001Uh good evening. I'd like to bring this um regular meeting of the board of education to order um to re we're reconvening into uh this meeting at 606. And um we the next item is agenda item six, which is report any action on items from close session. And there are no actions uh to report on. And then item number seven is a public hearing on the 2025 26 pupil textbook and instructional material sufficiency. Do we have any public comments? >> We do not. >> Okay. And >> you have to order. You have to open it. >> Open. Oh, okay. So, I am officially opening the public hearing on this matter and then >> at 6:06 p.m. And we have no u public comments. Do we have any comments from the board members? I know it's
002an agenda item later where we will be actually approving this item under item number 11. So, having no public comments, we'll go ahead and close we will close the public hearing also at 607. Okay. Okay. Welcome everybody. And uh next is communication reports. So, we have um board member reports. Do I have any reports? Trusty Mansfield, Trusty Anderson, go ahead. I was just going to say that I love the homecoming parade and um I just want to do a big shout out to one of our partners who was the I guess the marshall at the homecoming, the Marcella Foundation and they have um Reading Pals is starting at Tahoe Valley again for every child who is needing it. So they're awesome. I had fun at the uh at the parade also. Uh got a little
003wet. Uh uh but that was it was a great feeling of community for the parade. It was it was it was really a lot of fun. Um, I also attended the community conversation on bike safety recently and uh it's a beginning of what needs to be done in our community to get our kids safe. We all agreed that kids on bikes is a good thing, but we want to do it in a way that they're safe. And so, it's just the beginning and I'm I'm sure we'll be reconvening and and hear more. I was very proud um to see Tasha Taylor uh uh on the panel on the deis uh uh representing Lake Tahoe Unified School District. She's very well respected in the bicycle coalition community. Uh um and so it gave me a great
004feeling of pride to see her representing us all. >> I'll stop there although I have other stuff to talk about. >> I I will agree with you uh Trusty Anderson. was a really great public uh event and um it happened really quick and we had talked about it at a board meeting and then it was done. So I was and there's just a lot of great community uh collaboration. So I was I was glad about that. I had a chance to visit a lot of schools last last week and it was uh it's just wonderful being in there and seeing all the good things coming um out from the teachers and I appreciate it so much and the parade was so much fun and you know I was a little disappointed because I thought everyone
005was really excited to see us you know and they're all waving and no it was the girls ahead of us and behind us but I think he stuck us here to give us a little Yeah. But it was a it was a lot of fun even though it was cold and wet and we got through it. It was great. Had a blast. Thank you. >> Thank you. Yeah, I told the board members wanted to walk together during the homecoming parade and I said, "Well, I like to follow like it used to be the drum corps, which we didn't have this year, but we but usually it's the drum core then the cheerleaders." So, but we were behind the cheerleaders because yeah, there's just a lot more energy and dance happening and um it makes a
006lot of lots of fun and a lot of spirit and nice to be out there with the students. Um and similarly I got to be with I felt like a lot of student um spirit um at the girls volleyball game and I saw some girls tennis and um and athletic director Hennessy had me on the sidelines for the JV at the end of the JV game at the homecoming uh game. And so it was just really nice to feel the energy and um see all the kids participating both the kids participating in the actual sport and the kids there you know watching and supporting the other students and cheering them on. Um it's a it was a great feeling and I want to just say that related to the bike safety um meeting the conversation
007on that um because I walked to Tahoe Valley for the reading pal thing and I we all walked up to the high school um and I know let's see we might not have our our partners that are working on some of the bond projects but I know that um that was one of the more important things I think that came out of that community conversation for me was knowing that as a lot of our bond projects at each of the school sites are going to improve ingress and egress at each of the sites looking at way the parking lots are arranged and I just think we can do a better job to uh provide much better defined pathways on for kids walking to school as well as riding their bikes because it's uh challenging and
008I've been walking to those sites and um I'm not sure where I'm supposed to be and the cars certainly don't know where I'm supposed to be either so I I look forward to um seeing that and I know the by coalition wanted to be part of maybe looking at some of those plans as we move forward making improvements at the school sites. So that is what I have. Thank you. Um next we have our student board member report. Ara, hello. Um I was kind of going to piggyback off of what you guys said. Homecoming uh was so much fun. All the festivities, the parade, um the football team had a big win in a very cold venue, so that was good. Um and the dance was of course a blast. Um, we also recently got
009some news back from the California annual education conference. That's right. >> Um, and our talk was accepted. Mary and I will be presenting on student impact, voice, and leadership on December 3rd from 3:40 to 4:45 p.m. So, we are very excited about that and we will start preparing. >> Um, and then kind of going off of that, the superintendent's advisory council. We had um another meeting, I believe this past week or the week before, and all of our students are now assigned to their community partners. so we can start working with LTCC, Barton, Family Resource Center, and everybody else. And um we also, one of the things we discussed was some of the challenges that students face within their personal and academic lives and making sure that we support these students. And I think that
010that's going well through all the positivity on campus, the like school spirit, stuff like that. So, I think that that's really great. Um yeah, that's all I have going on. >> Thank you. Wonderful. All right. Yeah, both finding support for academic and and the mental, social, whatever's going on at home kind of piece as well as their mental health. Yeah, I think that's excellent. Thank you. Um, superintendence report. >> Well, thank you, President. >> California school administrators conference down in Ontario and he's been uh trying to get back home the whole day. lots of uh plane delays uh due to weather and shortened staff. So, um he he sends his best. You guys talked about the homecoming. I'd also like to just point out that we uh we had two days of great math training
011down in Plasterville uh with our middle school and our high school last week. had about 10 folks including teachers and administrators myself this week uh Miss Hart as well as our other three elementary principles and a total of about 15 folks. We were the biggest group um out of out of the county who was there for two days of math training. So I want to thank the teachers and the principles who were able to to make that training. Yesterday at Mount Tac, they had kind of a meet and greet career day informally where they could meet some employers and they went around and talked to different employers. Uh Margarita was their target uh was Margaritavville was their target. Ernie's uh the city of um South Lake Tahoe. Uh Lake Tahoe Unified including Brena Dilman looking
012for special education aids. And so just a great experience. Uh, you know, the students are fantastic over there and a shout out to Sarah Justice and Amy Jackson for putting that together. So, that's all I have. Thank you. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> All right. Uh, employee association reports. Do we have >> We have Bernardet. >> Thank you. >> Welcome. >> Good evening, President Keer, board members, Dr. Reer, and everyone. I was unable to attend uh the meeting two weeks ago and I want to say how much our association appreciates the efforts that have gone into negotiations thus far thus far. Uh our I believe people feel like they are heard that they are important. I want to thank the negotiation the district's negotiation team for a very collaborative efforts on behalf of what we
013our firstou and then the secondou that we just reached yesterday. So very much appreciate all the effort that's gone into it and thank you. >> Thank you Bernardet. >> Appreciate that. and Ms. Mora, >> welcome. You got your Thunderbird Thunderbird sweatshirt on. >> I'm sorry I didn't get time to change today. >> No, it's beautiful. >> I was rushing around to take my son from football practice home before I could get it here because we have a car that's out of service right now. So, um, again, I am Nicole Mora, the president of STA. Welcome board members and uh everyone from the executive panel. Uh STA would like to begin by saying thank you for again our negotiations wrapping up. We are very happy to have a tenative agreement that was go out will be
014going out to our members shortly. Uh we're just still working on the revisions of those articles. We would also like to let you guys know STA leadership team did attend the region 2 leadership conference hosted by CTA and at that conference uh there was a lot of talk about community schools and the community school funding that our school district receives. We currently receive $4.7 million over five years for our school district. And there's a lot of talk with CTA uh about how that funding is being spent in different school districts. And STA is committed to helping our school district and have requested meetings to help make sure that we will continue to receive that funding for the full five years that are allowed. We would also like to let you know we have retended um
015attended the Elorado County leadership dinner. And at that dinner they really stress the importance of the insurance situation in the state of California. And the Elorado County leadership team is asking that not only STEA but also our administrative team, our unrepresented team and as well as CSEA join them in January for a planning meeting on how all of our community schools in Alorado County can work together to find an insurance answer for our people. So, we'd like to let everyone know we are open to accepting people who would like to join us at that meeting to look for answers for the future. Um, in closing, we are also asking for LTUSD's support in the extension of Prop 55. As you know, Prop 55 is only taxed on people making over $700,000 a year and it
016accounts for almost $6 billion in the state of California's education funding. STA has voted to help with signature gathering to keep that proposition on the ballot for the 2026 school um election cycle. And we would like STA's support from LTUSD in gathering the signatures needed to bring that to the ballot so that we can keep the funding needed for our students. >> Is that Miss Mo is the Prop 55 is that an is that a something that's already in effect? >> It is currently in effect at this time. It's considered the millionaire's tax. >> Okay. And so it was did it have an expiration date? >> It expires in 2026. So, they would like to put it back on the ballot in 2026 so that we continue to receive that funding. And so, CTA has
017asked all of our local unions to help support with the signature gathering. And we like LTUSD to help us with that, too, because it is a lot of funding that our school district is at risk of losing if that should go away. >> Okay. And that's something that we're all allowed to do as citizens outside our work time basically, right? Outside of our official capacities, but as can't support it officially as a board member, but we are looking for your help and we would like >> everyone in the district >> to be aware that we could lose a lot of funding and uh for their help in keeping that funding for our school district. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you, President Moira. >> All right. Agenda item 8E, public comment. We >> do
018not have any public comments. Okay. For items not on the agenda, Moving on, then we have our um agenda item nine, our partner organization update. And tonight we have the Barton Trauma program manager, Megan Ro to present on Stop the Bleed Kits. And it looks like there's >> Yes, we want to thank you folks and team to present stop the bleeding kit to our our board. We appreciate >> everybody. Thank you very much for having us here. Uh my name is Megan Ro. I am the trauma program manager at Barton. I'm a registered nurse. I also brought with me Carla Adams. She's our chief nursing officer and Haley Davis and she's our trauma process improvement nurse. So, her and I work to maintain our trauma program at Barton. And um I can tell you a
019little bit more about that if you want to go to the next slide. So, we're a level three trauma center. We've been so since 2014. And what that means, first of all, we are the only uh designated level three trauma center that's in the Tahoe basin, which is very important because we're able to provide life-saving interventions to our community and visitors alike. We average a thousand patients uh that come to our ER with traumatic injury annually. We admit about 400 of those to our hospital and our capability to manage care of trauma patients is improving. So um we hope to continue increasing um those services as well. We are successfully uh certified as a pediatric readiness hospital. What that means is we did a survey where we are prepared to manage pediatric care medical emergencies
020and trauma emergencies. We have all of the supplies for patients of all ages. And part of being a trauma center is that we are obligated to um participate in community outreach which we call injury prevention. And um we last year, last spring, no this year in the spring, we are pleased to um we were pleased to come out here to certify all of your school nurses and stop the bleed. So that's a certificate that they said. We are accredited by the American College of Surgeons for a level three trauma center. And so stop the bleed is an initiative that they put out several years ago which is um community outreach and teaching the public on how to stop the bleed. When uh you look at trauma traumatic injury the leading cause of death is from
021hemorrhage. So if we can intervene in the field or as soon as possible then we improve u mortality when they get to definitive care or a trauma center. So we have seven stop the bleed kits here one for each of your schools. They are supplied with packing gauze, tourniquets, uh quick clot, which is a gauze that will help cause coagulation so that the bleeding can be better controlled. Um, and those we're just pleased to be here to distribute those to you all. And that's on behalf of Barton Foundation. >> Great. Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you, Megan. Uh, do we have any questions or comments? >> Kudos. I just wanted to thank you and for continuing with this program. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Well, Megan and Carla and Haley, we really appreciate you being here.
