001can you hear me okay the board did not meet in closed session this evening so we will call to order at trying to get arranged 603. an announcements tonight is uh trustee Lee is joining us remotely this evening utilizing the option ab2449 just caused relating to child care or caregiving need of a child parent grandparent grandchild sibling spouse or domestic partner hi Miss type festily under the requirements okay freeze under the requirements oh no I just said hi I someone said hi and I said hi um there's no individuals 18 years of age or older present in the room at this remote location with me and it is my intention to participate in today's meeting through both audio and visual technology thank you Dr Lee flight salute in recognition of free speech we welcome all
002and would like to note that saying the Pledge of Allegiance is not a requirement of to participate in the business of this board if you do not say the Pledge of Allegiance you are most welcome here as an equal participant of the business of this board so please now stand for the pledge foreign will lead us in the pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all adoption of the agenda do I have a motion to bring the agenda to the floor for a discussion so move thank you Mr Bowen do I have a second I'll second thank you Mr Bruno trustee Bruno in regards to the consent agenda I would like to remove
003for separate consideration items one and items two is there any other on the consent agenda that would like to be removed Miss Pope I I know there are two that I would like to give comment if we can pull item 11 and 18 that way I can provide some a little more detail for for the board and the community very well to be clear we will remove for separate consideration and discussion on the consent agenda number one number two number 11 and number 18. do I now have a motion to adopt the agenda as amended I'll move thank you Mr Bruno second thank you Mr ballen let's do a roll call vote since trustee Lee is remote trustee Lee did she say I okay Mr ballen or sorry Mr Bruno aye Mrs Anderson aye Mr
004balance aye and Mr Mason and chair votes aye we will now have the organizational report cuta Miss Mason you're gonna have to do some maneuvering ma'am hi good evening okay uh I don't have much to share other than we would like to thank the school district and Mr um Jordan's category special ed Department specifically for funding five teachers to attend the cars conference that's being paid by Center so we have five special ed teachers who will be attending a special ed conference paid by Center Unified so that's amazing and um door murals were delivered to Spinelli and they're really excited to see the great work that has been added to their doors and one of our classes from Oak Hill attended the Roseville Theater so it was the first time the second grade class had
005ever gone on a field trip so I thought that was worth mentioning that they were able to go see a play and then we look forward to continuing our contract negotiations our three-year contract is open the whole entire contract is open for negotiations this year and so we've been slowly but steadily working through all of the updates and some language and grammar Mr Jordan constantly is running his grammarly and approving each page and um hopefully by the next meeting I'm crossing my fingers we can get through it so that it can be presented to the board for approval any questions no thank you Mrs Mason right now we will have Naisha Harris the sea president hi this is Amy runsby I am csca vice president can you all hear me yes thank you thank you
006my camera is not working tonight my apologies um so I am speaking tonight for Naisha and she wrote a statement that she would like me to share with the board she said good evening we will be celebrating our csca classified members on February 14th the planning committee will be Distributing goodie bags this year two members at every School site we have two new negotiation team members one vice president and one Treasurer both residing who were elected by our members for two-year terms also csca classified staff has been continuing to step up through staff shortages this school year thank you and that's all we have for tonight well thank you very much is there any questions thank you we will jump to reports and presentations right now we will have Twin Rivers police SRO update Mr
007Lair yeah so um a few months back the board had talked about having our Twin Rivers Police Department is who we contracted with for law enforcement services and tonight we are I would like to introduce uh Lieutenant Coker and our officer Ahmed and they're going to give an overview of their the program and the services they provide for the the district and we welcome them and thank them for being here tonight thank you all right I brought him but I didn't put them on oh thank you for having us uh with me as officer Ahmed I let him introduce himself in in just a few moments give you a quick over brief of what we do we'll talk a little bit more in detail and then provide you with some additional information as you know
008we provide Safety and Security to The District student Outreach mentoring provide services uh public relations services and security to special events football basketball those types of things that are required to keep students safe in the attendees mentorship which we pride ourselves on with the students so with that I will turn it over to officer amid good evening board president Board of Trustees um I just wanted to tell you a little bit about myself my role here as a center SRO um I I'm from Pakistan I'm born in Pakistan I'm originally from the south South Stockton Community I went to uh Franklin and Cesar Chavez High School graduated from Stockton Unified School District I went to University of the Pacific graduated with a bachelor's in sociology and I ended up pursuing a career at law enforcement
009I've always wanted to come back and work with youth and be a mentor for kids and which ultimately brought me back to working for a school district as SRO so I've been having a really good time here at Center Unified one of the things I want to talk about what I what I do on a daily basis is uh my role is to be visually uh presence show my presence on on school grounds Mentor students have a proactive step towards safety and uh overall I just work closely with admin and just you know whenever they need me give me a call and stuff like that so we can work together okay so as you can see primary functions again is with the Safety and Security of our students and staff and visitors who come here
010we do provide 24-hour service to the district we have officers assigned to Patrol on graveyard and weekend so anytime there is a call for service alarm activation anything like that whether it be a fire alarm burglary alarm or somebody just witnessed something as well as just a proactive check-ins with the district that has done we help monitor cameras security cameras within our Communications in our Dispatch Center so that is monitored 24 hours a day as well as he said he uh he's here to help provide a proactive security measure by being present being visual obviously we'd rather stop things before they start um creating opportunities the interaction with students is huge for us building that gap between students the families in law enforcement we respond to a mental health crisis bullying issues assist as well
011as assist with child protective services when needed all right in addition we do provide parking enforcement traffic enforcement around the schools to ensure that our students are safe those dropping off most of that is done during the beginning hours and the later hours when we have our most congestion around the school sites as well as it's not all about traffic enforcement we do Thrive ourselves on doing driver education as well so we provide more driver education to the persons that we stop than we actually provide enforcement through citations um as we said earlier we provide security advances and other functions uh anytime we're asked we're here and we will always make sure that we provide a service whatever that request is from the school site admin themselves or the superintendent's office or one of the
012designees one of the things that officer Med uh does on a regular basis he does work with the school site if you've heard the term sept head crime prevention through environmental design he is always aware and paying attention to uh maybe not some foreseen threats to school side safety issues security issues he does work with the school site admin in the district and provides that information so that we can again take that proactive step towards things we've provided we provide lots of campus safety checks like I said through graveyard and Dacia weekend whenever there's an incident that requires more than one officer even though he is your officer he is your Sheriff of of your little town um we will bring whatever resources that we need to come here and assist and so that we
013we always want to make sure that we take care of you you take care of us we take care of you we want to make sure our kids are safe bottom line we have a great working relationship with the superintendent's office and uh Mr Putnam as well and I just want to say thank you for the collaboration that we've been able to have throughout the years that's it thank you thank you very much is there any questions we have a question how does our school compare to other schools in our area with problems that's not an easy question you'd have to give me a specific School site and I would have to do some research on that to see what the comparisons are and what type of comparison you're looking for I just thought you
014know the top of your head I guess uh I would say we love you gang problems drug problems no problems are everywhere right every every district has them every Community has them they vary from District to district and school psych to School site so again it would just I couldn't give you a it would be a guesstimate at best and I could be very far off I would rather provide that I can do some research provide that to the superintendent he can forward that to you if you'd like I wouldn't get that far into it okay but I was just curious but you know our neighboring districts real into Antelope Foothill Highlands and what you respond to you know I I would say we respond to a lot of the same similar calls it just
015depends on the call volume each School site like I said is very different um so uh one you know comparing MccLellan High to Center High you know or to Highlands uh very different makeups um and so they they all have their own their own calls that require assistance okay thank you I know I'm putting you on the spot it's okay any other questions I have a a comment and a question uh first of all I'd like to thank you both for your service uh and uh for your dedication to our community's youth um I have to say that my experience with your department is limited um although I'm aware of it from my own personal background and fairly recently I believe it was last summer I had the opportunity to to meet officer Ahmed and
016I want to say he didn't know who I was so he was extraordinarily professional and courteous so hats off to your department for uh somebody of Officer amidst caliber in meeting the public and greeting the public um it's not really a question I have more more of a it's a concern uh one of the things that's been brought to my attention is there is a knowledge of your services to this District um and what's brought up to me is we never see him so presence is is perception as you're well aware in your in your business um and I've had this opportunity to speak with uh superintendent Larry about this so um I myself would like to see I know officer Ahmed gets to other sites I know I know where the focus is currently
017and why and we won't go into detail here now but I would like to see uh some kind of an expansion uh so that we can have the same kind of services that officer Med uh and your other officers that come to our district under your services if we can kind of have that go throughout our district not just specific to not I won't say specific but pointed to the the high school the junior high and it seems like the elementary schools are the ones that have the least amount of activity by by your services that that's my understanding from the community so um I just wanted to make that make you aware of that and and I do have ongoing conversations with uh superintendent Claire about that so it's something I I would like
018to address in the future thank you for bringing that to me appreciate it you're welcome thank you again and thank you for your service oh thank you very much and we appreciate it and I gotta say what a wonderful turnout this is yes thank you excellent very impressed thank you thank you very much so right now we will have the independent audit report for fiscal year 2021-22 from Miss Coronado I would like to introduce our representative from Crow which is the company that performs the audit we have MS Murphy joining via Zoom I believe yes okay hello just want to make sure you guys can hear me we can't hear you okay great okay so thank you Lisa thank you everyone for having me tonight my name is Moran Murphy I'm the senior staff at
019Crow and we conduct the audit of the financial statement we also do audits over Federal Awards and state Awards so first one is going to be the financial statement audit and if you have a physical copy of the report in front of you it's going to be on page 74 where we talk about the results so first one is financial statements so we issued an unmodified opinion which is what you want to see that means there was no findings deficiencies missed statements anything like that so in other words it's a clean audit payment for federal compliance we tested the education stabilization fund programs commonly known as Esther or gear dollars money related to covid-19 essentially and there we had an unmodified opinion as well and then we also tested a number of State compliance areas
020and finally unmodified opinion so clean audit results all the way across the board um and then you guys also have measure n so under Proposition 39 we are required to perform a financial statement audit as well as a performance audit report so for the financial statement audit of measure n we have unmodified opinion so again no adjustments misstatements findings anything like that and then for the performance audit we have a methodology section and our report that describes the procedures we do over the bond to summarize we tested about 13.9 million dollars of expenditures and we noted no findings and you concluded that all the bond money was spent appropriately and for Approved Bond projects there are a few things we are required to disclose as Auditors so there are some areas in the report that
021do contain estimates like lcff Revenue calculations um Capital assets another one just to give an example there was one new accounting standard this year that was implemented titled gasby 87 and that is related to leases um however there was no Financial impact on the district related to that new accounting standard there were no audit adjustments and there was only one misstatement that was not required to be reported and that is related to the fair market value adjustment of the cash and County balances there were no situations where our Independence was impaired and we also had no disagreements with management during our working relationship and speaking of management we just want to thank Lisa and her team for providing everything on time and we know we asked for a lot a lot on top of her
022regular jobs that we just want to thank her and everyone else who was involved with the audit process so with that I will turn it over to questions if there are any is there any questions from the board there are no questions just thank you very much thank you what is Stellar on it and I want to thank a lot of people for um making this a clean audit because they they look at all of the money that's coming in from different programs and so for example our English learner program is one thing that's audited and so all of our English language teachers need to complete the paperwork appropriately for there to be no findings that's one example our attendance secretaries have to take attendance properly our ASB secretaries have to manage their records and
