001[Music] he [Music] a [Music] a [Music] he yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] a [Music] n a [Music] oh [Music] a [Music] all this being to order may I have a motion to excuse vice president Francis Noella from the meeting tonight because of illness I will move I will make a motion thank you all in favor say I I thank you approved roll call Mr Nishi I'm here Mrs Yoki amab Bui present Mrs Mendoza pres Dr Rios Mrs SE Mrs U thank you all right at this time we'll have a brown act parliamentary procedures training in the district conference room from 5:00 p.m. p.m. to 6 p.m. provided by J uh Mr Baka managing partner of Atkinson andson Loya rude and Romo then we'll move directly to Clos [Applause] session so what's we going to
002read this ah and this evening we'll be discussing the following items in close session Public Employee discipline dismissal release evaluation three matters government code section 54957 conference with labor negotiator update on negotiations with ABC CFT AFC scme and CA government code section 54957.6 existing litigation the board will be going to close session pursuant to government code section 54956.9 D1 to discuss two matters two in the Los Ang supremor court case number 22n wcv 01753 but has determined that specifically identifying this matter would jeopardize its ability to conclude the existing settlement negotiations to its advantage conference with legal council existing litigation paragraph one of subdivision D of section 54956.9 name of the case California School Employees Association versus Albany Unified School District case number 22 CV 05456 juneth class action litigation oh we got a little
003bit more special litigation special education settlement agreement oah number 20241 0793 government code section 54956.9 special education settlement agreement oah 20241 1283 government code section 54956.9 same one anticipated litigation Conference of legal council significant exposure to litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9 D2 E1 1 matter student discipline deliberation on the student expulsion case number into Education Code section 4900 M and deliberation on expulsion case 24257 pursuant to Education Code section B so can I get a motion to go to close session public comments second do you have any public comments sorry thank you do we have any public comments no seeing none thank you so we have a motion in a second all in favor say I hi uh we are now in Clos session [Music] oh [Music] St [Music] he [Music] he [Music]
004he [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] a [Music] n [Music] he [Music] he a [Music] he [Music] he [Music] n [Music] a [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] a [Music] n [Music] he ah a l he [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] he e [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] n [Music] n [Music] oh [Music] the [Music] n [Music] oh [Music] w n [Music] la a [Music] n [Music] w [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] he [Music] n [Music] oh a [Music] [Applause] you [Music] a [Music] the [Music] a [Music] oh [Music] l [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] n a [Music] n [Music] n a [Music] no [Music] a [Music] d ah [Music] you [Music] w [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] n a [Music] a [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] he
005[Applause] I [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] you n oh [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] oh a [Music] a [Music] oh a [Music] n [Music] n [Music] he n [Music] n [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Applause] [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] n oh [Music] n [Music] aah [Music] he [Music] a [Music] oh [Music] la [Music] he [Music] a a [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] he [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] got [Music] the a [Music] oh n [Music] a [Music] a [Music] he [Music] n [Music] oh [Music] he [Music] d [Music] he [Music] he d [Music] he oh [Music] a [Music] oh [Music] n [Music] he n [Music] he a [Music] he [Music] oh [Music]
006he [Music] n [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] he [Music] n [Music] n [Music] he a [Music] he w he [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I [Music] oh [Music] the [Music] n [Music] n [Music] oh [Music] n [Music] a [Music] oh [Music] la n [Music] o [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh a [Music] oh [Music] he oh oh [Music] [Applause] you oh oh [Music] a [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] the [Music] oh [Music] the [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] for [Music] I [Music] n [Music] la a [Music] no [Music] no [Music] a d [Music] love [Music] oh [Music] a [Music] a [Music] a [Music] n a [Music] motion second Sophia all right all in favor say I I all right motion passes 60 everyone please silence your
007cell phones put it on vibrator or something else close session report out tonight in Clos session the board discussed Public Employee discipline dismissal release evaluation three matters Co government code section 54957 we also had a conference with labor negotiator we didn't talk about anything um existing litigation tonight in close session we need approve two settlement agreements involving ab218 Los Angeles Superior Court case number 22 n CV 01753 which occurred in 1986 87 with two plaintiffs the first settlement agreement is in the amount of $2.5 million uh 1 million will be paid from the district insurance carrier and 1 million will be 1.5 million will be paid from The District's general fund uh and this came by a vote of 6 to zer second settlement agreement is in the amount of $2 million 2 million dollar
008one1 million will be paid by the district's insurance carrier and the other million dollar will be paid by the district's general fund by a vote of also 6 to Z conference with legal council in closed session the board took action to approve settlement agreement in the case of California school board California School Employees Association versus albine Unified School District at all case number 22cv 00 5456 juneth class action and oh a disaster here sorry about that my fault we're trying to get some tea here for everybody I TR to get for everyone okay I'll take care that all [Music] right uh okay so uh to resolve the and wave claims against the district exchange for the district providing additional compensation in the form of vacation credit uh to class members who worked on juneth holiday
009in 2021 and 2022 and this happened by a vote of 6 to zero also in closed session we didn't portte on each other but uh we discussed approval of a special education settlement agreement the amount of 26,000 520 in Services attorney fees of $7,000 compensatory math and reading 14,300 and compensatory Counseling of $522 for oah number 20241 0793 by a vote of 6 to Z pursuant to government code section 54956.9 also in Clos session the board discussed and approved a special settlement agreement in the amount of 43525 in Services uh attorney's fees of $7,777 compensatory education academics counseling social skills and vocational training of 35,000 for oah case number 20241 1283 by a vote of 6 to Zer pursuant to government code section 54956.9 anticipated litigation conference with legal council significant exposure to litigation pursu
010to government code section 54956.9 D2 E1 one matter student discipline may I have a motion and a second based upon the board's review and close session that the board accepts the recommendation for expulsion in student expulsion case number 24256 and for orders the student expelled based upon violation of the Education Code section 48900 m pursuant to the stipulated terms and adopt the recommendation of The Rehabilitation plan the board will review the student for readmission in December 2025 for the school period beginning January 2026 I'll make a motion second by Sophia roll call vote please Mrs Mendoza yes Dr Ros I yes Mrs SE yes Mrs U yes Mrs bu yes Mr Nisha e yes motion passes motion passes 60 thank you may I have a motion and a second based upon the board's review in
011close session that the board accepts the recommendation for a no cost suspended expulsion in student expulsion case number 24257 and orders the student expelled based upon a violation of Education Code section 489b with enforcement of the extension of expulsion suspended as outlined in the stipulated settlement terms motion second roll call please Mrs Mendoza yes Dr Rios yes Mrs SE yes Mrs Yu yes Mrs Yoki Bui yes Mr Nishi e yes motion passes 60 I apologize in advance to the audience for being a little bit late for this but some of these matters are important to discuss and and really deliberate time is more important for these cases I'd like to call upon Elliot Elementary School please stand face the flag put your right hand over your heart ready begin I pledge alance to the flag
012of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all good evening School Board president Nishi vice president Mr noola board members superintendent Dr zlo cabinet members ABC staff and community members I am Saka mandari a sixth grade student council member at La Elementary along with Miss Ballard our principal Miss Navaro our assistant principle and other sixth grade student council members I'm excited to share some of the incredible things Happ happening at Ellie Elementary as members of the student council we work hard to promote and uphold our school's core values which include kindness responsibility and respect one way we live out these values is by organizing fun and exciting activities that bring our school Community together with kindness week starting next
013week we have some exciting plans to spread kindness throughout the ellot community to kick things off we'll host an assembly during lunch recess where students can share their the the ways they show kindness throughout the week students can participate in a kindness raffle by sharing their acts of kindness we're also organizing kindness grams these are notes that students can write to their friends classmates or even teachers to brind their day and keep them motivated at Le we believe that kindness Matters by working together we can create a community where everyone feels valued and resp expected let's make kindness week a time to celebrate the ways the amazing ways we can lift each other up good evening I'm Ras Singh I'm another ellot student council member as we all know yesterday was the day to honor
014the achievements of Dr Martin Luther King Jr and I would like to share with you why I think it is important to honor his memory with a fresh year just beginning this is a perfect time to help each other set a respectful and kind tone for the year ahead this is exactly what Dr King worked to accomplish a few of his major accomplishments were the Montgomery Bus Boycott the March on Washington the southern Christian leadership conference and the Nobel PE Peace Prize one fact that I recently learned and find and find most interesting is that he was such a gifted student that that he skipped grades 9 and 12 Dr Martin Luther King Jr is a great example to all of us to have dreams and stay motivated something that I have learned from Dr
015King's example is to work hard and stay motivated for example I hope to be able to study science and become a scientist one day not only will the stream make me proud I hope to also make my parents proud hello hello I am angel I am V another student council member another great thing that I love about Elliot is our vapa program thanks to prop 28 we have continued enhancing our music program again at Elliott this year Miss Lindsay our vapa teacher meets with each grade level weekly to teach us many things about music including Melody Rhythm and Harmony she also meets with individual classes on a rotating schedule to to continue our learning our one example is when we learned about African art we practiced basic weaving techniques inspired by African Traditions it was
016a simple weaving that we made with strips of paper we also look forward to learn with Miss Lindsay because she's kind lastly we do two schoolwide concerts every year in December we had our uh Winter concert Let It Shine it was a huge success thank you to board member Mendoza for joining our event we appreciate your support at 6th grade we we sang Let's Make It Shine and there's a candle glowing in the window we had a lot of fun we also just learned that our spring concert will be based will be songs focusing on on the different seasons good evening everyone my name is gasha and I'm Proud To Be An Elliott student council member I am also the last speaker you will hear from tonight before we wrap up I want to take
017a moment to recognize some very important people our abcusd board members January is a Bo School Board recognition month a time to celebrate all the hard work work and dedication you bring to our schools on behalf of ellot Elementary and the entire ABC Community thank you for always supporting Student Success we truly appreciate the time effort and care you put into making our schools the best they can be your leadership makes a big impact on our education and we're so grateful for you as a small token of appreciation we have a special gift for you it says you are a sweet hero to our schools because you really are thank you for everything you do thank you wrot oh wow amazing thank you so much thank you thank you wow yummy yummy thank you thank
018you did a great job thank you good job good job all right thank you so much wow printed I believe this yes all right don't leave we have a board member who like to make a comment uh board member letisia Mendoza yes thank you Mr President so yes thank you so much for for saying that I went to your Winter concert because I really loved it it was super hot that day do you guys remember how hot was we're trying to hide ourselves from the Sun but I was so amazed with the work that you're doing with your your vapa teacher I it was truly amazing to see how talented all the kids are even the little itty bitty ones were up there seeing so thank you so much for the invitation and thank you
019so much for for your for your talent thank you so much for the gift so I used to be on the board before and there was one thing that I always wanted to do because I know when our schools come to speak to us they always bring us little gifts so when I got on the board I said I want to make sure that I have something for you so I have a oneof a-kind sticker I made these I designed them it says ABC School District ABC 2025 student leader you cannot get them anywhere these are one you will not find these in the district these are specially made so there's five of them for you you can put them on your water bottles you can put them I I don't think your principal would
020like to put them anywhere like in the school or anything but like a notebook that's yours but you are the first school to get them I didn't have them last time so you are the officially the first school to get the official School leader from the school boards and thank you so much for recognizing us I don't think we I don't think we even thought about it was school board members month I I didn't I I completely forgot so thank you so much and I I hope to come back and see all the amazing work that you guys are doing this thank you Mr President okay next is suu okay thank you president Nishi and congratulations once again and thank you for leading us this is the first board meeting of the year and I'd
021like to thank the students you guys did such a great job so proud of you and I want to thank your parents and I hope you guys are grateful to your parents for raising you up you know to be so so uh wonderful and so uh confident you know thank you to the Educators and uh just want to say the less time you spend on social media Tik Tok and Instagram the Great person you will be God bless you uh board member taana yokoyama Buie thank you um first off thank you so much for your patience we we took a little bit longer than there than we expected and you all were ready to go your speeches your individual presentations spoton didn't lose any direction um you all did marvelous so thank you so much
022thank you to your families for bringing you here thank you to your um teachers and your Administration have a good day I think that anybody else I have my button pushed oh sorry all right uh Soph board member thank you president um when you say you are sweet superhero to our ABC School ABC USD schools I want to tell you we all together actually you are the superhero you made us to become today like this and we also have a a principal teacher and staff who work together we all superhero and the speech you made so beautiful and your principal say you wrote that what a wonderful there you go there's our superhero here thank you again for providing such a beautiful candy here I would take a bite every day because I'm control my
