6/12/25 Regular Board Meeting - Duarte USD

001test test. All right. Good evening everyone. Uh the board has just taken or has just returned from close session and no action was taken. Uh board member Diaz, would you mind making an announcement about translation? Do we have translation? Okay. Yes, we do. Thank you very much, Vice President Diaz. All right, so we'll go ahead and call this regular meeting to order then at 7:02 p.m. Um, we'll go ahead and do roll call. Uh, board member Diaz here. Board member Finlay here. Board member Oeen here. Board member Hasso here. Board member Reyes here. Excellent. Thank you very much. And um, let's see. Dr. Helman, could I have you do our flag salute? Thank you. Rise. Join me. Flag salute. Ready? Begin. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the

002republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. And it'll be my pleasure to go ahead and do our beliefs, vision, and mission. So our beliefs, we believe we are a community of learners. We believe learning occurs in a culture of caring and respect. We believe all students are motivated to learn when they are engaged in meaningful work that connects to their lives. We believe expectations do influence performances and outcomes. We believe learning increases when there are high expectations for performance and conduct. We believe we have the responsibility to find solutions that enable all students to learn. Our vision is 21st century schools producing 21st century students. And our mission is to provide the knowledge, skills, and inspiration for each student for success in college, career,

003and life. All right, we'll move on to the adoption of our agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda as written? So moved. Second. Motion by board member Reyes, second by board member Diaz. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I. That's 50. All right. We'll now move on to the presentation portion of our meeting. Dr. Hillman. At this time, I'd like to um invite Dr. Kelly Lawson up, our senior director of educational services, who will be providing the presentation on Dart Unified School District 202526 local control accountability plan or referred to as LCAP. Dr. Lawson, good evening. Good evening. So, I'm here to share with you present on our LCAP. We are in our annual update for APC. So, I'm going to go ahead and get started.

004Okay, next slide. Um, so as you know, the LCAP provides an opportunity for the school district to share Excuse me, Dr. Lawson. Make sure you're going right into the mic. Sorry. Thank you. Okay. The LCAP provides an opportunity for the school district to share the story of how, what, and why programs and services are selected to meet the local needs of our students. Um, it describes our goals, our actions, services, and expenditures to support positive student outcomes that address state and local priorities. And it explains how we plan to increase or improve services for our unduplicated students as compared to all students. Next slide. This is the LCAP is a three-year plan. We are in the second year of a three-year plan um for you tonight. um be presenting this information and the board will

005then consider the approval along with our district budget budget for June and then it also goes to Los Angeles County Office of Education and they will consider the approval for in the month of August. Next slide. So just a little bit of information about Darty Unified School District are current and demographics as you see there 2980 students in our enrollment. Um the students who qualify for free and reduced meals 53.5% English learners 21.1% and our foster youth for8% and our unduplicated student pupil count is uh 2,163 students which is about 72.56%. Next slide. So we do receive local control funding for based upon our students that are we have our our unduplicated students. We receive a base grant for all of our students. And then there's the supplemental concentration grant that we receive for our

006unduplicated students. And that information is presented to you right there. For the concentration funding, districts get um money if more than 55% of the children in the district qualify as having high needs. And in Dart Unifi, we have 72.56%. So once you get beyond that 55% um the other percentage is additional 65% on the base grant for our students that are considered um in our supplemental grant. Okay, next slide please. So this is just an overview for you a projection of our our revenue that we receive based upon our student count our LCSF and unduplicated um funding. So that's there for you to see there. Next slide. And if you recall in mid year we did a midyear update where we looked at our California dashboard. We also had our study session and during our

007study session we went in detail regarding our data for the California dashboard. So it's just presented here again for you just as a review just to kind of refresh your memory if you forgot what our data looked like. It's just here just to refresh your memory as you see um the the dials there to indicate where we performed and then the standards are local indicators um showing we met those local indicators. Next slide. So in our plan, we do have five goals and I'm just going to go through them quickly. Our first LCAP goal is all about how we're going to close that academic achievement gap. So we know that in our district, we have various subgroups and we have students performing at different levels. And our goal is to ensure that we can close

008that academic achievement gap for all students. And we want to do that by providing equitable services. not giving everyone the same thing, but giving our student groups what they need so that they can be successful and they can continue to make progress and close that achievement gap. Based on our goal one, we have identified some specific actions that we believe will help us target our students and provide those services to them and those achieve those um actions are listed here. I just want to draw your attention to the last two at the bottom. After reviewing our data, kind of analyzing where we were, looking at what our needs are, just two additional areas we wanted to kind of focus on a little bit more, just enhancing the learning opportunity. So, how can we kind of

009augment the learning, extend learning time, provide some more intensive support for our students, and then looking at professional development because we want to make sure that our staff that we're building capacity and that we are equipped with the skills that we need to be able to be more effective administrators, to be effective instructors, to be effective principles, and um so that all those all of the people that work with students are equipped with the skill set to be able to to target those specific areas. Next slide. Our goal number two, this is all about how we can provide these positive environments for student engagement. So we want to have welcoming, positive, supportive schools. So we know that students attend schools where they feel comfortable, where they feel safe, where there's a positive uh atmosphere. And

010so we look at how can we what can we do at our on our sites to ensure that students are engaged, they want to come to school. What does that look like? So based upon that goal two, we have identified some specific actions on the next slide. And these actions just kind of target um ways that we're going to do it. We do have PBIS, which is positive behavior, intervention, and support. That's all about teaching students, teaching behavior like we teach academics. How can we enhance campus security? And we know that when we talk about campus security, it's not just about the adults that are there, but campus security is about the humans that are on campus. is about the the policies and the procedures that are in place to ensure that our schools are

011safe and it's also the facilities ensuring that that our schools are safe places for students so that they are safe and that they can learn and additionally we target you know health support and then attended initiative. We want our students to come to school because we know that if students are not present in the classroom we cannot teach them. So we need them there. So we do look at attend attendance initiatives and and target specific actions and strategies so that we can you know look at root causes as to why students are not coming to school and how we can actually address that at the school site so that we can get them there. Goal number three is about family and community partnerships. It's all about family engagement. We know we do not do this

012work alone. We need our families to partner with us so that we can work together to meet the needs of our students. And when we talk about that partnership, we know that it has to be based upon trust and transparency and authentic two-way communication. So it's not just about us disseminating information to parents, but we want to have that opportunity and present a space where parents can also get the information to us. And so we have identified some particular actions um that allow us to be able to um enhance the two-way communication with our parents. The next slide, please. And so we're looking at our website. How do we utilize our website to get the information out? Parent portal, parents access to the parent portal, parent link apps, parent square, how are we sharing information

013in parent square, the usage, monitoring the uses of parent square, ensuring that not only teachers but administrators are using it as well and making sure that our parents know how to access parent square to get the information. And then the other piece is parent family focused events because we want our parents involved in the activities happening on our campus. But we also want to look at ways to empower our parents so that they have the information needed to help them navigate through the educational system because we know that that piece is critical that parents need the information and the knowledge so that they can come and communicate effectively with us um the school sites with administrators with the classified employees everyone so that we're able to talk and figure out what it is that we

014need and to help them um give them skills to help them advocate for their students so that they can continue to make progress for goal number four. This goal number four is all about it's all the nuts and bolts. It's kind of the infrastructure. It's like the how we we need to be able to pay our utilities. We need to have staffing. We need we need teachers. We need administrators. We need facilities. We need custodial staff. I like to say that this goal for is basically provides the infrastructure so that we can then address goal one, two, and three. If we don't have the people in the place to do it, we cannot target goals one, two, and three. And then next slide kind of identifies everything that I shared there. The salaries we're looking

015at classified certificate management operational expenses. How do we maintain our grounds because we know that school uh our campuses need to be inviting places and we want to make sure that they're clean and that they're safe and that they're organized and that we are keeping them keeping maintaining uh the upkeep of our properties. And then of course we need those instructional materials because we cannot teach if we don't have the proper instructional materials in the classroom. And then goal five is um all about Mount Olive High School. This is the equity multiplier focus goal and it provides equitable access to teaching and learning that improves the outcomes for all students and it also works to close that achievement gap because we know we have students at various levels there at Mount Olive and we want

016to make sure that those students are achieving at a high level and that their needs are being met and where there are gaps and deficits we're able to target those so that we can continue to move them along in their progress of learning. So there are some specific actions on the next site that are directly linked to um Mount Olive and a lot of it focuses on college and career readiness. We're looking at the guidance for students. There's workshops, internships, workbased learning. Um looking at the industry partners, how can we work with those partners to support our students and staff there? And then professional development and then the cinematic pathway. And then moving on to the next slide, that kind of concludes the quick overview of our LCAP, our goals, our actions. Um, and so

017we want to acknowledge and sincerely thank the hard work and dedication of our employees and the support of our parents and the resilience of our students to continue um, reach for excellence here in the Dart Unified School District. And that's concludes my presentation. Any questions? Thank you very much, Dr. Lawson. Board, any questions for Dr. Lawson? Um more than I I just have one question but I will say that I am very pleased to hear your presentation. Uh is this is your first one or second on the LCAP? I think it's the third one for the LCAP but each time I get more and more comfortable with the content. So I can see that. I hope you don't think this feels like my first one. Well, but how how long have you been now in

018the position that you have right now? Oh, so I think it's been 10 months. So this is Yeah, a very high level. Thank you. I I mean it was just so exponentious that you can But I also like to um ask you in the uh LCAP um goal number three. Okay. Mhm. Um, how do really the parents that don't understand technology or they don't speak English, how do they connect to the teachers or through technology, how easy it is or how hard it is? So, we do provide translators at all of our school sites and so um there's someone there that can support them with that. We have lights on the school campuses. So, those are teachers that work with technology. They also provide some presentations throughout the year um at the sites so that

019they can share information about um different things that are happening in technology. So maybe like uh awareness, safety awareness, cyber bullying, things such as that. Um I think the biggest piece is making sure that translators are available. So when communication goes out to parents on parent square, there is that the option to translate the message so that is in Spanish. And then when they go to sites and they have a need, they're there to support them. We have some we have bilingual aids at some sites and like I said we have individuals that are there to translate for parents um depending on what events they're hosting at the school site and then whenever there's an event that's there if it's uh like a workshop there's there's translation available for parents so that they can access

