successfully keep up with sites that exist for other inappropriate reasons. We need that same level of d proactive dynamic filtering be applied to LLM access. Um to I'm
095sorry, I know I'm running out of time. Um ultimately, I'm not opposed to technology. I'm opposed to technology strategy that undermines the core purpose of education. um with strong boundaries and provided highquality academic resources, we can gain that environment where they can truly reach those goals. Finally, Mr. Allen mentioned the use of AI for emotional support. Good God, if that does not terrify you, that they're using a district device to s seek out emotional support from a machine. I don't know what else I can say. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you, Rachel. Trustees, do you have any questions for staff? >> Trusty Rollings, >> thank you and thank you for the presentation and uh thank you for keeping it uh short and sweet. Um on slide five, you talk about uh student usage um as
096far as student usage, administrator usage, teacher usage. Do you have that information broken down by grade or by secondary, elementary, those types of things to kind of >> give us a baseline of how our students are at what grade level students are using it more and less? >> Sure. The actual uh survey data, the last slide, that's the raw data and then you'd see like an indicated grade or I go to this school and then I can run those reports on my end as well. So I can look through Clever is our uh dashboard for a lot of applications. So I can see how frequently are certain applications being used for how long are they being used and then I can use our filter too. I was having fun today taking a big large set
097of data from our filter to say where's the internet being you how is it being used and I can do that by grade level. >> So just to clarify you don't have that information right now though >> I have it on the last slide available if we want to look at that but it's just raw data. >> Oh I see what you're saying. Okay, thank you. trusty provided. >> Um, as as far as some of the, you know, the everything going on talking about, you know, the use of, uh, students using the technology, especially in those lower grade levels. Um, has there been any training in the past on, and I, forgive me, I'm trying to say the acronym, but I forget what one of them is. On the SAM model, I know it's substitution,
098augmentation, modification, and >> redefinition. >> Thank you. uh has there been some training around that so that they're not just substituting a textbook for a digital textbook and and so forth? >> Yes. So our Tosa Khalif, she's our teacher on special assignment specifically for technology. That's something that's very much drives her and her work that she likes to do. She works with the tech coaches. Every site has a tech coach and that's the through line. That's one of many. So Samar is obviously one of those things that we teach very specifically what that might look like. It's one thing to say I understand the acronym. When you get into redefining learning, that is more than just a word. That's a major thing to say you're doing with these. And so I think that's where we
099try to spend a lot of our time is saying what does that even look like or mean? Uh so that's what's exciting too is while I'd love to believe we have all the answers, quite frankly we don't. And it's really neat for she and I to design opportunities for teachers to knowledge share because they're driving a lot of what that means to redefine them. >> Go. I'll go trustee or beth. >> Um, on goal seven, second bullet under communication, it states modes of communication used by teachers are still varied. Could you please explain that? >> Yeah, there's still a small subset on the survey, you can see in the data that don't prefer to use parent square or don't often use it. It's a pretty small subset. So, when I say varied, I'm saying it's
100not a perfect score yet. I know our goal is to say that's the way we tend to communicate or at least we don't avoid that way of communication. So modes just mean a lot of times just hey I email a lot or I just make a lot of phone calls. That's a very small subset. Most teachers are using parent square or email to communicate >> is my understanding from the survey >> and the followup to that. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So is there any discussion about trying to streamline this so that teachers are using primarily one platform so that parents aren't having to hop around all over the place and also talking about integrating certain things like you know Google with canvas or whatever it is. So there is conversation about that and >> absolutely
101>> are we making progress in that conversation? >> We are absolutely yeah I think integration is the key. There's just so many things to manage now that the ideas the whole point of the spirit of this was to say we're all very busy. How can I go to one source one well to get what I need as far as communication? I think we've seen over the past couple years immense shift and progress like we do with a lot of initiatives. It doesn't like hey we said at the beginning of the year and then it happened that year. It's but we're seeing really great progress. Same with like the adoption of area's gradebook being used more frequently. So we are absolutely >> when you say that um the it's the primary source and then you say
102emails and phone calls um are we restricting teachers from util utilizing other >> um I don't know apps such as I want to say doodle was one at one time and um there was a there's was like three or four communication there you go class dojo was the other one I was thinking of are we kind of saying are we restricting those and just saying if you're going to if you want to communicate another way, it's phone calls and emails or are we are we still kind of allowing for the multiple platforms? >> I'm not aware of a policy that currently says you're not able to do those. I think rather right now we're saying we endorse these modes of communication and we'd like to see full adoption of them, but correct me if I'm
103wrong, Dr. >> Yeah, I think that's a good description. We have not drawn a hard line on, you know, the teachers that are, for example, using class dojo because you can, you know, register, you know, you know, positive feedback on on students and things like that. some teachers will do that. But I do think uh director Allen is right as we've as we've emphasized what what is being supported and endorsed by the district for use. That has continued to grow I think very strongly over time to where we're getting, you know, uh much better much more consistency in these areas across the board. Although, as director Allen said, we're not 100% of the way there yet, but we're getting we're getting close. >> Okay. Um when you talk about um let's say a class dojo
104are they using class dojo and parent square or are they are they eliminate are not using parent square and using class do >> I think in most cases in in that example that hypothetical I think we'd see likely people using both of those we'd have to drill down a little bit deeper on there but they they sort of have different uses in a lot of ways as well so I I think it depends on what the what the intent of the teacher is and again you know we've got a a good team uh Miss Flurry who's our techtosa works a lot just hands- on with those teachers and can help that that's a big help in helping guide people to you know some greater consistency. >> I know someone mentioned integration too. I think what
105I'd like to hear teachers on is but I use class dojo as Dr. Brockett said to report these I'd love to push that through parent square but if it doesn't have that integration they find themselves trying to cobble together a communication strategy. So I'd love to learn more about can we make that integration happen so that you can achieve everything you're trying to do. >> Okay. Um, Bobby, thank you for the presentation. It was great. >> Oh, you did. I didn't see your hand. >> Oh, okay. I had a question. I'm gonna ask a question. >> Yes. >> Wait a minute. >> Oh, no. Thank you, Trusty Rollins. I appreciate it. Okay. Um, so, thank you for the presentation. It was great. >> Um, and uh, okay, now I'm a little distracted, but let me
106think. Um, oh okay. So I know that you mentioned that there are some AI guidelines that you are working on currently. Um, uh, I'm curious about what those are. And also when you are looking at those guidelines are you making sure that um different programs like let's say chat GPT for example when that is being used um are we making sure that we are following their guidelines as well in terms of what age range is allowed to or recommended to use those platforms. Absolutely. In fact, that drives it before we even set guidelines. That's the foundational entry point for any of this stuff because with Furpa and Copa in place, we actually have to maintain any tool that we endorse, which we use a privacy services for to make sure every piece of software that
107we endorse as a district or allow to be accessed to the best that we can filter things as fast as we can uh meet FURPA and COPA. Then the conversation starts with now that you know what's available to us, how are we using those in ways that are appropriate and effective? And that's what the guidelines are built around with our technology advisory committee. So it's not just me sitting in my office cooking up some ideas. It's our uh technology advisory committee that has lots of different perspectives including students to say first what's our responsibility to do and then on top of that what's the best practices around what's available to us to use. >> Okay. So that communication is getting filtered out to teachers. So if they're using it within the classroom, it's being communicated
108that, hey, your class is age 12, so they can't be using this platform. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> We've been taking our May I speak to that for a moment? We've been taking our time with that piece, too. It's one thing to say, I use AI, >> i.e. chatgpt. There's a much bigger world out there and education's catching up with >> chatbt is a great language model for like a big wide variety of things. It's a big net. education companies are coming in and making it specifically instructional tools, right? It's like, hey, will you write my essay? No, but I'd love to guide you with how to do that. It's it's for that purpose and that's what we're keeping our eye on. We have a couple of uh district endorsed um software that we're using
109now. Snorkel is one of them. It's been great to watch. It's for teaching. It's designed for that. >> Okay. Thank you, Trusty Amry. Followup to that. um if they are using those devices, does our filter catch what they're typing in just like it might into a web search to for alarming anything that might be alarming or concerning. >> Yeah, we have a double layer there actually. So, we use something called Barkc and Bark is an extension on all the Chromebooks. So, and this is whether you're on campus or not. It's called a proxy filter. No matter where you go in the world, right, it's being filtered exactly the same. So, Bark will alert us to any concerning language that gets used. Uh but then IBOS is our filter. That's another layer that will then log
110every single thing that gets typed into a Chromebook, every search that happens, etc. We have a log of that, including uh keywords that might be. >> Go ahead, Trusty Rawlings. Thank you. Um with the AI guidelines um that you're developing now, will that come before the board and will the board have the opportunity to weigh in on that? We we are uh planning working towards CSBA came out with recommended just a couple months ago recommended uh AI uh board policy which we're planning to bring forward uh next month uh for the board to review. Um and then that that overarching policy uh will sort of be a foundation for the the guidelines the application guidelines if you will um on the on the school end. So, um, we'll be revisiting this topic, uh, next month
111is what our plan is at this point. >> Okay. Another question for you. So, um, you know, going back to Rachel's comment around, um, >> the mental health aspect. Um, are you how do you catch that? I mean, are you having students that because that wouldn't necessarily be something that would trigger a filter, I feel like, but how are you catching that? Yeah, that's a tricky one. I do want to clarify. Uh my mention of that was not an endorsement of it. My mention of that would it was great that a student actually had the wherewithal to say I'm concerned about that idea, right? And they brought that to the group. So I and I share that. Um >> that's something we need to be really intentional about in terms of you're right. If you
112go to Gemini for example and you type in I'm feeling sad today, >> that's not going to trigger anything necessarily on mind with our current infrastructure. That's absolutely something worth looking into. If we're going to wait into this world, we should search every possible way to make sure the safeguards are there. We don't currently have something that would flag me because someone typed that into AI. >> Uh, with that, are we able to monitor how often students are using AI? So, if we did see a pattern where a student was on it more than a typical Yes. fourth grader, fifth grader, sixth grader. >> Yes. So, the ones that we currently endorse, we can do logs for everything. And so that's that's a big part of like your prior question trustee ward is that >>
113if we endorse it it's because we a it meets fur and copa and we have the control over it to be able to not just say I don't know what they're doing out there on it. So yes we would be able to see it. Right now we'd have to very actively go look for that. There's not something set up that would say hey concern. They do have programs that will do that. Don't think that's baked into snorkel or magic school but I can look. >> So I have a followup to that. Did you have a followup? I'll go real quick. Um, so are you providing some type of training for teachers so they can train students around that and parent notifying parents too so they're kind of aware of kind of those concerns? >> I'm