022Could we get a picture with you and our board? Would that be okay? >> Sure. You can bring your kids. All right. Get you guys all the way. [Music] Two, three shots of two. >> All right. [Music] Thank you. [Music] >> Yeah. Just make sure you make a note. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Just make sure you make a note. Associate superintendent. Make a note. And Heather could take hers. See? Oh, she's got it ready. Okay. Awesome. Bernardet could take one to the high school. >> All right. Our next item is um public information officer update. >> Thank you, President Keer. Do I I think I should probably do an introduction for you. Please welcome public information officer Teresa Scout to provide us with anformational update on community outreach, internal communications, learning and development
023and new initiatives. Thank you. >> Good evening, President Keer um trustees and Dr. Reer and Kelly and everybody. I'm Teresa Scow, your public information officer or PIO. I'm here to provide you the annual update on communication efforts across our district. First, I'd like to express my deep appreciation to Dr. Cutler, the cabinet, and all you LTUSD staff for their ongoing support of the PIO role. With Dr. Cutler's partnership, guidance, and leadership, I've accomplished more than I could have imagined when I started three nearly three years ago. I firmly believe that um communication builds trust. Trust builds cohesion, and cohesion aligns values across all levels. See if I can work this. Not okay. Whoop! There we go. As your PIO, I am I aim to strengthen communication with our students, our families, our staff, and community
024partners to stay aligned with the board's priorities, mission, and vision, which are listed up here. Tonight, I'll highlight our progress in four key areas: community outreach, internal communications, professional development, and new initiatives. First, with community outreach, our community partners continue to grow. I now maintain a list of 80 educational and community partners and I regularly invite them to participate in district events and discussions. At a recent community conversation, I sat the bike community, you know, the bicycle safety community conversation, I sat with Elorado County Board of Supervisor Brooke Lane and director of community benefit and business development Chris Proctor from Barton. When asked why they were they attended, they said they received my email invitation, proof that outreach matters. I also serve on the Tahoe Coalition for the Homeless Board, which helps keep LTUSD connected
025to broader community needs. In addition, I continue to manage our Facebook pages and in Instagram accounts. I could do better with Instagram. I'm not going to lie. Since starting as your PIO, I have significantly increased the number of posts to these platforms, and I write multiple press releases each month. When I arrived at LTUSD, the annual local control accountability plan meeting, the big parent meeting, was not well attended. Working with Dr. Cutler, we reimagined it into the state of the district, which now it draws over a hundred attendees. After that success, we began hosting community conversations one to three times a year, creating an ongoing dialogue with our stakeholders. I recently received a topic suggestion from one of our partners for a future session. They've become so important. Dr. Dr. Cutler, Trusty Mansfield, and I
026presented twice at the California School Board Association annual education uh conference to more than 250 attendees showcasing LTUSD's work on effective board governance. We've also elevated the quality of the retiree party over the past three years. And of course, the Hall of Distinction and celebration of education created in collaboration with Lake Tahoe Education Foundation has become a beloved community event that celebrates excellence and streng strengthens local pride in our schools. Internal communications. Okay, wait. Uh oh. Uh oh, where am I? There. Internal communications is just as vital as external engagement. Everybody matters. We've continued building the LTUSD electronic process binder, standardizing department procedures. Dr. Cutler and I also launched the STAR site secretary group, bringing together lead site secretaries three times a year to share best practices, clarify processes, and celebrate great ideas. During our
027spring meeting last spring, South Tahoe Middle School secretary to principal uh Cindy Martinez Monica Candelero's com commented comment sparked real action. She said because we were talking about the income surveys and increasing the participation in those the um the completion rate. She said, "We're all on one team and should help each other with with the income surveys." That idea grew into a successful fund our future campaign, which you're going to hear a little bit more about later tonight. Additionally, I led the website improvement project, worked with all sites developing a district-wide style guide to ensure consistent update content across every LTUSD site. I share board meeting recaps with all staff to keep everyone informed about district level decisions. I also send out the superintendent video chats with Dr. Cutler, which Dr. Cutler hosts on Tuesdays
028before every regularly scheduled schoolboard meeting. Professional growth Uh, let's see. I'm not very good at this part. As your PAO, I'm committed to continuous learning and development. I've joined the South Lake Tahoe PIO group, the California Public Relations Association, and the statewide executive assistant communications group. I also attend the quarterly executive assistant to the county superintendent meetings. These connections help me stay current with evolving communication laws, trends, and best practices, ensuring LTUSD remains at the forefront of effective school communication. New initiatives. We've launched se several exciting new initiatives this year. Based on input from the site teams, when we did all that checking on everything, we found out we have a horrible website host platform. So, I'm co-leading my effort with Kelly Buttery and Scott Ramirez, and we aim to launch a new site by
029March of 2026. I also added a new tab to the website homepage, which links to the Hall of Distinction and other other newsworthy LTUSD pages. I've also run have a running link to current news articles on that page. Hope you've all checked it out. And if you haven't, please do. We upgraded the district office entrance to showcase the Hall of Distinction and added a TV where we highlight photos of all the wonderful events happening in LTUSD. Dr. Reer came up with the idea and everyone loves it except maybe Rachel. She's the receptionist because people hang out and look at the pictures and bother her. I don't know if they really bother her. I just said that. And of course, we had the fund our future campaign. Uh I initiated and co-led this campaign with Kelly
030Buttery and Tammy Miller. Once again, we'll be talking about that in a few minutes. And something I'm very very excited about, um I helped co co-write uh the application for the uh Golden Bell Award, which we were selected to win that um for the Sierra House Elementary math program. Um this award recognizes excellence in programs that improve student achievement and demonstrate innovation, vision, and commitment. The award will be presented to LTUSD at the AEC conference in December in Sacramento. And in closing, there you go. Um, that's a that's the extensive lists of the things since I started in collaboration with our cabinet with Dr. Cutler and everyone um that have happened since I've been here for about three years. But since joining LTUSD in December 2022, I've worked to strengthen communication at every level, building
031trust, transparency, and unity across our district and community. I want to thank you for your continued support and partnership as we elevate LTUSD's story and share the incredible work in our schools daily. There's that extensive list up there. And um I just hope to continue to do this because it's a lot of fun. >> Any questions? [Applause] questions and then I'll go back to being >> question. We got questions. We got >> We're not going to let you off that easy. >> Can you mow the lawn, too? >> All right. >> You actually happen to We have a house in Vermont and that is has about threequarters of an acre of a lawn and I used to mow it with a >> Oh my gosh. Well, it it's so wonderful to see how much you
032love your job and I really appreciate all that you've done and and just the fact that you bring, you know, bring that joy um joy of life and and you know, enjoyment of of the work every day, you know, to the office. It's really wonderful. Um and I'm glad to hear that website is is going to be changed for sure. I know. I know it's a huge effort and I I I don't always bring up all my frustrations because I go to the website and I can't find things and you know and I can pick on Principal Zunino because I still am like although I did see it. I was trying to find when's the next play and I couldn't find it and I thought why is it so hard to navigate these websites and
033and the site you know the site websites aren't kept up to date. So I you know I saw the things you'd been doing to update the web pages and then I go to the individual sites and not necessarily there. So then I try Instagram. Maybe it's there, maybe it's not. Anyway, it's I know it's it's very complicated, you know. I mean, it's like a lot of different platforms and trying to have a co cohesive approach and and a complete >> Well, and I will say when when we did last fall, we were bringing every site, the principal or leader for the departments and the person that was assigned to their web page. We were bringing them in >> to discuss that. And that's when we realized there were so many problems. we couldn't hold everyone
034accountable to keeping the information updated and having it look good because the website hosting platform is so horrible. It's >> so >> And so that's where we're now I mean we're meeting on the 22nd with three different companies to we're get we're moving it forward. We'll have it maybe sooner than March, but I said March. >> I I know that. Yeah. The the even just like that's great. We'll have a new platform and then but then it's still the efforts of everybody really to keep it up to date. Yeah. you know, getting every site to do that. So, appreciate everything you've done. >> I I had I really had no idea what you did. >> You were you were like you had you just have so many fingers in the fire and I I totally
035get it now. I see why. >> Listen. It's like >> there's not one you don't have one title. >> And remember, I'm also the executive assistant to Dr. Cutler, right? >> But Val and Lori, I think, remember, right? You were here before I before I was here. And they're >> I'm not making this up. done a lot. >> But with the support of everybody, for sure. I'm not on my own on this. Okay. Anything else? >> Anything else? All right. Thank you so much. Appreciate your annual report and look forward to next year's as well as all the cool things that will happen throughout the year. All right. Our next uh item is item 11 under educational services, the 2526 certification and resolution 2526-2 of provision of standards aligned instructional materials. This is an action
036item. >> Thank you, President Comfort. Yes, this is an action item required each year. Education code 60119 requires our board of trustees to certify that each K through2 student has sufficient standards and aligned textbooks or instructional materials or both. It is staff's recommendation to approve the certification of the provision of standards aligned instructional materials and accompanying resolution. All right. Any questions for Dr. Reer? If not, do I have a motion to approve the resolution 2526-02 for the provisions of standards aligned instructional materials? I will make a motion to approve the 2526 certification and resolution 25-26-2 of provision of standards aligned instructional materials. >> I'll second. >> Okay. I have a motion by Trusty Mansfield and a second by Trusty Kamacho. All those in favor say I. I. >> I. Those opposed. Okay. Motion passes. Uh
037the next we have our school plans for student achievement. And tonight we have um Meyers Elementary and South Tahoe High School. And Meyers Elementary is up first because that's how it is on the agenda. But also Principal Hart was here first >> because we were worried Mr. Zenino wouldn't get here. President Camp Keer and trustees. We're excited to welcome Meyers Elementary new principal Heather Hart to provide us with a brief update on their school plan for student achievement. Thank you, Principal Hart. >> Thank you. Good evening, board of trustees. >> I'm thrilled to share our Myers Elementary School plan for student achievement as we settle into the momentum of the 2526 school year. This year, our focus is on connection, strengthening relationships among students, staff, and families while continuing to elevate learning and achievement for
038all. I'm honored to serve as a collaborative leader. Thank you. Supporting and working alongside this dedicated and truly extraordinary staff at Meyers. Our educators are leaders in academic excellence and they have built a legacy of community pride, connection, and student success at Lake Tahoe Unified School District. Together, our team brings over 400 years of collective experience and dedication to excellence in education. We're really old. We have a shared commitment to the Meyers legacy. It's a culture of learning and achievement. It's a collective pride in our school and our community and we always do what's best for our kids. We've welcomed several new staff members, as you can see, who bring tremendous energy and expertise to our team. Myyers Elementary proudly serves 320 students in grades TK through fifth grade. We are overjoyed to welcome our
039transitional kindergarten class this year. Our youngest Bears have quickly become a joyful and energetic part of our school community. They remind us um why we do what we do and we are so proud to have them start their educational journey with us at Meyers. We are deeply committed to ensuring that every student regardless of their background or need receives the support and opportunities they deserve. Our first goal centers on curriculum and instruction. We aim to inspire lifelong learning by fostering curiosity, critical thinking, and problem solving skills to increase achievement among all students. Our key action focus focuses on integrating equity into everyday instruction using data and formative assessments to guide teaching, collaborating through the P3CC math collaborative that was mentioned previously. We now have a team that represents Meyers um at Edco. The work we
040did this week was really inspiring. We are providing targeted interventions and engaging in ongoing professional learning to strengthen our instructional practices. We're also working to increase our attendance. um rate the rate was 95% our goal is 97 reinforcing the message that every day counts and every student matters at Meyers. Our second goal focuses on student support and family connections. Our action steps center on supporting the whole child through social and emotional learning, wellness partnerships with our counselor, psychologists, and our nurse, and building strong, we already have really strong home connections, but uh continuing those relationships through engaging family events and opportunities. This year we are introducing key programs like tools of the heart. No pun intended. That's the program. To expand our use, you got that. Thanks. Um to expand our use of restorative practices
041on the 123 wellness challenge. Our staff is committed to the 123 21-day wellness challenge. These efforts will continue helping our students build empathy, resolve conflict, and grow both socially and emotionally. At Meyers, we are proud to continue our tradition of positive recognition. We celebrate our character traits and positive expectations through daily announcements, through student drawings, and joyful assemblies that highlight the hard work and great character of our students. When I say Myyers, 320 students say go Bears and they are quiet. It's pretty amazing. You should by and see. You've seen it, right? Walkathon. Okay. Our third goal is professional learning and collaboration. At Meyers, we are growing together through collaborative learning on early out Wednesdays, aligning instruction across the grades and ensuring every student has access to engaging highquality learning opportunities. Our ongoing professional development
