001Good evening, this is our April 15 meeting the Board of Education of the Livermore Valley Joint Education, Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District. Our boardroom is open with an in person format, however, we will continue to broadcast our meetings over zoom to provide the opportunity for communities who observe in real time. The Board of Education of the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District is now reconvening to open session, and it is seven o'clock pm, please be advised that our board meetings are televised on local channel 28 on Wednesday and Saturday evenings, and on Monday, Friday and Saturday mornings. All actions approved in closed session must be reported out in open session, so I would ask trustee Kaplanis if she could please report for us. By a vote of five zero, the board took action in
002closed session to approve the settlement agreement for OAH case number 2025020428. In a vote of four zero with President Prusso recusing herself from voting on this item, the Board of Education voted to reject claim number 647177. Thank you. So we're going to move on to our Pledge of Allegiance. And we would like to invite our students from Arroyo Seco to please come forward to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand for the pledge. Right hand over your heart. Ready begin. I 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. Thank you. That was very well done. I'd like to ask Dr. Gibson if there are any changes to the agenda. There is
003one change to the agenda. We recently discovered an issue with our formal board correspondence platform, which prevented some items from being properly recorded. As a result, three correspondence items have been now added to the agenda as of this afternoon under that particular item. Thank you. We are now going to move on to our favorite part of the evening, which is our recognitions. And we are going to invite Ms. Valerie Nebo to come forward, the principal of Arroyo Seco, for our first recognition. Alright, good evening, Board President Perusso, members of the board, Superintendent Gibson and cabinet. I'm Valerie Nebo, proud principal of Arroyo Seco Elementary School, and it is my pleasure to be able to present representatives from our cultural club. I'd like to invite my students and their advisor to come stand behind me at
004this time as I read my recognition. Arroyo Seco Elementary's cultural club is being recognized for their leadership and dedication to making their school a more positive and inclusive place for all. The Arroyo Seco Cultural Club, led by Seco teacher Sofia Rodriguez, is comprised of fourth and fifth graders. These remarkable culture keepers actively model kindness, respect, and integrity, possess leadership qualities and model positive behavior for others, help create a safe, inclusive environment while building a strong sense of community, help promote cultural awareness and diversity, decorate campus to help celebrate culture and inclusivity, promote unity and belonging, design, organize, lead, and participate in culturally inclusive events on campus. Their willingness to support others, inspire positive choices, and lead with integrity sets an incredible example for Arroyo Seco's youngest culture keepers. Tonight it is my honor to recognize
005a group of our fifth grade culture keepers. While tonight we are missing Emiliano Morales and Violet Streeter, I have with me tonight Harper Barsotti, Tristan Crawford, Lily Cefalio, Michaela Cefalio, Delilah Quaresma, Mia Delgado, Emily Hewlett, and Tessia Molieri. Thank you so much and thanks to the grownups who brought them and probably have a little bit of something to do with their lives. That's great. Okay, we're going to move on to our second recognition. We will invite Mr. Mark Mill, proud principal of East Avenue to recognize some of his staff members. Greetings, President Pruso, members of the board, Superintendent Gibson. When I sat before you a month ago, I talked to you about the great things going on at East and one of the things I stressed was the PBIS program we have, but also the
006relationship building piece that we have put in the place this year that has helped to change the culture at East. And so I wanted to bring forth the individuals that I feel have contributed to that positive change in culture and environment who do all the work that it takes to make it happen. Now I could have brought my entire staff forth, but I think it was important to show you the people that put the work in daily that are sometimes behind the scenes. So to my right, to your left, is Nicole Coughlin, one of our school psychologists. Next to her is our school intern psychologist, Kaylin Stowe, and then our other school psychologist Melissa Hart. Next to her is Casey Haley, our wonderful school counselor and our PBIS coordinator. And then next to her is
007her intern, Juan Fernandez, and our wonderful vice principal, Christina Mirjivka. Oftentimes you don't see school psychologists being recognized in these kind of situations, but these two individuals are a valuable piece to the success of our school with the relationships that they build with students, not just the students that they serve, but also the students that just know them on campus in general. And so I just wanted to bring that forth, but also oftentimes you get lucky when you have great interns. And we've been very lucky with the two interns we have, our school psych intern Kaylin and also Juan Fernandez, whose father is also our lead custodian at East as well. So it's kind of all in the family, that's how we keep it. But I really just want to showcase the brilliant work that
008we all do to try and make sure East is the best place for our students. Thank you. Well, our recognitions are certainly welcome to stay for this wonderful board meeting. We also recognize that you have a lot of activities going on at home, including homework and bedtime and all those things. So we would like to excuse you now, but again, like I said, you're welcome to stay. It is past my bedtime. So thank you. Thank you parents too. Okay. We're going to move on to our student board member reports. Our student board representatives from our two comprehensive high schools, Livermore High School and Granada High School are here with us tonight to report on their activities. As we are winding down this year, it's, we have, they're both seniors. And so we only have a
009few more meetings with them and it has really, I know, don't want to remind anyone, but it has been really fun having them here and we're, we're excited for what they're going to do next. We will start with our representative from Livermore High School, Addie Hart, and then we will second Gabrielle Benitez, we'll go second from Granada High School. Good evening board president Prusso, members of the board, superintendent Gibson, cabinet and community. My name is Addie Hart and I'm representing Livermore High School. On Friday we had our staff variety show. Students loved watching their teachers perform various acts like lip syncing, dancing and skits. The second prom is on April 26th at the Grand Corinthian and students are getting very excited. We are going to recognize 50 students for cowboy heroes awards this year. We
010had a reclassification ceremony on Thursday for our students who now qualify as English proficient. We are very proud of their accomplishments. Our softball team attended the Livermore Stampede softball tournament on Thursday and Friday along with 24 other schools. Softball is co-hosting their service champions tournament last weekend with Foothill High School with six other teams attending. Students who participate in area are going on a field trip to Stanford University to participate in various cultural activities. Academic awards are being given out on April 22nd. We had a successful grand opening of our family resource center on Wednesday. Many families attended and are excited about the many resources being provided. We would like to give a special thanks to our PTSA for providing snacks for our juniors during their CASP testing week. It was just the motivation they
011needed. Thank you. Good evening board president Prusso, members of the board, superintendent Gibson, cabinet and community. At Granada High School our spring season continues to be packed with academic growth, celebration and community involvement. First congratulations to our incredible debate team. At the recent Phil Historian Invitational Bay Area Championship, the duo of Shirley Leong and Anna Pham placed second with an undefeated score in prelims. Individually, Shirley placed first and Anna second, with Sinah Mestri and Citi R also in earning top placements. Their success is a testament to the strength of our student voice and critical thinking. We also want to celebrate our video production students, Alexander Bergeron, Dominic Bork, Antune Kairala and Dylan Shinabe for earning an honorable mention in a nationwide PSA contest for their anti-vaping campaign. As we look ahead, our English Learner Advisory
012Committee meets this Wednesday to reflect on the year and plan for 2025-26. It's a key part of ensuring inclusive practices at Granada. On the athletic side, our varsity softball team is hitting home runs, literally, with With standout performances from players like Delaney Amua and continued strength in diving and stunt, our athletes are thriving in and out of competition. As well as this, our baseball team just had a high school invitational tournament in North Carolina, sponsored by USA Baseball, showing a strong performance going 3-1. Lastly, our boys lacrosse team is currently in first place in e-ball. This week at Granada is full of energy as we celebrate Greek Week. Students are showing their class spirit through friendly competitions at lunch each day, like the belly flop contest and a tug of war. In addition to the
013fun, class office selections are underway, giving students a chance to lead and represent their peers. We're also gearing up for a highly anticipated lip dub and battle rally this Friday, two of the most spirited events of the year that bring the entire school together. As always, thank you for your continued support of our students and staff. Stay classy. Thank you. Okay, we're going to have our Employee Association reports. We will begin with the LEA president, Amy Thompson. She is our president for our Teachers Education Association. I'd like to also recognize her vice president, who's here, Tara Lutz, who's sitting in the audience. And then after Amy, we will go to our CSEA president, Mamie Krstovich. Good evening, board president, Pruso, members of the board. Excuse me, Superintendent Gibson and cabinet. I'm Amy Thompson, president of
014the Livermore Education Association, representing teachers, nurses, counselors, psychologists, speech pathologists, social workers, and teachers on special assignment. The tentative agreements before you this evening represent a significant amount of work by and on behalf of the LEA bargaining unit, that if approved, will improve the working conditions for our members and ultimately the learning conditions for our students. In articles 10 and 16, we're commemorating staff ratios for psychologists, nurses, and counselors. These ratios create stable jobs for our members, which will allow us to attract and retain qualified and consistent staff for our students. Article 19 addresses creating safe and comfortable learning environments for staff and students. Articles 21 and 22 move us closer to our goal of competitive compensation, which will hopefully translate to starting next year with every classroom fully staffed, creating consistency for our students.