114excited to dovetail the broader communication with parents instead of like cobbling it. It's the like when the guidelines are ready to come out and we have this full-fledged vision and use of it that I think that would be a great time. I'm up for communicating anytime, but I think that's the time to say it's it feels a little more official. Um, with teachers, it's been really fun. We've had a couple of avenues. People prefer to learn in different ways. So, we try to provide as many opportunities as we can. Google had a certificate course. A lot of teachers took us up on that. 200 something teachers did that one. We did a course called EdTE methods last year. It was a four-part series where teachers from all different schools, different grade levels came in and
115dedicated themselves to a project using AI that then they take back to their campus and they do with their classroom, but also teach other teachers. We work with the tech coaches to do, you know, like at every inservice or at every meeting. Can I have five minutes to show people something? We try to come from a lot of different angles. We also have a self-paced module in what's called Aludo. Ludo is our self-paced learning. If you're someone who's like really busy, but when I'm sitting in traffic, I would love or don't be on your phone in traffic, but if I'm I'll take that back, but if you're in line at the grocery store kind of thing. So, people have different preferences for learning and we're trying to like meet them wherever they are. And we
116are really excited to continue that those opportunities this year in addition to a couple of other things that I won't say yet because they're not official but um even broader opportunities to bring in partners to help train our teachers. >> Trusty COC. >> Thank you. Um we are all very concerned about the social emotional component of all of our students and the amount of time that they're spending with technology. Uh, and I agree. Um, Rachel's comments were just spoton. And I'm wondering, you mentioned that we don't currently have something in place to monitor the amount of time that they're spending, but can this be part of what we're baking into our policies that that we are flagging when there's >> I don't know what extensive use would look like, but qualifies some some amount of
117interaction that seems like this may not be healthy. and then a policy of does that flag a content uh assessment with the counselor or with the teacher. I think this is something that we could have some really good discussion on. >> Do you mind going to >> Yeah. So right now we can we could uh very manual process but you could pick a student and say how per the filter how much have you been on the internet say for example right the reason I want to come back to goal number one in in attempting to answer this is because that's why we wanted to shift from a quantitative goal if you just say are you using your Chromebook you're kind of saying great go use it the whole point of going to the qualitative is
118to say if it's for deepening your understanding your critical thinking and mastery it's not that the amount of time you're on it is no longer a matter it's just saying are you getting quality out of whatever time you're spending on that machine. As to whether we feel like there's a threshold for time, I wouldn't know where to start with that, but I think it's always a great uh thing to use research in conversation and think about if we're obviously charged with making sure that our students are healthy and well, and if extended use is proving to counter that goal, we should absolutely be finding a way to measure that and monitor that. >> Trusty Rawlings, thank you. Did you have a follow-up trusty coc on that? Okay. Um uh are there tools that are there
119AI tools currently that um that do trigger the firewall that say no you can't use that in school or you know we're not going to let you use this as part of um the education process. Yes. And what are those? Anything that someone gives to me that doesn't meet fa fura and copa because these language models as you can imagine they're spawning very quickly um in a very innovative way if someone reports it the same way as uh Rachel mentioned a moment ago like every other thing we might monilter if I if it gets flagged because it's categorized AI currently gets categorized by our filter and therefore blocked >> I I guess no I'm saying like um >> you mentioned Gemini open AI uh or um chatgbt um you know are any of those filtered
120out or it like students could have access to all the AI platforms. >> No, they can't have access to. >> So, which ones are filtered out based on our firewall? >> Chat GPT, I think, is still available because it was given to me as a directive a couple years ago not to block that one. But what it's a bit of an interesting thing because we don't allow you to sign into it with your Google student account. Like that part's blocked on our end, but the website is not blocked. Gemini is open because it actually falls under our current workspace agreement with Google, which means it's fully covered by Furpa and Copa, as is Magic School, as is Snorkel. Um, Claude, I'd have to look. I'd have to like go through the list of all them
121and I can throw them on the uh filter. It wouldn't be a bad idea that if we're going to say that's not something you're able to access, then like don't give people keys to a room they're not allowed to go into. Right. So, um, we that would certainly be something I'd be willing to go look at and say, let's make sure that if we say we don't use those, that means they're not accessible. >> So, just to clarify, when you say um, so chat GBT, you allow it because it's part of what? >> Yeah. So uh it was brought up a few years ago do we you know AI was suddenly a thing and the question was do we block chatpt and the directive from leadership was we do not but then Google started to
122do something for privacy reasons saying you as an administrator have to allow students to use their Google signin for sites and when that happened we didn't because it doesn't meet verba and copa so it's this like standoff at this point we probably want to say if you can't sign into it with something I can control you just shouldn't be able to sign into it at all so that would probably be good to go through a list of what's out there. And just like the filter, when people report them, hey, Robert, this new blah blah blah language model was created, I go and I look at it, I put it in our site privacy services portal to go, there's no data privacy agreement. It doesn't meet Furpa. It doesn't meet COPA block on the IBOS um
123list. I do think that's a good way to keep students safe as long as it happens in the spirit of um we're still keeping an innovative mindset of the right tools will do the right job, but the wrong tools will not. And I think finding that balance is the goal of our infrastructure. >> And one more followup. Was that directive based in policy or was it just from an an administrator and you had to follow orders? >> You know, it's it's been a couple of years. Um I don't remember what the foundation of it was. I remember the answer being we don't block it. >> Trusty Verbth, did you have a followup? >> I have a followup to slide five. >> Okay. >> Go further to the >> Sure. Any more followup to what we're
124talking about now? Anybody else? Okay. Go ahead. Okay. >> Two-part question. um under students 76% agree. What um what grades were you surveying? >> This was uh grades 3 through 12. With three, we encouraged parents to sit three and four parents to sit with their students, but this was across 3 through 12. >> Okay. So my Okay. Um if you look at the percentages in the baseline survey data, students are the least amount that agree strongly agree. Correct. >> Correct. >> So why do you think that is? >> Honestly. >> Yes. Honestly, >> I think AI is forcing our hand on educational initiatives that we've been trying to do for a very long time. project- based learning, inquiry based learning, deep learning, that AI can when used appropriately absolutely accelerate. I think students are letting
125us know sometimes they don't feel as though they're being given the opportunity to do that level of work. They're saying, I'm learning. I'm doing the work. I have amazing teachers, etc. Because if you ask them in the survey question, do you feel that this is working for learning? It's amazing how suddenly all the answers went up into like the high 80s and 90s, but when you phrased it this way, they dropped down to 78, 84, and 76. It's an interesting parsing that what we call teaching and learning was separate from am I thinking critically, deepening my understanding, and mastering content. I find that really fascinating. So my answer to that would be, I think this is wonderful baseline data to say, what do we mean when we say we're creating the graduate profile critical thinking
126individuals? Do they feel like the work they're doing every day is reflecting that? Maybe, maybe not. The other thing that was interesting, too, is like there are other variables. Does that mean I'm on this thing so long that I start to lose stamina? I, you know, there's a lot of other variables for us to understand, but I love that this is our baseline data. A because it's room to grow and we're going to do it. But I think they're telling us something with this data. >> Trusty Amry, sorry. >> That was um kind of gonna be my question as far as the numbers go. How was the survey sent out? Because we got a lot from one group and then not very many from the other. So, was it restrictive? Was it sent out to
127everyone? Was it sent out through parent square at school sites? >> Uh parents square for parents to say, "Your student received this. We highly encourage you to take it." And then for teachers, it was both an email and parent square. Same to administrators. Staff, it was an email. So, we had a staff section, too. um students were the highest group of responders actually which is really interesting because if it's in your email I mean not a lot of students are jamming on Gmail all day right so I I give that additional credence to the idea that enough people took the time to say I would like to give you my feedback on it I think they're timeless >> trusty verbat >> so you mentioned that this was administered to third grade through 12 so parents
128were encouraged to respond do you know what percentage of that 76% were secondary versus primary. >> Not off the top of my head, but with the raw data on there, we could get that answer very quickly and I can organize that, >> right? Because if the parents are encouraged and they're reading their emails, then that may be also one of the reasons the student data went up. >> Also, this the parents are they're if they're sitting with the student because they're young. >> Sure. um they may be having an influence over the responses and I wonder what those responses are from the parents because we don't have parents listed. We just have teachers, administrators, students. So >> yeah, that was kind of specific so that it was the student responding. But to your point, there
129may be room to create uh multiple versions of the survey that might feel a little more grade level appropriate that someone could do like in their class for example. So, it's not just it's my thoughts and my teacher's facilitating this and I understand what it's asking me. I could understand if maybe the way that's phrased that would take some guiding at a certain age to understand what that's asking you. Whereas phrased a different way might allow that student to give an answer that's their answer and more reflective of their answer. >> Did I answer that the way you were? Okay. >> Yeah. I just, you know, third grade is young and for them to be evaluating goal one that's a lot of deep words. >> I'll tell you there weren't many. There weren't many. It
130was mostly it was a lot of secondary upper elementary. >> Yes, that's what I figured. Okay, thank you. >> Follow trusty COC. Is it a follow? >> Yes. Okay. >> Um although the conversation um I I don't think there's any doubt that students enjoy technology being part of that. I'm very concerned that with too much time dedicated or allowed with the technology, we're really missing out on what's also so valuable about these school age years with the the connection, the social connections that they're making with peers and learning to get along and coordinating efforts with other students. And so I I think it's an important thing that we're u using it as what it is, a tool, but not letting it override the context of >> of the classroom. >> So are you wondering if
131we're considering that? >> Yes. I'm wondering if we're putting something into standards of amount of time maybe per class. I don't know how I would want to articulate that, but how much of our students day is spent on this and not actively engaged with their peers in a group setting or with their instructor. Just say we we anecdotally we see a mix when we're visiting classrooms, but in in talking through this data, that's exactly what Director Allen and I talked about, which is drilling down a little bit deeper on this exact goal and this data right here to understand better exactly what you're asking about. And I think that is a next logical progression in this in this conversation is how much are they using it? what are those things as as uh as director
132Allen referenced you know he can dig in on a on a dashboard level and see where people are using but we also want to get that feedback directly from the sites and I think that will help us move towards answering some of those questions about appropriate further guidance that we can provide for for teachers and students >> thank you >> I have a nine-year-old daughter and I share the idea that I want to know what the machine's being used for in terms of purposeful learning So, I I think everyone always thinks you're the tech guy. They should be on Chromebooks all day. I say I'm not. I'm a human being. I think we should probably consider that, right? Um, and I know if I can just tell a quick story, and I'm going to say