042helps teachers build the skills and strategies to support both the academic and social emotional success of our students. Our teachers commitment to this growth directly translates into stronger outcomes for our students. Those are our 320 Bears. Uh thank you for your continued support, board members. We appreciate you joining us at Meyers, home of the Bears. Our dedicated staff, engaged families, and remarkable students make Meyers a truly special place to learn and grow. Together, we're continuing to grow and celebrate the extraordinary community that we have out there. Um, one where every child is valued, capable, and inspired to thrive. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Wonderful. So glad you're there. Anybody have comments or questions for Principal Hart? >> Yes. Hi. >> You betcha. >> Hi. I just wanted to say this is so incredible. I
043mean, when when I went there, it was we were the turtles and it was Lake Tahoe Environmental Science Magnet School, >> which was quite the mouthful, by the way, to remember when I was 10. >> Um, but it's so exciting to see the school continue to grow because I hold that place very close to my heart. So, you know, kudos to you and congratulations. >> And we're so honored to have South Tahoe High School students representing um students representing the high school coming and tutoring our students. >> That's awesome. I'm so happy to hear that. >> Oh, that's awesome. Uh, any other questions or comments? >> I was just going to say I was so impressed when I came to visit a couple of weeks ago and she knows I'm going to say 99% of
044the names of every student. >> But I am working on it. Thank you. >> That's awesome. >> Um, >> thank you. >> Yeah, I'm I'm excited to see, you know, see you there and see how you can continue to, you know, raise expectations and improve the connections. Um, and I'm and I'm sorry I haven't been out there yet, but I'm I'll be there soon, I'm sure. And I >> I didn't want to call you out, Lori. >> You could You can. It's fine. I've been busy. Uh, but I'm I'm going to be in the neighborhood more. So, anyway, I will be I will be there. Um, and one of the things that when uh Joel Damrell was principal that I was really impressed at Myers was there was a lot of information, a lot of
045signage about the growth mindset. He was really behind that. what I just wanted to know how if that's still being you know is that still messaging or how are you if you have any specific examples of how you're raising the expectations of students you know just really kind of challenging them >> well I think everyone has that concept of a growth mindset throughout the schools we do have a counseling corner in our newsletter we continue to share ideas and information but I think >> that is now embedded in our culture and school community >> cool I like that cool um all right well thank you so Much appreciated. >> All right. >> Thank you, Heather. >> Thank you. >> I want to thank you also. I uh um like our student representative, I am a
046former Meyers uh >> alumni eagle. >> Golden Eagle. I still have >> Myers Golden Eagles. >> I should have worn the sweatshirt. I still have the sweatshirt. >> I taught there back in >> 85 88. >> Oh, I thought you went to kindergarten there for those years. >> No. No, I was on I was on the faculty there. >> Yeah. >> Clearly you laid the foundation for academics. >> Exactly. Exactly. >> So so pleased to have you there continuing that tradition. >> Yes. >> I'm just thrilled. >> Thank you everyone. >> I'm just wondering how you I know Joel used to chase the bears off the property. So do you have some an alternate or you is that one of your jobs? >> Six raccoons. >> Okay. Good job. >> In my heels. >> In
047your heels. Okay. You could throw a heel. You could throw your shoe at the raccoons. >> Yes, Miss Henry helped. We had a whistle. I don't We had some >> Yeah, raccoons can be mean and nasty. They're adorable looking, but Yeah, I know. >> What about the one 123 plan? I'm not familiar with >> Oh my goodness. Okay, that's through Edco 123 Wellness. It's an initiative. They are paying for the program for us. So, our teachers have committed to a 21-day challenge. Cool. And let me just make sure that I it's online integrated through Clevver in just three minutes a day, Mr. Anderson. Um, all students and staff are guided through a daily check-in. >> So, you check in, how are you feeling today? And then their patented smart technology empowers each student or staff
048to personalize their wellness. So, for example, I felt stressed. That was my check-in today. And it gave me some options. I could smile big. I could practice gratitude. It just gives you some strategies. And so we're committed as a staff to do it. And once we do that after 21 days, we'll implement it schoolwide with >> the students will do it also. Right. >> They are. So as an administrator, I can quickly check in on students to see I have three students that are stressed in this class or right. So it's just it gives you an overall temperature of your school climate and culture. um and then you can quickly assess the needs of the students and take care um >> and I'm I'm glad you're doing that. I saw a presentation at the annual
049education conference a few years ago about it and it was really interesting Bob because it does the idea that like you said it's almost like the when you're in the doctor's office and they do the pain threshold like you pick the face that equates to you you know are you like in pain you know that pain threshold thing so this is similar and what was cool though was that notion like you said that you and individual teacher can literally in that first five minutes of the day have have a a rating by each of the students so you have an idea a of oh 75% of my kids are happy today or 75% are tired or stressed or sad or whatever's going on and and then anybody who you know marks himself really low you
050know that you can yeah reach out to him. I thought I I remember hearing that presentation and I remember um county superintendent Ed Monosala was really interested so I remember hearing that we were eventually going to get it. So I'm glad to hear we >> we have access we have a partnership and and they've been really supportive. And are the other schools going to be able to do that? Do you know? Or >> I believe they are. >> Is that the idea? I mean, I Yeah, because I was really excited about that. I think it's it's really cool. It's a good use of technology for sure. I mean, getting a quick snapshot, right? So, thank you for rolling that out. All right. Thank you, Miss >> Thank you, Heather. >> All right. Next, we have
051Principal Principal Zunino. [Laughter] President Keer, please welcome Principal Zenino to share an update on South High School school plan for student achievement. Thank you, Mr. Zenino. >> Thank you, President Keer, board of trustees, Dr. Reer. Ara, good to see you there tonight. >> Uh, I'm going to start off tonight. My my presentation might not be quite so sweet. >> Um, lots of information, but uh um but hey, I'm excited. I'm truly excited to see you. I'm going to start off with a little bit of data. SDHS is home to,049 proud Viking students. Our demog demographic makeup is approximately 51.5% white, 48.3% Hispanic, 003% Filipino, and.17 other races, ethnicities. We've continued our academic expansion by increasing our dual enrollment options now at 21 with 17 AP classes and one at least one to be added next
052year. have also increased the number of students completing CSU A uh UC A throughG uh pathway completion from 30% two years ago to about 54% today. That's on the dashboard there to look at. We're now laying the groundwork to develop four-year plans for all students. This is a big deal we're very excited about. And in CTE, we're focused on continuing our efforts to increase capstone opportunities by growing our community partnerships. And in the way of participation and engagement, we are targeting an increase in extracurricular participation with an additional six clubs this year, putting us to now 29 active clubs. Wow. >> On campus. Also very important to mention our visual and performing arts programs, both very strong along with our athletic extracurricular opportunities remain clearly uh strengths for STHs. We have three schoolwide goals for
0532526. All of which remain the same from last year. Uh one construction, two attendance, and cell use for the month of September. Quick stat here for you. Our attendance has improved 3.2% since 23. Our schoolwide GPA has increased consecutively for the last six terms to 2.98. I hope that hits 3.0 here. Uh and our referrals for sale use has dropped from 75 two years ago to eight for the month of September. Goal number one. Little delay there. Okay, forgot about the delay. Goal number one, our push for instructional excellence is focusing on curriculum refinement through vertical and horizontal alignment of learning outcomes, the creation of common and formative assessments, and the use of scales or I can statements have been critically important. To enhance student support, we are launching the bilingual tutors program and piloting
054flexible grading practices like retakes and late work. We are also ensuring academic accountability by requiring flex attendance for red checked students, actively engaging reluctant students, and successfully implementing a cultural geography course to meet ethnic studies requirement in California. It's going quite well, I will add. Goal number two, uh talk a little bit about uh climate and culture to positive positive to foster positive school culture. Our ASB leaders and Viking ambassadors, a newer program to our school, are engaged in efforts to encourage engagement and provide opportunities for all students to feel a sense of belonging. Critically important. We're committed to supporting our many extracurricular programs who grow and thrive. And on a staff side, we're prioritizing improvement in our collaborative practices, support a continuous improvement cycle. Finally, we will reinvest efforts to recognize excellence through our
055many academic distin distinctions. You may recall we've added several in the last couple of years. Celebrate CTE pathways. Uh the completion of which and promote the Viking graduate profile all all while expanding our communications to our community each week. For goal three, student family engagement. I'm proud of this. We're strengthening our community engagement through monthly meetings uh with boosters, PABA, and cafesitos. Community uh communication has enhanced with weekly progress reports to parents, something that's been very successful. Uh and we've increased staffing in the SCHS wellness center to better stu serve student well-being. For goal four uh increasing achievement, we are deeply uh for our um students experience experiencing homelessness homelessness. For goal four, we are deeply committed to providing ongoing support for all students particularly those with the highest needs. This includes continuing our partnership
056with our McKenna Vento support advocate, Katherine Rosen Bloom, to closely monitor and provide resources to our students experiencing homelessness. We will also maintain our focus on student attendance by closely monitoring daily rates and providing timely support to improve consistency. Finally, to remove barriers for learning, we are ensuring the availability of free school and personal supplies twice weekly for any students who need them. And our final goal, goal five, uh our single focus there. During the spring of 2024, SDHS, as I had shared earlier, uh with the board, received level one certification from high reliability schools. We're working to create a safe, supportive, collaborative culture. Building on this foundation, we are now actively engaged in pursuing HRS level two, effective teaching in every classroom. To achieve this, departments are focused on practicing chosen research-based instructional strategies
057and are dedicated to using each department meeting to revisit, reflect on, and assess the efficacy of these new teaching practices. New staff, not a lot, but we do have a few this year. Automotive, we just hired our auto teacher, Liam Hensworth. Been in to see him a few times. Connected quite well with with our kids. very excited to be there uh for CTEVTV and yearbook Justine Ferguson and our for our leadership team. We now have Kyle Toms who was a chem teacher there as assistant principal Paul Loop who was CTE is now dean of students. Any questions, comments? Welcome all. >> Thank you, Principal Zuno. Any questions or comments? Arya. >> Yay. I'm back. Um, of course, uh, after being a turtle and a turtle wolf, I get to be a Viking now and my
058my final year of that. Um, and I just wanted to test to attest to how lucky we are to have so much active staff support on campus. Of course, I'm a senior, so I'm drowning in college apps. And we are lucky to have so much support um, from Robin Rasmmanson, Kimmel Vento, and Bob Sullivan through, you know, our whether it's our flex programming or our before school um, stuff. But and also on top of that, our staff does such a great job of forming like genuine human connections with everyone. I mean, even every time I see Mr. Zenino in the in the lunch line the other day, for example, he got lunch with us. Um, and every time like he always called me by name and that means so much to us as students. I
059just want you to know that is just that genuine human connection. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Questions? >> Um, Trusty Mansfield, did you have anything? No, >> I just I enjoyed the presentation. and I enjoyed my time that I spent at the high school with you and seeing all the teachers and there is a lot of it just seems more positive this year. >> So I really appreciate that. >> Excellent. >> I had a question. You mentioned referrals for cell use. Is that what does that mean? >> Okay. So when a student uh is using a cell when they shouldn't be during class, our practice there is to refer that student to admin to work through what's next. Right? So this is really decreased in terms of the number of referrals that are
060being sent by teachers to admin. That's it's an important metric that we we >> So students are they're putting their phones away far better and you know really important we have teachers working together on this. It's taken us years to get there, but really when you have a common expectation from one class to the next, it just makes it easier on kids. Absolutely. >> And and then easier for staff, right? So that's been important. >> Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Do you think that you do have that common expectation throughout the teaching staff? >> Yes. >> So there may be a different I I appreciate the that that is the expectation that it's common because I know in the past it has was not it was inconsistent. Yeah. teachers who were trying to
061implement it made it made it difficult. Um, I appreciate that you are doing the you're moving ahead with the cultural geography class. So, because I've been reading in the news statewide that they look like they're delaying, you know, the ethnic studies piece. We're not we're not really getting a whole lot of guidance about, you know, like some approved curriculum, but I just like that um our staff is, you know, leading the charge on that and trying, you know, trying something new with the idea of u meshing that ethnic studies piece with geography. So hopefully maybe come by and poke in one of those classes. That would be nice. Yeah. Um and uh yeah, thank you for everything you're doing and love seeing all the increased participation. You missed hearing my my board report earlier about
062just really feeling the energy, the positive energy of students on campus, you know, at the sport sport events, homecoming and um all of that and just getting kids more involved. So thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Zenino. >> All right. Next we have the fall I ready data presentation by Dr. Reer to follow there. >> Good evening president keer and trustees. Tonight I'll be sharing with you our fall I ready data. Okay. Of course our work is driven uh our vision and mission drive our work including interim assessments like the I Ready math and I ready reading assessments. a little bit about interim a little bit about interim assessments like I Ready with some history. This year we're administering I Ready to all kindergarten through 8th graders for reading and kindergarten through 5th for math.