01586% of LEA members voted to ratify these tentative agreements. I'm hopeful that tonight the board will also vote to approve them. The timing on this is significant in that today is the day, by education code, that available jobs are posted for external candidates. If the board votes to approve these agreements and we quickly get the updated salary schedule published, that will help us in attracting teachers and starting next year fully staffed. While we still need to negotiate job duties and staffing ratios for our intensive IRM psychologists and staffing at Del Val and Vineyard for next year before this year ends, I am hopeful that tonight's vote will conclude a significant amount of work and move us forward. Thank you. Thank you. Mamie, please come forward. There you go. I think you got it. Yeah. Good
016evening, President Prusso, members of the board, Superintendent Gibson, and cabinet. I hope everyone enjoyed a relaxing spring break, though that actually feels like quite a long time ago. I am Mamie Christovich, president of the Livermore chapter of CSCA, the California School Employees Association. Joining me tonight is our chapter's vice president, Victoria Storti, as well as other dedicated CSCA members. At our February 18th board meeting, the board approved resolution number 025-2425, which included the reduction of 15 employees or 11.12 FTEs in various CSCA classifications. That was eight weeks ago, and CSCA's demand to bargain the impacts and effects of proposed layoffs meeting was finally held on March 26th with the district's attorney present via Zoom. CSCA did not feel the need to bring an attorney as we did not wish to set the stage for conflict
017from the start. At our March 26th meeting, CSCA looked forward to hearing about the much anticipated additional non-employee reductions that would reduce the number of layoffs and mitigate the impact of the reductions. Unfortunately, that did not happen. Instead, we discussed the positions that were approved for elimination, but the district did not have a full list of the job duties for each of the positions that are being eliminated or a feasible plan for how the work would be completed with these eliminations. To assist in this process, CSCA provided the district with a form to collect this vital information for each of the positions, and we hope to have more productive discussions at our next meeting scheduled for April 16th. Based on my research and discussions with employees impacted, there are several positions that were identified for
018elimination that would be problematic as the work is essential and still needs to be completed. The primary plan we have heard so far is to divide job duties between two remaining employees which is not feasible, fair, or realistic. I hope that the district is willing to collaborate and negotiate in earnest and with transparency to resolve layoff concerns and contract violations. The past few months have been incredibly challenging for so many CSCA classified employees with budget reductions and ongoing uncertainty surrounding those reductions. Some received layoff notices with bumping rights, but there were more that did not have that option. On March 26th, CSCA classified employees with bumping rights attended an assignment selection meeting. While they will have jobs to go to after June 30, the reality of losing the work that they have known weighed heavily
019on them, and bumping someone out of a job is truly not something anyone wants to do. My heart goes out to everyone who has been impacted. CSCA is aware that some of the layoff notices that were sent out by the district as a precautionary measure will be rescinded by May 15, and we look forward to that happening sooner rather than later to put employees' minds to rest. Morale and trust remain low as CSCA classified employees are traumatized about the layoffs and how the reductions will affect their daily work and their colleagues who received notices. At our last board meeting on March 18, I spent some time talking about equitable compensation for CSCA classified employees. The board publicly supported compensation increases as our district's budget deficit is addressed to preserve internal equity for employees with jobs
020that hold significant responsibilities, accountability, and risk of physical harm. CSCA classified employees appreciate the support of the board and look forward to that coming to fruition in the days to come. On a different note, I wanted to share that CSCA's annual paraeducator conference was held in March. This is a widely praised conference that offers a variety of helpful workshops for classified employees. CSCA sponsored two classified employees to this conference, and I would like to thank Dr. Gibson for their professional development release time. Finally, tonight you will be asked to approve the tentative agreement between the district and the Livermore Education Association. On behalf of CSCA, I would like to offer my sincere congratulations to LEA on their successful negotiations. Thank you. Thank you. Our SEIU president is Kirsty Governor. I don't see her here. And
021also our representative for CMC is Lily Lopez. I also don't see her here, so we're going to move on to our public comments on our non-agenda items. So if you would like to address a topic that's not on this evening's agenda, now is the time to do so. And we ask that you limit your comments to three minutes. Each speaker may speak once. I do have one TAN notecard, so I would ask Jeff Saragusa to come forward. Good evening, Superintendent Gibson, President Prusso, and school board trustees. I would like to share what has been put on my heart. I believe we are to treat others the way we want to be treated and love others the way we are loved by our creator. This may sound familiar to you as the Golden Rule. This rule
022originates from Galatians chapter 5. I pray these words will resonate in your minds and down into your hearts. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things. Those who belong to Christ Jesus, we have all been created in His image, have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to His cross and crucified them there. Since we are to be living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit's leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited or provoke one another or be jealous of one another. Heavenly Father, creator of heaven and earth, we humbly come before you with thankful hearts. Thank you for all your grace, mercy, love, and divine
023favor you bestow upon us every day as you guide and lead us in all truth. I pray your blessings upon the superintendent, each trustee, the students, their families, and the community. Grant this school board the strength, peace, and clarity in their thoughts to make the right choices in order to protect all who they are responsible to, especially with the children's education and safety while being transparent to their parents and all in the community. I pray that the truth will be renewed in their minds, and this truth will land deep in their hearts for the children's sake. Father God, creator of all, help us to be bearers of your good fruit and to treat and love others as we should. May God bless you all as we count our blessings, in Jesus' name. Thank you. Thank
024you. Next, we have our written communications. So we have formal written correspondence to the Board of Education that shall be acknowledged if received by the board or in the superintendent's office by 4 p.m. the day before the meeting. Formal written correspondence received after the cutoff time will generally be acknowledged at the following meeting. Please note that our board electronic communications is received via the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District website by accessing the formal written correspondence to the Board of Education link with all fields completed and verified. And as Dr. Gibson stated, we did have a little bit of issue with our, with that site. And so we do have some to read that were not read in the last meeting. So I'd ask the clerk if he could please, if he could please summarize
025those now. Sorry. Yes, I can. So we had three correspondence. shared concerns about the decision making process behind recent budget reductions, highlighting that Junction K-8, despite its unique challenges, including dual immersion programs and a high need students population face cuts to both the vice principal and instructional aid position. She also expressed disappointment that a board member did not advocate for Junction during these discussions. Barry Rutherford expressed concern that scheduling detailed board discussions on Thursday mornings limits public participation, especially when related materials are posted the night before. He also raised concern about bond funded staff being listed on a worksheet addressing general fund budget issues, noting this could create confusion and caution against reducing bond staff given the program's compliance demands. Sharon Bittman expressed concern about the PE curriculum and grading practices at Mendenhall Middle School,
