3.4.25 Board Meeting

001Good evening. Good evening. It's so what a great fun packed house this is tonight. This is very exciting. Welcome to the March 4 board meeting Board of Education, the 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 community to 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 703 p.m. Please be advised that our board meetings are televised on local channel 28 on Wednesday and Saturday evenings on Monday, Friday and Saturday mornings. All actions approved in closed session must be reported out in open session. So I'm going to ask trustee Kaplanis if she would report. The board took

002two actions in closed session. The first action was a unanimous approval of resolution number 27 dash 24 slash 25. And a unanimous approval of settlement agreement for OAH case number 2024120434. Thank you. And now we're going to have our Pledge of Allegiance. We are going to invite our Leo Croce elementary students that she does to please come up to do our Pledge of Allegiance. Ready. Ready. Nice and loud. Ready, begin. That was our best Pledge of Allegiance so far ever. Very nice. I'd like to ask Superintendent Gibson if there are any changes to the agenda. No, there are not. Okay, then we're going to move right into our recognitions. We are going to invite Principal Jen Burkholder who to present the recognition recognition of our Leo Croce elementary students. Good evening Board President Prusso, members

003of the board, Superintendent Gibson, cabinet and members of the Livermore community. My name is Jen Burkholder and I am honored to be here tonight as the proud principal of Croce Elementary to recognize an incredible group of student leaders, our Culture Club. Culture Club is made up of dedicated third, fourth and fifth graders who are actively working to make Croce a better place. These students are taking the time to reflect on what is going well at Croce, what can be improved, and how to go about making those improvements. And what makes them so remarkable is they are not just identifying problems, they are creating solutions. For example, they've been instrumental in making recess a safer and more inclusive place for all students. They have worked to highlight our buddy bench, helping students understand it's a place

004to find a friend, not just a place to sit. They've also partnered with me to create clear and fair rules for our Gaga ballgame, ensuring that all students understand how to play, and that it remains a fun and respectful activity for everyone. Beyond the playground, these students have also taken action to improve our school restrooms. This is a big area of need, recognizing that every student deserves to feel comfortable and shared spaces. They've engaged in conversations about how to maintain respect, privacy, and free of spiders, making a real experience and a real impact on the daily experience for their peers. The work they are doing is meaningful. They are problem solvers, collaborators, and leaders. They are showing us all that no matter how young you are, your voice matters and your actions can create change.

005To our culture club students, thank you for your commitment to making Croce a better place for everyone. You are leading with respect, responsibility, and most importantly, kindness. We are so proud of you. Thank you to the board for allowing me to share the inspiring work of these students. In third grade, we have Raven, Bree, JJ, Salvador, Theo, and Mia. In fourth grade, Nitya, Parker, Jamison, Maitri, Zachary, Sophie. And in fifth grade, Desmond, Emma, William, and Penelope. Thank you. We'll give our cheetahs just a second to exit. Okay, we're going to move on to our next recognition and invite Mr. Jason Kroolikowski to present the recognition of our math council awards. Thank you for that welcome. Good evening Board President Pruso, members of the school board, Superintendent Gibson, and cabinet. Tonight we're going to honor the

006excellent students from our respective middle schools who competed in our annual math counts competition on February 1st, 2025. Math counts continues to inspire and challenge middle school students building their confidence and problem solving skills through engaging math programs. Since 1983, math counts has cultivated mathematical talent nationwide, bringing together students of all ability levels. The math counts competition series is the only in-person math competition of its kind, uniting students from all 50 states in a celebration of problem solving excellence. This year, LVJUSD proudly hosted its 29th annual math counts competition, continuing our commitment to fostering a love for math in our students. Some of our students tonight are wearing the t-shirt that was given to all of the participants to wear proudly among our community. While we're proud of all the students who participated this year

007in our math counts competition, tonight we will honor the individuals and the teams who placed. Students, when you see your name on the board, please stand up and I will introduce you. So we will start in, pardon the formatting. We'll start with fifth place, which is Jay Graywall from Mendenhall Middle School. Not sure if Jay's here. You can step forward when your name's called. Hi Jay. Okay. Oh, right over here, bud. Thank you. In fourth place is Anirudh Karthik. Third place is Raghav Manavala. Second place is Caleb Wee from Mendenhall. And in first place for the sixth grade individual, it was Helen Bartelt from East Avenue. And students just stay standing with me till we complete the entire list. Next was our seventh and eighth grade top 10 individual finalists. From 10th place, Nathaniel King

008from Joe Mitchell. In ninth place was Sanjit Chidharambaram from Mendenhall. In eighth place was Hanyi Zhang from Mendenhall. In seventh place was Hrviti Shah from Mendenhall. In sixth place was Nishant Sahoo from Christensen. Fifth place was Eugene Baker from Mendenhall. Pardon me, he's from Christensen. No, not everyone is from Mendenhall. Hinman, you're up here? Fourth place, did we call Hinman? No, fourth place. From Mendenhall Middle School is Hinman Chan. In third place is Vanya Chen from Christensen Middle School. Second place is Ruth Hollingsworth from East Avenue Middle School. And I'm not sure if our champion for three years running is in the house, but Minky Kawamura from East Avenue Middle School. Well, he's not here to join us, but we wanted to recognize him. Moving to the top sixth grade team, you'll see from East

009Avenue, along with one member from Christensen, we have West Pereira, Malachi Lynch, Leo Gullick, and Helen Bartelt from East Avenue. There was a theme, there was a lot of Mendenhall students, true, but East Avenue took a lot of the top honors. For the seventh and eighth grade team, you will see we have our members from East Avenue and Minky Kawamura, Rebecca Nelson, Ruth Hollingsworth, and Anna Stotz. Once again, we do want to congratulate all of our students who participated. The members you see in front of us will go on to do great things, we have no doubt. And we want to make sure that everyone knows next year will be our 30th annual. We'll do it up big time, and we hope to see you all there. Thank you. Students, let's go ahead and shake

010hands with the... Right in the middle there. Okay, we're going to move on to our last recognitions and ask Mr. Clark Conover, the principal of Granada High School, to please come forward. Good evening Board President Perusso, members of the Board, Superintendent Gibson, and community. I'm Clark Conover, the proud principal of Granada High School. It is my honor to present to you the Granada High School students who have been recognized this evening as National Merit Scholarship Finalists. The National Merit Scholarship Program is a prestigious academic competition that recognizes high achieving students based on their performance on the PSAT National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Students who perform exceptionally well on the test have the opportunity to advance through multiple levels of recognition with National Merit Finalists being one of the highest honors. How does a student become

011a National Merit Finalist? Well, their junior year they take the PSAT. Their scores are compared to others in the state. In the top 1%, about 16,000 students nationwide are named semi-finalists. Then they reach the semi-finalist stage. The semi-finalists must complete an application that includes a strong academic record, an endorsement from their school, an essay, an SAT score that confirms their PSAT performance. And finally, they reach finalist status. About 15,000 students reach this stage. The National Merit Scholarship Finalists are the top 1% of students nationwide. Congratulations to the following Granada seniors on advancing to the finalist standing in the 2025 competition for National Merit Scholarship Awards. They are... This is the most National Merit Finalist we've ever had at Granada High School. Just one thing for our audience. As a point of personal privilege, someone has

012been on the board, and I actually coached there at Granada for a number of years. I think I would be remiss if we didn't mention. Mr. Conover, as the principal, this is a record number of National Merit winners from a baseball state championship open division, competed in the championship round in basketball. A lot of facilities have been completed over there. On his watch, a lot of these things have changed. And so when people look at how we're doing in this district, Mr. Conover is responsible for a lot of this, along with all this team. Okay. That was exciting. We had a lot of great recognitions tonight. We're going to move on to our student board member reports, which is another favorite part of our board meeting, where our student board member representatives from our high

013schools, Livermore High and Granada High School will report on their school activities. And even though we've decided before I came up here, I already forgot who was going to go first, Gabe. Okay. We have Gabriel Benitez from Granada High School will go first, and Addie Hart from Livermore High School will go second. Good evening, board president Prusso, members of the board, superintendent Gibson, cabinet and community. Granada has been buzzing with activity these past few weeks. Our winter sports teams have wrapped up some incredible seasons. We sent off four of our wrestlers to the state championship in Bakersfield on Thursday, with Mallee Newen placing fifth in the state, and Stevie S.J. Martin placing second in the state. Our boys soccer team played in the NCS final on Friday, showcasing their hard work and dedication. They placed

014second in NCS, and they have qualified for the CIF regional soccer championships, and they're playing tonight. In ASB, we won tonight. In ASB, we've been preparing for upcoming spring events, including mixed prom at California Academy of the Sciences and more student recognition activities. Leadership is also working on spirit initiatives like the lift up to keep our school engaged as we transition into the new season. Academically, students are in the midst of coursework and preparing for AP and IB exams in May, demonstrating their commitment to excellence. GHS also had a group of students visit the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where they got to tour the National Ignition Facility, NIF. An interesting side note, a former graduate of Granada High School and current mechanical engineer for the lab was the group's tour guide. As always, we appreciate