063South Tahoe Middle School is using other assessments including interim CASP assessments as well as their Alex program. We've been working with our CALED partners and STMS leadership as well as teachers to find creative solutions for our middle school math based on our teachers input. So, we'll have other door other data sources for our sixth through 8th grade math uh likely starting in November when they start the interim assessments which are aligned to the um to the CASP assessments, the the state assessments. The I Ready assessments, what we like about them, they're ad adaptable. Uh meaning if the students answer questions correctly, the following question will get more challenging. And if the student misses a question, the following question gets a little easier for them. These assessments are administered in the fall, winter, and spring. So
064we're able to measure growth throughout the year. They are correlated to the state CASP results and we can break down the data by socioeconomics, multilingual learners, males, females, and special education. Tonight, we're going to start with the reading fall data and then move on to math. So, first up is Beiju. Now to take a look at here. If you recall from last year spring when we were talking about the full year of 2425 what we what we typically see is more red and yellow in the fall and hope to see more green in the spring. That green represents students up here who have already met or exceeded endofear standards. So with Beiju um due to the nature of their bilingual immersion program, they only assess students in English in third through fifth. So that's all
065the data that you see here is our third through fifth graders in reading. This data is showing how students are performing compared to the end ofear standards. As you see here, 27% of the students have already met their endofear standards while 38% are approaching and 30 and 35% are behind grade level. Last year they started the year at 23% in the fall. Next up is Tahoe Valley where all K through fifth graders are assessed in reading. Again, what we hope to see throughout the year is an increase in green and a decrease in red and yellow in February when I return for midyear assessments and then again even more green when I return again in June to share the data. Next up is Sierra Houses's reading. This time last year they had 20% in the
066fall who met end of year standards while this year there there are 27%. Now granted there are it is a different group slightly because those fifth graders have moved on to sixth grade and we are assessing the kindergarteners. The kindergarters are a little shy in numbers. Technically we're supposed to wait till about the seventh to eighth week before we administer. We did ask our folks to try and speed it up so we would have data for uh this meeting. And lastly, Miss Hart's Meyers School currently at 42% meeting end of year standards. Last year they were about 46%. Again, keep in mind somewhat of a new group because those fifth graders have moved on. These um because these numbers don't include the fifth graders. And finally, reading for South Tahoe Middle School where we assess
067sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. And we're at about 37% meeting end of year standards already. Last year we were at 33%. Overall, if we take a look at K8, we're at about 35%. About a third of our students are in the green compared to 30% last year. As you see, our K students have no red because they cannot be one or more years below grade level. Okay, here we can see some differences um between our demographics with our multilingual or English learners progress. Similar to last year, our socioeconomically disadvantaged a little higher than last time last year and similar to the state testing data I shared at our last meeting, our females are having a higher percentage in the green than our males. What I did not show you there in the reading of the
068math is our special education population. There's something funky going on with the data and it it didn't look like it was real valid or reliable. I had lower numbers. So I need to work a little bit and find out what's happening there with the coding. Onward to our math. Um we'll start again with Beiju where all K through 5th students are assessed. They are at 7% already mastering end ofear standards. Last year they were at 3%. Next up is Tahoe Valley. Similar numbers this fall compared to last year and and you can see last year's in the parentheses up in top on the title here is Sierra houses um 13% meeting end of year standards already. Last year we were 15%. As you see we have lower numbers uh meeting end of year standards in
069our math than we do in reading. And that's um very similar to higher achievement on our CASP in reading that compared when compared to our math. We're about 45% I think overall last year for reading CASP and we were 34 or 35 in math for our CASP. Next up again is Meyers with 30% that are already at end ofear standards and last year they were at 37%. Overall um K through 5th is about 13% similar to last year's and then when we disagregate our English learners are 3% in the green economically disadvantaged at 8% in the green and like our state CASP assessments again our males are at 18% in the green a little higher than our females in math at 15% in the green that's starting this All next slide um is to use
070this information how we're going to use it. We'll be using it in our data meetings. We'll be progress monitoring. We'll be taking advantage of our intervention flex and our EL blocks. We'll be targeting some of these deficiencies with our professional development and continue to stay active with our EDCO and Caled partners in math and our Lake Tahoe reading network that we partner with the Marcella Foundation in reading. Um, and additionally, we're excited to be looking at piloting math curriculum that is more aligned to the California math framework officially starting this spring, although some of our elementary schools have be have begun piloting a program already. This agenda item is forformational purposes only. Again, I'll return in February with mid-year data and again in June with end of the year data so you can track the
071progress of our a ready data. Do you have any questions for me? >> Any questions from Arya? Uh any of the board members? >> I I'm glad you made the explanation about why the middle school wasn't doing the I Ready because I had asked that earlier this week. >> Yeah. and and through collaboration with the teachers and principles um they they really fel felt it was taking them a lot longer for the assessments like over two class period >> to get through the assessments at the middle school. We had a similar experience when we were trying it with the high school >> and opted to give them something a little bit more applicable and something that they're going to um be more engaged in the data than than the I Ready data. >> Thank And
072so are there you're reviewing right now? What program? Is that am I understanding that then for the middle school? >> Yes. Yeah. We'll be going through a curriculum adoption process this school year. The official this will be coming out in November >> and I'll be working with teacher teams to uh identify two to three uh programs and then we'll give them a try this spring. So >> that's for math. Is that for math? Middle school. Okay. >> Great. Um, and just my observations, it looks like I mean I'm it's disappointing not to see, you know, higher math scores since we've been making so much effort on math like at Sierra House and and Tahoe Valley in particular. Um but I do see at least just kind of visually I see with Sierra House maybe um
073less red like more yellow you know but less red and you know in the math um and similarly like with Tahoe Valley it seems similar on the reading side and that might you know that's been the effort maybe the reading palace has helped but that you know emphasis by teachers at Tahoe Valley too that there's like a little less red and and more yellow than than the past um so their kids aren't as far behind you know basically they're kind of coming in ready to learn but Um and of course Meyers always is doing excellent and hopefully you know we just continue to see growth there and um you know continue to see improvement but yeah hopefully teachers are figuring out how to raise the you know raise some of those expectations. So I know
074we're working on it but it's you know we all want to see the scores go up faster. So all right well thank you. >> Thank you. Next we have our site safe schools plan under risk and safety item 12. It's a discussion item. >> All right. Thank you, President Camper. Kaled code 33821A requires all TK through2 schools to develop and maintain a comprehensive school safety plan designated to address campus risk, prepare for emergencies, and create a safe, secure learning environment for students and school personnel. The law requires schools to develop strategies and policies to prevent and respond to potential incidents involving emergencies, natural and other disasters, hate crimes, violence, act of asalent intruders, bullying and cyber bullying, discrimination and harassment, child abuse and neglect, discipline, suspension and expulsion and other safety aspects. Additionally, starting this
075year in 2526, uh, new sections have been added to the site school safety and plan to include disaster procedure adaptations for students with disabilities, opioid prevention and life-saving responses for grades 7 through 12, response to procedures for dangerous, violent, or unlawful activity for grades 7 through 12, and an instructional continuity plan in case we were to have another situation like a pandemic, which was added uh to the safety plan as well of what we would do to continue the instruction. So, it is an action item and it is staff's recommendation that the board of education approve the 2526 school site safety plans which are included in the consent agenda. Doc coming down the road. Thank you. >> And that the the action item is coming down because tonight's just a discussion. So, it'll be next
076time it'll be in the consent. So, >> It's in tonight's consent agenda. Oh, I see it down there. Thank you very much. And revision. This is the opportunity for any discussion or questions. Um, any public I don't think there's any public comment on it tonight, but anybody have any questions for Dr. Rita? Um, >> I'm just really glad to have this happening. Thank you. So, this is >> Thank you. >> Thanks for the clarification. Appreciate that. All right. Next is um under business services and operations we have the vari um presentation discussion of energy project government code 4217 and soiler solar boiler retrofit LED lighting and controls. >> Tonight we have Brett Gallagher >> prodigar and Tanya Bradford from Varie to present the energy project that they've been working on. >> Thank you. >> Good
077evening uh President Keer fellow trustees. Thank you, >> Mr. Cleanership. Uh we're happy to be here tonight. Uh thank you for your time. >> Uh we apologize. We have an additional uh uh bit of material that wasn't able to get in uh by by the deadline. So, um please take a look at that as as we're talking this over. Um let me grab my It's not moving on its own, so that's it's a solid start. Um today, what we want to do is review uh the the what we consider the final scope. uh get you to understand uh exactly what that entails and of course allow you to ask any questions along the way. Uh talk a little bit about price ranges and then although we we're not financial adviserss talk a little bit about
078our experience with uh how these can be paid for by a district. Um before we talk about that, let's talk about where we've been. Believe it or not, um our preliminary energy assessment happened back in October of 2024. So we've been at this for about a year. uh met with Todd and team uh that summer. Uh continued through the pea presentation. My first time here at the board was back in January. Uh and here we are tonight talking about uh final scope and and at least partial pricing. Um this is probably familiar to you. We always like to look at the blood work of the district uh and just remind you guys of where you were. Um about $570 per student, about two uh $2.90 uh per square foot. We want to reduce those significantly
079and we think the um uh scope that we put together for this project can help to do that. There we go. Um I want to point out Prod and his team and the work that they've done to develop uh all of these projects. As you know, we haven't charged LTUSD anything at this point and we're happy to do it that way. Uh but Proud and his team have been out multiple times. uh he's working with multiple uh partners, what we would call partners, what you might call vendors, to make sure that you guys are getting the absolute best price, the absolute right design. Things like solar and boiler replacements require design and they require some imagination. And there's lots of different ways to do it. And so what we want to do is something that's
080efficient, something that's easy to maintain, and something that's going to produce the absolute most benefit um for for what we're doing. a lot of site evaluations, geotech, uh, one example of a geotech finding that we that we have was from Tahoe Valley Elementary, we have watered about 5T. So that doesn't surprise any of you. We were like, oh, so we just got to go a little deeper with the foundation. Uh, another thing that we found is do while we're doing this uh, investigation is that you have the highest snow load requirements in the country. Again, not a surprise to me either. I I live near here. Uh but 150 pounds per square feet that requires special steel structures and it requires special panels. Um both of which uh are just a little bit more expensive
081and a little bit harder to find. Uh but again, Proud and his team are working diligently on that. Uh we've been working very closely with Liberty uh your local utility. Matt Newberry and his team have been fantastic. Uh we're doing your interconnection agreements. They're getting close to complete. Um he has prioritized LTUSD over some other projects. So we thank him for that. Um um and then finally financial op optimization, schedule optimization, and making sure that we're continuing to work with the bond team so that when it comes time to implement this, we're not stepping on each other's toes. Uh the most important thing about the solar implementation is the timing. So right now you guys enjoy NE1. Uh and just as a reminder, a very simple version of NEM1 is that when you create uh
082a bit of energy that you don't use, Liberty will pay you the same amount as you would have paid them. So it's a 1:1 ratio. Uh it's now down to 2 cents per kilowatt hour. You guys right now are around 30 cents per kilowatt hour. So being on NEM 1 gives you 28 cents per kilowatt hour versus NEM 3, which is what's coming. uh if we don't get you grandfathered, which makes selling it back virtually, you know, uh meaningless. >> Uh the other thing that's going away, unfortunately, is the ITC, the investment tax credit, uh for Lake Tahoe Unified. In this project, it's worth about $4 million. Um it's the solar NEM1 and the ITC that makes this entire project float. So, everything else that we talk about is based on the savings and the
