May 22, 2025 - Board Meeting

001Okay. All right. I'd like to bring this meeting to order of the regular meeting of the board of education on May 22nd, 2025 at 6:00. Um, if you are planning to attend via YouTube and like to comment, please send your comment in writing to [email protected] before 4:00 on the meeting date and your comment will be read into the record. That's just in case in the future you can't attend, you can submit written comments. All right, I'm going to uh first item is call or order. Pledge of allegiance. Miss uh Trusty Kamacho, will you lead us in the pledge? Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Yeah. All right. Uh Miss Scow, will

002you take the roll call? Trusty Mansfield present. Trusty Kamacho present. Trusty Anderson here. Trusty Heatherton and President Kemper here. Present. All right. Uh item number two is adopt the agenda. Do I have a motion to adopt the agenda? Just one note before the adoption of the agenda. After our original posting, we did add an agenda item to the agenda and that is specific to our student celebration South High School Ally Club. Um, we did push that all out as a notice to to the community as well. Just wanted was after our original posting. Yes. Thank you. All right. All right. A motion. I'll make a motion to approve the amended agenda. I'll second. All right. I have a motion to approve by Trustee Kamacho and a second by Trustee Mansfield. All in favor say I.

003I. All opposed. All right. All right. The agenda is adopted and uh next we have item number three which is a public hearing for the special education local plan area. Yes. So we we have a public hearing. Later in the agenda we'll have an a a discussion item regarding the supple local plan. So we just ask that you open the public hearing um and announce the time. All right. See if there's anybody that's here to speak on that. All right. We're opening the hearing at 6:02 p.m. Do we have any public comments? Anybody here specifically for the public hearing on the SULPA plan? Okay. See none. All right. We'll move on to item number. We have to close it. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm trusting Mansfield remembers how to do this better than I do. I'm

004going to close the uh public hearing at 602. And uh and I know we have later on in the agenda we will hear information and and have the opportunity to discuss it if we'd like. So, um, next we have item 4, a board member reports. Do I have any board member reports? Trusty Kamacho. Thank you, President Kemper. I wanted to thank the um Lake Tahoe Education Foundation for a just over-the-top celebration last week for um our celebration of education and then beforehand we had the Hall of Distinction ceremony and it was just really really great. these all all the individuals were so uh so good to see them. They've all just done so much for our community. Um and that was just great. Thank you. And also I'd like to um say how humbled I

005was to go to staff appreciation. Thank everybody. They just, you know, all year long they do something. So we walk in for, you know, we have just a very short time, but um it was great seeing so many people the different schools. And then lastly, I'm going to do a plug because senior projects are next week and I I talked to Frank Kovac this morning and he said that they're still looking for judges. So, it's really easy to do nowadays. So, if you have any desire to do that, um please reach out to Frank. You want me to go? Um, I also really enjoyed the Lake Towed Foundation and all that they do and um, their newest thing. Instead of giving little grants out to teachers that they used to do, now they are trying

006to give scholarships for local people to get their teaching credentials so we can have homegrown teachers, which you know, as we get older and retire, we're going to need the new young blood. So, I'm excited for that. And plus seeing everybody in the celebration and hall of distinction, that was wonderful. I also spent a day on last week on um hearing the LTUSD LLB proposal evaluation. So we went through lots of them and narrowed it down to three. And so the interviews were I believe today, yesterday or today. And um I cannot do the project the senior projects this year because I'm going to be I running the spring fling at Sierra House and overlap just a little bit but enough that I can't do it. But that's it. Thank you. That's the end. I

007was very moved by the uh uh events of around the hall of distinction uh this last week. Um all all uh all people inducted were uh highly highly qualified for for that honor and uh three of them are are former colleagues of mine at the high school. It was it was a very cool thing. Um and really pulling together uh from the community uh in favor of the community. I was I was very impressed. Thank you. And um just because it was really a spectacular event, the induction the induction ceremony of these distinguished uh individuals and I am just going to say their names because I think it's important to say their names. Uh Kathy Haven for distinguished service. uh Dr. Greg Bergner. These two have volunteered a lot in our uh community and with

008our students. And then the retired employees to Terasita Tibbitz as we all know as Terry uh Karen Vaughn and Tom Orlich. And then a distinguished alumni alumnist was Jared Hos. And um what I really want to say thank you is to our in addition to the Lake Ed Foundation for putting the event on our teachers David Jones um who brought his culinary students who did a fabulous job of feeding the crowd and it was really great to meet all the students and talk to them about their food prep. Uh Jordan Beiri had the jazz band playing on the deck and um Alyssa Little had her award-winning choir singing and Ethan Nvin brought some of his actors from uh the Little Shop of Horrors and they sing and it was really incredible. I really felt like

009it deserved the new uh best in Tahoe uh community event. I just want to say so um just thank you to the the students and the staff that really made made that special. It was it was incredible. So, um, with that, we now have the, um, student board member report, and Mia Valenuela is here. Oh, hi everyone. So, nice to see you here. I was just looking at my at the whiteboard in my class trying to figure out how to word this in a way that's not a little sad, but it is my last board meeting, so I am graduating soon. And I just never thought that this day would happen. I've been in the district for all 13 years and it's been a wonderful experience, but to think that it's so soon now makes

010me a little little sad, but it's okay. Uh I mean, there's a lot of events that seemed so out of reach just a couple months ago, but they're here now. like we were talking about senior project prom. Then we have sports where all of our high school teams did super well or are currently in um states as well as senior awards that's coming on. But one of my most favorite events that we are have now coming up is actually having graduating seniors walk through the elementary school. So, we're super excited for all of us going to visit you guys. But I just mean just as my last report, I never imagined that I would be able to sit in a se in a seat like this. I remember being super shy when I was little.

011But after a lot of work and resilience, I I really am so appreciative for all the hard work that you guys have also entrusted both staff, students, board members, Dr. Culler, and just everybody. you guys have been so wonderful in helping me shape the narrative for um students like me. I mean, first generation, lowincome, you know, through marginalized communities in general. So, I'm super appreciative and I hope that this is awesome. So, yay. Thank you. You've been a really great addition to our board and it's really been nice to have you. you really have just done an excellent job of reminding us what's important and how to take care of our students and it's really been it's been really great to have you here. Okay, so with that uh Dr. Cutler, I do have to

012change this gender around because following me is just so difficult. members of the boards, every folks, everyone here. I just so appreciate uh all that you've already shared um and specifically excited about the events that we had last week at the uh in Hall of Distinction um second annual right second year we're doing this and then Lake Tahoe Ed Foundation celebration of education. I think back um having a conversation with Chris Campion um I think it was at the end of during my second year that we really need wanted to start looking at doing these things and and it's really come to fruition and I can't thank Lad Foundation enough for their efforts. I do want to give a shout out to Teresa sitting next to me. Really the event last Thursday. Um she really

013organizes all that happens to make that happen. And I specifically want to call this out because I want to encourage folks to to consider nominating people for next year's Hall of Distinction. Um Teresa will put out in September that nominations are open. We're looking for former uh uh students that graduated from our district that um have done special things while they were here as well as since they've left and and by the rules of the Hall of Distinction they've been out of high school for 10 years. Um it's former employees, folks that while they were here as a as an employee did just amazing things for for our children, but then continue to do that after. And then then the the last piece the last se um group is the distinguished service volunteerism folks that

014not necessarily graduates of our program or former employees but that just continue to make our district a special place and and it is just incredible how it's come together over the last two years. And I so appreciate the board and the and the board's decision. Um I think that was the fall of 23 when we made the decision to finally move forward with the Hall of Distinction after we'd looked at several kind of concepts with it. And it really was a special night and I just thank you all of you for for being here, being part of it. Um and and Teresa, thank you for all the efforts to make it happen. I I was thinking um I I got really nervous because I think want to be such a special occasion as we um

015unveil the the inductees. Um but yes, well, we want to make it really short so we get out to the event out at the at the golf course. Um, but I do want to know you everybody to know if you go out here right outside this wall right here is the is in essence the hall and it has all of the inductees from the last two years posted and so if you haven't seen that take a look. Um, and then the plaque that's right up here who has Wendy David's name on it. Um, every inductee got a plaque like that and then we go put the plaque out in the area that they most served. So, for example, Wendy David was a longtime board member and so that's just a part of it and just

016wanted you guys to be aware of that and really excited about it and thank you for those those words. Um, I want to tell you, uh, Mia is absolutely incredible. I, you know, again, I've said following Scott or Mia after they spoke. Mia is absolutely incredible and I had the opportunity sitting next to Trusty Kamacho yesterday at the Soptimus lunchon for their scholarships. Um, Mia was a special recognition. They provided her four years of $1,000 a year. Uh and and and you know what what's so interesting like when she talks about being shy, she is such an incredible speaker and and yesterday just gave thanks to everybody that's helped and ser her and um we're just so proud of you. We will be recognizing me and Scott um you know it's going to be brief

017because they're going to be also getting ready for graduation the next day at our June 12th meeting. So we will recognize them formally at the June 12th meeting. So, just uh we look forward to that. Um, you know, I'm already going long on mine, so let me just finish up bit briefly. Um, I want to uh do a shout out to for our partnership with Lake Tall Community College. Last Friday, we had the discovery night, our high school science teachers working with the college, and it was incredible. We I walked into the middle school multi-purpose room. I said, "Oh my gosh, look at all of these community members, families, children just just engaging in science and fun things about science." And and so really appreciate that our we get together with our college and do