020that information particularly thinking about the beginning of the year when we are um when we go to do our data at the beginning of the year I can't think of the term the beginning of year to not back to school night when parents go in at the beginning of the year and they confirm all their data and so we data confirmation. So that tends to be an area where parents tend to have some difficulty. So I know that the sites do provide additional supports. They may have the bilingual aid. There's someone there to translate even additional parents that are who are savvy to support those parents and kind of walk them through that process so they can they feel comfortable asking those questions because there are no dumb questions. We want them to know that

021it's okay. And so they have their the parents that are peers and then the staff members that are also available there to support them. Do we have any um program to uh train parents in how to access the uh the district? So one of the things in our in goal number three we had talked about parent university being one of the areas we did not implement that. So, we are looking at next year looking at bringing in an organization um PK and I cannot think of the all the all the words for the acronym. Um but they will come in. We're looking at we're looking at working with this organization to come in to work with parents to to do those things to teach them how to navigate through the system, how to uh deal

022with issues if your student is not making strong academic progress. what what does it mean for your student if they have difficulties um um understanding just the educational system because I think that that is one area we want to make sure that parents know how to navigate where who do you go to if you don't understand the report card who do you go to if you if your kid is not able to read who do you go to if your kid has special needs who do you go to if you want to get involved on the school campus so we want to bring in an organization next year to bring back that piece like that parent education And so that is definitely um one of the things that's been added as a in our goal

023three when we made some looked at the LCAP and made some revisions. That's one area in place of parent university we want to look at bringing in that organization and that would include all the other parents that have different languages that yes so they can offer a program in English and in Spanish um the courses and we can look at two sessions. One session couldn't be for English parents and the other session could be for Spanish speaking parents. And I know that's not Spanish isn't the only second language, but it's the the primary second language in our district. And of course, if we have parents that don't understand that if it's like a Mandarin or different language, we'll have to make sure we can support them. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other comments or questions?

024Board, I have one question. Um on number five, the equity multiplier. Um are the for MIT are the DHY high school students also allowed to participate in any of these like the CTC? They're they're able to participate in some of the pathways. So for example, I know there's the skills um there's a skills workshop that's happening, skills USA that's happening and those students from Darty High as well. So yes, those students do have access. Yes. Thank you. Um first of all, I know a lot of work goes into writing an LCAP and that it is very dense and so thank you for putting together a nice succinct um presentation for us. I did have a question on goal three also. And um I goals one, two, four, and five I feel like are always in

025our sphere of influence, but the community and family engagement is probably the one that um is least within our influence. We could establish um institutes and family events, but that connection with the families is so important. So, I was just curious if we have any strategies to promote attendance or incentivize that family um engagement. So, I think the first piece with increasing family engagement at the site is really the relationship that the site administrators and the teachers build with their parents. And I think it starts day one. It's um open communication, sharing what's happening at the school site, um following up with them, um making phone calls, responding timely to communications when they sent out when they're sent out. And I think that's the first thing that parents need to know that there are caring

026people at the site and that their students learning is a priority. And I think that's the first thing. And then I think personal invitations when they have those events at the school site to be to boost um attendance. So, we know at our open houses and our back to school nights, we tend to see parents during our parent conferences, but it's when schools do those specialized events like a literacy night or an IB night or a steam night or hands-on science night. I think those events are ones where we reach out to parents, we send personal invitations, and we show them how they can get involved. We make it interactive. We kind of lower that effect effective filter so it's not about they don't have to be the experts when they come in. It's it's

027about academics, but it's not always about academics. And so I think creating opportunities where parents can come on campus and just be a part of the learning and the atmosphere what their kids are experiencing regularly. I think that helps. And then just a followup I think adding an extra piece of thank you for attending this event. Um when we asked parents to give um input on next steps if the schools are doing a survey if they're trying to get information showing parents that you provided this information we actually used it and made a difference in our decisions. encouraging parents to be a part of school site council where they're talking about student achievement the what are what the needs of students are at that school site and how they can best meet their needs and

028then actually implementing those ideas and recommendations when they make sense right we want I think that that's important to do um and just keep that communication going like I I wish I can say we we knew like like the silver the magic wand to wave it and say to make it happen but I really think that by building trust and and building that opportunity for communication and um letting parents know that they're welcome on our campus and that they have something to offer is important. But schools where they do they invite parents to come to be a part of presentations to share their share their professions or share their their skill set or some of their challenges. I think that also helps so that they just know that it's not just a place for their

029students but it's a place for them because it's the entire community working together and meet the needs of the students. Thank you. You're welcome. Anyone? Anyone else? Yes. In in the LCAP work, where where could I find okay about um read by third grade initiative? So that would be I would say in goal one goal one is all about closing that academic achievement gap. And so if we're looking at making sure all students are learning, we're starting addressing literacy as early as preschool. So we're looking at early literacy. what does it look like for our preschoolers for TK kinder first second third grade and then how are we using the data that shows what kids are what are they learning are they being successful um providing that small group intervention so in goal one you

030see talk about um providing supplemental supports for students and so looking at interventions and small groups and support is is a piece where you will find it and then the big piece would be added for next year we we are adopting a mirror which is their reading difficulty screener and that screener will we will assess our K through two students to see if there are any areas any reading difficulties that they are encountering and we can make those identifications early on. We also will assess our students in third through through 8th grade to see kids who have gone through who are no longer at the early stages of literacy but do third through eighth graders if they have some reading challenges and so we can come up with some strategic plans to address it. And

031also think I think actually I think all of the OAP is about closing the academic achievement gap and getting kids to read because we know that you know we need our community working together. We need parents involved in that process. So like if there's a kid who's struggling we want we want to hear from the parents. So hearing from them so that kids don't slip through the cracks that's also a way to target it. But most importantly I believe it's the way we target our instruction interventions. We talk about MTSS. as part of goal one and MTSS is one of the actions and that is where um the teams come together at the site and they look at academics they look at attendance they look at behavior they look at patterns of behavior they look

032at patterns in learning to try and identify root causes for learn for why kids are not being successful and then after we identify what those particular areas are providing interventions and supports so I think that it is targeted and in goal one but also the other components because it's not just the reading teacher that's making The difference is everybody. Thank you. And um our A throughG requirements at the high school, they seem to drop quite a bit. How are we going to improve on that with this LCAP? So I believe in targeting in our in our LCAP, we do look at providing that intervention and support at our high school level as well. So we want our students to be able to have access to those courses in AG. We want to be able to

033make sure students are learning and mastering the the the the skills in each of those content areas that they need to meet A throughG. And where we have students that are not meeting the target, where we see those academic gaps, we need to be able to intervene and provide some support. So, we do have reading intervention. I know that's a big piece. If we want our students to be successful in all the areas for AG and preparing them for college, they need to be able to to be fluent readers. They need to be able to be fluent writers so that they can access that high level content when they go to college. And so I think that it is addressed in our in our goal one. What what I don't see and I and we

034used to have at the high school was the AVID program. I think there's maybe one class now. Is is that going to increase? Are we going to focus because that focuses on the BC possibly D student. Are we going to start working on that or or do you have something else in mind? So, I'm not clear what you're asking me. Are you asking for bringing AVID back or with AVID? We're looking to get the kids looking towards going to college that didn't think they could make it to college. Okay. And we used to have we're down to, I believe, one class, right? If I may, which we don't have, we don't offer AVID at the high school at this point. We haven't for a couple of years. Our most of our co for the most

035part our college our the the purpose of AVID at the high school is to get students ready for a college and that is with our early college program has taken that kind of taken that place for our for our students. So the early college program at the high school allows our students to have that collegegoing experience early on. So, we don't at this point offer an AVID class, but we're missing the B or the CD student because they're not qualified to to take those courses. We have about 30% of our students in early college now. So, I think that there's a there's a broad range of students who are in the early college program. So, we've been really successful in getting them ready for their college. But, we can be continue looking at especially at

036the high school level. Another thing I just wanted to add to is some of the work that's been going on for for the A throughG you were talking about um well put that we want to increase that A throughG is the articulation with regards to mathematics. Mathematics can be one of the courses that are sort of the um maybe the uh maybe one of the biggest challenges and and Dr. Lawson you want to take it from there because that will really in uh is part of the goal of getting that A3G requirement. Yeah. So with the mathematics we we're doing the um the math vertical articulation and having those conversation with our sixth through 12th grade teachers talking about where the gaps are in math where the challenges are what are the best practices what's

037the evidence-based practices that we can use. We're talking about the pacing. We're looking at ways to assess our kids regularly so we can determine where the needs are. We're talking about increasing math discourse because we know that students ability to talk about what math is, to talk about those big concepts in mathematics are key. And so the math um the 6th through 12th grade math teachers we've been having that discussion. There will be some teachers coming together this summer to continue that work and planning so that we can then share it with the rest of the team so that we can all get on the same page and have some consistency across our district in terms of what we're doing with mathematics. But just to add the other piece in preparing kids for college. So,

038at our K8 schools, they do focus on that organizational piece, which is a big part of AVID, helping kids be able to organize their content. And I know there's systems that are at the school sites from K through 8th grade. So, we don't have all the AVID strategies, but there are some strategies that are in place and ensuring that our kids can be ready for um to get to high school and be successful, and as well as the college piece. So may not all be at the high school, but I think that the work in getting kids ready for A3G starts at the the K8 level and not just at the high school. So early intervening early on to equip kids with skills is also essential to that piece. Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah. Thank

039you, Dr. Lawson. And just on on the AVID piece, uh our our son who just finished sixth grade uh at Royal Oaks this past year uh was in the AVID class and he found it hugely beneficial. Um he he is um much like his father a little bit scatterbrained um in terms of organization of tasks and and items and and this was an excellent class for him where they said okay you know get all of your assignments for today and put them in this order strategize how you're going to go ahead and approach all of these assignments because I think sometimes especially when when you are going from having one teacher to five or six teachers it can be really overwhelming and so to sort of give them that that boost um I definitely you