083financial advantages that those give you. If those go away, it's going to be very hard to do any of the other stuff. Um, anything to share on solar? >> Okay. All right. We're going to keep going. Um, next is the boiler retrofit. Now, I got the impression that you this was a project that everybody was pretty excited about. Okay. Good. I thank you for that response. Okay. Um, that's good because it's >> I just want to understand I just want to understand it better. Yeah. >> Beautiful. Uh and and I hope I can explain and please ask questions if there are any. Um so next to the solar, the boiler retrofit is the second most expensive project in in the the collection. Um 100% worth it in our opinion. Uh currently you're spending, and Kelly,
084correct me if I'm wrong, spending about $175,000 a year in labor for 24-hour supervision of those two giant steam boilers. Uh you're also spending another say 45 to $48,000 in uh gas, a lot of lot of GHG, a lot of carbon dioxide and also a um uh maintenance contract that you have with Southland I believe. So it needs to be checked on every six months because it is um I don't know without putting it too dramatically it's it's a volatile piece of equipment. Very stable, don't get me wrong, but >> is it two boiler one at the high school and one at middle school or just the one at the high two big boilers are both at the high school. >> Both at the high school. Okay. >> Yep. And so the boilers at the
085elementary schools uh are going to remain. Uh we're doing a decentralized version of hot water boilers at the high school, which means instead of two giant boilers that require all of that supervision and maintenance, we're moving to about 14 boilers spread out across uh the district uh with pumps and other things to make sure the water gets where it needs to go. much much more efficient from a gas usage perspective, much much more efficient from a maintenance perspective, and clearly does not require 24-hour supervision. Uh so there's a tremendous amount of savings there. And again, uh Prod and his team brought out several partners uh to take a look at this, some of them even at the same time, so they knew they were competing for this work uh to, you know, put your best
086foot forward, give us your best design, and clearly give us your best price. Um, some other things about the boiler. Um, let's see. We talked about the savings, talked about the service. Um, this is one of those things that outside of this project to replace would be very difficult. It it' just be really expensive and there's nothing really offsetting it. So, we think this is a golden opportunity. If that's a a priority of yours, it's a golden opportunity to get it done. Um, anything else on the board? >> Um, no. If you just like more details on numbers, you're basically going from two 400 horsepower steam boilers to about 14 individual boilers. Uh the biggest advantage from a central plant system, steam system to a hot water system that kind of mimics a little. Um
087so the proposed solution is going to mimic what's out there for all the other sites uh which is the hot water systems. Uh the biggest advantage of having the boilers in the individual buildings. So you've got seven buildings um in total including the central plant. So we're going to have two boilers each. That's the proposals for an N plus one scenario. >> Is that So then the piping stays the same. So you're saying the I'm not that familiar with how the high school gets heated, but it's through hot water and pipes that are running through the buildings that and and those So that's those pipe that piping system can be used with you're just going to have 14 boilers instead of two. >> So what's happening right now? >> And there's still being and then
088the last question is just um the boilers are going to still be using natural gas to heat the water. Okay. >> Much much smaller amount. >> Much smaller amount just because the units are more efficient, but there's 14 of them. Yeah. that they won't require the 24-hour supervision. >> Even with 14 boilers, you're using much less gas than the two steam boilers. >> So, right now, what's happening is you're generating about 45 pounds of steam and directly converting it to hot water. Uh some at the individual building level, some at the central plant. So, four of the systems right now are being served at the central plant. Uh the rest of it is at the building level. So all we're doing is we're sort of bypassing the heat exchanger and directly connecting it to the
089existing hot water system. So that's sort of the most economical approach. We did look at redoing all the piping. Uh but that just adds tremendous cost cuz we're going to have to like dig up all the, you know, walkways and either go around the fire lane. Uh so we have looked at multiple different scenarios and we kind of settled on this option which is the least invasive. Um, and then just having the N plus1 scenario has a backup boiler as well. And we would include controls for all the boilers so that they they'll all show up on one dashboard. >> Cool. >> Any other questions on the boiler? I want to make sure >> they're comfortable with >> what the high school >> and why aren't we retrofitting the elementary school boilers? >> Because they're
090already hot water. >> They're already hot water. >> Okay. >> And they don't require the supervision. And that's part of where the the maintenance um um reduction comes in. You know, you have similar systems across the entire district. So parts and pieces and knowhow um all all become kind of homogenized. >> Yeah. So you're basically going from an 80% or even 70% efficient system to about 95% efficiency because condensing boilers these days have higher efficiency. >> Cool. All right. That's nice. Thank you, >> Brett. Could I chime in too a little bit? Um the cost to of the manh hours for the 24-hour supervision being 175,000 approximately annually that's not a cost that would go down. It would compound every year based on raises. Um >> sure >> everything that we continue to do to
091support our staff. So >> that's not a static cost. It's something that will continue to grow. So we have to look at that is is one that we can uh reduce or potentially eliminate um with changing out all the boiler systems because that's the ongoing cost that is probably the most expensive for the district. >> And that is that that 17 just that identification of that cost is the 20 is the overnight. In other words, we're still going to have maintenance people u working on these but this is the that 175 kind of represents >> 365 days. It's more than just the 40hour work week kind of thing. And that was required because of the steam because of the like the hazards of the steam the fact >> it's a state requirement that's been in
092place I believe since the 60s. So yeah >> because steam is just more volatile. I mean it's just more difficult to >> so much pressure in it. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Is the middle school boiler system is it is a newer one? >> The middle school boiler system is remaining the same. >> Is remaining the same and and it's working fine. Okay. >> Yep. 100%. >> Cool. Thank you. >> Have they turned it on >> the boiler? The steam boiler for the high school? >> Oh, >> no. At the middle school. >> I don't know if they turned on their boilers yet. Um I think they typically do that in October. >> Yeah, late October, early November is so when the gas bills kind of spike
093up. So, we believe that's when they turn those on. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Good. >> Well, thank you. Thank you for all the questions and if you have more, please we can always we can always go back. >> Um, lighting. I'm I'm particularly excited about lighting. Um, uh, Tanya was a special education teacher. I've spent some time in the classroom myself and I understand how lighting can affect teaching and learning. Um, what's great about this LED lighting retrofit is number one, it was an item from your bond that we were able to take on that may not have already gotten in. Uh, so we're happy to bring that into the scope. Uh, the other thing about this lighting is we're going to do full EVO retrofit kits. So, it's not just the tube and
094the driver. These EVO kits have builtin controls, things like daylight harvesting, so they'll automatically dim if if it's nice and bright and there's sunlight coming through. Uh, they can be tuned. Uh, so if you want warmer or cooler light depending on what you're doing, if you're reading, if you're watching a movie, if you're having story time, uh, they can also be, um, >> remote control >> uh, remote control dimmed on on your own. And so, um, as we, as we walked through the school district originally, we noticed sort of the covers over some of the lights, and it just told us a story. This is needed. It's wanted, and I think your teachers will really get a kick out of being able to use it. And the the remote control is is very cool. So,
095uh, it's a lot of fun. Uh, we're doing complete LED retrofit districtwide, so those districts that aren't being affected by the bond yet are going to see some work getting done, uh, ahead of time, which is great, uh, inside and outside. Um, so all of these lights uh will be LED. You have a lot of LEDs already. They're they're just a little older and so these are a bit more efficient um and and really really userfriendly. Uh sports lighting at Beiju um at South Tahoe High School um and at the middle school. Um sports lighting is uh again all LED uh has quite a lot of um energy savings in comparison to what you have now. Uh again, all programmable. High school team scores a touchdown, the lights go off. Uh they can be uh
096programmed to the music. They can do all sort She's smiling. It's uh unfortunately you'll be graduated by then. Uh but come back as a visitor and and come watch. Um but no, the the sports lighting, I think, is a is a um is a really great way to um uh you know, for the tennis courts, for the other sports fields. Uh it's a great way to put the cherry on top in terms of um as you're getting those uh fixed up. Uh they do meet dark sky requirements um and they do meet all the other uh lowmaintenance longlasting lighting requirements here uh in the city of Tahoe. Anything to add on lighting or sports lighting? I should have asked. >> Okay. All right. Um controls for the boilers um only at the high school. So
097the controls around the rest of the district. However, um we are we did build in uh a product called orchestrate which will help you unify any desperate uh any separate um um control systems that you have and be able to control them all from a central location. Uh so we have some great tools for maintenance management uh solar monitoring um orchestrate controls monitoring and assessment. Uh so that that's all built in as well. Oops. Can you do anything? >> Well, thank you. >> Yes. Yes. Um so all of those measures um lead to savings, right? And so this is sort of the star of the show. uh the solar uh saving the district $645,000 a year. Uh the boiler uh retrofit uh between the labor, the maintenance uh and and the and the gas uh
098comes out to about $218,000 a year. And then lighting, both the interior, exterior, and sports lighting comes out around $65,000 a year. Total savings of $929,200 a year. Um, our goal is to make sure that any payments that you're putting into this, whether it's through a PPA or through tra traditional financing, either meets or exceeds that number. Uh, that's the goal of 4217. Um, and that's where we want to talk a little bit about the options. Before we do that though, uh, sorry, um, after pricing, this is the slide that we want to be on. So, I wish we could have included it. Just came a little bit later than we wanted. So, big part of the reason why we're here, at least when I initially spoke with Todd and Kelly and the team, uh,
099when we initial initially addressed the board, was your sustainability resolution from 2021. And so, this matrix here just shows, uh, a goal of the resolution, what your current status is, and then what you'll be post. And so some of the highlights here is a 23 uh% reduction in your um uh energy use intensity, which is your KBTUs divided by your square footage divided by the year, like per year. Um so your current district average is 90. Uh we're going to reduce that by about 23% to 70. Um, your baseline, we didn't have your 2018 baseline. Your 2024 baseline is about 3 uh 1 uh megawatt hours, which is basically 3.1 million kilowatt hours uh for the year for the district. This solar is going to generate about 2.1 uh megawatt hours um leaving only 900
100kW remaining to get off the grid. So essentially, you're reducing your electrical um consumption by about 60%. And and generating what you need here on site. Uh so it's called an offset. Um and it's you're going to offset about 60% of your total usage. The solar is actually offsetting about 90% of the usage of the meters that it's connected to. So where we could connect solar, where it was possible to do solar, we're offsetting about 90% of that usage. And that equates to about 60% of your total usage. Does that all make sense? >> Yeah. Yeah. But is there But I was wondering if there's like an actual because it sounds like we're not actually uh reducing our use of electricity. I mean, I appreciate that the solar is no is not a foss not
101based on fossil fuels, right? Um, but in terms of just thinking about efficiencies and like LED lighting and and other uses of electricity in our schools, which might be also I don't know if it's used for heat in some of them or it's all that's all natural gas, but um I guess I was thinking we might reduce our overall energy use by, you know, upgrading lighting or something, but it's just not you're not really seeing the >> the total kilowatt like the kilowatt hour reduction versus um what's you know what I mean? what's being taken. I understand that sun's going to be offset by solar. We're not going to be paying for it because we're generating it ourselves, but is there an actual uh with all these improvements, a reduction in actual kilowatt hour >>
102with the with the lighting that Yeah, please go ahead. >> No, I mean lighting is one of the main drivers of the reduction of kilowatt hours because let's say you go from a 32 watt uh T8 to an 8 watt LED, that's where the biggest reduction is. Uh same thing with sports lighting. You would go from a 1500 watt metal hall lamp to about let's say about 500 to 600 watt um LED. So that's a significant reduction. Uh but the bulk of your savings are just by offset. So you you know we looked at the entire baseline and we could connect at you know certain meters just because of capacity and utility um related um uh issues. Uh so we're offsetting about 90% of the available capacity uh and we're exporting about 49%. Uh what
103that means is let's say you know during weekends and you know during school breaks and uh you know times where school is not functioning um you know when the school is not really pulling any power you're kind of exporting that back to the grid. That's where this district could make money because you know for every KW exported you'd get about 33 cents or the avoided cost of about 28 cents because the blended rate is 33. >> But you're okay. So I guess I'm just not seeing the comparison. In other words, our baseline usage is 3.1 >> right now. Um and do we expect that usage to go down after the project as well as we're going to be producing um additional kilowatt hours? >> It will uh it will go down. It's just that the