015the continued support of our administration, teachers, and community. Stay classy. Good evening, Board President Prusso, members of the board, Superintendent Gibson, cabinet, and community. My name is Addie Hart, and I am representing Livermore High School. In sports, boys soccer was the number one seed in the D3 playoffs, marking the fourth consecutive year of NCS playoffs. Boys basketball advanced to the quarterfinals of the NCS playoffs. Wrestling sent 12 wrestlers to the NCS tournament with Asher Nish winning NCS. Asher is headed off to the state tournament. Spring sports are off to a great start. Stunt plays Granada for their senior night this Thursday, March 6th. We held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new softball field before their first home game today. Our annual March Madness basketball competition is March 3rd through March 14th. Students will compete

016in basketball games in teams of five at lunch. We are having a March Madness rally on March 14th. March is Women's History Month. Leadership will be making a display of influential women to our students and staff, as well as incorporating a segment on Women's History Month into CBNN. This month's PBIS theme focuses on respect. The Heroes mini-lessons for the month of March were created by a group of students on campus called the Boundary Builders, who are passionate about spreading awareness on topics such as respect, healthy relationships, and consent. The lessons this month will cover the topics of setting boundaries and defining respect. The Boundary Builders will be hanging posters around campus and making resources readily available for students and efforts to spread additional awareness around healthy relationships and consent of the upcoming junior prom and

017senior ball. Congratulations to David Martinez for being named the ACSA Co-Administrator of the Year for Region 6. This prestigious award recognizes David's outstanding leadership, dedication, and impact on our school community. His commitment to student success and support for staff make him an invaluable part of Livermore High School. We are so proud to see his hard work acknowledged at the regional level. Lori Porter of Livermore FFA has also been recognized as the 2025 Golden Owl Award Regional Finalist. This prestigious award honors outstanding agricultural educators who demonstrate exceptional dedication to their students, programs, and the agricultural community. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to move on to our Employee Association reports. And I believe we have Amy Thompson, President of LEA here just to come on down. She she definitely deserves some applause. And I believe

018I just would like to recognize Tara Lutz, her vice president, who I believe is also there. She is over there. Good evening, Board President Prusso, members of the board, Superintendent Gibson and cabinet. I'm Amy Thompson, president of the Livermore Education Association, representing teachers, nurses, counselors, psychologists, speech pathologists, one social worker and teachers on special assignment. There's a few of us behind me tonight. Our psychologists have been working with Kelly Manke to come up with a reasonable staffing solution for next year. One component of this is the projection of programs for next year. Another component is determining the staffing ratios for intensive, educationally related mental health services or ERMS, which has not yet been determined. And as an added role is subject to negotiations. At this point, we do not have a plan that meets the

019needs of some of our most vulnerable students. It is good to see a positive certification for our second interim budget update. At first glance shows that the components to improving this year's budget outlook are an increase in projected revenues coupled with a decrease in spending. We are interested to learn more about the impact of increased ADA projections for this year on our budget. And we're also anticipating an update on the TK enrollment projections for next year and any budget impacts that they may have. The current conservative budget planning that does not include all of the governor's budget proposals for next year should mean additional good news for our future budget outlook. We must wrap up negotiations for this year after 12 sessions and a full year of negotiating. To be clear, we are negotiating for

020this school year. We started this year, nine million dollars in the green. We are confident that this Thursday we will be able to complete an agreement that is acceptable and moves us toward our goal. This will be accomplished if our teams continue to work together to problem solve. There are unencumbered funds that need to be considered as part of the solution. Finding creative solutions that allow us to attract and retain staff requires work in reimagining the budget. We believe our students are worth the work. Thank you. Thank you. Our representative for CSEA is Mamie Christovich. Is she here? Oh, there she is. Come on up, Mamie. Good evening, President Prusso, members of the board, Superintendent Gibson and cabinet. I am Mamie Christovich, president of the Livermore chapter of CSEA, the California School Employees Association. With

021me tonight are many dedicated CSEA members. At the last board meeting two weeks ago, the board approved resolution number 025-2425, which included the reduction of 15 employees or 11.12 FTEs in various CSEA classifications. Trustee Bueno was the lone nay vote, and CSEA members are extremely grateful for his willingness to listen, raise questions for discussion, and stand firm in his support for the contractual rights of classified employees. It did not escape me or other CSEA members that the decision was a difficult one, one that you did not make lightly. Some of you had reservations and felt comforted by the assurance that once approved, would begin identifying additional non-employee reductions and collaborating with CSEA to reduce the number of layoffs and mitigate the impact of the reductions. That was two weeks ago. If the definition of collaboration

022is the act of working together to create or achieve something, I must inform you that CSEA has not been invited to take part in such collaborations. When I sat down to write my report for tonight, it was disheartening to realize that everything I stated 14 days ago is still current for tonight's meeting. That means that nothing has changed, and we thought that at least some progress might be made. As you are aware, layoff notices will go out next week. Two weeks ago, I shared that there are already serious violations of our collective bargaining agreement in several departments. In the business services department, our vacant accounting specialist position has already led to the division of that workload to other overworked employees and the transfer of classified duties to a CMC manager, which is a clear contract

023violation. In the curriculum department, the senior program assistant position was not filled, and months later we are still not clear on how the instructional materials will be ordered for the fall. Will our students not need textbooks? The executive assistant has been told that she may have to make it happen on top of her existing busy workload, but that is not reasonable unless other work does not get done. In the special education department, the transportation specialist position has been in existence for over 20 years, and the duties are clearly defined in the job description. These job duties may not be given to the transportation contractor, as that would violate our collective bargaining agreement. If the transportation specialist position is eliminated next year, how will transportation be coordinated for our special ed families? If there is reasoning

024for some of these positions being identified for elimination, it is not clear to CSEA. At the February 4th meeting, the board asked for an additional column in the budget reduction spreadsheet that explains the rationale for each job elimination. That did not happen, and the lack of transparency is a disappointment. Decisions are being made without meaningful conversations with CSEA and the people on the front lines who actually perform the work. Before we eliminate positions, doesn't it make good business sense to first have a well-thought-out plan on how the work will get done? I think so, and I hope you do too. So what are contract violations? First, duties currently performed by CSEA members may not be reassigned to classified managers and confidentials, directors, contractors, volunteers, or employees in other bargaining units. Second, duties currently performed by

025CSEA members in one classification may not be reassigned to other classifications without negotiating with CSEA. Third, duties currently performed by CSEA members must not be reassigned to the remaining employees in the department with the expectation that the same amount of work be completed. The dedicated members of CSEA's Livermore Chapter are asking for the contract violations to stop now. In the absence of being heard, CSEA was compelled to send a formal cease and desist letter to the district last Friday, February 28. We received an acknowledgement of receipt this afternoon. Unfortunately, there was no agreement to cease and desist to rectify the contract violations. Once again, I implore you to listen closely and with empathy to the concerns of our CSEA classified employees who ask for basic respect and professional courtesy. Please help put an end to

026the multiple contract violations and insist on the district having meaningful and genuine collaborations with CSEA. Thank you. Thank you. Our SEIU president is Kirsty Governor. Is she here this evening? Okay. And then just as point of reference, also, Lily Lopez is representative of CMC. I don't see her as well. Okay, but thank you. We're going to move on to our public comments on non-agenda items. So if you would like to address a topic that is not on this evening's agenda, now is the time to do so. And we ask that you limit your comments to three minutes and that each speaker may speak once. I have right now I have three comment cards, so I'll have you I'll call you up one at a time. We'll start with Caroline. Help me. Sorry. Okay, will you

027come on up? Sorry about that. Caroline G. Come on up. Good evening, President Prusso, members of the board. Can you move just a little bit closer so we can hear you? Good evening, President Prusso, members of the board, Superintendent Gibson and cabinet. My name is Caroline Gujarati. I'm a district executive assistant and CSEA member. Thank you for allowing me to share my concerns about the district's budget cuts as both an employee and a parent. This administration has created a culture in which employees are afraid to speak out for fear of retribution. For that reason, my comments tonight are written in collaboration with colleagues who cannot in good conscience stay silent but are nonetheless afraid for their livelihoods. There is a perception that budget reductions were made collaboratively. However, our bargaining unit leaders were merely informed

028the day before the cuts were announced. And it is my understanding from speaking with colleagues that employees have been allowed no meaningful input. These budget cuts are aggressive and consist almost solely of eliminating entire positions. The curriculum department alone is losing half of its staff. With no TOSAs, the training and support for our teachers will be severely limited to non-existent. Without our ELD coordinator, our English learners will fall further behind. The department's budget has already been cut to the point that it now relies almost exclusively on federal funds, which are now under attack. Other cuts include the position responsible for ordering all instructional materials and the special education transportation coordinator, which we are required to have in order to receive funding. Remaining staff are taking on additional duties akin to a second full-time job, sacrificing

029our own well-being in the interest of our students. Retiring teachers will not be replaced and others are receiving layoff notices. Class sizes will increase, making it even more difficult for our teachers to support all students. The positions being cut feel arbitrary and too deep and mistakes will be made. All of this will directly impact our students. It is widely known that when the new leadership came, they received large pay increases equivalent to the salaries of multiple classified positions. Additionally, salary increases are being considered for Tri-Valley ROP staff. Our district's annual contribution to ROP is equivalent to roughly 10 to 12 full-time classified salaries. How does one reconcile increasing some salaries while simultaneously cutting essential positions? The very real fear among employees is that our schools and staff will be severely impacted next school year to