026citing issues with point deductions for absences due to illness or injury, limited makeup opportunities, a lack of accommodations for physical ability, and the potential impact on students' mental well-being. She also requested that the board review the program for fairness and consistency across the district. Thank you. Thank you for that. Go ahead. One question on this. Are we remedied? Because I know none of those, I've received those emails. Yes, we are. So those were some of those, I'm going to ask Ms. Rice, but I believe a couple of those we discovered were from even back in February, correct? So we are caught up. We have switched platforms completely and we're now using FinalSite, which is our internal already system that we use for other correspondence purposes for the community and no longer using the old system
027that we were using. So we are up to date. So moving forward, you should now get those, we found those in the wheel that had not been posted. Okay. Thanks. I'm going to move on to our discussion action items and we will turn the time over to Ms. Amy Robbins for our tentative agreement with the Livermore Education Association. Good evening, President Prusso, Superintendent Gibson, members of the board and cabinet. Tonight, I bring to you the tentative agreement with the Livermore Education Association. As mentioned previously, this agreement includes Article 10, which is special education, Article 16, which is class size, Article 19, which is health and safety conditions, Article 21, which is wages and Article 22. Last spring, we sunshineed these articles and we sincerely appreciate the collaboration and hard work that went into these negotiations.
028Both teams work diligently, engaging in thoughtful dialogue and problem solving to reach an agreement that reflects our shared commitment to supporting students as well as staff. This tentative agreement represents meaningful progress in addressing key priorities, which include competitive compensation, class sizes, special education services, and maintaining a safe and healthy work and learning environment for all. In addition to the tentative agreement, the district and LEA reached several memorandums of understanding, which are also included. Those include the use of personal cellular devices for emergency communications, the The long-awaited, eagerly communicated to the public 25-26 school year calendar, as well as impacts from the calendar to our elementary science specialist. This tentative agreement and the MOUs represent meaningful progress in addressing these key priorities, and we appreciate our partnership and believe that this agreement reflects the values and
029the goals of our district. With that, it's our superintendent's recommendation to approve the tentative agreement with the Livermore Education Association. I just want to add one quick thing, as this has been a question that I've had frequently in these situations and with two, I guess you get to be new till December, right? A year of this before you're no longer a new status. So the question has been raised around, can board members who benefit from this MOU, are they allowed to vote on this MOU? And the answer to that is yes. And the reason behind that is because it's for the whole and not for one individual person. So you do not need to, board members with spouses who are teachers in the district do not need to recuse themselves from this vote. Any questions
030or comments? I have a quick comment. I think it's good that 86% of the LA members voted to ratify this. So I think that's a good thing to move forward, in my opinion. Yeah, Steven. I guess I'll address this to either, but as part of the negotiations earlier in the year, and I can't remember, it started with a B, you did some type of bargaining, some interest-based bargaining. Did I remember it now? Yes. Yes. So to what extent did you, because you were trained in that, how did that play into this? Did you pick pieces? Like I'm slightly unfamiliar with that process, so I'm just kind of curious about to what extent did you utilize that or to what extent will you utilize that process in the future or just some comments about interest-based bargaining
031as part of the end result now that it's almost finished? So I would say we made great attempts at many moments from, so the training happened the end of January and we were deep in the thick of a lot of this. I would say with the MOUs, interest-based bargaining is just kind of more natural because we're having conversations about what do we want to achieve and then we're sitting together and crafting, you know, parsing words together to create the MOU. With the articles, it can be a little different, obviously with wages and health benefits, that becomes just a little bit more emotional and different and different types of discussion. I will say where we ended our very last negotiation session, which was kind of a marathon session of almost 12 hours with us all together,
032six of us together, I feel like we actually really had a really good, much more interest-based bargaining session at that point. Our goal is to move into that direction at all times when we can, but it does take time to get there. So we, I would say we used a good 50% of the time or more as we moved past end of January. Would you agree, Ms. Robbins? I would agree and I think both teams were very invigorated with the training because really brings you back to visualizing what your common focus areas are and your common interests are. So we look forward to continuing in that path. I just wanted to say as I was going through this today in preparation for the meeting, I got a little bit emotional. I know this is going
033to sound crazy. For those of you on the board, you might understand. It's been quite a year emotionally for everyone in the community. As we've heard from all of our bargaining units, it's been a tricky year because of sort of the financial constraints that we're struggling with. And I am just really appreciative for both teams making an effort to maybe get a little bit uncomfortable on both sides, but to come to a place where we can do the best that we can for our employees while also recognizing that we have to stay within our financial duties budget and for our community. And so I just wanted to say thank you to both teams and just gratitude. And as Trustee Capuan has said, to have that 86% ratification from the employees is also just a really
034positive thing. So if there aren't any other comments, I would entertain a motion. President Pritzker, I move to support the superintendent's recommendation to approve the tentative agreement with the Livermore Education Association. I'll second. So I have a motion by Trustee Druhan, a second by Trustee Capuan. Any discussion on the motion? If not, I'd ask the clerk to please take roll. Trustee Buena? Aye. Trustee Capuan? Aye. Trustee Vanden Heuvel? Aye. Myself? Aye. President Prusso? Aye. That motion carries unanimously 5-0. Yes. Okay. We're going to move on to, we're going to invite Ms. Kim McNeely to come forward and she is going to give us a project update on our Measure J and our Maryland Avenue STEAM Academy, and this is for information only. Good evening. President Prusso, members of the board, Superintendent Gibson and cabinet, it
035is my absolute pleasure to be here this evening to present the Maryland STEAM project update to you. I am going to start with a little bit of history on Measure J, because in fact, as I will tell It is what made this project possible for our district. So again, a little bit of history. Most of this probably for the community, I think the board is already familiar. Measure J was passed in June of 2016 with a 66% approval rating, which is quite remarkable. It's a $245 million general obligation bond, and what comes with that is Proposition 39. It was in fact a Proposition 39 bond. What that requires is that the board establish an independent citizens bond oversight committee, and really the purpose of that committee is to inform and alert the public regarding the
036expenditures and uses of the bond fund. It also comes with a lot of activities that the CBOC is involved in. Those include regularly publicly posted meetings. They do those every other month. They receive regular budget updates at those meetings. They receive regular project updates, and we discuss the things that are happening in the program on projects. They also review an annual independent auditors report, and as part of that activity, they then generate an annual report that they present and provide to the board. In fact, they will be with you next month to present their annual report to you. So they have actively working on oversight of the bond program. The other thing that Measure J allows is for us to apply for state bond funds. Again, I know the board is aware, but for the