023so it comes from a lot of different departments HR Etc it is a team effort and so it's not just a business office we have a lot of people to thank and give kudos to for this well thank you Miss Coronado and the team okay thanks thank you very much thank you for coming tonight and then next we will have the citizens Bond oversight committee annual report and audit by Miss Coronado and actually we have one of our cboc members who is coming up here to give the report CeCe Linder and she is a former District employee also I'd have to let you know that I'm not a public I'm kind of nervous but I will do this I practice it at home so uh the committee members all former members turned out are we
024required to resign due to holding their other positions within the district we have four new members become being voted on at this meeting we have three pregnancies measure end passed by voters in 2008. to acquire construction improved school facilities including building new schools and classrooms to reduce student overcrowding improving existing schools for greater energy sufficiency and increase the access to computers and Technology 500 million dollars in general obligation bonds 55 million one hundred fifty thousand eleven percent sold as of June 30th 2022. 2021-22 project expenditures Rex 14 Elementary building project Rex Fortune Elementary land acquisition Center High School CTA construction Program Center High School CTA information communication technology program program management Bond sale issuance and refined refinancing costs total 16.25 million dollars performance audit art firm probe completed that cine Joint Unified School District exceeded
025exceeded bond funds only for the specific projects approved by the voters Financial audit Pro's audit disclosed note incidents of non-compliance the measure and citizens Bond oversight committee here are five states that in their opinion Senate Dwight Unified School District is in compliance with the state of California Constitution with regards to the dental bond process or the fiscal year 2021 and 2022. for some reason thank you is there any questions from the board thank you good job thank you very much CeCe Miss Pope can I just make a comment I I know when when Miss Coronado uh uh recruits folks to be on the board for this they probably don't realize they're gonna have to do a public speaking in front of you know maybe 60 70 people so I just want to extend our thanks
026to to miss Linder for for being here tonight I know public speaking for some is is challenging and then when we walk on the room but I appreciate the service you've done for our district while working here and then currently in this role so I just wanted to acknowledge her for that um this isn't the glory of what it's like oh great we get to work with the numbers and stuff oh by the way you get to come speak so thank you CeCe for that and thanks for your continued support thank you CeCe thank you Miss Coronado at this time we'll have the Williams uniform complaint quarterly report by Mr Jordan good evening I'm happy to report I have nothing to report this concludes my report thank you very much thank you Mr Jordan do
027you know how many times I've heard that it's a good one to hear yes I think there's only been one time that it was different in all those years and we'll continue to The Bullying prevention update with Mr Jordan as well as Mr barassi and Mr Miranda if you're impressed by my last uh presentation wait till you see this one I'm happy to introduce Mr brassy and Mr Miranda tough job good evening hi Mr Miranda this is uh wild great turnout um it's great to see everyone um I am pleased to present to you all I'm here this evening about the district's efforts to create a safe supportive and inclusive environment for all students staff and Families that create an inclusive environment free of mistreatment disrespect and isolation so this evening we'll be going over
028our bullying prevention efforts at the district level and then at the school site levels I was allotted I think two minutes I may have gone over that right now but I want to do my best to really paint a picture of what we're doing here because I think it's really important to uh to speak to all good that we are doing first slide oh sorry thank you all right so um really prevention and early event earlier intervention starts from a top down um so when all staff learn how to recognize and respond to bullying effectively students understand that they can trust staff to deal with bullying incidences appropriately through Public School works all staff have received a training through an online training module on how to prevent recognize report and respond to bullying harassment and
029intimidation content matter also address online safety and cyber bullying and again that was done this past fall for all staff and then as you're well aware um with Mr rassi's leadership uh PBIS positive behavioral interventions and support that really sets the groundwork for creating clear consistent routines and expectations that lead to a better functioning classroom and overall School communities and you also have the opportunity to braid restorative practices into PBIS and that focus is really on relationship building with the goal of building strong connections that promote positive behavior and a positive classroom climate again free of mistreatment adding to school-wide Improvement and building up students pro-social skills is the district's adopted Second Step social emotional learning curriculum which through engaging bullying prevention units provides students and staff with tools on how to recognize again recognize
030report and refuse bullying there are various classroom activities and the cool part is there's take home activities that encourage family discussions and help students reinforce the skills they've learned in the classroom and then with funding from Sacramento County Behavioral Health Services and Sacramento County Office of Education or when a few districts to receive this grant funding are anti-bullying efforts have allowed us to increase such activities as the student-centered relationship building program safe School ambassadors it's been in the district for about going on 10 years I would say um this program educates a diverse social leaders social Leaders with skills to prevent and reduce bullying on their respective class campuses and in their classroom student bystanders see hear and know things adults don't they can intervene in ways adults can't and are often on the scene
031of incident before an adult is they are a critical and necessary resource for positively impacting the crisis of bullying in our nation recruited students participate in a two-day interactive training along with several several adults who serve as program mentors again the idea of relationship building students and adults uh the training gives student ambassadors the skills and tools to result to resolve conflicts diffuse incidents and support isolated and excluded students so again relationship building and um creating uh uh campuses free of uh social isolation after the training small group meetings of ambassadors along with their program advisors are held every few weeks again to create a sense of community and these ambassadors are allowed to work with their program advisors in a safe environment and talk about what their experiences on on their campus and through
032activities and and dialogue program advisors are allowed to support the students as they go back onto their campus and in their classrooms and deal with mistreatment um our upcoming kindness challenge this is my favorite of the school year um this is happening uh next week so we want to spread a culture of kindness schools across our district can take part in this week-long great kindness Challenge and there's action-based and Hands-On experiences that focus on caring respect gratitude and inclusiveness this is just a shout out to North Country this is their calendar for their kindness week um so Monday the color of the world with kindness where one color from head to toe this can be any color for your whole outfit their activity for that day is to write a letter a kind letter to
033a staff and deliver it so uh that's happening next week and then finally a touch of understanding so building off the social emotional skills students are learning daily a touch of understandings Workshop builds character empathy and encourages students to accept and respect all individuals through this Hands-On disability awareness Workshop students go through activities in which they build life skills that enable them to understand and relate to people with disabilities so all walks of life as a result teachers staff and parents and students observe an increase in respectful interactions and friendships as well as reduction of isolation and bullying in the school and community Mr barasi is going to lead you through our bullying a reporting process the investigation process and additional support Mr Miranda I have one question second step in safe School ambassadors is
034not just through the elementary school does that go up to middle and high so safe School ambassadors is a elementary through high school program second step is a elementary through middle school program thank you you're welcome when would be a good time to get into what actually takes place with the kids Mr brassy okay Mr grassy thank you all right so I'm just going to hit briefly um nope okay uh so I'm just going to touch on reporting uh and the investigation process mainly through our administrators there's your typical channels of reporting incidents of Bullying speak a student can speak to a teacher family members can call in that all gets channeled eventually to administrators we do have two Avenues uh one one through catapult which is our we tip Association on every website students
035can families can anonymously report bullying those reports go directly to site Administration they can communicate again anonymously or they can get involved and get more specific one-on-one communication with admin there every report that we get of bullying there's a suspected bullying report form that is also submitted to admin and that's going to have a detailed description of the incident that took place so just to quickly touch on catapult it does not only do bullying reporting there can be concern for self or others any threats to school or students the people report any tips including things like vandalism uh bullying is just one of the things that you can report through catapult here's our suspected building report form as I mentioned earlier it provides the definition definition of bullying a lot of Education around what actually
036defines bullying sometimes versus conflict is done between administrators and students and families it includes things like where the incident happened it does have options for characteristics of the targets and then it does ask for contact information so that investigator or excuse me administrators can start their investigations so that process looks like this administrators have we have a process that was adopted I want to say probably eight nine years ago I was part of that committee that adopted and trained administrators um on this process we have 30 days to complete our investigations of bullying and that may include that initial report we look at any electronic communications that happen screenshots witness statements we have two different things that we do with our students who are targets of bullying usually through a counselor sometimes it is an
037administrator we go through what's a safety plan we'll talk a little bit about more about those in a second with the student who has done the action the act of bullying we have what's called an action plan that we take them through involving parents every step along the way there may be school-wide consequences for those students maybe some restorative practices as Mr Miranda mentioned earlier can be suspension expulsion and we follow Ed code to a t when we do that and then again we have an investigation summary page that the administrator fills out within 30 days so just to touch a little more Lauren can you advance it for me something's wrong um just to speak a little more on our action and safety plans again the action plan is done with uh usually the
038administrator and and the students who accused or has been proven um to be the aggressor in the situation those are done kept in the Kim file again signed by parents we involve parents in every step and then the safety plan usually done with our our counseling staff mental health professionals sometimes again administrators they go through with the students who are the targets work on strategies things that they can do including reporting again and then again we include those safety plans and our documents and in our files when we go through them um and again those include supports for for those students involved okay are there any questions about my piece or Mr mirandas I do have a question can you set a ruffle a few of the different heard of cases where someone says oh
039this person was bullying me the other person says no you were bullying me and it seems rather Mutual so yeah so um we we look at some elements when we look at cases of bullying uh the first thing is it's got to be severe or pervasive enough um to qualify to take to that step usually Bullying happens repeatedly there also has to be an imbalance of power between the target so two friends who get into conflict or two students that we consider at the same social physical emotional that level um usually that can sometimes turn into a conflict which we would then investigate and handle in a different situation but those things have to have to be present and a lot of those times we go through those definitions including the definitions of cyber bullying
040which is that harassment done online we go through those with families and then we decide whether we take it through the bullying investigation process or we handle it as a conflict are these kids trained to know the difference oh my voice was loved that are these kids trained to know the difference when it's too serious for them to handle um and what if say eight-year-old Timmy has been punched by several people or is being harassed by a group of people how serious has that taken and when does it get bumped up um so what I can say is through some of those elements our SEL training our second step program they all have elements at each grade level of bullying one of the great things about the safe School Ambassador training is it gives kids
041those resources to handle those lower level incidents that you're talking about but that last one is how and how to report how to talk um to an adult to a trusted staff member to a teacher about how to escalate and we do work on identifying those kind of situations as well and the situation that you talked about would be treated very seriously would go through this process and then Administration would take appropriate action I I do have a comment um as well in a question um I wanted to thank Mr barassi and Mr Miranda for your presentations the information uh was very helpful especially the overview of what's being done at the school sites to address the issue of bullying prevention I think it was Mr Miranda who mentioned that the all the staff was
042trained on Public Works training I was just curious to hear more about that and a question for Mr Lair I know that it was available for staff but what board members be able to have access to that for review I really think in terms of understanding bullying as well as how we're addressing bullying prevention in our district would be great to have that same training and access to the same training that the staff had is that a possibility a superintendent Lair or how does that all work uh yes trustee Lee we would we could certainly make that available and I'm going to lead to Mr Grimes it's every year we go through that or every other year that we do the bullying every year so every year we do go through it so when it
043comes up or even now we it's a link it's all an online program that we would be happy to share with the board I there is some it it's good information as we go through it so we're happy to get that out annually we can put you on our list where you get to go through it like all of us but it is it is good information because it does explain a lot of detail as Mr barassi pointed out and talks about the difference between conflict and actual definition of bullying and as stated earlier through those through like our catapult we tip that's on every website we encourage students don't try to diagnose yourself if it's something that you think is serious enough please report that'll get to the appropriate administrator uh and then you