040know saw that uh in Preston he really really benefited a lot from that class and hopefully that's something that those patterns of success will will kind of carry him forward into high school. So, I think it's good that we're catching them early. Uh because maybe sometimes by the time they get to high school, it may be um you know, thinking back to my own folder and binder in high school, it was a little bit of a disaster. So, um I do I do want to just bring up something that came that came to my mind uh this morning when I was on a walk as I was finishing my walk. I was right in front of uh Valley View and there happened to be a couple of deer that were in front of the school

041there and this this mother and I'm assuming it was a mother and her daughter were were kind of walking to school, very very young child. I don't know how old she was. Um but she saw the deer and she said, "Mom, that was so cool." And she said, "Do you think Santa is nearby?" And and it really it it just made me think a lot about the the trust that our families are putting into our schools when they send these these very impressionable uh youth for for us to go ahead and educate and help shape. Um, so I I really liked um how in I I think it was goal three talked about having um a climate of trust and I I think that that is something that can't be overstated and how important that

042is. Uh so I'm really really pleased to see that that is a main focus of uh you know one of the parts of the LCAP here because trust is is something that I think drives participation and engagement from parents. it drives um attendance. Even if you if you trust that your kid is going to go to a safe, secure place, you're much more likely to make sure they get out of bed every morning. Um so I I think that's such a critical part. So thank you for making sure that that is a part of uh of this program. I think it's really important. So one quick question. Yes. So AVID AVID is offered at every K8 that we have. No, it's not offered at every K8 there. So, a few years ago, we had we

043used we had AVID in the K8s and so we did some training and there are some sites that have an AVID class um one session or two sessions and um or that the other school sites they implement some of the AVID strategies and so the organizational piece and some of the reading pieces that are connected to AVIT are offered at the school sites based upon previous training that most of our teachers experienced some years ago. So at at um Moral Lux they do have um for their sixth grade they do offer a class for AVID. So that's the only school. Yes. Well they have an actual AVID class where a teacher teaches it. Yes. Thank you. Uhhuh. All right. I I just want to share that just by coincidence. I went to one of my

044neighbors home last night and his son came up and I say how you doing? And he goes I'm doing what? And I go what are you doing? are you attending um summer school and he said yes and he just promote from Maxwell so is one of the Corona's kids and um I asked him what what are you enjoying of everything and he mentioned that he's attending early college at the high school and he also mentioned that he went to a trip that Washington DC and I asked him what do you see what monuments he was I mean amazed and and so I I believe that with early college our kids at that level when they are before entering to the high school is just amazing. I I think that um I believe that we are

045trying to give the best to our parents and to the students and to the entire community to give them access to all the programs that we have. But it was also amazing to see on the uh open house at the uh preschools. I thought it was kindergarten and the class those classrooms. So I can see that we have um going with the tit we doing the right thing and and it's always uh space to improve and so I am very pleased with your presentation. And I think we have it has been one of the longest one interactions with you this the board and the presenter. So thank you for your presentation tonight. You're welcome. All right. Thank you very much Dr. Lawson. We appreciate it. Thank you. Go to the All right. We'll now go

046ahead and move on to our next presentation. I would like to invite Miss Tiffany Bell up, our assistant superintendent services with a presentation on the budget for fiscal year 2025 26. Miss Bell, I'm ready. Good evening, board. Good evening. Good evening. I was To tell you I'm excited to give this presentation to you is an understatement. Um, this is one of the longest presentations that you probably have seen in a long time, but I wanted to go over every aspect of the budget. There was a lot of conversation this year about the budget, different pieces of the budget. So, I wanted to walk you through it. So, I ask for your patience as we do this. At the end of my presentation, we can go over any questions that you may have. Next slide, please.

047This is our presentation overview. It's the normal um information that we give you regarding what's inside of this presentation. So, it's our budget review, how schools are funded, the May revision, our district overview, our fund balance, and our next steps. Next slide, please. Usually this is a more colorful slide, but we just wanted to make sure you understood the basics. And it shows that we are at our public hearing on LCAP and our proposed budget and it's due in June. And this is just the budget and financial reporting cycle for LA County. So what exactly is a school district budget? And we all understand or we all believe that we know, but I wanted to make sure that you understood and that our community knew. So I'm going to read the bullet points. And I

048know that probably is boring because I hate when people read to me, but I want to make sure that you understand. So, a fluid guiding financial plan for meeting the local school district's goals and objectives for the year. It represents how much a school district estimates it will receive in income and revenue. Provides the maximum expenditures authorized by the board and the balance when the year is done. It includes a fund balance that helps demonstrate the financial stability of a district, its commitments for current and subsequent years. Local district budgets can change and need to be revised as part of the annual state budget process and funding level changes. So this means that the budget is fluid. So what I might report to you today might not be true tomorrow, but we continue to gauge

049and we continue to update the budget as we go throughout the year. Next slide, please. So how are school districts funded in California? California schools are funded through property tax, income tax, sales tax. Income and sales tax are more volatile revenue sources. You understand that? Because sometimes people have jobs, sometimes people don't. Sometimes people buy products, sometimes people don't. So, your income and your sales tax can be volatile and it can change. When the economy weakens, unemployment rises, leading to fewer purchases. This leads to less income and goods being taxed. As a result, fewer dollars become available for the schools. Districts are primarily funded on average daily attendance, ADA. That's the acronym. And so, we wanted to make sure we spelled it out because sometimes people confuse this ADA with another ADA. The largest revenue

050is from the state and is set mainly through your local control formula, which includes base funding. Next slide, please. So, how are school districts funded? Again, supplemental funding comes from districts. Dr. Lawson um discussed this in our LCAP. So, we receive 20% additional funding per student for students with high needs. That's our free reduced meals, foster, and our ELLL students. Our concentration funding comes from districts um if we have more than 55% of children in the district qualifying as high needs. If this 55% drops, then we lose money in this particular category. Federal funds account for roughly 6 to 12% of TK through 12 funding. While districts have flexibility in how to allocate their LCFF funds, there has been a noticeable shift by the state toward increased use of categorical restricted money and grant-based funding.

051These funding streams often come with specific spending requirements and require districts to apply or demonstrate targeted use, reinforcing a stronger connection between funding and accountability outcomes. Next slide, please. LCFF and LCAP. This is the budget connection. So, this is when Dr. Lawson and I become best friends. The local control, accountability, and budget approval process are both interdependent and interrelated. Budget approval is not possible without prior county office of education approval of a district's LCAP. So once we submit both of these, the LCAP has to be approved and the budget has to be approved at the same time. The law requires the district detail how they will spend their money in the LCAP, which is outlined by Dr. Lawson. money from the LCFF accounts for about 80% of general funding that districts get from the state.

052The budget for the applicable fiscal year adopted by the governing board of the school district includes expenditures sufficient to implement the actions and strategies including the district's board adopted LCAP. Next slide, please. So, what is LCFF funding factor? So this is how your LCFF funding happens. So you have a cost of living. This year our cola is 2.3%. There's a grad span adjustment. So we get paid based upon the grade levels TK through 3 I believe 4 through 6, 7 through 8th and 9th through 12th. There's a slide, you can see it later on in the presentation and it'll show you that our unduplicated pupil percentage or EP what we mentioned before free and reduced ELLL and foster students supplement on concentration grants. This makes up your LCF. What are the main expenditures for DUSD?

053was 68% of our salaries and bene or 68% of our budget and our expenditures are salaries and benefits. That's for certificate and classified which include medical, dental, vision, retirement and all our mandatory French benefits. 5% books and supplies that's usually instructional supplies 26% utilities and contracts, transportation, sped, agencies, legal fees and consultants. 1% transfers out. So, some of you were able to attend the May revision. If not, we'll give you a real quick synopsis of what was said. In the May revision, the outlook for K12 is projected to be 12 billion state budget deficit. While the overall Proposition 98 minimum funding guarantee has been adjusted downward, the revised budget aims to maintain core programs and minimize disruption to school districts. Meaning that although the state says that we are have we're operating in a 12%

054budget deficit, the N Proposition 98 will provide our minimum funding and they want to make sure that they don't disturb many of our programs because of the um deficit that the state is having. The state faces a 12 billion budget deficit. So Prop 98 is the minimum guarantee which determines funding for K12 schools and community colleges. So this bucket is for both sets. So it has been revised since the January budget from $114.6 billion and now is down by $4.3 billion decrease from the January estimate. So what's going to happen now is there's about 540 million. It will be withdrawn from the rainy day fund which will completely deplete the rainy day fund. This will be provided to your K12 and community schools to assist them with their budget. Next slide please. K12 specific funding

055updates is just what we just said. Your colas 2.3. Um we have a $ 1.8 billion LCFF deferral from June 20 26 to July 26. This is just to see if we can maintain this and not have to go to the $4.8 million. But it's just for that month and then in August when we look one last time and says this from the governor then they'll be able to change tell you if this 1.8 is going to stay. There's a $2.1 billion ongoing Prop 98 funds for universal um TK and it's full implementation for all four year olds um by September 1st. Next slide, please. So, you said enough about all that. What's going on in Darty? So, this is our fiscal outlook. So, you've seen this graph. you've at least seen it since 2001

056where you see that we started out at about 4,616 children and now at 2024 25 um our projected enrollment is about 2,981. So there's been a decline for over 20 some odd years. Next slide please. So let's talk about enrollment in ADA projections. So there's been a historical average student decline of about 00 students. So, what you'll see if you're reading the narrative um in the big budget book, you'll see that on one of the pages it talks about your enrollment and in your enrollment it says I believe uh the year before it was we lost 56 students and this year it says we lost one student and then you'll see in the projected I still have us at 100 just to be safe and so I'm sure how many years we are. So we

057hold at still saying we lose about a 100red although we lost 56 two years ago and we lost one but we just want to make sure that we're there just before we start adjusting it back down to the 50 we want to still make sure that there's a cushion and we do that so we are conservative um the assumption for 2526 and 2627 I still have that as approximately 100 student decline based on our average and then we have a fiscal year 25 26 funding is based on the average ADA for the most three recent prior years. So when we do funded ADA as opposed to actual ADA, we gain more children because you do the average of three years. So these are the numbers for fiscal year 22 23 23 24 25. And you