030the detriment of our students. We are a public school district, not a corporation, and should not be run like one. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Veronica Torres. Veronica Torres. Good evening, President Prusso, board members, Superintendent Gibson, and board members. Sorry, I'm really nervous. My name is Veronica Torres. I've been with the district as a classified employee for a total of 28 and a half years, serving in positions of bilingual aid, CWA aid, office specialist, bookkeeper, school secretary, and currently as an executive assistant to the principal at Junction. I spent 26 years as a parent and 12 years as a student at LBJUSD. All that to say that I've seen this district go through a lot. As many of you were not here through the times we've had budget cuts and district reorganizations, you

031don't know what laying off so many classified people did to our sites, services, and district. Classified workers are the moving pieces to this machine. We are the customer service support and more to this business. Many of us already working excessive workloads and will be expected to take on more. And we'll do so to serve our families, but at the cost of what? In my case, it's been proposed to cut one of our two VPs and our instructional aid. Our instructional aid is paid by LCAP funds, so I'm not understanding why it's even in the proposal, since LCAP money is designated for positions exactly like the instructional aid and serving the underserved. Our instructional aid is a vital piece to Junction and is a key player in our PBIS and restorative practices. We've already experienced this

032scenario last year without her and the VP. The impact of trying to keep up with triaging the students, paperwork, admin support, and all the other things she does fell on the office staff. Adding to this to our daily tasks had us in a constant state of being reactive instead of proactive. This also impacted our students and families as we did not have time to support our teachers and admin. Morale was lowered due to high stress workload and not suffice time in the day to be as hands on that our diverse community needs and deserves. I invite any and all of you to come and shadow the classified jobs on the proposal and see for yourself why they are so valuable to not only us as a staff, but to our students and families. Our community

033depends on the work done by all classified from the district office to the sites. There has to be other ways to cut the budget and spare these jobs, and it's not our teachers either. Thank you. Thank you. I could have Si Maiten. I don't know if I said that correctly. Si Maiten here. Am I saying that right? Oh, there you are. That's you. I may have said that incorrectly. You can correct it. So you'll have three minutes. I just came over here to say thank you. I don't know yet. I'm going to get to know everyone. I am a new substitute to the school district. I'm coming from industry, telecommunication world, and I'm working so long in telecommunication. I have decided to become a teacher. I am a substitute. I'm going to try to become

034a regular teacher quickly. And I have a master's in physics, electrical engineering. And I believe that I am at the position to be able to translate or transfer the knowledge from all of my experiences in the industry using the math and science to our great students. So I'm here to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And our final card is Debbie Gibson. Good evening, Superintendent Gibson, board trustees and cabinet members. Two weeks ago, I had been prompted by the Holy Spirit to come and pray over the school board meeting. As a Christian, I know the importance of prayer and asking for God's guidance in my daily life and his help in every decision I need to make. As I sat through the meeting, I realized how many difficult decisions you were facing regarding the

035budget cuts. And I saw the compassion that you had for those who would possibly lose their jobs. The votes you were casting were not being entered into lightly. And it was obvious to me that there was an internal struggle. Each one of you were grappling with. I have respect for each one of you, regardless of how you voted. And again, I know the importance of praying over these matters at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Benjamin Franklin said in part, I have lived, sir, a long time. And the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir,

036in the sacred writings that except the Lord build, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. And I also believe that without his concerning aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel. We shall be divided by our little partial local interests. Our projects will be confounded and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. He then made a motion to implore the assistance of heaven and its blessings on their deliberations. And that prayer be held in that assembly every morning before they proceeded to do business. Our house and our Senate open with prayer every day. And we saw last week that President Trump's first cabinet meeting was opened with prayer. This tradition goes back to that Continental Congress. Therefore, Lord,

037I humbly come before you in the name of Jesus. And thank you for the opportunity to not only speak at this meeting, but to pray for each member of the board. According to your word in the Book of Romans, we are told there is no authority except from God and those which exist are established by God. Each one of these board members has been chosen by you for the position in which they serve. I thank you for the commitment. Each one of them is made and asked that you give them wisdom when making decisions that affect the children, teachers and those in authority at each school. This is not an easy task. Give them the wisdom of Solomon and cause them to seek you not only when they are serving this community, but also in

038their personal lives. And may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen. Thank you. And then I've just been informed that a blue card really should be a tan card, which is great. So we're going to invite one more person up. And that is Becca Makins. Is it? I'm sorry. You definitely correct it when you come up. Good evening, President Prusso, members of the board, cabinet, Superintendent Gibson and community. My name is Becca Makers. You may have seen me before. Some of you saw me today. I have a young student at Smith. I have two middle schoolers at Mendenhall, but you may also have seen me in the Grotta front office. In my many years in the district, I've come to love our programs that help students. I have two 504

039planned kids and one with an AP, the staff that work with my children. They are something I cannot replicate. I have two children that utilize the kid connection programs. I have experienced the benefit of resource classes and of all the support staff that offer a safe place for my children. I also commend our co-taught classes at the middle and high school level. They are amazing for kids like mine that need extra eyes, hands and help. I did not only come to speak as a parent. I want to touch on our recent concerns with our budget. I've been hired within the last few years, like many in our office. This uncertain time has been very difficult to navigate. Outside of the March 15th date, we have no idea when we will hear about our positions. We

040are all holding our breath, waiting to see what will happen next, but there is no end in sight. We feel like we're underwater with time just ticking away. I want to express how worrisome this is right now not to know our futures. I have seen LEA and CSEA staff alike worrying and working tirelessly to have their voices heard. Please remember the people behind these roles that are being eliminated. Please remember the staff that help our community daily. Work with the president of the CSEA, Mamie, to help us navigate these waters and don't make us hold our breaths for longer than necessary. Thank you. Thank you, Becca. Thank you to everyone who participated. We're going to move on to our communications. This is our formal written correspondence to the board that is acknowledged if received by

041the 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, if you'd like to send board correspondence, our board electronic communications is received via the LVJUSD website by accessing the formal written correspondence to the Board of Education link with all fields completed and verified. I'd ask our clerk if there is any correspondence for the board and if so, if he could please summarize. Yes, we received a letter from Niagara and Niagara, our district auditors, regarding the engagement to audit our district, the planned scope, timing of audit and significant risks. And that is it. Okay, thank you. We're going to move on to our discussion action items. We're going to start with our approval

042of new courses and I'm going to invite Mr. Jason Krolikowski to please come forward. Hey, good evening, Board President Prusso, members of the school board, Superintendent Gibson and members of cabinet. I'm here tonight to present five new and updated courses for approval. As a reminder, the spring season is where we will bring new and updated courses for school board approval. If a course is new, the slide, the header will be identified as such. Our first course is a new course called Developing Mixed Choir AB. This course aims to strengthen vocal abilities through ensemble singing, music theory and performance. Students will explore a wide range of choral works from different cultures, eras and languages, honing their interpretive, analytical and leadership skills. The program focuses on collaboration with opportunities for group performances, solo singing and individual growth,

043culminating in at least two significant concerts. Next course is simply updated, which means it's gone from a one, two to an AB, which is a year long course. The Intermediate Concert Choir AB will have a training in technique, reading and theory to strengthen skills. It will focus on interpretation, analysis and leadership within the group. And there will be mandatory grade performances at various events. A new course we have is Chamber Winds Honors. In this class, students will receive training in developing their instrumental music skills, playing in small groups, reading music, understanding music theory and interpreting different styles. The focus is on performing without a conductor, analyzing music critically, developing sensitivity to sound, quality blending tones and taking on leadership roles. Participation in performances, festivals and competition is required. The experience goes beyond a basic band

044by including extra in class and after school commitments such as playing solo or in small groups, going on tours or taking part in festivals. Next is an updated course, our Symphonic Band AB, as obviously we've had Symphonic Band for quite a while. This course will cover ensemble literature, group instruction and instrumental techniques. It involves rehearsals, performances and marching band training with required attendance, also develops musical skills. And lastly, our new course is Human Anatomy and Physiology AB. Participants of this class will explore the structure and function of various bodily systems in detail, examining how they will interact to maintain their overall health. Through hands-on activities, including lab experiments, digital tools, independent research and collaborative projects, students will reinforce their comprehension of biological processes. This immersive approach not only deepens their grasp of anatomy and physiology,

045but also enhances critical thinking and problem solving skills. Additionally, the course serves as a stepping stone for future academic pursuits and professional pathways in medical and life science fields. Superintendent's recommendation is to approve all new and updated courses. Thank you. Any questions or comments on the courses? Yeah, go ahead. I love that we're adding new courses. Of the ones that we're updating, are they courses that were previously offered and weren't approved? No, these, sorry. Oh, now we're seeking approval? How does that work? They were all, they had already been pre-existed and approved. So that's not, the new is changing it to a year-long course instead of a trimester. Got it. Thank you. Two trimesters, yes. Go ahead. No question, just to make a motion. Motion away. I move to approve the superintendent's recommended course 1A,