044know we can we can deal with it from there so please make sure if you see something say something if that's to an administrator in person a teacher a trusted staff member or to report anonymously please do it that works for the older kids but not for the younger ones the other piece I think that we're not understating but actually gets used quite a bit is that catapult Anonymous system it is really good it has given us a lot of tips where maybe someone's at home a family maybe they're a little nervous but it initiates that conversation it does get used quite a bit uh not just for bullying but for many different things that help us with that so to to Mr Bryce's point if you see it say it we'd rather you tell
045us and then we work through it with you then someone think oh someone else will take care of it so we that that is not that is something that we need to continue to emphasize for folks to use thank you thank you very much both of you I'm sorry I'm gentlemen so um thank you very much for your presentation I um I'm very pleased to see this uh program going forward I think it's unconscionable cruel uh disruptive and harmful to the development of our children and I think this is very important so I applaud you for your efforts so my question is um I'm I'm new to the board I'm not all that familiar with catapult but one thing I did not notice in your presentation was the accumulation tracking of Statistics you know how
046how many reports what schools whatever type of identifiers that you have in this form is that captured in catapult or is there some other application or format or is it just stays on paper so I can't 100 speak to what catapult tracks I know who it goes to I know when incidents do arise to the level of administration and there is action taken whether it's through this process we have actually multiple means for recording in our Swiss system which is our school-wide information system that we use for PBIS so anytime we can track a student whether they're a Target or accused of bullying behavior in there as well through our Airy system I am not 100 sure I'd have to ask Mr Graham regarding how catapult retracts or how it tracks incidents coming in so
047to your knowledge there is no statistical tracking or collecting of information of this program as as it moves forward through through catapult catapult think of it more of an information conduit so I would need to double check but it really is on the back end once we get the report we have statistics on that so I think what Mr Bryson is whether it turns into a bullying situation or maybe it's a regular discipline or a counseling referral we we have all that but I I would need to double check on catapult to see they have to have a statistics on that I just don't know I have not seen that personally yet and administrator is incorrectly but we do have to close those reports out so we do have information on how those reports were
048closed whether it was an invalid report whether it went through and we did an investigation we do have to mark them when we close them so we will have information on them so if I can make sure I'm understanding correctly catapult's more like an email client for sending the message in but the actual data would be stored in Swiss and Aries correct I I would say yes I what we would need to find out is whether catapult tracks the number of referrals but it does it's it's a conduit you can you can two-way message back in it anonymously but really the action would be saved within Aries or swiss yes thank you any other comments committee updates Mr Jordan a curriculum instruction and special ed update busy boy good evening again I'd like to start
049this presentation with just a quick appreciation it takes a lot of hard work and effort to keep all this audio visual sound and everything up and going uh Eugene and Lauren month in month out do an outstanding job and what we don't see from behind the scenes the unsung hero there's four screens working back here that she is rocking and keeping everything going so thank you you guys do a great job next up we did our second uh assessment with the I ready uh program in both math and reading uh that was closed we had our meeting last week Becky Lawson did an outstanding job with all of our administrators we looked at the district-wide data started analyzing that data those site principles now on site admin are taking that back to their school sites
050and they're coming up with their school action plans based on their particular School data so that second window has closed and again we are working hard on that uh action plan moving forward Next Step partnering on on what I brought last month was our our health Mental Health Services I'm proud to announce that we are partnering with a research firm a national research firm called EAB uh we are going to hold uh here on March 28th a summit and we're invite we invited today all the superintendents from all over Northern California all the way down to Fresno all over the place and the topic is a road map for Effective and efficient mental health care in schools so what EAB is doing is bringing all the most current research on what works in schools in
051terms of mental health with students and staff and helping us to further develop all of our programs so that that's a fantastic opportunity not only for the other districts but for us and for us to host that so I'm proud to uh to announce that tonight and then finally tomorrow uh you know in the special ed world uh we are having a professional development for all of our admin and all of our sites where one of our program specials who's in charge of accountability uh Tracy Ramirez who does a fantastic job we're going to sit down and we're going to go through with the administrators a review of all of the tasks and all of the duties and responsibilities of the administrative team in an IEP we're also going to be looking at what our
052best practices for classrooms for students with autism which there's a checklist what should you be looking for what is going to help students to be successful in those classrooms so we'll be going through that as well again we're constantly trying to improve our services improve our delivery and improve what we're doing in all Realms regular and special ed that's wonderful thank you very much any questions for Mr Jordan great job yeah thank you good thank you yes thank you facilities update Mr Putnam good evening everyone well needless to say this last month weather-wise has been a little bit of a challenge for the district we've had numerous storms come through and pretty much the district handled everything great until Saturday was a little brutal about a 45 minute Monsoon is about the only way to
053really describe what hit here at Center High School I received a phone call from superintendent Lair we saw some water ponding over at one of our other school sites I met uh superintendent over there he myself my daughter mucked water out of four classrooms thank goodness it was minimal amount and we thought everything was all fine and dandy and then come yesterday and we find out that the theater flooded uh from the mass volumes of water that came down brushed off the baseball and softball fields overloaded the storm drains so we are in the process of starting Remediation in the theater and I'm hoping that we'll be able to get that back up and running Maybe by mcclellan's graduation is what I'm shooting for but uh worst case I'm looking for uh into the fall
054to get that because that will be a long process the football stadium also took quite a battering the infill for our artificial turf field is done with cork cork floats so all that rain brought all the cork up and so we have for better description snow drifts of cork all around so the football stadium is completely shut down right now for student safety purposes and as soon as we can have the company out there we will get that addressed that is the worst part and then our CTE project behind us and our Rex Fortune School sites they weathered the weather beautifully and they are still on target to complete out at their scheduled dates any questions no doing a great job yeah thank you for your efforts oh it was basically pretty much all hands
055on deck from Grounds Maintenance uh administrators custodial staff everybody just and the Supreme sorry I'm going to tease Richard Richard can talk Vivian Vivian can talk she and I she and I had a great time she she's a great young lady and she was a pleasure and she worked hard you know we had to sweep a couple rooms but she was right there with us and we were teasing her saying she wore boots she was only smart one of the group yeah tell Vivian thank you you got it thank you I'm also on a related note I'm noticing the continuing changes in this room and I'm liking how things are coming it is coming along I'd like it to move a little bit faster but we have some delays with getting materials and all that
056so yeah it's kind of that added add a bonus what is new in the room this month thank you very much thank you all thanks right now we'll go to comments from the audience regarding items not on the agenda and I do have a public card from Mrs Hughes this is yours long walk from over there wow is the mic on this is yours is it on um I just want to say good evening is Anderson comes back and um happy New Year happy New Year yeah so good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak um I've been involved with the district since about 2007. I've seen the various board members come and go and I have never experienced such a dysfunctional board Dynamic than in the last two years lately the meetings
057have been very difficult to watch November's meeting was very disturbing and hurtful to hear Dr Lee Attack the virtue of our students it upset many high school students and has been a popular topic on campus but most importantly it upset my children and that's when Mama Bear comes out to address the issue her comments regarding racism homophobia and needing to take action and training to shift the culture of our district were offensive her comments came across to my children as generalizing the student body and staff as being racist and homophobic although it may not have been what she actually meant that was how it was interpreted by my children unfortunately Dr Lee was not present last month to witness the presentation by our high school leadership group on the various ways that they have been
058changing the culture and dynamics of our school if she has ever attended any school event she would see that she is wrong changes are being made to include our various cultures and dynamics of the district I feel her comments were inappropriate and request a public apology Dr Lee I see that you may have some good intentions and ideas but your hostile approach and tone make it very difficult for your ideas to come to fruition I feel your constant criticism of our district has blinded you to the efforts and achievements of our admin staff and most importantly our students you speak of wanting to see more inclusion in celebrations of diversity yet at our High School's First ethnic event in November by the Hispanic youth leadership Club you didn't even take the time to show up
059to the event congratulate or even give accolades in your board report are you pushing empty requests for diversity or did this event not fall into your particular category of diversity You Preach diversity yet regarding the policy to verify your residence one of your arguments was that no other district has this policy am I to assume that diversity only applies when it's beneficial to your agenda you claim that showing your verification of residency is immoral do you also feel this way when you are requested to show identification at any other establishment you seem to be the only person who is not complying with this policy is this violation of policy going to be the norm for you am I I am curious as to what are the ramifications of consistent policy violation has the community elected
060of representative who feels she is entitled to vote to violate policy and openly promote this to our youth as she did in November's board meeting in the last two years the district's attorney the district's attorney has been called upon several times for issues that were cried out upon as being legal or not costs for attorney fees regarding our school board matters alone in the last two years was twenty four thousand dollars which comes out of our District's General funds money that should be used towards the benefit of our students our district and our community in November's meeting Dr Lee mentioned illegal and seek legal counsel numerous times how much more money are we going to spend on attorney fees for the duration of her term I feel that it may be beneficial for the community
061to nip this unnecessary spending of General funds in the bud and petition for a recall I'm sorry to interrupt you but the three minutes is up so you might want to wrap up I'm sorry done my drop [Applause] ready comments thank you thank you is there any other public comments from the audience present is there any online comments Miss hunt okay I have one person online with their hand raised please unmute your mic hello hello hello hi please state your name hi please state your name hold under the brown act I don't have to do that okay but I'm I'm calling in um because I have some concerns some very serious concerns about my child in your school district and I think that there is a lot first of all I would like to State
062I don't know any of I've never met any of you but I'm very concerned about things that my child has experienced in your school district and I really do think that there is an issue of prejudice and if prejudice is found to be true then you would have issues of racism and I grew up in segregation so I don't have to think of things off the top of my head I have lived through and in my experience and certainly getting the history of African-Americans in Los Angeles to various riots you can see there were issues and still remaining issues of racism but I wanted to talk about um the letter that I sent to all of you about the prophetic attitude at Dudley at Dudley it is just unbelievable how thoroughly the staff is when
063I try to interact with them I don't know if they're surely or caustic because I'm a person of color or if that is just their normal uh personality but I think it's Unbecoming of them when they are working with students I have had issues with teachers with my little one in your District I'm not going to go into it right now but as I have attended some of your your meeting via teams and the reports that I have been gambling because I'm I'm gathering my experiences and writing reports on what my child has experienced because it has been very dramatic also I would like um you've left the topic so I'm going to respect your agenda in in bullying but I will say bullying doesn't just have to be from student to student it can
064be teachers and administrators or bullies as well and another thing I would like to know um why there is no posting of PTO meetings at Dudley Elementary School I mean whenever there are committees that involve uh funding from the school or the district or the state this information should be disseminated to all of the people in the community and the parents as well as well as I said previously I sent you all a letter um I heard back the most to you but not all of you in regards to information being in violation of the brown act and if that is the case that is a very serious legal issue then I would hope you would address immediately I do think there are some issues and thank you all Happy New Year thank you um
065I would just like to say something really quick um during the bullying prevention presentation it mentioned the Catapult can be used to report even anonymously if you choose Prejudice harassment that type of thing so for your concerns regarding your student please do report it so that it can be properly investigated thank you Mr Bruno that's a comments on other comments Miss Carol okay thank you we will continue with the consent agenda do I have a motion to bring the consent agenda to the floor for a discussion quick point of order yes if you don't mind I've been doing the well Paul vote could we please start with Mr Mason because his vote's supposed to be advisory so I no Mr Mason's going to go last this time uh just that way we could keep in
066mind his perspective and work has to memorize just a request I'm gonna have to deny that right now okay okay sorry make an amendment to that request if we're not going to say that beginning um then we could just say that that's calling for an advisory vote so that it's clear to our constituents and all of us the capacity of the vote thank you thank you for pointing that out I did not do that before I appreciate that Dr Lee okay so um consent agenda I will move to bring it thank you second thank you very much um as discussed we will remove item one two eleven and 18 from the consent agenda do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended go ahead thank you Mrs Anderson do I have a