058see that because we used an average as opposed to the actual ADA that we received. It looks like we gained 363 kids in 2223. We gained 233 kids in 2324 and estimate about 60 students in 2425 based on the funded ADA as opposed to actual ADA. So we receive that much more money in revenue. Next slide please. So this is our grade span funding. So this is what we get paid for our grades. um there's a span TK through three and you'll see in TK through three and grades 9 through 12 there's additional grade span adjustment and that is um based upon the base grant and because there's more I don't want to say more teaching that should be done but it's it's because there's increased cost in these particular grade levels and so you're

059given an extra money to adjust for that and that's TK3 and 9 through 12 you see the supplemental concentration and then you see the total So, Darty averages about $12,000 almost $13,000 per student. Next slide, please. Unduplicated pupil percentage. Again, this is your supplemental concentration grants. They're calculated based on percentage of local educa of the of this district enrolled students who are English learners, free and reduced price meals program, um your foster youth. And this is where we were from fiscal year 23 2425 and 2526. Um our supplemental grants are an additional 20% of the base grant and it can fluctuate based upon the cola. The cola was 2%. Um and our concentration grant equals this year about 65% and we are above the 55% so we got additional funding for that. You'll see on

060the right hand side that our ELLL students the number is going down. So our upp count will fluctuate because ELLL is part of our supplemental and concentration. Um our foster youth also went down. I'm sorry foster youth went up three. Next slide please. So um when we present this to LEO we have to always say what our assumptions are and where are we getting these numbers to um create the budget. So there was an increase in our UP projections because you will recall last year our UP count was down and this year went up. Our cola was 1 um.07. This year went up a little bit 2.3. We had a decrease in enrollment and projected ADA not funded in your projected ADA. And then there is an increase in supplemental and concentration funding because you

061had an increase in your numbers in UP. So what were our expenses and our assumptions? We had regular teacher attrition, meaning we didn't fill positions when teachers left. Um, and so we left that open. There's step and column increases. We had no budgeted salary increases for last year and increased the pers contribution. Um, we continue to support all of our essential sped services and we had a significant reduction in extra duty and overtime. Excuse me. So this is our chart that we love to see. This is the multi-year budget projection assumptions. You'll see that there's a check mark in the upper right hand corner means that we are positive for the next three years out. I don't know um maybe when you ask the questions we can go back and forth about it, but you'll

062see that we've broken the the the money down by unrestricted and restricted because sometimes there's some confusion regarding how the money is spent and what the money is allocated for. So you will see that there's a continued um deficit because we overspent. Our expenses are about $3 million this year. Um we received about 52,000 I'm th000 52 million and you guys were just going to let me do it. I saw your face. Um $52 million um in revenue and 56 in expenses which left a deficit of about $3.8 million. our contributions again that's our sped and our transportation I'm sorry our sped and our maintenance and so it washes each other out and that's why you see a zero in the total going across so um if you look and remember always to look at

063unrestricted because that's what we focus on more so than restricted because restricted has ties to what you can and cannot do your beginning balance is all the money you have left that was your ending fund balance the prior year and so your beginning balance is where you start the year off. So we would start the year off with $12 million and then you get to this $52 million. Our ending balance is what we have after everything is spent. And this is where we then becomes our beginning balance. If you look at the first column, ending balance 9.7 and then if you go to 2627 and you look at your beginning balance, you'll see that your ending balance then becomes your beginning balance. 3% is for um economic uncertainties and that's 3% of your actual expenses.

064So you take 3% of unrestricted your like this would be the 33 million and then you would come with this 1.7 million. So, your committed leftover is your unrestricted ending balance um minus your resol revolving cash and that's usually about we keep about $8,500 in that minus your economic uncertainties and that's your committed leftover and that's the $8 million um for 2526 and then you see your committed leftover continues to decrease about $2 million 6.4 million and then in 26 I'm sorry 2728 to about $4.3 million. Next slide, please. So, there's been a lot of conversation this year about committed fund balance. So, we wanted to make sure that we address that so you would be understand you would understand and be able to discuss it. So, in 2014, Proposition 2 was enacted and established

065fund balance limits for school districts. Um, the Prop 98 rainy day fund helps state helps the state set aside money for school during economic downturn. So, I just told you that the rainy day fund helps us. where after we get the LCF money and it brings everybody to a certain like even level. But now I've just told you that we've depleted the rainy day fund. So it is important for us to make sure that our fund balance is still here because there's nothing to save us at this point. Um when the fund grows to more than 3% of the state's uh K12 budget and certain conditions are met, the state can trigger a cap on how much a school district is allowed to keep. We try to keep at least a minimum of 10% in

066our local reserve fund balance for emergencies. So this is what it means to the district. So our estimated actuals in 2425, our fund balance was about 21.8% with a fund balance of about $12 million. Keep in mind that we still had that structural deficit of about $4.6 million. Then you can see as it goes down, I don't need to read every number, but you see the percentage in 2526 to the next actual four years where you see our fund balance continues to to be depleted. And in 2829, our fund balance is estimated to be about $3.3 million with 6% um as opposed to the 10 that we would like to have. Next slide, please. So why does this matter? We need cash flow for emergencies, for our multi-year planning, for employee compensation and benefits that

067we've committed to. So with the depletion of the rainy day fund, we need to still keep these points in mind. Next slide, please. So there's conversation regarding compensation and benefits to our bargaining units. So we want to make sure that you saw that since 2015 and 2016, there has been increases in salaries. And at your leisure, you can read it. I don't need to read every um percentage but I wanted to make sure that you understood that we have provided compensation for our employees. Next slide. So there's a resolution resolution signed October 20th 2016 and some of you were on the board at this time. this resolution provided um that said that we will that Darty Unified will will maintain a 10% reserve requirement of the annual budget expenses working assumptions. So un uncertainty of

068funding um levels structural state budget deficit this is the reason why they established the board established this at this time um I believe at that time it was um Miss Diaz and Mr. Reyes that was on the board. Um so we had the operation funding ADA is impacted due to this higher pension cost lack of facility funding to address needs. So this is where this particular resolution comes from and it says that we will maintain a 10% reserve. Next slide please. So there's questions regarding budget misunderstandings. So we wanted to make sure that you understood what was said and what is clarification. So there were statements uh DUSD spends on average 5% of expenses on health and welfare. The clarification is DUSD spends an average of 3.39% of expenses on health and welfare. However, Zerty

069covers retirees with GAP medical insurance and paid dental vision up to age 65 or seven years after retirement. And so this becomes it's good for our employees and it's good for our retirees or the district as a whole. It becomes difficult to go out and broker um services for retirees and medical because we're a small district and we carry our retirees a lot longer than other school districts. So we've gone that was one of the first things I did when we came. We talked to three, four different brokers and they wouldn't touch us because of our benefits for our retirees, which is amazing and which is great. But for our existing employees, they got to get to that point. So when people say we have bad benefits, what on the surface for everybody that's standing

070here today, it looks that way. But when you get closer to this year, we take good care of our retirees and that's why our benefits are the way they are. Next slide, please. So it says DUSD spends an average of 32% of expenses on certificated salary. The clarification is DUSD spends an average of 34% of expenses on certificated salaries. Next slide. DUSD's ending fund balance is 30% of total expenses. Our ending fund balance of both unrestricted and restricted is 33% of total expenses. Restricted funds are not discretionary and are not typically included in the ending fund balance for solveny purposes. Therefore, unrestricted fund balance is currently 18.3% and continuing to decrease. Next slide, please. DUSD's ending fund balance increased by $1.2 million in second interim in comp in comparison to adopted budget, freeing up funds

071for salary increases. Clarification. The increase in ending fund balance does not eliminate the continued structural deficit and slow reduction of the fund balance. However, the structural deficit had been reduced from $4.6 million to now 2.4 million. I'm sorry, $4.6 million to $2.5 million over the next four years. So, our structural deficit is decreasing. Misunderstanding. This DUSD's ending fund balance increased by 1.2. No, we did that. Next slide. DUSD spends an average of 25% on expenses on services. Of the 25.65% of services, DUSD spends an average of 8.3 of expenses on contracts. All other services included, but not limited to transportation, special ed agencies, utilities, and insurance. Next slide. Misunderstanding. Fund 17 has increased to $9 million for general reserves. The clarification fund 17 $7.5 million was moved to fund 17 to honor commitments to charter

072for special education pass through for funding approved by this board on action on December 2nd, 2024. So what are our fiscal achievements for this year? We have a significant reduction in extra duty and overtime hours. We've reallocated salaries to restricted funds. We've improved cost efficiency through reduced supply expenditures. And we've realized savings through improved contract management. So where are we now? So today is our public hearing and on June 26 we'll come back and hopefully the board will approve and adopt the LCAP and our 2526 budget with a positive certification. We will submit approval and a budget to Los Angeles to LEO for authorization. And with the positive budget for the next three years and because we've done what we're supposed to do and because we've reduced our structural deficit, we no longer need a

073budget stabilization plan. The state budget passed by um June 30th. We hope the state budget gets passed by the legislature and signed by the governor. There's a 45day budget revision in August 2025 if we need to. And in September, we'll come back with our unodudited actuals. And your unodudited actuals is what we actually spent. Next slide, please. I think that's it. Thank you. Questions? Wow. Thank you very much, Miss Bell. That was excellent. Uh, I'll go ahead and open it up now to the board for any questions that they might have about the presentation. and then I can get to my questions too. Okay. So, board maybe people are still digesting here. Okay. Well, I maybe I'll I'll go ahead and ask a couple questions and allow them to kind of gather their thoughts. First

074of all, excellent presentation and I appreciate that you um matched your outfit to the slide deck. I'm trying to tell you and the nails. That is excellent planning. So one one of the questions I had just was on on the previous slide um you had mentioned that we are no longer in need of a budget stabilization plan. That is correct. So I guess I our our deficit spending is better than it was before but it's still there. So why why do we not need to do a budget stabilization plan? Um if you remember you probably don't because it was it's a lot of information. So in the last budget stabilization plan we gave three categories like adopted first and second and we showed improvement in each one. So all our points that we said we