023Dy sugar thank you thank you again thank you thank you board memb Z so I get my chance here um thank you for that presentation we're we're going to learn a lot from you kindness does matter now more than any any time that we have in this history kindness counts and you're going to be leading the way because you are the future generation and so how you act and and be towards people is how the rest of this country will be if you're kind I think that'll reflect on the rest of us and the parents that teach them that you know calls us the leaders but really it's the parents out there that support these children in the ideals and the and the values that they serve so I'd like all the parents of these
024kids if they came unless they drove themselves to stand up stand up and be recognized thank [Applause] you thank you so much I appreciate it also I'd like to recognize uh council member Frank oyama for coming thank you for being the city person here and uh former school board members uh Olympia Chen for staying involved and being a part of our community you never really retire from the school board uh I'll call on Dr zlo for recognitions thank you um this evening we're going to recognize um some of our schools for ad advanced placement honor rooll School recognition from the College Board as well as from the educational results partnership and the campaign for business and education excellence and so um I think what might be best is um to have the board move forward
025and then as we call up the schools will be able to take a picture right then um so if we all kind of move forward then we'll be good to move through each of the schools so here we go first for recognition this evening for the 2024 advaned placement School honoral recognition from the College Board we have citos High [Applause] School come come on conratulations [Applause] our next school for the 2024 advanced placement School honoral recognition is gar High School [Applause] and our final school for the 2024 advanced placement School honoral recognition is Whitney High School [Applause] you for the educational results partnership and the campaign for business and education Excellence our 20124 honor roll star school is Bragg Elementary School [Applause] our next honoral star school is Carmenita of Middle School [Applause] next is
026Carver Elementary School [Applause] our next honor roll star school is cidos Elementary School [Applause] TR [Applause] next for honorable star school it's seros high [Applause] school come on yall fill in fill in back to SP careful [Applause] careful our next honor roll star school is Elliot Elementary School [Applause] y the kid should be yay come on all those kids in [Applause] right all right our next honor roll star school is gar High School [Applause] our next honoral star school is gon Vis elementary [Applause] school thank you [Applause] our next honorable star school is hcll Middle School [Applause] texted zette [Applause] our next honor roll star school is Kennedy Elementary [Applause] School Maybe that's important see your face [Music] [Applause] our next honor roll star school is Le Elementary School [Applause] our next honor roll star
027school is nickon Elementary School [Applause] our next honoral star school is Ross Middle School [Applause] [Music] now [Applause] we our next honorable Ro star school is Stowers Elementary School [Applause] our next honor roll star school is tetoff Middle School [Applause] our next honorable star school is Whitney High School [Applause] and our final 2024 star school is Whitman Elementary School [Applause] that's all yes okay as you can tell we have a really great District right all right um board member Mendoza would you like to make a quick statement yes thank you Mr President do we know what where the young lady is that's translating she's back there no so we'll find her her name is we got her thank you Mr President thank you all right thank you very much Dr zlo can you introduce our
028Education Foundation board thank you um this evening our ABC Education Foundation will be sharing their many Grant Award winners and so I'd like to call uh the chair of our ABC Education Foundation board Heather Summers to the podium for presentations sorry technical difficulties thank you thank you thank you Dr zlo and I was going to invite our president Serena Yan up here to join me um from the Education Foundation as well um and good evening and thank you so much for having us here um I'm Heather Summers I'm the uh chair of the ABC Education Foundation this year and Serena is our president and we have several of our board members here in the audience today too um including Scott Smith who's our executive director um Jenny Chan who's our um treasur of the board
029and several board members including Olympia chin who you all know and Cindy Yin chin Nicholas Maddox and Michael haror who also works for ABC and AIA brick so um we are all here um to share the results of our annual mini grants that we uh have applications from the teachers every year and um we're supporting some really exceptional projects in the classroom we're excited to announce tonight we really appreciate the opportunity to do that here um this past fall we opened up our applications for the minig grants and we received 29 applications from uh teachers this year um a committee of our board and community members read all of those grants and scored them anonymously in a process that we do um every year to select the top many grants um that can fit within
030our budget for the year so we raise money for the school district that's our job um on the board here and we try to give as many grants as possible as we can based on the money that we raised during the year um it's and really one of the biggest differentiators of our foundation um when you compare what the ABC Education Foundation does with all the other wonderful School Foundations at the district and the ptas um what's different about us is our donors give to us and we distribute the money equitably as much as possible throughout the district um so um that's kind of a real differentiator with us our top donor for the last few years AutoNation Toyota of citos um I really want to mention them they've been an integral part of our
031program um theyve allowed Us in the last couple years to give out Toyota tunder grants in the amount of up to $10,000 a year so we have two of those grants to give out tonight and um Albert barazza from AutoNation toyos joining us tonight he's over here in the corner thank you and I'll call you up in a minute to we're going to we're going to try to take a group photo at the end so we'll see if we can bring everybody up together um but thank you to Albert and thank you to AutoNation toy of seros for really making a difference because their funds are a big part of what our mini grant program and um in addition to other grants that we give out throughout the year too so um what I'm going
032to do here is I'm going to call out our two tunder grants first and I'm gonna have each of the grant recipients their principal and the grant writer um be coming up the side here um we'll try to do a lineup and then bring everybody up here um to take a picture with the school board and our uh ABC Education Foundation board and Albert also from AutoNation Toyota so um uh please come on up when I do call your name and I'm going to start with the AutoNation Toyota tunder grants starting with Whitney middle school and high schools uh and gar high school for um seeing ourselves in history exploring lived experience through ethnic studies for 9,742 and this grant is going to purchase books activity supplies and field trips for ethnic studies classes at
033both high schools to empower 240 to 260 students to explore history through diverse perspectives engaging in real world learning that Fosters empathy critical thinking and social awareness so we have L Monica Smith Bryson and Whitney's principal Dr Tuesday staffers and G's principal Dr Richard Moore if you're all here please come up and we can start lining up in the middle here too if you want if you don't mind being the center of attention we're going to take a picture in a few minutes so and the second Toyota trender Grant goes to hasal STEM Academy who's receiving $8,700 for Making Waves the Haso youth podcast project and the funding for this project will purchase technology and equipment for student podcast at a middle school creating six podcast stations to engage 34 students at a time and
034all the teachers will have access to the equipment regardless of uh subject to build digital media and storytelling uh skills so we have Eric gueras and principal Valerie Gutierrez please come up and I'm going to read the remaining grants very fast because we have nine more to go and so those are going to come up quick and then we're going to ask you all to come join and try to get a picture of all of us so um we have um the remaining grants are special in education grants these are from $11,000 to $2500 starting with citos Elementary School for $2,500 for new furniture and supplies for the learning lab Colleen Garten and principal Craig Spratt please come up seros high school we have $1,000 for diverse novels and supplies Evelyn hialgo and Dr uh
035Chris Weiss principal please come up Ferguson Elementary School $2,326 51 for outdoor equipment to enhance gross motor skills oralia Rojas and principal Alejandro gutiz gar High School $1,000 for supplies to create positive experiences for students in need Carrie Grover and principal Dr Richard Moore Kennedy Elementary School $2,500 for a school Community Partnership program Natalie Navaro and principal Robert Beno Melbourne Elementary School $2,500 for a writing development program to build confident writers Rosa nasio deis and principal Cynthia Santos nemis Elementary School $1,423 127 for science fair materials and classroom tools John Zaki and principal Heather Durant [Applause] [Music] Willow Elementary School $968 for special whiteboards to enhance student learning at jodine Smith and principal Danielle salava bouncy and finally Whitman uh Whitman Elementary School $ 25228 for a cultural cookbook project Alejandra Perez and principal Miguel
036Marco and again we're going to try to if we can invite the school board and Dr zlo all up for a photo and our board and Albert I'm going to move this out of the way and again thank you for the honor of being able to present this tonight and I just want to mention too that um the ABC Education Foundation is about supporting all the schools and we hope that your businesses and others can help support us with donation so that we can do more of these next year so thank you [Music] is it okay ready look look at me first one3 all right [Applause] and just one more ask is all of the recipients if you could meet us outside we would like to hand off the checks and take one a couple
037more pictures outside so thank you but don't leave I want to say something to you guys before you leave that's fine or you can just leave you can ignore me fine hold on don't leave yet don't leave yet I I just wanted to quickly uh say while there's still a few people here that you saw a huge group of people here huge group of uh Educators who worked hard they did something they didn't have to do they volunteered to right to do more work uh for our kids in our community if anybody wants to see their dollar their time their effort to be multiplied more than anything it's with the foundation the ABC Foundation was something that started preceding me but it is something that's that's an amazingly entrepreneurial thing that encourages teachers to do
038what they want to do best which is to teach and they help them give them the the effort so you know how people say oh none of my money gets to the place you will see the direct results when you volunteer so everybody in this room there's no we have no term limits for the ABC Foundation everybody can be part of it every little bit everybody says it's all somebody else will do it there's millions of people that's not true true it depends on each one of you in this room and whoever's watching on TV call these people they need your help because we can do a lot more good stuff thank you Toyota for being a partner with our schools not everybody does that they don't have to do that it's not advertising for
039them they don't sell any extra cars because of this uh is because the future of our country depends upon teachers kids being entrepreneurial and uh you know sometimes even working outside of the district you know not all of our money's is always well I better stop saying all right um num uh Sophia say Dr go ahead well I'm sorry to take few time thank you president well I do want to say and my recognition to our foundation back in years ago when we started the foundation I think it was Linda Johnson and Other Board member see that I think my former which is our president ABC USD Mr M Chan and she had a vision on that too so I want a special thanks to you folks because you made a difference in here especially
040I work recognize U Mrs Chen she's not just starting with PTA take care of the kids and then she start serve the ABC Board and then even though when he finished his ter he still she still come back and here serve our foundation well not just that she took care me to take care of me too remember last um uh our my last turn the presidential um off duty uh month which is December I wear that blue Chinese jacket it was given by her I want to thank you so much your service to here to the district you know nobody can beat with you you're the best one thank you so much Miss Chen appreciate [Applause] it okay now you can take a picture all right can I get a motion to approve the agenda
041for the regular meeting of January 21st 2025 second sop all in favor say I I motion passes 60 um need to approve the minutes so at the regular meeting of December 17th there was not a quorum so to approve the minutes for the regular meeting of November 6th can I have a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of November 6th by Sophia and the second be who was here I think had to miss you yeah okay all in favor say I I all right we have all 6 zero no no Iain oh that's right cuz some people weren't here okay all right I don't know everything thank you for correcting me 4 Z but two 4 Z2 can I have a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of December
04217th 2024 so moved second all in favor I I and then I'll say abstained cuz I wasn't here I so we have two abstentions 42 402 thank you all right what's next oh that's me board report all right it was a great start of this new year happy New Year everybody um uh it's a couple list of things here so I'll quickly go through them Rose Parade 605 League Gara citos we woke up at 4:00 Sophia say also went early in in the morning we had the 605 League signs out there uh but more important the band was out there and they did an amazing job uh great parade uh I did the bite of reality also with Sophie say at Whitney also a great program if you ever want to see something where the
043kids get to see what real life is about you know uh rent and things like that my daughter could have learned something from that uh went to the Gent win uh inauguration you know the thing about that is that fire uh affect even the judge's daughter's home um and it's affected a lot of people here so um I want to thank the First Responders for all their actions and uh everything that they've done for for our community and keeping us safe I know it seems like we're safe here in citos but everybody we've even received students from that uh area so uh thank you thank you to the moms of seros also sopia say had volunteers I'm going to be mentioning her a lot because she shows up to these things but also for not
044just talking about doing things but actually doing things providing things Water Supplies clothes um they need money because it's going to be very expensive process to get this together so I want to thank the moms SAS for that did a coffee with principal Whitman I did the op fun there's an Optimus fundraiser that's coming up so everybody should be part of that we raise money for ABC cares and that's for uh parents who don't have a lot of resources so if everybody could support that ABC Foundation everybody should join we just saw that there there's a perfect evidence of everything I went to their meeting they're doing great but they need help Chef fundraiser band fundraiser I did a kitchen visit they have 13 workers making 177,000 meals every day that's a lot so I