067second I'll second okay thank you Mr ballen do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended thank you second I'll second again if I'm not too late again thank you in roll call vote Dr Lee I Mr Bruno aye trustee Anderson aye trustee ballen aye and the advisory vote Mr Mason hi and chair of votes I in regards to consent agenda item one approve adoption of the minutes for December 14th 2022 the regular meeting do I have a motion to approve the agenda or approve the consent number one I will I will still move thank you do you have a second all second thank you roll call vote Dr Lee thank you Dr uh excuse me Mr Bruno hi thank you trustee Anderson aye trustee Valley aye advisory vote Mr Mason chair
068of outside in regards to consent agenda number two of approve resolution number 2022-23 resolution on board compensation for missing board meeting do I have a motion to approve I won't make that motion thank you do I have a second I'll second thank you Mr ballon roll call vote Dr Lee hi um you would have to abstain please oh only because this is the one related to the Mis meeting last month I apologize uh resolution for board yes that's related to me obscene thank you thank you Dr Lee uh Mr Bruno aye uh Miss Anderson aye Mr ballen aye advisory Mr Mr Mason aye and chair votes I in regards to the consent agenda number 11 do I have a motion to bring it to the floor for discussion so moved thank you do I have
069a second I'll still move thank you Mr Valen Mr Lair uh yes just uh this has come up a couple different times so I want to just re-uh State the the process for Surplus in books because us as Educators we don't like the idea of books being thrown away and it does come across when you read this that we are done with the books we're getting rid of them so I've had a couple conversations over the last few times and kind of I think we came up with a plan so the board actually approves the Surplus once that happens the materials are then placed on our website for 60 days and then after 60 days we then have the ability to pass them out to students uh sell them if that was appropriate sometimes you
070of textbooks we end up do selling them there's other like a private schools that might buy them and so one of the ideas that came up once we get through all that we typically would recycle the materials so it was brought to my attention one other option we can do is put word better word out to our community when it gets that time that we have these books these are library books that were either um damaged or out of date irrelevant information things like that but if we can get them in the hands of a family a student why wouldn't we so one of the options that we're looking to broadcast at is in our weekly or bi-weekly messages we will communicate with all of our families that we have these take a look here's
071a link to where they actually we actually post every title on a PDF and if parents want that they can connect with the district and we can make it accessible to them so they could get those so I think that was a great uh option that I was was brought to my attention so I wanted to let the board know that's something that we are going to be pursuing and hopefully having less go to landfills and more go into our students hands and communities hands is it possible is it possible to put some of the books in the book boxes some of our elementary school has book boxes actually it's funny we had a we were joking today we were saying if we knew the community libraries we could drive around and fill those up
072with some of the books um so yes we absolutely could put them in that and then also as we're driving down Black Eagle or whatever it may be if we see a little Library we could certainly awesome add a couple there so I know Mr Jordan and I spoke about that this morning so we'll make sure we just the idea is just if we can get him in someone's hands before they get to a recycling place I think it's better for a great idea for anybody that doesn't know the public library also does that like once a year or something they'll have huge Book Sales where you can pick up books moving on consented I just want to approve that so we can oh yes thank you consider it thank you thank you thank you
073let's do that let's approve consent agenda number 11. do I have a motion for approval all right so move thank you Mr Bowen do I have a second all second thank you Mr Bruno uh roll call vote please Dr Lee hi thank you trustee Brown aye trustee Anderson aye trustee ballen aye advisory vote aye thank you Mr Mason and chair votes I now we will have a motion to bring a consent agenda number 18 approved 2022 School accountability report card to the floor for discussion uh just briefly I had we got to bring it to the floor for a discussion please so moved thank you thank you okay Mr elect okay so uh I had briefed the board on this previously in Communications uh sarc's the school accountability report cards come from the state last
074year they did the same thing to us they have a a regulation that stipulates that we must have our sarks placed on our website by February 1st that's not a problem we bring it to January to the board however the state provides us some of the the stuff through calpads uh the material that's in those reports so the reports that you have in front of you all we're asking is that you approve with based on the material that's included in them we will then post those the state has said this is how we should do it and then once the state releases the data to us we populate our the fields that are missing and then we will bring them back to you but I think for full disclosure we wanted you guys all to
075know that this is not the done deal and this I'm sorry I'm not going to the wrap on this one this is not this is a state not us but they with all districts said get it approved and then come back at a later date because they want to meet that statutory requirement thank you for the clarification so do I have a motion to approve a consent agenda number 18. thank you and thank you Mrs Anderson Roll Call vote trustee Lee oops hi thank you Mr Broome aye trustee Anderson aye trustee Valley Hi advisory vote hi thank you Mr Mason chair votes I we will jump to business items um business item a flag salute disclaimer do I have a motion to bring it to the floor for a discussion until moved thank you do
076I have a second no second thank you trustee Lee um Mr Bellum this is something you wanted to bring forward yes thank you president um so as a Prelude to this agenda I brought forth as it came up during my campaign activities for this board seat I'd like to provide a little background information before I get into it this agenda item as well as others that will follow was brought to my attention and of which I advised I would bring forth to the board for discussion should I be elected I began my election activities in June last year and actively began campaigning about six weeks prior to Election Day November 8th during my campaign I contacted over 2500 voters in person in 17 different communities in both Plastering Sacramento counties and sent over 2 700
077emails to registered voters in our district potentially between these two I reached over 5 300 voters within the center Joint Unified School District community during my campaign a number of items of concern were brought to my attention of which I plan to present to this board I'm going off memory as to how often I believe they were discussed and will present these items based on the number of times it was brought up by our constituents and this item was the one that was brought up the most to me so it was brought to my attention there is a high degree of dismay around the disclaimer that is read at each meeting prior to the board's meeting agenda item number two flag salute which is the pla our Pledge of Allegiance this disclaimer is also printed
078in each board meeting agenda as well as placed in each meeting subsequent minutes it was expressed to me of people's disapproval and concern of the district's disclaimer to many in our community who may have lost family friends neighbors co-workers or acquaintances throughout the years in serving our country and their perception that such a disclaimer is disrespectful and desecrating to those aforementioned others that spoke to this describe themselves as just being patriotic and felt it was unnecessary many adjectives were used to describe how those I was conversing with felt many of which I cannot repeat here however the words disrespectful unpatriotic shameful desiccating profane and violating were used I researched this practice and was able to find any organization entity or group that performs this practice of disclaiming the need to stand salute and pledge allegiance
079to our country there are and have been some for over a hundred years laws legislation policies and regulations written over America's right to free speech as described in our constitutions first amendment that addressed this issue and to my knowledge almost everyone knows of this fact The Pledge original Pledge was written in 1892 and has been changed numerous times up through 1954. many challenges to the pledge have been made on both National and State's levels throughout this time the pledge has never been a legal requirement one has never had to recite it by law however the practice of not having to recite was codified in a U.S Supreme Court in 1943 in which the Court ruled school students could not be required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance this led to the generality that all people
080are not required to participate which is known by most everybody well I could not find any reference of a pledge disclaimer made in a public forum I did find a number of writings relating to policies and resolutions including school districts where the policy is to provide for a recitation or recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and instruction with an exception Clause describing the ability of those that were to decline to participate in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Allegiance is the strongest and most unifying statements that we have As Americans members of the United States Congress built the House of Representatives and the Senate begin their daily business with the pledge of allegiance to swear in affirmness their support and defense of the Constitution of the United States Schools and Government meetings throughout the
081country recite the Pledge of Allegiance with no disclaimer prior to saluting the flag so when he pledge the legions what are we doing the allegiance is an obligation of fidelity and obedience to the government in consideration for the protections and freedoms that our government provides the Flag represents the embodiment of our national conscience and is easily the most recognized symbol of our nation The Pledge is our chance to affirm one's loyalty to America and to show respect of our nation and recognize those that died defending our country has given us the Freedom's America grants its citizens respect and loyalty to our country is the least we can do to show our appreciation gratitude and respect for those that before us have fallen and those who have stood up to protect our rights so what is
082the importance of the Pledge what is accomplished by reciting words that we may or may not agree with the importance of saying the Pledge is declaring what we are and what we hope to be now and in the future The Pledge is to honor the sacrifice in history made by those who founded and established this country and is a testament in the fight for equal opportunity that has afforded everyone today it has provided a sense of nationalism and pride in its citizens and is a sign of American Unity The Pledge was created to unite us and reassures Americans that the sacrifices made by others does not go unnoticed and has led to the freedoms and opportunities afforded us all in closing I noted many feel that a Plex disclaimer is only not disrespectful and unpatriotic
083but a waste of time as well advising one of their constitutional rights at the beginning of each meeting to say the Pledge is like telling someone they are constitutionally protected each time they use their phone and that their Communications are private on private and privileged or receiving a notice prior to each time you send an email advising that your Communications are constitutionally protected these protections are well known as such I would like for the aforementioned to be discussed by the board with consideration to rescind this practice of providing a disclaimer to pledge allegiance to the flag furthermore I would like a discussion around creating a resolution a policy providing that before each meeting the Pledge of Allegiance shall be conducted thank you I agree with you is there any other comments yes that was a
084over six minute comment from an individual board member so I'd like to contribute my own um and it really relates back to things that have happened historically here on the board I encourage members of the public and my constituents who've talked to me about this at my office hours to really go back to the uh April 2021 packet and read the commentary that I provided about business Item B which was the Pledge of Allegiance we definitely have some differences of opinion here on the board Mr trustee ballon just shared his I'll share mine that the Pledge of Allegiance as written and as inducted on this board with the Dynamics of it especially if you go back and read my statement about my experiences with it our very divisionary and divisive and exclusionary acts and it's
085really not related to the business of this board not every school board in our nation starts at their meetings with a pledge of allegiance or any other mandated speech from anyone and um you know just out of respect for the folks who have died and have sacrificed and have served so that we do have the right to in this country uh not participate in Acts that we may find morally objectionable religiously socially or politically objectionable that is precisely what people have sacrificed for and that is why it is absolutely something that's important for us to consider as a board if we're not going to take the Pledge of Allegiance out of our agenda it has no business being there really except for as an exclusionary act to others who do not align with the religious
086or social or political statements that are embedded within that a particular exercise so I think it's important that we know the history of what's happened and that there are members of our community who did ask for these items and that is something that's historical it's part of the record um and I just frankly have to strongly disagree uh with Mr gallon's comments uh that he had to deliver about the purpose of our nation our democracy disrespect and so forth I think it's very important that we respect all and that we create inclusive environments for all people and that's why I agree with having the disclaimer if we're not going to completely remove the Pledge of Allegiance from our agendas as many school districts have thank you trustee Lee is there any other comments yes Mr
087Bell or Bruno sorry babies um so um first I want to make clear that um what's being discussed here is the possibility and this is not even an action item this is only discussion at this stage the possibility of removing the disclaimer um not making it mandatory to say the Pledge um I would be against that if that was what was being proposed but that's you know I just want to make clear that we are not saying that anyone would ever be required to say um I do see your point you made some uh very good points I do see the argument that it could be viewed as a waste of time because people already know their rights I'm not clear on how it's disrespectful or offensive to say that everyone is welcome whether they
088participate or not um I I personally don't see that as disrespectful and I know that when we profited it was not intended to be disrespectful but I also know that sometimes the way I communicate is not interpreted the way I intended so can you further elaborate on how you view that as disrespectful well um my my my personal opinion is um I I don't think that the disclaimer in and of itself especially after speaking to uh numerous people about it is necessary um and a lot of people I won't say myself is I deem it to be the disclaimer to be disrespectful but but let me tell you there were some people that were extraordinarily passionate about speaking to this matter they are members of our community and um and I can see their point
