001Good afternoon. This is the May 26 meeting of the Board of Education in the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District. As president, this meeting is now called to order. It is 1 p.m. This is the May 26 meeting of the Board of Education in the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District. Our meetings are broadcast or resumed to provide the opportunity for our community to observe in real time. We'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, for one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You did great. Are there any changes to the agenda? No, there are not. All right. And we are swiftly off to 4.0, discussion action items. So 4.1 is discussion and potential approval
002of the 2026-2027 board meeting calendar. So I have a brief thing to read, and then I do have one blue card. So this academic year, we've shifted and shifted again our board calendar. We had a cluster of conversations one year ago and more conversations in December. I have information that I would like to share with you to prompt discussion of two main questions about the calendar. Additionally, I have several, and that's about it. In my mind, the two most pertinent questions are, how many regular board meetings a month should we have, and what role, if any, should study sessions play in that calendar? So then I have guiding regarding those questions, but that's the end of the presentation portion. So we'll now open it up to speakers. So I do have a blue card, so
003I'll call it Ms. Amy Thompson. You have three minutes. Good afternoon. I just wanted to take a minute and say that LEA is in support of the proposed calendar for board meetings that's posted to this agenda, where the typical pattern is to have two board meetings a month. I think it was historically first and third Tuesday evenings. And then to continue with study sessions or workshops that allow for expanded conversation by the board, input from the community in a less formal setting without timers running where we can actually have conversations so everybody can gain a greater depth of understanding on particular topics. So in short, LEA is in support of the proposed calendar. Thank you. So I'd like to begin by sharing information about the number of meetings in different districts hold each year. Abstractly
004speaking, in our area, there are essentially three groups, those that have about 20 meetings, those that have one meeting a month, and those somewhere in between. Dublin and Pleasanton have mostly two meetings a month, with the exception of July, and one meeting in November and December. I think it's important to note for our districts, it is important to note that for our district, at a minimum, two meetings in May and two meetings in June is necessary. The rationale for this concerns the budgets. In May, the second meeting allows for a presentation of the third interim budget. The second meeting in June allows us to close out business. So I believe that board members received correspondence from Kim McNeely, who described the benefits of having two meetings a month, as this allows for timely approval of
005contracts related to facilities, and the proposed calendar includes 16 regular meetings. However, the months with two meetings are strategic to meet the needs typically related to budget of the district. So we can take this conversation where we'd like, but I think the first is kind of a conversation of how many meetings should we have, and the second is what role, if any, should study sessions have? And I have stuff that I'd like to read about study sessions, but I would any questions or comments regarding how many meetings? Just a simple comment, and it would be having been on the board is my 12th year on the board. This was like a normal practice. It was just the norm. So if there's some semantics around how we call things or whatever, I have no issue with
006that. But getting back to the regular order of business and how we conduct it, what the community has been accustomed to for years, if not decades, it's welcome. Trustee Cacuanas? I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to listen to us and revise and explain the thought process behind the proposed original calendar. I do like that if we had something that was one or two meetings a month as the new updated version. I don't mind what we need to do as long as we stay efficient. Any other thoughts or questions? Trustee Peruzza? Well, I can't get on the internet, so I can't get my notes, but it's okay. I don't need them. Like what Dina said, I appreciate you putting some effort into this. I like that the workshops are labeled so folks
007in the community can see what it is that we're doing way in advance. And I guess we still have the option of canceling any meetings that we may or may not need. And I do think that, I know not every month, but I think the months where we have two board meetings is kind of nice to spread things out a little bit. So I'm fine with that. And it feels like the community is fine with the morning meetings as in this new schedule. So I'll support that. Trustee Ananou? Yeah, I agree too. And I just want to make sure that you understand why I had some reservations last time. And that is because I may have misunderstood the community when they expressed in, especially one of the meetings, but also with correspondence, they expressed a
008lot of distrust that these self-imposed borders around a Thursday meeting, which are self-imposed, they are not legally, legally, nobody recognizes a study session. Nobody recognizes a workshop. They just recognize a meeting of the board. And so these are self-imposed. And I think the community had some distrust around that. They thought you're trying to hide some actionable items that we would be interested in as a community. And with these 16 Tuesday meetings that, and going back to the community and asking questions, like how do you feel everybody's totally on board and that distrust seems to have completely gone away. So thank you. Yeah. And I'm not, we're all in this together, like we're moving forward. There's, I mean, the point of this is dialogue. And so good. Well, the second question, and I mean, it sounds
