001[Music] session at 7:05. Can I get a roll call, please? here. Tan here. Rosa here. Here [Music] All right. Now, can I get a motion for approval of the minutes of the board meetings from March 4th and March 13? Oh, I'm sorry. I'd like to motion to approve the agenda, please. So moved. Second. Is written over the top. Okay. Can I get a motion to approve the minutes? We need to take the vote just on the proving the agenda. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Uh oh. Can I Okay. All those in favor? I I I Sorry about that, guys. Okay. All good. All right. Now, I'd like a motion to approve the minutes, please. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I I we have nothing to report out of close session. We'll move on to
002item 11A, March student of the month. That's from Westmore and Victor Zo presenting. Hello. Hello. First of all, I'd like to apologize. This uh speech was actually due 4 days ago, but I turned it in yesterday. So, so much apologies. Um, a lot of effort went into this. So, each year, Westmore High School has the privilege of selecting one student to represent our school as the JUHSD school, sorry, student of the month. And while each high school in this district has their own standard for this special award, if you look through the archives of schoolboard meeting minutes, you will see that there is at least one common theme. Each student nominee has in some shape or form successfully undergone a very rigorous educational experience at their school. And after much discussion, the administration team at
003West Moores has agreed that we have a very ideal student in mind. Someone who fits the definition of rigor in the sense that they had initially started high school from a very challenging foothold, but whose growth, grit, perseverance has blossomed in a truly impressive way by the time they had become a senior. What makes me proudest of them is not their cumulative GPA, nor the amount of AP courses on their transcript, but rather the personal lengths and sacrifices that the student has made in their commitment to personal growth and education. The measurement of their growth over time is to me perhaps the best definition of a rigorous education that I can think of right now. And it is in that spirit that I am honored to name Nova McCoy as Westmore's nominee for the Jefferson
004Union High School District's student of the month. When Nova first began as a student at Westmore, he was beset by challenges, both academic and personal. He began as and still is a student in our mental health enhanced program which specializes in supporting students with a wide variety of social emotional needs primarily through smaller class sizes that provide regular therapeutic support and counseling opportunities. At some point Nova had to set aside some of his academic goals in order to focus on caring for his mental and socio emotional health. And yet, as time went by, he continued to demonstrate a remarkable perseverance and strength that matched any obstacle that he faced. One of his counselors noted that Nova had shown tremendous growth since uh sorry, since he had met she had met him in 10th grade, especially
005shown through his ability to persevere time and again through challenges and the routines of school. Throughout all of this, she had seen Nova manage to consistently display a tenderness and care for others that is at once authentic and deeply rooted in his heart. Among his friends, Nova is well known to lend a listening ear and has always been happy to take on his friend's emotional burdens, even if he's already tired. Nova's teachers have also noted that as he faced challenges in school, he learned to show courage in speaking up for his concerns and advocating for his needs when he felt that they weren't being met. His growth mindset has begun to rub off on his classmates as well, such as how Nova mentors and guides new guitarists in his guitar class. And while shouldering his
006own growth, he has managed to consistently commit and engage in his band and music classes with Miss Stewart to the point that he is now a key fixture and leader in his in her class. In fact, many of Nova's teachers have noted that they are especially thankful for their conversations with him over these past few years, which they have been personally noted have been very fruitful and encouraging for them in their professional practice. Nova, your maturity, your perseverance, they have been inspiring to see for your peers, for your friends, and for your teachers alike. As you prepare to graduate high school and the see the challenges ahead, I hope you can remember some of the challenges you have already overcome these last few years. I hope that um you can see that you have had
007an incredibly rigorous high school educational experience. You have grown a lot here at Westmore. You have persevered through much here at Westmore. Uh I'm very confident that uh your experience here has prepared you for what's to come. It's going to take you very far in life and I hope that every Westmore Ram, every Westmore student can learn from your experience. Thank you. maybe come on up to go ahead and present the certificate for sorry to take a photo. Congratulations. Would you like to say something? No pressure. No pressure. Totally up to you. Uh I just owe a massive thanks to my friends and teachers. My teachers especially my teachers have given me many opportunities to grow and just to show them who I could be the potent like the type of person I could be.
008And even though my most of my family couldn't be here today, I want to thank them as well because they play probably the biggest role in the in the person I am today. Thank you. and I'd like to open it up to our board of trustees student starting with our student trustees if they'd like to comment. Um I just wanted to say congratulations. Um yeah uh good luck in everything that you do. Um it's very clear that you've made a large impact at your school. So it's great to see that there are people like you who are willing to do so much for other people. Yeah, that's it. Um, similar to what Eden said is, um, first of all, congratulations on receiving this award. And I just want to say that, um, it's really great
009to hear that you are able to like manage everything like you're able to know when to um, like prioritize your mental health. You're able to also like be a support for your friends and be there like just to learn and to have to be passionate about the things that you want to be. So, I know that you're going to do great in the future. Um, yeah. I just wanted to say congratulations also. This is like a big accomplishment and I know it must feel very um nice to get the recognition that you deserve for um everything you've accomplished and um like she said just the things you've balanced with school and personal life. So, congratulations. I also want to say congratulations again. It's really impressive how you created a guitar band and how you're willing
010to open that up to other students and actually share with all students on Westmore. So yeah, that's pretty cool. Congratulations. Hey man, you probably don't even remember who I am. Sup, dude. I haven't seen you in It's been years, bro, since we've spoken. But don't think I forgot, bro, when we used to be in the library with Ronald. Don't think I forgot that. That friend group was peak. Don't think I forgot. Really, you were an awesome friend and I'm sure you're even better now. I'm really I wish I could have gone to We could have still been together, but I got I was sent to a different school, so we had to be cut off. But it sounds like you're doing great still at Westmore. And I wish you nothing but the best, man. And
011I want a hug later. But thank you guys. I'd like to open up to our board. Well, really, uh, congratulations. Um, it's it's awesome that you overcome so much and that I think it's what what principal Shiao shared is is so powerful because you know who you are and you knew what time you needed for yourself in order to be able to succeed. And that's a skill that not a whole lot of people have sometimes. And to be able to learn that at your age is is a pretty powerful thing. uh you and so I'm really grateful to you for the work that you've done and also to your teachers and colleagues and mentors who have been there for you as well. And I just have to know what I'm I'm a guitarist as well.
012What is one of your favorite songs to play on the guitar? Awesome. I do too. That's fantastic. and I'm sure probably have had some killer jam sessions in the music room out there. So, congratulations. Uh, congratulations. Um, as the principal was reading the letter, one word stood out to me, resilience. And then I also quickly had a um a flashback to I don't usually do social media, but somehow the algorithm drove me down um a class I was being taught at Yale by a psychology teacher really trying to break down what resilience means. Okay. Uh and resilient is basically the time it takes you from when you don't know something uh to when you know. And that in between time is usually when most learning is happening and you're frustrated. Uh you want to give
013up. Um and I think that word resilience resonates with your story because many people in your situation would have given up, right? And so I want to applaud you first of all to bringing awareness uh about mental health and taking care of yourself. So resilience, you're going to go far. Congrats. Hi, Nova. It is actually my honor to meet you tonight because um you know, student of the month is not easy to get and you're so deserving and you represent our district so well and your school so well. Um, and it's just so apparent how you care for others and uh you take care of yourself, but you care for others. when you came up to speak, the first people you thanked were your friends and your teachers and um you don't think of yourself.
014And I think um you're just you're you've proved yourself as a mentor and a leader and uh in your band and music classes. And I just think that you're going to go far because kindness matters for a lot in this age. And I just want to thank your family, your your teachers and your friends, but also your family for um being that support for you and helping to make you the person that you are. And we're really lucky to have you in our district. And congratulations. I know you're going to go far. Never go after Trusty Tahara. Congratulations. Um I see um in uh Mr. Zho's speech but I don't hear but I see a recurring theme about patience and I think you've shown a lot of patience uh with yourself with your learning journey
015um says you're a guitar player. I know that takes a lot of patience, more than I have. Um, and it also says you're a guitar teacher, so I know that you are a patient person. And it's um just noticing that you've used that to kind of share with yourself. I stuck on the guitar teacher thing here, but um it's incredibly personal. It's artistic and it's so academic all at the same time. And uh I congratulate you for being able to share that, you know, with other people. And I think that, you know, this theme of patience will continue to serve you well. So congratulations and thank you. Well, if you haven't noticed, I think you could see that we're all very proud of you to start with. I'm very proud of you. Um, just kind
016of, you know, reading back through what's written here about you, you know, I I I look at the one thing that stands out for me is is um something that was taught to my my kids when they were going through school, the life skill of of perseverance um and strength. you know, your perseverance is what's helping you get through a lot of the challenges that you have in life, especially as a young man and dealing with, you know, mental mental health and and I know, you know, when I was growing up in high school, dealing with severe anxiety and depression, how difficult that could be um just in itself, let alone trying to, you know, fit in with your classmates and and do well with your education. Um, it's tough, you know. So, you need