045put take my hat off to them for doing all that work um and maybe we can get a little extra help to improve the kitchens some of the elementary schools I don't know we'll talk about that later um s is high school I went to see the brand new science building ALS Alo as a result of the parents that knocked on doors and the taxpayers that are paying for this thank you for supporting science and enabling us to have these facilities uh I went to visit the Melbourne Elementary the new principal and their green practices and and she's working on improving the math and she has improved math scores a little bit uh but they have a long ways to go so that's that's great went to Ferguson Elementary uh they improved with their English
046language Learners 15% so also pretty amazing but he also knows he needs to improve the math because that's important uh went to the gonzalas parent meeting they had some safety issues that we need to address in terms of traffic that's true with every school but uh we have a cting council me member back there who can definitely make our dreams come true in terms of safety um and making it as safe as we possibly can luckily we've had no problems uh went to the MLK thing with Sophie was there and also board member Tatiana yuyama Bui was there and it was an amazing program uh my wife got to see it this year as well um inspiring it's about all of us being together we're all different but all the same right and uh understanding
047everybody's experience um we should all be part of that I have a tea for the trustee February 11th so here we have public comments which you can give a comment and we don't always respond because the La uh makes us that we want to be careful and so uh at a tea with a trustee I can respond to you with whatever issues you have I will only respond with facts I won't give you opinions but uh please come Tuesday February 11th 7 p.m. and love to see you talk about anything anything um finally last thing um what else do I have here no that's it finally um thank you members of the board for uh trusting me to do this even though I wasn't here um we're going to have some tough decisions this year
048and I know that we all have the same goals in mind which is the best for our students the best for our future the best for all of us and um our motivations are all good so I know we can go through difficult Financial Times and still be together and that's going to be key so thank you thank you for going on this journey with me together that's it oh and now we have the superintendent's report thank you good evening everyone um it's been a busy month um in the area of shared vision of learning and growth for students um I had my monthly meeting with our district pal um and that's all of our employee group presidents meeting together to talk about ways to ensure that the culture of the district is good for
049our students and our staff um we're also starting our midyear update meetings with our principls from our schools and so we had our first group um on January 15th where we review their single plan for student achievement how kids are doing midyear and um look at things that they're adjusting midyear to help our students meet their learning goals and improve in the areas of reading and math and writing um in the area of building a collaborative culture of teaching and learning I did a full day visit at hasool Middle School on January 9th um I was able to visit it visit the migrant education program on Saturday January 11th at fety Hawaiian Melbourne and nemas and that was a lot of fun particularly the class for the littlest ones where their parent comes with them
050I always walk in someplace and so there was one of my former students with her little ones it was fun um and then I did a full day visit at Carver Elementary School on January 14th full day visit at Tracy High School on January 16th and a full day at Brag on January 17th um in the area of safe and productive learning and working spaces I was able to participate with a number of our secondary assistant principals and some of our principles in a restorative practices training um in January 6th and 7th and then um I was at B realityy helping to convince children they needed a bigger house even though maybe they didn't and um working through making those kind of decisions through the partnership we have with School's First Credit Union um on
051January 15th I met with our student board reps and reviewed the board meeting to see if they had any comments they would like to make or um Pro if they wanted to give a a vote um and then on January 16th I was able to see seros high school girls water polo team and the second match was really fun because it was against the first ever Aria High School all girls water polo team so really glad for Aria being able to move and have enough girls for a whole team CU that's a challenge in some of our Sports um and then finally January 17th I got to participate in the homecoming at Whitney High School and thank goodness everybody won but it was a tight game for those boys and that's all thank you Dr
052zlo now we'll have the student board representative uh report sorry for the long waitjust this a little [Music] bit well uh good evening board president Nishi board vice president noola Clerk of board yokoyama Bui and member Dr Rios M Mendoza Miss SE and Mrs U superintendent Dr zlo and members of the cabinet my name is Christopher Kemp and I was asked to act as one of the ABC Adult School representatives for this year and for tonight I was asked to briefly reintroduce myself uh to the new board that we have here and um whether you were on here before or not and how I'm connected to education in general and more specifically The Adult School although now retired in my working years as a hired I was hired as a bilingual teacher by the Paramount
053Unified School District and I worked proudly at Hollydale Elementary School for 34 years and while working in Paramount I met a teacher in 1985 her name was Gail and she became my wife in 1987 we're still married happily married we have a 33-year-old daughter ly who attended ABC schools and um at the she attended well a variety of the schools here um and that started in third grade as we moved to ceritos in 1999 and after teaching for 34 rewarding years uh my wife and I and my wife teaching 37 years we both retired in 2016 since retiring we've both been busy as we both believe in the value of being lifelong learners and as one part of that we have taken a number of classes including various exercise classes through the ABC Adult School
054since retiring we both have developed friends with many of the people that we have met uh in the wad R robics class especially with Todd Tbone um and I found these classes not only enriching in a physical sense but also very socially connective and for those of us that are in our retirement years I cannot emphasize enough the importance of maintaining not only physical fitness but also our social connections through retirement Todd's class and the way it is facilitated greatly helps in various aspects of adult living including maintaining our connections to lifelong learning through classes as well as learning experientially through travel Community involvement so on so I look forward forward to acting as one of those representatives for the adult school and creating meaningful connections with adult school learning thank you oh and for
055the report part of this um ABC Adult School started the year advertising on Long Beach Transit four different ads ran start your career as easy as ABC earn your GED as easy as ABC Learn English as easy as ABC and enrichr your mind and body as easy as ABC the ads ran from July 22nd through October 13th 2024 but some of the ads are still on buses and it has been fun seeing them all around the community in addition Spanish radio ads ran on uni on November 18th through January 5th to promote the start of the third quarter the Medical classes in the Career Technical education department have a new learning device an an anatomage anatomage table um and this is an interactive table which helps students visualize the human anatomy and body and make
056it easier to understand that Anatomy we have 22 students who have already completed their courses for their Career Technical education diplomas with more to finish in time for graduation it's important Community Education and adults with disability students displayed their handmade crafts and projects for everyone to see and purchase at the annual holiday craft sale at Cabrio Lane campus during the December 2024 holiday singalong and Community Coffee event our Music Teacher emilano Rodriguez and his students performed at the event emilano played the guitar while he and a student sang popular holiday songs the student is a professional singer who is taking the voice class taking voice classes to learn how to read music we are very excited to have our class classes advertised in two Leisure World Publications the LW weekly and their 20025 Community guide
057and telephone directory Leisure World is located as you may know in Seal Beach just 8 miles from our Cabrio Lane campus and is home to over 9,000 residents over the age of 55 we are happy to report that in the first week of the third quarter we already had students from Leisure World enrolled in our classes our health and fitness instructor Todd tabon LED his classes in a do anything but nothing weight loss challenge during the second quarter and while I had won that several times in the past I have not recently two of his students met their weight loss goal and are very happy to receive and proudly wear they do anything but nothing t-shirts calligraphy teacher Barbara clothes and her student works are displayed at the Maloof Museum in altaloma as a part
058of the celebrating calligraphy which began October 24th 2024 and will run through February 23rd 2025 thank you I'm going to pass it over to our next speaker good evening my name is Sharon song and I have been a student with the parent education department for over six years I also occasionally substitute for that program um the academics Department had a very strong fall semester enrolling more students than in the past several years as we move into spring semester many of our students have returned and new students receive an orientation as they begin our program we already have 24 students who have earned their High School diplomas and 115 students who have passed the highet or GE test to earn their high school equivalency test or C certificates students have the option of taking in-person classes
059working online or a combination of both we also provide an online option in edmentum for the district's concurrent high school students the academics lab is open on Wednesday evenings to accommodate those who work during the day in addition there's a daily math lab to support Learners who want help in math and algebra in the English as a second language Department teachers will attend the tel convention in Long Beach in March ESL students have been successfully transitioning to GED highet prep classes and many have already earned their diplomas this school year quite a few citizenship students have become US citizens the ESL Department would like to highlight one student in particular Hamid okubanjo who was also a CTE medical assistant student Hamid is now a registered nurse at St John's in Bristol hospice congratulations our parent
060Ed Department had a great fall semester with classes for parents with preschoolers aged 1 to 5 years old in addition to the traditional multi-day classes classes were offered for sensory exploration early Spanish language acquisition cooking and science homeschooled students kindergarten through fourth grade along with their parents also participated in a class on Thursday mornings where with their parents to learn history math and writing fall field trips included visits to the Tanaka Farms pumpkin patch Pretend City Ralph B Clark Regional Park to learn about prehistoric animals and the annual bike parade at seros Park East and much more we celebrated with Halloween parades Veterans Day crafts and Christmas visits from Santa in our classrooms families shared cultures as well learning about Diwali Hanukkah and Christmas in Sweden thank you for your continued support board comment Sophia
061uh board member say thank you president I do want to mention we have more program too mother me class I participate in it and swimming class and with mcaf were together I mean we do have such wonderful program two of my grandchildren currently attending the mother me class and I instead I I know I'm very busy but I still will take Sophia at least once a week to that school and we learn so much Sophia is only 2 years old but she can I mean ABCD all the way to the last four letters I mean 24 letters she also know how to do a little counting all because our ABC mother be class I want to thank you again the principal that you are here thank you thank you uh board member you yes um
062thank you Chris camp and Sharon song that was a wonderful presentation very informative uh one particular thing that I'm very impressed is the the fact that you guys ran a ad and in and uh enrolled more students that is fantastic and that is a good practice for the the rest of us too because we do struggle I mean all districts are going through a declining enrollment so it's going to be a competition and we have a fine District you know with great school we have a we are a very functional school and I think that we'll be able to even attract students from other District District so really you know brilliant idea and also I just wanted to point out that um you know uh high school students I I've been getting this a lot
063from the community about how you know can we bring the trade back such as um the carpentry electricity Auto and we have some of that with seros high school but it it seems like um you know more opportunities can be opened up if um through the adult school as well you know for some of many of our high school students because the students do struggle with Direction and parents struggle even more you know to give direction to their you know children for future job and career obviously not everyone is College Bound you know and it's really difficult to get a job after college too so thank you so much thank you board member Yoko yabui thank you uh Mr Kemp and Miss song Wonderful presentations um I did want to comment as well on the
064advertisement I have a friend uh she's a fellow parent in the ABC Community who is a student at the ABC Adult School and she was actually on one of the the bus campaign ads so I thought that was really cool that you guys use actual students and they I mean she got a kick out of it too so so great job thank you to give credit to the principal excellent yeah thank you board member board member uh Mendoza thank you Mr President Christopher thank you for your years of service teaching to you and your wife I'm on year 27 I don't think I'm going to make it to 37 I don't know Christopher but but but thank you so much and thank you to you and your wife for being the model of lifelong Learners
065you are perfect example for our community and I love I love the ads I just think easy as ABC I think we just need to use it I could have used it on my sticker for the kids but that is a great um advertisement and I like that in your report it shows you know usually ABC you think of K12 but we actually service kids from one-year-olds all the way to adults um we have Community Education adults with disabilities I mean you're you're hitting everything over there you're you're supporting working working families you know with ad mum after hours we have citizenships and it's just great to hear the progress and I think people need to know about us right and so I like come to our district it's as easy as ABC I love
066it thank you so much thank you thank you anybody else so really quickly um yeah this is a great entrepreneurial uh Department if it works it works if it doesn't you try something new it's kind of different in education right you don't you know sometimes we have the same thing over and over but in this you know before they would have x-class x-class x-class but now they have um just all different kinds of the classes that I've I've I've seen that's kind of great um my contractor started he was from Lebanon I I don't think he had any high school he started it at um the adult school he ended up getting a ma I think he went through adult school continueed he got his GED he went got his uh college degree and then