104energy conservation measures that we're doing um is more to offset which is the solar and then we are slightly reducing using the lighting uh measures >> and then other reductions will come from controls use. >> Yeah. Right. >> The automatic thinning but this is a conservative measure. >> Um all things being equal uh there's a huge savings here. Um but additional savings may come just by the by the use of the controls. um especially in the lighting also use of controls in the boiler and the heating >> but that's just not I mean right now you're not you're just you're basically showing similar usage just that we're going to generate um 2.1 >> exactly exactly and then those those additional savings will sus out through the course of it >> and we can calculate that
105out but for the purposes of this presentation we just wanted to >> it's hard to um calculate behavior and other factors so these are numbers that we can absolutely count go ahead >> and then I don't know If Oh, I was She was raising her hand. No, Miss Buttery, I know. I don't know if there's you you weren't able to I mean, I see he's got on her 2018 baseline is unknown and and I I Liberty can't tell us what we were um using back in 2018. >> Liberty had a hard time getting us a year's worth of data. Uh their systems are pretty um >> and they haven't been actually providing us electricity for that long. I think it might have been a different a Nevada utility, >> right? because Liberty hasn't been here
106maybe that long. >> Their systems, it was difficult for them and that's why again they've been great but their systems are just a little cumbersome and so it took you know we didn't want to go back that far. >> We did go back through your board meetings and minutes and we hunted for it >> but I I'm pretty sure your 2024 I'm not pretty sure I know your 2024 baseline >> and and we are reducing it by 60% which should which should meet your your goal. >> 60%. Yeah. In in terms of generation. Yeah. >> But not usage. Yeah. >> Fair. Okay. But no, and I'm I'm just curing it up is not really because of the work you guys have been doing. It's really because in the past we had the contract with ABM
107that did some energy efficiency things. So I'm still I know it's something we still been asking um you know and I did this back when I was in college. I worked for Southern California Edison. I would get these requests and have to go into the accounts to figure out what the customer, you know, like the usage. I would have to dig through the microfish. Anyway, uh I'm just saying it I'm I'm just surprised we can't get that information from Liberty. It's not on you. It's just like wow. We don't know what the school district you you know how much energy we consumed 10 years ago or five years ago. That just uh it's it's not on any of us. It's really on why can't Liberty do this is really what I'm but this is my
108burning question but >> one with Liberty I do think part of it is that they I think they changed their system in the last two years too because there's been a lot of >> billing error people have found it we've seen it on a much grander scale with all the properties that we have in the district. Um and the my other thought is that some of the projects that we're doing with the bond Yeah. um at these school sites like replacing windows. >> Yeah. >> Those are definitely going to increase our efficiency because we won't be >> leaking Yeah. air. And so I think we will see a lot of that and like replacing some of the stadium lightings. We were had a discussion about the stadium lighting at the high school earlier this week.
109Um those lights are some of such old lights. They're the ones if you turn them off, you have to wait 15 minutes to turn them back on. So there is a lot of wasted energy just in the onoff process. So we will be able to make up some of the difference. It's just >> how how we how precise we are at this point. I'm not >> not liberty is very it is very frustrating. We we feel >> I mean I feel like it's fable side. >> I mean it's good that I mean we have a baseline. I mean, as of the current, I mean, I moving forward, we'll be able to see uh what our our kilowatt hour usage, you know, how it changes. It's just frustrating we don't have some of the historical stuff
110just to see how it's compared over the last, you know, 10 years. Um, but yeah, >> and I should point out that that I sort of glossed over, but clearly, uh, it's it's important in the orchestrate platform. Uh there we do have pieces called energy tracer and gridcap and we have lot of ways to automate um um energy um tracking and monitoring uh that plug directly into the utility. It just makes it a whole lot easier to see it >> uh build dashboards around it, report on it, track it monthto monthth, track it dayto day if you want to. Um so those tools are built into every program that we do. >> Okay. And then what Energy Tracer does uh specifically is it kind of calls out anomalies um like Kelly mentioned, it kind of
111tracks your usage month over month and let's say there's a month where you're using 20% extra compared to the previous month. Kind of sends you an alert saying, "Hey, something's wrong with this meter at this location." I see. And nine out of 10 times, you know, there is something wrong cuz we had an incident um out in Arizona where there was a school district. It kind of tracked a water meter and then, you know, the school district actually went and checked out there was a water mane leak into the campus. >> Yeah. >> So things like that it kind of helps out and also you know over the years you have a record to keep um and you can trend your baselines. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, absolutely. Um any other questions? Uh there's some
112fun fun facts on the side. You can read through those. But uh it is a tremendous amount of savings. Yes, sir. How how far down the uh road, the calendar road, will we uh realize $929,000 of savings? >> The solar would need to be completely installed and energized. Uh all the lights would need to be in. Uh so when the measures are fully implemented, but you're going to see incremental savings. So lights go in, that's pretty much an immediate savings. um solar goes in at one site, gets energized, you're going to start seeing those savings. So, it's going to be it's not going to be a cliff. It's going to be gradual. Um but I would say, you know, if we can begin this project as as we hope uh later this month um and
113start safe harboring this for the ITC and begin um construction of the solar when the when the ground thaws um then you we could potentially be done. We there are some hiccups with uh Tahoe Valley where we have to wait for those portables to be gone and the new building to go in. That's where the solar is going to go. Uh so that might be a little bit later, but generally we want to get this installed uh relatively quickly whether it's uh summer of 26 or summer of 27 to be completely done. >> That's what Yeah, absolutely. Uh there are going to be increment savings along the way because we can install interior lights even if there's snow outside as long as we're not interrupting the classrooms. >> Any other questions for us? >> I
114have a Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um the the lights the dim that's not like the time the kind of light system where you have when you walk into a room it turn on and then you walk out and it turns off. Is it >> right? There's occupancy sensors, but they're a lot better than the one a lot better than the ones you're thinking. >> Okay. Cuz those are so expensive. I was going to >> Right. Okay. >> And they're all built in. So, the sensors are all in there. Um, >> you know, if kids are reading quietly, the lights aren't going to suddenly go off on them. They're they're a little bit more advanced. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, and regarding the tax incentives, when >> when does that turn? I mean, you said that
115we need to do this in >> short period of time. Yeah. What is that? What is our cuto off for that? >> Right. So, we need to have it's called safe harboring. Uh the ITC goes away on December 30th of this year. >> Okay. >> Uh to safe harbor you guys into grant basically grandfathering you into that um in order to get construction started. We need to purchase and receive 5% of the materials. Um, so our goal, I'm skipping a little bit ahead, but to answer your question, our goal would be to have uh final pricing for the board meeting on the 24th where you can make a decision on whether to move forward. >> Okay. >> Um, if you do move forward, then we can we can guarantee that we can get the materials,
116we can get it safe harbored because it can't just be ordered. Um, it has to be ordered and received. Uh, so there are some procurement laws around safe harboring, but we're doing it all over the country. uh we've made sure we can do it for LTUSD and the panels that we're ordering for you with that 150 pound per square foot capacity don't get used much and so we're we don't think there's going to be a lot of competition for those but you never know >> because everybody is hustling to get in under that deadline >> right and we can get our materials you said that I think you answered that question that yeah >> okay great >> yeah I mean it's all looking good um if you want to flip over uh your uh final
117fin slide here. Anything else? Okay, just making sure. Um, so when we started this journey, we thought, hey, we're going to go PPA. Uh, power purchase agreement. It's a great way to do solar. We can blend the ECMS into the PPA. Um, there's there's benefits like uh, you know, the financing is offbook. You're not carrying a loan. It's not that sort of thing. The downside is is you are going through a third-party lender and so you're paying sort of layers of interest along the way. Um, and so the pricing can get uh a little wonky. And so what we're doing right now is we're fine-tuning our pricing and we're working with several PPA providers to come up with a number that makes sense. Um, option B is traditional financing. Um, and and Todd told me
118that there was a point where that was tried and for a variety of reasons it didn't work out. Um, Oh, sorry. It's on the back side. >> Well, on the back side, but you've got option A as your traditional and option B is the PPA, >> right? I know, but I know you start you started a PPA because that's where we started. And >> thank you. That's that's a good point, though. >> Um both both of these options have the same scope, >> right? >> Um both of these options um are going to save you money. Um with the traditional financing option A, you're paying a lot lower interest rate. um you're dealing directly with the lender. Um you own the system and so those ITC credits would go back to the district uh versus
119the PPA provider. Uh PPA providers, it's just sort of a matter of course they take whatever credits, rebates, whatever it is, they take those in because they're pro, you know, all you're doing is paying them for production of power. Um some other uh you know there's and again I'm no financial adviser, but we just want to give you the two that most districts go with. PPAs and traditional financing. We're working on our pricing and we're trying to figure out, okay, what final options can we bring in a couple of weeks from now? We wanted to have those today, but there were a lot of moving pieces uh with the geotechnical, with the with the additional steel, um some other things that made us go, "Okay, wait a minute. Let's go back um we'll go back
120to all of our partners and we'll make sure we've got this right." Uh but we wanted to present these two options. Both are nothing out of pocket. Uh, so you're not taking bond money, you're not taking money out of um, you know, your general fund or anything like that. So, we can get started one way or another. Um, it's just how we pay. Um, and and how much it c how much of those savings are going into interest and how much of those savings are going back to the district. So, couple things to think about. Um, Ty or Pride, anything to add? >> Um, no, just the um the cost of opportunity loss. You know, what happens if you go past December 31, right? So this year you know we put in all this work
121we the design is sort of based on the current regulation. So that's where the 30% comes in. Let's say we go into next year we would have to redesign the whole system using domestic content. So all the interconnection applications and all of that we kind of go back about 2 three months and we'd have to start over and then after July of next year um it just will not u exist. >> Right. Nem NEM3, that's a really good point because NEM3 would kick in when he says domestic content part of retracting the ITC. Uh I'm sure you guys have been reading about fiat rules and all of that and so all of that kicks in. >> Um and so we want to get you guys in under the under the finish line. >> Uh we
122we think we can as long as we follow u the timeline. >> Uh we're really really confident that we can do it. Uh frankly, just personally, I think this is a great project for LTUSD. I'm really proud to be a part of it. Glad to have my team be a part of it. We really appreciate all the time that you guys have given us, but uh please if there's any additional questions, we're here >> the So, a couple questions. Um one, these these options A and B, they look identical the way they're written right now. Um but the but the pro under the option A, it talks about an annual payment will likely be equal to or a bit more than the savings amount. Um that that's the 929,000. I right now the the actual
123fields are like identical except for the interest rate. So that so that that's confusing to me because uh you know why why is the Yeah. Where's the pay Yeah. I'm just it's just confusing. >> Okay. >> I mean I appreciate that I I want to pay less interest. Uh but I and I understand that the power purchase agreement is sort of off book. somebody else's basically under the power purchase agreement, somebody else is paying Liberty for the electricity like some third party and we're the district is paying for them to manage our solar panels. Is that kind of how it works or and then and then option A is more like just straight forward. Am I I'm totally off pace. I don't know. >> No, no, you're you're good. the power purchase agreement. Um, your
124PPA provider would own the equipment and then they would charge you for the KWH that they generate and then they're right. And then >> yeah, so a PPA the biggest benefit is you're going to have this third party who's going to take over that piece of land wherever the array is and then they're going to own and operate the equipment. So for every kilowatt hour the solar array produces, they're going to log it and then at the end of each month they send you um an invoice saying okay here's what the solar produce and here's how much you owe the provider. Um so that's straight PPA and that's going to go on towards through the life of uh the term. Um the biggest uh factor in there >> term being the term being 25 years.