017that perseverance, you need that strength. Um, and the other thing that that I really liked, what I saw that the two words that stood out above that, too, is is tenderness and care. That's not something that you see a lot, I think, from um a lot of youth these days. Those words are kind of more of um, you know, things that you learn how to do as an older person, you know, as an adult. you know, you're just kind of going through the motions when you're younger. So, um, a lot of really awesome attributes for yourself at at this age. And, you know, like I said, we're all really proud of you. Want to continue, you know, continue to see you do well. So, keep grinding, keep jamming on that guitar cuz I know that's
018a great outlet for you. Um, keep teaching because I know that's fun, too. So, um, just really happy to see you up here getting this Congratulations. Thank you. Unfortunately, I always go last and all the good things have been said and I was like, "Okay, they're not getting my phrase." And then President Ggo said, "Tenderness and care." That's what glared out at me. Um, I am so happy that I got to meet you last week when I was at Westmore in advance of tonight. Um, I'm sure you know how proud your teachers and your principal, how they how proud they are of you. Um, but I want to say it again. Uh, Mr. Zho just shared with me what a wonderful person you are and how he was so happy, um, that you were going
019to be Wesmore student of the month. Really, their student of the year. Um, but but tenderness and care stood out to me and even through we all have challenges. Everybody has challenges and it's it's special when we remember to care for others and that comes through really really um loud and clear with you. So thank you for being that kind of human being. And I also want to thank your family for supporting you, your family and your friends. I'm happy that you mentioned them um because we all need our we all need our people. So thank you and congratulations. And before we move on, I think we'd like to get a picture with you if you don't mind. Does that work? Take a few minutes. All right. Careful. Flip it around. And by the way,
020no. [Music] There we go. Very nice. Yeah. Hello. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Good. So they're back about their college. Oh yeah. President Gigos, just before we go too far down the drain, uh I do have a hard stop at 8:00. I have a flight to catch. So, thank you. Noted. Okay. Moving on to item 12 A, the board report. Um, we're going to be starting with uh Eden down there at the end with our student board. Um, uh, so at Jefferson High School, our um, blood drive is coming up soon. Wait, is that what this I'm supposed to do? Okay, sorry. Um, and our prom theme just got revealed as Enchanted Forest. that's going to be happening April 26th, I believe. Um, we have a city college coming performance coming up
021the day before that. [Music] Um, honestly, that's kind of all I can really think of at the top of my head right now. Oh, yeah, never mind. Sorry. Um, yeah, ASB elections are happening this week additionally, and we just had our St. Patrick's Day lunchtime activity um where we went on a search for fourleaf clovers that were posted around school. Um finals happened last week and ASP gave out free hot chocolate and our rally is coming up soon. So a lot of us are working on that and um our films to nickeling group got approved to perform at West Moore's Island Fiesta. So that's coming up too. Thank you Lauren. Okay, so for Westmore, we have spring elections coming up. Uh we also have, like Eden said, Island Fiesta on April 5th. Um our Red
022Cross is having our measles and reubella fundraiser. Um bring change to mind also created a rejection wall for seniors to put up their rejections from colleges. Um for us, we have service commissioners or green hats applications to be which are open now. And then we had a great turnout for our Pi Day event that the um math department hosted as well as a class of 28 ramen social today. And our prom is on the on March 29th at city hall. And we are also doing state testing right now. So yeah. Lauren, may I ask you a question? Will you tell us a little bit about the rejection wall? Um, I believe, um, basically this club is like you would just either send them like an like the email or send a screenshot of it or
023print it out and then you could paste it onto the wall kind of like just to have fun at like your rejections, I guess. So, kind of normalizing the fact that sometimes we get rejected. Yeah. Is that is what I'm understanding, right? Like these are for colleges. Yeah. for like the seniors cuz um this is like co college college admission season so like you could kind of just kind of have a light way to like Yeah, you know, let go. Yeah, that we end up in the right place. Yeah. Thank you, Lauren. Hannah, um at Teranova, there's not too much going on. We have a MMA Mia um musical that was just announced and the casting was released earlier this week. Um, we have a food fair coming up on Friday, which is when all
024of our clubs um provide fundraising for their uh activities. We have state testing, I believe, next week for juniors. Um, our garden club um participated in UC Santa Cruz research for um fog harvesting. And then we also had a softball game yesterday and a few other sports games this week. Thank you, Hannah. Caitlyn. Okay, so last Friday we had our first Squid Game rally. The sophomore squad came in first place. Additionally, on March 21st, this I think next I I think this Friday. Yeah, if you stop by Panda Express at Linda Mar, you'll be able to support the junior class. It starts at 3:30 to 9:00 p.m. This is an ASB planned event. Additionally, on April 25th, we'll have our fame night, which is an opportunity for students to kind of see what artistic students
025there is on Oceanana. This is open to uh this is open to the public and you'll be able to see visuals, performing arts, all that good stuff. Additionally, this Friday we have our second annual springfest. So, it'll start at 5:30 to 7:30. It's open to the public and this is to encourage incoming freshmen to have fun and have like and participate activities. There'll be free food for them and it's open to everybody once again. Yeah. And that's about it. Oh, we also have interim coming up. And then we also have senior exhibition next Friday for our seniors. This is an annual project or like one of the oceanic traditions that make them special. And it's where students choose a controversial topic in which they study and have an argument and present Yeah. to be lowerassmen
026and their parents. Awesome. Thank you, Daniel. You're up. For once, we actually have quite a bit going on at Thoren. Um, graduation photos are tomorrow. Um, this Friday, we are taking field trips to Alcatraz and also the Levi Stadium on the same day. Um, two students came back from being cabin leaders at Outdoor Ed, Sophia being one of them. Um, do not ask her how it was. I tried to talk to her about it and all she said was it was too much. So, do not try to talk to her about it. Oh my god. Um, right now it because Friday was the end of the quarter, we are in intercession week right now. Um we got out at 1:00 every day this week and um yesterday we had a Skyline College um come to
027talk to students who are interested in enrolling over there and helped them apply. Um Thursday is college and career day where we will apparently have raising canes catered. I'm honestly excited for that. Um, I forgot the day, but we will be sharing prom with Jeff, I think. And, um, Friday is my last day of school. I finish early. Yeah. Yeah. But I will be able to keep coming to these meetings until I We're encouraging that. Please. Uh Danny, when can I come by and get that that canes first day? All right. Well, there is a lot going on in our schools, so we're going to move it on over to our board. And starting with Andy. Sure. I don't have a lot other than I was able to attend the Ramadan Breakfast on Friday evening
028at Westmore, which was a fabulous, fabulous event. Lots of great food. really fun to be able to share that with with our community and I really strongly encourage all of us to attend next year. I was there with Superintendent Presa and and it was just just a fun time of just being able to just hang out with with staff and students and celebrate Ramadan with with our Muslim community. Ramadan Karim. Thank you, Andy. Uh nothing to report. Thank you, Martin. I'm really glad that Westmore brought that tradition back. I used to attend break the fast for many years. Um couldn't attend this last time, was really bummed, but I went to New York to visit my daughter who's going to college there. Um really we um along with several of our our board members um
029administrators from Westmore, Oceanana and Jefferson and our superintendent. We went to the Aloha Crab Feed, crabfest um put on by the Daily City Comra Chamber of Commerce and um this is where another way that they can uh raise money to give scholarships to our students in our district and uh Jefferson students were volunteered to be weight staff. It was wonderful. And um you know the Daily Sandy Coleman Chamber of Commerce handed out $60,000 worth of scholarships last year. So please all of you seniors apply right now. Thank you, Rosie. Uh I was at the Crab Fest feast as well and it was a great time. I have nothing else to report. Thank you. Shrett. Uh, for myself, um, last Thursday I was invited to Oceanana High School. Lori Hughes invited me to, uh, do some
030food tasting at our food nutrition class. Um, so I was eager to get over there and do that. And then I got another email that said it was a vegetarian class and I was like, whoa, wait a minute. What did I sign up for? But but so anyway, knowing that I mistakenly ate my lunch cuz I wasn't sure how that was going to be. And then I got there and I was blown away. I mean, the class was amazing, the food was amazing, the presentations were amazing, the students were amazing. So, I had a great time. Uh my only regret is that I ate my lunch before I went because there was a lot of good food left on that table. So, that was really fun to be a part of. Thank you very much.
031Uh, and that is all I have to report. So, um, I'll let Miss Tony Prea take it from there. Thank you. So, as you heard, I was at many of these these events. Um, it's a really fun time of year. Actually, I'm not a big crab eater, but that was a really fun night. And Miss Torres from Oceanana was there, too, because we do have students who go to Oceanana and Tanova who live in Daily City and Kula, so they too can participate in those scholarships. So, it was a really fun night. Um, I guess other than the things that have been mentioned, uh, I have been meaning for the last few years to, uh, welcome our elementary superintendent, um, and kind of show off all of our schools to them because I used to
032be one of those elementary superintendents and I knew I didn't really know a lot about what we have to offer in our district. So, on Friday, we went to our daily city schools. We went to Westmore, Jefferson, and Thornton. And then on Monday, we went to Oceanana and Teranova. And they were thoroughly impressed, frankly, with all of our schools. And it was really, it they were it's hard to take, you know, most of a day, two days in a row. But it was well well worth it. And they were really thankful. and we started thinking of some different ways that we could bring principles together that we could start you know doing more articulation and things like that. So I think it was really fruitful couple of days very proud of all of us. um
033student advisory was last night and I just want to mention I was there with you know uh President Gyos and um Trusty Lee and at this time of the year they are so self-running. So it's wonderful to see the work that our students are doing. They just got right down to work and um it was a good night. And then finally, I'm just putting a a mention for the art show that's happening tomorrow. So from 6:00 to 8, um, if you're free, come and join us in the foyer here. You can already see the art out there. I've been taking a peek and it's really impressive. So that's it for me. Thank you, Miss Preston. All right, item 12 C. Are there any board subcommittee reports tonight? There's no report. Just more of a comment.