089I did the research I found no other organization uh and and I could be could have looked in the wrong places but I found no other organization uh whether it's governmental or or otherwise that stated a disclaimer that you do not have to to say the Pledge of Allegiance and it's your right not to say so um so I I have to I have to decide on those that that spoke to this uh there were I don't know how many dozens of people I spoke to that brought this up and felt it was like I said inappropriate disrespectful and use they used all kinds of adjectives and words um and I myself would feel more comfortable that we just say we're having the Pledge of Allegiance or with this flag salute and people knowing whether
090you know it's their right not to to say the Pledge of Allegiance that they choose to sit they can sit if you choose to stand and not recite if they choose not to put their hand over their art those are their constitutional rights and that that's should be taught in school I hope it is because that's where I learned it so um I I have to say that I I agree with those that that brought it forth with to me and um you know to to listen to people that have lost somebody in battle as I was told stories of such it's pretty heartbreaking and they they see this as um like I said disrespectful Discerning um and inappropriate so uh I I prove like I said my preference would be that it be removed
091uh from our staple of monthly board meetings and that's that's pretty much I hope that answers your question thank you thank you trustee Anderson I see Nancy Mrs Anderson talking to your mic I see it as in your face and disrespectful to any family member or service member who has fought for this country to give you the right to stand up and say what you're going to say people whose sons and daughters have gone over and died for this country to say that at the beginning of every meeting and tell people you don't have to have respect for our flag you don't have to have respect for our country it's just in your face I think sometimes it's better less said or not said they know they don't have to stand up I I think
092I'm understanding your your point of view a little bit better are you thinking that it kind of invites people to to I do okay and I think we've seen it here with our students we never had students not stand up for the flag salute until that started being read before every meeting okay and that's my point this is exactly about inclusion um and creating an environment where people feel free to express themselves um I think what trustee Anderson said it was really captured in my uh April 2021 statement to the board about this item the environment that this board has created the leadership we provided around this item is one of compliance and absolute compliance and you'll whip us argue against us and this kind of attitude of disrespect and so forth um things that
093are not even present in in the in the disclaimer as we're trying to spin it multiple ways uh the disclaimer that's there on the flag salute is one that was collaborated on by the board um and that the board adopted um and so now to say that because you know we have a new board member um who none of those 5 000 constituents that uh Mr balance spoke about who shared this with him have ever come to us at a board meeting so far to date this has been in use for over a year no one's written into us so if they're so passionate and you know descriptive about it it seems like we should have heard something from someone of those 5 000 folds uh I think it's uh ridiculous to conflate uh patriotism
094with having a disclaimer about the flag salute to somehow conflate you know people dying as being a disrespect because someone doesn't scan I think it's absolutely ridiculous and frankly almost fascist to even suggest such and it goes against what this nation stands for and what people have sacrificed and died for inclusion is important it's important to have an environment where everyone feels welcome and that they have a seat at the table too um the frankly the flat salute Pledge of Allegiance is a divisionary it's a device so that and one that excludes people and when it's used by bully it works even more to exclude faults and to make them feel excluded and like they better stand up or else we have rights in this country this is America it's a beautiful country and this
095disclaimer is one of inclusion it is one that welcomes all and I fully support it and my constituents have only told me positive things about it so you know we have a difference of what we're being told okay thank you we will have Mr Mason have his advisory um uh comment and then we will switch to public comment because I did forget and if any other board member has something new to say we can add at that time Mr Mason um I'd like to say uh in Middle School uh we said the pledge every morning and there was this one kid who would not stand and the teacher would kick him out of the class make him go to the office so I think by saying that they're welcome here and saying you don't have
096to stand except everyone here I'll continue to salute the flag and I know most people here will too but saying that it you're welcome no matter your view I think that we should keep it that it's better to keep it than to get rid of it the disclaimer yeah um before we go to public comment my personal view is I agree with the disclaimer everybody does have their right to stand and say the Pledge or not however I don't think that it needs to be written and spoken at the same time but I do agree with the disclaimer and I think it should stay on the agenda we will go to public comment is there any public comment on this I apologize I forgot to ask I see nothing yes you can come to the
097podium please and state your name if you will it's not on there we go um just to just to answer Dr Lee's Quest or statement that nobody has ever come forward and talked about the flag salute I myself wrote in when this was first discussed two years ago so yes someone has come forward and someone did speak about the flag suit and many other people I remember that night spoke about doing the flag salute so just to let her know yes many people did come forward and speak about it thank you is there any public comment any other public comment is there any online Miss hunt okay I have one it says mm cave please unmute unmute your mic hello I am a brand new parent here in the uh Center Unified School District we
098relocated from Folsom and I agree with Dr Lee you know we are in the country the United States of America we have freedoms we have choices and the disclaimer is just advising individuals of their choice to either stand or not they're not saying don't participate don't put your right hand over your heart it's just they are reminding people of their choice so I think that the disclaimer should stay thank you very much now if the board has yes thank you if the board has anything new to add then we can discuss this at this time is it New yes okay um just regards to something uh trustee balance said um regarding uh not finding any other organizations that do this as I've said before whether or not others do something in my opinion doesn't affect
099whether or not it's right for us to do it and we need to make that call individually but also I I can understand both sides of this issue and I've heard very little from the community in either direction so um if we are going to move this to an action item at a later time I would encourage the public to reach out to us and let us know your thoughts that's all thank you thank you we will jump to business Item B discussion regarding signage displayed on the board's table do I have a motion to bring it to the floor for discussion so moved thank you Mrs Anderson do I have a second I'll second thank you trustee ballen uh trustee ballen you had brought wanted to bring this forward do you want to start
100discussion yes thank you president Poe so this is agenda Byzantine Item B discussion regarding signage displayed on the boards table uh so it was brought to my attention there were you had to bring the mic closer to you and put it down possibly better yes okay so it was brought to my attention there were questions and concerns around the placement of temporary signs as well as could be permanently displayed on the board's table this table here where we all sit uh also goes by their names such as Council table committee table command table executive platform as well as other names my research shows that this platform for school boards is typically referred to as the board's table I was asked on many occasions during my campaign what the wording of the signs being placed on
101the table meant and what they represented unfortunately was not able to provide them with an accurate and correct answer as I honestly did not know it's my understanding from what I read that any signings placed on in front of behind or next to a board's table during a meeting represents the entire board as a whole and as such personal message should not be permitted in this forum signs are an integral part of presentation of the presentation by the board and personal messaging can detract from the board's message image and character any signage placed on this form should be reviewed and approved by quorum on the board all signs permanent and temporary should be subject to review in order to ensure such signage complies with the board's Direction and messaging um I think I lost my
102spot hang on a second oh okay uh as such I would like the aforementioned to be discussed by the board with consideration to rescind this practice uh well my mistake where did it go it's a credit excuse me so to put this in perspective allowing placement of personal ad hoc signage by board member would be like allowing a board board members to post on the school's website whatever they saw fit without any discussion by the rest of the board or District staff therefore I would like this board to discuss this issue brought forth and consider sign composition presented via a resolution so there is uniform policy in this regard additionally I would like for this board to consider a general function subcommittee create and assembled for future consideration of signage placed on or around the
103board's table this table which represents all the board lastly I'd like to point out that this discussion should also include any computer screen presentation or Background by board members should they be attending the meeting via electronically from a remote location thank you and thank you trustee ballen do I have any public comment regarding this item I see no comments from audience present how about online Mrs hunt thank you I have one question from mm cave please unmute your mic hi there I'd like to know from the gentleman and I I apologize I I missed your name but I'd like to know if this uh proposal is geared directly towards Dr Lee because of the sign that she had at the beginning of the meeting where it said sitting in solidarity is that is that directed
104directly towards Dr Lee well to my knowledge trustee Lee is the only person that is placed uh signage out uh in front of the board's table and I believe that is what people are referencing to when it was inquired of me so we're circling back to the beginning when we have the disclaimer about the the um the Pledge of Allegiance as well as Dr Lee letting everyone know that she's sitting in solidarity so there seems to be and again I'm a new parent and I I'm seeing this antagonistic um energy you know this is my very first board meeting and everything that I've seen is directed toward this one individual and I cannot see everyone else on the diocese the dice because in the zoom meeting I only see Dr Lee and I see people
105in the audience and a screen and so I cannot zoom in to see the makeup of the other individuals of the board but it seems that there's some sort of um I I don't know it seems very antagonistic that it's all directed towards Dr Lee so is there an agenda basically my question is is there an agenda uh of for with the board towards Dr Lee um public comment um is just that we don't comment okay and I understand so maybe that can be on the record in the next board meeting that can be addressed but as a new parent I'm trying to understand the school district that my child is currently in because we came from a public excuse me a private school and I put my child into a public school and now
106I'm looking at this this is my first board meeting I'm thinking okay what the heck is going on here um I'm sorry um I missed your name so I apologize for that I'm cave yes it's it's on there yes thank you um if you wish um all our email address um email addresses are on our website if you feel free to email all of us or whomever you want in regards to your concerns and we would be happy to address them and uh superintendent layers as well okay thank you thank you very much ma'am I appreciate your comments um is there any board comment um is there yes um and I I just want to say that um I'm also noticing a trend in the business items for tonight uh all three of them are
107focused on me and uh really it's making clear the bullying pattern that is existed on this board and the board majority since my tenure started in 2020 and I won by an upset election defeating incumbent Nancy Anderson uh then proceeded to call out some of the racist and homophobic things that she said in Open Session that my constituents wrote about and that I also complained about that we never censured uh trustee Anderson over um and then you know the Pledge of Allegiance issue happened um and you know other issues have happened like the Heritage Month uh celebration issue you know where I really tried to advance cultural inclusion and celebration and recognition of Heritage months in our districts which takes a very monocultural approach to these topics and instead at that time then president Bruno
108um you know stated that we should have German History Month in Polish History Month just willfully ignoring and misunderstanding and refusing to take a look at the purpose of Heritage months and what they are intended for or to uplift marginalize communities they're federally established for that purpose but I don't want to revisit everything I just want to Simply note that I welcome you trustee ballon to the board you're falling in quite well with the board majority Dynamic two of your business items that you've Advanced today are direct attacks on me I really wish that these attacks on me could end and that we could focus on student achievement in this District that is the mission of this board that is why I ran all of these distractions about everything else are purely distractions it's embarrassing
109as a former Civics educator and current Civics educator and diversity equity and inclusion specialist to have what happens at every meeting happen again the dysfunctionality needs to end the bullying needs to stop thank you thank you is there any more business skills um I would just like to say that the business items might be interpreted as an attack but I would like to remind everyone that the flag salute disclaimer being added to the agenda was a business item that I had put forward originally um and I think describing this saying that this is a waste of time we should be focusing on other items other items can also be added to the agenda so during Advanced planning I look forward to those suggestions thank you thank you trustee Bruno Mrs trustee Anderson I have a
110question for Dr Lee if you're going to have a sign on the board table during a meeting that says sitting in solidarity I think we should know what that solidarity is thank you trustee Anderson and trustee Bruno for your comments too I'm sorry I can't you know I think it's important um that this was as I mentioned I point us back to the April 21st 2021 uh agenda packet there's a written statement from me there it explains exactly what's stated in solidarity means uh and my concerns about having this as a an item on our board agenda so the board declined to remove the Pledge of Allegiance um and we instead came up with this disclaimer to just show welcomingness and inclusion for all um so that's uh about that part in that aspect of
111it um the discussion about the signage displayed on the boards um table today is quite interesting I heard Mr Allen's uh opinion about it I happen to disagree with him and I just again see it as another veiled attack but actually very direct attack on me um and I really wish we could we could stop it and and move ahead with focusing on diversity equity and inclusion and the burgeoning student achievement in our district to do that we as a board have to directly confront the racism and homophobia that's present among us so that we can effectively lead uh efforts towards diversity equity and inclusion and we've been struggling for a couple of years now to do that and I hope we'll continue to struggle because it's a worthwhile struggle and that's what we should