133her name, Mia Lewis over at Valley. Amazing teacher. Uh, if you don't know Mia, you should go see her class. Today, she ran a lesson where students were in groups of four, and if it wasn't your turn, the lid was closed to your Chromebook and you were writing on paper questions you had for the person whose lid was open because they were reading a portion of their essay. Awesome. You're like presenting your ideas to people, but your lid was closed. She could have just had them type their questions, right? She was very intentional about the idea that that's a very blended considerate model of how you use tech. I don't need this. I can write on a piece of paper because it makes me pay attention to the person reading their work to me. It's
134that kind of model that we're going instead of like a and I do understand uh what you're saying with like time, but it's almost like in that moment it wasn't the time, it was how are you using it in a way that made you engaged with a peer. I still think if you were on your Chromebook for six hours a day, that would be probably not good. But I just really like hear seeing those stories because you're like there it is. Those best practices are what we're looking for with responsible technologies. So shout out to Mia. >> Trust new question. Any followup? Trusty Rollins. >> Thank you. Um on slide nine, um it talks about the one-on-one devices and you had said that they that um that students can take Chromebooks home at elementary. Um,
135does that happen a lot? And could elementary students go to more of the cart, go back to more of the cart model to address some of the things that you were just talking about? And I mean, we're hearing some concerns about, you know, screen time, but also even just, you know, having those devices come home and then it's more screen time at home and then the, you know, some of the the reading happening on on a screen rather than in a book or like you were saying writing. as far as cursive, you know, we're we're hearing problems with cursive writing in third grade. >> So, how when we look at the elementary piece and we say that it's available, is that also if I need if I want to take it home, I can take
136it home or is there a policy around that? >> So, um at the grades one through four level, it's carts and classrooms. We've left it to site admin to say if you've designated a time where you feel it's appropriate for someone in those grades to be able to take that home. For some of our students, it's a bit of a lifeline in a lot of ways. I hate to say you're not allowed to do that. That's not my call. We leave that to site admin. But we don't promote the idea that it's taken home. We just say that's a call that you make as an administrator. By grade five, we like them to because in middle school, if you start doing it in sixth grade, the breakage rates for middle school, which it's a thing
137like the companies who repair these go like it's it's not just you um middle school. So we try to get like the fifth grade practice going with that so that the breakage rates come down in sixth grade and then they're ready to go through 12th. Yes, trust. >> Um, with that, um, I'm assuming, but answer if this is wrong, um, that the filter does not work exactly the same way if they're on their internet at home. >> It does. Okay. And parents are aware of that as well. >> Uh, I'll say we've communicated that. Um, we I don't think that's a bad idea to include survey data from questions to parents that are maybe more related to those sorts of like how aware of you are the technology plan, how we're aware of how the
138filter works. We have it on our website how the firewall works in conjunction with the filter and some of our controls. That's public knowledge whether someone knows right where that is. We can certainly promote that more. Um, but it's called a uh it's called a proxy filter. The idea is it sits on your Chrome browser. So, if you sign in as a student, even if you went home on your MacBook and signed in as a student into Google, that little extension is still there and it's going to filter you as though you were sitting in my classroom kind of thing. It's the same everywhere you >> question. Go ahead. And then I have one after. >> This is the same slide, slide nine. Um, preschool, depending on need, could you explain um who our preschool
139students are and why they need a Chromebook? I think I mean do we even do we have a prek environment? >> So so we have preschool uh at at a couple of our elementary sites with special education and then and then uh and then typical peers as well in those. So what what it might look like in that environment is perhaps uh an appropriate communication app on a on a on a iPad for example. I don't think I I I can't say with certainty but I'm almost certain that we do not have any Chromebooks in the preschool. it would more it would be more like a tablet um with you know sort of appropriate learning or or communication type um apps uh to support you know maybe the individual needs of a student in that
140type of setting. I couldn't name a classroom in preschool that has them. I think uh the depending on need would just be if teacher made a compelling case for what Dr. Brockett just said the answer wouldn't be no you're not allowed to. I don't know of any cases where they are. They seem very mindful. Even in kinder, I ran uh stats today and the average kindergartenner is on a Chromebook 10, it said 10 minutes a day, but when you look at their login, they don't even log in every day. It's just aggregating a total. So, it's a very low amount. I would imagine at preschool in TK, it's even less. And again, I can't name an environment where they are. >> Yeah, I would think that they'd be playing most of the time. >> I
141hope so. >> Yeah, hope so. >> Sometimes that's what I would do with my lunch. Just go to like a kindergart, right? Gota play. Any other followup to that? >> Oh, okay. I have a quick question. Um, to follow up on what Rachel was saying in terms of the staff authentication, is there are we changing that? >> No. So, it was never said that you have to use a personal device. I think many of us do because it's really convenient and so we choose to. Uh, she mentioned those USB sticks. We have Yuba Keys. They are $50 each. They are pricey, but we have them. And so, if someone felt so compelled to make that request, we certainly do. You can also tie it to your classroom phone. It calls you, gives you a code,
142you can log in. There are numerous other methods that don't require you to use a personal one. We just noticed most people opt for that. So, we can certainly remessage that out and make sure that no one feels as though they've been required to do that. >> Okay. Thank you for that clarification. >> Okay. Um Trusty Rollings, >> thank you. Um on slide 11 um when we talk about um elementary uh teachers grade books >> um for a long time it was um that uh it wouldn't accept grades um throughout the year and then you had to like compile everything at the end of the year. Um has that improved through this process and can you tell me how it's improved? >> Yeah, the best that I can speak to the the elementary environment uh
143is that the grading just looks different at elementary too. So we a couple years ago started building an initiative where if one person made a gradebook pretty tailored to the various reading and writing and math strands, they could just share that with fellow teachers. And so it's not like everyone's making these gradebooks and so they are keeping record of it, but it's so elementary teachers in the room and out in the ether. It's just so different. It's like you're measuring them on lots of things. So to make that live all the time can be misleading to what's going on at home. You say I'm just collecting a lot of data and then I write this narrative thing at the end of it when I say how the student is doing. So I just think the
144adoption of it and the reporting at Aries, yes, is going very well at the elementary level. Whether that's always live for people to see, I might be a little antithetical to how they communicate grades in like grades one and two, you know, but I think that's an accurate description. It's, you know, different than we think of a a secondary grade book, which I think a lot of us are familiar with. You did this assignment, you got X number of points, out of X number of points, you move on test, you got X points, etc. and and the and the I think the elementary being one standardsbased and two more holistic it sort of fits a different model that doesn't necessarily lend itself as well to just the that teacher logging in and reporting grades on
145a daily basis >> follow up then so what did you mean on slide 11 where it says elementary school teachers are reporting grades through um Aries and and that because I know we we've had long discussions about this for multiple years and that that was supposed to be kind of part of the plan to improve that. So they're they're not >> so they're not spending two days on a weekend right before grades are due in order to um put put together a report card for students. >> Yeah. So if I make sure that I answer it correctly. I think that was just us noting kind of to ourselves that they definitely report because that's the fidelity of everyone needs to report that. We're just taking into consideration as we make this goal. We have to
146be aware that that's going to work for an elementary teacher. say everyone's going to do it and then they raise their hand and go have you taught elementary like how would you even do that so we're just making note that that's a it's a little different at the elementary level but we are seeing it adopted as a reporting mechanism absolutely and I think to getting to what you referenced yeah a lot of work was done in previous years on building out that standardsbased uh report card infrastructure within areas if you will so that it it matched what they were after in doing that so yes that work has been done Yes. What he said. >> Yes. >> Oh, any more questions? Okay, Christy Rollings, >> thank you. And then slide 14. Um, you talked about
147cameras and I just want to know, are we talking about cameras um for um projection of um of assignments or like online cameras for your computer or what are we talking about? >> Oh, thank you for asking. You know this would be cameras more related to at schools right now we have cameras that face the ingress egress of a lot of the places around security related uh those are aging and so we're looking at making sure that in the spirit of making sure we maintain that safety and security that we have modern architecture but this isn't related to instruction. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Um Dr. Norman. Um, in the past this has been part of our measure our measure HH or measure P. Um, we moved this now into our technology plan and our
148technology budget to to look at um, cameras at the school sites for security purposes. >> In um, talking with our site principles, the need to upgrade our cameras is something that's desirable. Um, we do have money in our committed reserves if we were to choose to spend it. We're not looking at spending it that way this year. we're already moving into it's December moving into January. We would still need to go through the whole process of procurement and then we'd have to RFP out the labor. Um but we do think it would be something valuable for our community to have cameras that are easy to access that are up todate and it's something that I know as a site principal um I utilized heavily in making sure that my campus was safe and also for
149when situations came up with discipline to help me um with those situations. But right now, we know we've always set money aside for that. Um it'd be great if next year we could put it in the technology budget and that'll happen during um budget development and but we're still seeing how much it would potentially cost. I think right now um >> he's charging too much and I'd like to negotiate less for less, but that's in my nature. Um but I do think it's something really valuable. So we've been looking at it. I guess my question is is that it's it's been covered by bond dollars in the past like Prop P covered it initially and um and then we kind of moved some over into measure HH. Are we now saying that this is going
150to be covered under the technology plan budget or are we moving bond dollars into the technology budget or how are we >> we weren't looking at bond dollars right now. We were looking at potentially general fund dollars because we've had money sitting in the tech committed for I think 2.2 to year over year over year. And committed dollars are intended to be committed for a purpose for an expenditure, a one-time expenditure. And this would be something that would absolutely qualify because it's not an ongoing expense unless you're looking at licenses, but then you can integrate those into your general fund budget ongoing. Um, so it' be something we would decide as a board. We would make a recommendation for how we would like it to be um purchased, but as a board, that's always your
151decision. >> Thank you. And that would come in the um like during the tech plan or how would that come before the board if we were if you were looking for approval to adopt cameras? >> It would come as just a board item. We could we could certainly put it in the tech plan, but um it doesn't necessarily have to be in the tech plan because a lot of our tech plan is its infrastructure to make the instructional components work. Um so it could be outside of that in facilities improvements that aren't necessarily HH but general fund dollars. Thank you. Trusty Bertha, a followup to that. Have our site administrators requested that we pay attention to this issue quickly because of recent issues that have been happening on campuses. Um, is this something that's more
152pressing? In my previous role, um, being a CBO and working with facilities and safety, it was always a concern. um coming here and then talking about our variety of camera options and where we're at. It it was noted that it's something that we could certainly improve and then in conversations with the principles, they were very much um a proponent of this, but I'd also like uh Dr. Brockett and um Robert to weigh in. >> Yeah. And I can touch on this kind of back to uh Trustee Rawlings question. You know, really this this isn't just a tech issue. This is we had a meeting in fact earlier today and Dr. and I from a from a business and facilities lens, uh, director Evansson from a safety lens, uh, director uh, Allen from a tech lens