125Okay. Yeah. >> Term be 25 years and then it's just that you're paying a premium on the on the cost of financing and that's that's the biggest difference. It's it's a lower interest rate if you were to go straight to traditional financing and PPA. It's just because some third party entity is taking the risk that this array will produce um as per design and then you owe them a payment based on their operation and maintenance. Whereas on the traditional financing side like you said you can go to any bank and whatever they say you own the equipment and um you know we'll take care of the O andM built into the package >> the the option B and they own the equipment are they also going to maintain it and >> yeah right >> but
126you're saying you guys would so if we did the traditional financing Var would maintain it just based on because how are you getting paid then? >> Well, we would give you an uh we would give you a O on and M contract. Uh so somebody's coming out two or three times a year to clear snow, clean them, check the inverters. >> So the PPA provider does their own operations and maintenance >> because if those solar panels are not producing electricity, you're not paying for it, right? >> So it's in their best interest to make sure that >> because then you're we're paying we're back to paying liberty basically. So under the PPA like that, it's like the PPA is simpler because it's all on one other entity to maintain it and and like I said,
127they're the ones taking the risks if if the if the panels um you know, fail or whatever. But if we do the traditional financing, we're the district buys the buys all the equipment, you know, pays to have it installed and pays you guys to maintain it. Um but we we do it at a maybe a cheaper rate because we get a lower interest rate. >> Exactly. Right. And that's why I wanted these to look very similar other than the interest rate. Um, for 4217 that should say less um the under under uh much lower overall cost of financing annual payment will likely be equal or less than >> or a bit less than the a little the annual payment will be less than the savings amount. In other words, um we would pay less than
128the $929,000. >> Exactly. So those are the numbers that we're that we're crunching right now. Okay. But our payment under Oh, because the PPA we're just paying for what we're using. So that's not really Yeah. Okay. I think I get it. It's just a different amount. >> Um and then the the other question I had about materials because this is just a concern I have about costs is that you're saying that >> if we approve this next at our next board meeting, for instance, and you guys order materials, um you're only you're not ordering all the materials at once. You're just ordering 5%. >> 5%. >> So then >> 5 to 10%. My my question is um would is there risk that we the materials costs go up significantly next year because of all the
129nonsense going on in our federal government. I get to say that because I'm an elected official. Um and so um and so uh and so I guess I'm just concerned that these estimates of costs we don't really there's like a lot of unknowns like related to tariffs and things like that that um could impact you know your estimates that you're going to you're going to do your best to give us real estimates but in six months or nine months if we're buying more materials in a different environment um then then all of this is diff changes you know the One of the benefits of a what's called an ESPC and energy services performance contract, which is what we're talking about here, is there's no change or >> uh so the risk is on us and
130we work hard with our suppliers and and prod and his team work hard with our suppliers to make sure that we do have um less price volatility than say a local residential contractor just because uh Parig is nationwide. >> We do a lot of this all across the country. So we have a certain amount of buying power >> but that risk is on us. Would you agree with that? >> Yep. I mean, again, it depends on the overall timeline. Um, so right now >> like trying to get it done like like you said within the next 12 to 24 months versus if you were waiting 3 to 5 years, we wouldn't >> and that's just to safe harbor. We could go ahead and purchase all the materials. Yeah. By, you know, January or February. >>
131Um, that's, you know, that's on us how we how we can do that. It's probably at, you know, as we think about next summer and doing sort of that summer burn of installations like like we're doing with the bond team. >> Um, that's very likely what we would do and try and get these up and energized as quickly as possible for the benefit of everybody. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thanks. Thank you. Okay. So, I'm I'm going back to the interest rate, right? And so, if we do the uh power purchase agreement, we're going to have a much higher interest rate. That means that our payments are going to be a lot higher. Is that correct? >> Right. >> Okay. And but it shows that our savings are about the same. So those are savings
132with the program, not with what our costs are our right cost. >> We don't want the cost to outpace the savings. >> That would be good. >> That's what we're doing, >> right? Well, none of us want that. Yeah. >> Um, of course. So, I wanted to make sure that you see the annual energy savings are the same, >> right? >> The biggest difference is going to be what do the payments look like? What do the payment terms look like for the life of the agreement? Okay. >> Um, and so those are the two options. And I I wish I had those specific numbers tonight, but we don't. So, I at least wanted to introduce the topic. >> You'll have those at the next meeting. >> So, we'll be I mean, you'll get to >>
133hopefully before then that we can share with Todd and Kelly and >> Okay. This question is actually for Kelly. Do we have like an accountant who's I mean we don't have to I mean we have some people that are much smarter than us with which option I mean do we have >> investigate that which option and advise you? Um, we might want to actually work with ISM adviserss on some of that of those pieces to decide what we want to do and I could probably provide more feedback on what we did previously with ABM too. >> Okay, thank you. Thank you for then this is just something random and insignificant but where are the materials going to be stored? Do y'all have a big huge warehouse somewhere or because this is a lot of material,
134right? We have the cost of uh storage conx containers. Um >> so we're going to work with Dave on finding an empty piece of land at the district somewhere >> because it has to be at the district. Yeah. >> You know, you can't just store it. >> It can't be somewhere else for the >> just for tax purposes. Um so the district will procure that and then we'll store 5% of the material somewhere on site. >> Okay. >> Interesting. >> The big the big dirt area. There's a lot of good spot. >> Oh, good. Oh, that's right. I think you had talked about that a long time ago. Yeah. I'm sorry I forgot that. >> Thank you. You're welcome. Big deal. It's really really exciting. We can get this together. >> We know it's complicated.
135We try and and present it as as clearly as we can and um hopefully we're doing an okay job of that and then we'll have some more clarity when there's numbers to attach to all of these ideas. >> Great. >> Scope-wise, I mean everything is sort of ironed out. We've had multiple reviews internally, talked to the architects. We're working with Studio W on that. Uh we've gone through all the TRPA, the DSCA regulations, all of that. So, all the scope lines up with uh codes and compliance. Uh we're just at this final 10% uh to figure out uh the finances. >> All right. Thank you. >> Any other questions for us? >> Thank you. >> Great. So, thank you. We really appreciate the questions. Just a a quick final slide. Um we we showed you
136this back in January. We've got we've got three chat marks. We're halfway home. Um next obviously is board approval and contract execution. Um and then and then we get going. Um and and we're really excited about that. Um >> so thank you. >> Right. >> One last question. I'm sorry. Does T have you worked with TRPA in the past? >> We have not worked with TRPA specifically in the past, but we met with them a few months ago with the rest of the bond team. >> Yeah. >> And then we met with Shay and did a sitewalk with she and and Dave and a few other folks from the bond and from um other parts of the project. So, we're getting to know them. Uh which is which is nice. >> I bet they're happy.
137All right. I mean, but they're pleased that we're doing something like this. >> I think I think so. I think it's I think it sets the tone. um here here in the Tahoe basin. I know there was another uh relatively large uh solar array put in at the uh local utility. >> Yeah. South public utility districts going to be big and and that's it's helpful that they went through that process, right? And TRPA's gone through that with themact. Yeah. The south top PUD thing was a big deal. Yeah. >> We're not the first ones. >> Those are ground map now. So much more of a land coverage impact than than ours which are taller. So, and they're permeable and so was really happy to hear that. >> Oh, great. And I appreciate that there many
138of the lo many of the locations are going to provide um shade as well as protection from the weather. So, um that they'll be at all the school sites. I think there's going to be spaces where kids can gather, whether there's playground equipment under it or or just, you know, at the high school just maybe we put benches or something under it where there's just some place to hang out, not not have the sun or the um rain and snow or whatever. I I do think that as we um move into the next couple decades of uh increased heat, you know, heat is going to be an issue out on some of our playgrounds. So having the shade is going to be really um I think critical to have kids have a have a safe
139place to be and say and play and things. So thank you. >> Thank you guys. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next is records retention procedure based on the CASBO records retention manual. This is a presentation. >> Good evening, President Kemper and members of the board. Um, tonight you have uh for you the attachment, the CASBO records retention guide. In the last uh few years, we've received a lot of public records requests uh based on the you can correct how I'm going to I'm going to say it wrong. It's not the Freedom of Information. It's a >> California Public Records CP California >> Act. It's the C >> CP Yeah. California Public Records Act. Well, public record and with those requests we've had um we've investigated kind of what we've been keeping as
140far as records go and we are where we are in alignment with what we're legally required to keep and where we are sort of out of alignment. So, this is just an information for you that we're really trying to get um more on track with the recommendations of CASBO in particular for the financial records, but then moving forward to make sure that we're in alignment with with all of legal um because if we have a public records request um for something from 10 years ago and if we have it, we have to um provide it >> and we're not legally required to keep a lot of our documents. So, uh, with that, we do have a public records request right now for all of the accounts payable documents, including purchase orders, invoices for all of
1412425. So, we have um an employee kind of a temporary staff member working. Currently, she has completed uh I think the last time sheet I had was 65 hours in order to scan those to digital. So, it is a lot of human hours to digitize these records. And if we were to copy them, it would be exactly the same. So really looking at these uh records retention guide guidelines to help uh be more efficient in our processes, make sure that we're following the law and also to then move to more digital model. So um we've been able to get almost all of 2425 done. I think it's going to get done with after about a 100red hours of work is my gut feeling. Um and then those will all be digital. So then moving forward,
142we will not be keeping paper copies because we don't have to keep paper copies of the accounts payable. So really looking at how we can make things a lot more paperless too in my department and then moving that outwards to other departments. >> Uh Teresa and I are very much on the same page of we don't really like paper. So we try to eliminate it where we can. So, it's just something that we've really been uh hit hard with uh for since I've been in this role. So, trying to have it a little more streamlined and make sure that we're following the law and not overextending ourselves in a lot of ways, too. >> And how long um according to the CASPO records retention manual, how long are we supposed to hold on to everything?