112be doing as public school servants and trustees on this board thank you trustee Anderson we're going to close discussion right now and we're going to move forward to business item c um business item C resolution number 11 20 22 23 resolution of center of trustee tabiali do I have a motion to bring it on the floor for discussion let's have a quiet please so moved thank you do I have a second I'll second okay at this time I'm going to read the resolution Center Joint Unified School District resolution number 11 2022 23 resolution of censure for trustee tavioli whereas Center joint excuse me Unified School District board bylaw 9220 States recognizing the Public's right to know if the board members continue to meet the qualifications to serve on the board and in effort to provide
113transparency within 30 days prior to the governing board's annual organizational meeting each board member must provide verification in the form of at least two documents that they continue to reside within the school district boundaries the annual verification will be made with the superintendent's office with the superintendent and at least one other staff member witnessing the board member addressed the board member addresses shall not be made public further the documentation is for verification only and neither the address or the documentation will be kept on file and whereas Center Joint Unified School District board law 9220 further States upon verification from all board governing board members and no later than the next regular board scheduled board meeting after the annual organizational meeting the superintendent shall report whether or not each board member has provided address verification within
114the district boundaries and what types of documentation will be provided by each while the status of the verification and forms of documentation will be discussed the addresses themselves will not be disclosed and where and whereas Center Joint Unified School District of bilot 9220 further States if a board member is unable to to provide at least two documents to verify their residency they will discuss with this with the superintendent as early as possible to find a reasonable accommodation for verifying residency and whereas Center Joint Unified School District by law 9220 further States if residency cannot be valid verified actions would be taken up to and including censure and whereas trustee Lee did not provide verification of residents prior to the December 15 2021 organizational meeting and whereas trustee Lee did not provide verification of residency prior
115to December 14 2022 organizational meeting and now therefore be it resolved that the board does not condone trust easily lack of compliance with board bylaw 9220 and it be further resolved that this board does not hereby excuse me that this board does hereby sanctuary and formally express its disapproval of trust easily conduct described above be it further resolved that the board hereby directs trustee Lee to properly perform her duties as a board member by complying with the board member annual residency verification portion of bylaw board bylaw 9220 be it further resolved that if trustee Lee chooses not to comply with board bylaw 9220 specifically board member annual residency verification a letter along with a copy of this resolution will be sent to the California attorney general for further investigation at this time Dr Lee do
116you is your opportunity to make a statement oh and I have an opportunity to make a statement am I on trial uh president no that that is um per the uh policy of censure that is in our policy what portion of our policy states that um Mr layer do you have that by chance can you bring that up I don't recall that being a portion of our newfangled censure policy was it in the policy that we found that it's under the procedure portion it's in the backup for the agenda so it's the um when in the opinion of them yeah so on the second page of it the board member who is a subject that said Center motion shall be provided the opportunity to explain his or her action so not a statement necessarily but
117just if there's any reason a rationale behind it okay I excuse me you said the the word statement it's you have an opportunity to speak if you will thank you for that clarification uh superintendent Larry that's a big difference I am what was stated but I'm president um so yes I would like to direct the public um to my November uh 2022 statement it's in the board packet it's published on this very topic um of uh the development of a board residency verification policy um which uh then president Bruno admitted he thought of from his mind um and we had one public commenter who at that time stated that she didn't believe that the people advancing all that Equity stuff really lived here and so she wanted to see a policy developed to have our
118board members annually verify residents it really reminds me of like Jim Crow times uh you know when folks will be accused of not living somewhere or not belonging somewhere they shouldn't be somewhere they should verify and show their papers and you know really I encapsulate related my resistance my continued resistance to this Ward policy that only our district were the only District in the state of California that I found and I asked my colleagues to produce a state of California examples and they have not yet but like they mentioned we like to be Trailblazers not about student achievement not about elevating our marginalized students and communities and combating racism and homophobia at every step and every turn what we're passionate about policing each other and getting Lee to shut up and unfortunately Lee was a
119dulia and is a duly elected official I was elected by my constituents two Advanced diversity equity and inclusion in this District it's in the monoculturalism that's here I will continue to speak about that if that causes people to question if I live here or not and then to make policies to make sure I comply with them I'll continue to resist that I love this resolution I love that it says that this board will take legal action which is why what I've asked them to do from the beginning present it to the attorney general and to the Board of Elections officials let's get the ball rolling on that because it's out of line it's out of order and as I told the students at the November meeting when something's out of line and out of order
120you have a duty to resist it and to not comply with it when someone tries to make new rules to subject dually elected officials who already need eligibility criteria to new local rules it's ridiculous don't comply with it always resist when you think that something's immoral or wrong I continue to say that this is an immoral and wrong act it's just elevation of the bullying and the harassment that's taken place from day one here and this is the grand culmination of it get that letter out to the attorney general get that letter out to whoever needs to get it so that we can move ahead and focus on student achievement that's all I have to say about this resolution thank you for the opportunity thank you trustee Lee at this time we'll have public a
121comment I do have a commenter on Mrs excuse me I do have a public commenter that wrote out a card they don't need to write out a card they can just they can stand up after the one that after the person that did write a card so I will call on Mrs Hughes please no yes no okay I just want to start off that this is another um way that Dr Lee is wasting the money with the censure thing she says that it is not a big deal to verify residency well I want her residency I am one of the people who would like your residency verified I am a Community member and I would like that done the policy wasn't written for just you the policy was written for every single board member up
122here every single board member showed verification of residency what you are doing is holding out it is not immoral whatsoever if you think of it as immoral for yourself then I think you need to reevaluate your morals really again I addressed you in my letter that is this something that you protest every time someone asks you to show ID or verification no and another thing you're wasting money again from the general funds this is a total waste of money that is coming out of every single person's um taxes right here just to get you to show residency so thank you so much for wasting the money are you responding to me I'm sorry are you because I cannot hear you we will not respond to public commenters we will not respond to public commenters thank
123you Mrs all right my other question was oh we didn't um if someone is censured do they remain or do they get paid while they are on censure because again she is being paid by the district from our tax money she is getting paid while she's centered if she gets censured and not following policy thank you Mrs Hughes okay um so there are several people in the audience that would like to come up to the podium so please file single file please state your name if you will my name is Jacob Conroy I'm a student at Center hi Jacob um I'd just like to say that I think it's ridiculous that you're comparing the fact that you won't verify that you live within this district with Jim Crow laws I think that's utterly and completely
124irrelevant to what's going on people want to make sure that someone who is on our Board of Trustees can actually decide what's best for our district making sure you live here and with you deflecting that it's that it's somehow going to become that it's somehow racist or homophobic which is an irrelevant point to bring up and then also saying that it somehow somehow has to do with Jim Crow that's ridiculous you're acting like a child trying to deflect all this because you don't want to prove that you live here you're you're saying that this is all because of the Board of Trustees agenda and because people don't like you no it's because you've you had a duty to prove on December 15th that you live here and you've rejected that duty to do so instead
125you're putting the blame on everyone else instead of just doing it this wouldn't have been an issue if you were just done when you were asked [Music] foreign ER uh just to add on my name is CJ and I'm a student here at CHS is abundantly clear that the growing trend on this school campus especially with board meetings is my first board meeting I really like the energy going on here especially with that last speech but I must say that most of my teachers do agree with that statement not going to name a lot of teachers but it is a pretty well-off opinion that you're not really good here in regards to that you mentioned that there needs to be more equality there needs to be more diversity how would you know that if you
126haven't been on a school campus or attended any events I'm sorry as I'm not good for public speeching but I think that's because you do not live in the district and that's why you deny that that's all I have to say thank you is there any others [Applause] please Hey so uh I'm not really here to disagree with you Miss Lee at all because I kind of do understand what you're saying like I'm gonna lie we more focused on like all this extra stuff but the school really not going that crazy right now like we're not focused on what the school is doing we focus on where you live at and I really don't see the point in that either because why would it matter if none getting done here like I don't know I
127can't speak for the other students but really how I feel is worth doing a bunch of rambling about what should be said or how to say it right and it's really not getting nothing done I mean the world hard on its own and we just not we're not getting to the real the real point of like we gotta make improvements to the school and not come worry about where you live at so I ain't here to disagree on I'm not going to agree with everything you say but I don't I don't harshly disagree with you at all that's all I gotta say we need to get to the facts though [Applause] hello my name is kamiya Jackson I just moved here from Center I was recently at Oakland Tech um I just want to say
128that the way students and like others have been acting towards you I'm sorry for that I feel like that's disrespectful but everyone's open to their own opinion I also agree that with the money that's being wasted and either aspect could go towards the school in hbcus and learning about different College opportunities for different students I just want to bring that to the board's attention thank you very much [Applause] okay Mrs Hunt is there any online comments thank you at this time we'll have some board discussion we'll start with Mr Bruno if he has anything to say um I would just like to reiterate what I've said in previous discussions that I strongly believe that all board members do reside within the district that's not the the issue here for me for me the issue is
129the willful disregard of our policies and procedures um the rule was created through proper procedure and trustee Lee is is choosing not to follow our procedures and that does concern me on the other hand um at the California School Board Association conference in December of um there was some discussion about censure and it was stated to me that censure should be reserved for the most serious offenses or when the district needs to isolate themselves for legal purposes from the behavior of an individual although I'm very disturbed by the disregard for the rules I'm not convinced that it rises to that level thank you thank you Mrs Anderson I would like to address why it's important that we do this and why it's important that she lives in the district by law you have to live
130in the district to be a school board member if a school board member doesn't live in the district that means every vote that's taken at this table is brought into question and maybe an illegal vote that means every dollar that she receives which I admit is not a whole lot but may have to be repaid to the government or every dollar the district receives is brought into question it opens up a whole can of worms and I feel that as a board we are obligated and responsible to our community and to our district to forward this and get to the bottom of it she is deliberately set it up to refuse and absolutely refuse to just show the superintendent her address and verify it with him and it is a requirement to be on the
131school board that you live within the district boundaries and most of us believe that she does but she's just refusing to verify it and that is part of the regulations so we have an obligation she has an obligation to the district and to the community but she refuses to do it so she's tied our hands and she's wasted all of this time and money and effort by everybody just so that she can prove her Point nurse she thinks she can prove her point so that's all I have to say my comment um students follow policy and procedure our staff follows policy and procedure we the leaders of the school district should also follow policy and procedure I believe it's very important for the board members to set a precedence for the people in our district
132and if the leaders don't follow policy and procedure well then what's going to happen chaos trustee Valley well thank you president Pope so um being the newest member of the board I'm on a somewhat of a quagmire here because I was not involved in this process prior to uh uh the last board meeting and and this and this evening's board meeting um my position is is I agree with everybody and I disagree with everybody if that makes any sense um I took the opportunity to educate myself I spoke to an attorney and a public policy um official uh very high very high up very well known uh and I think I got some really good information um the points taken by trustee Lee uh some of the points she's taken uh I believe are true
133um there is no uh requirement once you are elected to again prove your residency unless a certain criteria or set of circumstances that is requires attention at a very high level to my knowledge that has not occurred with trustee Lee it was just an inquire my understanding was just an inquiry by a number of community members it was brought forth to trustee Bruno I believe it was or trustee so well several trustee members let's just put it that way so my concern here is is that was the right path taken I I I'm not going to say because I wasn't here on the other side of the coin is the fact that there was a resolution it was created there was a policy not a policy I'm sorry uh we had the our our attorney