067he got his Ma and successful contractor and he built my uh uh house so um it's a great job it it comes from great leadership um starting with Dr ping gu and also Nancy Amara and continuing with the great team that she has with just Innovative thoughts not thinking just in the box but putting things on the buses I think we all made a mention of that so thank you very much for your effort got a question though a real question what can we do for you what can we do better for you just spread the word no no I'm talking to the the student board members here yeah well first of all yeah we have to give credit to the principal we can't hear Speak oh I'm sorry um well I just I look
068forward to I I've already mentioned to the principal that I wanted to talk with her about some thoughts I've had and uh and so I was GNA I was beginning to write up an eail for her and just begin that communication with her about some ideas I had which the answers May already be there but I wanted to out of my own curiosity I'm still I'm still very curious about many things um uh wanted to uh continue that dialogue with her uh possibly visit some classes maybe even uh uh non-intrusively um I know what it's like to be a teacher and you don't want to have people with check trck off lists or anything coming through but uh just to maybe interface with some teachers as well as administrators about some things but that's going
069to happen in the future possibly so we'll see how that goes that that's about it um I didn't mention it earlier but uh I'm mainly part of the parent Ed portion of the school but I also attended the adult education maybe about 15 20 years ago my 20s and I took sewing classes and quilting classes and with that I actually made quilts for my babies before they went to parent ed class so it's kind of Full Circle um I just want I would ask if the board has the power to do this to kind of have more communic awareness about the programs especially our parented programs just because with Adult School you it's adults so they can choose all the classes but the parent education program we have new students that need to come in
070every year because it starts from like six months to one year and then they usually age out once they go to school so they're constantly looking for the new students the new parents new grandparents or caretakers anyone and it's such a great program once they get in I I think a lot of them do just stay throughout um so just awareness I think just just not a lot um with everything competing like um you were saying so I would really appreciate that thank you thank you you're student School Board member so you can give us your input all right I'm just adding one more thing the flower arrangement we are not just we can take the flow Arrangement class but we also they also provide a job opportunity for the people who came come I
071love it cuz I took about 10 years probably over there so I do help some organization set up the flower for them because Adult School made me thank you thank you item 16 employee representative reports Mr G we're to pass today thank you public comments uh clerk Yoku amabi persons wishing to address the board should fill out a card located on the table by the door and place it in the silver tin speakers will be called in squence during the public comment section which is limited to one hour and each speaker to one presentation of 5 minutes unless the board wishes to wave the time limit those who have a group concern are encouraged to select a spokesperson to address the board please remember that the board is unable to directly respond to comments made
072during the public comment section and neither the board nor District staff verify the accuracy of the statements made during public comments persons wishing to address the board on a specific agenda item at the time the item is under discussion are limited to 5 minutes each and will be called to speak following the staff comments and prior to the board's discussion and taking action adverse remarks about a person's race ancestry ethnic group identification religion color national origin sex sexual orientation gender mental or physical disability or age may not be made please avoid remarks or charges which reflect upon the character motives qualifications or ability of any school district employee concerns presented to the board will be followed up and addressed by the appropriate staff our first speaker is James Howell please come up thank you oh
073too short hello everyone my name is James Hal I am a alumni from Richard gar high school that was my former principal right there just give her a round of applause yes she was the one that inspired the entrepreneurial spirit and today I'm a graduate from Texas and I was able to start CA Fitness C Fitness stands for convenient fun fitness people like conveniency never heard anybody I'm saying having too much fun I don't want to do any anymore Fitness just a buzz word c Fitness has been around for about a decade now and we're in 100 schools in County we have the pleasure of servicing ABC School District we're in Lil Aloha and Burbank we are in orange school district Newport School District Anaheim School District L USD to name a few James was
074able to go in the 2016 Olympics speaking in third person I'm James uh I run in 2016 Olympics and the fun fact about myself I am the shortest guy in the world to run one lap in 45 seconds wow thank you thank you see Fitness is an active recess in PLC program we have the pleasure of working with students on a day-to-day basis running structured fun activities this company has allowed us to bridge the grb with students from all walks of life when you go outside and play with your friends you don't think about anything else but having a time on your life the individuals that we provide at the schools on a day-to-day basis brings that Walt Disney Experience to the playground teachers love it because they have now gained more class instructional time
075because what happens on the playground stays on the playground principles love it because they don't have to deal with any office traffic because again what happens on the playground stays on the playground and students the ones who typically wouldn't play on the playground now we've been able to bridge that Gap and bring games that they like it's one thing for me to talk about it but it's another thing for me to show it so I'm going to be my natural self all right everyone you're going to have to stand up you going have to be the kid today sorry stand up we not retired but you got to stand up today yeah everybody got to stand up today all right so I'm going to change my name I am now going to be coach boss
076baby everybody say boss baby boss oh no no no everybody say boss baby boss baby everybody go ring ring ring ring ring ring everybody go who is it who is it boss baby boss baby can I get a A can I get a do what I do say what I say do what I do say what I say everyone say baby chicken nuget baby chicken nugget dip dip Di in the sauce dip dip dip it in the sauce everyone say throw it up throw it up break it down break it down freeze freeze everybody clap your hands freeze all my favorite friends can you take a deep breath in like this deep everybody say take it easy take it easy all right you have a seat that's a first so those are a students experience
077on a day-to-day basis I've been fortunate enough to be successful in this business so I would like to offer this services for some of your schools who you believe can benefit from this free of charge again free of charge I know we're getting ready to experience Financial financial difficulties so I would like to pay it forward without gar High School I would have been nothing so I want to make sure I pay it for it since I have the capital to do so again I would love to have the opportunity to pay for your principal's lunch for the elementary schools and the ones who believe they're in need I would love to provide this service I always say it's a difference between me saying I love you with my mouth and we providing that touch
078thank you everyone you guys have a wonderful evening if you're looking for brasures I Dro them off right over there to my left thank you everyone for your time we have our next speaker Margaret Saito Margaret Saito uh first of all uh to uh superintendent Zelo president isi members of the board uh staff members here and community members that may be attending um first I'd like to congratulate all the students parents and staff members of all these schools that we have honored for their outstanding academic performance during 2024 as mentioned in the previous speaker we are going through a period of a declining enrollment with that in mind I suggest that with regard to Administration the headquarters here that we take the staff and we move some of the staff into the schools where we
079have combined classes where we have split classes and use them to help supplement the Personnel in those classes to help those students okay cuz we don't have the Personnel but we could use the Personnel we do have to help supplement because they're all teachers but so they should be able to help in reading math with these students because primarily we're looking in elementary schools and so um we need to help them when they have split split uh classes okay cuz the teacher is only one person well so that way we would put more Personnel in that classroom okay because if we have to close schools we're going to cut administration too I we should not close schools with without making a proportional cut in our Administration cost with that in mind I know that you
080have a manual payroll system there is no reason today why you should continue to have a manual payroll system where you have to input everything on a piece of paper you can have a website and do electronically there probably is some software out there it's going to save you money save you time maybe cut some Personnel in terms of Duties that they have to do but it'll save the district time and money okay so you should look into that because that's going to save you money and um let's see uh one more thing with regard to uh Mr she U mentioned te with a uh uh trustee I want to thank him for giving that opportunity uh to members of the community because it was very interesting I I was able to attend so thank
081you again okay bye next speaker is Carla B Santa Cruz and after the speaker it will be frank yokoyama good evening it's nice to be back good evening and congratulations to all the board members president Nishi e board members superintendent zlo and cabinet me leaders and ABC Community I'm Carla Santa Cruz formerly known as carlaa when I was a bilingual teacher and English learner multilingual um program specialist migrant education I've done a lot of program coordination and implementation in my almost 38 plus years you can do it letia uh I did my student teaching at Ferguson Elementary in 1974 when the LA versus nickel Court decision was made and I was hired in January 2025 um sorry 1975 so this year this month I'm celebrating my golden teaching anniversary today I'm still active as an
082advocate volunteer and consultant living in citos my grandson is a second grader at nemis du immersion program and my three-year-old grandson attends with my daughter-in-law at gonzalves Adult School preschool and my children all attended ABC schools one of them attended the Elliot dersion Portuguese program and on to Ross and then gar I'm here tonight to inv invite you all to attend the 50th Anniversary annual conference of the California Association for bilingual education a conference March 26th to 29th at the Long Beach con Convention Center just like me we're celebrating Cab's 50th Anniversary it's the premier learning opportunity focusing on English learner multilingual learner education and the conference features language English language development by literacy education and more it's for teachers administrators board members parents families and high school students but tonight I have a special
083complimentary invitation one day pass that's especially for board members superintendents at all levels uh associate deputy superintendant and more to attend the administrative leadership symposium it's going to be held on Friday March 28th you can network with other experts and Advocates on the implementation of the El road map you can meet the authors of the El a framework as well and here from Bright Spot uh school districts who are successfully implementing components and principles of both and I was uh on the Committees that uh wrote those documents as well so as I've said I have a long history of advocacy and I appreciate ABC's support for all my years in the field I hope to see you there and so I have uh some information that has the information for the website that uh can
084help you um attain your one- day pass thank you so much can I give it to you thank you our next speaker is Frank yokoyama following will be Teddy Lloyd thank you uh president Nishi clerk Yoki amab Bui member Dr Rios member Mendoza member SE and member U thank you for your years of service to tens of thousands of students of the ABC Unified School District I'm uh while I am a seros council member uh I am here um during public comment as a community member as an ABC proud family member specifically today as a member of the Whitney High School Community under board policy 7310 regarding the naming of facilities memorials upon request the board shall consider naming buildings parts of buildings or athletic fields in honor of the contributions of students staff members
085and community members who have been deceased for at least one year consider please consider this a a request under that board policy I request naming a building at Whitney High School in the ABC Unified School District in honor of Mr Robert S Beal longtime ABC employee from 1963 to 1993 and founding principal of Whitney High School 1976 to 1988 Robert Sterling Beal was born January 7 1936 in San Francisco California and passed away October 5 2011 at Long Beach Memorial medic Medical Center with his family by his side Bob spent 35 days in ICU trying to overcome his battle with ards but unfortunately couldn't beat it Bob was survived by his devoted wife at the time of 54 years Jerry his sons his daughter-in-laws his grandchildren his siblings his nieces and nephews who all miss
086him dearly Bob was employed by the ABC Unified School District from 1963 to 1993 the founding of Whitney High School a nationally recognized school of excellence and California distinguished school was the highlight of his educational career Whitney High School faculty students and alumni Proclaim abundantly how Bob changed their lives forever Bob loved how much his former students stayed in contact with him to let him know of their successes and to thank him for pushing them to be their best and um just this past year Whitney High School was recognized as the top middle school in the state this past year Whitney High School received five was recognized with five National and State Awards and Whitney High School is regularly recognized over these years since it's founding as the top high school in the state of
087California I'm here um as one of Bob Beal's students um I am not expecting the board to do anything about this tonight I'm not asking the board to do anything about this tonight I mentioned what the board policy is and I plan on following the board bylaws 9322 subparagraph B procedures for placing items on the agenda by members of the public I am a Community member who shares this with many Whitney thousands if not tens of thousands of Whitney families and thank you for your consideration and I look forward to discussing this at a future meeting as an agendized item thank you thank you we have teddy Lloyd as the next speaker thank thank you very much and then Happy New Year and good evening to all the board members um you probably remember that
088I have uh been by to the board meetings a few times last year and why I'm here it's more to do with the fastest gror sport of pickle ball you say well what's that got to do with the school well I noticed over the uh Christmas vacation I noticed a lot of the younger kids because I play pickle ball and the parents will come to me and ask hey can you help my kids a little pickle ball I enjoy that I enjoy very much but then at the same time I noticed that the kids most of them you know Elementary and maybe even uh middle school or high school they don't have any cours in the ABC schools to even play with and so now it's a fastest gr sport what can the school do