153and I met to, you know, kind of take the information that we have at this point about um, you know, feedbacks that have been received, uh, site walks that have been done by, uh, contractors to give us, you know, an idea of what, uh, what cameras might look like and then, you know, kind of formulating our next steps forward because it really does touch on all of those areas. Um, and and I would agree with Dr. Norman, you know, this is, you know, obviously, you know, if if you know, there's aging infrastructure or, you know, there have been significant improvements in camera quality where we have some new cameras already, you know, you can see the comparison with with some of the older cameras. So, yeah, it's definitely an interest for for all of those
154reasons really for for safety, um, for uh protecting our our resources of our schools, um, for some of the disciplinary things that Dr. Norman mentioned. kind of all of those things come into play as important areas for why the cameras have have value and use. >> Okay. Right trustees, this is now time for discussion. >> Trustee Rawlings. >> Thank you. Um, I would like to see if um uh if there are other trustees that would agree to make an information request from staff to break down the numbers um as far as usage and um by grade level as well as time. So like by day and by time um per grade level. So I wanted to see if there's um I guess if there are any objections or um if the president would like to
155ask if there's any objections to that request. Uh so that request has already been made by Superintendent Norman to um Director Allen. >> Okay. No need then. >> Okay. All right. Any other items? Okay. Trusty. Um I just would like to encourage our staff and I know that you are paying attention to the trends, the research that's out there, the data um how important it is for paper to pencil, for that brain connection and that learning um opportunity for students um to engage and um for that really to get into the brain better than on the Chromebook. Um there's a big movement around the world. It seems like maybe the United States is a little behind in France and England and Australia to really reduce the contact with digital devices. And so my hope is
156that we'll stay a breast of the current research and how it's affecting brain development and learning um of our students. I know we've had parents come and talk about it. They've written in about it. I'm concerned about it as a parent. Um and um I think you know I just want to encourage us to be at the forefront of that research keeping that up you know in our in our um planning as we look at the strategic plan. >> Absolutely. >> Um so trustee verbbeth I totally agree with you. I think um AI is moving very fast and there are a lot of concerns. I mean, I I'm sure we've all heard about the suicides with um AI and and I think it's moving much faster than we can really get a hold of. And
157I hope that we're also paying attention to how it impacts our lower grades, especially K1 with um also developing those strong foundations like in reading and things like that. So, those are my concerns as well. But um I think AI is definitely infiltrating into our lives and I think you have a big responsibility director Allen to make sure that we are staying on top of it and keeping our kids safe. And Trusty Rawlings. >> Yes. Um I I completely agree with um what we're talking about as far as um and my hope is is that when we do get that data back that we can look at do we really need one to one you know for um TK through three and do we really need I mean I know it was the trend you
158know 10 years ago and and I've actually tried to push back on that multiple times but you know it's a new day and um the the possibility of you know maybe limiting the time that um those are used or making sure they stay in the classroom and that we you know we don't need you know I'm not sure we need one to one and that may save us some money to maybe invest in you know down the line invest in ways um to appropriately use AI because AI is here you know it's not going to stop and um I I agree that you know we can't just restrict it because then we're just putting our head in the sand right and also I think that um uh when I one of the sessions that I
159went to at CSBA talked about how we can uh create you know help to look at AI as a tool tool rather than something to be afraid of and something to hide from. So, my hope is is that we could maybe, you know, take some of this one-on-one dollars and maybe invest it more into how to appropriately use AI in the classroom. So, that would be my hope, but I want to wait until we see the data in order to um in order to maybe um direct staff to do certain things or maybe update our plan or whatever. So, that that's I just my those were my thoughts when I was um asking for that information because I think we need that information before we can make certain decisions. Any other discussion? All right. Thank
160you. >> It's always a pleasure. Thank you. I appreciate it. >> Thank you. We now move on to part 11, business services agenda item 11.1. First interim financial report for Oh, I'm sorry. Did you want to request a break? >> Yes. I was going to ask. >> Yes. Um, can we take maybe to 8:15? Is that okay? >> Everybody. >> All right, we'll resume at 8:15. We now move on to part 11, business services agenda item 11.1, first interim financial report for the period ending October 31st, 2025. Trustees, this is a discussion action item. I will now hand it over to Dr. Knight. >> Thank you, President Ward, trustees and Dr. Norman. Tonight I'm presenting the 202526 first interim report. Uh the first interim report provides a midyear check regarding our financial status. And what
161we're really doing is we're comparing uh the budget that was adopted last June uh to the budget as of October 31st for this year. Uh this evening I'll review changes in our revenue and our expend and our expenditures uh since adoption updates to our general fund balance and our multi-year projection for this year and two out years. Uh since budget adoption, our projected total revenue has decreased by 1.5 million, bringing the total the new total to 171.2 million. During that same period, projected total expenditures have increased by 1.1 million for a total of 176.8 million. This results in a net decrease of roughly 5.6 million in our ending fund balance, which is about 2.6 million more than anticipated last June. Um, I'll talk more about those reasons for the revenue and expenditure shifts later in
162the presentation, but just wanted to give you that highle view right now. So this slide breaks down our changes between unrestricted funds which support our general obligations which are and restrictive funds which are tied to grants or other programs. The key takeaway here um is that our bottom line ending fund balance has decreased from 21.5 million which you'll see um in that third column. uh to 18.8 million which you see in that column six and that's the difference between the two is roughly $2.6 million. I think it's important to state that um while we saw an increase or a de an increase in um the difference there uh we're still able to meet all our financial obligations and the district's still in a good position. and I'll talk about that in a little bit. So,
163this is a history of our combined budget. Uh the graph shows our revenue and expenditure trends over time. For the last two years, expenditures have exceeded revenues. That is expected again this year. Part of that um is expected as we wind down one-time funds which include state and federal dollars received between the budget years of 2021 through 2023. As these temporary dollars are spent, we must ensure any one-time expenditures do not become part of the permanent general fund cost. So just as a example here, you'll see the blue bar indicates the revenue. Um the green bar revenue uh represents expenditures. The unrestricted ending fund balance is in orange and then the restricted ending fund balances in black. And you'll see a large uh black bar increase that we received right after COVID. And those are
164those restricted dollars that you see going down over time as we planned um those expendit expenditures to be spent down over time. You're also seeing a slight decrease to that ending fund balance for unrestricted dollars as well. And that's where we just have to be real careful to make sure that we're not spending that down to a degree because that becomes part of that unrestricted in fund balance is your reserve. So revenue, our total revenue is down roughly 1.5 million and that's driven primarily by a 5.6 million decrease in property tax assumptions that were made last June. So we're actually correcting those now um in the first interim budget and primarily those two assumptions that we had to correct. The first is a $4 million adjustment to fix how inloo property taxes were originally recorded
165in the budget. And I talked about this during unodituded actuals, but when they posted the budget in June, they posted the inloo property taxes as revenue only. And actually the inloo property taxes are a net decrease. We're actually paying those out to uh both state and county charter schools. So that was roughly a $4 million hit to the budget assumption that was made in June. There was another $1.6 million removal of um a June assumption of projected supplemental tax revenue as we confirmed to be in our second year of basic aid status. So you'll recall that I talked about in unudited actuals that we would lose our supplemental taxes in year two. Uh we confirmed with the county and both the state that we're actually in the second year of basic aid status. We went
166into basic aid community funded status in the spring of 2425. So technically it's our second year and that would um require us to lose that additional $1.6 million in in supplemental taxes as well. From there you'll also see other key revenue on this slide um in the first interim report. Um, first I'd just like to point out state and federal revenue adjustments. These included updates tied to the student support and professional development grant. So we didn't know we were receiving those funds in June. We booked those a portion of those funds now um in first interim. Um so that helps the state uh increase there. We also um you may recall uh during unudited actuals we booked another um $1.5 million in unearned restricted revenue carried over from the 2425 school year. When we brought
167you the um unudited actual budget, we backed those out. You recall we had booked in unearned revenue in the 2425 school year and we didn't have an offsetting expense. the auditor said you can't do that. You need to back out that revenue. So here you see the revenue going back in both in the federal and the state um increases there. So uh second you also see local revenue. We've recognized additional revenue primarily in donations. We don't book the donations until we actually receive them. So there you'll see an additional um dollar amount there. So together, these adjustments account for most of the changes in projected revenue since the June adopted budget. So real quickly, this slide just provides a summary of the revenue updates. Um, primarily we receive our revenue through local property taxes and
168you'll see that uh represented in the blue bar here, but we also do receive a significant amount through state and local. And then our smallest portion is really in federal dollars that we receive. This is just the why of the revenue changes. And I did hit on this on slide six, so I'm not going to talk about it too much, but it highlights the key changes, including the loss of supplemental taxes, the correction to the inloo property tax, the recognition of previously unearned revenue or unearned restricted revenue, and then the local donations uh that we receive today. So on the expenditure side, uh the expenditures increased approximately $1.1 million from uh adopted budget in June. Some of the key factors and key shifts that we saw there, there was a $5.8 million adjustment to benefits
169and this was due to corrections in the June adopted budget calculation. We use a tool called the planning and budgeting cloud services tool or PBCS system which is used through the fiscal services department and what happened at the time in June it included some outdated um staffing and benefits data which inflated our totals. So at the first interim uh we are correcting that and uh reducing that which is a net bonus of roughly $5.8 8 million to the budget. Classified expenditures. We went through pretty extensive position control and we adjusted uh the classified expenditures to reflect staffing, more accurate staffing and remove costs associated with vacant positions. What we saw a lot of um specifically in classified positions is aids were holding vacant slots. those vacant slots were um hitting the expenses and so we
170backed out those vacant slots because they were being hired through agency aids and um so it now it's just not hitting the expenditures. We were able to um recapture about a million dollars there. Wow. >> And then uh a three mill $3.9 million increase in services and that's largely tied to outside agencies providing required supports for students. So this again is another quick snapshot of your expenditures. The slide shows the major categories of district spending. As is typical for most districts, um salaries and benefits make up the majority of expenditures for Carl'sb. So, just to uh recap expenditures again, there was about a $1.1 million uh increase from expenditures from adopted budget in June. Um certificates uh salaries increased uh $2.4 4 million and that's because we don't um take into account salary adjustments at
171the June um adopted budget and now those have been baked in. Classified salaries decreased about a million dollars as I mentioned before for vacant positions. the benefits I mentioned before. Uh books and supplies increase about 1.5 million and that's really aligning to newly recognized revenue and we're just um having offsetting expenses for those books and supplies. And then the services themselves as I mentioned before uh those are mainly due to outside agencies filling hard to staff positions. I'd point out that the district continues to work to fill these positions internally. uh we have daily even weekly discussions about how we can incentivize and fill those from within. We know that agency costs um go up and up and up and so the more that we can hire from within um the more savings that we