075would do everything that we said we would do we did it. Everything that was the directive for us we did it. And so when we did that when we we called I said listen do I really need to do this budget stabilization plan because what am I saying in addition to what we have don't have already set up said you guys have done everything that we've asked and we appreciate that you guys have followed the directive and you're moving into the right direction you had a huge budget I mean as structural deficit 4.6 and you've had it for a couple years and now it's at about 2.5. There's nothing more to say. Continue to do what you've been doing. So, so I guess the Did you get the impression from them that that they would

076still like us to see that structural deficit continue to shrink? Oh, of course. Okay. Okay. I didn't know if they were just like, "Hey, we're cool with anything, you know, under three million. We're fine." We they want everything to be flat to to get rid of it. And so they said the way that we're moving and this was just in the last year for the most part. We this year this time last year I think we were crying or something. I don't know but we were here. Yes. Uh okay. Um let's see. So the and this was I'm sorry I don't have slide numbers here. It's clarifying budget misunderstanding number five. Uh yes. So on here uh there is this comment. It says of the 25.65% of services that that we spend um an average

077of 8.3 of those expenses are on contract. So So meaning that it's not in actuality 8.3% of the 25% it only 8.3% of that is actually contracts. That is correct. Okay. Okay. All right. That's a lot less than I thought it would be. Um, all right. And then, um, the the last one I have here before I I let others ask, and I may have a couple more after this, but, um, this is on that resolution 13-16-17, which was talking about the 10% reserve requirement that the board the board had voted on back then, um, to have a minimum of 10%. Um, is that 10% on top of the required 3% or is Okay, so in in actuality we would have 13%. The 3% is only like a million dollars. So there's not much you

078can do because remember it takes 3.8 to run the payroll for one month. One month. So that's just a safety that I think they give all districts. Like just say you have 3% but our 3% is only $1 million, right? So the 10% would save us. Okay. All right. And and would uh I I noticed that in a one of the earlier slides it talked about one of the cost cutting measures was going to be the deferral. Um so is that something where if we we had a large enough reserve, we would be able to sort of weather that deferral until the money came from the state. Yes. I see. because otherwise we would I'm assuming we'd have to borrow money if if we did that. Yes. I don't want to do that. Yeah. Well,

079I'm sure it's not it's not a good thing. Absolutely. So, okay. Um All right. So, board, any other questions from you all before I keep going? I have a question. Yes, ma'am. Sorry. Um hi, Miss Tiffany. Hi. on the grades span funding. Um, can you expl I mean can you explain why um the TK gets a different amount than the 9th through the 12th graders and do the other schools how are they funded? Why is it different at other schools and they get a larger amount of money? Well, I'll answer the second part first. Okay. Um, again, every school is different bec um every school is different. Um it depends again on your LCFF. So where you are your it depends on your UP count. All those things are different. We are all you know

080unified school districts or school districts. And so it just doesn't mean like everybody gets $12,000 just because you're a school district. You get it based upon your LCF based upon your base grant funding based upon your supplemental concentration. What is your upp count? Some schools up PP up count is 90 70 80. Ours is 60. So we get it based upon what ours is. So you're individual and so every school is funded differently. So what might happen in Pasadena, they have a lot more students, so they're going to get more money. They have a different up count. They have a different, you know, all those things are different. You have to take that into consideration. We're just not all in the same pool. So, it's just like our 2% our our 2% cola is going

081to look differently here than it is at some huge school at LA USD because there's more students and it's based upon your ADA. So, the funding is already chipping away once you get it with the 2% the 2.3% or whatever the COLA is. It's different. So, it's just because we're school districts, we all don't start off with the same. It doesn't work like that. Um maybe Dr. Dr. Lawson can explain um or Dr. Hillman why you get so much more money. It's it has to do with instruction and time and things like that for TK through three like you should pay you don't want to say pay more attention to these people and 9 through 12 is the TK through three has a different grades span adjustment because there is more costly partially too because

082there's a different um adult to student ratio at TK so that costs more money at the high school typically um typ typically high school level get a higher ADA funding because it is more costly because of the nature of how you deliver instruction. It's not every child gets the same class like you do in an elementary school. You're in third grade, you're one class the whole day long. At a high school, typically you have choices, a master schedule, different different options for students. So that equates to to uh to costing more money. Thank you. Just wondering why some schools get a lot more. Thank you. You're welcome. And some schools get less. Just depends on where we are. Exactly. Other questions board? So I noticed in your budget that we had uh a loss of

083about 28A. That that's a lot. Students not in their seats. you were you were you had in not in your presentation but in your actual budget um enrollment or ADA enrollment ADA yeah and that's quite significant that's in the millions how how do you think we can get the parents inform the parents you know that how important it is for their child to show up because that that's a huge amount of money I mean, significant amount of money and that could probably cover the cost of raises that people are asking for. So, um, we've identified the grades span where our absentee rate is high. And so, now we're working on identifying that and going out to our parents and our schools and developing a plan to increase that. So, what's the highest what's what's the

084grade? What's what TK through three? Three. TK through three. Yes, sir. Is the one with the highest ability. Yes, sir. Wow. And the other thing is is we need to get out and recruit students for it. We need to be proactive and get those students back, you know. And I hate I hate beating a dead horse, but I'm telling you, we can get him back if we reopen Andrew and turn into a junior high school and get that. Uh I I would like to see a junior high school with with wood shop and metal shop and home economics. The way I grew up, I think we'd we'd pull draw from all over the place. It's something that should start at a younger age rather than wait until high school. Um, I was impressed with your

085budget. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. Um, I'll go next. All right. I appreciate u what you presented to us today. Um, there's been so much talk about budget this school year, um, leading up to the election prior to Mr. Reyes and I joining. And um I appreciate you taking the time to put together a really thoughtful presentation that was responsive to what we've been asking for. I know that you've offered to open your doors to us and educate us, but I think there's value in us all being here seated tonight receiving the same message at the same time, the community being able to hear the same message at the same time. So, thank you for your efforts. Thank you. Thank you. It was a great presentation, amazing presentation. But I um I have

086few questions. But uh most of all I would like to um go back to what are the main expenditures for the USD? And I was laughing at myself yesterday that I got my calculator to see if it adds to 100%. I mean I it was so clear but I I just want to make sure that that we understand that 68% goes to salary and benefits. Yes. And you did explain that before, but I am I am just about I want to I want you to please tell us about the 1% transfer transfers and others. So 1% transfers when we make transfers between funds. So it's it's just something as simple as that. Um nothing more. It's just transfer between funds. I I resources. Okay. Thank you. I will also like to um I I I

087will say yes it is we are in a better in a better situation than we were a year ago. Right. Yes ma'am. Uh and and that that made me uh feel really good about it. And I believe that Mr. Uh Reyes also asked about the um if our kids, he asked about the uh the absentee, but if our students are not sitting in their desk and their place at every school day, how much do we miss for each student a day? How how much do we lose? I mean, just to have an idea, I'd have to do the per student per day and I can get that for you. I don't have that off the top, but that affect us a lot. Oh, it affects us every day. Um, okay. The it's average daily attendance.

088That's how you get paid. So, if they don't show up and sit down, how about if they are sick? We still lose money. Every time they don't sit down, we lose money. Even if they bring their homework, if they are out of the country or whatever, if they are not in their seat, we lose money. If there's an excused absence, we still get paid. If the absence is unexcused, we do not. Okay. Um I I was you know even though I've been in the board for so long and my thing my kids believe that I've been too long on the board last um when I was reading uh the agenda and I went and looked the California uh 2526 California May revised K12 budget highlights. I went and and read that one, but I didn't

089really understand that fully depleting. So, I went to the dictionary, Google, and and I got it in Spanish and in English, and it have the same words, exhausted, finished, no more. Can you elaborate a little bit about that? Not the meaning. I know the meaning of the word now. So in the May revise um so the but the governor talks three times January May and then sometime and in August they either pass it or they don't. So and again so same story just for the California budget the budget is fluid they're going to change it's going to change depending it's volatile too depending on sales tax depending on income tax. You remember last year when we when I came before you, we talked about income tax because most people pay their income tax in April,

090but then they deferred it to October. So, we didn't receive that money. So, the revenues were a lot lower. So, it's things like that. So, they learn to adjust and they look at it. And so, then in May, he comes back just like when I come before you again. This is what has happened in this from January to May and this is where we are. So, what they're saying is what they believed in January now it's not true. Now it's going to be 12 billion dollars shorter, but because of the Proposition 98, the rainy day fund, they're supposed to always help schools. So the schools get money, LCFF, and that kind of thing. But then the 90, the Prop 98, it should bring you kind of like level. So everybody kind of starts at the

091same place. And so now they're saying here's Prop 98, but because of where we are in the California state budget and because of California living, now we've depleted it. And so we're going to give it to you for this 25 26, but 26 27 we don't know if it's going to be there. So watch your fund balance. If you don't watch your fund balance, the money that you got from Prop 98 is not going to save you. Your fund balance is there to sustain you. And so when you see our fund balance at I believe for 2526 is 8 million, then it goes to 2 million. But that's just us. So imagine if we don't get this other funding and we're already going down by ourselves. So you had 8 million, 6 million, I think

092the last number is four million. So if we don't get the funding from the rainy day fund and our kids are not sitting down in their seats, we're back where we started. I also would like to um also to go to the declining enrollment projection 2001 to if you can um just tell me what happened in 2017 to 2019 18 and 19. Why was that difference? Where did those kids came back or how would that happen? That was when um CSR came. Oh, okay. Thank you. Uh I think that I I just want to mention something that when we started many years ago about uh the uh the the the savings that we need to have for anything. It was 3% that we did and it was I don't know what year was but it

093was Mr. Reyes idea that he would like to see the 10%. Now we know that 10% is not even enough. So I sometimes we believe we think that that oh my gosh I thought when he mentioned $10 million I said we hardly can make $3 million keep $3 million in reserve. So he came up with that idea and now we have a challenge for the next it was actually Mr. Ray's signature on the actual document. I'm to blame. No, this is a good thing. Um, I really appreciate your information always and uh I believe that is a lot that we need to do, but I do understand too that probably this question will be for Dr. Hillman. How many students graduate from the high school this year? Any of you know? 183, huh? For for