046Developing Mixed Choir. I'll second. So we have a motion by Trustee Bueno, seconded by Trustee Caplanes. Any discussion on the motion? Actually, you can do 1A through E. Oh, yes. If you would like. You don't have to, but it's preferred. To be expeditious? Yes. Okay. Let's do that. If you don't mind. Let's do that. Then I'll withdraw my motion. Thank you. I'll allow you to pose any motion. Do you want to? No, go ahead. Oh, me? All right. I'm not prepared for this. I will move that we approve the superintendent's recommendation to approve all new courses A through E. Second. Okay. So we have a motion by myself, seconded by Trustee Druhan. Any discussion on the motion? Now I'd ask the clerk to please take roll. Only my reservation. I'm going to vote yes. Yes,

047but it's only my reservation. I like to see that each course, I know it's not as expeditious, but I believe that each one of these courses took a lot of work to put in, and I like to be able to have each one of them reviewed and get their own moment where they each get their own independent vote that someone doesn't come in on a drag. With that being said, I will be planning on voting in favor. Right. Trustee Vanden Heuvel? Aye. Trustee Kaplanis? Aye. Myself, aye. Trustee Bueno? Aye. That motion carries unanimously, 5-0. Now we'll move on to the approval of our updated board policies. And I'm going to turn the time over to Dr. Gibson. Thank you. So tonight was my turn, as I have stated in prior board meetings, we're going to

048go by department. Each board meeting, probably including some of our special workshops that we do, will include these so that we tick away at the updates. A couple things that I do want to clarify. If you open just one of the edited versions, I currently have the board policy 1113, district and school websites currently open, the edited copy. I just want to walk you through some of the changes that we have on this so that you and the public understand what we did. So thank you to Ms. Arias for reaching out to the CSBA and getting their long history of board policy updates. One of the issues that we're having, you're going to start seeing where some of the board policies are going to be completely lined through and then blue. The reason for that,

049if you look at this example, we have had one, two, three, four, five, six updates from 2011 through June of 2024 updated. It's really hard for us to go through all of those updates that we can't even access. So at that point, when there's this many updates that we have missed, we are going to red line through it and then just create the new one in blue just so you can see that. We have others in here tonight that you'll see that there's just random words changed. So I just wanted to point that out. The yellow box is up as new. And we will be providing all of the revised dates from when we reviewed it up until today's date just so you can see the number of revisions since then. Are there any questions

050on that part of the process? Okay. So I will give you a synopsis of each one. So revised board policy one, one, one, three, one, one, one, three district and school websites with the exhibit. This board policy aims to improve communication with students, parents, guardians, staff, and the community through district and school websites. Our websites are created to support the district's vision and goals to provide key information to families, staff, and the community. And they will be integrated with our communication strategies to support all legal requirements. Revised board policy one, one, one, four district sponsored social media. The Board of Education recognizes the value of social media for sharing district information, promoting community involvement, and supporting the district's mission. Official district social media accounts aim to enhance communication, support student learning, and foster engagement with

051students, families, staff, and the community. Revised board policy one, one. I have a question on that one just really quick. Sure. So I was reading through it. And there is a clause in there about public comments being moderated or removed. Is there a criteria for that? Yes. Or specific guidelines? Will people be aware of what that is? Yes. Okay. Yes, we will work on that. Usually it has to do if there's anything that's offensive. Right. Name calling. Probably typical. Typical things that we would do now. Correct. Right. That was all I had on that. Yeah. Great question. Go back here. Board policy 1160. Political processes. Board policy 1160 ensures that the district's advocacy efforts are focused on informing and presenting the community without using district resources for partisan purposes. The governing board is responsible for

052advocating fiscal and public policies that support our schools and students. Advocacy is guided by the district's vision, goals, and community needs following legal requirements. Board policy 1340, access to district records. The governing board recognizes the public's right to access district records and will provide reasonable access during normal business hours in accordance with the California Public Records Act and other relevant laws. However, access will be denied to records that are exempt from disclosure by law. In response to public records requests, the superintendent or designee will make reasonable efforts to locate the requested records, including electronic communications, emails, text, instant messages, et cetera, whether on district or personal devices, if they are related to the request. The district may charge fees for copies of records requested based on the actual cost of duplication to the district. Sorry,

053one more question on that one. There was the supervision of the record examination required? For some records, yes, there would be supervision. That's just like a witness? How does that work? If it's a student record, if a parent wants to come in and look at a student record, let's say, then they come and sit with a staff member and look through that. I didn't quite understand what that was. That makes sense. Most things come to us from a PRA, from a Public Records Act request that's all digital. It's rare anymore that people physically come in and request records. I haven't had that happen in quite some time, actually. Board policy 1431 waivers focuses on the process and procedures related to requesting and granting waivers for specific state laws, regulations, or requirements that may apply to

054the district. These revisions make the policy more structured, transparent, and ensure that the board plays an active role in overseeing waiver requests. The revisions aim to provide clarity on how waivers are requested and evaluated. That is if we ever wanted to go to the state and say we are requesting a one-year waiver for maybe an adoption or for an implementation of curriculum or something of that sort. That's really what the waivers is for, would be for. Revised board policy 2121 superintendents contract. Board policy 2121 outlines the terms and conditions of the superintendents employment contract with the district. The policy ensures that the contract reflects a mutual understanding between the board and the superintendent to achieve district goals, provides stability to the district administration, and ensures accountability for the district's performance. These revisions focus on ensuring

055transparency, accountability, and clear procedures for the superintendent's contract and termination, as well as protecting both the district and the superintendent in cases of misconduct or legal issues. There's just some additional new laws that just came into place surrounding things that have happened in the last few years that weren't reflected in our board policy. Those are the main updates there. Any questions or comments? Go ahead. A couple. It's hard with so many all at once. I know that we're behind on these. But is each of the paragraphs that ends with, say, Ed code or government code, that would be boilerplate from? Correct. Because there are some sentences which look like a paragraph or some paragraphs that do not end with that. Correct. So is that elective language? Nope. These are straight from CSBA. So they put

056in government code. They'll reference government code. They'll reference Ed code. Sometimes they'll reference penal code. It just depends on what the referencing is that references whatever the paragraph is referring to, but not each paragraph references a law. I guess what I'm saying is when I state boilerplate, some things are recommendations. Some things are law. Correct. So best practice or recommendation, is it noted versus what's mandated? It's just when we're doing blanket changes like this, especially something that's as sensitive as this, I understand conformity with the law. And it would say that this section is in conformance with the law. These are recommended things right out of CSBA, but CSBA is not a governing agency. And we subscribe to them and we can get some very good boilerplate language to keep us in conformance. But there

057are some things that are spoken to in here that don't end in that. They don't say government code. They don't say Ed code. And so are those things that we've just put in and we've elected to change? No. So what would be the source of those? All of these are directly from CSBA. All of our policies, as we've discussed before, all are directly from CSBA. Okay. The only time that they wouldn't be is if we have options, which then we would have that discussion if we had options. Otherwise, they are all strictly from CSBA, as they always have been. This is nothing, nothing new. It's just there are so many. I mean, if you look at I'm on the superintendent's contract, that's where I ended. There's one, two, three, four, five updates going back to

0582011 that we failed to comply with updates on. Correct. My concern is one of the primary objectives of the board is to have policy, to conduct policy. This is a gross failing of not having those policies in place and coming forth without because I know from early on when I was on policy that there was sometimes conversations that went back and you sought legal advice and it came back and then if there was a question, is this legally compliant? So I do have some reservations, especially when the board president has questions on policy and they're coming forward. And it's one of our primary things. When we have one employee as a board and we set board policy. So I don't want to put us in a position because of the need to be expeditious or

059that we're behind that we lose that opportunity to be thorough. And so that's where my reservation is. So at any time we're happy to pull in these policies, we post the agenda on Friday, which is far more than the 72 hours in advance that equally gives the board a chance to review those. If you have any questions prior to the board meeting, we're always happy to answer those questions as well. And we can always pull anything that you would like us to get further information on. I understand. It may be it's dated, but my experience has been on things like this that we we used to get 10 days advance notice. And so it gave staff enough time. I mean, if you get this on a Friday night, everyone's gone. And so you think about

060it over the weekend and then we present it on Monday morning and then we're scrambling trying to put pressure on you guys. And is that enough time? And I don't know. Things like this are very important. I mean, we're talking here. This is a sensitive thing. I want to make sure you're covered, that the board's covered. You're our only employee. And this is a board policy that just popped in front. So I have reservations about doing it like this. I are. Is there another suggestion that you have? Well, my suggestion would be and I know that we were 300 or something behind. And the suggestion would be that when we need to know you'll be brought in, I would think that that process would be a little bit more inclusive and maybe because we're behind

061that maybe specifically on the policies we get more than the weekend. So we could actually if we got these in 10 days advance notice, we know we're going to do them to get us a violation of Brown Act. We can't do that. Ten days advance notice. Yes. That's a violation of Brown Act. One hundred percent. We would have to publish our agenda 10 days in advance. Okay. Superintendent Gibson, I was wondering, would it be possible for us to maybe have that those type of changes flagged with like, hey, there's three options in this particular resolution? If we have one, we will flag that because we'll need to have that discussion and we'll need to walk you through those options. None of these so far have had options. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. One hundred percent. When

062we first discussed this, we did talk about policies that were new or possibly controversial would then go through policy committee. I feel comfortable with that, knowing that we have a lot to catch up on. Once we're caught up, I think we'll have more. Right. It'll it'll it'll be more even as we go. It depends on the month that when CSB, I mean, sometimes CSB puts out two new policies. I'm looking at cabinet and looking specifically at Ms. Bichette because a lot of the policies are her policies. So often sometimes there's two. Sometimes there's 10 all at one time. Right now we're chunking. We're kind of blending in some that are new coming in. We're examining all of them. What is critical for us to get approval on now because we need it for some reason.