034Um just to make sure that communications is current, I did meet with um Ana who's the director of the Daily City Youth Health Center. Um and we continue to highlight that you know um the important work that the youth health center is doing especially within our school district with student health, mental health and wellness and all those things. but also to really showcase that even though the say the name says Daily City, we're not only serving daily city um students, we are Sanonteo County. Uh and we're serving students from all those communities. Uh and I know it's tax season, so it's an opportunity to remind people that donations to Daily City Youth Health Center are tax deductible. So take advantage of that and do some good within the community. That's it. Thank you. All right,
035moving on to item 12D, the AFT Local 1481 report. We'll turn it over to AFT President Monica Casey. Good evening. Um, the report that I have today is last meeting I was in Sacramento for the March on March fighting for education and against our nation's administration's cuts um especially to education. Um, Jean Enriquees and I went this past week to the CFT's convention. Um, convention is kind of a strange situation if you've never been to one. You vote on resolutions. So, basically, we're voting on um items for the CTF to focus on for the next year or two. And um in addition, I was voted as one of California's vice presidents for CFT. Um one of 25. There's 25 of us. So um and I sit on the executive council for CFT as well. Um
036I wanted to remind people to look at our website, the AFT1481 website on the announcements page. There's a lot of um actions you can partake in. You don't have to be a union member for phone banking, letter writing, protests, or marches, whichever you want to call. Um to fight our national administration and all of the cuts that they're trying to make to public services, which includes education. Um they're trying to dismantle our public services. and we're fighting with CTF, AFT, our um our uh county, you know, all of our unions. We're together on this. So, please join us. You don't have to be a union member to make those phone calls and to um you know, some of some things are super easy. You just have to send an email and it sends it to
037all of your representatives. So, it's super easy. So, thank you. Thank you, Monica. All right, moving on to item 14. Uh, can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda items? So moved. Second. All those in favor? I I. Okay. And before we move on, uh, with those necessary items approved, um, I'd like to take a minute to say that we are thrilled to welcome and congratulate Mr. Victor Zho as our new and now official principal of Westmore High School. [Music] Hello, it's me again. Um, I did not prepare a speech. I spent all my time on the previous one. Um but uh I do want to thank um I want to thank the board for giving me this opportunity to be here in the first place. Um I want to thank obviously um
038Miss Prea for um taking me to Chicago all those months ago and bullying me into this position. Yeah. Um really because I I I I would not be in this position uh at all in the first place if uh I think you hadn't planted that idea in my head. So um really thank you and uh to the rest of the board, you know, I think there really probably should be a law somewhere that you have to be at least 35 years old to lead a high school, but there isn't. and and you have clearly I think you know seen fit to take a risk uh to put me in this position and um seemed fit to trust me. Uh and I thank you for it. I thank you for it. Um I we we know
039I know that we've had a close session meeting just now and I know that with many of you um I've had a chance to speak with you um beyond that. Um and I want to thank you again for the trust that you have given me um in providing this position to me. It means a lot to me. Um, I want to thank a couple of people who are here this uh evening. Um, I want to thank a couple of my staff members. Victor Messer over there uh one of the staff members I've definitely worked with uh closest over Westport. Thank you for being here. Um, but also uh I want to thank uh my mom uh who's also here right now. Uh my mom. Hi mom. Um, speaking of people who, you know, have seen
040things in me that I still don't really, you know, quite recognize, I think my mom definitely uh has been uh my biggest advocate since day one. And uh I think she continues to push me and um she continues to see things in me that I really uh have yet to see in myself. And um I'm I'm thankful for that every day. Thank you all. Um, yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Um, and uh, thank you to my my team as well. I know that uh, the other vice principles, they're not able to make it tonight, but uh, especially to Tina and Sterling and Monica. Um, without them, I definitely would not be able to be here. Uh, I would not have survived uh, the past few years at Westmore. Um my development up until now
041as a leader. My work up until now um at Westmore uh has wholly been dependent on uh them as well. And I'm very very thankful for their labor uh for the trust that they have put in me as well because they were on the committee at the site level. um and also the many conversations we've had. Um I know that they um they are backing me in this and I'm I'm so so grateful um for them. Um I want to thank the students too at Westmore. Um some of them most of them who are not here right now. No already cleared out. Um Dan Daniel over there though is for Westmore student. Thank you Ven over there. Thank you. Um because uh the kids at Westmore honestly um have created such a great environment to
042be an administrator in. Uh it is the best place to be uh a school leader in. Honestly, I couldn't imagine a better place to work in um a better school to lead um with these kids. It's they make it easy to love them. They make it easy to care for them. And um I want to thank um who else is there? Uh I want to thank Edwin uh my my girlfriend over there for supporting me and for helping me especially in some of the rougher days that I've had more recently. Thank you very much. Um, and yeah, I think in the days to come, um, I hope that I can see some of the things that, uh, many of you, uh, have said so far that you already see in me. I hope that, uh,
043I can see those things too, one day. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Victor. Okay, so we are moving on. Agenda item 15, public comment. Now, before we get started with the public comment, um you know, this is where we kind of typically allow, you know, any of the open session items, both agenda and non-Jet items to be, you know, discussed or talked about. Um, however, tonight for the agenda item 1682, the JUHSD library update, uh, we'd like to deviate from that norm a little bit and it's due to the anticipated high level of public comment in that specific item for for that topic. And the hope is that we'll ensure that everyone's comments are heard within the context of of the board's presentation and discussion. Um, so to be very clear though, you'll have an
044opportunity to speak on any other item. We just like to hold uh any comment uh from 16 A2 until after that presentation. So if there's any other public comment at the time uh we do not have any non-aggendaized items. Okay. Okay. Then for now we'll move on to item 16. You will have public comment on 16 A2. Correct. Yes. When we get to the item. Yes. So, we're just we're just moving the public comment to to that item specifically so that it's just all together instead of kind of jumping around, which is how we usually, right? Yeah, that's how we do it. Okay. So, uh item 16 A1, multilingual learner and bridge program update. The speaker is Deputy Superintendent of Education Services, Miss Karine Baka. All right. Good evening, President Gyos. Good evening, members of
045the board. Tonight, I am very happy to announce and introduce Dr. Lorie Robinson, who will be providing updates to our English language development program. And in addition, we have special guests tonight. And a few years ago, it was just a dream that this was going to happen. And now, these are my dreams right here that we'll be presenting to you tonight. So, Dr. Robinson, good evening board. Thank you so much for having me. This is uh my first time making a presentation in this new boardroom and u my hands are shaking a little bit. Like, it's so much more intimidating than the room behind room 200. Uh felt more homey. Uh but uh this is definitely an upgrade. So, thank you for having us. Um before we get started with the bridge program updates which
046are really the heart of this presentation uh normally I come to you at least once a year and give you general updates about like data related to our program for uh students learning English. Um I only have one brief uh update uh this year because I I want to provide more time for the bridge presentation but I kind of can't um not share uh these few pieces of data. So, as I figure out how do I advance this slide? Click. Yeah. How about a space? Is it maybe not on? Yeah, it um works better if the keyboard is on. Uh there we go. So, I'm going to yeah discuss some incoming student trends. Um we'll do some uh progress updates about Bridge generally and then you will hear from a student panel. So, very exciting.
047Um, I wanted to share something about these trends though because we are seeing a very different trend in terms of our incoming student population through registration that qualify as students learning English or multilingual learners. Um, this represents like three years of just our semester 1 uh test that we perform. So students come in, they register for school, they take the home language survey. If one of the first three questions indicate that they speak a language other than English, that is flagged for the initial ELPAC assessment. And based on how they perform on that is how we place them here. IEP stands for initial fluent English proficient and that just means that they don't qualify for English learner services. And then EL1, that would be like the um most novice level, like the students that are
048just getting some uh experience with English. ELD2 slightly more experienced, EL3 even more experienced than that. Um over the last few years we've seen a little bit of an uptick um in terms of students who come in and qualify as initially fluent. Um and very marginally with students at the EL2 level. You can see that we were consistently hitting most frequently the students at the most novice level of English, but that is almost completely dropped off in this first semester. Um and we've also taken a little bit of a hit with um students at the ELD3 level of proficiency as well. Um I have a theory as to why um we are seeing this decline in enrollment and registration. And to help share that theory, I specifically wanted because this is just looking at first
049semester. So that includes everything from August when we first started school to December. I wanted to pull specifically what happened after November um to the beginning of March and um the first column is what we saw last year um and during that time period and then the second is what we've seen this um time around and of those 23 students who have completed uh testing uh during this period of time um a lot of them are actually recently like so they just we just finally started to see a little bit more coming in uh after November we would usually We usually have a little bit of a slower time in November regardless. Um some countries their school years run from April to December. So we usually do see actually a little bit of an uptick
050at the end of December, beginning of January. But those students did not come. They did not register. It all but turned the faucet off. Um and my theory of course is that this had uh coincided with the election and a lot of the rhetoric around um immigration and then finally the executive orders that were attempted to be put in to action and just it doesn't feel I think probably to some of our families that previously would have registered with us like an extremely friendly um environment currently and so I don't believe they are sending their students in the same numbers. So I just wanted to let you know that that's happening. I've discussed with um you know deputy superintendent Baka who was in my position before in 2016 that a similar thing occurred and that
051it took a while but we did bounce back in terms of numbers. Um but for a district with you know challenges with declining enrollment. This is just something that I want you to be aware of. Um so now that we have the depressing stuff out of the way, uh we are doing our best still to make sure and even more so we have renewed purpose to make sure that when the students come here um that we have as many welcoming and really great programs available for them and our bridge program is one of those um programs. Um, as a reminder, the bridge program is modeled after a similar program in Sanonteo Union High School District started by Samia Showman. Um, it is now its own school. We are still in ourbridge program housed under Thornton
052and um, like that's like the school that they're enrolled in in terms of like the California Department of Education. Um, we are housed in the adult school um, just right across the parking lot over there. Um, and it is designed for students who are 17 or 18 years old when they first immigrate to the country. Um, that are coming with little to no like transferable credits towards a diploma and, um, come in speaking at that most novice level of English, um, but still have all the same hopes and dreams for a diploma and post-secary pursuits. And so it's a way of sort of fasttracking and um allowing them to compete on a little bit of a different playing field. So um how the program is organized, we have two wonderful teachers who are also here
053this evening and I just want to recognize them. Lisa Rubin, can you wave? Stand up even too. Yeah, you're wearing heels so people will be able to see you. Um Lisa is not only the district lead for English, she is the like uh TOSA in charge of um like you know multilingual learners at Jefferson and also a British teacher. So she wears a lot of hats but um she is the English teacher there and Mr. Adam QB if you could please stand. Um is also Moonlights uh well is our uh social science toa as well as the social science teacher for the bridge program. So we don't have a dedicated like a staff member that is just dedicated to bridge. Um but we have these these two wonderful teachers that um work in the program.
054Uh in addition to them um students take course right now partially through apex and if you noticed in there I said students are fairly successfully able to fulfill math and science. What I mean by that is that they are successfully completing those courses and getting those credits. It's just I think we all know that Apex is an online platform. Science and math are so much better lived out with teachers in in classrooms that are not online platforms. But that's kind of where we're at right now and it's working for us. We have a beautiful new space and I do have a photo uh in the beautiful new adult building. Um and we're doing as much as we can to kind of give the high school experience even though I mean like we're a one room
055classroom like you know schoolhouse essentially. Um, and so I'll speak a little bit more about that in a moment. Where we want to go, we do want to grow. Um, with that, we would love to have more students. We were anticipating actually filling up and hitting the 25 that we had kind of allotted for, but uh, based on those enrollment trends that I mentioned before, we are only at about um, 13 14. We have one coming in, I think. Yeah, about 14 um, so far this year. So, we want to increase our number of students because we have seven graduating at the end of this year. And actually all seven who happen to come with us to speak tonight are going to be future graduates. So very exciting. Uh and um yes most definitely. Um
056and we would like additional teachers. I have my eye on hopefully as a science teacher is what they've told me that they miss the most. That apex science is not as fun as real science. Um with that we will need to grow. I discuss this with Mr. Basher often the principal of adult programs. um that uh and he knows about this. We're in communication that we would love to grow and have an additional classroom. Uh Michelle Forinado Kerwin, one of the wellness coordinators for the district, um has been instrumental in really pulling for us and getting us we're like 99% sure we've got a wellness intern to work with us next year and that's just really exciting for us. They can run group, they can meet with our students. Um and in general, our other
057hope for future is to grow our partnerships with other school sites. Um, you know, we're small and so we can't offer everything that a larger comprehensive high school can offer. Um, but we are literally down the hill from Westmore and you know, um, there some of them live like next door to Jefferson High School and so um, we're hoping to just be able to offer things in terms of like clubs and um, other opportunities. Sports um, is a big thing that they miss. Um, so yeah. So, but speaking of the the kind of high school experiences we are still trying to offer them, um this is a photo of them that is in the classroom. I say beautiful because I mean like look at windows which still is I'm not over that novelty having worked
058at the DO as long as I did the old DO that we shall not speak of. Uh you know and so and you know I mean it's still Westmore so that son was probably a rarity that day but um this is them working on um building remote control cars. I'm kind of looking at QB because it was all his brainchild. He was like, "Engineginger. I want them to do something along those lines." So, they built these remote control cars and they had all these tools and they're tiny little parts and stickers and they're laughing, but they got to race them down the hallways and it was a lot of fun. Uh Chrissy Lewis, the TOSA for CTE, has come in to do like video programming with them. She has an art background. She's done art