094the best. Yes. 192. Thank you, Miss Lopez Dantes, like an expert on all numbers. How many students do you think that will come to kindergarten? We have o if I may and I don't have the numbers in front of me but to over the many years we have fewer kindergarteners starting than than exiting and it what and that because we know the birth rate too kids in the neighborhoods there there aren't as many kids that's why we had our school services did our enrollment um projections and they're saying by the year by in five years there'll be a 15% decline based on birth rates. So knowing that there's just fewer children in our in our city, it's going to be part of our revenue strategies is how can we attract and continue to contract more

095students to our schools. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. So I I had a couple more questions here and and it sort of dubtales with what was asked here. So when when we're talking about uh declining enrollment and the the assumed level of of declining enrollment every year is we're projecting it to be 100 students um every year. I mean at some point it I mean it has to level off right at some point. Um, or is that I mean I I guess at what point do we go ahead and say actually it's probably closer to 75 or it's probably closer to 50 or or something like that. How do we how do we work with that? So this 100 thing is my thing. It's no one else's. It was that before I got here and

096so it was that and maybe like I said the last two or three years it changed. last year was one and then the year before I believe was 56 and so yeah I want to give up the 100 but I'm a little nervous so I just kind of keep it for that cushion. Um it doesn't hurt us to say it. It doesn't drop our revenues. It just makes us aware of what's going on. So maybe this year first at the end of next year because we've done it for this year that I'll say 75. Okay. leveled off. I'm encouraged. I'm encouraged by that. We've pretty much leveled off honestly. Seriously. Um we've leveled off. We We're pretty much where we are. Um I don't see a 100 kids running away. Okay. But conservative approach. Yeah,

097that's I that that's excellent news. I'm I'm glad that you're feeling more comfortable with that. Um I we'll we'll see how as as the year goes on. Um, but yeah, I do think that um I I am definitely um you know, uh I like having a buffer. You know, we just did a renovation at our house and when they said it costs X, I I said, "Okay, it's going to be X plus 15%." Like I just felt more comfortable doing that. Um because it it I don't know. It just it it makes me feel safer going into the future knowing that that's that's there. Um so in in relation to looking at declining enrollment hopefully plateauing that that you know helps our budget. Um when when we look at these multi-year projections we don't know

098what the state's budget is going to be three years from now. So do we assume it's flat? Do we assume a certain amount of cola? Like what what sort of goes into those assumptions when we're doing the outy years? When we're doing the outy years, we're looking at historical data and where we were and what's going on. So if we're looking at just for the first part, if we're looking at Darti, we're looking at where we are for the most part with our students. That's how we get paid per student. So where are we? Are we declining or or what is our like you said, we had 193 seniors graduate, but then we get 20 kindergarteners. So we have to look at those type of things in and out. We have to look at you

099know, like I told you guys before, sales tax. We have to look at um what's going on in the city itself. Are we getting, you know, more revenues here? Because we get more revenues here, then you get more revenues in school. Um so, we look at those type of things. We look at the programs. What are we spending our money on? What can we cut? Because if we're not getting 50 students, then maybe I need to look at what I need to cut because I can't shop on Amazon all day. I can't buy water. These are jokes. I can't buy bottles of water every day if I don't have 20 students to sustain that amount of money that I'm gonna put out. So, it's a checks and balances all day. Um, so, but for the

100most part, you look at your demographics, you look at your historical numbers um and your characteristics of the district and then you build your budget from that. At the same time, you are looking at California. Are people still living here? Are people, you know, Hollywood moved? That was a big deal for California. Hollywood went to Canada. Hollywood went everywhere but Hollywood, right? That's a big deal and people don't think about that. Um, a lot of celebrities, they've moved out and that was a big tax base. Um, so those things are affect the budget of California as a whole. Um, the birth rate has been the birth rate. It's this this 2001 through 25. Marcelo, take that off. But um, this has been going on for a long time. This is just not Dwardy. This is

101everywhere. If you go to any school district, I mean, you know, it's not as many students. Um, I went to a graduation yesterday in in Long Beach and it had 800 students, but when my daughter was there, it had 1500 students graduating. So, that was just two years ago and this is a huge high school. So, it happens. Everything is just that we're small. So, it's magnified. Um, so you have to look at California, you have to look at the tax base, have to look at your spending. um people do people live here? People don't live here anymore. So all those things, you know, who's in office and things like that in California and what they're doing, what they're passing. So we have to look at all those things and all those things. It sounds

102like we don't, but we actually do. And so then those things are taken into consideration with the budget. Um, I try to budget very conservatively because I don't want us to look up and say, "Wow, we did not make payroll because I didn't think that, you know, there were not going to be a loss of 100 students." I didn't look at the services and say, "Why are we still buying water? Everybody has a hydro." You know, things like that. I mean, it's silly, but we do look at every little thing and then we look at the big things, too. So, we look at contracts. Although people think we don't, we do. We look at contracts. We look at our services. Do we need to continue with this service? Are people using it? Is it beneficial?

103If it's not, then we don't need this service anymore. Not I don't care if we've had a partnership with these people for 20 years. If the services don't benefit our students, then we don't need it. And so we look at everything. Excellent. And and one I think last question is when when we receive additional funding uh on top of the the base money um so the the upplemental and concentration dollars do those dollars only flow to those specific students or does it sort of get spread across spread across it's funding for everybody. Okay. It's you know you can't say okay little Johnny's foster so he gets his $20. like that. Johnny, Mary, and Becky are all getting this way. Gotcha. Okay. Uh, all right. I think that's all my questions. Board, any other questions or

104comments before we let Miss Bell off her feet? I would like to ask U. Dr. Hillman, um, how many how many kids do we had at the preschool two years old? Do we know? I want to say it was in maybe 20 students total. Dr. Dr. Lawson, do you know the 2-year-old number? Because it it's not a it we cannot take 100%. This class cannot be full of 20 two-year-olds. There's a ratio. Do you know across the board? Six. I think we have six two year olds at this point. And that that can likely grow as we move forward. Um then that's an important important piece. We're capturing our students younger and younger. Um we have an excellent uh preschool program. Much of what we were talking about tonight really is in a different fund.

105It comes from a different funding stream, but it ultimately those students do are are, you know, they get they get a chance to start start early and then roll right into TK and kindergarten. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you very much, Miss Bell. We really appreciate um you preparing this presentation and taking some time to answer our questions. Thank you. And I just want to thank my team. I couldn't do it without them. Thank you. Absolutely. That's an excellent point. Thank you for that reminder. Uh, all right. Well, I believe that is it for our presentations this evening. So, we'll move on then to the superintendence report. All right. Well, good evening, President Finley and our board members and members of the community here in the room as well as those who are joining

106us online. Just a few things as we step into summer and we step away from budget for just a minute. I just wanted to focus in on our students and take a moment to celebrate. There's a wide range of opportunities for our students are engaging across Dart Unified this this summer. We have over a thousand students participating in summer school this year. And summer school is not your is a is a variety of things. It represents a full uh spectrum of academic needs and interests. It's whether it might be enrichment classes, extended school year services for some of our students with disabilities. We have credit recovery, early college as we talked about earlier, um internships, or simply a chance to get ahead. Our campuses are really vibrant and um learning spaces during these summer months.

107Um on tonight's agenda, I did did want to point out there are a couple things that um that are exciting opportunities for this summer that reflect our district's continued investment in work-based learning and career technical education. First, you'll see on the agenda, we are proud to support an extended field trip request from Darty High School for nine of our 11th and 12th grade students to attend the National Leadership and Skills Conference. These students will serve as courtesy corps members representing Dardi Unified with pride and professionalism. In this role, they will support behind the-scenes operations of a national competition, assisting with logistics and collaborating with industry professionals and connecting with peers from across the country. This is a hands-on experience um uh and they will help them develop critical skills uh such as communication, time management,

108and teamwork and real world setting. And we're grateful for all the the costs are are covered by our CTE funding and skills USA. Um, also you'll see on the agenda, uh, is a memo of understanding with Dian Isis creative to launch a summer internship program in partnership with the California highspeed rail authority and it's called the I will initiative. Through this opportunity, some of our Darty High School students will help reimagine a public display at Philippe Restaurant in downtown LA. The this hybrid hybrid internship will immerse students with graphic design, digital media, public storytelling and project management. And this will culminate in a professional public-f facing dis uh display visited by thousands um where you can get a sandwich at Philippes at the same time. Our our students will be mentored by professionals in the

109fields and work with our teacher Mr. six at the high school and um in the fields of infrastructure, communication, and design, gaining both technical skills and confidence. So, I just wanted to point out these opportunities are a powerful reminder of what's possible, how we connect classroom learning toward the real world um beyond our schools. They reflect our commitment to the preparing students not just for graduation, but for careers in the communities they will one day lead. Um so, thank you to the board for your continued support in these making these experiences possible. And that concludes my report. Thank you very much, Dr. Helman. I don't know why, but I suddenly have a craving for a French dip sandwich. Uh, all right. Now, we have requests to address the board. I believe I saw one yellow

110card appear. Yes, Mr. President. Uh, we will invite Miss Dalia Bagnes to the podium. Good evening, Miss Bagnes. You have three minutes. Good evening. Great. I have a three minute speech. My name is Dalia Bagnes. I am the parent of two children who have attended Maxwell Academy for the past two school years. I am here because of the consequences caused by there being no resource specialist or oversight for special education at Maxwell Academy for the entire 2024 2025 school year. I want to tell you about my daughter Khloe. Khloe is a kind and generous soul who approaches the world with the most positive of attitudes. She is wildly creative and the most loyal friend anyone could have. Khloe also has a math-based learning disability called dcalculia that affects her ability to understand number-based information and

111math. Khloe is eligible for an IEP because she has a specific learning disability. Going into ninth grade, her standardized math scores average around a third to fifth grade level. Despite her obvious intelligence, in late January of 2025, Khloe reported that she had not been receiving her IEP services for the entire school year. It is the principal's responsibility to ensure that special education staff are properly administering IEP services. But when I reached out to the principal of Maxwell Academy for information about who was in charge of Khloe's IEP services this year, she did not respond to me. I went above her head to the superintendent and pushed the district for information for weeks. When that information was not provided, I ultimately requested an IEP meeting, which I recorded with permission. This meeting occurred in March, five

112weeks after I first began requesting information. It was only during this meeting that the district representative finally admitted that Khloe had not been receiving her IEP services. I requested for service logs to be provided to me during this meeting. However, they were not, and I spent an additional 3 weeks pushing for information. At the end of March, just two months before the end of the school year, I was finally informed by DUSD that Khloe had not received 36 hours of legally protected special education support. To this date, the district and I have not agreed on a plan for compensatory education. Nadia Hillman may tell you that the school district is handling the situation, but I am here to tell you that the district is not partnering with us to resolve this very large oversight. My

113experience with DUSD this year is that there is no transparency. In fact, Nadia Hillman cautioned me against attending this meeting. I am only listened to if I speak in legal terms and threaten litigation. elected school board members. Four out of five of you have chosen to ignore my complaints this year. I am here to tell you that I am not backing down. I will not stop until both of my children are being provided a free and appropriate public school education. Following special education law and providing students with their legally protected services is far cheaper than settling due process complaints. Thank you. And that concludes our public comment. All right. Thank you very much. We'll move on to agenda item number 11. This is to approve the minutes from our regularly scheduled meeting on May 15th.