063And what are blanket policies that we can just go through, get them passed because there's been seven renditions since then. Yeah. Yeah. So CSB gives us updates. I would say every two to three months, we'll get a whole slew of CSB board updates and then we will take those and divvy them up with the the correct departments. And then those departments will then present those in a fashion that's easily digestible for the board. But but to Trustee Bueno's point, we absolutely will take anything controversial back to that board policy committee to go through the committee process. I want to assure the board that we will comply with that. We just were so grossly behind and out of compliance with our board policies. This was the solution that cabinet came up with to get us up

064to date. And I appreciate that. And I understand coming in being grossly behind and it being board policies, the board is partially responsible for that, you know, for not for not being caught up. I just don't want to deny the board or get ourselves into a habit where we're 300 behind it doing five, six, seven a meeting conceivably with change. It's like painting a bridge. We're never going to get it painted. So, you know, whatever that process is, that might be, you know, if these are 100 percent and there's not there's no options within any of these, perhaps that that's something that we explain as part of the introduction. There are no options in the following 10 policies that we're going to present tonight. These are all legal requirements, part of the boilerplate. I get

065that. And they don't need to be I don't think they need to rise to the threshold of being controversial. Certainly that would include that. But I think like new anything new. Right. Yeah. But this isn't I just want to acknowledge that this is about our fourth board meeting in a row that we've had this exact same conversation. This isn't a brand new conversation about our policies, about our plan, any of that. It's the same conversation. If there are no other questions or comments, I'd entertain a motion. I'll move to approve superintendent's recommendation to approve board policy one one one three. Can we go through the whole thing or do we have to do one minute time? You can do however you'd like. Let's do the whole thing. Let's go. District and school websites with exhibit

066or under be under a be ever revised school board policy one one four revised school board policy one one six zero revised school board policy thirteen forty and board policy fourteen thirty one as well as board policy twenty one twenty one as edited and corrected and updated. I'll second. So we have a motion by Trustee Vanden Heuvel, seconded by Trustee Kaplanis. Any discussion on the motion? I'd ask the court to please take roll. Myself. Aye. Trustee Bueno. Aye. Trustee Kaplanis. Aye. Trustee Vanden Heuvel. Aye. President Peruzza. Aye. That motion carries unanimously. And now we're going to move on to thirteen three, the approval of the twenty four twenty five second interim financial report. So we'll turn the time over to Miss Kayla Wassey. I can't believe they don't want to stay for my budget presentation.

067It's a good time to drop the mic for those two. Good evening. Tonight I will be presenting on our second interim budget report for twenty four twenty five the school year. So the purpose of the second interim report is it's one of three required financial reports each year alongside with the adopted budget as well as the first interim report, which was presented in December. Its primary purpose is to provide a snapshot of the district's financial health, ensure fiscal stability for the current year as well as two subsequent years. This assessment is based on the most current financial data and assumptions available at this point in the year. Tonight's presentation is a summary of the changes to the budget for second interim as well as our updated multi-year projection update. Additional details on all the budget

068changes as well as our detailed multi-year projection can be found in the narrative that is attached to the agenda item. This is just a reminder of where we're at in our budget cycle. So in March we're at second interim report. Our next steps will be going through our LCAP as well as budget development pretty much starting in January to May. In May we'll be attending the May revision workshop from the governor's budget proposal updates and then we'll bring forward the adopted budget as well as LCAP budget in June and then the state will adopt its budget in late June, early July. So just an overall summary of where we are standing as of second interim. So our projected unrestricted reserve, and I just found a typo as I was prepping for this, it should actually

069be 4.17% of our total expenditures for unrestricted reserve. This presentation reflects 3.93. So I'll provide an updated presentation on the board agenda item. So we meet our mandated 3% reserve requirement. It is recommended that the budget is certified as a positive certification, meaning that we meet our 3% reserve requirements for the current as well as the two subsequent years. Included within second interim were the board approved budget reductions from February 18th, which strengthened our financial outlook and allowed us to make the positive certification status. Budget salaries and benefits were updated to reflect all of our current staffing and vacancies. This included several positions that we plan to reduce and so they are being left vacant at this time due to the planned reductions as well as we did have some adjustments from unrestricted funding sources

070to restricted funding sources for some salaries based off of allowable expenditures within some of our restricted funds and then we also reduced some of our restricted categorical funding based off the planned grant expenditures for 24-25. Just an overall summary of where we stand with our unrestricted and restricted revenue expenditures, any transfers in and out of the general fund and contributions to restricted funds. Overall in our unrestricted side of the budget, we are projected to deficit spend $6.2 million and we are projected to deficit spend $8.5 million in our restricted budget, leaving us with an overall ending fund balance of $9.4 million in our unrestricted budget and $4.4 million in our restricted budget. So overall for our revenue, this is just a general picture of all revenue sources restricted and unrestricted. LCFF accounts for 73% of

071our overall revenue. Federal revenue accounts for 6% or $12 million. And then other state revenue is $11 million or $22.8 million. And then local revenue accounts for 10% or $20 million. And then we had a small transfer in from our cafeteria fund of $492,000. So overall in our revenue, LCFF sources had a modest increase of $28,000. This is actually due to special education funding. So there are certain object codes that make up what drives LCFF sources. So for example, an object code says, where is this money coming from and how are we accounting for it in our system? And so for property taxes, all of that is reflected in LCFF sources. So even though it's special education revenue, it actually increased what is accounted for in SACS as LCFF sources and SACS is the state

072accounting software that we utilize. So we didn't actually see an increase in LCFF funding. It was actually an increase in our special education funding on that one. So it's a little bit of an oddity in this update. And then our federal revenue increased by $23,000 due to a small Title II increase, as well as an increase to our special education based off our current projections from our SELPA, which is our special education local plan area. And so our SELPA determines as a board how the funds are distributed to the districts that participate in the SELPA. And then they provide updated projections to us for each budget period. For other state revenue, we have a decrease of $457,000. We saw an increase in some sources as well as a decrease in others. Our increases were in

073our mandated block grant, our green engineering partnership grant, strong workforce program grant, as well as our state mental health related services, which is a very small amount. And then we decreased in our UPK planning grant, which this is actually a recognition that we know we're not going to spend those full funds in 2024-25. So we're shifting some of the funds that are multi-year projections to be spent next year. And then that funding source will be recognized as revenue next year, as well as the expenditures for the UPK. So we didn't actually receive a decrease in that overall funding. It's just a pull of when we plan to spend the funding. Okay. That was one of my questions. I was like, what? Okay, sorry. Yep. So that was a pot of funding that we received, I

074believe, in 2022-23, and that we're still working on spending in the last year. Sorry. Next year is the last year to spend it. And then special education early intervention funds, we received a decrease in that due to once CDE certified in February, their funding for the year, that one decreased as well as a small decrease to Prop 28. And then our CTE incentive grant decreased, and that is applied through Tri-Valley ROP, and then we receive an allocation from Tri-Valley ROP for CTEG. On our other local revenue, we had an increase of $1.35 million. A large portion of that increase is actually due to gift donation accounts, as well as our Medi-Cal reimbursement that we receive. And then we had small increases in the sale of equipment, interest, special education, and some other miscellaneous unrestricted and

075restricted local revenue. And then we had a decrease in our Student Behavioral Health Incentive Program, or SBHIP, based off of what we expect to receive. This is an interesting source of funding as it's driven through incentive grants that are received from actually insurance companies. And then I've been working with Sherry, who is our wellness coordinator, to really identify how much we're expecting to receive from that. So there's not like an award notification for this grant of fund, this pot of money. And then here's an overall picture of our expenditures. As you can see, our certificated salaries, non-management, classified salaries, non-management, management salaries, and employee benefits make up the majority of our budget. Total for the entire general fund budget is 81% of our expenditures are on salaries and benefits for our unrestricted budget. It accounts

076for 93% of our expenditures and salary and benefits for our unrestricted budget. Can I quickly ask, the purple wedge right there, the benefits, is that everybody that receives salaries from us? Yes. So any statutory benefits as well as, so that's your STIRS, PERS, Social Security, Medicare, as well as any medical benefit and retiree benefits that we offer. And can you educate me a little bit on the other outgo, just, you know, this little slice? Oh, yeah. It's $2 million alone. Yes. So the other outgo is actually largely made up of our contribution to Tri-Valley ROP, as well as there's a small amount for any participation of special education and other district programs. So like, for example, if we have anybody attending Dublin or Pleasanton or in the Selma Regional Program, that is part of other