172can capture. Okay. Um the next uh slide is really around what we're trying to do is accomplish a couple different things in the next section. Uh the first is showing our general fund balance comparing our adopted budget in June to the first interim and then the second is to show you a multi-year projection or MIP for this year and the next two out years to demonstrate that we can meet all of our financial obligations and maintain fiscal solveny. So there here's your um general fund balance and reserves. Our combined ending fund balance decreased as I mentioned before from 21.5 million at adoption to 18.8 million at first interim. Most of the decline is within that unrestricted ending fund balance. So you'll see there um that's column uh four and column excuse me it's column two
173and column one two three four five. So you see it going from 15 million3 to 13 million3. um and that unrestricted um fund balance, ending fund balance. What we did to help offset the unexpected revenue loss this year to maintain a balanced budget, we use $1.8 million of the district's committed stabilization assignment. This fund was established in 2011 specifically to support the district during potential future uh fiscal uncertainty and the anticipated transition into basic aid status. Its use today aligns with the intended purpose specifically in light of revenue adjustments due to the transition into community funded basic aid status. uh all other commitments remain and the district continues to maintain its full 5% reserve requirement which is 3% uh required by the state and an additional 2% required by board policy. So that's all in
174there. Your 5% reserve is on the bottom. So you'll see that's roughly $ 8.8 million. Your committed assignments you'll see there is decreasing that 1.8 and that's really taking that 1.8 8 from the stabilization assignment and putting that up to balance the budget. And then everything else is uh the same as far as your committed reserves. I believe Dr. Norman talked a little bit earlier about your technology reserve. You have a textbook reserve in there. Those are all excuse me, their commitments that you've set aside. Those all all those amounts remain the same. um at first interim districts must certify their ability to meet financial obligations for the current year and the next two years. Tonight we're presenting a positive certification indicating that CUSD meets both state and board reserve requirements and this is your
175multi-year. This chart outlines our fiscal outlook through 2728. Um we project steady revenue growth reaching approximately $181 million in that last outy year 2728. Our unrestricted ending fund balance remains stable next year at 13.3 million and then increases again which is important um starts to build back up to 15.9 million the following year. You'll see that the restricted fund balance declines as planned, reflecting the scheduled spend down of temporary one-time funds. We may receive additional onetime funds. We don't know yet. We think um uh the state legislature has indicated and the governor has indicated um that we potentially may be getting some new onetime dollars and so as we receive those, we'll build those back in. So in the 2728 fiscal year, we project that revenues will slightly exceed expenses and therefore we do begin
176to add money to that unrestricted fund balance that I talked about. But for this current year and next year, we still project expenditures exceeding revenue. And uh lastly, sorry. So, next steps. Um, tonight we're recommending for the adoption of the first interim report. January 10th, uh, we anticipate to get our governor's budget proposal and then we start beginning the planning of next year's budget. And so, like last year with Mr. Dill and Miss Okonnell, uh, we'll start uh, building that budget in for the adopted budget for 2627. Um, uh, March 11th, we'll present a second interim report. Right around the middle of May, we typically get we sometimes get a governor's revision or a May revision. And then June 10th and June 24th, you have those two um meetings in June to uh have a
177um a public hearing and then adopt the final budget in the last meeting in June. So, with that, I thank you for your time and I'll turn it back over to President Ward for public comment and trustee questions. >> Okay, this is a time for public comment. Have any blue cards been received? Okay, >> we do not have any blue cards. >> Great. There are no blue cards. Uh, trustees, do you have any questions for staff? >> Trustee Rawlings. >> Thank you. Um on slide six when uh we have uh 2526 adopted to um to or yeah 2526 first interim um would without doing the backout um piece on the revenues would that would that the number at the bottom be higher closer to the 5 million mark because you had said that the money
178that was backed out in the unodit actuals, you added it back in under state and federal revenues on the first interim. Correct. >> There's about $1.5 million that were added back in. We backed out of the 2425 school year and we added that back in both in federal and state dollars. Correct. >> Right. Then why? So that's why you see an increase in state revenue from part of that is um going from 19 million744 to 22 uh million339. Part of that is the 1.5 million added back into the revenue there and part of the federal is the added back in of the revenue and the increase in revenue in that category as well. So that unearned revenue is being added back in and it was backed out in 2425. >> Okay. And then above that,
179the additional revenue there, what accounts for that? >> Yeah, I mentioned before that's that student support and professional development grant. Part of that we received later. We didn't have that information in June. Um that was a $3 million grant and that's all in state revenue. We're capturing a portion of that state revenue in this year and a portion will be captured next year as well. Um, okay. And then, um, I did notice in the unodudited actuals in September, um, it stated on the agenda that there was approximately $1.9 million more in revenues than we had anticipated at unudited. Is that also reflected in here? So um the unodudited actuals would would have been comparing we were closing the books on 2425 >> right that but on that agenda item it stated where is it stated
180that there was approximately $1.9 million more than what we had thought we were going to have at adopted >> at adopted budget this year. No, this is the most recent numbers that we have at this point in time. So that was a snapshot in time during unodited actuals. Now you're getting a new snapshot in time uh for any new revenue that we believe we're receiving. So this is updated numbers since unodudited actuals. >> I understand that. What I'm saying is is that at in September when you presented on audit actuals, it was stated that we had we received some donations that we weren't anticipating. We received interest on money that we had and it was about it was about $1.9 million more in revenue. Where is that reflected in these numbers? >> That's in all
181of the first interim numbers. So the numbers that you see now, the $171 million, that's baked into those numbers there. >> So it's just spread out. >> Correct. Okay, that that was my question. Okay. >> Okay. Trusty Bath, >> thank you. Um, can you explain Dr. Nye, you mentioned the auditor said we had to back out the 1.5. Can you explain that a little bit? I'm I'm not really informed about. >> So certain grants and dollars that we receive um if you don't ex expend them, if you don't expense them in the same year, you're not allowed to post that unearned revenue and have it just sit there. Um they want you to back that out. You have to have an offsetting expense to that revenue. So in um in the adopted budget or excuse
182me in the 2425 budget we had unearned revenue that was booked and no offsetting expense to correspond with that. And an auditor will say no no no you need to move that in the year you need to book the revenue in the year that you expense the revenue. So spend it in the same year that you're actually um booking it. Sure. Trusty rolling >> on slide nine. Um because that was my next my next question on um so with the expenditure does that is that also a partial explanation and where is that explained of the expenditure that you just described because we we we've saw it in the in the revenue side. >> Where are we seeing it here on the >> it's going to be all in this. So it's going to be for
183certificated and classified salaries. It will be for um books and supplies services. It's going to be sprinkled throughout all of this. Correct. >> But that is a partial explanation of why we have more expenses than anticipated as well. Correct. >> Yeah, partially. Absolutely. >> Thank you. >> Okay. I have a question. Um for on slide 11, Dr. NY, um I have a couple questions. Uh the books and supplies, is that 1.5 million? Is that covering um just like adopted curricular material or is that like extra materials that like different teachers are individually purchasing or >> It's all of that. It's not just instructional materials. I mean, that's a whole um resource, if you will. Books and supplies is a lot of different things that make that up. Um but primarily yeah that could be any
184number of instructional materials or related to instructional materials. >> Okay. And then my unless there's a followup. No. Okay. And then in terms of the services, are we working toward um kind of hiring within more? I thought we were we were more focused on that and doing that so we didn't have to use um agency aids. Yeah, we're we have um like I said daily and weekly conversations about this. I know personnel services is working ex incredibly hard to try to recruit and hire from within. I don't think it's a Carl'sbad issue. I think it's a a statewide issue. Instructional aids are incredibly difficult to find. And when you can't find one and there's a requirement that you provide one through services that a student needs, um it forces us to um go the more
185much more expensive route of an agency aid. And so um we're we're really trying to reduce that down wherever we can. We're also having uh more conversations on the instructional side about what is the need and what constitutes an aid and how do we um work with our sites to make sure that um when we write that into an IEP that it's truly needed. Can we share aids? Are there different ways that we can look at reducing these costs because they are going up year year over year. Um we have done a good job at trying to fill vacancies but we are are um still not there with hiring all internal at this point in time. >> Have we a follow up to that? Have we looked at um so we're competitive with some of
186these agencies? Have we looked at know because typically from what I remember aids are, you know, three hours. You know, they're not amount of time that people would want to take a position or their pay rate is low. Um, have we looked at, you know, would it be less even though we would pay more, give more hours, would it still would it still be less than hiring an agency aid? Have we been looking at that? >> Yeah, we're looking at that. We're looking at other ways. Yes. Yes. to answer your short answer to your question is yes. >> And what have we figured out from that? I mean, are we >> I think that um you know, wages would be something that we need to consider uh looking at um to be more competitive. We've
187also looked at ways that we could potentially hire certificated subs um in those positions because oftentimes those are cheaper than uh full day agency aid. So, we're looking at all different types of things um to try to make it as competitive as possible and try to bring that work back in house. So, um I think any and all options are um on the table. We continue to evaluate where we're at. >> Okay. Um I have a answer to um I have experience offering hiring bonuses um providing insurance and even at that neighboring districts have 70 or more vacancies >> um for districts close to our size. So as uh Dr. Nye said it's it's not a it's just not our problem. It's hard to find this position now. I think it was and also varying
188the hours. I think you bring up a good point. I don't think just three or 35 is it is it four? Is it five? Is it six? Once we hit a certain point, we do then offer insurance. But even that I haven't seen as a motivating factor. The one thing that does happen and and I believe he's referenced this before, Dr. Bracket, is that when they come to work for us, they as an agent from an agency, they often want to become our employee >> because we're a great place to work. >> Yeah. And typically agencies, they don't provide pensions, right? And we do. So, okay. Um, any followup? Yes. Uh, yes. A follow up to that same um line item. >> Who are the consultants that are referred to and what do they provide
189us? >> Yeah, we have um there' be a number of different consultants that we hire and employ. They could be education consultants. They could be um facilities consultant fees that we're um spending as well. Um and in some cases they're even um attorney fees that we're we're looking at as well. >> Any other followup? Okay. Trusty. >> Thank you. Um on slide 13, you had talked about uh moving those dollars um into the general fund based on um the fact that we are in year two of basic aid rather than year one of basic aid. Is that correct? Yeah, it's it's not just that. It's the $5 million in revenue that we thought we were that we booked into the budget and adopted. And that's actually um $5 million less in revenue that we're actually
190receiving now. And that's because we thought we were in year one and we're in >> no because of the loss of supplemental taxes because we are in year two of basic aid and the $4 million um budget correction for inloo property taxes. Both of those resulted in a $5.6 million decrease in revenue. And that's why we feel like it's important to take that from the stabilization fund. That's what that was there for. And okay, so my my question is is that we didn't receive those dollars because we were thought we thought we were in year one and we were in year two or is that accurate? >> Yeah, the supplemental dollars um we um when the when the budget was adopted and created, uh those that $1.6 6 million was built into the budget like