018that. And speaking of another collaboration with our college, next Friday morning is the gift of literacy. It's a collaborative effort between us and the college and it's at the college for um our elementary uh first grade, right? Yeah. First grade students. So, just wanted to let you shout that and just just put on your calendars. We have a lot happening. Senior awards night on the 4th. I'm so excited about senior awards night and we got open elementary open house on the 5th. All in front of the end of the year graduations and ceremonies. So, all kinds of things. I know. Thank you for that and I appreciate everything. Thank you. Okay. She Sorry, my I didn't have my microphone on. Employee Association reports are next. Do we have um folks from the employee association? Uh

019Jody. Jody Dear from STA. STA. All right. Welcome. Good evening board, Dr. Cutler, and uh people from the public that are here tonight. My name is Jody Dayberry, and I'm here representing the South Tahoe Educators Association. First, I have a request. I respectfully request that we as a district take the time to honor the indigenous people of Lake Tahoe. While I'm very proud to see that we do recognize them in print, I think it's very important that we start to say their names out loud. The Wu people. The Lake Tahoe Unified School District sits on the Aboriginal homelands of the Woouo tribe of Nevada and California and is committed to supporting the Wo tribe in educating students and the larger South Lake Tahoe community about their history and homelands. This is more important than ever

020as we see changes that are coming down from the federal government. I believe as a community, as a district, and an individual, it is our duty to recognize the Wu people. So, if you all could say Washu people, Wu, Wu people, and recognize their ancestral homelands. Thank you. Um, and I also wanted to talk about our community. Our community is one of diversity from state line through the county lines. And as a district, we have the duty to make sure we celebrate all the people in Lake Tahoe, especially the students. We have a beautiful mission statement. Cultivating a collaborative, nurturing environment which embraces diversity, promotes equity, and develops confident lifeblock learners resulting in both academic excellence, civic responsibility, and emotional and physical wellness. I do believe and I was part of writing this many many

021years ago and when we took this on and it is more important than ever as a community to uplift and uphold everybody. And lastly, I want to say congratulations our graduating seniors. You did it. and our staff, both CSEA and SDA members that have decided to take on the next chapter of their life. We have many, many fine people that have given so much to this district. It is a time of celebration and renewal and a thank you board, Dr. Cutler for recognizing them. Thank you, Miss Deberry. And very nice. And we have uh and we have Miss Santana. Bernardet Santana from CSEA. CSCA. Welcome. Good evening, President Keer, board members, Dr. Cutler. I too want to say thank you to the Lake Tahoe Ed Foundation for the wonderful celebration, the inclusive celebration. I mean

022all the way around it was just a fantastic evening. Also I want to say thank you for all the recognition the staff recognition at all our school sites. I know our employees and staff very much appreciate it and I think it's very motivating and they've all been involved so much with so many students and this time of year it just makes it all the more sweet. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And now we moving on to item 4 E which is public comment. This is for public comment for any items that are not on the agenda. Do we have any public comment? We didn't have anybody submit public comment tonight. Um, is there anybody in the audience that uh wanted to speak on public comment tonight? I don't see any. All right. Then we're moving

023on to item five, which is our favorite item, student celebration. And tonight we have the honor and pleasure of having uh Miss Brighty Hidle and the South Tahoe High School Ally Club presentation anniversary party. No, it's not a part of Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I can lift it. You can lift it. I don't need to. You can hear. Fine. Okay. And this little clicker just goes. I think Teresa will get it up and then be able to click it. There we go. That's it. Okay, great. And then it will just go. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, hi. Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. Um, usually I'm not this kind, so I'm gonna be Hi. Thanks so much, Steph. Um, but thank you very much. I appreciate the time. I appreciate you squeezing me

024into the agenda at the last minute. Um, I definitely wanted to be here the last few months, but um, as we're all painfully aware, the first 100 days or so of the Trump administration have kept us all on our toes. and namely uh a few populations at the high school and my job as the ally adviser has been to help our LGBT plus students navigate the chaos. So the last 100 days instead of celebrating we have been learning the difference between an executive order and a law discussing the consequences of Nevada banning transgender athletes and practicing calling representative Kylie to express our concerns about him vote the way he's been voting. So um but we are uh also celebrating. So tonight, I'm so happy to be here to celebrate 20 years of the Ally Club.

025Um, I want to say thank you to Lake Tahoe Unified School District. You have been unwavering, truly unwavering in your support of this club for 20 years. Um, I want to say thank you to Lake Tahoe Community College for also welcoming our students after they graduate. I want to say thank you to our local STA and CSEA unions and California Teachers Association for providing resources and um trainings to all of us over the years. It's been um we are we are a special group and I've been to enough trainings to know that Lake Tahoe Unified has been ahead of the curve for a very very long time and I am very proud of us. So, thank you. Um, those of you who don't know the story of Ally, it started with a suicide note in

0262005. And once I made sure that student was safe and called home and kind of gathered myself, I went home and I Googled what to do. How do you help kids who are being harassed um for their sexuality, who are being bullied? And what I found at the time were gay and straight alliances. um they're now called gender sexuality alliances, but I um I quickly kind of grabbed a couple kids who had lunch in my room every day and we started the club and the first meeting we had there were over a hundred staff, students, and community members there. You could barely get into my classroom. And I thought, man, we're on to something. This is good. This is good. Um I'd like to recognize our first presidents, Alex Boyer and Jade Cppel. very very

027brave brave 15-year-olds who shouldered a lot of hate and intolerance and ignorance from um a staff and students who were trying to figure out what they thought about it all. And we were retraining, we were relearning, and we were re-educating and reminding people how to be human kindness, right? Um we then had uh we've had so many wonderfully brave student leaders over the years. Um, and I have their names up there projected and I just can't even tell you how much strength it takes from them and their families to lead Ally over the years. So, thank you so much. Um, I want to say thank you to the amazing principles who have again consistently and unwaveringly been supportive of this club. Ivonne Larson namely was the principal when I started Ally and I know she

028fielded a lot of phone calls that she never transferred to me and I appreciate her for taking those calls and explaining to people why Ally needed to exist on our campus. I want to thank also John Simmons at the middle school for allowing Ally Jr. to exist there. Um it took it was about 10 years of hearing no that it wasn't appropriate for middle school and John said yes it is and I'm I'm forever grateful for that. Um when we look forward here I want to say thank you again to Lake Tahoe Unified. Say thank you to uh Lake Tahoe Community College for starting Friends of Ally. when our seniors were graduating, it took about two years and friends of ally came came about um with the help of Chris Sidell and Lisa Schaefer at

029the college and it still exists and I'm thankful for that. Ally Jr. uh again John Simmons and the amazing Kim Vento for starting that club. She also had the same experience I did where so many kids were ready for that club and they presented it at a school assembly and it was something beautiful to see. So, I thank Kim for for partnering with that. Um, this is a slide here of Alex Boyer. Um, I I know that Jade Cppel is doing really well in her life and she's worked at O magazine among things and I'm so proud of her and I'm so grateful. Alex and I have maintained our friendship over the years and he's been um he was the first out student body president at Sonoma State. Then his goal was to go on

030to Washington DC and to live you know in his truth in DC. Um he worked for US Senator Chris Coons who's um there in that picture and who officiated his wedding to Scott six years ago. Um you can see he keeps some good company with Governor Walls and uh Hillary Clinton. So Alex is doing fine. He's doing great. Um, I also want to say, uh, I'm very proud of some of the steps that Ally has taken over the years. 13 years ago, uh, we elected a homecoming king and queen, same-sex couple. Kyle wanted to be queen, by the way. So, that was great. You got a tiara. Uh, we also had two prom queens who were out at the time. And if you know anything about high school, representation matters. And it matters for kids

031to see that that's possible. and um also took kids um every year for about six or seven years to UNR. Uh they had a prom there for LGBT plus students and Ally was able to fund that and pay for tickets and take people to dinner. We paid for dinner. We paid for their formal wear. Um and we had kids coming who weren't ever allowed to go to their or didn't feel comfortable going to their proms when they were younger. Um so we had a wide variety of ages. I want to thank the staff obviously at all of our schools for sure. The high school, we have the most allied group right now, ever. It's incredible. You can't walk through a classroom without seeing a sign. Um, we know there's always work to do. We know

032we can get better, but it's the best I've ever seen in in terms of allies. And I know at the middle school it's it's a wonderful safe space. And I appreciate at the elementary schools as well, making space for safe space posters, having t-shirts, and just having kids know they're safe and they belong. They belong. Um, the smiles really say everything. Um, Ally has not always been easy. Sometimes Ally has been massive. Um, sometimes Ally has been a hundred kids and sometimes it's been me. But I counted the other day about 600 lunches I've had with myself and other kids at Ally over 20 years. Um, and we know there's a lot of kids who don't come to Ally, and that's okay, too. I love that they don't need it. I love they have other

033teachers they can go to. Uh, I don't want to be the only place they can eat lunch, and I'm definitely not. My hope is someday I can shut the door because nobody shows up. It's not going to be for a while though. Um I want to thank um the people who have financially supported Ally over the years. Joy Rothschild um a great friend to Ally in the upper left corner there. When Joy passed away, she left money in her will to Mount Tac and to Ally. Um we also love Snow Globe, the No Globers. Uh, Snow Globe were great. They were great allies us lots and lots of money over the years and allowing us to volunteer. Um, also again um Barton Health Foundation also giving us money for trainings and having uh human rights