077outgo. So those sources kind of make up all of the other outgo, but the majority is Tri-Valley ROP contributions. And can you, you had stated just before, Trustee Vanden Heuvels, you had said something from 81 to 91%. Can you repeat what you meant and said there? Yes. So total salaries and benefits for our unrestricted and restricted general fund budget accounts for 81% of the total budget. And then for our unrestricted budget, it accounts for 90. Salaries and benefits accounts for 93% of our unrestricted budget. One question on Trustee Vanden Heuvels, the outgo. Do we have, because I'm looking at the revenue pie, and it doesn't have a correspondent because a lot of that's flow through money. Or, so with what we receive from Tri-Valley ROP is typically CTIC and SWP. And so we actually receive

078that in as revenue for those particular funding sources. So they're in our other state revenue. So we don't see the corresponding revenue for like any Tri-Valley ROP. So the revenue side is rolled into a larger piece. Yes. But we're calling out the outflow. Yes. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And that's all I was wondering is because it is a wash, it represents a wash. Right. It's now, we contribute about $1.5 to $6 million to Tri-Valley ROP. And we're getting about $900,000 from CTIC. So for certificated salaries, as well as classified salaries and management salaries, they were all adjusted for the cost of actual hires and projections for current vacancies. And then, like I mentioned previously, we had cost reductions for unfilled positions, which included an MTSS TOSA, our aquatics coordinator and our communications specialist, which are all

079vacant based off the approved reductions. Those were removed from the budget altogether based on planning to not fill them. And then we also shifted some salaries from unrestricted sources to appropriate restricted sources, which accounted for a decrease for all salaries and benefits. In books and supplies, we had an increase of $550,000. That was largely due to an increase to our books and supplies to purchase Chromebooks for our Chromebook refresh plan. So we typically provide Chromebooks to first grade students that they keep with them until seventh grade. And then at seventh grade, we provide them with a new Chromebook, because the lifespan of a Chromebook at most is 10 years based off of how long the software is supported. But we don't always see them lasting that long. We previously did not have any funds budgeted

080for Chromebook refreshes. So with some of the savings that we achieved in other areas, we were able to add that into the budget. And then the other change was to our restricted supplies were for a $1 million allocation that was put for social science curriculum into this year's budget. We don't plan because we don't have the remaining $2 million necessary for the social science curriculum that has been moved into the ending fund balance to purchase later. No, I'm sorry. In service operate services and operating expenditures, the unrestricted budget increased due to some water usage that increased unexpectedly, as well as legal expenses. And then some grant expenditures were actually moved from this year to next year. I worked with all of our departments that have grant funding in an effort to identify our expenditures for

08124, 25 and anything that we didn't plan to spend. We moved into our out years to kind of reduce our fallout that we see it on audited actuals typically. So we're really trying to work on collaborating as we build the budget to know what to expect. And so that's a lot with Ed services. So I think their department for working with me on that. And then in capital outlay, we had an increase due to several vehicle replacements. We needed a new vehicle in the warehouse due to in an operable vehicle, as well as ELOP or expanded learning program and our project build program all built or all purchase vehicles that were approved earlier this year. And then we had a small actual decrease to our Tri-Valley ROP contribution for our other outgo. And this is

082our multi-year projection and our fiscal outlook for the current year and the three fiscal year, three, two subsequent years. So for 24, 25, we have an unrestricted ending fund balance of 4.17% or 4.2% in 25, 26, 3.2% and in 26, 27, 3%. So this, as I mentioned, incorporates all of the reductions that were planned, but no additional reductions are necessary to maintain the 3%. But we are right at the 3%. School services actually recently released the average unrestricted ending fund balance for 23, 24. The average for a unified school district was 24% for districts as they closed 23, 24. We were at 7%. So having that lower reserve level does require us to act a little more quickly when we are having such large measures of deficit spending, which required those reductions that were approved.

083So never easy, but it did get us to a place where we are able to certify as positive for our budget and meet the minimum reserve requirement in all three years. This is our enrollment history and projections for the historical enrollment that's included on this. I included this slide in first interim and I was doing some more checking as I prepped this presentation and realized that for some reason CDE DataQuest, which is a source of information that you can pull all enrollment data as well as some other information, had a slightly higher number than what is actually being funded through LCFF. So I've updated these numbers through what our enrollment that's funded for LCFF and working to kind of figure out where those discrepancies lie between DataQuest as well as the other CDE sources. But

084other than that, our enrollment projections have remained the same for 25, 26 and 26, 27. When I was working on second interim budget, our TK and kinder numbers, our TK enrollment is really strong for 25, 26. However, our kinder numbers weren't as strong, so they were kind of balancing out between the two. We have since seen a higher increase in our kinder enrollment that has increased our enrollment projections for the two overall. But at the time that I was preparing the budget, we weren't seeing an increase in overall enrollment between TK and kinder. Real quick, is this updated from last week though with enrollment? No, this is the same that was included. Last week it was just updated from the December presentation. So if you were to compare December numbers that I included in this

085report versus now, that is why they are slightly different. Can you just briefly reiterate for someone watching the difference between what our enrollment is and what our funded ADA is? Great question. So our enrollment is the number of students actually enrolled in our classes and that we expect to see on a daily basis. And then our funded ADA accounts is our average daily attendance. So it's the actual days that students are sitting in class on those days. So they're enrolled but maybe are sick or absent for various reasons. And so we are only funded based off of the days students actually attend. And then our funded ADA is based off of either our current year, our prior year ADA or our three prior year ADA. We have been typically funded off of either prior year

086or three prior year. We're automatically funded on which is the better of the three for our district. So currently for this year, we are funded on our three prior year average. For this year, we're projected to be funded on our prior year. And then in 26-27, we're projected to be funded at our three prior year average based off of current projections. Thank you for the clarification. I think it's just important that people understand that attendance and sometimes people might get a phone call and say, hey, where's your kids at? That drives a large financial portion. Yes, yes. For every percent of attendance that we have, it's about $1.5 million in revenue for our district. And so we are trying to work on figuring out ways to increase our student attendance because we are still a

087little low in comparison to our pre-COVID numbers. We were seeing a slight actually uptick in that percentage of attendance to enrollment. But February was really hit hard with all of the flus going around. And so we were actually worse than our 23-24 attendance rates in 24-25. So we will see how that impacts us because I had reviewed our attendance through the end of January. And saw that there was an improvement. And so I did a slight increase to our ADA percentages based off of that. But we'll see as we reach the end of March if those will pick back up through the month of March. There's no, the state does not distinguish between an excused absence and an unexcused absence, right? Like if they have a doctor's note, they legitimately sick. The state is like,

088cool story. They're still not there. You don't get paid. Correct. We don't get paid regardless of the reason. So yes. So I know. And that has been kind of a big source of misunderstanding is that a lot of families felt that if they called their child in sick that we would still get paid for that day and unexcused. But no, we don't get paid for any absences. And are there any options, not advocating for online schooling, but are there any options to maintain your ADA by say someone's going to be out for a given number of days? Is there any option for online? We do have short term independent study options. So a student can be absent up to 15 days, I believe is this year's number and receive short term independent study from as

089little as one day to up to 15 days in any given school year. We are currently working to revise our process to make it a little less of a burden to our teaching staff as well as office staff to help try to generate more attendance through that process. But we've been working with between Michelle Pichette as well as with LEA to help this process moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. So then a little bit about our current state outlook as well as our federal the federal funding uncertainties. So the state budget proposal was released in January with positive news for TK 12 education. The budget proposal included fully funded COLA of 2.43% as well as implementation of TK, which includes a reduction in the staffing ratio from 12 students to one adult to 10 students

090to one adult as well as a discretionary block grant. We won't know until at earliest late May if these funds look like they might actually materialize to the end of June, early July, if we could count on these funds so they have not been included in our 2526 budget or the multi year projection until we know greater details, but we are starting to have conversations about one, implementing the lower staffing ratio for TK and knowing that we do have quite a few more TK students enrolled for 2526 and then kind of what we need to fund from our discretionary block grant such as the social science curriculum. And then for federal funding. Obviously there is a high level of uncertainty related to federal funding especially our more competitive grants or discretionary grants that we've been

091granted such as our magnet grant our school based mental health grant. So we continually are watching that and know that we could have additional cost pressures if any of that funding is reduced. And so we continue to monitor the federal budget and may need to identify alternative funding sources if any of that funding is cut. Some other federally funded programs are special education funding, all of our title programs. We have an Indian education grant as well. I haven't heard a lot of talk about those being reduced but at this point it's all kind of an unknown. So some next steps. The second interim budget meets positive certification status, based off our estimated unrestricted reserves in the current and two subsequent years. That 4.17% reserve level in our current year is allowing us to meet our

092minimum reserve in our third out year of 3% without any additional reductions beyond what has already been approved. So that's kind of giving us kind of a little bit of that cushion. And then we'll continue implementation of the approved reductions, as well as continuing to evaluate all contracts as well as all spending across the district to ensure that it is all necessary and utilized as we would expect if we are having a large contract in place. Final board resolutions for any final staffing reductions will take place on May 6 2025. We'll attend our May revision webinar through school services we've invited our bargaining unit partners to attend with us. And then we'll continue to develop our 2526 budget as well as the LCAP and present for approval in June of 25. Any additional questions. Go