059stuff with them. We have something we call fun Fridays, which is like what we try to do, offer them kind of a more elective experience because they miss music, they miss art, they miss physical education, just sort of those things to provide them with those opportunities, but we're also hoping to grow those opportunities. Um, so with that, I wanted to just talk as quickly as I could so I could get to you hearing it from the student side and the student experiences. The one other thing I just want to point out is about a year ago I stood before you to tell you about the proposal for this program. And when I was kind of trying to explain the imperative for this and who would really benefit, I introduced you to Ernesto. Ernesto, could you
060stand up? Yes. So, so this is Ernesto actually Emerson. And so he is actually gonna be one of our graduates. And so, you know, when he first came in and we were talking about this and it was just theory, you know, like he was exactly the kind of student we were hoping to help. And it's like really a big deal. I'm trying not to get too emotional to me to like take this from just conversations that were happening and like thinking about how it could benefit somebody and really have them here to present to you tonight and talk about the ways that it's impacted them. So, now I'm going to turn it over. We're going to answer some of these questions. Um we are going to be using a translation device um because I would
061the students will be introducing them to you in English. They have grown tremendously in their English skills but just because I want them to speak to you from the full depth of their experience and they're still most comfortable uh sharing those experiences in Spanish. Um I would like them to share those experiences with you in Spanish and so that you understand them. Um we're going to be using these um fancy translation devices. Um, so, okay, Karine's making it. So, this is going to capture what they're saying. And then if you um do you want to put up the QR code? Yeah. Okay. So, if you scan that QR code or more in there was a bitly link too, right? Um, you can look at this on your own devices and then I think it'll also
062be projected up here. Yes, this is the bit.ly link and the QR code if you would like to follow along to read in English um what they will be saying. So, we're going to try this out. I know, right? And then we also get to try out a brand new tool. Um, this is something that I literally got trained in on Monday. So, always fun to Yes. Yeah. So, it's going to it's it's waiting for now us to get started and I have to hit a record button and then um Yeah. Mhm. So, um, and Diana, um, the parent liaison at Westmore High School, my sister-in-law, um, I convinced to come up. Diana Vobos, u, could you come up and, um, so that you can read the question after I read it in English in
063Spanish because my accent will probably be insulting. Um, so for the first question, so you guys ready, Lisos? Yeah. All right. So, when you first arrived, what were some of the biggest obstacles you faced both in and out of the classroom? So, sure. for stand. Okay. Good evening. Uh first uh I want to take a little time to say you thanks board. Thanks superintendent. Thanks to the principal and to my teachers for give us this opportunity to get our diploma and so yeah. Okay. One of the obstacles that I have when I arrived here to United States, principal here to the school was uh first the English the language because as you know the our English our language is espanol. [Music] Second, the transportation. I I don't know uh somebody. Uh yeah, thank you. I
064know particip Moritarian Fore! Foreign! Foreign! Gracias. Okay. So the second question um so how has this program helped to overcome those initial challenges? Can you give specific examples? Okay. Ruinos diploma. High school. Diploma. Hola, Alberto Cruz. for blessing. Yes. All right. What's the most significant change you've seen in yourself since starting this program? Am I? Oh no. Don't want to call it Foreign of course. Fore. All right, last question. Uh what resources or support would you like to see available for future students in this program? And what advice also would you have for other students new to this program? Fore! Foreign! Foreign! Sorry. Gracias. Okay. Uh uh we uh all of us the class the students talk about as Mr. Robinson say um we take we are taking some class in Apex as he say
065as he say um is it is not the same when we have a teacher specifically to take the the class. So all of us talk about and we we want if if you can uh give another classroom and another teacher to to to for for teaching better. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. opportunity for Bueno. [Music] Gracias. Thank you so much. You guys are awesome. Um if you have any questions for them um Diana can help to interpret the the questions and then um they can use the same system to answer. So we're we're that's the end of our presentation and so we're just taking questions now. Thank you Dr. Robinson. Yeah, thank you. Um would any of the student trustees like to ask any questions? Okay, if not then we'll move it over to board our
066board trustees for questions. That was first of all that was a fantastic presentation. Thanks. I mean the you know to one the use of technology in this space so to allow the students to share from the heart was fabulous and I'm I just I don't really have any questions other than I'm just really proud of us as a district being able to offer this program to these students and give them the opportunity to be able to succeed and graduate with a diploma and go to the next step in your educational journey. It's really just um it's heartwarming and powerful to really see how you've grown these past couple of years and to and to see the things that um that you hope to see for the the students that come after you, you know. Yeah.
067I'd love to see, you know, see you guys play little hoops and or soccer and out out there and, you know, have have the space to do the artwork that you want to do. you know, the science from a real science teacher, not not a Chromebook, you know. So, I I think I'm really excited to see where we can take this program and just really grateful to you, Deputy Superintendent Paka and Dr. Robinson and Mr. Kubie and Miss Rubin for the work that you have done to support these students. It's incredible. Thank you. They did say that um because a few of our newer students aren't here with us today. These students all started at the beginning of the year and they said that it's their turn next year uh for not coming. So you
068can expect to hear we expect them here. Yeah. Um I think what Miss Baka said, you know, this was our dream and here are our dreams right here. Um so inspiring. I'm so glad we have this program. I remember when you came to us and I thought we're thinking bigger. You know, we we know our community and what we need and thank you for being here and sharing your hopes and and dreams and experiences with us. Um, English was not my first language. Uh but I was able to go to school when I was very little and then I forgot my Tagalog. So um I mean I can understand it but I I I know what it's like to feel shame trying to speak another language because I feel like as a Filipino I should
069be fluent in it especially when that was my first language and then it escaped me at some point. But for you to come into this country, it it is the hardest thing not knowing the language. And look where you are now. Um, you're going to get diplomas. That's incredible. And I want to thank Miss Ruben and Mr. QB, um, Dr. Robinson, Miss Baka. Um, I would love for you to have a bigger high school experience and thank you for telling us what you you hope for this program. Um, I think we can do better. I I don't know how, but we we're very creative. We can be creative. Um, it's really tough, but um this is really inspiring. Thank you very much. Once again, I get to follow that. Uh, I don't have a lot
070to add. I'm glad you're here. Thank you for sharing with us. Um, you know, congratulations to those of you from the district who've made this a reality and uh thanks for sharing your vision of how this can serve you better and cuz I learned more and more that um what we do it's a very royal we um has so much more to do with uh kind of next step next steps in life rather than read and write and arithmetic and uh I think a program like this really shines a light on that. So thank you first of all thank you for the presentation uh Dr. Robinson thank you to uh Miss Rubin and Mr. QB for all your work that you put into it. Miss BCO, of course, as always, thank you. Um, it's it's
071an amazing program. I I I just keep thinking like, you know, it's, you know, to come here as a as a young kid to the country and start from there, that's one thing, but to come at this point in their life right now where they're about to transition from basically kids to adults and having to navigate whether or not you do continue on with your studies or you start contributing to your family and trying to put money on the on the table for the family, that's difficult. That's hard. That's a and and you know, usually when when you come here, it's a it's a struggle to begin with. So, I mean, it's I'm proud of you guys for sticking with it, for continuing your education and trying to grind that out. And I'm thankful for
072this program, for allowing you guys to do that. So, I mean, it's it goes hand in hand. And I hope that we continue to see this program grow. I hope that, you know, we can offer you guys the things down the road that you need to feel more comfortable in your environment and and and to get the the same experience that everybody else is getting. I mean, I know that's that's what you want. I mean, I think that's that's what all what all kids your aids want, you know? But, um, most of all, I think I'm just I'm just really proud of you guys. It's it's I know it's not easy. I've I've never been in your shoes, but I see it all the time and it's I commend you guys for doing it. So
073So stick with that. I do have one question for Anesto since you're wearing a giant shirt. Real name Emerson, too. I used a pseudonym last year. And so I Yeah, I was like, yeah, I know. I didn't mean to confuse that, but like I was like cuz last year I was like, oh well, you know, he won't actually be here, so I'll give him a pseudonym. But then I got to tell him that this year I was like, guess what? last year you were in Neesto and he got to use you as a whole example and he was very impressed with that. But yes, one question, one the one question. So, who's your favorite Giants player? Yeah. Who Who's your favorite player? I don't remember the name. Okay, they're on the spot. They're going to
074start playing soon, so make sure you watch and then when I see you next time, I'm going to ask you. Okay. Opening day. Mhm. All right. Thank you again, Dr. Robinson. Appreciate it. Miss Pa, um I I just want to say I'm sorry I have a stiff neck so I can't really turn. Um thank you to Dr. Robinson and Miss Baka um for ha for having the vision to even put this together. Thank you for the teachers and mostly I really and everyone all of the adults involved in the program. Um I'm super proud of you students. And what's most important to me for our whole school district is that our students are seen, heard, and valued. And I have no question in my mind that these young people feel seen, heard, and valued at
075school. So, thank you. Um, thank you to Miss Rubin and and Mr. QB for making sure that that happens every day. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. Wait, I I actually have one more thing I want to say. Sorry, I I I thought we were doing questions. I didn't know we were doing comments, too. Um, so as a student from Jefferson High School, I'm exposed to a lot of like EL students and I have some friends who are like also very heavily involved in the ELD program at our school. So I just wanted to extend, you know, the congratulations that everyone else shared. Um, going through high school just in and of itself is hard and going through high school as someone who doesn't speak English is way harder. And then
076going through high school as someone who speaks English and doesn't have all the resources available initially is way way harder. And I don't speak from experience. Um but I just have so much admiration for all of you and for how much hard work you have put in. I can tell how much hard work you put in. And like I've I took like two years of Spanish. That was I am nowhere near as good as the way you spoke today. That was that was amazing. And if you put me up there and you told me to give a speech in Spanish, I would be like h okay. That's it. That's all I could do. But the fact that you were able to do that, I have a lot of respect for that and I have a
077lot of respect for all of you for coming here and speaking with us. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you again. Yeah, thank you for adding that, Eden. And and since I wasn't clear to the to the student trustees on the comments and and questions, if you guys would like to add any comments, you know, please feel free. If not, we if not if not, we can move on. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, we'll move on. Um, good night, you guys. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Um, moving on to item 16A2, uh, JUHSD library update. And our speaker is Deputy Superintendent of Educational Services, Miss Karine Baka. Okay. Hello again. Good evening, President Gyos. Good evening, members of the board. This evening, I will be sharing a brief overview of the future of the Jefferson Union
078High School District Library Program. So, school libraries have evolved from solely providing traditional print-based materials into offering rich selections of print, media, and digital resources. There was a shift from teaching students how to navigate card cataloges like when I was in high school uh equipping them with essential strategies for searching, evaluating, and utilizing diverse information effectively. Beyond providing access to resources, libraries are prioritizing information and media literacy, empowering students to critically access, apply, and synthesize information in meaningful ways. So, to keep up with a changing educational landscape, libraries must um keep evolving. That means embracing new technology, innovative approaches, and creating personalized learning approaches that engage students in meaningful ways. So with this in mind, the vision for JUHSD's library is to be a dynamic is to provide a dynamic student centered space that cultivates
079learner agency, critical thinking, exploration, media literacy, and the responsible use of technology rooted in equity and innovation. So to bring this vision into life, we need to take intentional steps to ensure that all of our libraries remain open and accessible at all times. This means not only keeping the doors open, but also making sure that they are wellsupported spaces for learning. A key part of this is investing in our people. will provide professional development not just for the district librarian but also for the library media technicians and any staff involved in the operation of our school libraries. Another priority is building a diverse and comprehensive collection of materials that truly reflect the needs, the demographics and the interest of our students. At the same time, we need clear policies and procedures in place for managing
080library collections and textbooks. Regular evaluations of our school library program will help us stay on track and ensure that we're meeting the student needs. Collaboration is also key. The district librarian and teachers will work together to integrate media literacy into English, social science, science, and math classes in alignment with AB873. We're also committed to establishing a policy on the responsible use of artificial intelligence or AI and education, ensuring technology is used thoughtfully and ethically in our schools. Finally, we recognize that each school site is unique. That's why we will develop a plan for targeted support tailored to the specific needs of each school. So, here is a tentative timeline with key steps. The first critical step is hiring a district librarian. This role will be essential in overseeing the library program, ensuring alignment with district
081goals, supporting library classified staff and driving innovation across school sites. Please note that with this transition to a district librarian, we are not doing any layoffs. Current school librarians will be assigned in the classrooms. Next, we will conduct a thorough needs assessment for each of the school site. So every school has a different need and we will gather information from various educational partners and this process will involve in listening and gathering input from students, teachers and other staff to understand the current strengths, identify gaps and determine the specific needs of each school's library. This will guide our decision making moving forward. So using the insights from the needs assessment, we will develop comprehensive implementation plan. This will cover key areas such as library access and operations including schedules, calendars, and events. Professional development for library