034campaign come and do welcoming schools training. PG&E has also given some really wonderful scholarships to our ally presidents over the years. Um, and that matters and that really helps. Uh, also proudly this is Samir JS. Samir is a recent graduate from Stanford. Uh Samir is not a student at uh in Lake Tal Unified School District. I met Samir through um the time to thrive conference in Washington DC that um STEA partnered with the high school and um and sent me and David Jones to several years ago. uh meeting Samir. Uh Samir wrote a book called Read This Save Lives and featured Ally in one of the chapters and um it's been a best-selling handbook for educators over the years. So, I'm excited about that. Um next two weeks, June 5th is a Thursday, you'll find

035us always in B9 at lunch. We're having our annual um we're having a pride celebration that day. We're also going to be celebrating our 20th uh birthday club or birthday party for the ally club. Um I want to say a very special thank you to again to this district. A few a couple months ago I I um I listened online as you passed that really important resolution to protect our students and you painstakingly took the time to really consider language for our transgender students. And I cannot tell you how much it matters. And I cannot tell you going forward that it's important. And I feel like where we are right now, you know, we were making such great progress and we've we've slid backwards a bit in the last several years, um, 10 years really,

036but this place we live is special. what we do for these kids matters. Um, these shirts that we have for Ally have, you know, kindness and inclusion and you have diversity, you have equity. We have to stand by that with everything we have because as Ally started with a suicide note, lives are on the line and I see it every day. lives are on the line. And I will tell you if I kn if I if I if I lose another kid, I have lost so many students to various things over the years. 90 I'm at I'm at now 90 kids I've lost. If I lose a student, an LGBT plus student to some suicide because of all of this going on, I will I will walk out the door and never come back. and

037I need to know that we all the kids have all of us and so they do and they know it and I appreciate you so much. So, I hope you'll consider joining us June 5th. And if not, I just thank you so much for everything you've given for 20 years. You make us all cry. Brighty, thank you so much. Um, I do want all our students to know that we've got their backs and um, you know, we do we really do want to um, keep them safe, you know. So, I appreciate all that you've done and and I do too, but I also want to know B9 is the room lunchtime. What time is lunchtime? You know, we'll take we'll make sure we get invitation to but what we'll do is we'll get an invitation

038to the board so they know exact location at time if you work get there. Okay. That would be fun. Thank you. Yeah. I just wanted to say thank you so much, Miss Haido, because I've I've seen your impact throughout the years on even with my uh high school experience. I've seen you guys wear those ally shirts like every Wednesday and I've seen all that you put, all the effort that you've done for the students and I I can't be like any more appreciative. Like it's so wonderful. So, thank you so much. Great. Thank you. Um, let's see. We now have our moving on to item six, which is educational services. Single focus is from the Myers Elementary School. Joel, we want to we all just want to like share stories instead. I could talk about

039president camper trustees. Please welcome Mr. Dal and his team to uh give a brief present. He's gonna do the right, but I know I I know that Joel wants to say something because he was at the high school. Mhm. Yes. And Oh, yeah. microphone. I went I was gonna move it back down where it was. I went to that first meeting because I I was afraid there wasn't going to be anybody there to support Friday. And I opened the door and like she said there was a hundred people there. So that was awesome. Amazing. Good job. Good. Thanks for Thank you for coming and for being supportive. Appreciate it. Wonderful. Uh, President Keer, board of education, Dr. Cutler, and the brains, Teresa. Um, I mean, the brains, brains, the brains. Um, I'm here to present

040uh or give an update on our single focus. And I think you've all everybody that's here has been to see our single focus in action on our Wednesdays. and we have one coming up next Wednesday. So, our single focus uh continues to be building and nurturing meaningful relationships and safety of our students. Uh we're emphasizing mutual support and high expectations uh both academically and socially among our students, our families, and our staff. Um so I want to start out by talking about our pause tickets. Um this identifies our four important behaviors uh which are practice safety, act responsibly, work together and show respect. So this kind of encompasses everything we do in the classroom, out of the classroom, outside. Um the tickets are earned daily and are tied to our character trait uh awards assemblies

041and you've seen those awards assemblies and we draw the names and then the students get an award for uh the their great behavior. Um this system helps build positive school culture and encourages consistent respectful behavior. um two weeks ago, a month ago, I can't remember, we had our kindness club here uh to present to everybody. And our kindness club, like they told you, they kick off our assemblies with a quote and a cheer. Uh they recognize pause winners, model behavior by sitting with the younger kids, uh lead schoolwide kindness projects, and support events like random acts of kindness week. Even though we do it all year, we celebrate it for that week. And then um they serve as pure bu pe pure buddies uh for the little kids during recess and and some reading times.

042Our character traits uh each month we focus on a new trait like respect, growth mindset, problem solving, acceptance, and more. This month's theme is integrity. Uh, and like I said, feel free to come by next Wednesday at 12:30 and we have our assembly. Students from every grade and class are recognized monthly and uh, this helps promote social emotional learning and positive behavior schoolwide. I don't think it's going to work. Um, we have a school song and if you've been there, you've heard the song. I was hoping it was going to work on here, but it doesn't look like it is. Um, Elizabeth, I'll leave the singing to Tahoe Valley, Mr. Harnett. Um, so written by our our our own aid, Elizabeth Meliss. Um, it's sung at the assemblies to reinforce our character values. And then

043it says, "Play the song, but I don't think it's going to work." Community outreach. Um, highlights include fundraisers for the fire victims, uh, donations to live violence free. Um we do every year take the tags for the the holiday tree so that we can make sure that those kids have presents. Uh we collect money and then teachers go and do the shopping. Um this instills empathy and civic responsibility in our students through realworld action. Elorado County Sheriff's officers come and hang out with our students about once a month. Um, and they'll they'll stay if they can. They stay for the entire day. Um, they go to lunch with them, they go to recess with them, they'll play basketball, and they'll walk through the classes. And we don't want our students scared of the police, so

044they're there, you know, to help. Uh, and then bread and broth. We, um, we take, um, one of those Mondays every year for bread and broth, and the staff goes down and does uh, serves food to our community. Uh, communications with families. Uh, so we have our weekly newsletter, the s'mores, which hopefully you all get. If you don't, make sure Dr. Reer knows. Um, and we have an active social media site to keep families informed and involved. I'll tell you though, we went to Yuseity last week for three days and we kids had no um well they weren't supposed to have phones etc. So that was hard for the parents. So we would upload something uh in the evenings if we had enough service and um and uh let them know that we were still

045alive. Uh this transparent communication helps support our relationship building with our families. Our PTA partnership uh our PTA brings joy to the community uh and to our schools. We have dress up days, we have spirit days, we have family events and they support a lot of what we do in the classroom. They give the teachers a certain amount of money to buy books or whatever they want to support the kids in their classroom. Um, and these activities boost family engagement and student morale. Uh, how is our single focus affecting our achievement? Um, our ELA scores rose from 68 to 75, which is good indicator of of growth. Our math did dip slightly, but we're still above the state average. Our science scores are almost double the state average. And why this matters is the strong

046scores link uh to college readiness if they're going to go to college or work readiness. Uh less remediation and long-term success. These are our I Ready scores uh from 23 24. So the top is in the fall, the bottom is in the spring. And I know that you know this, but I'm going to say it anyway. those I Ready scores like um the spring ones up there have a lot of yellow and and red. Remember those are end of the year standards. So they're being tested at the beginning of the year on the end of the year standards. Um so this is 2324 for math. You can see the gains they made there. And then 2425. We we haven't done the the spring ones yet. That'll be uh in the next week or so since

047we only have three weeks left. Um the so that's the fall and then the winter. Um so still some some great growth there. And then the math one. Uh our attendance um our attendance uh has improved from last year to this year. Not a whole lot 7% but we're over 95. Um and if you look at student days in school that equates to 500 additional days of learning um which is almost three school years. So strong attendance is stronger learning, better engagement and more money. Thank you. This is an information item only. Any questions or do you have any questions for Dr. Rita? Uh we're hoping you're gonna I have a question. Are you going to be back next year as principal? No, I maybe don't want to answer that question, but no, the work

048as of right now, yes. Okay, excellent. Thank you. And it looks like Yeah, things are going well there. And I thank you for bringing the uh this year's data uh to the presentation. So, I appreciate it. I'm so impressed with you guys with your test scores with the kindness club. And I've been trying to get out on Wednesdays, but I do this spring fling at Sierra House right at 1:25. We don't need you next Wednesday. So, feel free to So, I'll be there. I'll I'll try to be there at 12:30 and I have to leave like at 1:00. But, well, we'll be done just about 1:00 because the kids leave. They leave because it's a short day. Um, collaboration day, right? But don't they leave at like 1:25 or do they leave at is Myers

049a different time? No, we try to get them back to their classes right around. So, it's it's about a half an hour. Okay. Yeah, I'll try. Thank you. Anything else? Thank you. Right. Thank you. All right. Thank you, M. Thanks. All right. Our next item is the single focus plan from Tahoe Valley. And uh I really noticed that. Thank you all the staff that has arrived. I'm sorry the staff was not there from Myers. It's nice to see you have a big apologize. I thought this was a great time for a staff meeting. Yeah. Well, fantastic. Hi guys. It's really great to see all the staff here for sure. Every grade represented it looks like. And and then some. Yes. And then some. Do I just go? All right. President Keer, members of the board,