134take a look at it it was deemed to be not in any violation and that we had the right to do so by law so like I said I'm in a quagmire um my personal feeling is I provided my uh information to superintendent Lair it's pretty painless uh he didn't write down my address just wrote down what I presented um that is what is being required just showing proof that you in fact live in the district um how trustee Lee feels that is inappropriate and moral illegal and some of the other terminology she's used that's entirely her right um but I I'm I will I will side on the on the fact that or I believe I'm going to side on the fact that it's if if the board passed this and and the consensus
135is this is something we should do and it doesn't violate anybody's rights uh then it should be enacted thank you Mr Bell do you want an advisory comment please or if you wish you don't need to I I represent the students up here and I'd say the students feel 50 50 on it half the students feel that we should get the ball rolling and pursue legal action the other half don't feel it's necessary very well okay thank you at this time we will ask for a motion to approve resolution oh is there a motion to approve I'll move it to approve resolution number a business agency second out second thank you um we're going to call for a vote at this time trustee Lee you are unable to vote um per the policy Mr Bruno
136oh still I guess I'm obscene thank you I'm gonna vote now okay I it's like speak in your mind I um for the fact that first of all I want to State I believe truly believe Dr Lee lives in the district um I believe we all live in the district as Mr Bruno said and as I stated before policies need to be followed and there is a policy because community members emailed and spoke to the board several of us in regards to residency of board members so for that reason we chose to write a policy and it was approved by the board um four to one it was done in public comment or a public meeting a business meeting in public for these reasons um the policy was not followed by one individual so for
137that reason I'm going to vote I trustee ballen aye advisory vote thank you business item C passes student board report Mr Mason so coming off the winter break coming off the window is it on coming off of Windows coming off the winter break uh we don't have we don't have okay Howard's mic no uh we don't have much going on um we still have our uh boys and girls basketball going on but unfortunately due to the facility um the football field soccer field all of our games home games have been postponed until further notice for soccer both boys girls um coming up though we have our financial aid on the 24th of this month our financial aid night sorry and then the week of Valentine's Day the 14th through the 17th we have a spirit
138week and then on the 17th we have our winter rally um and then I'd like to invite all members of the board to come to a student business meeting on the 8th of February we start at 7 40. in the morning okay 7 40 on the 8th of February oh uh room 603 thank you thank you uh Mr Bruno would you um I'm Gonna Keep it very brief uh this month and I just want to say this storm recently has been really bad and I did not want to leave my house so I was very thankful and appreciative for those who were leaving the comfort of their homes to deal with the situation um yeah I I was avoiding driving as much as possible we got our groceries delivered to us so we wouldn't have
139to drive um but you guys came out did the work and prevented further disaster thank you trustee Anderson leave it to California to be in a drought and Flooding at the same time conflicted state um just welcome everybody back from the holidays welcome everybody back from the holidays and I don't think we had any tragedies this time so that's great news and thank you all for attending um we've been very well behaved and I'm always so impressed with students from the high school you've done a great job um I hope I can go to the meeting you talked about Mr Mason um maybe Del Rey will drag me along with her and we can do it together um other than that happy New Year stick to your resolutions and we'll see you next bye Mr
140ballon thank you president Pope um to reread reiterate uh trustee Anderson welcome back from the holidays hope everybody's getting back into the groove so for me it's been a busy 15 days that's how many school days there were since I took office last month due to the winter break I didn't have as much time to acclimate myself to the my new role School Board member as I would have liked but I believe I was able to see a lot during this time so first in keeping with my campaign promise to ensure the safety and security of all our students and the opportunity to attend a regional safety Symposium in San Mateo on January 11th hosted and sponsored by the San Mateo County Board of Education and the Northern California regional Intelligence Center also known as
141enrich I had the Good Fortune to attend this event with director of facilities Richard Putnam and Center High School principal Gerald Ferguson a real like thank them both for making me feel welcome during this trip I'd like to uh a lot of really good information was provided so the time and travel was well worth it the information we obtain has been provided to superintendent Lair and we plan to review the material we returned with to see how some of the initiatives practices and policies developed in the San Mateo region may be adopted here in Center Joint Unified School District to ensure absolute safest environment for our students teachers and staff on Friday the 13th fortunately it was a good day nothing bad happened another little bit of rain I had the opportunity to be briefed
142on the Career Technical education program commonly referred to as CTE program at Center High School and to visit the CTE buildings being built for the information and communication Technologies and the Building Trades and communication construction programs the buildings are coming along nicely and I have to again applaud our facilities folks for delivering the highest quality projects on time and within budget I look forward to the opening and know that many students will learn a lot in these locations for decades to come my thanks to superintendent Lair Center High School principal Ferguson director of facilities Putnam and director of curriculum instruction and special education Mike Jordan for the general provision of their time in briefing me on the CTE program and providing the tour of the new CTE buildings also on Friday the 13th I had
143the privilege to visit Spinelli Elementary School it was an honor and privilege to have been there and see how our district provides the highest quality education to our students a big thank you to Spinelli's principal Erica Olmsted superintendent Laird director Putnam and director Jordan for the tour and briefing of this outstanding school I very much enjoyed sitting on in several classes and watching our teachers do the great work that they do in educating our community's children something I noted while I was at Spinelli which I have to comment on so while in the first grade class of teacher Sabrina golubick I hope I pronounced that correctly upon entering of our Entourage to her classroom Miss golubick did not miss a step in focusing on her children's activities she did not look up or acknowledge us
144focusing only on the students of whom she had their complete attention and they also were not distracted by our presence due to her attentiveness to them to me this is the caliber of teacher that we want and need for our district and what makes Center Joint Unified School District as that as outstanding as we are uh kudos to miss goliben next I'd like to thank Carol hunt and all the school state staff that participated in and presented January 2023 report to the board I thoroughly enjoyed reading what all the sites are up to and their remarkable accomplishments keep up the good work lastly I unfortunately have to report on my understanding around the funding of our special needs students I was quite surprised at learning of the lack of funding that is available for these
145special children it is my intention now to also focus on this matter during my tenure as a board member to ensure all that can be done is done for these students moving forward so they too may have a bright future from their education and Center Joint Unified School District in the next couple months that's my intention to tour Center High Wilson Riles North Country Dudley Oak Hill and McClellan as well as having a briefing by staff on the district's technical infrastructure and Technologies inclusion I want to be sure that all that watch this board meeting live or recorded please please know that you are more than welcome to come here and attend this meeting in person and I am sure all the rest of the aboard encouraged us as well your presence would be greatly
146appreciated by us and any input you choose to give would be helpful and beneficial to the board the district our schools and our students so this completes my board for a report for January 2023 I want to commend the students in the boardroom here this evening of their courteousness attentiveness and patience it's very much appreciated thank you very much uh trustee Lee all right so greetings all welcome as some of us have said to 2023 um I'm really hoping that everyone has remained safe and well and in good health as we're navigating this extreme weather emergency that continues to impact our state and our community at this time I really want to take a moment to thank the facilities team for working efficiently to address the water issues that are happening at our schools and
147to get those facilities restored as soon as possible I really just want to know that we've wasted a lot of time today we're Folks at the same time expressed that they believe that I reside here in the district and that they wanted to continue to stand by of residency verification policy that should have been rescinded when I asked for it I think twice previously and gave very cogent reasons and shared my research with a Board of Elections officials in California Department of Education officials and their statements about out this particular policy so I'm truly looking forward to this advancing and to the apology that will be delivered to me for this today's censorship once I am Vindicated um also I think that this has shown the true priorities of our board majority and their supporters
148it's really made it clear once again but I remain focused on taking meaningful action to improve student achievement and cultural inclusion in our district by any means necessary second earlier this month I had the pleasure of virtually attending the California school board association's annual education conference as part of my board member development activities after some access issues were resolved and I just want to take a minute to thank superintendent Lair and Miss Hunt For assistance with those issues with the California school board association's platform we made it through one of the standout workshops for me that I attended to learn more about how to to Be an Effective governing board member was a session on Effective Government practices with an equity lens and this was a facilitated by Nicole Anderson and there were a couple
149things that stood out about that presentation to me while I hear about some of us visiting School sites and doing walk-throughs of school sites one thing I haven't heard about is doing a walkthrough that's focused on equity and Equity walks are something that Miss Anderson presented about in her workshop on effective governance practices with an equity lens and it's something that I would find very meaningful and informative as a board member both for our in-person and independent or online study classes as many of you know that my tenure was started during a global pandemic and two years almost a lockdown so but I am very familiar with our school sites and I have relatives and I've had children enrolled in our school side so I have a deep awareness of that and it's something I
150spoke about in my campaign for my dually elected position so I really would like to see us learn more about Equity walks um and to start using them as part of our practice as soon as we can maybe it's something that the equity committee can take a look at another thing Miss Anderson pointed out during her Workshop that resonated with me is that an equity statement or policy isn't something you just knock out in a couple of hours or at a single board Workshop she explained that Equity statements and policies take time to develop and she suggested that an effective Equity policy can take more than a year to develop and to me that really made sense especially as I reflected on the manner in which we developed our own Equity policy as a board
151so finally I really do just want to assure my constituents that I will continue to do what I was elected to do here on this board to shine a light on the burgeoning student achievement in this district and to do all I can and to put an end to the monocultural homophobic and racist practices that we engage in so that we can open the door for greater diversity and student achievement it's really important because these things are interrelated student achievement is related to the levels of diversity equity and inclusion that we see present in a learning environment this is research supported so I really just invite folks to keep sharing your perspectives with me I continue to have my open Office hours that I've had since I started my tenure they are virtual you can
152pop in anytime it's drop in four to five first Mondays the next one's on February 6th and the link is on the board website and by all to continue to just drop in share your concerns and I'll keep bringing them forward thank you trustee Lee before we go to our student representative um yeah we all do um not all but we do when we can walk the sites and Dr Lee I'm excited to hear um your board report when you do your equity walk we would love to hear it so Ah that's a great idea so once that happens I'm excited to hear your board report well it's actually a practice president uh Pope and it's something that we would need to learn about and Implement in a strategic way it's usually something that a
153board suggests as part of their Equity policy but watching Miss Anderson's I think we have on-demand access to her presentation watching that will really help you as president hopefully make some machinations for us to make a resolution maybe to start supporting and doing Equity walks in our district that would be wonderful yeah that'd be great um so as soon as you know we hear some information from you I think what you're referring to is actually trustee Kelly I don't believe it was trustee Lee or trustee Anderson no I'm I'm referring um to the person that I mentioned uh who was the facilitator of the workshop at the California school board association's annual education conference the workshop title was effective governance practices with an equity lens and that was facilitated by Nicole Anderson who is the
154CEO of Nicole Anderson and Associates Consulting LLC for my understandings just declaration I apologize I thought you meant Mrs Anderson my apologies um Mr Mason you want to give your horror report um yes I'm all confused thank you it's my turn and then we'll go to superintendent Larry prior to break I had a great opportunity to visit a Wilson Riles Winter concert and Mr Johnson have you ever seen that music teacher he is amazing he engages the students of his musicians in choir and in band he engaged the students in the audience with the presentations at the the musicians were doing it was a great it was enjoyable Mrs Kent read Twas the Night Before Christmas and in the background the band entertained us with some sound effects so very enjoyable um a few months
155ago we received the employees received a newsletter the first newsletter actually from our business office and I wanted to tell Mrs um Miss Coronado once again to that it was a brilliant idea just another way to inform our employees of what's going on in our business office there is so much goes on and I think it was a great idea so thank you for doing that for all of us um I would like to say thank you to our school site administrators so for submitting their school board or school reports the board reports to us I know it took time but I appreciate it and it's amazing what you accomplished in the three months that excuse me that you provided I would like to say how proud I am to be a part of a