009like we're kind of all on board, but I wrote stuff. So I'm going to read it just again for clarity, because I think it's important. So regarding study sessions. And I know that there's semantics, but I think I would refer to bylaw 9320 meetings and notices. And the bylaws are the 9,000s, which pertain to us. And the bylaws outline two large types of meetings, regular meetings and special meetings. And under special meetings, there's different categories, study sessions, retreats, public forums, and discussions. And it gives kind of like a one sentence descriptor for each of those. And given the characterization of workshops in the past, I would propose that these are most similar to what our bylaws define as a study session, which states, and I quote, the board may occasionally convene a study session or
010public forum to study an issue in more detail, end quote. Additionally, I would note that our bylaws states unequivocally, quote, no action item shall be included on the agenda for these meetings, end quote. So study sessions would address one issue and we are not allowed to take action. So if so, moving forward, I think that it gets back to that idea of if we want to have a long conversation about facilities or budgets, then that's the case. So I don't know if there's any comments about that. The kind of next question was like the tone and tenure of the study sessions and I'd entertain a conversation about that. But any questions or comments about what I shared about study sessions? Trustee Prusso? I like that. I think that just to be clear, I did check
011over the last 10 years, we did, there were action items on almost all of our workshops. So we're going to change that practice to know, okay, that's just, just clarifying. Well, we, I would say we either need to change our bylaw or we need to change the practice because the bylaw says if you're having a study session, no action items. And so like if this, again, if this body wants to do that, to be able to have that flexibility to slide things in, then we should change your bylaws and say that. But as it is written, our bylaws say you can have a study session, but you may not take action. No action items shall be included on the agenda of these meetings. Okay. Just clarifying. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Trustee Capones? Thank you.
012I have a quick comment. So I do appreciate that you labeled it. I think that helps with the transparency and we know what the study session is about as well as the community. The other thing is during the study sessions, is there opportunity for public comment? So that's kind of the second question that it can be formal or it can be less formal. The bylaws don't dictate how that is. That's kind of a choice of us, how we want to do that. What can't happen is people can't comment on other things. During a study session, there's one issue. So typically what could happen is we could have public comment on that issue. Like if you want your three minutes to say it, and then it could either be us talking with them and the community
013doesn't get to speak, or it could be, as it was, less formal and there's more of a kind of dialogue. There's a presentation and then people are just kind of raising their hands and asking. And typically when we did it, it was in conference room C, so it wasn't this power, us and them. It was the people in the room raising hands and kind of jumping in. So the distinguishing factor of a study session is people couldn't, there could be public comment. It just couldn't be on things not, there's no general public comment and you couldn't comment on other random things. You can only do a comment about the issue, the study session topic. Yeah. Got it. Thank you. If we were to go with a less formal setting and more casual and actually invite
014the public to think alongside or to join in, but to be part of the meeting of the board and looking over our shoulders, we see presentations and things like that. Has it ever been done here in this room, like on that side of the podium to just have, I feel conference room C can be pretty inconducive to having the public join. The only issue I have with that is then we don't have the video capture of that meeting. And if we're trying to be transparent, so to me, I would think microphone, unless we're deciding we don't want video capture. We're not obligated to video capture. For full transparency, we can open the meeting and say, please join us for that or send your representative. But what we heard this fall was from teachers who say,
015I have to teach during the day. So they would have access to at least watch that video later. I'm just saying it's something to consider. I personally thought I liked that approach, but I feel like things have changed. Now our communities are watching us more closely. And I would be concerned that if we now take away video access, what that might look like to them. Would it be helpful possible to kind of keep track of what the engagement is on a workshop, on a study session, if it's negligible? I don't know. Yeah, I see what you mean. I know. But we had that same argument this fall that there wasn't a lot of engagement, but it didn't matter. The community wanted transparency. You know what I'm saying? It needs to be available even if people
016aren't accessing it is how people feel. I don't know. Does anyone? I had intended to open the discussion as well to our executive assistant and acting superintendent. So please feel. Yes, acting superintendent Michelle. Thank you. I think I would like to start by, of course, this is board direction. And I think this is a great conversation. And I was not here for the workshop study sessions, whatever we were calling them in the past in conference room, see that we're more collaborative. But I think my guiding question would be what is our goal of these study sessions? And does the goal change dependent on the topics that we have listed? Yeah, I think I don't I understand the need for open full transparency. But when it comes to a budget session, even when we're here in