050Dr. Cutler, good evening. I'm Pat Harnett, principal of Tahoe Valley. I never get tired of saying that. and we are thrilled to be here today to present our accomplishments during our first single focus over the past three years and our plans for our second single focus over the next three years. We have cobbled together a modern research-based curriculum that teaches students to think mathematically and gain deep understanding of concepts paired with fundamentally sound reading development practices that explore phonics, decoding, comprehension, and writing based on what students have read. These are the basis of what you're going to hear about this evening. Students get to see and experience the interreationship of reading and writing as well as the interconnectedness of mathematical ideas. Reading, thinking, calculating, analyzing, writing, and sharing our student activities found in our classrooms

051daily. There we go. To set the table for our conversation, I'm going to share with you our I Ready data for the past two years, as well as last year's CASP data. As you can see with our first assessment in the fall of 2023 and our second assessment, these are both in math on this slide. The following winter, we made huge growth. You can see that and this is a consistent se theme through all the slides. You're going to see that as we progress through the year, the red decreases and the green increases across the board. And as you can see on this slide, we continue to improve. We continue to grow. Um and this year, like last year, we expect our third assessment, which we'll give in a few weeks, uh no, I'm sorry,

052which we give starting on Tuesday. Um that we expect further growth to continue. These are our uh oh, no, that's right. Um these are our reading slides and as you can see our growth continues and the trend continues this year uh as well. Uh we again expect to see growth in our third assessment. The result of our work with I Ready, monitoring student progress, working with students on their skills, data meetings, interventions, classroom instruction, and using our collaboration time and staff meetings on Wednesday afternoons to continue to improve and refine our instructional practices to help our students gain the best education possible. The results of these labors are shown in our CASP scores there. And you can see that we jumped 10% in English language arts, 5% in our math scores, and eight in our

053science. Uh this is all thanks to the effort and work of our staff and the effort and work of our students as we all continue to communicate and continue our efforts on their behalf. I'm I get to step aside now. Um our teaching professionals will go into detail about what we have done and what we will be doing. They will introduce themselves, but please know I am grateful to be part of the Tahoe Valley team. That's why it is a great time to be at Tahoe Valley. Yeah, just use the right arrow. You want me I can do that. You just told me I have my next slide right now. Hi, I'm Allison Regal. I work at Tahoe Valley as a kindergarten teacher and I'm talking about the um the programs that our teachers and

054our intervention teachers uh use. Right now, we have leveled reading rooms for both our upper and lower grades with literally thousands of books organized by grade level. We have a um SIPS program. Our SIPS program is stands for systematic instruction in phonological awareness, phonics and site words. And this program is used by many of our teachers in the lower grades as the curriculum for their small reading groups. We have our wonders program. Our wonders program is uh a reading curriculum used by most of the K through five teachers and it's published by Mcra Hill. Uh we have our Sunday system. Our Sunday system is a program that is scientifically based multiensory structured literacy program that our teachers are able to use. I Ready is our online educational software program primarily used in schools for grades

055K through 12 to first assess our students then to support them by giving them an indivi an individualized set of lessons for personalized instruction. And then finally, our step up to writing um program offers teachers a flexible strategybased program to teach the foundational writing skills, including crafting effective sentences and paragraphs and skillful use of standard English. Thank you, Allison. Um hello board. Thanks for having us tonight. My name is Amy Rice and I am currently the intervention teacher at Tahoe Valley. This is my 25th start of school this year and um it's kind of fun on a new adventure. So, I'm going to go over some of the um supports and the things that we've done this year in intervention. Uh first of all, our EL newcomer uh small group support has really grown. We

056have at least a dozen newcomers um that get special support from additional bilingual aids. Um and so that's been something we've been focusing on. We also continue to support the teachers with the local assessments and then use those assessments to re-evaluate individual needs for our flexible groupings in data meetings which we hold every trimester. Um we've also been using a lot of the CASP test prep um from the CASP website and the tools for teachers um lessons that help us prepare the kids for CASP. Um we've have our groups monitoring themselves in the I Ready personalized instruction path that Allison has spoke of. Our team also supports in math with pushin um services and also for guided reading. And our group has also been working hard to survey some reading difficulty screeners which I think

057we chose one today which is really cool. Um the last part here is engaging the readers. And I think that's probably the biggest challenge. And so some of the tools that I think are the most effective are our schoolwide readathon which we had back in the fall and I think we raised $10,000 which is great. Um, some of you are reading buddies and you come on Tuesdays and help support students by reading with them in our library and I think that's awesome. Um, we also have our grade level musicals which I think is a huge way to engage kids in reading. And um, Miss Moira here says next Tuesday if you're available, you'll have a busy Wednesday coming up, but next Tuesday at 8:30 is another musical um, from the first graders. Two programs that

058we use to engage readers also is Learning Ally. Um, this is an exceptional program to help students get access to content material. Even if they couldn't read it on their own, they can listen to it and watch the text at the same time. It's a great tool. And then recently, uh, the upper grades are using Accelerated Reader and setting goals for themselves in um, raising their reading levels and then also earning points. Thank you. Hello, I'm Brianna Carluchi. I'm a third grade teacher at Tahoe Valley. I am going to talk about why we need why we need a new math curriculum. Our current curriculum lacks standard alignment, open problems, critical thinking, meaningful number choices, and any source of student collaboration. Our hopes for a new curriculum are a strong foundation with an emphasis on deep

059thinking and conceptual understanding. It should have consistent warm-ups and trimester assessments across all grade levels. A curriculum that has space for students to engage in open problems, critical thinking, cognitive guided instruction, online on sorry hands-on learning, and uses real world problems that students can relate to. Lastly, we would like our curriculum to align to our California state standards, math practices, and critical concepts. Thank you. Hi, I'm Maddie. I'm a fifth grade teacher at Tahoe Valley and I'm here to talk about the focused approach that we plan to take. So, the specifics of it would be we'd be piloting our first year, we'd be implementing our second year, and then we'd be refining it our third year. measurable. We would hope that whatever curriculum we have would have specific assessments in it and then the district

060would also have benchmarks achievable with professional development and continual training in whatever curriculum we do adopt relevant directly aligned with our school mission to enhance math learning. And then the timeline as mentioned is year one pilot, year two implement, year three refine. Hello, my name is Amy Francis. I'm a third grade teacher at Tahoe Valley. And I'm Tasha Thomas and I'm a PE teacher at Tahoe Valley. Um, piloting a new curriculum is our plan for year 1. This is always an exciting yet grueling process. It is exciting because we want to use standard best standardbased best practices. It is grueling because it takes a lot of work to unpack, learn, fully understand and deliver the new curriculum to our students. We then need to make a decision that we're going to be committed to for

061quite some time. In our year one, we will be piloting approved math curriculums from the state of California and we are very much looking forward to this opportunity. At our site, we support best practices for continued professional development through EDC through Kaled partners and EDCO P3 trainings. We are looking forward to piloting new curriculum that will drive and update data on student performance as well as gather thoughtful feedback on the effectiveness and the execution from an educator's point of view. This will all culminate into an overseeing structure of student engagement that will further navigate instructional best practices in both math and reading to recognize the potential of all of our students. Hi, I'm Nicole, a TK teacher at Toaho Valley. I also teach performing arts to all of our students in the afternoon and currently

062serve as the lead teacher for Tahoe Valley. And in the second year of this next round of our single focus, we are looking at full implementation of a new math curriculum. Um the plan for Tahoe Valley for the 2627 school year would include a whole school roll out of the new chosen math curriculum during this year of our single focus. We're going to use ongoing professional development and support for all staff with the new math curriculum. We also plan to continuing monitoring monitoring students regularly through I ready and my math plan and we look um forward to discussing all of this data during our bimonthly collaborations focusing on vertical alignment through the grade levels and sharing best practices amongst the teachers. Hi, my name is Stephanie Spees and I am Tahoe Valley's newest teacher and

063I'm excited to tell you guys about year three um of our math curriculum plan. This year is going to be all about fine-tuning and making sure that we can keep the momentum going. We'll be looking closely at the student data from the last two years to see what's working and see where we still have room to grow. We'll also be collecting input from the staff so that teachers voices help shape the next steps. With that feedback and the data, we'll make thoughtful updates with both the curriculum and how we're teaching it. The big goal is to keep building strong, effective math instruction in all of our TK through five classrooms and to set things up for long-term success. Hi, I um I teach fourth grade. My name is Allison Murphy. At Tahoe Valley, we're committed

064to empowering educators and driving student success. With implementation, we will provide dedicated professional development for all teachers along with the necessary curriculum, materials, and resources. Time will be intentionally set aside for collaboration, planning, and idea sharing. With tools like I Ready and My Path, we will monitor student progress effectively while ongoing administrative support ensures smooth and consistent implementation across the board. We will measure our impact through a clear phased approach. In year one, our focus will be on gathering pilot data, collecting teacher feedback, and analyzing student engagement insights. In year two, we will shift towards implementation aiming to increase the number of students meeting or exceeding their I Ready annual typical growth targets. In year three, we will dedicated to refining our approach with the goal of continued growth in student meeting or exceeding standards

065across assessments. We'll hold regular data meetings centered on math and reading, fostering collaboration for curriculum planning. Additionally, we're exploring the possibility of hosting a writing training and other professional development opportunities in the 2025 2026 school year. Thank you very much everybody. Wonderful job and thank you for the time to present to you today to share with you the great things that have been and will be happening at Tahoe Valley. Are there any questions? Any questions? Um, thank you all for a great presentation and I'm excited that you that all of you really want to um, dive into, you know, be piloting the curriculum and I'm just wondering I know that um, you've been collaborating with like the Sierra House folks and the Kaled partners. How do the other how do you see bringing along the

066other sites or in in this process? We have been collaborating I we've been communicating with the three other elementary principles and next year our P3 Edco group will encompass all four schools. So we'll be in in the same room uh at least once a month and everybody will be kind of doing the same thing basically pilot. I mean you guys will maybe take a different role in terms of the pilot. We're we're still working out how that's going to actually materialize. All right. And I just want to say that I I was concerned I'm a little concerned at your I Ready data from the this um the winter, you know, from this year compared to last year because it seemed like we aren't we didn't see as much growth as we saw the year before.