037community, it is a requirement of the state bond program that we have local matching funds in order to apply to that program, and the district has in fact received two rounds of state bond funds as a result of our Measure J program. The first round was in 2022, and that reimbursement from the state bonds was $28.5 million. I'm going to talk more about what that made possible, but in fact, the Maryland Project is funded from that reimbursement from the state. And then we have a second round of reimbursement coming this spring. We've already received the allocation, and we are just awaiting it depositing in the county treasury. That is a $16.2 million reimbursement, and so that brings our total to $44.7 million that we have been able to leverage our local bond money and participate
038in the same bond program, which is amazing. Again, just a reminder, as part of Measure J, the board identified several goals. You'll be thrilled to know that I'm not going to go through these, but this is in fact the list of the goals that the board identified as part of this program. They are a combination of signature projects, small projects, maintenance work, and technology upgrades throughout the district. The green checks indicate the work that we have completed thus far, and as we are nearing the end of the program, you'll be happy to note that we've accomplished a lot of the goals that were identified by the board. The yellow highlight is area of work we're still continuing to pursue, and then because we have been successful in managing the budgets in this program, we are
039going to be able to, with the blue highlight, do some additional deeper work in those categories that were identified. So we're going back really for another round of work in those categories with Measure J bond funds. Again, no surprise to the board, but I'm going to remind you that this in no way is an indication of the total need in the district. This is simply identified first round work that came out of master planning work that I'll talk about in a second. So not total need, but a really great start on first round of identified priorities in the district. As part of this work that the board embarked upon, there was a 2016 master plan developed that really created the, or was the genesis of a lot of the work that was done in the
040program or has been done in the program. In 2021, the board embarked on an update as a best practice to refreshing that master plan. We went through site-specific analysis throughout the district, looked at long-term capacity, and I defined a next round of priorities in the district. And I have the cover of that document up there. That best practice that the board has adopted has in fact now been put into the requirements in Proposition 2, the bond that was passed last November. And so that will be an ongoing requirement. We're ahead of that curve a little bit because we have been doing that work, but now it will be required as part of applying for state bond funds going forward. This document really, the refresh we did in 2022, is really again the basis of the
041work that we are doing at the Maryland campus, really re-looking at our needs and how we're going to align with the program. So now I'm going to talk about Maryland a little bit more. We started this project in April of 2024. That includes the area you see circled. That allowed a couple of things to happen. Starting with the parking lot work allowed us to free up the space that's shown on your plan under Building E and allow for the opening of school successfully. That was the first milestone in this project. We had that open ready for fall so that we could begin the next work on the campus. The project team I think did an amazing job of really looking at the project and the schedule and made the decision to push work forward in
042both Buildings A and B. Those are existing classroom buildings. They did fire alarm upgrades and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning upgrades on all of those classrooms. That was a decision made to try to take some pressure off the overall project schedule. That was successfully completed for the start of school as well. And so we really started this project off pretty strong and with a lot of good momentum, which is always very nice when you start on an older campus. The next part of work that the parking lot allowed is the creation of the new classroom building identified on your plan as Building E and with a sort of blue shading. That will allow us to expand the existing kindergarten playground, which is to the right of that, create new TK space, and then create four
043new classrooms in that building, TK building classrooms and a STEAM classroom space. And then really running concurrently with that is renovation of the library building, which is K on your plan, again in the light green, the creation of a STEAM classroom at the back of that space, a research area, and then finally within this plan, the renovation of the classroom in Building D, which is an existing science space, but now is being created to be consistent with the other spaces on the campus. The last milestone on this project before completion was the move of that existing science classroom into Building K. They came back to new classroom space for that program right after spring break, and that allowed us to do demolition in Building D so as to minimize disruption on the campus as school
044started back up. And so that work was accomplished and they are actively renovating that space and then on the rest of the work in Building E and K. At this point, that project is on schedule and we are within budget and we expect to, as planned, open for the start of the next school year with brand new space on the campus. Again, just a quick reminder, the board's decision to do this was really based on a fairly large instructional grant that we received and the ability to leverage that grant by using our state funding to create spaces that support that program more effectively. So I think just a win-win for us on a couple of levels. Just quick reminder for you, this is really an early rendering of what the front of the campus will
045look like. It's adjusted slightly, but predominantly this is how we're moving forward. You can see just a very updated, refreshed look for the front of the campus. And then the second sheet is the new building that we're constructing on the site. In the foreground is the new TK Playground space that will continue in to the kindergarten area. In the foreground of that building are the two new TK classrooms. And then in the background, sort of the brown with the blue banding at the top, are the two new STEAM classrooms with prep space between those classrooms. I think a really nice addition and you can see we'll continue the aesthetic across the front of the campus. And then really last at Maryland, I wanted to share a couple of actual images of what's happening. So in
046the upper left of this slide is the parking lot and drop-off space as we began the project in April of 24. And in the lower right-hand corner is how the campus looks today. And really the reason I wanted to show this is I think that this is a great example of what is possible when we have a vision and a plan for a campus and we have community support to fund those improvements. Just a dramatic improvement and I think one that we're excited to share more with you as we move into the summer and the project completes. As always for the existing board members, but for the new board members, I like to end on just a summary matrix of kind of recent work that's being completed. I won't go through it, but it's just
047good reference for you. And then we will post this to our webpage as just a refresher for the community on what we're doing currently or recently. That concludes my presentation for the evening. I thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer any questions. I have no blue cards. Any questions or comments from the board? I just have one quick thing. Will you just talk a little bit about what we're going to do in August or prior to school opening just in the way of inviting the community to come in and see all that wonderful work that's been done? The hope is that we will do a community open house. I know we already have buzz in the neighborhood. I hear from the neighbors already. It's coming along really nicely. Our hope is that
048we're going to do a community open house, ideally having students be docents and walking the community and the parents through this great new improvement to their campus and the intent is that that will be before school starts. Yeah, just a little point. Thanks again for the update. And you've done a fantastic job with this and there's two components. One is just the actual work and then others convey it to the public on an ongoing basis. So for those who might be watching or catching this right now, our hundred million audience, Well, there's a the public trust is the key component on securing money to do bonds. And most people don't know, I didn't know this years ago. My kids were in school, California stopped funding school improvements years ago. So unless the community passes bonds