089about it and I think I I discussed that with the ABC school and then now I come up with some ideas and I like to share that with the ABC School Board is that first of all most of the courts are almost always I call the hand me downs meaning coming from a tennis court and uh I looked around and I noticed that the uh uh most of the tennis courts are almost unused where artia High School G high school and and and citos high especially seros High has eight tennis courts and which I do believe the ABC schools gymnasiums is shared with the city of ceritos so my idea I like to propose for the school board to consider just to think which is I consider it's a lowcost approach it's why not take
090two of the eight courts of tennis courts that uh seros High has hardly ever used and I would say that can be easily converted into pickle ball quotes at a low cost and then maybe share that with the city of citos and then there are two options you can consider one is making it for dual use what what do I mean by dual use it can be used for pickle ball as well as for tennis One tennis court can easily accommodate four pickle ball courts so now you have it and then since the uh ABC's gymnasium I'm sorry citos High gymnasiums it's ABC School shared that with the city of citos then why not have the pigle ball courts that can be used for the students after they get out of school okay so I
091think to me I think that is a very very lowcost approach to consider for the ABC School District and if if it's successful maybe should consider that for the other tennis courts that the uh uh AB BC school has and then I would be happy to discuss the details what would be a low cost for the school and then it's very often that I notice that everywhere you go in Southern California especially in Southern California majority if not all of the pickle ball courts almost all converted from tennis courts so if the tennis courts at the Abc schools high schools mostly not being used especially after school is out why not consider that and I think this this is definitely something that worthwhile for the ABC School District board to consider and I'll be happy
092to discuss other details and and what would be their cost and then so far most of it it's a very low cost and then some of it would even be using painters tape and the painters tape which can be in put in in couple of hours to show how that works out so any case that's my idea and I like to share that with the ABC school board for consideration thank you very much have a nice evening Mr President can I make a quick comment sure on the pick ball you can ask a question yes sure yeah you know he came uh Mr tedboy came few times and uh I do like to give direction or as the board for consensus that it would be really worthwhile to look into this pickall uh for our
093district in the elementary school middle school and high school because it is a really growing Sports and you know I'm always advocate of physical activity for the children and this is very low cost and it is very popular and it's not like tenis where you need to get the lesson which is costly but this is very simple so I'd like to to ask the president and our superintendent to look into it and maybe have a discussion as a for our board board to consider right this is not an agendized item but U for the future put it on the agenda or something uh Sophia Sophia say sop the two thing I did play the pickle ball it's not that hard very good and especially actually even for adult school is really good cuz it's a
094short distance when you play it it's not that tiing a question question and my second thing is um our um council member Frank mentioned about principal boy um I do want to put an agenda if we can because I I think we Deni one time a year ago because at that time he just passed away and according our education code we can't name the diseased person will just pass recency so if understood it is not an agendized item so we can direct the superintendent to respond appropriately but we can't really discuss it because it's not on the agenda it would not be fair to other people that didn't come to the meeting thinking we're going to talk about pickle ball or the name so we can direct the superintendent to follow up with yes pleas
095additional thank you thank you very much have a nice evening thank you thank you thank you thank you the next speaker is Adrien AUP and so to confirm are we putting both of those items on the agenda for we're directing we're talking to the superintendent yes thank you go ahead uh good evening uh distinguished School Board I'm proud to have been a a product of the school system I think everyone's doing a great job uh I attended both gar and seros high school with a diploma from the latter uh recently just getting more involved in the community and events I've noticed that GAR high school students get very active both in attending uh City Hall meetings as well as the Let Freedom Ring committee I think that's that's very good to be getting young people
096involved in in their community and planning and learning to be leaders but unfortunately I haven't seen any involvement from Sero high school students even though they're right across the street from the town hall and the um Community Safety Center where they hold the Let Freedom Ring committee um as well as I I went to attend a uh elf play at seros high school and I noticed that it doesn't seem like the school's been updated since I graduated there uh 10 years ago so my two two questions cuz I I have love for SOS high school because I have a diploma from SOS High School um are there any plans to really give a nice facelift to SOS High School which is right across from our amazing library and and uh city hall and then second
097are there any plans to try to bring the seros high school kids more into maybe attending uh City Hall meetings or uh give them an opportunity on the lit Freedom Ring committee um because I just I kids from gar they take the bus you know even some kid after wrestling practice takes a bus from gar to go to the city hall for citos but the kids are right across the street and they're not getting involved so that's just I'm uh just had a question for those two things uh updates to seros high school campus and maybe trying to help to get uh SOS High students more involved in community events thank you thank you superintendent will follow up I see no further public comment thank you so that closes the public comments section let's go
098to the consent calendar can I have a motion to approve the consent calendar so move by Sophia second thank you does anybody wish to pull an item on the consent calendar uh board member Mendoza thank you Mr President not pull it I just like to make a comment on one of the items it is 2.1c and I believe it's on page 81 great and I will also actually pull an item uh 3.7 C let's start with yours thank you so my my comment is just you know and you can see I'm getting I'm getting a little jealous of people retiring so I saw I I was looking at the agenda and I see that we have a couple of our staff members who are retiring and I know that the district does activities I mean
099there's like a and I do we do one mid year is it or till the end of the year okay the end of the year so they have to wait till the end of the year but I just wanted to to say thank you there's we have Estella we have Mary we have Jacqueline we have Stephen and we have Josephine and they're all retiring and I just wanted to wish them well and just to thank them for their years of service here at ABC UniFi and and I know that they might have to wait till June so I just wanted to make sure that they knew that the board recognizes them and and it tells them they're kind of I'm kind of jealous all these people are retiring I got a couple more years but
100I did wanted to to just say thank you and wish them well and know that the board recognizes them for the work that they've been here at ABC thank you thank you uh my item with the 3.7 C quick question um this is for to renew contract with Community matters uh for $114,000 just had a quick question as to how many staff members are going to be or St how many staff members from Community matters is going to be part of the uh program roughly or how many hours we think we're going to be um for $4,000 I know it's a two-day in-person expansion training for safe School ambassadors uh approximately 307th graders which is great just I wanted to know uh how many of them are going to be doing this training yes thank
101you sorry it took me a minute to find some of the paperwork involved with that it's a two-day interactive training six and a half hours per day and it includes 5 to eight adults that'll be serving up to 40 students and then there's 12 additional ambassadors that the program uses that have been trained by them to kind of help model the program for students okay this is a full day program with a lot of people then all right yes and there's additional pieces beyond the you know there's followup with the principal to make sure that the program is working in the implementation of the school site so um this is a continuation we did the first part of the program towards the end of last year mid year and we wanted to kind of complete
102the loop and do the second part of it and so that is what we're doing that's what we're requesting for the renewal okay so it's not just the the two days it's actually the preparation prior to that and also the after measurement effects of what the effectiveness of this program is correct okay great thank you okay I have no other further questions um can I get a vote all in favor say I I I I I all right motion passes 60 time item follow consent items Dr zlo can you introduce our new guest sure can I have a motion to accept the district annual audit report and measure BB General obligation Bond audit report from negro negro PC for the year ending June 30th 2024 so move by Sophia second thank you um annually usually
103Mr W discusses this and he is not here this evening so please bear with me um but annually under Ed code 4120 um the district is required to engage with an external independent audit firm to audit the district's Financial records in addition under Proposition 39 the district is required to have a separate audit and a report for the measure BB General obligation Bond program and so the district's independent audit firm is Nigro and Nigro they've completed their audit and this evening with us is Mr Peter Glenn who is an audit partner with the firm and and we'll be here to present with us Mr Glen good evening Mich too far away good evening thank you for the introduction maybe did not turn you have to push harder see the green lights it's not light a
104green light oh yeah testing testing check check check maybe have them sit over there next to uh want me to go here yeah there we go we're not overspending on microphones for sure good evening good evening yes we can hear you thank you good evening members of the board and of cabinet and audience and uh thank you for uh the opportunity to present our 2324 audit report so as was mentioned my name is Peter Glenn I'm with the audit for Agro Nigro and we performed our independent audit of the district's uh Financial records and also uh we audit for compliance matters um I think we're going to forgo the slides then or I don't need them but you know okay sorry I didn't want to add something I know the meeting's already been probably longer
105than sorry than you uh expected so uh the slides just to give you a little background on these these were presented to the audit committee so they you're going to see there that was presented to the finance and audit committee on December 10th which is before the um due date for the audit okay thank you the audit is due to the state on December 15th this year that was a Sunday so it was actually on the 16th all right so I'm going to roll it here and uh I assume I go to the right with my little button we're off to a great start okay okay so as you can see uh you mentioned the Education Code that the audit was required under um that's an annual requirement we are an independent audit firm that's
106hired by the district um independently um what do the financial statements do what purpose do they serve while they inform um as to the financial condition condition of the district and they have to be filed in a specific way you can see the term there that says Gap that's generally accepted accounting principles so the format of the reports has to be presented a certain way to be accepted by the state controller's office Gap is set by an organization known as gby there's another acronym that's the governmental Accounting Standards Board so just so you know who sets those a lot of the things most everything we we're going to do there's going to be some sort of authority that tells us this is how you need to do it so just so you you uh know
107what some of the basis is for a lot of our um of what's in the report so you can see there the due date was December 15th and uh because it was on a Sunday was December 16th this year okay um the next two slides I believe it might be the next three slides actually have to do with actual sites that we visited so this gives you a little bit of background on the on the uh audit uh field work we call this phase one of our field testing this happened in the spring so I'm just going to quickly go through these are sites we tested and just so you know we have to test 20% of each grade span so that's why we and we rotate these year-over-year so that's why these sites were
108selected so here's some more for the uh middle schools and ASB uh and high schools we're testing asbs as well then uh the last part of phase one is to test uh internal controls and federal and state compliance at the district office so that's kind of all part of it that also occurs in the spring oh that worked um and then when we uh after we do those items you'll probably be familiar with this term the UN audited actuals which you approve in the fall September of of the year which is based on that June 30th cutof date those are the amounts that we go with to audit your financial statements and then in addition to that we look at your compliance with state and federal laws regulations guidelines and we report we make sure
109that the reporting on your pensions and your OPB is uh again in line with generally accepted accounting principles so if we uh we issue several types of reports that are in the audit uh your audit uh report there that's over about 108 pages of of reporting in there the very first one is the audit opinion that's mentioned last on this slide but this this has to do with whether the financial statements are fairly stated in all material respects and that was the case for your audit so that's why that first bullet there says it's unmodified and then um also unmodified on your major federal programs and on your major State programs or your state programs um at the back of your report you'll note some findings and um findings are basically where there's just you
110know maybe a a a black and white issue um that the district didn't quite meet up to the standard so it's an opportunity for improvement and so you'll see those in the format that's required by the um State controller's office so there'll be a a criteria and um a reason for what the finding is there and also the district response so the district is responding and coming up with a solution for the issue and then the following year we'll come back and make sure that those things have been implemented and then if they have been then they will be removed so uh you can see that with the three findings for 2223 the solutions for those were implemented um couple more slides this is a bit deeper dive than you probably need to go for
111this type of presentation but um some districts we find are very interested in knowing what the OPB liability is um this is post employment benefits and also um what the pension liability is which is through stirs and purs so that's what these two slides are going to demonstrate for you and those are based on present value amounts so they're they're performed by actuaries and I am not going to spend too much time on on these slides but these slides demonstrate um the net position of the district which is a focus on all of your assets and your liabilities um longer term um items and your fund balance on the other hand is more your shortterm so when you're looking at your annual budget those are the things that you're looking at on a day-to-day basis