067But but I'm super impressed that your CASP data looks really great at the end of the year, you know, that you that over the three years you we've seen this, you know, continual growth. So, I'm really looking forward to seeing the spring data, you know, both from I Ready and from CASP. But I I appreciate that you're working hard to help um prep the kids for the you know just the mechanics of using the computer for those tests and things like that. Um it I know it's a challenge and I appreciate everybody's effort to do that and hopefully maybe what's going to happen is there's just this big growth that you know pent up you know it's like a potential that's uh you know just explodes in the spring but you know I look forward

068to seeing that data. We are too. Thank you. We're also interested to see how our students the influx of students that we've had in the winter and this early part of the spring to see now that they've had a chance to acclimate to Taho Valley to see how they do because you had a lot of new you had a lot of new year. So that's some transient winter. Yeah, I see. I know. I was, you know, one of the things I'm curious about and I know that the teachers know see this is just, you know, we don't because we're getting the data all um amalgamated, you know what I mean? get it all for the site instead of individual classrooms or individuals even. But um at some point maybe we could get I'm looking at

069Dr. Reer and Dr. and Mr. about um like this notion that the teachers set growth goals for the kids, you know, and just getting sort of a summary of how um students are achieving their individual growth goals because like you said, our students may be coming in and I know that uh Karen Goldberg presented this earlier about our English learners that they're coming in sometimes at a lower, you know, initial level so that we're not going to see as much say in the um the green, you know, in terms of grade level because they're coming in lower um And so that's where I know the teachers uh working individually with their staff or with their students to really say, you know, here's where you are and let's really let's we expect this kind of growth

070and it's very individual, but it'd be nice to be some sort of summary report about how students individually are, you know, collectively achieving their individual growth goals if that makes sense. You know, it's just not the way the I Ready uh reports come out, you know, obviously for for these kinds of presentations, but I'd love to hear more about that. So, thank you. I know that Dr. Reer sent out a a shout out to all those teachers whose kids met their IRA growth goal. And granted, they may still be not at grade level, but they made their goal. And so, I'm hoping that Dr. Reer will send that out, too. Oh, 80% Dr. Reader. 80% of the students met their growth goal. So, yeah. So, I appreciate all the hard work that you guys have

071been doing. And I know Trusty Mansville and I have been enjoying our reading pal time. So, that's been great. Hope to do that again next year. So, it's been really good. Makes Tuesday a great day. Has been great. Hey, patent team, I want to just say this. Um, thank you all for being here. You're representing your school uh very positively and uh I really appreciate that. And you know, I want to just say to the board, um, what's really exciting is when teachers are talking about looking at the data, right? And I think that was under Nicole's part of her script was about us looking at the data on a weekly or a monthly basis and getting into it because then we can really think about and how we're meeting the needs of students. And

072when you think about the I Ready scores and you see that growth, the growth of the green decrease of the red um from that fall to winter. It's what we're looking for. And of course, as we look towards testing, I think next Tuesday, we look to see the green grow more and the red decrease even more. And and of course, in the end, the the the California test that the CASP um demonstrate continued growth on that. and um and I really if we look at look at the Tall Valley they've had and demonstrated continual growth and and I I believe through the these efforts and through the commitment to you know by the way they were the school that piloted fully I ready for the district um right and so Tahoe Valley was that school

073that did that um and so they're this then is year three I believe for Tahoe Valley in use of that data so hopefully as they continue to use that I ready data they look to how they're going to work together to focus on both both from their math conversation but also the literacy and reading that we're going to continue to see that growth and development. I really appreciate all of you being here tonight. Thank you. Right. Uh next we have um Tahoe Valley has a song too. So we have one at Meyers Item 6 C is the local control accountability plan update. We s Thank you. Thank you. Next time I do want to hear the bear. No, I think I did get to hear the pause song when I was at Myers. Sing for

074us. No, I sing Alan will not be singing. Okay, Dr. reader is going to do in local control accountability plan updates. Thank you, President Keer and trustees. LTUSD board of trustees approved the three-year plan, the LTUSD 2024 through 2027 local control and accountability plan or LCAP on June 27th, 2024. The LCAP is a required component of California education's funding system designed to ensure that resources allocated effectively to support student achievement and equity. It is the three-year plan that school districts develop with input from families, educators, and the community. The LCAP outlines goals and actions in eight priority areas, primarily student achievement, school climate, and parent involvement. It also spec specifies how supplemental and concentration funding for high need students such as students experiencing homelessness, foster youth, students with exceptional needs, English learners, and low-income students,

075and how that will be used to address their unique needs and close achievement gaps. Districts must annually update their LCAP, reflecting progress made and adjustments needed to meet the goals. The plan's transparency and community engagement elements ensure that educational partners are informed and involved in decision-making processes, fostering accountability and improving outcomes for all students. LTUSD currently has five goals in our LCAP plan. We have met three times each with our three input groups, our task force, our parents, and our STEA colleagues. We will be we will be bringing those revisions to you with a rough draft at our next board meeting on June 12th for discussion purposes as well as for public comment. Then on June 26th, we will be asking for your approval of our revised LCAP 2526 plan. Tonight, the agenda item is

076forformational purposes only. I will have a slideshow on June 12th showing some of the um suggested revisions. Do you have any questions or input for me? Um could you give me a little sense of um the parent involvement this this year or you know either the English learners um or the um yeah I think it's parents or you know other outside partners besides yeah we partner with uh with Karen Goldberg to to help us uh facilitate bringing in the the parents of English learners voices and and she's uh graciously always there to help with the translations. The other thing that we rely heavily on is our state of the district evening where we're collecting that information and we utilize that information for our parent input as well. Um that of course is our highest attended

077uh parent LCAP meeting. We usually uh I think we have about 20 on the list. Uh we're always welcoming uh more families to join us. We we try to make it very painfree. Um one hour 5 to six. Yeah. through a Google Meet so they don't even have to leave their home. Um, but yeah, we rely heavily on the on the state of the district meeting and that and I know we had that specific question about parent engagement, you know, how to improve family engagement. So hopefully there's some ideas that came out of that that we're going to look to and I know there's some things happening, you know, at the middle school. So I look forward to seeing that. in specific, you know, some some of the things that come out of that beating

078aren't necessarily gonna drop onto the LCAP future LCAP or something, right? Well, but there are things we're working on and and when we think about our LCAP, there's some real spec specific things we have to address. Allan highlighted some of those. We'll make sure that they're on a slide that are you know I had a I recently had a conversation with a staff member that really um when the LCAP was the local control accountability plan and the local control funding formula came about in 2013 was really wide open um but over the years it has been more um like a categorical plan meaning you get this money and here's what you specifically have to address and it's been more and more of that over the years. So, as I tell folks, our LCAP truly is

079this overarch of support based on these specific items that we have to address by the state. Then the sites have their SIPA plans, their their plans for student achievement, and then we have the single focus plans to really do that. So, that's kind of that arch. I did want to share that we did have a couple parents from the state of the district evening that wanted to serve on the LCAP parent advisory and they were added into that. So, so because we've been talking about it getting more parents to hopefully get engaged because our our participation in our parent group has been um has been lighter than we would like and but that's an incredible point that was made that with Karen Goldberg and her connection through the capacitos group and everything else we get

080that work to get a more diverse um input. Yeah. Yeah. And I I want to say that um this week I I met a parent and I I'm just going to encourage all the board members to maybe send names, you know, to Dr. reader in terms of parents that want to be involved because I was at um the Lake Tahoe Pride event this week and there was a parent there who who's a parent of a TK student and is looking you know she's like I'm looking for ways to get involved you know I don't the board maybe is too much you know PTA I'm not really a PTA mom you know but like uh just wanting to have a voice you know and so I think um I mean we can all we all need

081to do a little more of that but it's but definitely when somebody approaches us looking for ways to get involved um you know I mentioned mentioned I mentioned the LCAP plan to her but I I I didn't have like at my fingertips you know when the next meeting was or anything like that but um I need to do a better job of that of just getting people's names and saying yeah okay here Allan here's somebody who's interested or something like that you know because um a lot of our families I think don't darn sure where to plug in you know so and that's that I think that's part of what we heard at the state of the district too was just um well staff would like to see more parent involvement and the parents are