049outside of maybe painting and fixing a broken window here or there, there's no funds for that. So it's inherent upon a community and the expectation through California education is that about every 10 years, a community passes a construction bond to do construction because these buildings time out. Maryland Avenue was you can probably tell us it was late 50s, 1968, 68, Maryland was 68. OK. However long it was, most buildings are only lifed at 50 to 75 years and then there's infrastructure and things. The updates that you've done have been very helpful, but also there's a lot of scrutiny when you pass a bond, people want to know, well, where's it going to go and are you going to spend it on what you say you're going to spend it on? And it was under your
050leadership. You've overseen this bond, 245 million dollars plus these added funds. We have been ahead of schedule and under budget in almost every one of your marquee projects. So that to me, that is extraordinarily credible. And I think that that should go a long way with our with the public as we move forward. These were the most needed sites that we went to. But I know from back then, the the identified improvements were at least double that in terms of what needed to be done. So and the districts done a nice job of making sure that the financing on this was done properly and refine things when we could and grabbing lower interest rates on the issuances and things. So it's just it's a I would welcome people to go out there, signs that say
051welcome. Thank you, Mr. J. Welcome, public. But I would welcome the public when you're walking by Livermore High School or Joe Mitchell or East Avenue or here in Maryland or STEAM School and then some of the other little projects. We had a little project over at Granada, too, that was just ahead of this. So as we move forward. So thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else? Yeah, I also just want to say we met when I was PTA president at LHS and you gave us a tour of the new athletic facilities or, you know, you were just in the process of that. I was so impressed with you and thinking, man, if this goes the way that Ms. McNeely would like for it to go, it's going to it's going to be great. And
052those blue highlights show that you're just you're you're amazing. You're going back for more because you're under spending and it's just really, really cool. And I can't wait for the next bond issue and for that. You know, I love that teaser picture on that master plan slide with some other improvements to to both Granada and Livermore High and things like that. So I really appreciate your work. And I also just want to want you to know that so much of what you do is is hidden stuff. It's not the pretty new entrances, but it's the HVAC stuff. And it's the stuff that keeps our learning environments appropriate for children to learn as as best as they can. And I so appreciate that as a parent. So thank you. Yeah. And the master plan is on
053our website, right? And I always talk about that, but you can look at all the pretty pictures of what we want to do someday. So thank you, Kim, as always appreciate it. I have a quick, quick comment. Thank you, Miss McNeely, for the work you do. I've actually been to Maryland school site and had a walkthrough of the construction process with the principal of there and and listening to the feedback from the principal and the teachers and some of the parents, they have shared what how impactful the new parking lot has even just been. It's made the drop off such an easier process. Things are flowing better. It's boosted the morale at the campus. And I would just like to recognize that you guys have been able to do all this work while the students
054are in school. I think that's pretty awesome how you were able to move them from one building while the other one was under construction. Like, it's a lot of work. And so especially at an elementary level. So just thank you so much for doing this. I'm really excited to see the finished product. Thank you. We're going to move on to our summer facility project update and turn the time over to Miss Kayla Wasey. Yes, good evening. I just want to provide a quick update on kind of our plans for summer facility projects in addition to Maryland that will be ongoing over the summer as we've been working to identify the projects priorities for the state funding coming in as well as our remaining bond funds and some additional developer fees that we have received this
055year. We have a couple of projects that we have in the works planning to come to the board. One is an access and security camera project that will impact all sites across the district. And we'll be bringing that forward for approval on April 24th. The project cost is approximately two point six million dollars at this point in time. We're still working on refining that and we'll bring that forward. And then a roofing project that is out to bid right now. We had really great participation in our site walk of about 20 different contractors. So we're really hopeful that we'll have some positive bids on that and it'll maybe come in a little lower than anticipated. And we'll be bringing that forward on May 6th for you. I just wanted to especially with the access and
056security camera coming on a special board meeting, I just kind of wanted to bring that forward to front load the board prior to bringing it to the special board meeting next week. Any questions on summer projects? One of the reasons for us to bring that to the special meeting is if we get board approval prior to the beginning of May, we receive some pretty good discounts and we just couldn't get the documents ready in time for the posting of this agenda. So just so you know, that's not really the norm, but so we opted to agendize this so that we could follow the board as well as the community. The other thing, too, that I know we've discussed a little bit, but I'll just put this at ease for both the board, although you're aware,
057but mainly for the community is that in June, I want to say around June 18th, we went into an agreement to do a property swap for this property for two properties that we own, including this building and another piece of property for a new district office building. And that is not happening. We are planning to stay in this facility for the duration of life. And we are going to start doing some work on this building, including roofing and dry rot and some painting and some infrastructure pieces. We have other facilities across the district that we are really working with our bond department and a team of people with Ms. Wasley and Mr. Sherman and a team of us to really look around the district with properties that we already own with buildings on them that
058we can be utilizing. And so we're going to work at using our space better instead of moving us to a space that is far more expensive than where we are and the needs that we have here. And in addition, it's just not a desirable location. This facility is centrally located. And so we are planning to stay physically here in this district office building. So there are no plans moving forward for any type of property swap or to move the district office at this time or ever. Ms. Wasley, can you you had linked developer fees? I'm not sure if you're using the right term with that, with some of the summer work. So can you remind us of some of the constraints that developer fees as we're talking about budget reductions? And I believe that we
059can only use those for certain types of things. So can you remind us of what those are? Yes. So developer fees are a very restricted source of funding that we receive for any new developments within our district boundaries. And so they can be used for either new facilities or modernizing current facilities to provide appropriate spaces for our students. So likely the increased funding that we receive in the developer fees will actually be going towards TK renovations that we'll be needing on our sites with our influx of TK students, which then frees up some planned funding that we were using for the bond. But yes, it is very restricted to just modernization or new facilities and nothing else can be spent from those funds. How much does it cost to lower toilets and sinks? A lot
060more than you would think. But we will. I know I had a question prior from our amazing union leadership around, can the toilet sizes match the sink size? And the answer to that is yes, they will be matching right now. We have some restrooms that they don't match. So we will be working on. I know, I know, trust you, I know I had the same look on my face. But yes, we will make sure that toilet and hand washing stations match the size of the children using them. I don't know. OK, right. We're going to stay with Ms. Kayla Wase for some board policy. Yes, so I'm presenting for you again, board policy thirty one hundred. I brought this forward last meeting and there was some revisions requested around the budget committee, budget advisory committee.