082staff to support innovation and best practices. And finally, collaboration with teachers and staff to integrate media literacy, digital citizenship, and AI responsibly into the curriculum. And so with this vision, our commitments and implement with an implementation plan, we are confident that our libraries will continue to serve and enrich student experience. And thank you and I welcome any questions and feedback. Thank you, Miss Buckham. So before we moved on to the public comment on this item, I will open it up to the board, the student trustees, and our board for any questions or comments. Starting with our student trustees. Okay. Um, would any of our board like to comment or ask questions this time? I think we should probably listen to the public comment first. You want to listen to public comment? Okay. Are we ready
083for public? Yeah. Well, at this time, I'd like to open it up for public comment, please. So, um, and we'll be running a clock for each speaker for three minutes. of the first speaker is Sebastian Straer. Hi everyone. Um I'm actually a few of the educators I've actually had from Sunset Ridge to Oceanana are actually here in this room. Um I appreciate how much they've taught me not about just the world but also myself. And that actually would be I think it would be a disgrace of that respect if I did not talk about the context of education at this very moment because you know we see the vice president calling all professors and by proxy all educators such as those in this room the enemy and the president himself has said our immigrant community
084members who we are know are celebrating in this very meeting. He said that they poison the blood of our country and even the president is depriving hundreds of millions of dollars from universities that are not fully appeasing his agenda. What message does that does it send if this own if this district my district what message does it send when it tells each site librarian sorry out of luck go back to the classroom and we're going to replace you with rotating implants or the district librarian. What message does that send? That their work is unimportant. That their contribution to knowledge in and out of the classroom is unimportant. That's the that's the wrong message to send tonight. Because really, if elite universities are buckling under the pressure, then that sends a message that pretty clearly less
085resources school districts are going to also buck under the pressure. Historically, you know, books have been burned, universities have been attacked, students have been assaulted by police officers. We have to really vote against this proposal, reverse course truly, because at this moment, we have to double down on our educators, not just our teachers, but also our librarians. because it also sends the message to students that all the knowledge you consume matters and by proxy your identities that you explore deeply through that knowledge also matters. Thank you. Thank you Monica Casey. Um, so although we understand the need for the JUHSD board to move forward with guidance to the district administration about the librarian positions, we want to remind the board that we're still in negotiations and AFT1 1481 feels that we may need to be
086able to find some different staffing structures to support at least part-time librarians at each of our four larger schools. Um, please consider including negotiations outcomes in this timeline. Um, also as you know, AFT1481 and the district needs to negotiate over new positions. And although AFT1481's exec board has approved the district librarian job description, we have not approved nor negotiated over the new position and their working conditions. Similarly, we need to continue to negotiate over the changing working conditions of the library tech position, which has already changed and will definitely change more depending on the negotiations. Thank you. Thank you, Lori Hughes. Hello. Um, so as you heard from Oceanana stakeholders at the board meeting that was held at Oceanana, our community is strongly opposed to eliminating the librarian position. The district did not follow its
087own prescribed decision-making process, and if they had, I do not think we would be in this situation. As stated on the district website, the equity tool says, quote, "Using an equity lens will help us recognize patterns of inequitable experiences, predictable outcomes, and unintended consequences in our system. It will help us identify potential impacts to those who are underserved, inadequately served or disenfranchised so that we may eliminate structural barriers, systemic inequities and disparities in educ educational outcomes. Additionally, it says under process and communication, it states, quote, "What is the plan to gather input and data? How will we make it easier for people to participate? How are our processes supporting the empowerment of communities historically most affected by these inequities?" This is what it says. our decision-making process is. If this tool had been used, the
088district would have learned how the librarian supports our underserved students, students with IEPs who need additional support, whether it is a safe learning environment outside of the traditional classroom, or students with IEPs or ELELLL students who need additional guidance with their exhibitions. The librarian provides crucial support for students who have limited access to research opportunities. The librarian opens the library before school starts for students who have to come to school early and there is a certificated staff member there before school starts to help students who need that help. I strongly believe as someone who has worked in this district for over 25 years that if you had followed your own process, you would we would not be here. And since the district did not follow this process, I question whether it is wise or equitable
089to move ahead with this decision. And then just in response quickly to Miss Baka's um comments, yes, no one was laid off, but for example, if Mr. Weiss had moved into the classroom, would all of the humanities teachers been allowed to stay? So, we need to look at what is really the impact of this. And then again, we're talking about personalized relationships. I question, how can a district librarian going to five different schools provide personalized attention? As someone who has worked in schools, it takes a year at least working in the school to understand that community and that program. So, and finally, which the um Monica brought up, is what's happening to the library tech? What are we expecting of them? And are we paying them more? There are all kinds of problems with this,
090and I strongly urge you to vote against this proposal. Thank you. Thank you, Laura Hotter. It's a long day. Um, hi, my name is Laura Hotter and I teach chemistry and AP chemistry at Oceanana High School. Um, I come here uh tonight to speak on behalf of the library program at our school and to encourage you to reject any proposal to remove the position of librarian at Oceanana. I'm deeply concerned about the process um around the decisions being made tonight. When we first learned that our librarian position would be would potentially be cut, we tried to make our voices heard. Uh we spent a lunch hour in a meeting with Superintendent Prea to voice our concerns. Students, families, several alumni, staff attended the board's school site meeting uh where we spoke at length about our
091school's needs regarding this position. and there we were encouraged to get more involved in the district's decision-making. So, we sent multiple teachers um to the district's LCAP meeting. Uh we wrote a comprehensive letter signed by almost every member of the staff. Couple were sick that day uh to teach the district about our needs and we are here again tonight to make our concerns heard. Based on the slideshow presentations we have reviewed for this meeting, it appears that none of this has been taken into account and a proposal to remove the librarian position is moving forward. Our librarian reports that um not once in the last two years has anyone at the district reached out to him to learn about what he does for our students, what multiple roles he plays at our school, and how
092we could work together to strengthen students experiences. This violates the district's equity protocols, which demands stakeholder input throughout a decision-making process. Furthermore, the proposed calendar on tonight's slide presentation recommends eliminating the librarian positions tonight, hiring a district librarian in AP uh in April and May, and then only after making these momentous decisions, scheduling a needs assessment. Um, shouldn't that needs assessment come first? We've been working to make our needs known on this issue for the past month, but I see no reference to that in any of tonight's presentations. We would like to be part of the conversation. As stakeholders, we can help you look at the budget to find money for our school's needs. And we can point out money that has um been less effective in uh supporting our students, such as contracts for
093online tutoring services that our students actively dislike and never use or tens of thousands of dollars for speakers who are not nearly as inspiring to us as our own students are. I ask you once again to please consider our students needs and their powerful voices when you make your decisions tonight. We've done everything that we can to demonstrate our community's strong feelings on this topic and we ask that you as our elected officials listen to these voices and represent our interests in this meeting. Thank you. Thank you, Aaron Peters. Hi. Um my name is Aaron Peters and I'm a teacher at Oceanana High School. I've taught in this district for the last 20 years at two different school sites. Um, thank you for having us here tonight. Um, you're being asked tonight to vote on
094cutting the site librarian positions. Please do not vote to do this. I know you've heard from our parents, staff, and students, but I'm here to remind you why why our school site is unified in opposition to cutting this position. Karine, do you mind going back to the first couple slides that were in this presentation? these had the goals for the new district-wide librarian and it all sounds great. It really does. Um but it is absolutely impossible to do that work. I mean I read that sentence and it just deeply overwhelms me because right now we need more librarians. I I mean I I really I just feel like completely shocked that we're going to go from four librarians to one librarian that's going to be asked to do those things. And do you mind clicking
095to the next slide, too? And all of those things. These are additional challenges that our society faces right now. It's not a time to go from four people to one people. One person. God, to think I teach humanities. Okay. Um, so I sorry I got a little off script because I was overwhelmed again. I had washed, you know, we viewed these slides before we came to the um to the meeting tonight. Anyway, let me get back to this. Um, you know, positions that are housed at the district office are further away from our students and staff who need their support. Over the last handful of years, the district has added positions that do not support students directly. moving essential positions away from students we serve is unacceptable. Next, um you'll see you did see in
096the slides um part of the library proposal to conduct a needs assessment. This is deeply confusing to me because we it seems like the needs assessment should have happened first and also we have actually been very clear about our needs. Very clear from the board meeting at Oceanana to the letter we sent you signed by our entire staff to attending the LCAP meetings. We have done everything you asked us to do and we are asking that you reconsider this decision tonight. Um, third, removing librarians will increase the amount of work. Um, as you can tell, I'm very nervous about it will increase the amount of work on our remaining staff. It's one fewer per, you know, one less person on our site. And now we're going to be asked to pick up those pieces. We
097will have to conduct research lessons with all of our students at each grade level. We will have to become experts in researching using technical journals, databases, accessing research that has been recently removed from government websites. We've already been addressing this this very year. Excuse me. The the time has run over. Okay, I I'll skip ahead to the to the end. Um, it's essentially increasing the amount of work for every single member of our staff at Oceanana by cutting this position. it is unfair to do to the library technician and it is inappropriate to cut. Um I urge you to vote no tonight um and not not cut this position. Thank you. Thank you, Tony Marilich. Thank you all. Um President Gleos and the board members. Um uh I didn't know what I was going to
098say tonight until it took me a couple seconds to get my uh thoughts in order. Uh before my name is Tony Marilich. I'm a math teacher uh and um academic council facilitator at Oceanana High School. Um before I got into education, I was a computer programmer. I was a consultant. And I learned quickly in this job that I could not write one software program that would work for everybody. I had to write different software programs for the different companies that I worked for. One program didn't work everywhere. In other words, um I want to remind you uh that the approach that you take uh for dealing with the librarians can be different for the different schools. It does not have to be universal. And I think um in my opinion and in the opinion of
099my colleagues, I think you're making a mistake by applying a one-sizefits-all approach to all of the libraries. Um here's why. Um when Oceanana was rechartered in uh early 1990 roughly, um it was a a traditional uh American high school. Um it was redesigned around some principles. I think Theodore Caiser was a academic theoretician at the time and he proposed as one of the pillars of the restructuring of Oceanana a project-based learning experience and the way that manifests itself at our school is we have exhibition projects and these exhibition projects are not limited to seniors although the senior exhibition project is the most noteworthy one. Um we have a um a freshman exhibition and a sophomore exhibition and a um junior exhibition and a senior exhibition. All of those exhibitions um feature uh research uh by
100the students and we baked into the design of our school from the get-go a relationship between the librarian and these senior exhibition I'm sorry the exhibition projects not just the senior exhibition project. So, your decision, should you choose to do so, and I strongly encourage you to not decide to um uh remove our librarian from Oceanana, um we baked in a relationship, um and our librarian, uh is integral to this exhibition process. Removing the librarian p places an unusual, strange burden on us that the ramifications of which we have yet to fully flesh out. In our letter to you, we identified the primary relationship our librarian has with our school. However, um we're in the midst of our um master scheduling right now and our um principal is here and she has referred to it
101as sort of like uh putting a puzzle together where the puzzle pieces change shape. But in this case, we're removing five puzzle pieces uh the five sections that we're losing from this librarian. So, it places an extraordinary burden on us. And I can't say that the burden is more or less than other schools because I don't know how the other schools operate. However, at Oceanana, it's causing all kinds of haywire and we don't know the ramifications fully yet of doing it. Please table this. Please defer your choice and it's your choice. Please table the decision to uh remove our librarian for the point after which the needs assessment is done. I agree with my colleagues. The uh decision-m is out of sequence. The needs assessment should come before the decision. Thank you. Thank you. And
102those are all our cards. Thank you everybody. Um I'd like to open it up for any questions or comment at this point. I would like to add as a senior taking senior exhibition and having like a big um big practice going on tomorrow. I would like to say like I do take senior exhibition seminar and I purposely did it just to balance my AP classes and score well in this exhibition project and I don't think I would have scored well in my paper if I did not have the time to have senior exhibition. Not only that, I'm a student who also takes courses outside of school. So having this time to just kind of balance everything, take a break, step back, I think is very valuable. Not only that, if we're comparing our school differences
103with our librarian texts, Oceanana is a well wellknown academic school. And if we take away this position, especially for this school, I think it will kind of drive away our enrollment even lower because we're even having problems with our master schedule right now. And because of this, I think if students are not gaining the support they need, those scores will be lower. And I feel like this will ruin their pride in a way. So we're really thinking about it from the long like the longer run. I say we keep it just to keep that type of traditional aspect in our high school. And not only that, we're also limited on sports. So we compare like all different things. I think this is vital. This is a vital program we should have at our school. And
104if we're we're focusing on the equitable idea and we want to give students the best the best opportunities they can get. I think even Mr. Weiss in the library, I think he's a very resourceful man and I think yeah, I think we should keep it and I stand with Oceanana's opinion on that reason. Thank you, Kaylin. Anybody else like to add to that? Um, I have a question. Um, so I've heard a lot about like the cons of this. What exactly are the pros of it in the first place? Because I'm hearing a lot of the cons and it's making me be like, oh, like I don't think this is a good idea now, but I want to hear some of the pros because, you know, there you guys are proposing this for a reason.