082trying to figure out where to get involved so more communic communication with them on those specifics. It'll be good. So, though we heard that we may have overcommunicated, right? But no, I share that because as we try to navigate all of those. Yeah, exactly. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next, we have the annual special education local plan area update. It's a discussion item and we have our new self director Alpine Alpine County and Lake Taho Unified School. Yeah. So, good evening, President Kipper, members of the board, Dr. Cutler. Appreciate the time tonight. Um, so tonight I'm presenting at the request of the superintendent of the SUPA governance council. Dr. Cutler of LTUSD and Mr. Burkhard of Alpine County Office of Education and Unified School District. We're here in the spirit of transparency. Uh,

083I'm presenting you any changes of significance to the SULPA plan as well as the SULPA budget plan for 2526. SULPA is a special education local plan area and that's important to understand because we're a region. We're not a not an organization. So, um, we're going to talk about that just a little bit. I'm going to give you a little history. We're going to go through this. So, I'm going to talk a lot and uh you'll have an opportunity at the end. So, our process of approval includes posting for the public hearing held at the beginning of this meeting uh at all school sites within LTUSD and Alpine uh COE for the last 15 days. I've also been requesting feedback from different community sources for multiple weeks and I'll be meeting with the Alpine County uh

084board of education as well as the community advisory committee in the upcoming weeks prior to approval of the final document by the governing council on June 17, 2025. The SUPA governing council is made up of our superintendent of our district and that is my board. Okay. uh I will not be reporting back to you unless we come up with a significant change in policy uh from these meetings or if the state throws us a curveball with the budget and we don't anticipate that. Um it's important to know again that we're here to inform our LEAs and our board of trustees just about the SULPA uh what the budget looks like a little bit of how we operate that you don't approve the LEA but you are what makes us a book. So we want to

085give you the information. Um so slide one you see there's a list of public hearings. Um, I will meet with everybody. Um, everybody gets the same presentation. Oh jeez, I went twice. All right. Uh, just a little bit. 1974, California's master plan for special education mandated the formation of regional consortia by school districts and county offices of education. Um out of that mandate the regional structure was born and eventually uh I believe it was mid80s uh Tahoe Alpine SULPA number0911 was formed. Um I won't look uh self-s serve the stabled disabled infants, toddlers. Uh they support transition age uh adults 18 to 22 and coordinate services for students with low incidence disabilities, mental health needs um while ensuring quality placements, managing due process and oversee regional IDA compliance and reporting. Um that is that is

086a important job um that I have. I'm the liazison between the state and our districts. And I say I because I'm the only self employee. Um I don't have anything to write about this because the title says it all. Equity, local control, transparency, accountable, and creativity. That is what regional special education support is. We work together as partners and we allow the eleas to spend the resources how they best see fit. And I'm going to talk a little more about that in a minute. The Tahoe Tahoe Alpine SULPA operates with no reserve. Um, which is a little different for school boards to to think about. Um 100% of the revenue is passed through to districts. We don't keep any pennies. Um there are a lot of supplements throughout the state that hold back 40% of

087all funds and then they distribute at the end um just in case. Um that's how they do it. Our sole plan says 100% of the funds go through and uh that was last updated in 2000. Uh and so that's the funding model that's been in place for a long time. Um very specific thing to note is our plan calls out very specifically that each LEA is responsible for the services they provide to the students. Uh there are other say oh we'll we'll pay for that. No Tahoe knows how to you know LTSD knows how to pay for or how to serve their students and maybe what works here doesn't work in Alpine. So money gets distributed. Serve your kids how you best see fit. The overall goal of the SULPA is to ensure FAPE. FAPE

088is a free and appropriate public education. is a legal right that guarantees all eligible children with disabilities receive special education and related services tailored to their individual needs at no cost to their parents and designated to provide educational benefit in a least restrictive environment. Translated least restrict restrictive environment is with regular ed students as much as possible. uh self plan in California is very much like what Dr. reader just presented, but is special education specific. The process is very much the same, and when it's all said and done, they're about the same length, 150 pages or so with all the documents together. Um, but it is to ensure compliance state and federal. That's the bottom line. Uh, what needs to be updated in the plan? So every year we do the annual budget which is

089section D and the annual service plan which is section E and that is basically every service that we offer within the SULPA is the annual service plan. Um the government and administration or the governance administration section is updated every 3 years. It probably wasn't due this year but there's one significant change to it. So, I wanted to we're updating it to resubmit to the state. Um, and now we're going to go into the the very quickly through the nuts, the meat and potatoes of this. So, the roles and major changes, uh, the administrative unit for the SULPA is Lake Tahoe Unified School District. What that means, every dollar for special education that comes in under the SUPA umbrella comes in to LTUSD. Fiscal Office then distributes from there. Okay, so that's the administrative unit. Um,

090we talked about the governance council. Uh, that again it's made up of the superintendent and and they have to be specific with this because Alpine is a single single but they're two entities and so should those ever split where the superintendent is one person and the county superintendent is another. The three entities are the superintendent of LTUSD, ACE and ACUSD. There's three entities represented within. And then the community advisory committee uh is made up of two parents appointed by each LEA as well as any parents, community members or students that want to be involved and uh should be ran basically in the same accordance as a school board meeting. All right, this is the interesting. All right. So, part D, our revenue sources. Uh, $3.7 million in change come in uh from the state for

091special education revenues. Projected federal revenues, just a hair under a million dollars. So, you get $4.7 million from the state and federal. Between the Selus together, we spend about 11.5 million. All right. So when you look, I'm going to give you a visual with that. You get $4.7 million that come through. And I'm going to come back to this other slide. That basically covers the certificated salaries that lie within the SULPA. Not their benefits, not the classified salaries, not the classified benefits, not the supplies, not services, not operations, not legal fees, not capital outlay or anything else. That just covers. Who covers that? Well, I'm going to say Dr. Cutler and LTUSD because 97% of the funds represented within the SULPA budget are LTUSD expenses. Okay? And I have zero oversight of that. It is

092local control. LTUSD serves their children, their students, how they see fit. Alpine does the same. My role is monitoring, oversight, and any support that the superintendent or special education directors, coordinators need, trainings, they ask, I find it. That's what I do. So, I get to present this budget. I have no control over where it goes, how it gets spent. It is 100% local control. Okay. So very quickly when I'm going to come back through the budget revenues because you're going to see red strikethroughs the percentages changed and the reason why is they actually the strike I'd already made all of these um forms they no longer will be distributing state and federal mental health funds through the SULPA because the SLPAS were holding back money. Those monies will be directly to the districts and then

093they will go. So the expense of mental health services still kind of falls under the umbrella. Um but it's a general fund other fund resource. All right. Um so you know just remember that the two or the three LEAs that operate within this SULPA spend a lot of resources providing services to students as they see best for their students and um I'm honored to be able to work with the groups and uh Dr. Cutler, Dr. reader. Uh, Kelly's found them very annoying because I need I need information um because I don't have access I don't have access to your systems and so I have I have to ask a lot. Um, so that is the that's the plan and about 12 minutes maybe a little less but thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank

094you and welcome to our to this world here. Thank you so much. Any questions, comments? It's not that interesting, folks. Well, no, we're just thanking you for being we're clapping because you're here. Thank you. Of course. Any questions or comments? And I just want to say that I I told Dr. Cutler, I learned this because I listened um this week I listened into the California School Board Association discussion about budgets. And of course, most of it was about um the California budget and the recent, you know, the May revise that the governor released. Um but one of the things they were um pushing for was advocacy at both the state and federal level, you know, in terms of um all of us can reach out to our um you know, our representatives, our elected representatives

095asking for more money, you know, for education. But they they pointed out a couple things I just want to point out, which was um you know, the mental health component. One one point was the uh point about things like the nutrition like right now with the federal government of funding school lunch programs but also more broadly um the school nutrition supplemental funds I mean just um food stamps is what I'm trying to say supplemental nutrition assistance program that if um that is cut it affects our comm you know our communities so our families so it means there's less money um for our families to feed their kids and then they're just not going to be as successful you know so just kind um keeping in mind those uh connections but but specifically to special ed

096uh one of the people at at CSBA pointed out that in the statute so in the IDA act that was adopted in 1973 when Congress adopted that and said we are going to provide services to our special needs uh students across the country in the statute in the federal uh statute in the 70s it directed um Congress to appropriate funds that would meet 40% of the statutory requirements that are covered by the IDEIDA act. And as your presentation showed, we only get about 10% of our entire special ed budget from the federal government. But in um basically in the federal law, it says uh you're supposed the feds are supposed to you actually fund 40% of the need at every school site across the country. And so, um, that is something they wanted us to

097remind our congressional representatives. Um, and, uh, and even though the US the representatives voted on a budget today, the Senate has not. So, I'm just going to ask all of you to, um, remind your senators of that. and uh and it's something that they don't expect is going to happen obviously overnight, but that really it would be nice if Congress could acknowledge it and come up with a long-term plan to get there because obviously our local all of our local school districts are having to fund a large um an ever growing larger percentage of the of the budget. you know, we get we get help from the state, but then yeah, we're if you go back and look historically, the number will stay right about the same 40% comes in from the state and fed,