112in a year-to-year basis and that kind of aligns more with your un audited actuals and your again going back to your net position that is presented in such a way um to show um you know pensions opv but that's more of a again going back to those uh standards by gby that need to be presented in governmental uh financial statements okay um some some more uh data if you will um your stir and purs pension liability increased your retiree Health benit liability decreased so there's your um amount there and again I'm doing a a broad brush here okay um one of the uh items that is of Interest the district added 54.7 million in capital asset additions over the year that's mostly attributed to your your bond measure which was uh also part of our
113audit um before I do questions since I'm talking about uh the bond audit we uh audited your your bond measure that's in the smaller report that's the prop 39 that was uh the prop 39 requirement that is a financial audit where we're looking at the Financial transactions we're looking at the balances and um expenditures during the year and then it's also a performance audit where we're making sure that those expenditures align with the uh the bond uh that was passed the bond measure that was passed by your taxpayers okay so there were no uh issues or findings or exceptions in the bond audit report so make that comment and now I'll move on to the next slide if there's any questions uh board members you okay stick those mics yes uh we definitely need some
114help with mics thank you president Nishi so overall um were we we were in compliance with the all the bond program requirements yes okay that's good to good to know yeah and uh we spent accordingly um if you mean like all the the expenditures that we tested were in line with the uh Bond measure yes okay thank you very much any other board member all right I have a few questions if it's okay oh wait um uh board member say sorry president um I just want to let you know and to the public know too after the bound money spending on each school we also invite the public to join what the visit the site has been done and that was I believe it's a December right yeah so it was just really to let
115the community understand what we had done because this their money spending on our I mean to our school so just want to let you know this is what we done for that thank you though than Care thank you I have a few questions I'll just be try to be as quick as possible page seven of the audit just the general audit the says here that our district revenues increased 1.9 uh 9% to $395 million so that's total revenues is that including bond funds let me uh catch up to you here uh you said page seven page seven financial analysis of the district as a whole bottom line actually changes in net position government Activities The District's total revenues increased 1.9% to 395 million this is revenues total revenues so I'm including that's uh restricted funds
116um so these are going to be um government wide um revenues and so they're going to include all of your funds and um doesn't so it doesn't include bond funds no in this for in this context bond funds are not uh are not Revenue yeah but in the fund Financial concept they are so I know it's a little because I always thought our budget was like 230 million right and so I'm kind of shocked at this number I don't know what else we spend the money on are you talk I'm sorry are you looking at the revenues or total revenues increase to 395 that's okay so maybe I'll get the answer different time well it yeah I mean I it's it's it's it's um if you look at table A2 A2 good um your total
117revenues year-over-year is that's where the increase is coming A2 I see the next page right yeah so A2 you've got your total revenues 2024 and 2023 so the increase of 1.9% is the year-over-year increase M there yeah but that says 70 70 million uh 7.3 million increase yeah where where is that on on this side 7.3 I don't see it still increas money we had for buildings and money we had for vehicles so they were probably in specific areas where it could used that way okay I mean I I I know I always thought our budget was 230 million so when I see an extra this I'm I just yeah I think are you are you looking at general fund budget or just says District total revenues Ian I'm sorry when you say your budget
118is what you said it was 230 million were you thinking of general fund budget or I'm thinking general fund budget that's so this this here this A1 and A2 is everything all funds um restricted funds no it's it's all funds includes restricted funds yes including restricted F so that we get um 70 almost 170 million in restricted funds um I'm not really seeing where you're you're making that comparison so I'm looking at page seven total revenues increased 1.92 3 3395 million this is not your general fund that's yeah so I'm understanding that that's including the restricted funds it's it's unrestricted it's restricted and restricted and it's all your Farms so if I subtract my general fund budget of 230 from the 395 roughly that's 165 in restricted funds or am I is my math really
119off well I think what you want to do is look at table A3 a that has all your funds okay if you want to look at revenues and expenditures and then kind of go through the exercise you're doing and look at that table okay so explain this explain it to me if you could so total net position is 70 million so net position includes everything that's your buildings your Capital assets your your your your pensions your opab all of that is coming together okay it's not your general fund right I get that so total expenses was 370 million uh last year and our total revenue is so so if you so this is including assets if you want to look at your general fund on table A3 the very first fund is your general fund
120so your revenues in there are 347 million 347.50 and your expenditures are 335.40 instruction pupil Administration Plant Services all the activities all right well I I'll um all right so I see that we had an increase of 5 million in federal funds uh and right that we didn't expect to get I think that was on page uh nine revenues increased by 5 million primarily to reflect federal state and state budget actions some of that was state but it looked like it was mostly Federal right why do we get the extra five so this is your which I'm not I'm not arguing no no no it's okay um so your the first line there that you're referring to over the course of the year the district revised the annual operating budget several times the the major
121Bond sorry the major budget amendments fall into these categories so these are actually budget amendments they're not actual dollars okay it's your budget was amended so you have that original budget which is like June right and then you have your actual uh your yeah your actual one later so like the governor gives a certain amount of money and then the actual come in later on and we get the the amount that the actual yeah and and it there's a actual um if if you want to dive into the budget um there is a an entire page on uh your budget to actual comparison MH um and that is on page 55 so so the paragraph that you were referring to there is is talking about okay your original budget was this your your um amended
122budget was so I'm looking at this it says the variance with final budget positive 21 million that's pretty great and then we had a total expenditures extra probably of 8 million so we probably get the difference so um why wouldn't our fund balance increase you um well you had I might be reading this wrong so I'm not really experienced in all this so you had an excess of revenues over expenditures this is the variance with the final budget so it was 21 million that we got more than we expected and we spent 8 million more I think than we expected you know can I interject in something here uh president yes okay according to a a a A3 if you look carefully on the B that page right a page eight A3 above the financial
123analysis of the distri fund District fund with say very clearly as the district complete this year the governmental U fund reported a combined fund balance of 190 19 [Music] 196.168 $20 million I don't think we spend more cor it's probably your well your building fund you spent 50.4 million yeah so we That's not including the bond fund though correct yes it is it is the building fund is it is okay so this includes the bond fund yeah okay all right well at the end our fund balance is 20 23 million so yeah the beginning are we talking general fund or all funds uh general fund general fund beginning of the year was 98.8 end of the year was 103.6 and our fund balance is so your your general fund balance was higher yeah but your
124total fund balance was lower because all the other funds expended more than they took in in primarily your building fund got it yeah okay so our at the end of the day our unrestricted fund balance is 23 million 2235 544 as reflected in page 14 at the end of the day your unrestricted fund balance is going to be as of June yes jun24 on the trend schedule so let me look at that 6 months ago so your ending fund balance in your general fund was 103.6 you had reserves of 23 million okay got it yeah that's right right okay all right thank you okay no question we got there all right all right thank you oh we have lots of questions here I apologize doc uh Soph say followed by uh board member Mendoza and
125then board member suu I already got it ready I read the whole yeah thank you I passed this time thank you president thank you then uh board member Mendoza thank you Mr President and I just wanted to thank you for clarifying that because it's hard to follow but I wanted just to I know at the end you had the schedule of findings and I know there was some recommendations have those recommendations already been implemented or is that something we're going to do our director of fiscal services and business Monica Aurora is here this evening and she can address that at the microphone for us that's the relevant question actually good evening president Nish um vice president noola and um clerk Miss Buie and all the respected board members uh thank you for that question Miss
126mosa and uh yes as soon as our Auditors tell us where the lack is and where we need Improvement we implement it right away so all those uh recommendations uh that we have provided to the Auditors is after we have uh when we have already implemented um the improvements and we have taken actions on them thank you thank you board member you okay thank you board president Nishi um so we're discussing the general right now we can ask questions so um so for this year this we are going to meet the fund balance without deficit we have a surplus are you talking about 2425 yeah oh no will we meet the fund balance so I I is an audit I'll let her I'll defer to her for 2425 because that's thank you for your question
127Mrs G so um next month in February we will be presenting you second interim report where we'll be bringing you all the financials back again based on uh Governor's budget proposal which Governor has proposed and um how the economic factors are working and how does that impact our school district so we'll present all that we'll bring it back to you in um February and uh we'll present that all information and at that time you would know what uh our fund balance would be okay and another question I have is uh we have um how will the unknown liability affect our fund balance that's a tricky question I mean I know but like we do have liabilities are you are you referring to like the penion and the opab no liability no I I think at
128this point um we will have to go with each case and then as you get throughout the year updates on the budget which come when you get the interim reports you will see how it's impacting yeah that's that was my concern okay yeah so so overall how do we do as a district how was the audit would you grade above average I'm going to stick with you know the language that that we Auditors use and and so our opinion on the financial statements was unmodified and um they're fairly stated so I think what that means from a financial standpoint is although it goes you know it only goes through June 30th of 24 MH but going forward you have confidence that okay the those starting balances have been independently verified MH so now you can
129move forward with confidence when you do your budgeting and that's kind of how this all works thank you very much thank you is there any public comment no we did that oh we already did that okay all right um should we have a vote then for this okay accept you have accept vote to accept the audit report all in favor say I I thank you let's move to the next item action items 1.2a may have a motion to approve the Community member and student appointments to the board advisory committee Sophia second M thank you Dr zlo thank you um we have added a few student board members and alternates to our board committees so that is the change you see here this evening any public comments I see no public comment thank you any board
130comment no board comment thank you all in favor say I I any n seeing none motion passes 60 next item 1.3a can I have a motion to adopt resolution 24-13 acknowledging the month of January 2025 as school board recognition month Dr zlo thank you I'd like to just take a minute and read the recognition um in regard to the work that all of you choose to do um being a school board member is not something a lot of people will choose to do and so we really appreciate you and so the resolution reads that whereas an excellent public education system is vital to the quality of life for all California citizens and communities and whereas our Board of Education continues to ensure our children's academic social emotional physical and mental health needs are met and
131whereas our Board of Education continues to Advocate to best serve children in our community each and every day and whereas our board of education is committed to children and believe that all children can be successful Learners and that the best education is tailored to the individual needs of the child and whereas our Board of Education Works closely with parents educational professionals and other community members to create the healthiest environments possible where all students can Thrive and whereas our board of education is responsible for building and maintaining the structure that provides a solid down foundation for our school system and whereas our board of education is a strong advocate for public education and is responsible for communicating the needs of the school district to the public and the Public's expectations to the board and whereas the
132mission of the public schools to meet the diverse educational needs of all children and to empower them to become competent productive contributors to a Democratic Society and an everchanging world is more poignant than ever therefore now I Dr zlo do hereby declare my appreciation to the members of the Board of Education and Proclaim on the 21st day of January 2025 the month of January 2025 as school board recognition month in California Los Angeles County seros ABC Unified School District I urge all community members to join me in recognizing the dedication and hard work of our Board of Education members and in working with them to create an education system that meets the needs of all of our children thank you for reading that I appreciate it um any public comment on this item I see
133none all right let's have a vote all in favor say I I hi hi I pressed my button oh I apologize um doc um board member Mendoza thank you Mr President I I was I was conflicted with this one because we we do this because we want to serve our communities we want to serve our our kids and we made a choice to do this and and and I appreciate the recognition but just please know that we do this because we want to we we we already took our oath and I appreciate the recognition but it was really hard because I love recognizing everybody else so this one was kind of like but I appreciate it thank you thank you board member Mendoza when I first saw this I was like uh I don't know
134let's add everybody else to this thing and then I was like uh but and then I realize sometimes you just have to do self-care as well so uh it's okay it's okay thank you thank you and I love the public that's saying that so thank you very much if I may um in the state of California this last election more than 50% of Schoolboard positions either went unfilled or were filled by people who ran unopposed and so I think it says a lot about people willing to do that and if we don't say something to our public they won't understand the value of having a full board when there are many communities in the state who do not have a full board yeah and it's important so thank you sorry thank you I appreciate that