156district that supports one another and works together as a team the recent storm could have caused catastrophes within the district our district is in full safety mode following our district safety plan section 18 severe weather the district utilized the emergency phone tree to keep one another abreast of the situations within the district facility maintenance and operations did an amazing job keeping the facilities grounds safe and clean anticipation for the arrival of our students and staff thank you everyone for keeping our students and staff safe superintendent layers leadership and guidance made for a smooth mood smooth smooth move between the 10 storms that we've had within the area he kept the board constantly informed and was available for questions when needed so thank you Mr Lair and District staff or district office for getting us through
157the weather related issues board members mark your calendar for March 7th a Spinelli Elementary will once again host their Multicultural night the last time they did this was prior to the pandemic and the students had dressed they danced they shared food of different cultures it was an amazing time this is another way that our school sites bring diversity and inclusion into our school district congratulations Spinelli I will be there on the 7th we have many successful and talented people within our district for instance our own Mr Bruno's wife is a publisher of two children's novels or books I recently came across this book blintered Birthright splinted Birthright is a story that follows a young girl's school a young girls high school living in a human part of a supernatural Planet she lived a normal and
158happy life one day her life turned upside down after a surprising turn of events I'm not going to read any more you got to get the book this student Rebecca Rebecca Lynn is a Center High School student she published an author she's the publisher of the auth of this book splintered Birthright she is currently 17 years old and a senior at a high school she plans to pursue dance education at College After High School she intends to work and publish two more books in the novel of this series splintered Birthright she enjoys dance modeling and active and Girl Scouts and loves writing she's active in leadership and aspires to to be a mentor to Young students congratulations Becca Lynn for publishing your first book I am so proud of you [Applause] other than that welcome
159back everybody and have a great second semester Mr Lair uh yes thank you uh president Pope it's my pleasure to share a few things with you here and uh one I just want to start with was sorry thank you I couldn't hear myself uh one of them I just want to give a shout out to to uh principal Farrell for his role as we take on and the opening elementary school I know he's hired a secretary now and is working and so I want to just congratulate and thank him for that as he also is out knocking on doors putting Flyers meeting and greeting and doing everything you can to really pump it up if you had not had a chance to talk to Mr Farrell uh you uh are missing out on some excitement
160because this guy is pretty jazzed about this opportunity so thank you Mr Farrell for that additionally we've covered this quite a bit but I did want to thank Richard and his daughter I'd not plan to come out uh Saturday drove to my father's house was driving that way and I'm like I'll just swing by Spinelli because there's one little area pull in there's Richard in his first grade daughter and I was like I don't know how they got out here because I did some magical things to get here and anyway they just jumped in and helped but the bigger one I want to acknowledge too was technology through all these storms power going in power going out technology and Lauren back there and then Eugene uh just did remarkable things we rely so much more
161on technology than the backbone than we ever had before it's not like the good old days is where when you're entering or your your lights go out it's just the lights well now it's the Internet it's the access to the internet some of our systems our phone lines um so it's really working um now to see how we can have some redundancy on those things to make them work work better and smoother but I have to give a huge kudos to them for making it go very very well and I've told Eugene probably Eugene is uh over Tech you made me look good about 25 times in the last week so keep doing it um also just acknowledging our expanded learning opportunity program is uh getting up and running Mr barassi I appreciate the work
162he's done to make that happen we're starting to see that expand and hopefully by next year we'll continue to see it grow uh additionally I have shared with the board but wanted to share publicly you know we had modernization projects out there for uh North Country Oak Hill and Center High School at that time we were in a funding piece for it to be under a hardship status we've learned some new information late last week so we will be coming back to the board and talking about whether or not we are in hardship status for those projects or not and then we'll need to consider whether or not if we are not in hardship status do we want to continue with those projects or or not so more to come on that another one that's
163out there that that was new to us too is to our North uh where it is uh will be where Watt Avenue becomes Santucci at the very top of the district there is uh Santucci drive and um Pleasant Grove or Pleasant yeah Pleasant Grove I mean there's a neighborhood there that is petitioned with the county to Annex into another part of the district about 100 homes and so that process was just kicked off last week we'll be working with our legal team to to see what what what that all means and what the process so board you will be informed and we'll make sure the community is also informed as we move forward with that there'll be some public hearings it's a long process but I want to get get you guys informed on that
164the other one is and you echoed this and trustee ballon you did this our tours on Friday I think when we finished I said probably the best part of our job it's why we do what we do and it's really cool to see our folks out there really really giving it all for for our students and our families TK is another transitional kindergarten is a big thing we now have transitional kindergarten at all our schools we plan to open one uh at Rex Fortune Elementary and so we're looking at creating promotional materials to get more word out to our community about when you can start enrolling your transitional kindergarten age student so more to come on that and then finally she was quick to give no credit to herself but I have to thank Lisa
165for her work with that clean audit clean audits seem like oh that's easy they come and keep tell us it is a lot of work and it is a huge huge effort so Lisa thank you for what you do her staff is incredible the state District staff that support that work it's hard but it starts with her so I have to thank her for for that effort and with that I think I'm done thank you Mr Lair and thank you everybody that he mentioned it's uh it's a team effort and we appreciate and love our team Advanced planning future day the next regular board meeting will be February 15th right here in the boardroom at the annex is there any suggested agenda items absolutely I do um hold on hold on if you're gonna talk
166you have to talk in the mic I'm sorry I didn't mean to yell yes thank you thank you Mrs Anderson excellent message the flag salute message okay um yes before I go I think we should vote one way or the other okay so for so just because I'm Miss hunt and I are taking notes so I'm trying to decipher so are you asking that we bring a um a vote back to consider whether or not we want to keep the disclaimer ated nothing is there any other option we can get creative thank you for making lifetime read it post it both or nothing I guess is there any other suggested business item yes Mr Bruno I have one um I've made public in the past uh my concern with naming facilities after people and at
167last month's board meeting for Sacramento City Unified School District they actually presented changes to their report policy which at the time was pretty much identical to ours Court policy 7310 um which is the rules for naming the facility and they introduced new rules that give much more leeway into what names can be considered so I afforded their policy to president Pope and the superintendent Lair and I would like to uh to discuss and possibly adopt the same policy hey we're using one from another District this time uh because I think that gives us more leeway for other types of names for facilities um actually more policy very limited as to what we can can choose yep so so um this policy would change that a little bit um we could either adopt it as is
168or make Provisions to it I'm open either way okay so what I'm hearing is to bring forward a City Unified School District's board policy 7310 for review for the board and if we need modified not modifications we can do so at the whenever it comes to actually would probably bring it in next month I think we're doing some other board policies yeah okay I didn't want to like be snuck in there or anything because when we at least bring our own back so that we can compare the two and decide what we want so anytime we we are on schedule to possibly bring a first reading of a big batch of policies of the recommended policies so we can ex we can set that one out separate a little bit so it calls a little
169more but anytime we bring a batch forward we always bring the current policy and then the recommended policy so members Community can compare those two policies sure valid points ballot point the the policy yeah the policy that was shared was is more okay is there any other um or the few I do yes I'd like to see us um discuss and get more education around Equity walks and the practice of equity walks in our district um I don't know from superintendent Lair excuse me trustee Lee I'm really having a problem hearing you excuse me just one second please thank you audience I'm sorry trustee Lee could you please repeat yes um can everyone hear her yes I can hear you thank you okay so um I'd really like to uh see uh agenda's um Equity
170walks um and some information about Equity walks for the board um uh what is the practice um what are potential policies around it um I don't know if that's something that superintendent Lair is working on with education uh trust or our partnership with that organization if that's even come up but if we could have a presentation on what is an equity walk and why are they important for Equitable instruction um that would be most helpful I'd really appreciate that that's a great idea trustee Lee could you please uh put your I'm sorry I was going to say that is something that we're actually working with West Ed on oh and that is going to come up likely when we start looking at plans in the future so if if if if it's agreeable it that
171is naturally going to come up in the coming months um Dr Lee are you still there is that um agreeable to you how soon do you think that we would have information about what an equity walk is a superintendent Larry well I would need to work with our consultant who's doing it I also have been through training with um Miss Anderson from Anderson Consulting so I'm familiar I need to I don't I don't have an answer but I I would say before by Spring something like that that we're going to come back with a plan as a result of the work that we've done all year and certainly if it's not meeting the needs we could certainly add to that uh if if there's more detail but it it I don't want to Veer us
172off the topic that we're doing with West Ed because I think it will be included in there perfect thank you uh trustee ballen you said you had something to add to add yes um so as it related I don't know where we left off with the um business uh item agenda uh item business Item B pertaining to signage um that has not been brought up yet okay so I would I would like to move that as Miss Anderson did for the uh first agenda item that I presented I'd like to bring it out too for a vote okay could you submit in writing what you request in detail and if there's any appropriate backup please provide that as well and then we will review it for for a future business and um um I think
173trustee ballen has a farsuit just one second and see if he's done okay I'll go that way was that it Mr Bowen no okay so the next um item I would like to place on the agenda is to have a board discussion uh pertaining to the use of inappropriate and inflammatory Language by board members during school board meetings okay the same request please could you put it in writing with detailed information and if there's any backup of sorts could you provide that as well for review and send it to superintendent LaRon myself that would be most appreciated okay thank you more more okay I'd like to place on the agenda discussion around Reckless and inappropriate driving on the district school grounds during prior to and just after school hours okay continue Mr Bowen um to
174place uh on the agenda a discussion regarding the naming of the CT buildings now being built for an individual or group that made significant past contributions to The District in the area of vocational development training and education very well same email please are we done um I am finished yes okay thank you regarding that last one it might be good to put that on an agenda after the finalized the policy 7310 my thoughts as well um to uh I I have to say I would not be opposed to that however the buildings will be completed soon and there will be some form of a formal ceremony and that is the most appropriate time of which a building is named in recognition of persons or organization and so time is not really on our side so
175perhaps we as a compromise we can do both at the same time I think the CTE buildings shall be complete by May June summer I think June so we have trustee ballon did we did did we hear the date when we were toured Mr do we know when the CT will be finished I know so we should be able to have the policy a place that happens yeah so just just for the trusty balance award typically with big batches of policies which I'm if you bring that policy next month that'd be we would do first reading with the big batch second reading could be done in the policy would be in place by March and then we could so if we well my understanding is if we postpone it and then we propose it for
176next month it won't be heard until the April meeting in which case it would be discussion then it would and be wouldn't be too main until it became an action item and voted on and by that time the buildings maybe have already been commemorated yeah and that well we have time school doesn't start until August um so they won't be utilized until August when will the ceremony for the buildings be I didn't know we were going to have a ceremony so that isn't even a discussion yeah the only thing that's typically with any buildings we would try to do some sort of like little ribbon coming some yeah that hasn't been discussed yet so we don't know yeah we have no idea no idea but that's a good point so once we get the details
177um we can talk back and forth and then figure out when the best time to put it on the agenda it's fine is that okay with you Mrs Anderson you wanted something on the agenda no okay so just because Clarity so what you just agreed for the naming discussion we would just from my tentative planning I'm going to shoot for if it's February March we would look at the April meeting to balance point is that what I'm hearing or would you like me to try to go for the March meeting after you've already done a first reading of the policy so then you'd be secondary I'm just I'm just trying to get the timeline ahead so we don't scramble I don't I don't want to so labor it but I also want to make sure
178we have clear uh directions so um would it be best to determine when we're going to do the ribbon cutting and then prior to that we can name this the talk about naming you get the plaque that's I think you want to do it before like a clock I have no idea yeah so I mean it all depends on the ribbon cutting and so what I was suggesting is set a cut the date for the ribbon cutting and then go back to Mr ballon and said this is ribbon cutting and then choose a month to bring It Forward I think we just do it the next meeting well because our next meeting we might potentially be moving on that policy that would change our our naming groups well do we necessarily have to do that
179before we do this one building yes it would make sense for naming it before sorry I opened that can of worms again I feel like we're back to the same conversations do it give us the most flexibility we'll discuss it at that time okay we'll figure it out okay at this time do I have a motion to adjourn this meeting I so moved do I have a second second and roll call vote trustee Lee I thank you Mr Blue yeah trustee Anderson aye trustee ballen aye representative Mr Mason and uh care about I