191we were going to receive those um taxes and because we were the understanding at that point in time was we were in the full year the full first year of basic aid status >> and what led us to that to make that assumption >> I don't I don't know I was not in that position at the time to make that um decision I don't know the I I would assume um you know, I would assume that um it was the assumption that you were it was the first full year you were in basic aid status. And what the reality is and what the state law says is no. If you're in P2, by P2, that's second, that's spring accounting time, ADA time, P2. uh if you were in basic aid status, technically that's your first
192year of basic aid status. So I could see the confusion at the time. Um but we need to make the correction now because we're not receiving the dollars. >> I agree. I'm not I'm noting I'm not questioning the need. I'm trying to figure out, you know, h how did we >> not know that number one, but then who were we in communication with the county or and and how did we communicate with the county? Yeah, I I I wasn't in this position. I don't know um how that decision came to be. Um I would assume though that there was lots of communication going back and forth with the county, but um I don't know that for sure. >> And so during those communications, and I' I've had this conversation with Dr. Norman, so it shouldn't
193be a surprise that I'm asking this question, but um when we communicate, do we do we put things in writing to say this is what I was told or is it is it verbal communication or do we say hey this email is to confirm that this is what you told me at this time? >> I think I try to always put things in writing and email communication to confirm that. Absolutely. Um that's just the way I operate. I I I can't speak to what was done before I got into this position. >> Okay. Any other questions? Okay. May I have a motion to approve the submission of the first in interim financial report as of October 31st, 2025, exhibit A. >> So moved. I have a second. I'll second. Okay, we have Trustee COC made
194the motion. Trustee Emmery seconded the motion. This is time for discussion. Any discussion? Trustee Rawlings. Thank you. Um I I do have concerns about having to not knowing whether we're in uh basic aid year one, year two. Um I you know I know in multiple board meetings last year we asked that question. We said, "Okay, when are we starting? How do we know? Where is this money going? So, I do have real concerns that that we're looking at this now going, "Oh, we didn't know." And when I did ask the questions about like how we're communicating and that sort of thing that um I didn't see a lot of written communication going back and forth on this on some of these topics. So, I'm glad to hear that that's part of your practice um because
195I do think that that's really important when we're getting information from um you know, from sources and we're relying on that information, but yet we don't have any evidence that someone said that. So, I I was very concerned when I was asking my questions um before and um so I'm glad to hear that we're doing that, but I I am going to vote yes, but I'm going to be a hesitant yes on this first inter run because I am very concerned about um backing out money and then putting it back in and then uh not knowing where we stand and and looking at and having to use our dollars in different ways than we had intended originally. So, um so I am concerned, but I will be voting yes. Any other discussion? Okay. All right.
196Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. >> Trusty Ciosci, >> yes. >> Trusty Burbette, >> yes. >> Trusty Emory, >> yes. >> Trusty Rawlings, >> yes. >> Trusty Ward, >> yes. >> Motion passes 5 to zero. >> Thank you. We now move on to agenda item 11.2, 2 resolution number 16-2526 adoption of the annual and 5-year reportable fees report for fiscal year in compliance with government code section 66006 and 6601 developer fees trustees this is a discussion action item I will now hand it over to Dr. Thank you again. Uh, President Ward, trustees, Dr. Norman, I'll be quick, but uh, Carlsbad Unified School District, it's required under government code. Uh, mentioned before uh, to maintain separate accounts for developer fees which are collected for new residential, commercial, and industrial development to fund school facilities. The
197district must make annual and annual and five-year reports available to the public detailing fee collections, fund balances, expenditures, and specific projects funded. These fees are restricted to capital improvements and may not be used for general operations. The annual report for the fiscal year 2425 provides information on the types of fees collected, beginning and ending fund balances, interest earned, and uh expenditures and projects funded. The five-year report identifies unexpended funds, and confirms that the fees are appropriately allocated to support school facilities. Tonight, the board is being asked to approve resolution number 2526 adopting both annual and 5-year reportable fees. Um, and at this point in time, I'll turn it back over to President Ward for questions and comments. >> Okay, this this is a time for public comment. Have any blue cards been received? >> There
198are no blue cards. >> Okay, trustees, do you have any questions for staff? Trusty Rawlings. >> Thank you. On um just to clarify that these dollars when we are discussing facilities when we had that long workshop and those types of things, those are included in the dollars available for our facilities. Correct. Not just the bond dollars. >> Correct. Yes. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? Okay. May I have a motion to approve resolution number 16-2526 adoption of the annual 5-year reportable fees report for fiscal year 2425 in compliance with government code section 66006 and 660001 developer fees exhibit A. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Trustee Emory made the motion. Trustee Rawlings seconded the motion. Discussion. No discussion. Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. >> Trusty Cosiosci, >> yes. >> Trusty Berbette, >>
199yes. >> Trusty Emory, >> yes. >> Trusty Rawlings, >> yes. >> Trusty Ward, >> yes. >> Motion passes 5 to zero. >> Okay, thank you. We now move on to part 12, personnel services agenda item 12.1, board appointment for personnel commission trustees. This is a discussion action item. I will now hand it over to Mrs. Megan Aras. Thank you. The current term of the board appointed personnel commissioner expires in December 2025. At its meeting in November, board of trustees approved the recommendation and publicly announced its intended reappoint of Carmen Renee. Um, ED code 45246 further requires that at a subsequent meeting and during an open hearing, the board will allow for public employee and employee organization comments regarding the qualifications of the intended appointee before taking action on the appointment. Carmen Renee has served as
200the board appointed personnel commissioner since 2019. She has also contributed to the district through her service on the CUSD independent oversight committee and co-chair of measure HH. Miss Renee meets all qualifications for appointment under ED code 45244, including being a registered voter, a resident within the district boundaries, and a known adherent to merit system principles. This has been demonstrated through her long-standing commitment to CUSD and her dedicated service on the personnel commission since 2019 where she has been consistently fair, well-informed uh and conscientious of the district needs. Um she regularly attends and leads the personnel commission meetings and has consistently supported the merit system. It is respectfully recommended that the board of trustees appoint Carmen Renee to continue her service on the personnel commission. Thank you. This is a time for public comment. Have any
201blue cards been received? >> We have one blue card. >> Okay. When I call your name, please come to the podium, state your name, and indicate whether or not you live within the boundaries of the school district. You will have three minutes. We will have the timer on the screen, and your mic will be muted when your time has expired. The speaker is Scott Davidson. Good evening. Uh, as Miss Aras just presented, ED code uh, 45244 presents the requirements for a reappoint for a person on the personnel commission. Um, the the key here is, of course, the evidence that the commissioner has demonstrated through meeting, attendance, and action that she does in fact support the merit system in its operation. That's that's a great thing to say, but there's no actual evidence to show it,
202right? and and the public nor has the board been presented with any actual evidence to indicate that she actually does support the merit system. So the the first problem with that is that we actually have evidence as I kind of teased last month that she actually doesn't support the merit system. And so I actually brought my exhibit here this month to actually show that the only publicly known statement that she's ever made and you know we like to use the phrase put your money where your mouth is. She donated $500. She was the top individual donor to Kathy Rawlings campaign, right? And Kathy Rawlings employed by the CTA, you know, big union, you know, backer for the CTA, which, you know, publicly opposes the merit system, right? And in fact, there I have their handbook
203right here. It says the CTA opposes merit systems, statewide salary schedules, differentiated staffing programs, and new taxes on employer paid employee benefits. So, the CTA, Kathy Rawlings, fundamentally philosophically opposes merit pay. Now, you know, as a quick aside, you know, since I got a little bit of time, uh, I just thought I would go over the benefits of merit pay because at least with our classified employees, we have a merit pay system and probably the fact that we don't have a merit pay system for our certificated employees takes away money for our classified system. Uh, but that's another discussion for another day. But at least I think it's important to emphasize the importance of merit pay because research shows that in states that have weak teachers unions um that merit pay is used as the
204alternative to our strong California teachers association state and the education outcomes improve remarkably. Right? If you look at, you know, Houston, Wisconsin, some of the recent examples where they've eliminated the power of teachers unions, academic, you know, academics improve substantially when you start awarding teachers pay based on merit. I just gave a presentation at Voice of San Diego on this, so I'd be happy to share it with you if you want. Um, but the bottom line is we need some evidence that that that Miss Renee actually supports the merit system. There's not any prevented, you know, provided here. And we do have public evidence that she supports a trustee who does not believe in the merit system. So per the ed code, you are required to vote for somebody who has who is a known
205adherent to the merit system. So without any of that evidence actually before you, I don't see how you can vote yes. you maybe you delay it, maybe you have her application come before the public, maybe you present some of the evidence of her conduct at meeting that supports the merit system, but her public display, her public known adherence is to oppose. >> Okay, trustees, do you have any questions for staff? Go ahead, Trusty Verb. So, um, the reappoint candidate was recommended to the board by Assistant Superintendent Rick Grove, I believe, and that was prior to Trusty Ward and myself getting on the board. And the board um, we voted for the reappoint of the same candidate, the first meeting that Trusty Ward and I were on the board, so we weren't informed. Can you explain
206this process of how the board selects somebody to be on the personnel commission and if there is an application process that takes place? Could you explain? I don't know if anybody else understands this or has been >> Yeah, I'm familiar with it. >> There was not an application. It's not a requirement um for the position. Um the you know PC commission rules just state that the board gets to appoint one representative. Um at the time um and from what I've learned that uh you know Rick Grove uh did recommend Carmen Renee um to cabinet and to the board and cabinet and the board were in support of that because of the fact that she had been on different committees in CUSD and they were familiar with her. um before that time. I do not know
207how it was recommended. I could, you know, go back and and see how it was in the past, but there's not an application that is required. Trustee Rollings, thank you. Um could you explain the difference between a merit system with a personnel commission and merit pay for teachers? Yeah, the merit pay would be different because all of the classified salaries are on a salary schedule and one part of the um the commission is that they do review any new positions that um that we need. Um they will also review the different pay amounts that um that we look for. So um the personnel director will go out and they compare different salaries with other districts. um and we'll give a range. We then get input um from the union and then bring it before um
208the personnel commission to create that position. Um so um with my experience um Carmen Renee on the PC commission she has approved um a couple of positions that we have brought forward when we had a need like for example we decided to hire um LVN's because we were you know using agency fees for so many um so that would be one example of when you know she did she was on the commission when the commission did approve um some positions when there was a need um as Well, so they still the classified salary schedule, they do have a designated salary schedule that um that is board approved. And so when we go into negotiations similar to certificated, we negotiate the salary increase and then that's applied to the salary schedule. It's not based on performance.