093ahead, Stephen. So, regarding the restricted books and supplies of $1 million, so it's restricted and so it can't be used for anything else. I'm just curious if it's possible to, and I would strongly advocate for using the funds to possibly purchase the elementary social studies adoption. Maybe that's a conversation we can have later but I'm just, if there's three, and if it's possible, and if these funds are carrying over and if they can't be used for something else then rationally it seems that if we can do check off one of those, and my heart, you know goes out to secondary but I also know that the ancillary ancillary materials that the elementary school teachers are using for social studies, they can't get access to that so I mean we're looking at possibly two years of

094elementary school teachers not having comprehensive easy access to social studies curriculum so I don't know if you want to comment on that or if we can get an update or about that later. I don't know if anybody else would like to comment on that, since I kind of take my direction of curriculum purchasing from our services department so maybe Michelle will add in a little bit. I appreciate the comment, I think it's a greater discussion we need to dig in and and definitely see. I would just like to note that I fully agree with what you're saying, I think as we move into like math adoption which is coming up. It is something that we need to spread out, out over several years we should not be doing a TK through 12 adoption in one

095year because of the financial burden that it poses. So I want to just start by saying that, but I definitely am not opposed to looking into alternatives, and not not knowing if, and when this discretionary block grant is going to come in until the budget is actually adopted, I hold my breath until then as Lastly, so, but I am, I am always for Plan B and Plan C so I appreciate your comment. And I'll just add that they are restricted lottery funds so we can only use the million dollars that has been set aside in our own funding balance for a board approved curriculum or state approved curriculum. And I will, I will try and articulate my next question as best as I can, but so there's been several, this is regarding federal funding. We've

096received, I don't know, across the country there's been several executive orders that kind of say for this funding you must do this. And there are some people some institutions I should say that are complying beforehand so if we were given a directive like that, like funding for school lunches right is primarily funding. Do we negotiate that or is there a threshold between or is that a much longer conversation than what we're having here is my question even makes sense, because I think part of it is some people are as soon as it comes out they are immediately complying with the order as opposed to waiting to see and being forced to comply, and I just don't know us as an organization we get federal dollars and you know there's conversations about then I just don't

097know. So, any thoughts. That is a great question I do understand what you are asking. I would say that there are certain grants that we've gotten, such as the the school based mental health grant that we are being careful about what we put into the grant and any changes that we make to make to ensure that we are only providing school based funding and not kind of entering into the more di requirements of eliminating those. We haven't made any large scale changes to our current activity that we are doing for any diversity and equity and inclusion practices, but as far as that goes I would say the state of California. Hasn't been moving quickly on these requirements that have been set forth and we haven't received a lot of guidance from the state, as far

098as how we should handle it as public agencies so it hasn't happened that there's been very limited information that we've received. Sounds terrifying. Yes. Yes, anyone, anyone else. I have a, I think a few comments. Sorry, go check my notes here. Okay. One of the questions I had. You already answered which was the UK funding. Okay, so that's just being held till the next year. Correct. Okay. And then also was happy to see that our medical reimbursement was more than expected. Medical is a hard one to plan for so we budget that revenue as we receive it. And currently, in addition to our current year reimbursements that we've been receiving. We had to do what was called back casting with medical so for, I believe it was five to six school years we had to

099go and resubmit all of our documentation to medical for And then that has generated substantial revenue, both in the current year as well as our prior fiscal years. And that so that's part of that increase to medical revenue as well. And then there was something else in there that I didn't know what it was, which is the selling solar energy credits, which has become a revenue source, I don't know what that is. Yes. So with it's called, they're called solar wrecks, or, let me look up the exact term or renewable energy certificates. So what happens is, as districts purchase solar energy agencies can reach out to us and contract with us to purchase our energy certificates that they have as credit for themselves. And so that generates revenue for us so it's not really not

100any additional energy that we are generating it's just the fact that we have renewable energy sources that then produce these wrecks that can be purchased from us. And then I think that might be all, I guess I would just say that I'm glad that we're getting out of the qualified, and I recognize that it's been a lot of work to dive through this and figure it out. But I think that in order to attract and retain staff and teachers we have to get to a place where we can be balanced and positive, so that we can do that and so I think it's a step forward I know it's been a painful process I don't want, I want to acknowledge that I think everyone has seen that it is difficult, and for us but I

101also think that it's important, it's not only just important, like, to our community, but also to our employees and trying to get them sort of right, right sized and right, right sided just getting their salaries right sided as much as possible so I just wanted to say I understand I know I know it's not just you I know it's a group effort. But I'm glad that we're kind of hopefully climbing out of it so appreciate the effort. Thank you. Any other. Yeah, go ahead. In regards to that I do want to, you know, give praise where it's due and it's a remarkable accomplishment to be able to pull out and to get us into a positive, positive budget, having a qualified budget is horrible. It's the first time in my, you know, there's my 11th

102year on the board that we've had it, you know, we had it last year, and then drug it into this year. So, I know it's a lot of work and coming in new and stepping on a few landmines. You've survived that so continue up on the good work. I also want to just maybe not speak directly to but just given some of the comments that were made tonight relative to I just want to encourage all of us that we're continuing to work or starting to work in a collaborative effort with some of our folks, and I don't want to you know I'm not in that relationship you know rather relative to bargaining and things like that that's you guys are dealing with that, but just, it is concerning and address us and say that there's

103a lack of collaboration or an absence or, you know, that those type of things and I just have to take it on that word that and don't when someone comes up and they're a valued person and they're going through these tough times and they say things like that were said tonight. That's very concerning as a board member. So I'd like just that, you know, whatever it takes I think that we need to resolve that we've, we've long had very very good employee relations here. And, and to me empathy is not enough. We have to have empathy just as humans, but we also have to maintain those relationships because it's relationships that we lean on in the hardest at times. And this is a tough time. So in the absence those relationships I mean things start

104to implode, and I don't want to see that because we're only here for a singular mission. Let's take care of children. And if the humans that the adults in the room, or at odds. It would just stand to reason logically that children would suffer. And I think that's irresponsible position as adults. And so I just want to make sure that we're doing whatever we can to resolve that behind the scenes or whatever it is to make that work and while at the same time simultaneously applauding the good work that you're doing. I don't think that they're, you know, one or the other. I think they can happen, happen simultaneously. Thank you. I'd entertain a motion. President Prusso I move to support the superintendent's recommendation to approve the 2024 2025 second interim financial reports as presented.

105I'll second that. So I have a motion by trustee drew in seconded by trustee Vanden Heuvel, any discussion on the motion and ask the clerk to take role. trustee Bueno. Hi, myself I trustee Kaplan is trustee Vanden Heuvel. Hi, President Prusso. I that motion carries unanimously. Yeah, it's just named Texas. Okay. Yeah, they're all falling off. They're all falling off. So the kid when the kids walk around. Okay. All right. Is everyone okay. We all going to be okay. Is everyone. I don't know. I don't know. So we might need to get up and go grab it. We'll be okay. Okay. We're going to move on to. Thank you. Where are we? 14. No. 13. 13. Sorry. It's me. 13 for. Yes, go ahead. You know what to do. You know, secondary staffing update discussion

106only. Just a little bit of information for the board. So as we work through course requests at the high school level, we're very excited as we get to rebuild our master schedules going forward in the new schedule. That was approved by LEA, as well as the board earlier this school year. Again, a huge thank you to all the LEA members who participated in that work group and the LEA leadership and staff who continue to help us as we navigate this this new normal the schedule. Through that process, we've been meeting with our high school administration teams as well as our district leadership teams in various areas to look at changes needed where we are overstaffed in some departments at the high school levels and understaffed and others. So I just wanted to bring that to

107all of our attention. We are really looking for looking at creative solutions. And we will continue to have conversations. In fact, we're meeting again tomorrow, I think, at 10 a.m. I think it's on our calendar from 10 to three, actually. I don't think we're going to need that much time, but we set aside an additional five hours from our two or three hours last week as we are really working with the school site. So just so you know, that could lead us to bring some additional updates to the board at the March 13th meeting prior to March 15th. But we'll have more of an update later this week for the board. Just a huge thank you again to our site leadership and LEA as we work collaboratively. Pretty much 24 seven on this particular topic.