135uh board member you yeah just want to uh applaud our fellow board members and um you know we have a very uh qualified and capable board members we have two teachers two Educators you know uh two uh attorneys I mean this is a lot of time that we give but uh I know that we have our differences it's uh bipartisan but I know one thing is that everyone in who sit on this board care about the children and the Excellence for the children we're all here and we we can yell at each other and have differences but we will work together for the best welf for of our uh children to support our staff and uh really appreciate the partnership that we have with different stakeholders so thank you all for serving and stepping up
136we have a lot of work to do ahead thank you board members Su you I think we had more discussion about this after the vote than we had before the vote but all right we did thing a little bit backwards sometimes that's all right um can I have a motion to adopt resolution 24-14 acknowledging January 13th 2025 as korean-american day and recognition of the many contribut made by Korean Americans and I'm thinking let's do a little different let's be participatory if you don't mind um and each of us will read a paragraph from that and uh before second all right motion is second all right let's start with um wait did we vote for that one the one before we got a motion a second and then we're going to the one before no one
137before I haven't voted yet voted everybody made comment yes oh okay we voted first and then we commented which uh using presidential um discretion I allowed because I didn't recognize the board member uh Mendoza's timely press of the button so uh with this particular resolution I think it's important that we actually read it as a participatory board together in unit um with each specific paragraph starting with uh board member you and going along in each line thank you president andish for putting this on the agenda really appreciate it korean-american day whereas on January 13 1903 the history of Korean immigration to America began when 102 courageous Korean adults and children landed in the state of Hawaii after venturing across the vast Pacific Ocean aboard the SS gik and whereas the hopes of these Korean immigrants
138for America the land of opportunity were quickly hindered by social economic and language barriers of unforeseen magnitude and whereas these korean-americans did not falter in their pursuit of the American dream through perseverance and sacrifice they established a new home in a new land and educated their children and whereas between 1904 and 1907 approximately 1,000 korean-americans entered the United States mainland from the state of Hawaii through San Francisco where the first korean-american political organizations and Korean language Publications were established and whereas while the first Korean immigrant to the United States fought and sacrificed to establishs their children grew up to be Patric Citizen and many of whom went on to serve in the armed forces of the United States during the World War II and to make other important contribution made to to mainstream American society
139and whereas the 1965 amendments to the federal immigration natural nationality ACT public law 89- 236 open the door for a new wave of Korean immigrants to enter the United States since its enactment korean-americans have become one of the fastest growing groups of asian-americans in the United States in 1960 approximately 25,000 people of Korean ancestry lived in the United States but by 1970 that number had increased to 69,1 by 1980 the number of people of Korean ancestry living in the United States had increased over fivefold to 35459 3 and by 1990 that number more than doubled increasing to 79884 in 2010 it was estimated that 1,768 122 people with some ancestry lived in the United States representing more than a 67-fold increase since 1960 and whereas with diligence fortitude and enduring belief in the American dream
140Korean immigrants have helped to turn emergent areas within the state of California into thriving communities while raising their children to be productive Korean Americans and whereas korean-americans have become an integral part of mainstream American society and have made important contributions as Californians in the field of Finance technology law medicine education Sports media the Arts the military and government as well as other areas and whereas the American Korean American Community prepares for a new era and creates new history Korean Americans must instill in younger generations and appreciation for the courage and values of their forefathers a deep sense of their roots and pride in their own cultural heritage so that they may better contribute to the great state of California which is Rich with ethnic cultural diversity and Cuisine and whereas in ABC Unified School District
1415.7 of the student population identify as korean-american and where is this board of education is requested to adopt resolution 24-14 acknowledging January 13th 2025 as korean-american day in recognition of the many contributions made by korean-americans and korean-americans that have joined the ABC School Board in the past and current and approve it approved and adopted so we would like to have some public comments on this particular resolution do you see any public comments I I see none thank you can I get a vote any discussion from us oh okay uh two Dr um Mr board member sue you oh oh first of all I just again want to thank you for uh putting this on the agenda and um you know I immigrated When I Was 80 years old and just looking back I think I
142experienced the full immigrant life since the 70s and it's actually 50 years it was 50 years last year that our family immigrated and my sister's like we need to celebrate you know and uh you know our we we we grew up and uh we went to college on financial aid you know we grew up in apartment and you know it was tough like we had you know went on RTD bus do you guys remember RTD bus you know and um and I I I still uh played volleyball taking the RTD bus I had to transfer and change a few times and those were tough times but you know this is a great nation because we were able to be educated and all of our children are now um paying taxes I mean immigrants are thriving
143um part of I mean California has really uh grown through the the labor of the immigrants because immigrants pick up work that people who lived in this uh you know country for Generations right you know janitorial to garment uh the sector uh my mom was a what do you call the sress for a decade so you know a lot of hard work but I'm so glad that our district really proud that our district serves uh this U diverse population with how many languages over 30 yeah over 30 languages and look at all the the schools that were on the you know Blue Ribbon you know so it's it's amazing so thank you very much I'm proud to be korean-american and serving in the public I mean serving as a public servant thank you thank you
144um Doc board member Mendoza thank you Mr President this is a resolution that I like I like to see because um like board M suu said that we need to acknowledge our students diversity and we also need to they need to see themselves here in positions of leadership because as we learn we learn that our backgrounds are almost the same right we may come from different backgrounds but our history is almost the same and so this is a resolution I like to I like to read about so thank you for bringing this to the board um board member say it refle and reflect what happened on the last um that the day we at the city of seros Dr Martin Luther King Junior Day ceremony that day um the presenter speak what two the two
145words I never forget when I left from there I say Legacy matter unity means a lot to us and that tells you we all have to work together respect each other's culture and belief thank you board member Z so any further comments no further comments I'd like to call for a votes all in favor say I I I thank you Mo motion passes 6 to0 item number 3.10 can I have a motion to approve the request to contract with outfront media to provide advertisement to the ABC School actually Adult School on 10 bus shelters three digital Billboards 15 static Billboards and on Norwalk Transit from February 17th to May 11th 2025 so Sophia second thank you Dr Castro thank you as you heard from our wonderful representatives from The Adult School uh we had made
146some efforts last year to continue advertisement into the adult school program through some of our bus Long Beach Transit and Norwalk Transit which you could still see around the community I'm happy to report that we had a quite uh success with that uh our principal Nancy omara has reported to me that last year the enrollment for academic programs was at 293 and then this year they started the year off with 418 enrolled uh for our CTE pathway programs we saw last year at 402 and this year at 471 so again this contract with outfront media is to expand that offering by looking at Billboards that are appropriately placed in the surrounding areas that would possibly be uh for individuals who are local who would like to participate in the adult school program so just helping
147to get the word out thank you is there any public comment on this item not for this I see none thank you any board comment um doc uh board member Mendoza thank you Mr President do you know who came up with the slogan was it a student or was it was it the district I don't have that information but I could ask our principal for that information if he would like that is such a good slogan I think we need to adopt it as a district I believe that it's a company that we're working with that's helping us wow that I think we need to keep it and it's as easy as ABC I love it it it's it's really catchy thank you board member T I just want to remind uh the the clerk
148and the president now is a 10:15 so we only have 15 minutes left so we need to just kind of watch our time now thank you thank you all right um I just have any other board comment okay really quick I think it's a great uh thing but this is kind of different than our schools uh so uh I think yeah again Innovation that's it let's call for a vote all in favor of this particular say I I any nay seeing none motion passes 620 item 21 information items quarterly Williams settlement compliance report for October through December 20124 Dr Zelo thank you um we received our report back from the LA County Office of Education and there were no concerns reported in instructional materials facilities teacher vacancies or Miss assignments thank you Dr Zelo board
149member reports anybody uh board clerk Tatiana yokoyama Bui thank you um president Nishi uh many of us have family and friends who have faced uh devastating and tragic times these past couple weeks my my prayers go out to those who have lost um some lost everything uh there has been an incredible showing of support um direct support from our first line firefighters police officers volunteers and as well as philanthropy and support from our communities and schools includ including families banding together to collect donations and drive to various cities to help those in need your service is very much appreciated um as far as my report um I would like to touch upon briefly since I didn't get a chance um last month I attended the California State Bar of State Bar Association State Board Association
150School Board Association sorry I'm an attorney California school board association csba annual conference at the Anaheim Convention Center on December 5 I attended the welcome session entitled the science of well-being presented by Yale Professor Dr Lori Santos I found this session to be enlightening the course is available on coursera.org you can enroll for free currently it's a Yale course you can take for free I also attended on an Arts education prop 28 session as well as the California Latino School Board Association luncheon hosted by inspirational leaders in the Latino Community lastly I also attended a panel presentation on real examples of challenges and successes of school closure and consult idation on December 6th I attended the Asian Pacific Islander school board members Association breakfast where ABC Unified School District was recognized for outstanding program day
151of remembrance World War II survivors of us incarceration I also attended a showing of a documentary called anxious Nation directed by a High School parent from San Diego the documentary gave a glimpse into what our vulnerable youth experience and today's social media obsessed World awareness of the problem is our first step to helping the solve it the issue I was honored to attend a session accessibility for students to dual enrollment and CTE Pathways presented by ABC unified school districts Dr zlo and Dr Castro as well as featuring three bright and intelligent student P panelists from both Aria and seros high schools on December 7 I attended a presentation on best practices for underutilized Real Estate I also attended a General Session focused on demystifying AI and potential utilization of AI in our communities and districts
152on December 16 I attended a screening of school lunch of Asia City at Japan house in Los Angeles the screening and presentation was hosted by Mrs mommy son wife of Consul general of Japan in Los Angeles Mr kenko son Miss son was a school teacher in Japan for many years before she moved to Los Angeles nutrition and enjoy nutrition in and enjoyment of school lunches is of utmost importance in Japan and is one of the areas I am focused on while on school board on December 19th I attended Leo Elementary's Winter Wonderland performance I also attended Nixon Academy's the greatest gift performance presented by Nixon Academy's Junior jam and jaguars and musical troop both great shows by all the very um excited and talented students on December 20th 2024 I attended Hawaii Hawaiian Elementary's Winter
153Wonderland performance um I was uh once again Blown Away by how much they just put me into the Christmas Spirits last Friday I attended senior night for boys and girls basketball at seros high school I watched the boys varsity defeat their opponent on in a in a crazy Victory and the whole stadium was up and cheering it was very um memorable and this past Monday I attended the Dr Martin Luther King Jr Day ceremony at the ceritos Performing Art Center um as many have stated there were a number of outstanding performances by Young performers Elementary School age to college as well as adult community members the joy and confidence in their performances um gave me literally gave me goosebumps it was a momentous and inspirational celebration in Dr King's honor um and lastly I did
154want to include briefly um I had it noted but I failed to comment for the um for consent item 1.1c pause before you post I would like to be invited to one of the presentations I do believe that um again the social media issue and what we're dealing with now is an epidemic and I want to ensure that um we figure out what is being presented here and potentially start offering it to to elementary school students if it's appropriate thank you thank you board member say wow it's hard to follow you now no I'm so glad no I'm so glad I'm really glad that welcome to school board and thank you for participating so many program um we do need people like you are thank you very much well for me um January 1st as
155a new year I attend Winnie High School Chinese p TF um farway meeting for the graduate student um and Ros per I want a special thank to our board president Mr Nishi made a such a nice Interstate um chart and say 605 I was so excited and I got my crow in the back they all start screaming yelling I said that's from our school that's from our school people were so happy and they start screaming it that make us so proud say hey that's from ABC UNIF School District that's really I want to thank you for all the student and parent and teacher and staff get involved my May 8 I went to this So-Cal wiy High School set of a reality that I attending there I challenged some of the student because they have
156money right they ready to buy things so I challenged some high school I said hey they have a good sports car I should go get it and kids are so smart no too expensive I can afford but there are one or two stud and say I'm going to go only buy the car so I think in overall I think our student do recognize what is important the life and where they really need to spend the money the right money not the wrong way so I'm glad um it was good outcome so so and following the weekend um I think I believe it's January the 12th I was told there uh donating clothes and 195th I was like oh my God we got to get involved I took my youngest um grandson which is Lucas always