105And I just want to hear that cuz I'm like, oh, this doesn't seem like a good idea now. Yeah, I I believe this started with a a contract negotiation. um in negotiations. I uh Miss Baka, are you able to speak to a little bit of of any of that stuff or to give it some clarity negotiation? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, wasn't Oh, maybe Miss Vaner. Oh, Miss Miss Tina Van Rapor maybe. Well, one of the things that um this will bring to us is basically reinvisioning and reimagining what a library could be. So we get to basically start all over. Um and just you know providing a more centralized support with um the library program because right now it's operating like very very differently and we would like to make sure that there
106is like one um central leader uh teacher leader that would help us um like redesign a library that is um you know library of the future And as you mentioned, President Gyos, this was um a topic in negotiations last year. When uh we closed negotiations, it was with the understanding that the librarians would uh go back into the classroom in 2526. That was part of the AB200 document that comes to the board for approval of the settlement agreement. And without the reduction of th those staff members, we would not have been able to show the county that we could afford the raise that we proposed or the total package of um of salary and benefits increase. So that was the the reason that this came forth. Uh every interim report that we've had between now
107and then has also had uh this this reduction in it. So it really stems from um May of 2024 is when this first came before the board as part of the settlement for negotiations. So the pros um are really that we are able to offer more salary increase. Um and the and this is not something that's unique to this school district. There are many other school districts that format their libraries in this way and are very able to to meet the needs of students uh with a district librarian guiding classified staff in the libraries. So to add on to that just as an example for like the other school districts. So um Sequoia Union does have um one FTE for each of their school site and they have 8520 students. Um so they have one
108FTE for certificated librarian and there's also one FTE for each of the classified um staff at each of the school site. San Monteo Union with 8,777 students has one district librarian for the whole entire district but they do have um a classified staff at each of the school site and their FTE ranges from 0.5 to 1.0. South San Francisco with 7,664 students has two FTE total, one for each one of their high school but none for their uh middle school or elementary school and they do have classified staff working at the school sites. And Cababrio Unified with 2561 students, they do not have a certificated librarian. They do contract with the Sanonteo County Office of Education and their support is a 1.0 Oft um for classified staff and add a little bit as well. Um
109I think that uh this was negotiated last year. Um we we every year and as was sort of mentioned every year at this time of year we're kind of looking at all of our schools and like looking at allocations and looking at what school sites need. And um one of our primary goals has been in the past several years in this district to ensure that we're providing a living wage to our staff and to provide raises. And um this as Miss Baka, sorry I'm having a hard time turning. As Miss Baka mentioned, this was um sort of integral at last year at this time. So to kind of speak to treating school sites differently, the way it was negotiated um was that if we were to place if the district decided to have site librarians
110at each of the school sites, they would be provided at 1.0 at each of the school sites. So with what was negotiated last year, it's very we did hear and um take people's concerns seriously, but it's would be impossible to have one librarian FTE at Oceanana and not have 1.0 FTE at each of the other school sites. So to kind of speak to that timeline um and looking at the needs, I will speak for myself, but I know I share with with my colleagues and with the board, many have mentioned this that we really heard the specific needs, especially for the exhibitions for Senior X and the other exhibitions and that it seems entirely um a a good idea to have additional um sections FTE allocated for that specific purpose. And there might be other
111purposes at Oceanana and at the other school sites. There might be, in fact, I know there's additional need for classified um support when there's large numbers of students, for instance, in um the libraries at lunchtime, etc. So, when we talked about a needs assessment, it was, you know, moving forward, what what additional staffing would be needed at the different school sites because it's different at each of the school sites. Um, but with what how the negotiation landed last year with what is in the contract, we're sort of tied to that. Um, so that's just additional context. Yeah, I uh so Eden, I I understand, you know, it's it's kind of like a when about a year ago when this came to us as a way to give our teachers and staff a raise, which we
112always struggle to do. Um um Eden, you went to Tobias, you know, and I remember when they got rid of all the librarians and you guys would the one day a month you get to go into the library was like the biggest day of the month. And so I felt that that but and I've heard the concerns of the Oceanana community but this is where I wrestle with um you know we we need to what is best for the district. So when our negotiations went in that direction, I had to trust that when the union voted to accept that I had to trust that this is this was the best way to go and that we weren't going to be letting go any teachers. Um that our librarians would be back in the classroom, that
113we would not be closing the libraries. it would still be open to students. Um but Oceanana made it very clear that they utilize the librarian or the librar actually the librarian uh I think he just took on a lot of responsibility for um how how to serve the students in the different capacities and we all use the not every library is used the same but that's where if you I I work in legal. So if there's a contract, you got to look at the got to stick with the contract. But when Miss Casey is saying, let's what can we do in negotiations to Yeah. You want to get to be equitable. I just feel that it's a little um untrue saying that we have accepted this because we haven't we have not negotiated having a
114one district librarian. That is not a position we have negotiated in our negotiations. So that's not what it says in our negotiations. So if you actually read the document, it doesn't say that. So it it it is apparent that we are either you know we're still in negotiations right now for the current coming up year but this position is not in there. So I just want to make clear on that um that piece of it. Okay. Thank you. So and the the contract is available for everyone to look at. I mean, I can read it, but I don't. Yeah, I wasn't saying that that I was saying what was negotiated last year about the site librarian. That's what I'm referring to, right? Okay. Okay. So, just so I am Yeah. clear on where everything is
115at, this particular item on the agenda is just a discussion item. We are not voting on anything on this item. Right. The next agenda item will be the second interim which made some assumptions about what the how we're finishing the current year and making some assumptions based on current contract and other other potential assumptions for the next two years beyond that. So that's correct. So we're looking at eventually we'll have a 2526 budget which potentially would have either this district librarian or potentially something else that may be negotiated perhaps these additional FTEEs that you are uh discussing superintendent prea with regards to a needs assessment at each school site and especially since Oceanana has been very clear about the need for the additional help for for um senior exhibition. It does make sense to me
116that we would have some addition some additional FTE support, you know, in a research capacity specifically or maybe for that senior seminar class to support those students. I agree. Yeah, Tina, I just want to point out that in the timeline, the idea is to hire the district librarian prior to the end of this school year. So um when I give my presentation I had planned to to be very clear that in approving this second interim report you are approving the district librarian or you have the option to uh you know approve the report but tell me not to move forward with the district librarian in future budgets and have the discussion more in April. Does that make sense? So there is an action item. It's not this one. It's the next one. Okay. Okay. Another
117question though with regards to this topic with regards to the library text because we did hear about the concern about the workload on the Oceanana Library Tech, but I presume um you know the role again of library text at each site are probably different. And so what level of professional development, what level of support could be given when we do the needs assessment to ensure that the library tech at Oceanana in particular isn't overwhelmed given this particular reality? Um so any thoughts on what has been and anything about what's been thought about so far based on initial assessments? So, what I'm hoping is to really get um our district librarian hired so that we can consult with this person and kind of help me because they are the expert in trying to figure out what
118really needs to happen in the library. Um they're also of course, you know, having a conversation with our library technicians and really see what what is it that they need support on. And we've also talked about that, you know, when I did speak with them in the fall and some of the concerns that they have brought up is um concerns about supervision. And so we had talked about well maybe we can have other site um like for instance a campus supervisor there during brunch or lunch to help with the supervision. And just to clarify because um some folks did not know this is that a classified staff could be in the library as long as there is a certificated staff available like immediately like in the vicinity. And so um you know figuring all that
119out, it's really hard to say right now exactly what is the need without really um having a conversation. Um and also well here's another example um that what they're hoping to have is the library has been used for um spaces for um students during brunch and lunch. So again, you know, just making sure that this is open um and our media texts sometimes are um a little apprehensive when there is brunch and lunch and there is a lot of students there and again providing support at that time. Um and so again, we're we don't know exactly just yet. Um but those are like the some of the initial conversations that I heard from staff. Um the other concerns that they brought up is um scheduling classes in the library. So those are the kinds of
120like technical things that we can figure out like you know how do we use the calendar effectively so that classes can come in and be scheduled um and use the library when they want. And so those are the things that our library techs have asked for. Um there are also some um organizations that provide professional development for our libraries and library techs. And in addition, I am in contact with the San Monteo County um librarian and she is more than happy to help and support our new program with our library text and um district librarian. And so she said, you know, just contact her and she's more than happy to um you know, be a partner. May I add something? Um so I feel like uh we as Tina as deputy superintendent Vampar um said
121in the second interim budget, we are budgeting for a district librarian. We do I do recommend that we move forward with that. Um, I think that we need, so I I don't sit in on negotiations, so I don't know if something has been proposed by the union to have different site librarian FTEEs at each site. So, I'm just not privy to that information. Perhaps that is something that, but according to what's in the contract currently, we either have one FTE at every school site of a site li site librarian. If we have anything, we have 1.0. That's what's currently in the contract. So, I'm not sure how to make an exception. There's not room for exception the way that the contract reads. Now, I'm not saying that that doesn't get negotiated and you know, like
122I don't know. But that's like I just we're sort of caught in this place where we we sort of can't say that unless that's renegotiated differently. Um, I do think it's important either way to have that district librarian. If we're not having 1.0 at every school site, we will need a district librarian. So, I do encourage, you know, like I think when we get to the budget, um, but just want to clarify that like I'm not sure how we have one FTE site librarian at one site if not at all sites. I have a question. What is FTE? Oh, yeah. Thanks, Eden. Full-time equivalent. It's like a full-time position. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So, this is a discussion. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. You know, thank you guys for advocating. I mean, I mean, this is
123obviously not an easy thing to do. Um, I I I think that we do take equity into uh consideration when we do make decisions. I know you guys aren't sitting around listening to us talk when we do have these discussions, but we we do put a lot of thought into it. We do put a lot of heart into this and a lot of trying to figure things out. And the idea of of this discussion item tonight is for exactly that to to show you guys that we are thinking about this. This is a process. You know, we're we're trying to include you guys on this and and you know, figure out a solution that works best for everybody. It's it's we do have to keep the entire school district, you know, in our view though