114Do I have a motion to approve those minutes? So moved. Second. Motion by board member Reyes, second by board member Diaz. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I. I. I. Passes 50. Next uh item up for uh for business is adoption of the consent calendar. So, does anyone have any item that they would like to remove for separate discussion or action? Seeing none, uh may I have a motion to approve the consent calendar as written? So move second motion by board member Olen, second by board member Diaz. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I. I passes 50. Uh 11, sorry. Oh yeah. Uh 11.3 is the second reading and approval of the board policies. Do I have a motion? So move. Second. Motion by board member Diaz,

115second by board member Hogin. Any discussion, board? Uh, hold on. I I I was looking into my computer, but it died. So, let me go and Yeah, I want to see it. Which is the second reading? Yes. Okay. I I would like to hear a little bit um from our superintendent about those uh second readings uh because they they're very important for for for me to be aware and for the entire board and the community too. Please that's great. So our second reading the board policies the board put before you tonight um is are typ typically we'll be looking at policies that are in place and any updates that are are there and this provides guidance. This board gives us guidance as how we implement the programs at our school. The the ones that are

116before you tonight really relate on a very some common some common areas and I'm going to ask Mr. Crosby as this is under his department to uh to give a little summary or um get some information about what we what's what's being before you tonight. Okay. How do we how do we um keep them safe here our students? You you are the one who's going to say that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. See, I was just trying to Perfect. Uh and and these policies are under um our student services department which is which is under me and the director of student services NAM. Um and the policies uh that you see tonight uh suicide prevention, mental health, alcohol and other drugs conduct, student records and response to im immigration are all

117really to protect um students and make sure that we're forming our policies so that uh our administrators and our staff know from the direction of the board and from um the CSBA how to really handle and work with our students and protect Thank you. Any other discussion, board? All right, we'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor say I. I. Passes 50. 11.4 is just to receive for information. This is the construction and modernization project updates for the month of June 2025. We'll move on to 12.1. This is the certification of compliance with proposition 28 which is the arts and music in schools funding. Do I have a motion to approve? So move second. Motion by board member Diaz, second by board member Reyes. Any discussion? Oh, so Ro uh board member Gene then

118got in there just under the wire. Uh so any discussion board? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I. I. Passes 50. Next, Business and Finance 13.1. Uh, so this is the public hearing for ventilation services contract with Mesa Energy Systems Incorporated, doing business as MCOR services, Mesa Energy. Do I have a motion to open the public hearing for item 13.1? So moved. Second. Motion by board member Reyes, second by board member Diaz. So the public hearing is now open. Do I have a motion to close the public hearing? Move to close. Second. Oh, sorry. Hold on. I missed something. Sorry. What's that? Oh, I never took the vote to open it. So, it wasn't technically open, folks. All right. So, we'll go ahead. Um, we already had a motion to second. So, all

119those in favor of opening the public hearing for item 13.1, say, "I." I I All righty. Thank you. That passes 5. Uh the public hearing is now open. And do I have a motion to close the public hearing? Move to close. Second. So motion by board member Reyes, second by board member Diaz. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I. I. That passes or closes 5. Next, we have a public hearing regarding Dart Unified School District 2025 2026 local control and accountability plan. Do I have a motion to open open the public hearing for item 13.2? So move. Motion by board member Diaz. Second. Second by board member Olen. All those in favor say I. I. Passes 5. The public hearing is now open. All right. Do I have a motion to

120close the public hearing? Move to close. Second. Motion by board member Reyes. Second by board member Hasso. All those in favor say I. I. I. Closes with a vote of 5. Another public hearing. Uh this is for the district budget for fiscal year 25 2025 20226 including review of reserves in compliance with education code 42127 A2B. Do I have a motion to open public hearing for item 13.3. So moved. Second. Motion by board member Reyes, second by board member Hasso. All those in favor say I. I. I. I. All right. All right, the hearing is now open at pass 5-0. All right. Do I have a motion to close the public hearing? Move to close. Second. Motion by board member Hasso, second by board member. All those in favor say I. I. I. All right.

121Closes 5. Next is 13.4. This is resolution number of the board of education of Dart Unified School District making findings under the government act code 4217.12 in furtherance of utilization of cowshaped funds for improvements of ventilation systems districtwide. Do I have a motion to approve? So move second. Motion by board member Reyes. No, sorry. It was who was it? Yes, board member de Diaz and then second by board member Hasso. Thank you. Uh any discussion board? I do have a question about this. Uh so I noticed that in our agenda it said that the um so the cost of doing this work is roughly uh 2008 or sorry 218,000. There's a big difference there. um and that we received funding to do this. So, can you uh Dr. Hillman or one of your cabinet members

122talk a little bit about uh how we got these funds, where they came from, and um because that's great news. It is. We are always on the lookout for way to save money. Miss Bell, would you like to take it from there? Yes, please. This is a grant and we were contacted by a consultant in 2021 regarding ventilation and so it's cow shape and different things come around and they find things for us and this particular project it will be $218,000 which will be totally paid by the grant. Wow, that is amazing. And I I believe it also said that the the company estimated that we will also save about $11,000 every year. Yes. So, it's not only did it get paid for, but it'll save us money and every year. So, um anyway, so

123that's awesome news. I hope we can do more of that. And um you know, as as we talk about the budget and you know, us having a deficit, this definitely helps kind of reduce that deficit. So, that's awesome. Uh all right. So, uh any other questions or items for discussion on this board? All right. So, all those in favor of passing this resolution say I. I. I. All right. That passes. 50. And 13.5. This is amendment number two for Darty High School new sports complex project LLB agreement uh Bernard Brothers Incorporated. Do I have a motion to approve this agreement? So move. Okay. Motion by board member Diaz, second by board member. Any discussion, board? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I. I. All right, that passes 5. All right, now we can

124move on to the non-aggendaized items. Uh, so I I looked over there to see if Priscilla was there and sadly she is not. Um, we we continue to miss her. Um, all right. So, why don't we um move down the line? I'll start with uh board member Reyes. Yes. Thank you. Um Dr. Hillman on well with with the agenda what um what I was reading and the report um from Bernard Brothers and then talking about the leak that was on the roof of the new gym. How um how are how are we going to have like a warranty for that roof? Because we had an issue at Northview in the past and it it leaked also in the beginning and it just never seemed to stop leaking. We were consistently patching that thing. Still have

125issues with it today. So what are the guarantees going forward? um you know and then and then um uh thank you for the gym visitation that that gym is humongous. Oh my gosh. It's just it's huge. H I know you're not going to want to hear this, but we're going to need two custodians over there. That that that thing is going to be a lot of work to maintain. all those windows, all that flooring and the bathrooms. It's just it's huge. It's going to be a lot of work for a couple people. Um the football field you had mentioned to us, you wrote to us about it that people had said whoever you had look into it said that it was fine. Um, I don't know how they could repair it or what they could

126do to it, but those numbers those numbers you step they're higher than the actual turf right now. And and um I myself have almost twisted my ankle when I was out there that that day uh for the uh track meet. Um I I don't want any of our kids to get hurt. I don't want us to wait until something happens and then react. Please have something done before you know the next season starts. Football especially. And that's about it. Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there. I hope they have and enjoy their Sunday. I know I'm going to be smoking smoking. Not not the funny stuff, okay? But some some uh I was going to say something, but I won't go there, you know. But yeah, plent plenty of barbecue. Yes. Thank you.

127Alrighty. Thank you, Mr. Reyes. Uh all right, board member Hasso. Thank you. Um just May was a really exciting month. Uh it was really an opportunity to celebrate all of the good things that happened in our school district uh despite the challenges that we face. And so kind of started off with scholarships over at MIT. Um just a beautiful representation of that true second chance opportunity that the students are getting. and what uh more of a beautiful gift that we could give them than um you know a leg up getting out there into their early adulthood. And then I think it was the week after it was over two hours in the pack uh just scholarship after scholarship, award after award, acknowledgement after acknowledgement. Um and you know it's these things that we need to

128highlight, we need to market um when it comes to our school district. we're talking about, you know, recapturing kids and I think um our messaging is really critical in that mission and how are we talking about our district and what we have to offer because we're offering a lot of good things. um saying, you know, unfortunately with folks having to relocate from Altadena, she's getting families in Dherty. And what a critical opportunity for us to um make sure that those families know what we have to offer, that we're opening our schools, that we're welcoming um those families. Um it's just an opportunity to to um welcome young people back to our family and hopefully see more kids out on the streets and playing in their front yards. Um and just, you know, uh graduating and

129or graduation um our seniors, so many of them heading off to amazing opportunities and uh many students who took advantage of both the two four two-year and four-year college. Um, and so it's just a testament to the collective work. And so the staff, the teachers, not just our high school teachers, but the teachers that serve them in elementary and middle school, um, the administrators, the cabinet who um, oversee and support the programs that our students navigate through their K12 education. So really just want to focus on those celebrations tonight. Thank you. Excellent. All right, board member Oeen. Wow, there's a lot tonight. Um, as um Tom was about to call Rick. I don't know why. As Tom was saying, um I had the opportunity this morning as well to visit the um gym and it

130is, as he said, it is incredible. It is huge. It's beautiful. And unfortunately, I think he's right. He will take more than one person to maintain it, but um it is um beautiful. So, I look forward to the grand opening and I know that the kids and the staff and everybody's excited. Um, there's so much to talk about, so I need to be careful. I don't want to say anything I shouldn't inappropriate. I don't mean inappropriate, but to sunset of um there's a lot of stuff going on on the news and social media. Um, a lot of concerned parents. I want to thank Rick and the and everybody for doing such a great job. I did go out and visit the schools. Um I have some concerned parents. Um I was at Maxwell and DHS.