157with me so when they help and we went to we moved the the all those gift and the things to the to the truck and I put Lucas on top said Lucas because so many and Lucas you just dragging into the to to that cuz we are so I mean for my for me it's so hard to bend it down and pick it up and give it to them and Lucas small young so Lucas help us at four years so I want to thanks Lucas and also thank you um our president Mr Nishi participate right away and standing there helping us too one thing I do want to mention the story a lady who came late I think was closing time to 12 12:00 she came around 12:15 and she was crying this is what
158she said I have so many new clothes my husband just passed away and I don't know what to do but I believe he's very happy that I give this away to the people who really need it and you should see all the clothes and the material she bought brand new and and she was crying she really I just want to share I mean I can see citos we do have a lot of good resident willing I mean not just citos a teach seros even expanded to BU par people are so participating when it was ended up the Red Cross say no more no more we need just food and money now so I want to thank you Mom SOS your participation uh really make us I'm going to say that I am so proud of
159the those mother they have kids they they came and they help they make huge differ they show us the support and love to those people actually I also want thanks to our superintendent we do have a student who accept them from the fireplace and they end up no place to go they're attending our district I want to thank you Dr Zill except those student to our school district appreciate it so on 120 I mean January the 20 attending like I said Dr M Mar Luther King Jr on day ceremony like I said two thing I learned from there it was Legacy matter and unity and we do need to work together we need to help each others to make the better City and better Nationwide things and give us a love to one of each
160others and Care others not just focus what we really need be not selfish pass love to others thank you thank you board member Dr Rios actually sorry board member Mendoza you want to go [Music] first so can we get motion to extend uh minutes all in faor say I I okay 15 minutes 1045 go ahead what up to you board member Mendoza okay thank you Mr President um so happy New Year to everyone um so just uh starting back from after getting sworn in and a big thank you to supervisor Janice H for coming and to give me the O oath of office um I got I got really busy right then cuz I still had a week off from from um USD so I was able to attend some of the winter holidays so
161I went to Nixon and I got to see my goddaughter there perform and then I went to Kennedy's holiday performance I went to uh Ross I went to visit Ross and then I went to nemis and so burbank's holiday performance and it was just it was it's just the best time of the year to see all the students that have been working really hard in the staff to do the performances so thank you for inviting me and for having me um I also went to visit some of our schools I went to Ross Middle School Tracy High School and I also went to Aria high school and you know having been gone for a couple of years I'm I'm glad to go back and see that the schools are looking like modernized Ro Ross I'm
162I'm like wow it looks like a brand new school um I know Tracy and Aria I did speak with the district and and there's some areas that we want to we want to work with them to to to support them um but I'm just amazed of the things that the students are doing I went into one of the classrooms at Aria high school and I had a conversation with one of Miss uh Sergio G the principal said one of our students was um a second language learner he came to us a newcomer in middle school and he's in 11th grade and he was speaking fluent English and Spanish so I'm amazed that our students our newcomers that they can come and they can just be accepted and they can you know just thrive in their
163second language and their first language so that was great to see um I want to thank the city of Aria because they invited me to ride in the ARA Jingle Bell Express so we drove through the entire city with Santa one of uh the council members was Santa sh don't say anything but that was lots of fun and then I also attended the North artisia Community posadas which they have every year and it was just good to be around Community um I also got to come to the district and and visit District staff to catch up because after being gone for four years I wanted to kind of catch up and I'm so glad that in the four years not only our schools being modernized but like the simple things and I you know it's
164sometimes it's the little details like our pamphlets are modernized so thank you Dr CRA that was really good to see um and just thank you to the entire ABC School staff for just giving me a really warm welcome back um I it feels really good to to know that you know I was missed so that was great um I want to do a thank you to the City of Lakewood um we had one of our speakers come and said that the students he would like to see some of the students involved in Civic engagement and um Mr Canalis over at gar um he gives you know classes he gives extra points or you know as part of their their class they they have to go visit some of the local government so my son was
165actually able to go to the City of Lakewood and they were very gracious all of the city council members stayed after the meeting and they spoke to all of the the students there so he was really excited he came back and he was really excited because he got to see it in action everything that he reads um and some of the board members had have already mentioned that you know the last couple weeks coming back was really hard there was a disaster that has never been seen before in the state of California and I just want to welcome those students and those families who who are coming to us after losing so much and I just want to say to them you're welcomed here if you need anything please reach out to any of our
166staff that's why we're here to support you and make sure that you have a learning environment that's comfortable for you and I also want to thank the staff here because it was hard trying to work at a school district um and not having the kids go outside for recess or lunch it's really hard our kids kids need to be outside they need Vitamin D they need to socialize and I know it was really challenging to keep them inside and I just want to thank all of our staff members for for for going through that with all of us um and I know I my kids as soon as they were let out it was like I'm free and they were like wow they just ran out there like they've never seen recess or lunch before
167and and to our staff also and our students and our families our communities thank you for showing kindness um compassion um I know we've talked about donations and just it say Easy A ABC right to show a little bit of kindness one little thing goes a long way so so thank you so much and I look forward to seeing um my committee I think I'm on the leison for the unity diversity and Equity I will be there and I hope to see many of you there so thank you Mr President that concludes my board report thank you board member Rios Dr Rios thank you and that reminded me that I did miss the last board meeting and so I didn't officially get to welcome our two board members so welcome very happy that you are
168joining us and to be part of um our board yay um I more than a report I kind of have some comments I also want to Echo the interest in pickle ball I have a child who's an athlete and that sport takes up most of this time but we'll find time to still go play pickle ball after school and I would love to see you know if those ideas can be implemented our schools support this effort I know that the community uh the parks Community Parks get like tons of uh people signing up to do pickle ball it is something that the youth really has um grabbed on to and if we could bring it down to the middle school and Elementary I like to see our staff explore some of those options um the
169other thing is I really appreciated the resolution um in recognition of the board not only because we do know that this is important work that we do but because it highlighted our charge um especially in in in current times I think two of the things that I want to highlight within the resolution is one that we are charged to be advocates for public education and so we Champion what Ed public education does and is and also the that we as a school board supports the mission of our schools to meet the diverse educational needs of all children and I want to highlight too right regardless of gender regardless of immigration status and um just wanted to put that out there I welcome the chge and I uh um you know I know that we all
170signed off on it and so it'll be no less expectation that when it comes to issues that affect our kids that we remember that we're here to represent all of them um that's really it the last thing is just happy New Year and um here's two best one yet thank you thank you board um board member you um happy New Year everybody um my uh prayers goes out to the um victims of the fire I mean it's pretty devastating it's very depressing and I was very disturbed that in this day and age 14,000 more than 14,000 homes were destroyed and financial damage counts to what couple hundred billions I can't even imagine that amount but the the worst of that is your life is just wiped out because everything is destroyed um your your the
171homes and the things that your children you know you rais and you know some of their uh interviews it was it was really sad and to experience something like that is almost equivalent to a war where you know bomb drops and everything's wiped out and yeah my mom still has um I mean she passed away she's in heaven now but she would have nightmares nightmares the bombs dropping you know during the uh Korean War and um so my prayers goes out to this um the Vic fire victims and um yeah also want to share about the the inauguration speech uh with a new Administration few things that I picked up was the The Hope for our children to to restore parental rights to raise our children according to our rights and according to family values
172and just common sense values such as I mean Tik Tok and Facebook allowing children to go on and whether we allow or not children are on on the social media and we all know how damaging it is and thank you my fellow board member Tatiana also mentioned it and you know as a mother of four girls uh there all grown and being in a private sector working with thousands of children seeing the different uh stages of the technology from the laptop to iPhone smartphone and social media it's damaging and we know how much damage Tik Tok has been to our children and addictive dangerous and it's controlled by our enemy and now that uh finally that we're going to have some talk of banning but negotiation which is protect our American children that is so
173important so that that was really helpful for me and the second thing that you know finally I do want to mention about um it kind of dawned on me as a board member at the end of the day when I walk away when the children graduate and go through ABC I would like the children to have a foundation in math literacy and reading you know whether you go to college and what you do you know that's secondary but all the children children if you have a strong foundation in math know how to calculate interest rates and know how to calculate percentages paying credit cards can use credit cards and pay 20% percentage that breaks you and you know just the basic things I think that if we as a board and and our district can
174do something like that that would leave our children with lasting tools that they can use for the rest of their life it's not necessary LLY the degree but the foundation and it really the primary uh the elementary school is where all the foundation is built up and you know it's not necessarily so much of the you know the the No Child Left Behind uh the the Common Core you know all that but I think that looking at our district in the past 10 years uh there there's a really strong collaboration with different stakeholders with our you know Union and the teachers and the staff uh I have high respect for our district we have great Educators and I think that we could definitely do something that um you know transcend the state transcend what the
175state mandates and do something that is very uh uh profitable and beneficial for children especially the children who come from underrepresented because the pandemic and all kinds of agendas have really uh been a real obstacle in the past you know many years so that's something that I do like to devote myself to you know having that skills in the private sector of tutoring business and you know so forth and it can be very profitable and lastly I know there are funding and I don't know all the details I mean I'm not going to study sit down and spend an hour studying but there are funding and I would like to see the fundings really used during the summer to help students with these two skills math and uh reading and uh not do too many
176um reduced the online stuff so that's that's just something that I would like to uh you know look into in the future and uh you know work with uh my you know uh superintendent and the board so that is all thank you thank you board member you we have a lot to go through all right uh announcements next regular board meeting will be Tuesday February 4th 700 p.m. District Board office come on down committee meetings we have finance and audit board advisory committee Thursday January 23rd 2025 at 6 p.m. in the district conference room strategic planning board advisory committee Tuesday January 28th 2025 at 5:30 I don't think I'm going to go to that one uh but it's also a good one for everybody else if you'd like to come legislative policy board and advisory
177committee this is a great committee uh Wednesday January 29th 6:30 p.m. District conference room citizen oversight committee it's for the bond Tuesday February 11th 2025 at 6 p.m. and shortly after that there's another trustee meeting so if you want to come to that you can come to that diversity Unity Equity Duke board advisory committee uh it will be February 12th 2025 at 5:30 at the district office boardroom everybody please be there and we have a second public comment section clerk yokoyama Bui I have one public comment um um for second public comment Carla B Santa Cruz thank you I was a little sleep at the wheel but I was just wanted to appreciate the fact that we were observing uh Korean um day and also um I think at this specific time um I'm very
178concerned about our community and our children that are immigrants and the families but I do appreciate the fact that you know we have a board that's supportive of our families and like we said you know we might argue about certain issues and uh but we can have respectful discourse and be able to respect each other and opinions but really have uh the heart and soul of our children and our community and our families at heart and um just the fact that I heard there's still the diversity equity and inclusion committee and uh our officers I think it it's so important for us to stand steadfast with what we've established and that we will continue to establish for our community and for the new board members and returning board members thank you for all of your
179work and I'm happy to see letia again I met Dr Rios I know Sophia forever I met Francisco noola of course uh Mr our president Nish um Su you who represents my district and I want to welcome also taana taana Yokohama I was very impressed with your report and appreciate so much that you're right out there um as a former teacher and as a community member it always means a lot when we're at a school function whatever it is everyone put so much work into it and we always appreciate the administrators the board members and we know that you're torn because you cover so many schools but I can tell you that it means a lot so thank you good night thank you uh can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting so Sophia
180second okay all in favor say I I hi done wow thank you I think ready oh [Music]