143>> It depends what it is. Mhm. >> So like what about like >> um like you said invoices >> accounts payable is uh three years required. >> Okay. >> Uh four years is recommended. We've been keeping four paper. If it's digital we don't have to keep any paper. >> So then we can just actually eliminate after the three years is up. We can just delete >> file digital. Mhm. >> So, it is a lot. If we can get digital, it'll make things a lot easier, but we need to eliminate some of our paper storage. So, it'll be a process of I'm not going to have a staff member scan, you know, three years of accounts payable because it is really tedious. Um, like you might find one invoice that has eight staples in it. So,
144you have to remove all those staples so you can scan everything. It is extremely tedious and t the amount of time it's taken. we're doing this one year and then moving forward. So, it'll take us a few years to have everything be digital, but we'll get there before we know it. So, >> what you're saying is that moving forward, you're going to dig it digital as you're as you're go as you're creating the document, it's you're making it. I mean, and I know for the most part, a lot of that stuff is now digital, but >> u but just ma being more deliberate about the documents like as you're making storing it and how you're storing them. Yeah. >> Um >> Okay. Any other questions or comments? I I just I because I worked for
145the state of California for 33 years, I've been through a lot of these records requests and uh I would say that even though you know I think for us as board members and and uh you know and actually probably all district staff that even though a lot of our stuff is digital and we have a lot of emails and things like that, I mean I was talking to Dr. Cutler about um the reality is that when somebody asks for information, they're not just asking for say official district records or reports, they're often asking for anything affiliated with it, which includes emails. And I just want to say that uh >> messages >> and text messages, right? So our all of that is subject to um discovery and production. And even though you can say, "Well,
146it's all on my phone." It still takes because you you have to weed out like, "Okay, now I want to find those I've got 10,000 emails saved on my phone or something and uh I'm looking for 10 that are related to this subject matter." So, I would just encourage everyone to um you know, delete emails that you no longer need. You know, there's when I went through the I flipped through the 165 pages in the retention manual and there is a lot of things that have to be kept forever that are important documents like uh the human resource, you know, anything related to students, you know, special ed. There's a lot of things that are forever. So, I'm not we're not suggesting that we're going to delete anything or get rid of things that we're
147required to keep. Um but all the extraneous things that are in our email accounts um it would be good to get rid of and I know it's a difficult thing to keep up on but um there's no reason to keep uh documents and it's not because it's not because we're afraid of producing them. It's just that it's this timeconuming thing when somebody asks, you know, so um that's the reason to try to keep at it >> and >> on an annual basis we send things to be shredded that are past the the amount of time we have to keep them, >> right? >> There's a cost to that and every year that cost goes up because inflation. So, if we can stay on top of what things that we have, I mean, I currently in
148the what we refer to as the bond office in my uh wing of the building, >> there's probably 10 notebooks, binders from the last bond. >> Yeah. >> Because the notion was you have to keep it forever. >> You do. It doesn't have to be paper. >> Paper, right? >> I will find somebody else to scan those >> so that we can get rid of the binders. >> Paper. Yeah. >> Senior project. Maybe volunteer. We'll find someone. >> Good luck. Good luck. Bottom line is the uh with Yeah, it's timeconuming. I get it. All right. Well, thank you for um trying to get us on board with that. I appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Um >> All right. And then you're going to do summary of the fund our future campaign. I am >>
149exciting. And I see >> I see there's somebody in the audience who's really excited. >> This is more so exciting than records retention. Um, we're so excited to be here tonight to celebrate the incredible success of the fund our future campaign. Collecting these surveys is more than just a form. It's a vital effort that helps secure funding for the district and for and for our highest need students. As a district in declining enrollment, it's imperative that we maintain our unduplicated pupil percentage. So, that's our students. It's receive free or reduced lunch. Um, even though they're it's how they qualify. We have universal meals. It's it's confusing. I realize uh this was an all hands-on deck campaign that united every site, every department, and every part of our district community. Every everyone rolled up their sleeves,
150got creative, and worked together toward one shared goal, ensuring our schools receive the funding and support our students deserve. So, tonight, myself, Terresa Scowl, and Tammy Miller, the director of food services, here to present about Fund Our Future. I do have it. >> Oh, you have it? >> Yeah. >> Okay, perfect. Okay, I'm I'm back. >> Um So yeah, we're just kind of providing a little bit of a recap of what we did. This all started during our spring star site secretary meeting. I mentioned those. We bring all the secretaries together a couple times a year and we were all discussing the need to boost our completion rates for the income survey knowing it's worth a lot of money to us here in the district and work more cohesively. That's that conversation really sparked this
151project. I had mentioned Monica's um comment. We realized we needed to understand better what had held us back in the past and just as importantly corre gather everyone's creative ideas for making this campaign a success. So we met with each site to identify the barriers, collect suggestions, and ask what each team was willing to commit to. The the responses were overwhelmingly positive. Everyone was enthusiastic, collaborative, and full of great ideas. Principal Cindy Martinez suggested using a QR code to make access quicker and easier. Karen Holmes recommended removing the high higher income tiers so families felt more comfortable sharing their information and Jen Trescott suggested giving the campaign a catchy inviting name to make it stand out among other great ideas which was fund our future. Um each site created a comm a commitment plan for
152how it would reach our goal of 90% completion and we shared those commitments districtwide. The district office joined in creating a real accountability and strong teamwork across all sites. >> And you can see this slide, make sure the mic hit me up. >> Yeah. U this was the completion percentage for the form last year. So you can see Beiju was at 97% but which is great. Um and no other school was higher than 85. So our completion percentage last year was had something to be desired. Left something to >> Yeah. And it also put us, we need to get to 55% free and reduced and it put us at >> 4 54.5 >> 54.5 because we were so close. The state gave it to us, but we're on the cusp and very kind of not
153good. Um, so we decided to launch this campaign. Once we had all the commitments, we officially launched the fund our future campaign. We built a complete marketing plan. Kelly designed the bright the bright pink t-shirts everyone loved except Kelly. She doesn't like pink. So the campaign team would easily we we did this so the campaign team would be e easily spotted at the school events and during the campaign we wore t-shirts on Fridays for fund our future Friday. Uh the board members of the board district office staff and site teams all worked together supporting one another whenever help was needed. It was truly a united effort. On the communication side we presented the plan to the leadership team and trained our star site secretaries in August with all custom materials. A big thanks goes to
154Scott Ramirez who made sure families could complete the form easily on Chromebooks and iPhones, removing one more barrier to participation. Each week, Jennifer Eert and I sent out updated list of families who had completed the survey. This helped each site focus on the outreach of the families who still needed to participate. Um, for example, as of today, Sierra House h only had 12 families left that had to complete the form, and the team there said that they were amazed that they had reached that level of participation. I don't think they've ever reached that before. Um, weekly, Kelly created the chart showing each site's completion rate. And that visual, that simple visual was a huge motivator. It sparked a sense of friendly competition among the sites. Everybody wanted to see their numbers climb higher each week.
155um that regular tracking kept the campaign active, fun, and focused with each site cheering each other on. >> Okay. So, um on the charts when they were below, I think 70%, I had them color coded as red. So, once they got above 70, then it was yellow. Then I felt bad they were staying yellow for so long. So, then I would change it to like a darker yellow, like you're getting closer. Uh but you can see after the first week almost all the schools are in red and by the end of the campaign which is October one we have to have them all submitted basically. Um almost every school site is green and even elevated amount to lack. They're really small schools, so it is difficult for them to meet that. But the last slide,
156there'll be a comparison between last year and this year. And you'll you'll see they um beyond the incredible funding results, this campaign became a truly powerful team building experience across our district. We um had a goal that we couldn't achieve without everybody's collaboration, and that's precisely what we saw in action. The district office led the effort, but partnered closely with each site to find creative solutions and offer hands-on help. Staff across staff across departments said how much they enjoyed helping and felt appreciated. This campaign showed what's possible when every site in the district office come together around a shared goal. As you can see from the chart, we accomplished something truly remarkable together. We're proud to celebrate every site that reached or exceeded their 90% completion goal. Here's a photo up at the very top
157there of today's um celebration with Sierra House School uh where the team came together to celebrate their success. >> You have any questions? I really like that. Um, the parents got excited when they said, "Oh, I get half off my Chromebook insurance if if I just do this thing." That was a, you know, just giving those little incentives. Good idea. >> And over the years, I've never seen this kind of participation. And we try and try and try and get them to understand. And I think the the big thing was what Karen Holmes came up with getting rid of the how much do you make as in are you just over this limit which is a lot less personal >> you know >> oh yeah people don't want to yeah pick a a number or
158some r smaller range right well that was smart yeah because we've been doing the Chromebook insurance thing and that wasn't getting it but it's really just the outreach I think getting you know just >> pummeling families or something >> like Justin and Jen met with everybody and they came up with ideas and those ideas they kind of, you know, there was more stuff that we changed. >> You know, we didn't mention all of it, but I think that all came together and then >> I think it made everybody go, "Oh, this is going to work." Because they were part of it and they, you know, we took their input, right? So, so it was the plan >> and it's the plan to do the basically the exact same thing next year now that you've got
159this >> these steps in place. >> I don't know. Did we go together or make I went and did what I call afteraction reviews. Was that did anybody go with me? I can't remember. Um, so I went to the sites and I talked to the people that put it on and said, "What can we do better?" You know, what was planned? What didn't happen? Why didn't it happen? And so we have a plan to improve on it. >> Um, but yeah, I don't know. I think we're all going to do it. Right. >> I I think it's nice to have everybody's feedback >> and they feel like they're a part of it, not just us telling them to do this task and why we're doing it. >> Right. And I think the part of the
160reason it was so successful is that it really wasn't top down. It was really a collaborative effort. um going having Teresa go and Tammy go to the school sites to say what have been the barriers and hearing from them uh the staff so that we can help break those barriers down and then also providing a lot of support. Um I had a day where there was no one in my department but me because everyone was over helping at the middle school and there was a little grumbling at first. They all came back so happy and excited that they were able to help that they actually asked about helping next year. And Barbara Kula, my assistant, is retiring next month. And we've already informed her that she can do that as part of her retirement. And
161she was excited. So, she was really happy to wear the pink shirt. She's also the other one that was >> Okay. So, what color are we going next year? >> I don't know if we can buy new t-shirts every year. I think we might have to do pink for a couple years. It was really an incredible um effort in collaboration. I think we were all really surprised. Teresa, Tammy and I have talked a lot about this um after the fact like the everybody really got on board. >> Um and really looking at the data of where they were last year, I think that was the first eye opener because uh Cindy Martinez was like I was only in the 70s. >> I I will beat that. So, they got very competitive with their own numbers
162as well, which is great. And on this slide, you can see everybody really surpassed um Beij is the only one, but they were at 97. Last year, they're at 96. >> Yeah, >> it's a amount of a couple kids. So, >> Yeah. Jen Prescott, she's like, I'm making phone calls. Like, she could not be under 90%. And we thought the high school and the middle school really be hard to get up to 90% because of, >> you know, parents start to not be quite as involved in things, you know. But, good job. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Well, kudos to everybody. I mean, to you guys sort of spearheaded it, but obviously just kudos to all all the staff that got involved. I mean, that's incredible. >> Well, I have to thank Tammy because I was
163there at Sierra House helping open house and oh my gosh, you're a whiz with those computers. Thank you so much. We They couldn't pass go until they signed up, right? >> Their their child's schedule. >> Yeah, that's it was really smart. >> Perfect. was really smart. Yeah. >> Yeah. I was going to say we did the same thing and it worked really well. The Chromebooks were all set up. The parents were there. We were getting it done. It was awesome. >> That's so great. >> And now I know Teresa was going out of her skin when you first I was in your office when those reports the numbers were coming in and you're just oh my goodness. She was elevated off the floor. It was >> like have you created the charts yet? I'm like
164I got the reports 10 minutes ago. No, like this does take a little time like oh my god. enthusiastic >> and then our our result and our result is now 55 and a half% >> 56% 56% >> 56 so it is an increase which is good um and again we've kind of talked about we are we've declined pretty significantly from the June till now in our enrollment so I mean I think on average it's almost 180 students so I really need to look at a hard number and then um >> from both beginning to end we're about 3,400 >> is there a chance that the and does every year the um medium income go up a little like inflation is accounted for or whatever. In other words, because I know there was some discussion about
165that some of the families we lost might have been on the poor end and so then you know our I mean it's it's a I mean obviously if if people are no longer are in poverty great you know if that number if we're not at 55% but um I'm just thinking that you know that hopefully that number that we're measured against is going up right because of inflation >> every year it goes up >> yeah every year it goes up yeah new income scale. Yeah. >> Government that we have to put in there and that's how we qualify everybody. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you guys. >> We really appreciate all your work. >> Thank you so much. >> Congratulations. >> All right. And we are now at agenda item 14, which
166is the consent agenda. And it's an action item. And do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Do I have a second? >> I will second. Okay. I have a motion by um trustee Kamacho and a second by trustee Mansfield >> to approve the consent agenda. All those in favor say I. >> I. And those opposed say nay. Okay. Motion approves. And um item 15, items for consideration of future board meeting. Any items that uh anyone thinks we should have on a future board meeting that's not already scheduled? Okay, seeing none. And then um finally we will adjourn at 8:18 p.m. >> Thank you everybody. Appreciate it.