098and we fund about 60 60, but 40% comes from the state and fed, but only 10% comes from the feds. So, 30% from the states. So, we appreciate the help we get from the state and feds, but um statutoily, they're supposed to be funding more of it. So, that's anyway, I just wanted to make that point. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. Thank you. All right, next we have item number seven. We're talking about business services and operations and it's uh the speaking of the budget. We'll hear more about it. The 2526 governor's May budget revision item. Good evening, President Kemper and board of trustees. In January, Governor Nuomo released his budget for the 2526 fiscal year. In May, he releases a revised budget. Tonight's presentation will will review the key changes from the January budget

099to the May revision. First, let's review the timeline of where we are with the budget. You can see here in yellow exactly where we are. I'm going to keep hammering this one in every time I present a budget. So, you're going to see it a lot. And I adjusted the graphic. I actually think this makes it a lot more readable. Um, the arrow points to where we currently are. As you can see, the California's legislature should pass a balanced budget by June 15th. We will bring our proposed budget to the board on June 12th for the public hearing and then we will bring it back on June 26th for approval. While there was an increase in the total TK through 12th grade funding from 137.1 billion to 137.8 billion, you can see there was a

100drop in the general fund, meaning those monies are supporting special categories, which requires usually special reporting. and Proposition 98 was reduced by $4.6 billion over three years. In the May revision, the rainy day fund is completely depleted. COLA was also reduced to 2.3% from 2.43% and there was a deferral added to the LCFF for the following year. We were actually hearing that the COLA was going to be reduced to 2.22. So 2.3 was a little better than I had was thinking in the back of my mind because we'd heard 2.22 at one point. A bright spot in is the increase in ELOP funding, expanded learning opportunity program from 435 million to 515 million. These funds support after school and summer programs and target lowinccomes. We partner with Boys and Girls Club for a majority of

101our ELOP funds. Universal TK saw a reduction from 2.4 billion to 2.1 billion due to an average daily attendance adjustment, meaning they were looking at what the attendance was. They're seeing fewer students, so they adjusted the amount down. The other adjustments to the budget included one-time block grants, including the discretionary block grant, the facilities funds that were unused and reverted to address the budget deficit. There's a decrease also in nutrition funding. Some additions include support for Special Olympics, English language support, and school redesign. Unfortunately, the school redesign, we likely won't see any of those funds with our bond. They are trying to target and earmark some of those for schools that were impacted by the fires and schools that were very small or more than 60 years old which of which we don't have any.

102We've already started working on the fiscal year 24 2526 budget and we'll need to make the projected reductions we discussed at the second interim. Unfortunately, the lower COLA rate, which we did anticipate to a certain level, reinforces our need to make reductions next fiscal year and likely the two years out. Also, the uncertainty at the federal level impacts some budgeting decisions. We will need to reassess how we are funding things from federal dollars that we know we may not receive for the next fiscal year. On June 12th, we'll present a third interim for the 2425 school year and the public hearing for the fiscal year 2526 budget. and again on 2 June 26 for budget approval. Presenting a third interim budget report shows our commitment to transparency and strong fiscal oversight. It keeps the board

103and community informed of key changes and supports timely, responsible decisions and approach also encouraged by the county office of ed to help ensure ongoing fiscal health. This is an information item only. Are there any question? Any questions or comments? Well, can you talk about the nutrition cut? Is that gonna impact us or and how we're actually gonna be okay the so statewide they're going to reduce the amount gonna be reduced statewide even if they reduce to us we're carrying such a large balance at this point I think we're going to be fine for at least a year or two okay yeah I'd say sign is significant right now yes that's going to say okay perfect yeah thank you um and then the TK we don't do we have a sense of our numbers this next

104year and seems like there the government is estimating and TK, they don't know who's going to show up, do they? You definitely not mandatory, right? Neither actually is kindergarten. Um, so we're always sort of waiting to see the whites of their eyes. We have decent numbers. I don't know if you want to speak to the exact numbers we've seen so far of enrolled at this point, but it's still early. Well, it's progressing. Um, and we when we looked at it, uh, I'd say two weeks ago, for example, at Tahoe Valley, we were in the 20 range of students registered for TK and and Pat informed me yesterday, we were at 42 at Tahoe Valley. Um, so the numbers are growing. Um, we we are in in essence, we're basically full um at Beiju, we're full

105at Meyers, and then we will be fulfilling the spots at the Tall Valley site. We'll have three sites next year for TK. Yeah. The plan is to have uh three at at Tall Valley, the the two that we have at Bishu um which are what we have now expanding expanding one at Meyers. Yes. And then one classroom at Meyers. Okay. And um anything else? One thing just to since you're asking that question um one thing we are looking at is also how kindergarten numbers are because remember that's the in essence the entry of our students and those numbers are often times at this point of the year not accurate. Um, but we could also end up doing a if need be like a TKK type of combination if if we But one thing that's important

106to note on that if we were to do that, we fall into the laws that are specific to TK, which is 20 students to two adults, one teacher in aid. Okay. And then the expanded learning, we're going to get more money for expanded learning and that'll basically we're possibly we're sending it to boys and girls. I mean, you send a portion of it. We partner with them and they get a percentage of the ESOP money. they wouldn't. Yeah. And they're expanding their service services this year with TK going out to Meyers. And so that's another impact on them. And so we're we're appreciative with their partnership and the work that they provide and and uh both Dr. Reer and Miss Buttery have worked closely with Boys and Girls Club with the funding. Okay. And we

107are really looking to push uh getting those free and reduced lunch forms again next year so we can boost that percentage of our unduplicated pupil percentage above 55% because that really does Were we there this year over 55? Oh yeah. Yeah. We know our numbers are above but it's getting and as they get into middle school and high school it's even harder to get those those applications. So, we're going to keep uh matter of fact just a note um Teresa and I host uh the school site secretaries quarterly and we had a big meeting about how do they help each other with you know that effort. So that would be really great to be able to get that done and then I think related to expanded learning Dr. Cutler, you might have mentioned this, that

108there might be some, and this may or may not ch or be in effect when the final budget gets approved, but something that was related to like law attendance, like if kids miss so many days, there'd be a chance to make it up. It was it's there is conversation about legislation and and it's going to work, but is the possibility of having Saturday school concepts that you could actually make up for your attendance. Okay. We'll we'll continue to monitor and explore if that comes to fruition, if not or or not. That's separate from the expanded learning opportunity thing. Okay. Thank you. All right. Um, thank you, Miss Buttery. And next we have the bond activities. Tonight we have George Rojos from coming group and you will he's here to provide you the board with uh

109an update on measure U bond activities. Welcome George. Hello once again. So good evening President Keer um members of the board, Dr. color and of course cabinet. Uh thank you so much for having me here again. My name is George Roas. I'm a with coming group and also your program director. Thank you so much for having me here tonight. I'm excited to give you kind of a quick little update on what's been happening and all the different activities with measure bond program. So starting off with just a quick agenda just like we looked at in April. Uh we're going to review the progress of the program team development. We'll talk a little bit about the lease lease back process and how things are going with the selection of the lease lease back entities which we

110worked on today and also to end we're going to do a quick little update on all the other bonded program activities that we've been working on. So, okay. So, starting off with the program team development and with any update, we like to always do kind of a quick little recap, a little overview of what we've talked about, talk about what we've done up to date, and then also talk about where we're going to go in the future with a lot of our activities. So, starting off with the program team development. So, of course, just to kind of give you a quick overview, since last April, of course, um we spoke a little bit about this process, of course, and um the district is seeking professional services, which include hazmat, environmental consulting, special inspection, storm water

111pollution prevention, surveying, and also geotechnical services. Right now um the district is following government code 4525 in seeking these services which required the uh qualified base selection process which we've been following very similar to how you selected the program manager of course right um now if we look at the wheel and basically our process map um there's been a lot of work that we've been able to accomplish since uh we started this process it first began with the release of requests for qualifications which you see the check marks um public advertisement period just to make that we could advertise to all different parties to make sure that everybody was aware of what the different type of services that we were seeking as well as a question period so that we can give all the different

112firms a time to ask questions about the services that we were seeking and maybe some of the projects that we might be looking at. Of course, that follows with an evaluation process that we just recently completed. And uh we are here today, of course, May 22nd and there's a little bit of a check mark to where we're at, of course. So for tonight, we are bringing our recommendation to the board for approval of the pool of consultants that we've recently selected. Um, and those are going to be in your consent agenda. That's going to include uh environmental consulting, special inspection, storm water pollution, survey, and also geotechnical service. Hazmat is tracking slightly behind, of course, but we are looking to we want to be very detailed about the hazmat consulting that we're going to be

113seeking, and that's going to be coming at a later time. So now talking a little bit about where we're going of course some upcoming milestones as I mentioned the hazmat hazmat consultant pool approval will come on June 12th so very very shortly after this right um and then very soon after we are going to go through a request for proposal process that request for proposal process now will be the evaluation of firms uh pricing of course very specific to Tahoe Valley Elementary School and also South Tahoe Middle School. So we're going to bring we're going to be evaluating the the pricing mechanism of course and we're going to do that in different priorities. So priority one of course once we go through our own evaluation we hope to bring those to the board on June

11412th and that's going to be for environmental and special inspections. Of course that is our priority one because those are the folks who are also going to inform our design process. So we want to make sure that we get those ahead. Priority two will come right behind that and that's going to be your hazmat and geotechnical which will come to the board for board approval in June 26 and very shortly after that we're going to have the contract approvals for the storm water pollution prevention zone. Okay. U now hazmat of course is going to be one of these things that we want to make sure we continue to push forward very quickly. uh we have a summer that we want to take advantage of everything we possibly can and with anything on the bond of