108Any questions or anything. Okay, we're going to move on to our consent items. I actually don't. How many there are. How many do we have six or I don't know. I don't know how to count on there. Anyway, does anyone wish to pull any consent items for discussion, if not, I would entertain a motion. Yeah, we just have just one. I have one question. And if we can question. Yes, let's do that. Do it now. On the reso for the oversight on the partial tax. Is this a recurrence, or is there any change because it's not strike, you guys always do strike to run the line. There's no strike to run the line so I'm assuming this is just change the date. This resolution is actually brand new. It was brought to my attention when

109I got to the district. That the measure language required called for a resolution by the board to appoint an oversight committee. And that resolution, we could not find evidence of that resolution. We think what might have happened is that it existed from a prior committee, and that what should happen is as the prior committee phases out and the new parcel tax committee phases in that we should be establishing the committee through a resolution of reconvening and so we have not found a resolution that we so we wanted to just make sure all of our bases are covered and bring forward a resolution that establishes our committee. And so this resolution has actually gone to the committee to kind of review just to make sure me being newer my position that we are following kind of

110what the practices of the committee have been, as well as following along with CBO see our bond oversight committee and and some other practices and bylaws. Thank you. President Bruce I move to approve consent items. One a two a three a three b, four, five, and six a in their entirety. A second. So we have a motion by trustee. Thank you. Seconded by trustee Kaplan is any discussion on the motion. I'd ask our clerk to take growth, trustee Vanden Heuvel. Hi, myself, I trustee Bueno. Hi, trustee Kaplan is President Prusso. I that motion carries unanimously. We're going to move on to our board reports, we will begin with trustee Vanden Heuvel. All right. I attended the lives more Valley Education Foundation choir concert at LHS, all these different choirs came and they were spectacular. One

111of the pianists is especially attractive. I may ask her out. It was just so good and it's so fun to see. It's his wife. It's his wife. Please clarify. I'm just going to leave that just there. You know, I wasn't going to let you do that. It's his wife. She's amazing. And she's amazing. From all different levels and different ages and they all and then at the end they came together and perform together and it was just, it was really, really, really, really good. And I wouldn't just say that. This is excellent. I saw the TK bubble roll in at the enrollment fair. That was a lot of people. Oh my goodness, it's there was a lot and really fun really great to be able to spend time with the, the principals of various schools

112and just great to see who's coming in. And then even today we attended the math task force with Mr. Kulakowski out in Granada high schools. Super cool to see what what these teachers get to do and learn and and then put it right into practice in the classrooms. Very impressive, very excited to see how that's going to, you know, really bear fruit in the years to come. So thank you. Thank you. Also attended the special ed work group. And the special ed work group, which is, yes, that was really great to get to sit at tables with people that are super passionate about special ed and going how do we make this better for the whole issue it was really cool. It was such a large group but it worked really efficiently so very cool

113to see. trustee could plan us. I also attended the special education work group. Is it professional development to someone it's the work group. Yeah, it was really interesting to just hear different perspectives and how everybody's working together to collaborate. And then I also attended been doing a lot of math. So I attended the math force task force training here at the district office, and then got to see it implemented at a live lesson at Granada high school this morning. I've also been doing my classes with CSBA so I did the Brenna class. Last week. Also, did some site visits with Dr. Gibson and went to Mendenhall. And I want to say one of my favorite things about Mendenhall was the wood shop class, just to see it come to life and yeah, it was really

114fun. And then of course the TK kindergarten enrollment, I've spent in that line myself and so it was awesome just to see everybody there. Some people brought their entire family and so I was excited to just see their kids, starting their educational career. I also attended the multicultural night at Jackson Elementary. Last week. That was really fun the closest I'll get to travel right now so got to see a lot of different ethnicities and cultures represented and is really fascinating I think there was like over 18 countries represented. And then, oh, today, they'll, they'll learn more high school ribbon cutting at their softball field. Very exciting at the game I think was delayed, but I stayed for the least the first inning. And their softball team looks stellar. So you guys can make a softball

115game should do it. That's a professional opinion given your athletic background. Oh yeah, it's my passion and I don't get to watch girls softball that much because I have boys but yeah it was really fun. Trust me point out. I'm going to keep my real brief on the events and stuff. It's just, there's a little footnote that in in California wrestling. One in eight students in this country goes to school in California. And in California, there's only one division, when you wrestle. That's it. So if you're the state champ in the state of California. That is a big honor. It's not like being the division five, not to take away from a kid in the Midwest or something but if you're number one in a state of 40 million people, it's pretty significant. So if

116you place it state, or you go to state. It's significant, and I got a couple of names of a couple of folks at Granada High School, and it was in girls wrestling. Stevie SJ Martin took second, and Mally Nguyen Nguyen took fifth. That is an enormous accomplishment, like, just, that's kind of an earth shattering thing, you know, so I just didn't want to get past that great job by both those young ladies. 120 pound category and 125. Probably the last time you can actually say, oh wait, they're wrestlers so it's okay. So I participated in Read Across America at Joe Mitchell yesterday, where I helped to raise awareness of the fact that dragons in fact love tacos. I ran into retired principal Dr. Dr. Laura Lembo and principal Brian Sharman dressed as, I think, Scully

117from Monsters University or something like that. Who were there to read, but also, I did see Assistant Superintendent Robbins was scheduled to read later. So I appreciate the enthusiasm and celebrating literacy and literature in the district. I too attended Jackson Jackson's second annual multicultural night, lots of amazing posters tasty food and wonderful dancing. I met with Assistant Superintendent Wasley to fill in some of some gaps in my knowledge regarding our district's budget process in particular, I wanted to further understand categorical funding, and I look forward to attending Tri-Valley Sulpa on Monday. Okay. I also attended the kindergarten enrollment fair, which was really exciting and I think we have discovered that there's a, there's a COVID bubble of lots of babies, the babies are ready for TK, which is great where we will love to have

118them. I also attended the Granada High Math Task Force today, and the softball ribbon cutting, and for Read Across America Day, Stephen and I had book club for our book club and that was great. I was talking about literature, you can't be in it. It's just the two of us. Yeah. I was like no. It's getting late. Let's move on. I think we're good. Right. Let's move to Dr. Gibson. So the numbers you've been waiting for. Yes, the enrollment there was a huge success. To the point where we're a little nervous but we'll figure it out. We always come up with a plan. So our numbers are this. Currently we have 700 TKers registered for 2526 and it's March the fourth. This year our TK enrollment just for comparison reasons, 476. Yeah. Kinder enrollment we

119currently have 790 for next year and our current Kinder enrollment is 888. So if you're a parent of a possible Kinder student coming into school next year and you're not in TK, please come see us and get them enrolled. We are ready to make that happen. So it's going to be a fun spring as we find places for little tiny bodies, but we will make it work. Huge thank you to the staff who came out and participated with many, many teachers and classified staff that volunteered their time to be there. To really be that smiling welcome face and our principals who sat there two afternoons and evenings in a row and just were so excited. I also love just getting to go and sit and experience the space with some of our staff and welcome

120our parents. I walked to the end of the line one on Wednesday and it was quite the line. Out and around through the parking lot, down the yellow brick road. Yes, it was quite good. So I'm very excited. As mentioned, we held our second special education work group meeting. Staff are broken into four teams that they identified as needs of things that we need to accomplish. If we didn't simultaneously work on the needs at the same time, it would probably be about seven years before we accomplish where we need to get to. It was pretty amazing. So we had everybody in here and by, I don't know, an hour or two into the meeting, one whole group moved up here into the middle and they took over this space. So it was really fun just

121to see it organically happen. And by the time they left at the end of the day, I think they realized truly what they signed up for in the heavy left because they were a little glossy eyed, slightly brain dead, but very excited to be here. So huge thank you again to LEA for helping us put that group together. And just a huge thank you to all the staff who have volunteered to do that work with us. Last week, we had a lot of adult field trips. So much fun. Cabinet got to do a visit to the Livermore lab, where we got to see both supercomputers. Fascinating. It was so great. We were a little brain dead after that conversation, trying to keep up with the lingo and the conversation and the excitement of people when

122they're talking about things in their world that aren't our world, but we want to really be excited with them. And then we got to actually go inside the NIF, which was pretty remarkable. So really great visit. A huge thank you to Scott Wilson, who is a government affairs person at the lab and he's happy to have us anytime if any of you want to go. We also had a really fantastic visit to the building's trades training center. Really amazing, equally fascinating, equally brilliant people in very different ways. It was such a great, we went from one to the other within a 48 hour period and it was such a great reminder and just wonderful moment of why we have all the things that we teach our students. That, yeah, those two group of people would

123not necessarily switch jobs and be able to do the others. They're equally magnificent. So that was really great and we've been invited along with the board. We will be scheduling a board visit out to DelVal to take a look at project build and the students in action. So stay tuned for that update this spring. On Saturday I attended the Hindu Community and Cultural Center grant award ceremony. I was honoring guests it was wonderful I was there with one of the lieutenants from the police department as well as the mayor, and they gave out, I'm going to guess I don't know for sure But I'm going to say probably over $40,000 worth of grant money to community partners nonprofits of which I think about 3000 of that was given to our school district so just wonderful

124people it was great to connect. If you have not seen their temple it is absolutely beautiful. And I look forward to additional connections with that part of our, our community it was it was really, they were very gracious. I to participate in radio across America week this week, I got to help kindergartners catch a leprechaun. It was fantastic kindergartners are the best. They've, they have, they have their whole world of their own and they have plans to catch leprechaun so. And then today, yet the field dedication was a special moment for our cowgirls over at LHS, as they now have a really beautiful facility that they should be proud of so congratulations to LHS. And again it's just a huge thank you to our community who support our schools, every day, all day, whether it's

125facilities and bonds parcel tax volunteering, all the above our community truly does go above and beyond so that is noticed and much appreciated so I think I think that sums up. Great, so just for reference, we have a special board meeting next Thursday on March 13 here at the district office open session begins at 930 am, and the next regularly scheduled board meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 18 here at the district office and open session will begin at 7pm. So this meeting is now adjourned at 907pm.