061So we have created a custom option instead of one of the options that were generated by CSBA. So the new option kind of better details out what the committee, the composition of the committee and who will be represented in the committee through the superintendent's appointment process, as well as the board members participation. Any questions on that revision or any changes that you would like to see? We're happy to take any comments. That section, the custom option is at the top of page two, where it says budget advisory committee custom option. The superintendent does need me appoint a budget advisory committee, compose a bar unit representatives from each unit, a board member, district staff and or members of the community. The board member will be assigned to the budget advisory committee through the annual board of
062education membership slash assignment process. And after you approve this, if you could also tell me who would like to be assigned to that, because we will be getting that committee started very, very soon, please. Any questions or comments? Thank you for the clarification. So that was helpful. OK, I'd entertain a motion. I move in support of the superintendent's recommendation on this item. I'll second. So we have a motion by Trustee Bueno, seconded by I miss that. Is it trustee Vanden Heuvel? I couldn't tell which one. And it's not it was the sound, not the look. Any discussion on the motion that ask our clerk to take roll? Trustee Capuanis, I myself, I trustee Bueno, trustee Vanden Heuvel, I President Prusso, I that motion carries unanimously. And as far as assigning someone, trustee Bueno has has
063expressed his interest. So I'm fine with that. If anyone else, everyone's nodding their head. Good. I'd be great. Appreciate it. OK, that was easy. OK. And now we're going to move to Miss Amy Robbins for some board policy. Good evening again. Tonight, I present to you the revised board policy six one seven zero point one, which is a transitional kindergarten. This policy has been updated with the additional rules of student eligibility, as well as the newly established guidelines regarding teacher credentialing requirements and student staff ratios. And with that, I'll answer any questions. Yeah, Steven, regarding the staffing, the in the portion that addresses staffing, the district shall maintain an average of at least one adult for every 12 students for TK. And then it cites Ed code at the end. Is that one to twelve?
064Is that is that codified in Ed code? The current requirement is one to twelve. And there is legislation that's changing that that would require us to be one to ten. OK, interesting. What's the max in the class? And the basis of my question goes to the parcel tax that we have in place. And one of the components, legal components on the parcel tax is that we have those real small ratios in those. I think it's K through three. There's class size reduction funding that we receive as a district for the primary grades. And so would we be consistent with that, with that low number? Yes, we'll be consistent. We want to make sure that we stay within those parameters and currently the class size cap is twenty four for transitional kindergarten. OK, I have no
065blue cards and entertain a motion if there are no other comments or questions. I move to approve the revised board policy six one seven zero point one for transition kindergarten. I second. Go for it. We have a motion by Trustee Vanden Heuvel, seconded by Trustee Caplanis. Any discussion on the motion? I ask the clerk to take roll. Myself, I, Trustee Vanden Heuvel. I, Trustee Caplanis. I, Trustee Bueno. I, President Prusso. I, that motion carries unanimously five zero. And now we will turn the time over to Michelle Pichette to go over our new courses. Maybe let's go. Should we go through all the courses first and then we'll set. Yes, please. OK. Good evening, Board President Prusso, members of the board, Superintendent Gibson and members of cabinet. I am here tonight to present new courses for
066approval. And as a reminder, spring is the season where we begin new and updated courses for school board approval. If a course is new, the slide header will identify it as such. So the first course that we have is video productions A and A.B. This one gives learners a foundation in visual and auditory design concepts needed for media media creation. It explores the full process of creating motion content and blends conceptual understanding with direct practice to build real world abilities in media making. Our next course expands on prior knowledge as advanced video productions A.B. through hands on projects aligned with arts based criteria, guiding learners through the full process of creating visual narratives. Our next course, digital photography, A.B. This foundational class serves as the starting point in a multilevel visual media curriculum following state
067educational guidelines. It equips learners with essential knowledge and skills, setting the stage for progression into higher level creative imaging classes. Our next course, advanced digital photography A and B. This course helps learners enhance their image making abilities through hands on experience and artistic growth. It sets the stage for more challenging visual arts studies, encouraging inventive expression and technical refinement. Our next course, photography A.B. Learners will gain hands on experience with both traditional and modern image making tools, practicing techniques to capture and refine visuals using analog and digital equipment. The course also introduces image editing software for enhancing and transforming photographs throughout participants will engage in critical discussions, assessing their work and that of others while exploring current trends and challenges in the field. Our next course, advanced photography, building on prior knowledge, students will engage
068in advanced visual composition, methods designed to articulate concepts through artistic expression. And our next course, studio broadcast A B in this course, students actively engage in creating audio and visual content by crafting stories, capturing footage and refining their project using professional equipment and software. Participants will also examine responsible reporting, analyze pivotal moments in media history and understand the inner workings of the news industry. So the superintendent's recommendation is to approve all new courses. Thank you. And I would entertain any questions or comments. I have no blue cards, Steven. I'm assuming that A.B. is that it's a two semester course. Correct. I'm just I'm assuming my secondary assumption then is that there are courses that are just a single semester course. Mm hmm. Yes. My assumption is that a lot of these the descriptions that that
069are here on the slides and what you just read are based on requirements that California gives it gives us. They're based on the city pathways. Yes. OK. These are VAPA courses based at that are A to G compliant based on city pathways. Nothing that needs to be changed. But I just want the us as a board to be so, you know, be forward looking about especially classes like this that are going to be impacted so much by AI and and everything that that will bring into it that we, you know, that we keep that don't just stay here in this. Some of these some of these courses are, you know, are going to be outdated in a way in some ways. So soon this is all moving very, very quickly. If you've seen the last
070two years. Yeah, but they have to do analog photography. So that's fine. Yeah. Film. Yes, there is also film. I have a quick question. This will be offered at both high school. Correct. OK, it will be offered in their course catalog at both high schools. Yes. OK. And DelVal. Yes. Yes. Yeah. OK. I would entertain a motion. There's no other comments. Well, President Bruce, I move to. Oh, yeah, sure. To support the superintendents recommendation and approve new courses. Yeah. 13.5 a video production, a B 13.5 B advanced video productions, a B 13.5 C digital photography, a B 13.5 D advanced digital photography, a B 13.5 E photography, a B 13.5 F advanced photography, a B and 13.5 studio broadcast, a B. I second. So we have a motion by Trustee Druins, seconded by Trustee Vanden
071Heuvel. Any discussion on the motion? OK, I'd ask the clerk to take roll. Trustee Bueno. Aye. Trustee Capuanis. Aye. Trustee Vanden Heuvel. Aye. Myself. Aye. President Prusso. Aye. That motion carries unanimously five zero. Thank you. We're going to move on to our consent items. We have 15 consent items on the agenda. Would any board member like to remove any consent items for discussion? If not, yes. OK. I'd like to pull two E and four C. Two E and four C, four C, four C. Let me make sure. Yes. Do you have so you want to pull them and you want to discuss them? Do you have questions about them? Well, so in the past, in the past, we've pulled them and discussed later. But we can discuss anything on there first. And then and then