115course we want to make sure that we keep forward progress and we keep pushing as fast as we possibly can. So hazmat will be one of these ones that we'll be presenting to you folks but you should see here in the very near future. So um moving on to the lease back process. So very exciting we've been doing a lot of work when it comes to uh the selection of the lease back entities. Um so very similar to the selection process for your professional services we are following a very detailed process that is that is described as part of ed code 17406 and 17407 of course that is for the uh use of compet and we use the competitive selectionbased process which you can actually see here in the process map that we have here

116on the screen. So um maybe let's talk through that selection process. Of course that first began with the release of requests for qualifications. It soon followed quickly from a public advertisement period as well as the uh siteformational walks that we did with Dave and along with some other team members and a questions period, evaluations of course and then a deadline for submission. So um where we are today oh and I forgot to mention that process also follows very much a parallel process for pre-qualification. So lease back entities had to submit all of their pre-qualification uh documents make sure that they were pre-qualified before they could submit their response. Right. So where we are today of course that's today which we actually had a very busy day today and we did do interviews of the qualified

117respondents. Um I want to really uh kind of mention the folks who were here today. Um that begins with uh district staff of course u Miss Buttery uh Mr. Zebo uh a special thanks of course uh trustee Mansfield for being part of the evaluation process of the proposals and also today we had President Kemp for joining us for all day meeting of interviews. So I want to thank you for that. Um, as far as the other folks who weren't part of the evaluation team, we also had, of course, the prog management team and also our partners from Studio W. We had Bri and also um, oh, Chelsea. Chelsea, I almost forgot Chelsea's name. And of course, we have Mr. Brett Gallagher here part of ARG also helping and supporting. So, uh, so special, thank you

118so much for everybody for being here. So, um, now as I mentioned, all of the folks who submitted were pre-qualified. We had four interested parties for Tahoe Valley Elementary School and we had five actually interested in South Tahoe Middle School. So, um, we shortlisted folks down to three selected firms that we were able to interview today and we had a very good day today doing some very good interviews with everyone. So, now looking ahead, of course, some major milestones that we've already completed. Um, so we had the proposed evaluation back in May 13th. We had interviews on May 22nd, which is today. And really the big target date for us is to bring or our recommendation uh for the lease back entities on June 12th. So really looking very much forward to finalizing this evaluation

119process. Okay. And last we have some additional updates right a lot a lot of stuff that's going on. So we still have the South Tahoe Middle School the softball field. Um this project actually went out to bid and bids are due this Tuesday. We are going to be reviewing for um the lowest responsive of course responsible bidder and we hope to bring that to the board on June 12th. So everything is going very well with that process. Now there were some additional require or requests I would say from the suroptimus club. So they came to us with some additional request of course uh to include some batting cages, some warming areas. Um but what we wanted to do with this project of course is not affect the project that we had this summer. So, some

120of those requests are going to be, of course, for consideration. We're going to work with the site committees, of course, with district staff, and we'll try to make sure that we look at those considerations um to be included in next year's pro project. Okay. Now, uh continuing with South Tahoe and also maybe a quick update on Tahoe Valley Elementary School. We've continued our uh project committees um and so we had for scope validation. We've actually already had two separate meetings and we're going to be holding our third meeting which is going to be on May 29th. Um, aside from that, we've also continued some site evaluations. Studio W was actually on site along with the coming team at both sites on Tuesday and we took I think roughly like 500 pictures at each site and

121those are really helpful as we kind of go forward just to make sure that we are looking at all the different items from different perspectives if we want to send those out to our partners that we're continuing to evaluate the site. So, um that's going to be a continued process. We'll look at utilities. We'll look at all kinds of different things during the summer process as soon as the kids are out. Okay. Um, now the next uh item that I have on the oh maybe it's a different slide, but um one of the things we wanted to talk to you as well was the DSA uncertified project and that process of course. So I'm going to actually invite Dave. He's going to give you a quick little update on the certification of those projects. Good

122evening. We have talked a lot about the Division of State Architect, the DSA lately. Um they serve as the governing agency for California school construction and they enforce a strict process that must be followed throughout each project. If all step steps in documentation, testing, and reporting are not completed correctly, the DSA will not certify the project upon its completion. In fact, one of the ways DSA ensures compliance is by holding off on approving new projects until outstanding certifications are resolved. Currently, LTUSD has approximately 24 uncertified projects, most of which were dated back between 1990 and 2010. On tonight's consent agenda, there is a proposal for CS3 to investigate these uncertified projects and determine the necessary steps to bring them back into compliance. We've enlisted Jim Sedek, a wellrespected local inspector for DSA certified projects. He

123has a strong reputation for resolving issues and successfully certifying past due projects. Uh please note that going forward leaving DSA projects uncertified will not be an acceptable practice. Our team including Studio W and the Cummings Group as well as LTUSD will hold ourselves and our contractors fully accountable for meeting all DSA requirements. If you have any more questions about this, we can discuss after after George is complete. Thanks. work. So, thank you, Dave. So, of course, just finishing up um I think that's something that's very important. I really um that's something that you we definitely want to focus on. So, um maybe just then the last little update I want to provide, of course, the sustainability update. I'd like to finish with that. I think it's one of the very important things that is a

124major goal of the district. So, of course, um Brett actually gave us a quick little update on a few items as he's been working on, but so one of them is the investment grade audits. So those have been completed on all the project sites. Of course um those have been shared with the measure bond team. We've taken a look at the presentation so far. Um pricing is being developed at this time and we hope that vari can come back here in June and provide a presentation and an update for the board. So with that I think that ends tonight. Um and of course we want thank you so much for having me of course here and uh just want to thank everybody and we're continuing forward and it's a very exciting time. So, um, we

125will be back in June. So, we have a lot more, of course. And with that, I'll turn it over for questions or any questions or comments, George, the projects. All right. Any I'm of course curious to how the interviews went, but I will wait till June 12. But thank you for serving, President Keer and Trusty Mansfield. It's a lot of work to do that. Takes a lot of effort. Um, and it's really important that you you do, right? And so that your voice is heard in that selection process. Um, you know, and I'm really proud of the process of selection that we've done did um as we selected the Cummings Group and and George and his team as well as uh Studio W as our architect firm and look forward to bringing on our construction

126partners. So yeah, and I know Thank you, George. And I know he told us told me that there's a little more work. It's not just the scores because the lawyers got to look at things and they've got to look at some of the language. So, we're gonna hold off, but it'll be soon. So, thank you for uh helping us, you know, stay on track and and you know, ahead of schedule really in terms of just pushing the schedule. I really appreciate that. That's all I've got. Thank you. Um and the next item is board governance. Um, it's an action item. The second reading of the March 2025 California School Association Board Policies, Administrative Regulations. President Kemper, members of the board, at your May 8th board meeting, you had a first reading of the March 2025

127California School Association Board Policies Administrative Regulations update. Um, this is your second reading and it is staff's recommendation that you approve these board policy batch. Do I have a motion to approve this uh the second reading of the uh I mean not we're just going to approve the March 2025 California School Association Board Policies Administrative Regulations. Do I have a motion? I make a motion to approve the second reading to approve the March 2025 California School Board Association policies and administrative regulation. Thank you. and they're as listed in the board agenda. Just so we just as it's listed. Second the motion. All right. I got a motion from Trusty Mansfield and second from Trustee Anderson. Um do we have any discussion or any public comment or anything? I don't believe we have anybody that's submitted

128for public comment. I'm looking out. I I see none. Okay. All in favor? Um I'll take a vote then. All in favor say I. I. I. And opposed. Okay. Seeing none. It's passed. And then next is um the consent agenda. Um, item nine and Dr. Cutler, I noticed I I think I mentioned this before, but I forgot. I mean, I didn't double check it again, but item 9E says bond activities, which is actually um a duplicate of the report we just heard from um George Roas. It's I mean, that's the item. So, I would I would request that we adopt the consent cons if someone wants to make a motion to adopt the consent agenda with the removal of that item. Unless you wanted that to be approved as provided. It obviously was maybe was

129slipped in it since there's really I mean you can just approve as provided. There's nothing specific on the or we could somebody in essence you're approving George's uh presentation. Exactly. Just information. So however however and however you feel appropriate um on your on your motion. I know trusty best like we would normally amend the agenda at the beginning right because we adopted the agenda but I just thought you know we could put sometimes motions are made with with modifications though you know in terms of approval so I mean exactly true right it's the consent item if you were going to make any changes you would have needed to do at the beginning how however if if there's nothing specific and I'm looking at it right now it truly looks like it's just that the agenda

130item that got duplicated into the consent So, um, however the board wants to move forward, there would be any problem just approving the consent agenda. Make a motion to approve the consent agenda. All right. And second, I'll second. Okay. Um, all in So, I have a motion made by Trustee Kamacho and seconded by Trusty Mansfield to approve the consent agenda as um as presented to us. Uh, all in favor say I. I. Those opposed say nay. Okay, consent agenda's passed. And then item 10, um, and George can now go home knowing that his presentation was approved. Item 10. Item 10 is items for consideration at future board meetings. Do we have any items that people would like to have at a future board meeting? I hope you can be at a future board meeting, Mia,

131for the recognition. Um, anything else? All right, with that, I am going to adjourn the meeting at 7:52. Thank you, everyone.