209Um it is based on a board approved salary schedule um similar to certificated. Um but the way it goes about it is that um the PC commission is involved in um when they're going through creating a position um they are part of reviewing the job descriptions looking at what the recommendation is they approve the job classification and then the pay actually comes back to the board for that board approval before the position is is finalized um as well. So, that's a little bit of the difference, but also some of the experience I've had in working with her, just when it does come down to establishing the job description. Um, they, you know, her and the PC commission listened to the need, um, you know, reviewed, um, all the information we presented, asked questions, and approved
210it, um, as well. >> Trustee Rowlings, >> thank you. And just to clarify, the merit system of for California is governed by education code 45240 through 45320 and um and is also part of uh title 2 division 3 part 25 chapter 5 article 6. Is that correct? >> I don't have it in front of me but I will trust you on that one. >> Trusty Rollins. And does that do those sections of the education code have anything to do with certificated employment at all? >> It if it's has to do with PC commission, it's all about classified. >> Trustee Rawlings. >> Thank you. And um as far as um when we talk about uh personnel commission and um and hiring is that pretty much what the merit system is talking about to in order to
211avoid nepotism and not doesn't have anything to do with setting salary for classified employees. >> Um correct. It's really about, you know, when they're looking at the creation of positions and coming looking at job descriptions and everything else, they are looking um, you know, to make sure that the pay is fair, equal pay for the equal work. Um, and the process is fair in the hiring. Um they're setting the testing requirements, the eligibility list requirements um and um overseeing that whole process of job classification, recruitment as well. Trusty Berbath. Thank you. So the information that you're providing to us as you believe this is evidence for the board to make this decision that she does ascribe to the merit system, the principles of the merit system. >> Is that correct? >> Yes. >> Trusty Rawlings.
212And then just to be um clear that um the personnel commission doesn't have anything to do with negotiating salaries for classified employees and that if there was a connection between performance and evaluations that that would have to be negotiated with the union before that could be implemented. Is that correct? >> Correct. >> Thank you. >> Trustee Verba. So, um, this reappoint candidate has been on in this position since 2019, correct? >> Um, how would we how would somebody in the public um be brought to our attention who might also qualify for this position? Could they apply? Um, or is this just appointment? Um, we've had some the same person in the position for quite some time, so there seems to be no term limits. Um, So, how would somebody in the public say that they
213would like to also be on this commission? >> Yes, sir. There is a three-year uh three-year term limit. Um so, it does come up every 3 years and um like I said in the past uh from what I'm aware, it was a recommendation that was made um you know, from cabinet um of who they had worked for and felt comfortable with. um if an application is something we wanted to look into in the future, we could certainly do that. I could also research what we've done in the past before um that appointment for the for the boards. Um and we also, you know, if there's other information that they would like to see, all of the PC commission meeting minutes are all on our website that get posted each time as well. >> Any other
214questions? Okay. May I have a motion to appoint Carmen Renee to the personnel commission? >> So moved. >> I'll second. >> Trustee Rawlings made the motion. Trusty Ward seconded the motion. Discussion. >> Trusty Rebecc. Go ahead. >> I think it would be a good idea to publicly notice this opportunity. I'd like to propose that to my fellow trustees is just, you know, keep things um on the up with public as well as give other people an opportunity to offer their services to our community. So, I'd like to propose that. >> So, are you >> do I need to make a motion? I was just in discussion. I don't know. >> Are you making a motion? point of order. >> Um, under our handbook, it wouldn't it would be you would ask if um if there's
215an objection under discussion to direct staff to do something. >> Is there an objection from my fellow trustees to publicly notice this opportunity so other people could also apply? >> I would object and I'll explain if you want me to. >> Yes. >> Um, I would object because we don't have that process in place. I would be um I would be open to making this appointment now and then directing staff potentially to set up a um a a process that would um allow for multiple applicants and then uh you know particular criteria interviews you know that type of um um I would be open to that um process but without a process in place I wouldn't want to just kind of say hey just um open it up that that to me that doesn't make
216a lot of sense but if we if there was a process I'd be um amenable to that. Okay. Well, I'm I'm aware that the appointment needs to be made by the end of this month, right? So, that's why it's here and it was brought to us a month ago. I didn't really understand there was a two-step process because I was never informed about that. So, um that's on me, I guess, or my onboarding, I don't know. But I would like to propose that in the future that I'd like to make a motion that we do establish a process and include an interview process in an application process. Point of order. Um our current handbook um talks about um consensus around directing staff. So it would it would not be a motion, but what I'm hearing
217you say is that you would like to direct staff to set up a process for the future to appoint a personnel a personnel commissioner from the board um that would include applications or public notice application and interviews but prior to appointment. Is that accurate? >> That is accurate. >> Okay. I do not object to that. >> So do Sorry. I'm just shaking my head. Um, so do we have consensus? >> Okay, >> I had some discussion though. >> Yes, trusty Rollins. >> Thank you. Um, I just want to make sure that it's it's clear and um that's why I was asking all those questions because a merit system is very different. and I've worked under multiple um uh merit systems and it's all about classified employees and to avoid nepotism within school districts and it
218started in Los Angeles and um uh and there's multiple districts that have merit systems and um the appointments are you have one appointment by um the classified union you have one appointment by um the district and then you have a third so there's a you know it's a threeperson panel um but um but again has nothing to do with certificate of employees has nothing to do with merit pay or salaries in any way shape or form. So I just wanted to clarify that and you can you know if you want to look at the education code it's very it's very clearly outlined of what the purpose of the personnel commission is and what the purpose of a merit system in California is. So, I just wanted to make sure I was clarifying that. I wasn't
219just asking those questions, but I wanted to get confirmation that, you know, again, working in those systems um is a um it's it's a different experience, but it's all about classified employees. >> Superintendent Norman, >> um we talked a lot um when we were at CSBA, a lot of great conversations about the work that we do, and some work that hasn't been done is onboarding of our trustees. And I think that this would be a great topic to bring um for a presentation information only in the future so that we can share not just with our board but with the public the ins and outs of the personnel commission and invite Rachel Austin to um participate in that so that we can have a a nice presentation conversation discussion about it. Um that way everybody's
220informed and I think it'll also help to inform our process that we're going to create moving forward. >> Any other discussion? You understand the motion? >> Okay. Okay. So, Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. >> Trusty Cosiosci, >> yes. >> Trusty Berbette, >> yes. >> Trustee Emory, >> yes. >> Trustee Rawlings, >> yes. >> Trusty Ward, yes. >> Motion passes 5 to zero. >> Thank you. We will now skip over part 13, instructional services, as we do not have any items on the agenda under this section this evening. Thank goodness. We now move on to part 14, board policies. Thank you. We now move on to item 14.1, revision of board policy 3516.5, first reading. Trustees, this is a discussion action item. I will now hand it over to Dr. N. >> Thank you
221again, uh, President Ward. Emergency schedules have been updated to incorporate CSBA recommendations and new laws. The policy now includes health conditions and other reasons for school closures. It also requires instructional continuity and independent study plans for affected students and allows attendance recovery programs for lost instructional time. Those are the changes highlighted and I'll turn it back over to trust our president Ward uh for any questions. >> Great. This is a time for public comment. Have any blue cards been received? >> There are no blue cards. Trustees, do you have any questions for staff? May I have a motion to approve board policy 3516.5 and and approve it as a first reading? >> I would like to make an amended motion. >> Okay. >> Um I would like to um approve uh board policy 3516.5 as
222a first reading and wave the second reading. Okay. So, we have an amended motion to approve board policy 3516.5 um and to not have the to re to avoid the second. Can I have a motion? Oh. Oh, do I have a second? Sorry. Do we have a second? No second. I'll second. Uh, Trustee Rawlings made the motion. Trustee Ward seconded the motion. Discussion. Trusty Verbath. >> This won't be long. We don't have snowstorms. So just just in case. >> So I know that we included it because CSBA is recommending it, but we don't have snow. >> Okay. >> And that's why I I didn't want to second the second reading, waving the second reading because >> can't we wave the second reading? Just take that out. Okay. It's not significant, >> but it doesn't make
223sense. >> But then it might snow. Just kidding. >> But okay. >> Well, I can't wait till it snows. So, >> uh, Trusty Amy, >> I just want to be, you know, mindful and again, you know, we we've waved quite a few second readings, you know, with some of the policies that we've had and updated. And I want to make sure that we're being really intentional and giving space and time to kind of work through and see if um things come up in between and not be hasty in some of those decisions. Um you know, that's one of the things like I said, you know, at the CSBA conferences that they were so focused on is, you know, not just taking it, playing it out, seeing how it works for your district. Um you know,
224and having a couple days to review it, maybe just let it breathe for a little bit. Um I don't know if there's a harm in that, but that's kind of my thinking. I fully agree but you know hearing the discussion from others would be helpful or some of your thoughts. Okay, >> Trusty Rolling, >> I do believe that if you know if we are in agreement and if you know if there's not, you know, controversy or, you know, that we that we're not looking to make changes, it doesn't make any sense to let it go another um another month um when the policy could be uh put into place. Now, I get it. if you know if there's a change then that's when we would you know we would have that discussion but I I'm
225a fan of it because to me it see it's more efficient it you know it it doesn't um in my view waste time in a meeting if if there's no changes right if there's recommended changes absolutely we need to have the discussion we need to have um uh we need to talk about that um because we get these in advance as well right so um so if there was like um trusty verbth if there's concern about snowstorms that could have been you know brought to staffs um attention and that could have been taken out before the meeting um if there's concerns. So again, it's just about being more efficient and and like you said, being intentional about the things that we want to do and if there if to me if there's items that are,