072if you're pulling them, it's really because to vote. It's really for the vote. Yeah. It's just discussion. We can discuss anything that's on consent first. And then if you want to pull something to vote for it separately, then we would do that. I had to. Yeah. So clarifying. Yeah. Things that I would like to ask. Yeah, you don't have to pull anything. You don't have to pull them. You can just ask away. OK. And let's see, we'll go with two E first. Yeah. On two, this is special and transportation two year amendment. It talks about the increases were allowed to three percent. And in the first year, we're going to get a two point five percent. And then the second year, twenty six, twenty seven or one percent was negotiated when it says the fiscal
073impact. It says the cost to the district is estimated at two point three six nine. Two million three hundred and sixty nine thousand dollars using special ed funds. What is is that the cost initially? Is that the cost of the increase or is that the cost at the end of the twenty six, twenty seven year? That'll be the cost for twenty five, twenty six. So then the cost for twenty six. So that's inclusive of the two point five percent increase. Yes. OK. So for the twenty six, twenty seven year. There'd be a one percent on that. Correct. Yes. And this is based off of our current usage of our transportation services. So depending on student population changes, that number can't change for the purpose of just codifying this. Could could we actually have that when
074it says fiscal impact? Because when I look at fiscal impact, I would think, given that it's an increase, that that would be the cost of the increase. But if we could, yes, you know, chalk that up so that it would actually be specific. Like our current cost is this. We're going to move it to point five percent, which is this. And we add one percent. It's going to be because the one percent will compound on the two point five. Yes. I'm going to add an update to the bottom of this agenda item that explains that that cost is for twenty five, twenty six only. OK, that clarifies that the other clarification is going to be on four, which is human resources, revised substitute salary schedule. There's two documents attached to that. There's an edited and
075a clean version. We'll not get into the context of all of them on the edited version. That would be striked through underlined. And it looks like the child nutrition assistance hourly rate has been altered on that. I'm going to have you refer to refer to Mr. Robbins. That is correct. That was updated based on the action taken on the March 18th board meeting. Yes. And it's just it's just like I'm guessing that this is why I actually don't want to guess. I would surmise that this is just a cut and paste error that we're using an old document to do one. And when we do the clean, this is I have to rely that the documents we see, especially on consent, are very consistent. So that is the edited version. But if you go to
076the clean version, let's go. Let's stay with edited version and look under Friday rate. The Friday rate is 270 per day. Now, I know that we took action on that a while back to alter the day rate on Fridays. And when you go to the clean version, the second attachment, the day rate is 255. So we have documents that are changing and they're they're not being explained. So I just want to make sure that we're keeping track of stuff because it's really imperative because if we vote on it and it's one and then it's something different, that becomes a problem. So that was a previous action. Yes, you are. You are correct with your surmising. I do believe that somebody had pulled up an old document, but you are correct. The clean version is the
077accurate rate. The edited version needed to be adjusted. OK. Are there and I didn't go through all the other ones or all the other ones, correct? I just want to make sure that we're voting on something is actually accurate right now for us. Yes. OK. Why don't we why don't we pull that one completely and we'll bring it back? OK. I'd rather it just hourly rates. You have to get those right, because that's a little mess. Payroll up and people and. Well, otherwise, stirs. Well, there's a stirsable, but any number of things. Regardless. Yeah, let's just pull that. And that is for C, correct? For for C. OK. Revised substitute salary schedule. OK. So this is right. So if you'll just make note that we are pulling item for C completely or tabling and we'll
078bring that back to the next meeting. OK. I have a question about 2F, Miss Wasley, the Chromebook purchase. Is those are those new Chromebooks that we're replacing things? Yes, those are new Chromebooks to phase out existing Chromebooks that are aged out. So we have a 10 year lifespan on a Chromebook and then they cannot be used for upgrade. They can't be updated. So you can't use them for state testing or different things like that. And so these will be purchasing Chromebooks for not only our first grade students when they're getting their one device initially, but also for seventh grade students who have devices that are no longer have reached into life and can no longer be used. Even though they're 10 year. Typically, so we kind of rotate through our Chromebooks as we have new
079students come in and then 12th grade students going out. If they are Chromebooks, when they graduate from 12th grade are still usable, then we pass those back out to students. So it's kind of an ever evolving process of trying to use their devices as long as we can to get the full usable life out of them, because it is a costly expense on an annual basis. Yes, thank you. There's no exemption on sales tax for us in any circumstance. Unfortunately, not if there's no other comments or questions. I'd entertain a motion to move the consent items with the exemption of 4C in their entire. I'll make a motion to approve the consent items. Outside of 4C in their entirety. Second. So I have a motion by Trustee Vanden Heuvel, seconded by Trustee Druin. Any discussion
080on the motion? OK, Trustee, join if you could take roll. Trustee Vanden Heuvel. Aye. Trustee Bueno. Aye. Trustee Kaplanis. Aye. Myself. Aye. President Prusso. Aye. That motion carries unanimously five zero. OK, we move on to our board reports. We will begin with Trustee Bueno. I just want to congratulate some of those kids. It's remarkable work. It seemed like it was a little bit different format having it over at Joe Mitchell compared to when we've had it at Jax at Junction in years past. But I was able to bring my little six year old granddaughter, and she was quite amazed at some of those little projects, especially when you get down to the little kids. And then also going through Joe Mitchell, just looking at that site and the work that's been done with the public
081trust and doing those bonds over there. And it's pretty remarkable to see what we've done. And those kids do remarkable work. Water for your purification. And it's it's kind of remarkable when you when you watch what kids are able to do. And I hope that we can continue to do some of these complex projects, because when you put them in a better learning environment, they're going to do better work. Trustee Kaplanis. See. I hope you guys all had a nice spring break. I'm refreshed, ready to go. But it was fun before we had a break. I went to the Sunset Gala. I've heard many great things about it. And so finally attend. They do some awesome work over at Sunset, that's for sure. I had the privilege and the honor of being a carpool for
082the LHS spring fling. My my little help in that. I attended the strategic planning, and that was really good experience and learning and working together. I attended Leadership Day at Lawrence. That was really fun. And just to see how their curriculum of the leader and me, it all came together and those students are doing awesome work. Just they're so confident. They truly are little leaders in our community. And so I really appreciated that. Of course, the Navarro site visit and the Science Odyssey night and the Junction Fun Run. Thank you, Trustee Vanden Heuvel. Trustee Vanden Heuvel. Well, that's spring break. So I don't know how you all did all that. I had a break. I had a break. I tell you, I am see the Joe Mitchell K.A. parent student community dance. I saw that
083school's administrators dance, so I can't unsee that. But it was awesome. But it's so cool to see them reach out to the community and and do something for for their students. It was really, really cool. That's some great parents, great teachers. It's a great event. I love that. That's it. It's all I did. And I said on my hands. All right. Trustee, here we go. We did. It was the first thought that came to my mind after reading the letter from Dean Porfilio last Friday, which stated that beginning beginning in the fall semester of this year, I will rise to the rank of full professor. I raised this point. I raised this point here because I am the proud product of the California public education system. I attended Vinewood Elementary School, Lodi. I see I