124when we're making these decisions. And, you know, I understand from your guys's point of view. Um, that's probably not as easy to see as it is for us because you're focused on your guys' community, your school, and what's happening over there. But we have to see it, you know, in a different in a different light. So, um, I appreciate you guys coming out and shining more light on that situation and giving us more insight on that. Um, that's all I really want to add to that for now. And I just, you know, unless there's anything else anybody wants to say, I think we'll move on. I don't think I have any questions. I think I think just adding I said it but I think just adding that we definitely heard that there is a a
125need for some some more support at Oceanana for the exhibitions. I think that came through very very clear. Um and so that looking in you know that assessment that sort of listed there is like we now need to figure out what how much is that is that 2.4 6 is it you know like what what would provide the support at Oceanana for senior X and junior X and everything um and how might we do that within the confines of the contract. So, it's not that it fell on de ears. It didn't. We're just trying to figure out how to support Oceanana's um how to support Oceanana. And I just want to just go back to the library tech discussion. I think it's probably prudent for us to probably speak to them sooner rather than later
126just, you know, with regards to this. Yeah. Because I think clearly, you know, we definitely heard the concern. Yep. On that topic. Yeah. Okay. Uh we'll move on to uh agenda item 17 A1, second interm report. Uh, Deputy Superintendent of Business Services, Miss Tina Van Raprast. Good evening, members of the board. Thank you. I'll just tell you next slide. Um, before you tonight for your consideration is the district's second interim financial report. As always, there's time for questions at the end of the presentation, but please feel free to interrupt me if you have any questions along the way. In compliance with ED code, the second interim report covers the actual expenditures for this school year from July 1st through the end of January and makes projections for the rest of the school year. There are
127three ways we can certify our financial situation, positive, qualified, or negative. Because the documents show that JUHSD will be able to meet our financial obligations for this year and the subsequent two years, I am recommending that we file a positive certification. Since the review of the first interim report in December, we have been able to hone our budget projections, especially in the areas of staffing costs and operational expenses. For revenue, I consulted with the Sonteo County Assessor's Office. Their projections for the current year have remained stable, estimating an increase in tax revenue for the current year to be about 5.7%. However, their projections for 2526 have improved to nearly 4%. So, I am using 4% tax increase for both subsequent year revenue estimates. And in the previous examp uh in the first interim report those
128were at 3%. As shown in the second interim report the projected revenue for 2425 is 85.1 million. This has increased by about 500,000 since the first interim report and this is mostly due to two components. One is a new substance use prevention grant that we recently received. Thank you to Miss Mary Beer. And second is improved rental income from increased use of our facilities. I think that is because um getting further from the pandemic and also thanks to our rental coordinator Jamie Riyadi. Uh she has I think that position has really helped our ability to allow the public to use our facilities. The expenditure estimates remained at about the same as before. Um 89.9 million, but there were some shifts. The amount we anticipated spending for utilities and staffing contracts are higher than they were
129at first interim and our outofd district placement costs for special education have declined. So, the special education team has been doing a good job keeping our kids with us. As I've mentioned before, we are operating at a desk deficit. The deficit is structural, which means that it's not just caused by the use of one-time funds, but it is projected to continue. We closed 2324 with a $ 1.9 million deficit, and this year it is projected to be closer to 4.7 million. This will continue to need close monitoring. If we see that our reserve levels continue to drop in the next few years, we might need to consider additional cuts as shown in the report. No, this is the same thing I just said. Sorry. All right. JUHSD remains in community funded status which means that
130our local property tax revenue exceeds the amount we would receive under the local control funding formula. The blue bar shows our tax revenue and the orange shows what our funding would be under LCFF. So this also means that we're if tax revenue were to drop unexpectedly, we could rely on the LCFF funding level. So the difference between the two projections is the amount of money potentially at risk if tax rates were to suddenly drop. Although there are no indications that that might happened right now. We haven't seen any indications of that. Reserve funds are the district's savings account. They are the funds we could count on in an emergency or for unexpected expenses. The second interim report shows that the district is projecting an ending fund balance of about 19.8 million. Of this about 3
131million are restricted funds that must be spent in specific ways. So those are not typically counted as part of the reserve. So that leaves us with about 16.8 million projected in general fund reserves for the end of the school year. I have shown this as broken down according to the district's reserve policy. So 3% dictated by the state for economic uncertainty and 5% additional reserves based on the board policy which leaves 10.72% reserves of unallocated funds. Additionally outside of the general fund we currently hold another 1.2 million in fund 17 which is our special reserves fund. So together we estimate ending the school year with about 20% reserves. So here on this chart on the lower right you can see for the 2425 our total reserves at about 20%. With the $4.7 million deficit, if
132we use the assumptions on this page that I'll go over in a minute, you'll see that the reserves go down each of the subsequent years to 18.4%. 4% in 2526 and 16.76% in 2627 with continued budget deficit. Um, which means we're spending more money than we're bringing in. That's what the deficit means. The assumptions used in making this multi-year projection are uh first as deputy superintendent Baka just talked about the budget reduces library staff by 3.0 FTE. Additionally, it funds an increase to teaching positions in 2627 to cover a seven period schedule for students at Teranova and Oceanana High School so that those students have access to additional classes like the students at Jefferson and Westmore. Next, there's a new law SB88 that dramatically increases the training and oversight of our bus and van drivers.
133Under this new law, which takes effect July 1st, drivers will be required to complete additional annual trainings and testing, and our vehicles will need to regularly undergo more rigorous inspections. For this reason, we are recommending the board approve a new position for director of transportation. Director Luhan will bring this job description later in the meeting. Currently, Director Peppers oversees maintenance, custodial, operations, rentals, transportation. So, we would like to hire someone with expertise in transportation management so that we can comply with this new law. The state does provide us annually with about 1 million $1 million to cover transportation costs. Uh and I believe that adding the transportation director would be costneutral in that we won't need to pay contractors or teachers and trainers to uh train our drivers and we won't have to um you
134know have special software um to monitor the vehicle maintenance. Um we will be able to rely on a transportation director. It will also allow director Peppers to improve his oversight of maintenance and operations of our facilities. Also in the multi-year projection is an increase of FTE for athletic trainers. All of the other high schools in our area have trainers on staff and we are often out of compliance at our sporting events when we cannot find a contracted person to serve in this role. So we contract for training services right now and um we aren't able to always find someone and also that is more expensive. So we are budgeting for that that's in the multi-year projection. Next in 2425 we provided a 2.4% salary increase. This budget projection does not include any future raises, but
135we are currently in negotiations. As was stated earlier, if we settle on another salary increase, it will further reduce the reserve levels. We also um have covered the increase to our health premiums for our staff this year. That was part of negotiations for 2425 to 100% pay uh the increase in health premiums for the multi-year projection. I have adjusted for inflation for the health premiums. So if the premiums go up by more than inflation, then that is not in this budget. Also in the budget uh as presented is additional contributions to fund 17 to grow the special reserves um to get to the goal the board set in our board policy. The increase to PERS retirement system is included in the multi-year projection. Stirs is remaining flat in the coming years according to projections. And
136lastly, the utilities and other operational costs are budgeted at the rate of inflation. In approving the second interim report, you will be approving more moving forward with the two highlighted items or you may approve the report but give direction not to move forward with either or both of those items. The components of this that are not highlighted would be discussed further at our April or work study. Any questions on that slide? I know I said a lot during that part. Okay. So, looking ahead, the second interim report reflects all of the updated information that's available. We will then spend some time together in April discussing the 2526 budget. This will coincide with the schools finalizing their master schedules. As in previous years, we are working with the site administrators to ensure that we are staffing
137tightly. Part of our ability to continue to offer raises and maintain fiscal stability is working to make sure we maintain staffing levels that match enrollment. Then in May, we'll learn more about the governor's budget projections. I will incorporate that information and present the 2526 budget during two meetings in June. One for public hearing and one for adoption and that is it. I want to thank you, President Gyos. I recommend tonight that you approve um the second interim report as presented. Thank you, Tina. Uh before we take that vote though, I believe there were a couple uh public comment cards for this item. And so the uh previous speakers had also indicated that they uh wanted to speak on the library presentation and also the second interim. Um did you still want to speak on it
138or is it already combined? So okay. So, Lori Hughes. So, I I wish I could um channel Corey Hardik. Um I can't, but at the board meeting at the school, she brought up multiple ways where the funding for the librarian positions there was there is money. So, um I don't have that data here. Um I do trust Corey. She does a fabulous job. So I think I would urge you to be careful in saying you know this has to happen bec because of this. And then another point, um, I have concerns as a union member voting on a contract that cuts positions at different sites. And yes, the contract, the union voted to pass this, but it was not something that the majority of Oceanana staff voted yes on. So, I think it it made
139me very uncomfortable um to say, well, you want to raise, but you're going to cut these positions. That that felt very uncomfortable. And I don't remember ever having done that before. And then I just again really have to question this district librarian. I I ran bookstores for 20 years and then I was a library tech at a high school and it just I don't see how that's going to work and have personalization and do the things that we need to do especially as has been said before in the years with AI and things like that. I think all the sites in however they need to do and I don't want to tell Westmore what to do or Teranova. They're all good schools. They all figure it out. But we need that expertise on site. I
140can't say enough about as teachers, we need that phone call to talk to someone. Aaron Peters was just saying about this. When the government takes down information, what what are we doing? We need I think all the schools need librarians. Anyway, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Lori. Oh, I forgot. I don't know. Laura says, "So, um, do Laura Hodder, Aaron Peters, or Tony Marilich, would you like to speak again?" Okay. [Music] Could I ask you kindly to return to the slide that has the two entries on it that you have highlighted? Um, uh, I want to thank, uh, Tina for designing the presentation in such a way that she provides you the latitude to vote in two ways. Um and I would like to uh request and encourage you to vote with the second