226you know, that are going to go through and there's no controversy, there's no problem, why not wave the second reading? It it to me it seems like a waste of time unless we have um specific things that need to be changed. >> Trusty COC I appreciate Trusty Amarie's comments on that. I I do think a lot of things the public may not be aware of things don't have a lot of time or comprehension and maybe things and comments are are brought to people's attention. Not necessarily this specific topic, but I think giving things a little time to breathe. It's it's very easy to pass through it quickly um at a future date if if nothing new arises. So, I don't think that's a a bad thing to be known for being prudent in our decision-
227making >> and I was is that a followup to her. >> Yeah. Oh, okay. Go ahead. >> Yeah, I agree as well. And I also see um thank you for for that and you know for such policies as this you know I just want to make sure you know I hadn't even thought about the snowfall. I'm like, well, that needs to be and so maybe I do need another lens. But, um, you're right, this one isn't monumental. Um, and we do have health issues that have been popping up all over and it isn't prudent to maybe make sure these are, but um, you know, in the future, I think, you know, for other ones that might be that might be helpful. And I appreciate the suggestion. And >> I'm just going to follow up and
228say I think, um, Trusty Amory, you're right. We should always be intentional. And I think Trusty Rawlings, you're absolutely right. I think that if it's something that we need to discuss, you know, we can we can have a second reading and we can vote on that. So, okay, Miss Oh, any other discussion? I'm sorry. Okay, Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. >> Trusty Cioce, >> yes. >> Trusty Verbette, >> yes. >> Trusty Emory, >> yes. >> Trusty Rawlings, >> yes. >> Trusty Ward, >> yes. >> Motion passes five to zero. >> Thank you. We now move on to item 14.2, revision of board policy 4033, first reading. Trustees, this this is a discussion action item. I will now hand it over to Mrs. Megan Aras. >> Thank you. Board policy 4033, lactation accommodation, has
229been updated based on recommendations from the California School Boards Association, to clarify that required lactation accommodations apply to expressing breast milk rather than breastfeeding an infant child and that these accommodations are required for at least a year after the birth of the child. Additionally, the policy is updated to reflect new court decision which vacated nationwide the title nine regulations which took effect August 1st, 2024 and new guidance from the US Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights which clarified that OCR will enforce Title 9 based on the regulations as they existed prior to August 1st, 2024 and delete references to the Title 9 because lactation accommodations, although required by state law and federal laws, are not required by the Title 9 regulations as exist. isted prior to August 1st, 2024. It is respectfully recommended that
230the board of trustees review board policy 4033 and approve it as a first reading. Thank you. >> Okay, this is a time for public comment. Have any blue cards been received? >> We do not have any blue cards. >> Trustees, do you have any questions for staff? >> Trusty Amry, >> not a question, but on the um second page there, it says meets me with the changes. So, it needs me um on the first paragraph there. So, that might need to be amended. >> Actually, point of order. This is something that should be talked about in discussion. >> Oh, yes. It's not a question. >> Okay. Any questions for staff? May I have a motion to approve board policy 4033 and approve it as a first reading without the second reading. >> So moved. >>
231Second. >> Trustee COC made the motion and Trusty Verbth made the second. Discussion. Can you take out the >> Well, I um I'll go ahead and ask it for you. And so the um I'm assuming because it's a typo, >> it could be taken out without having to bring it back for a second reading. Is that accurate? Is that Can we do that? Is that because I would support that if that's what we're if we're looking to do that. >> Okay. Any other discussion? Okay. Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. Trustee COC, >> yes. >> Trusty Brebeth, >> yes. >> Trustee Emory, yes. Trustee Rawlings, yes. Trusty Ward, >> yes. >> Motion passes 5 to zero. >> Okay. Thank you. Now we now move on to item 14.3, revision of board policy 5113.1, first
232reading. Trustees, this is a discussion action item. I will now hand it over to Dr. Brockett. >> Thank you, uh, President Ward. Uh board policy 5113.1 is chronic absence and truency which has been updated based on recommendations from CSBA to include language that students who are identified as chronically absent or truent should receive appropriate support services and interventions as early as possible. Additionally, the policy is updated to incorporate strategies identified by the California Department of Education for encouraging student attendance. is respectfully recommended that the board of trustees review the policy 5113.1 and approve as a first reading. I'll hand it back to you. >> Thank you. This is this is the time for public comment. Have any blue cards been received? >> Uh there are no blue cards for this item. >> Trustees, do you
233have any questions for staff? >> Trusty Rawlings. >> Thank you. Um and thank you for answering my question prior to the meeting around independent study and the and the need to connect independent study with attendance and um you had stated that uh that board policy and AR6158 addresses the independent study piece. Um my question is should we have should we make a connection between those two board policies as appropriate as appropriate interventions um since that could help uh that could make it to where the student could get the intervention and then we would still have the attendance um and we would avoid some of the chronic attendance problems. >> Yeah, I I don't think there's a need to connect those two policies in writing per se. that certainly independent study when uh the need presents
234itself for certain reasons uh would be a strategy that would be employed. Um but I don't necessarily think that requires the two policies to be tied together in any any way. >> So just to clarify that um when you're talking about interventions appropriate interventions then you would say the independent study would be offered automatically under the other board policy. I don't know that it would it would automatically be offered. I think that that there are a variety of reasons uh that students are absent and andor that they're chronically absent. Some of some of those reasons uh an appropriate response to some of those reasons might be independent study. An appropriate response to other reasons might not be independent study. So I think that's it really it's an evaluation of staff. I think that's that's what
235they're getting at here in the recommendation is is getting at those issues and and digging deep on those issues at the earliest point possible to determine what the root causes are and then be able to have staff uh to be able to determine what appropriate responses would be. >> Okay, thank you. >> Okay, any other questions? Uh Trusty Verbth, >> this is just formatting. Is the line over a comma? Does that just mean they're delete you're deleting it? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions? Okay. May I have a motion to approve board policy 5113.1 and approve it as a first reading without the second reading? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Trustee Emmery made the motion. Trustee Rawlings seconded the motion. Discussion. Any discussion? No. Okay. Miss Garcia, please call for
236a vote. >> Trusty COC, >> yes. >> Trusty Verbbeth, >> yes. >> Trustee Emory, >> yes. >> Trusty Rawlings, >> yes. >> Trusty Ward, >> yes. >> Motion passes five to zero. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay, we now move on to item 14.4, revision of board policy 5113.2, first reading trustees. This is a discussion action item. I will now hand it over to Dr. Brockett. >> Thank you, President Ward. Uh, one additional board policy 5113.2 work permits has been updated based on recommendations from the CSBA with minor revisions as you can see in there to reflect updates to California Education Code. Uh it is respectfully recommended that the board of trustees review the policy 5113.2 and approve as a first reading. Thank you. >> Okay. This is a time for public comment. Have any blue
237cards been received? >> There are no blue cards. >> Okay. Trustees, do you have any questions for staff? Okay. May I have a motion to approve board policy 5113.2 and approve it as the first reading without the second reading. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Okay. Trustee Rawlings made the motion. Trusty Verbth seconded the motion. Discussion. Okay. Miss Garcia, please call for a vote. >> Trusty Cozy, >> yes. >> Trusty Verbth, >> yes. >> Trusty Emory, >> yes. >> Trusty Rawlings, >> yes. >> Trusty Ward, >> yes. >> Motion passes five to zero. I did want to note we looked at the next version of the lactation policy and that does not have an error error on it. So it's it's going in clean but we'll make sure both versions next time are thank you
238for bringing that to our attention. Okay. Thank you. We now move on to part 15 communications part two item 15.1 governance team reports. This is a time for trustees to provide a brief report if they've attended committee meetings where they represent the district. Are there any governance team reports? Okay, thank you. We now move on to item 15.2, trustee requests for information from staff. Trustees, are there any requests for information from staff that have already been discussed with the superintendent and have been recommended to bring to the board? Okay. Um All right. Thank you. We now move on to item 15.3, trustee request for direction to staff. This item provides trustees with the opportunity to make requests for direction to staff during the meeting. In alignment with board bylaw 9322, any requests for future agenda
239items must be submitted in writing to the superintendent. These requests will be reviewed and considered through the standard agenda planning process. At this time, do any trustees have requests for direction to staff? Okay. Um, okay. Item 15.4, continuation of item 8.1, public comment regarding non-aggendaized topics. Oh, never mind. Skip that. Sorry. Part 16 and 17 adjournment and next meeting it is 9:30 and the regular meeting is now adjourned. Our next regular meeting will take place on January 21st 2026 at 6 p.m. at the Carlsbed Unified School District office. We'll now move on to part 18 educational facilities corporation. Okay, the Carlsbad Unified Board of Trustees has concluded its regular meeting. I will now call to order the annual meeting of the Carlsbad Unified School District Educational Facilities Corporation. This is the time and place designated
240for the meeting. Miss Garcia, have we received any blue cards rec regarding the Educational Facilities Corporation meeting inclusive of items 18.1 through 18.6? We have not received any blue cards. >> Okay. I now turn it over to Dr. Rob Nye, assistant superintendent of business services. >> Thank you, President Ward, trustees and Dr. Norman. You thought you were leaving. I apologize. This is the meeting after the meeting. Uh so the Education Facilities Corporation serves as an intermediary for certain uh financial transactions including our certificates of participation or cops. Uh the officers of the corporation mirror the officers of the board of trustees. We will now ask President Ward to walk through the item that appoints the officers you elected earlier this evening into the corresponding roles for the corporation. I'll turn it back over to President
241Ward. >> Trustees, do you have any questions for staff? >> Okay. I move that the board of trustees of the Carlsbad Unified School District and each board member individually hereby accept the position of board of directors of the Carlsbad Unified School District Educational Facilities Corporation effective as of December 10th, 2025 serving in the same capacity as voted upon earlier except for the board clerk will serve as the treasurer to the corporation. We have uh trustee Michelle Ward, Michelle Turalaw Ward as president, trustee Allison Emmery as vice president and trustee Laura Sioce is treasurer clerk and superintendent Dr. Norman is secretary. May I have a second? >> Board discussion. Miss Garc Oh, mayor. Okay. >> Do you need a second? >> Yes, please. Okay. Second, Rawlings. Okay. Board discussion. Miss Garcia, please call for a vote.
242>> Trusty COC? >> Yes. >> Trusty Verbbeth? >> Yes. >> Trusty Emory? >> Yes. >> Trusty Rowlings? >> Yes. >> Trusty Ward? >> Yes. >> Motion passes 5 to zero. >> Okay. Okay. The next meeting date of the Carlsbad Unified School District Educational Facilities Corporation is scheduled for December 16th, 2026 following the adjourment of the organizational meeting of the board of trustees. It is 6 or 9:33 p.m. And I now declare the annual meeting of the Callsb Unified School District Educational Facilities Corporation is now adjourned.