017the room on a Tuesday, the room empties. So to have a more informal setting where we can ask questions, throw things out, whiteboard things, have people in the room to help us think through things, this particular setting, this dais is not super conducive to that. So when it comes to something like that to say, hey, for this budget study session, we invite you to come join us in conference room. See you are to join us in in the boardroom because we will not be able to video stream it. We will have a you know, a note taker. You'll be able to read what was said or what was discussed. But I trust the way I talked a lot about the informal study sessions and how much work got accomplished and how much and I understand
018you're you know, we're in a new world totally. Can we record in conference room C? Can we shove a computer in there and live stream it from there? I mean, it may not be perfect, but like I think these are logistics. This isn't a this or this. Like I think we can I mean, these are logistics that we can figure out between then and now. I guess the question is, do we want a less formal, more collaborative or more formal? And then the second part of that is how how do we record the meeting so that people could see it? Like I think I think all of those things can happen. Yeah, they don't usually exclusive. You've got telepresence in there. There's three cameras with mics. The room's mic'd up. That's that room's actually better
019suited than this room. Yeah, I would say so. For that purpose. And even if it's a laptop in the corner while we figure it out. No, there's there's it's already wired for all of that. I attended a meeting there before remotely before us for site plan presentations. This room is great to have, you know, have presentations by a larger team or whatever. We actually did. It wasn't exclusive to any room. The venue to me, it's to Stephen's point, this is are we going to do this, which is something we did historically. And it was for a constructive purpose. And the public benefited from it. Or are we not going to do it? And if we're going to do it like when we did the single plans, Emily, you were there in the room. They put
020us in groups. There'd be one and a group of two groups of two members if we ever wanted to attend. And some of the schools would be in here and some would be in conference room C. And we'd kind of rotate the group so we'd see the different single plans that the schools present budget we would do in that room. You know, teachers, teachers, reps would be there every so often or be a member of the public that would show up more of a conversation. I don't think it's a different world. I think the world's the exact same. The technology that existed then we're not talking about 1950s. This was a couple of years ago. And so the technology is the same that we use today outside of some polishing up. But it's the same.
021Currently the practice is that we record the meetings. Okay. That room's set up. This room's set up. It's six and a half dozen of the other. Trustee Campos? I lost track. It's okay. I think whatever is most transparent. So I do agree that it should be like some access to the people if it's this particular topic and they're a teacher and they really want to be a part of the conversation or at least know what was covered. I think it would be helpful to be video access so they could watch it at a later time. That's just my two cents on that. Where it takes place, that doesn't matter to me. I think too. I guess we could be flexible. We have it in conference room C and 30 people show up. We might have
022to move into this room. Yeah. And I think that this isn't for all eternity. This is a plan for what we hope to happen. Things could change. But okay. Other thoughts or questions? Any input, Lori? Two cents. Oh, that's true. But I think we can live and learn and see how our community responds to study sessions. And if we have more people, then we'll not pivot and can't pivot in the moment, but we'll learn from that. I think what you're voting on today is the schedule. And I think we take a formative approach about venue. We can reserve both rooms and take a more formative approach in that if we do get community feedback, to your point, Trustee Kaplanis and Trustee Pruso, that if we do get that community feedback, that our community is not
023feeling included for whatever reason, then we can shift. Okay. And I think part of that is also if it's not working for a community or organized labor groups communicating to us about how we can, you know, I mean, I know this is our meeting held in public, but you know, in the past, these study sessions were a more open opportunity. So, yeah. But good point. We're talking about the calendar. And I know the calendar is linked to things. And I did want to have some of those kind of deeper conversations about what do you want the tone and tenor of those to be. And it sounds like more informal is the direction. Okay. Any other thoughts or questions on 4-1? If not, I would entertain a motion. I move to approve the 2026-27 board meeting
024calendar. Second. So I have a motion from Trustee Vanden Heuvel. Second from Trustee Bueno. Any discussion on the motion? Clerk, can you co-roll? Trustee Pruso? Aye. Myself, aye. Trustee Bueno? Aye. Trustee Kaplanis? Aye. President Drouin? Aye. Motion carries 5-0. And our next item is to adjourn to closed session. I don't, I mean, we can do that now. Yeah. So we will adjourn. No, the card was for, just for, Amy came and spoke for 4-1. So there's no other. Are there any other blue cards? I don't have any other blue cards. So then we'll adjourn to closed session at 1-22 p.m. Okay. That's what we anticipated too.