141option which is uh not which defer the decision on the four FTE site librarians and the director of transportation that piece of it. I believe she's presented you with two options for voting. Kindly choose the latter. The latter will provide us the opportunity to work with you better to figure out what to do particularly at Oceanana specifically at Oceanana. Um and that's my point. Kindly vote on the latter option please. Okay, thank you. And that's all. All right, so moving on with the um motion to recommend the second interimm report budget of 2024 2025. Can I get a motion to approve? Not yet. Um just I have some questions still. Uh first of all, I know looking at the federal revenue, which I think, you know, I've got some heartache over potentially, you know, there's
1422.486 in the second interim. Do we have any thoughts about what level of risk might be associated with that? I mean, it's not an insignificant amount and it's about the value of one of our partial taxes. Thank you for asking that question. So our federal revenue in the general fund is about 2.5 million and it is also an additional 1 million in fund 13 which is our food services program. So in a $90 million budget it is about three.5 million that we get from the federal government. Um, we have been advised by the county office of ed, by the state superintendent, uh, and by the governor to assume that the money will continue. um they believe that the um that the president doesn't have grounds or authority to take that money and that even if
143the department of education closes that the money will still come. Just maybe not the oversight. I don't know. But um but yeah, we've been advised, everybody in California is advising that we continue to um expect that money to arrive. And we do have $16.8 million in reserves. So if we had to go without that money, we could go without it for a few years and make adjustments as we learn more about what the situation might be. Any other questions? I I just want to play devil's advocate. What are the ramifications if we don't um cuz Miss Ferori had said that we could possibly um discuss the the site librarians and the district librarian for April? I mean, how would if we don't um take action on this as is now and hire because we we're
144also getting um a recommendation to that we should hire the the district librarian now. Um and I always trust, you know, our executive committee and Miss Prea. Um but now you've kind of given us another option and we're trying to figure out which the best I mean how we feel about this you know our board and what the ramifications may be. So, one potential ramification is if any of our current site librarians um want to apply and they would have to wait and so the master schedule will be delayed and we may end up hiring you know if one of them applies might be too late and just hiring season and master scheduling. Can you clarify for them? Too late for what? It it was kind of hard to hire in the summer. Um so
145we would like to secure um our staffing as early as possible so that we know how to plan for our master schedule. Um often times when we do, you know, do a late hire, there's not very many applicants. May I clarify? So, our local, sorry, I can't look at you guys very easily. Our site librarians could apply for the district library position at any time. They don't have, you know, you would just maybe if we didn't, if we still had a site librarian at a site, somebody else would come into that position late. Correct. Yes. Is that what you're referring to? Yeah. And I think um you know like financially as Miss Casey mentioned we are currently in negotiations and the assumptions that we are working under in negotiations is this uh because it was
146uh you know it's been part of the budget ever since it was agreed upon in May. Um okay. So it it could potentially stall negotiations or it could, you know, we we would have to go back into closed session and talk more about the the impact to negotiations. [Music] Okay. And so if if we agree to um you know pass this motion tonight for this budget, uh what are is there a chance to still negotiate something afterwards as far as site librarians or how we go about um allocating librarians for certain sites based on needs? Yes. All you're doing is providing us with direction to how to proceed until the next time we talk, you know. So, uh, we could proceed with hiring a district librarian and continue our conversations with the sites about what
147kind of support they need and in April, you know, decide on a different way to capture that $400,000 that would be saved. Um Mhm. or you know look at different possibilities. Uh but it would have us moving forward down the path. Yeah. Um anybody else want to add to that? Just trying just going back to the discussion from the previous agenda item where we're so we would be I think I think it makes sense at least to me that we would move forward you know with a looking at more of a research type of role to support Oceanana as you suggested Superintendent Prea I think in light of the way this is this is structured um and obviously there's things that need to be negotiated with even that type of type of movement. But I
148think I am concerned about the fact that we would not be getting potentially the best candidates with either the district librarian or the director of transportation position if we were to delay further because we do know historically the spring is the time when we hire and recruit and that's when the best candidates are typically out there and and it's the same thing whether it is somebody internal who wants to apply. I think we, you know, we want to look at them and compare them against who else might be out there. Yeah. Um, I think I'm only really comfortable moving forward with this decision knowing that we still have the ability to negotiate something like that for sight specific needs. Um, so that's why I just wanted to make sure that that was still on the
149table for, you know, we have time to do that. It's obvious that Oceanana does have really specific needs for the programs they have going on over there. So, um, but I don't want to hold this up any further either. As Andy stated, I do kind of want to get the ball rolling on that. So, right. And I'm can now that I realize that it could stall negotiations. We don't want that either. Um, yeah. May I add something? I think it's just when we were in when we've talked to the board about Sorry, I can't really look at you. Uh when because I can't turn my neck. Um when we talked to the board in close session about, you know, the amount of money that we project being able to offer in negotiations, that's what it
150would it's. Not that we can't have a close session again and have new assumptions. Um, but it would sort of stall the team on kind of what they can what we can afford in a raise right now. Does that make sense? We would just have to have another close session to talk to you. Tina would have to have new assumptions. I don't think we should be discussing what we discuss in close session. Yeah. No, I agree. I mean, it's I'm not openly like right now. Oh, sorry. Well, I'm just saying close session when we have negotiations, we're giving the board direction. Direction. The board is giving us direction and we would need to provide you with new information so that you could provide us with direction. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think based on tonight's
151meeting and this report and all the comments that are involved, I I think that might be necessary. Um, but I still believe it's uh in our best interest to to move forward with the motion um to approve the second interm report. So I'd like to entertain a motion. The approval of the second interimm report 2024 2025 as presented. So I move that we approve the positive certification of the of the 2425 second interim as presented. as presented. as presented. I second. All those in favor? I I I Okay. Uh moving on to items 17A2, resolution number 2024, 2022 18 authorizing the sale of general obligation bonds, the 2020 election measure Z. Uh, Deputy Superintendent of Business and Services, Miss Tina Van Raphorse. Thank you, President Gyos. It is recommended tonight that you approve resolution 2024-2025/18
152authorizing the sale of general obligation bonds from Measure Z in the amount of 60,250,000 and the associated documents. The money will be used to continue the construction of the new pool and gym and improved theater at Jefferson High School. Our financial adviser, Mr. Dale Scott, is here tonight in case you have questions that he might be able to answer. Are there any questions? Um, you mentioned other district construction projects. So, besides Jeff, what other projects are still on hand? Is this also related to the field of Teranova or are there other projects? We we do currently already have enough funds on hand to finish the Teranova project. So, this is just for Jefferson pool, gym, and their improved theater. Okay. All right. Move to approve um resolution 242518. Second. All those in favor? I I.
153All right. Moving on to 17 A3. Uh, resolution number 2024, 2022 199 authorizing the issuance and sale of 2025 refunding general obligation bonds for the purpose of refinancing outstanding 2015 general obligation. Thank you. This resolution, if approved, authorizes a refinancing of the outstanding 2015 general obligation bonds, which would result in a savings to the taxpayers of our community. Again, Mr. Scott is here to answer any questions you might have. Yeah, actually I do have one question. Um, do we have an idea what the level of savings potentially could be with this refunding? Good evening. Let me um start by saying that the bonds that are being refinanced um have very few years left on them. So it's not like it still has 20 or 30 years to be refinanced and you're going to refinance. These
154have are going to mature in about 6 years. Um, for that reason, as you can imagine, the savings are not enormous. We estimate it'll be approximately a million dollars taxpayer savings. Um, but that will go down every year and be less and less just because every year you're getting rid of a year of payment. Um, so I see it as since you're doing the general obligation bond, uh, it makes sense to just kind of tag it on, pick up the savings, and move forward. Great. Thank you. Move to approve resolution 24259 with the uh, refunding general obligation bonds. Second. All those in favor? I I. All right. Moving on to 17B1, human resources job description, director of transportation. That'll be Miss Dana Luhan. Good evening everyone. Um before you this evening is a job a
155new job description for the director of transportation. Um as mentioned by deputy superintendent Van Raporst, California Senate Bill 88 um comes with a lot of new requirements for our transportation department. So this position would be responsible for the oversight of in-house training and the ensuring we maintain compliance. Thank you. Any questions? Uh I have a question. So is this something that we are deficient on right now? And great wondering. Um at this time we are compliant. California Senate Bill 88 goes into effect July 1. So we have time to uh fill the position and ensure that we start um July 1 in full compliance. Remain in compliance. Yes. Thank you. This is just probably more of a practical matter. Um where do we find somebody with this skill set? Do we poach somebody from another
156district? Are we talking about hiring somebody from MUN? What's the what's the skill set? Uh well, I'm hopeful that I can play nice with my my district neighbors and not have to poach. Um so we will recruit widely. This is one of those positions that I'll post on Edjoin like usual, but I'll also post on LinkedIn. And then we have we're in hiring fair season as you mentioned. So there are all kinds of unique people that I am meeting at the college fairs. They're not specific to educators. So this is a really great opportunity to start really personally connecting with folks. Great. Okay. Thank you. Elbows up. Thank you, Miss Thank you for answering my wondering. Um, anybody else? No. Okay. Can I get a motion to approve? So moved. Second. All those in favor?
157I I. All right. 17B2 job description updates. All right. Thank you. So, the job description you just approved um um s uh encourages several other job descriptions that should be updated. some of which you recently just approved. For example, van driver, you just approved that update, but the previous job description had one director of maintenance, transportation, and operation. So, we wanted to separate out and be very clear which supervisor are our different members of the O unit um reporting to. Um, and we also wanted to make sure that we updated the director of maintenance and operations job description to pull out the transportation requirements. And then further, there was a related position that was previously titled transportation and facility rental specialists that should be retitled and um the duties reorganized to be just transportation and
158dispatch. So they only report and work with transportation because we already have someone who is taking care of rental facilities. Okay. Um motion to approve the job description updates. Second. All those in favor? I I Thank you, Miss Leon. Uh 17B3 classified job description updates. Thank you again. This is the um small batch of uh classified positions that AFT1 1481 and I were still negotiating uh final updates as part of the class and comp study. So these four positions have been uh gone through the class and comp study. Uh they received employee feedback. They went through uh ex administrator feedback as well as uh AFT1 1481 feedback. And we have come to agreement on these four positions. Thank you. Any questions? Move to approve these classified job description updates. Second. All those in favor? I.
159All right. Thank you. Thank you, Miss L. Uh, unless there's any consideration of future agenda items, uh, I'd like to motion to adjurnn, please. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I I 948 [Music]