084wrote it wrong. It's senior elementary. They changed it to Lodi Middle School, Toke High School and then San Francisco State University. I believe in the power of public institutions to do good in our society. And after 37 years of either being in public school or teaching in public institutions, I will ascend to the highest rank in academia. I want to publicly recognize and thank my family, my friends, my colleagues and pretty much everyone in this room as well for your support in helping me learn, grow and thrive as an educator and educational leader. Beyond that, I want to thank the broader community of California, all those hundreds of millions of people watching us who collectively support public institutions year after year that helps millions of students learn, grow and thrive each year. We did it
085for me, but let's make sure that we do it for them year after year. California is an amazing place to be educated. Thank you, Trustee. Thank you, Drew. And thank you for that so well deserved. And I feel really proud that we have this little professor on our school board. We love him so much and we are so grateful that he is here as our millions of people watching know he brings such a great perspective to our district. It's just really a privilege to be with him and we're so excited for him in that and his endeavors. He's not great in your paper. Also, I did hold on. I did write his letter, a letter of recommendation for him, which is probably why he got it. OK, OK, we know it was so well deserved
086and all him just a couple of things. Also attended strategic planning and it was really great. There were many people in the community who were there and it was just really great to see everyone getting together and deciding what we want to do with education in our community. And then for spring break, my family and I went to the Grand Canyon and it was really grand and it was snowing while we were there, which was sad in some ways, but also very magical. So we are grateful that we've had that experience. Our other visits to the Grand Canyon was very hot. So this was very magical. It was great. And then just as a side note, I am the assistant to the assistant of the assistant JV swim coach for Livermore High School and we
087are in. Yeah, I'm still there. We are in it right now with swim season and it is just delightful. We just I love being there. I love being outside. I love being on the pool deck and I love watching those kids swim and hopefully they love me too. So with that, going to turn the time over to Dr. Gibson. Thank you so much. I had a congratulations on my list for Trustee Druin as I received that text message. I don't remember when it was over break, I believe, maybe over break last week. I don't know. It's all a blur, but a huge congratulations. I know that that is not an easy hill to climb. So congratulations to you and our our system and your students are very lucky to have you. Since our last meeting,
088we had I don't know why we do this. And we are going to we have a calendaring meeting scheduled for four hours where we are going to calendar all of twenty five, twenty six on April the 29th so that we don't have these things happen. But right now, the last three board meetings the next day is a special ed work group. So a huge, huge thank you to our custodial staff because they come in when we're done. And I saw him out in the hallway a few minutes ago and I said, we're almost done. And he was so excited because normally we've been here till 10 o'clock or 1030 and he completely turns this room over. So 54 of us can come in here tomorrow morning starting at 815 and and get down and dirty
089with some special education work. So we had that since our last board meeting and we have another one tomorrow. Super excited about that. We did have our full week of strategic planning. I'm just going to provide a really brief update on the next steps. So our writing team met on Thursday and Friday and we kind of him and hot about, oh, this is going to be really easy. We'll be out of here early. Maybe we don't even need to meet on Friday. And as we were here until five on Thursday and four o'clock on the night or three o'clock on Friday, as we're going into break, it was a lot harder than we thought. So we're very excited about that final product that we are going to be putting out the one hundred and seventy
090six people who attended the two days, which was Monday and Tuesday. They should receive sometime next week. We're working right now on the final touches of the round one of strategic initiatives for our five focus areas. The writing team put those together. I went in today and made some adjustments just to make sure that they are truly strategic initiatives and not the action items. The action items are what we will do to drive the work that we need to get done. The initiative is just describing the type of work. So getting kind of those initiatives up into that 30,000 foot view so that we can start writing those actions moving forward. So that concept will go out to all who attended the hundred and seventy six or hundred eighty people so that we can have
091a couple of feedback loops and make sure that we caught it all. In addition to that, we will have a full rebranding and then we will bring all of that to the board before we leave for summer break in June, if not sooner. For final approval. And then that will launch us into the twenty five, twenty six school year. So thank you to everyone who attended a huge thank you to our staff who made that event happen. It really is doing a four day event like that is really like putting on a wedding. I mean, it was massive for that many people and materials and all the things. So a huge thank you to this Mrs. Race and our cabinet team and all of our E.A.s that made it happen. Um, spring break was amazing.
092Nine days, fantastic, completely unplugged, almost got every box unpacked from our move. We are officially Livermoreans as we bought a house in February. So we just did a staycation and be bopped around town and ran into people and our grubby clothes. It was great. So and then we came back from spring break and we started some work with the facilities team that we've put together as we're starting to work on doing some P.S.A.s. Number one, to thank our community for measure J. I think that's a huge piece that we now need to really highlight all the wonderful work that our team has done and thank our community for the facilities that our students get to attend. In addition to that, we want to start highlighting the next layer of needs. I know that's a hard
093pill to swallow, but we still have what's the number, Ms. Wasley? Is it a billion in needs? Yes, I didn't want to make that number up one point one point four billion, one point four billion. No big deal. We got this, guys, for the hundreds of millions of people watching. Be ready. We have one point billion in needs. And so we are going to be rolling out, you know, some upcoming things of just highlighting some things for our needs going forward and doing a lot of P.S.A.s around exactly what Trustee Bueno was talking about around educating our staff and our community around how we get facility funding. And that's a really important piece. So much more to come as we hit the ground running coming up. We also had Mendenhall principal interviews. As you know,
094the current Mendenhall principal, Mr. Taylor, is going to be going over to Del Valle and Vineyard as the principal next year. We had a very successful interview panel of about 15 or 16 people from various bargaining units and district leadership team. We interviewed five candidates, two internal, three external. We had a total of 14 who applied, of which all but maybe a couple were fully qualified for the position. And I'm very excited and a huge congratulations to Mr. Garrett Fitch as he was approved on the consent to formally be the principal. He's amazing. If you haven't met him, please do. He's he's an up and comer in the educational leadership world, I promise you. So we are now going to be back filling his position. And by the next board meeting, we will have that
095new hire, hopefully on the next board packet for approval by the board. And then that site will be staffed for the administrative team for next school year. So thank you to their staff. They they've really been wonderful to work with this process. It's not easy when the superintendent and the principal walk into a staff meeting that you just called as an emergency because I know something's up and they they just take a deep breath as the principal tells them that he is leaving the site. That's not an easy process. So huge thank you to them and Science Odyssey. I think you all you all summed it up. It was really fantastic, amazing. I know Mrs. Pichette has grandiose ideas to take that thing to the next level, which I don't even know if that's possible,
096but knowing her it is. And so it's going to be really exciting to see what what comes next as that whole system evolves, but just phenomenal work that our teachers and parents and kids have done for those projects. And with that eight thirty, so I'm done. OK, thank you. We have a special board meeting on Thursday, April 24th here at the district office. Open session will begin at nine thirty a.m. And the next regularly scheduled board meeting will be held Tuesday, May 6th at the district office here. An open session will begin at seven p.m. This meeting is now adjourned at eight thirty p.m.