131I didn't make it to Valley View. Um there was somebody at the gate and um it was Thank you. It was um there were very some scared kids um parent people sending messages. So thank you for keeping them safe and comfortable. I don't know what the word I don't know what to say. Um, but thank you. And there were some kids that were scared. They came up to me and um they said my parents or somebody sent me a message and um anyways, we have some scary stuff going on. So, thank you. Um and the principal at um Maxwell, thank you. And um went blank. Our vice principal at the high school and the security um people were at the gates. So, thank you. And that's it. Uh, well, we had the graduations, awards, everything

132was exciting. Thank you so much, everyone. Have a great Father's Day. All right, board member Diaz. Thank you, Mr. President. Um it was it has been a really um mix of emotions. When we see parents that they give their kids a beautiful hug and to say congratulations they don't say many of them don't say you did it. They say we did it. Parents feel part of graduation. The success of their kids is their success. Their kids that promote from eighth grade to the high school, they had celebrations like if it was high school graduation. They are so proud and I I believe that we live in a in a world of um that that we don't agree in everything but something that we as a board agree is that our kids our family deserve the

133best and we are not perfect sometimes we fail like everywhere but I do believe that we are doing our best. I would like to say thank you to the women's club, the Rotary Kiwanas, um Brian Bosber and Lois Gaston to promote so much our kids to get scholarships. And I want to talk a few minutes about Brian Bosber Bosberg. He was one of our students there. He was a homeless when he was at the high school and he has become a successful business owner that he gives thousands of dollars to our students because he was benefit by some families here in Darte. And I am so pleased to see those people who come and give their time to fund raise and to we as Kiwanas we make tamales, we sell tamales to give scholarships. We

134do whatever we can to help and support our kids and that's what make this community better. is about building and someone that amazed me that go to goes to the extra mile. Lo Gaston is a woman that give with her heart and her she makes sure that the kids who receive a scholarship from the church that she attend, they go to receive their their their scholarship to the church. They honor those kids and see so many people that we need to say thank you that you know like Laura mentioned it was like more than two hours that we spent that morning at the pack center. It was many many kids that received the scholarships. I now we change the gear. I was at a a great event and and I gonna go a little bit

135out of the order if you allow me please and I gonna ask Richard Moreno to come to the podium and share with us a little bit of what happened the other day and how many cities participate with OFL and you just have less than three minutes. Um well thank you. Um, so we have opportunities for learning, DHY, which is in the city of Dherty. That's one school site. We also have another charter, Options for Youth DHY. Um, we have 18 school sites all across LA County. So, um, Options for Youth DHY serves about 3,400 kids. Um, opportunities for learning serves about 200 students. Um we're more local obviously we have the school site um behind Delpoo Loco um and so you know we're serving um middle school and high school there and I don't have

136the numbers in front of me but um a significant number of students come from Dwart Unified um and you know we're there to get them back on track and some of them end up coming back to the district um and some of of them end up graduating with us. So, um, yeah. So, I don't know if I answered your question, Miss M. Can you share a little bit? Yes. About the, uh, celebration that you had at the Almanor court the other day. Yeah, thank you. So, um, we extended an invite to, um, several board members. Um, well, actually, you were there representing Huanis, right, and, um, Rotary. So, um, that's the reason why the two of you were there, and you happen to be, uh, Dory Unified, um, board members. um you presented scholarships to

137our students and we're so thankful for that. Um it was basically a grad breakfast and so we honored um students who got scholarships and we also honored students who were accepted to a 4-year university. Um and we just you know it was basically our our grad breakfast. We awarded students for um you know their academic achievement and any of the other achievements that they you know um got throughout the year. So um the the reason that I ask you to come forward is just to let the public know that we do explore around us and our kids have opportunities if they're not accomplishing what they want in here. They have options and that's one of the reasons. And just for last but not least, can you tell me can you tell us what is your

138title now? Oh, case. So, I was principal for opportunities for learning for nine years. Um, and so it was time for me to move up. I moved into a director role. So, I'm now director of schools. So, I support um the principal at OL Dohy and I also support uh the other principles for options for youth Jordy. So, um so yeah, I mean we're thankful for this partnership. Um thank you for allowing me to come up. I wasn't I wasn't expecting to give a presentation but um I hope I answered your question and at the end of the day at the end of the day um I just I'm thankful for this partnership and um thankful that you know uh Miss Diaz and Miss Holene were able to come to the grad breakfast. You're all

139invited to our graduation. Our graduation is on the 30th at Pasadena Civic Auditorium. So hopefully you guys can make it. I think some people have um RSVPs so we're looking forward to that. Thank you for sharing that with us. I think that we need to hear about you know the successful things that are happening in with our students too. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. You you can have five more seconds. Yes. Um thank you um Tiffany and Dr. Lawson. presentations were fantastic and I know they took a lot a lot of time and work and I appreciate it. All right, sounds good. So, I'll I'll go ahead and say something and then I will turn the time over to Dr. Hillman so she can uh share some thoughts. So, uh so I guess first

140of all um I had forgotten that me eating tamales was helping fund scholarship. So perhaps in the future I should be eating more tamales. So I I will I will endeavor to do that more. Um you know we we had talked a lot about the the scholarships that were that were given out um at several different locations. Um you know there were some uh a lot of them at at DHS and some at MIT and then at OFL. And you know, I I remember when when I was in uh in grad school, um I remember something that always stuck with me uh because they said, you know, when when you are utilizing student loans for for graduation or for for your schooling, um you know, if you spend $20 on a pizza because you're craving

141that, uh they pointed out to me that most likely by the time you pay that off, that was actually a $65 pizza. So, they said, "Make sure you really really want that pizza before you use any loaned money to you." So, I want to I want to just point that out because, you know, some of the scholarships were $500, $1,000, maybe even $2,000. and and you know any anybody who's looked at tuition costs recently kind of go well you know yes it's it's something nice but is it really making a difference but when you look at a student uh you know that's maybe coming from a family that that is somewhat disadvantaged um you know $2,000 that you don't have to take out in student loans really has a huge impact down the line so

142I I just wanted to point that out because there there's uh this misconception that these these are small scholarships. They don't really matter in the long run, but they really do. And uh I'm so thankful to all the people that put forth time, effort, and and tamales uh to to make sure that these these scholarships can go to to youth that really deserve them and need them. Um, and just to to go ahead and wrap up, um, through all of the the end of the year celebrations, you know, the the sixth grade promotions, the eighth grade promotions, the graduations, all of that, there there was a palpable feeling of hope and optimism, optimism in all of our students. This this was a time to celebrate their success, the success of their families. And there was

143something very real in in them looking forward to the future, which I think sometimes isn't always the case, but it was a very exciting thing to be a part of. And uh I will, you know, I I you know, my my my daughter did uh graduate from Darti High School this year. And and I know we're we're only in June and there's still a lot of the year left, but I told her that that was really one of the highlights of my year for sure. Um it's it really it was so it was so um it was special to to be able to see her walk across the stage. Um because you know we as as parents we get to have this you know peak inside the lives of our children and we see them

144staying up late doing homework early in the morning on assignments studying instead of doing something that they would much rather be doing and you see each one of those moments in your mind's eye as you you know see them walk across that stage. parents really get uh to see that and it's something really unique and something I'll I'll never forget. So I I do um sincerely thank all of the DUSD uh family that that made it possible for her to do that and and for my my other two kids who will be doing the same thing uh in the next couple of years. So, thank you to all who have made that possible and I'll turn the time over now to Dr. Helman. Well, congratulations to Belle and to all the graduates. Nice Father's Day

145present for y'all. Um, happy Father's Day for those of you. Um, but one thing I wanted to say just this this particular meeting, um, June sometimes feels like it's summer, right, for a lot of folks. And I'm going to tell you right now that this particular meeting and I'm looking at my team right now, those three folks there and Mercedes next to me comes with a lot of preparation. You saw it, the blood, sweat, and tears that were at the at the podium today. All for in service of our kids. Um we have incredible folks that aren't on the front line. We have when Miss Hoffman's there ready to ready to bring those board policies forward. All those pieces that that really make a difference when those kids are walking across the stage. So to

146my team, thank you. Thanks for keeping it all together. I know the board's been working hard these last couple of days trying to go through all these items and asking lots of questions and and being really thoughtful about it. I'm just going to conclude by one thing. I think there's some somebody we never I I don't know that was ever been thanked. We've been thanking many folks up here over the years. Of course, thanks Leo for being there to help our families. Marcelo Marcelo is in the room and he's the one who makes sure that we have not only that we have our um he does so many things across the district in in terms of technology not only making sure that we have the presentations here for the the folks in the room to

147see but the live stream um that it's up on on video. So Marcelo, thank you. We appreciate you. He's he's being shy. Um but everyone knows Marcelo. We want him to be thankful. So, I just want to make sure we got a shout out to Marcelo and that concludes my have a good evening to everybody. All right. Thank you so much, Dr. Hillman. All right. If there's nothing else, we'll go ahead and move on to the adjournment. Do I have a motion to adjourn this meeting? So moved. Second. Okay. We have a motion by board member Reyes, second by board member Diaz. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I. 50. Thank you, board. Vice President and President