February 24, 2026 - 10am Committee of the Whole

001Thank you everyone for your patience. We're going to start shortly um just as soon as uh KLCS is with us. And I believe they're starting up in just a second. Five more minutes, folks. Thank you for your patience. Good morning everyone. Thank you for your patience. We will be starting the committee of the whole uh meeting this morning. Um so good morning colleagues, district staff, labor partners, members of the public. Um before we begin, I do want to acknowledge the broader moment we are living through right now. Um around the world, we continue to see instability, violence, and humanitarian crises that weigh heavily on many of our families um and our students and our employees as well. For some in our communities, these are not distant events. They are personal and affecting loved ones and

002shaping daily anxieties. And I do want to extend some love and and um and prayers to Mexico as they're um going through a lot of turmoil right now. Um our students carry that emotional reality with them to classrooms every day. And it's times like this that our public schools must remain anchors of stability, safety, and care. And that responsibility shows up not only in what we teach, but in how we steward resources. um improve physical environments and that we're there for one another. Today's agenda reflects um that responsibility of making sure that our schools are um those safe places and the resources are going to the most uh needest of our schools and communities. So there's been a slight change in the agenda. We will first hear from um our budget um our CFO Mr.

003Simon Kurimi uh Bravo. He will um provide a fiscal update on district-wide non- labor expenditures and the equity impact analysis showing changes in schoolside budgets uh from fiscal year 26 to fiscal year 27. Uh secondly, we will receive the final prioritization and next steps from measure US on major greening and shade programs including playground and campus exterior exterior upgrades. green schoolyard upgrades and shade shelters. Uh both conversations are about stewardship. They're about directing investments where need is the greatest and ensuring transparency as we navigate fiscal constraints. Um before we begin with our first presentation, I just want to um um if there are any labor partners in the room who would like to speak. Nope, I don't see anyone. So um we will move on then with our first presentation with Mr. uh San Bravo

004see Bravo Karemi not Kim Bravo our chief financial officer. Uh for our first presentation we have the fiscal update. This presentation examines district-wide non- labor expenditures including spending on professional services, books, and supplies alongside the equity impact analysis showing how school site budgets are changing from uh 26 fiscal year to the 27th. Um go ahead, Mr. Karimi that thank you for being here and you can go ahead. As as you mentioned, we're going to go through some of the information that I provided uh verbally uh in response to a question at last week's board meeting um providing a lot of graphs and data um as a response to the resolution that was approved by the board in June. Also, as part of that resolution, there was a request for an equity analysis looking at year-over-year

005changes from this school year into next school year. Uh the total budget allocations by uh uh semiquentile. So first um the the expenditure data that we're showing uh is going back in time and the last full fiscal year where we have final expenditure figures are last school year the 2425 school year and as as you know the audit was already presented to the board back in January. So those are are final figures but we also are going to include some information for this year and next year that are are budget figures. So expenditure figures from last year and earlier. But then for this year and moving forward, what we have are our budget expenditures. And so the source of data is those general fund and audited actuals including general fund all general funds. So both

006restricted and unrestricted. And when we refer to non labor expenditures, it's probably self-evident, but it refers to anything that's not a personnel related expense. So personnel related expenses are of course salaries and and benefits. And the benefits include not just the the common ones that we think of like like health benefits, but they also include uh the contributions that we make on behalf of our employees for for pension and uh you know Medicare taxes etc. And so those are all the things that we consider labor. Everything else is is non- labor and and that includes what are called books and supplies. Um, in our budget book, we report information not just in our budget book, but in the first interim report and the second interim report. Basically, all of our financial reports are reported based

007on the requirements of the state. And so, the big category of books and supplies is is a category that includes of course books and supplies themselves, but it also includes instructional materials, really kind of physical things that that schools uh primarily schools need. That would also include things like custodial supplies. The next big category of non- labor are other operating expenditures and within that we have the professional services contracts or consulting contracts and um we're also going to look at uh the other category which is uh capitalized equipment. So those are certain technology purchases are are the best example. All right. So, this is something that we've shown previously several times, and it just shows the overall district budget and how it's organized. And again, this is also governed by by law. These are the

008different kind of funds and and categories of of spending and budgets that that we're required to report on. So uh we focus very heavily typically on not just our operating funds uh but within the operating funds the biggest fund is the general fund and the general fund is broken out into unrestricted and restricted. The restricted general fund is as I mentioned last week those are determined by law. We we don't decide what what's restricted or or unrestricted. Um and so that's why you see those highlighted in yellow because that's what we're going to be primarily focusing on uh today. So first is the share of our total general fund spending or expenditures that were on labor and non- labor all the way back from the 20145 school year through last school year through the 2425

009school year. So you'll see before the pandemic. So basically all the way from 1415 through the first year of the pandemic, the 1920 school year, the percentage of the total spending in the general fund, and this is both unrestricted and restricted, the share of spending that went to non- labor, those non- labor categories that I just described, was about 16 to 17% of total spent expenditures. And then you'll see in the in the second year, the second school year of the pandemic, but the real first year of substantial pandemic related spending, the 2021 school year, the share of the spending in the general fund went up to 22% the following year 2122 to 24% and that was really the peak year of of the non- labor spending. And it's for the reasons that that you

010can imagine. there was a substantial amount of spending on non- labor services. A really big example of that during the pandemic was COVID testing. So the district undertook uh very expansive COVID testing in order to safely reopen schools to safely continue to operate our schools. So that's the biggest example of the COVID related spending in non- labor that contributed to that uh substantial percentage in 2122. And then since that peak year, you'll see that slowly the percentage of the district's general fund expenditures that was for non- labor started going back towards the preandemic uh share. So 22 23 23 24 were both at 21% and then last school year at uh 20%. And this is I think if you looked at most school districts, you would likely see a very similar trend, a substantial increase

011in the share uh due to the pandemic and uh a slow revision back towards the prepandemic uh trend. Here is looking specifically at the category of books and supplies. But remember the books and supplies includes more than just books and supplies. It's a pretty broad category and it's those physical things that school districts purchase. And so you'll see here the orange is the portion of these books and supplies expenditures that are general fund unrestricted. The green is other restricted. The blue is COVID funds. And then the purple is ELOP. So those last three, the other restricted, the COVID funds, and ELOP funds, those are all general fund restricted, but we thought it was very meaningful to to split out the COVID funds. So you could see how much of this spending in books and supplies

012is attributable to specifically COVID related funds. Then ELOP is important also because it's a relatively new program. It's a a program that the the the annual revenues we receive are about $470 million. And while it's spent on a lot of of labor expenses to expand after school programming and other opportunities for our students, there are portions of it that are spent on non- labor. And so you'll see the trends there. E even just the orange the general fund unrestricted did you we did see a even before the pandemic a steady increase in the dollar amount spent on books and supplies and then you'll see obviously it went up as as most other things did in the pandemic and then is now kind of reverting back to prepandemic levels. But when you look at the very

013top line, the very top line, the grand total, those numbers hovering above those stacked bars, you'll see that the the total spend in all of general fund is still of course peaked during the pandemic, but is still uh quite a bit higher than um even the pre- pandemic levels. And and largely it is because of substantial spending in new restricted programs that did not exist previously. And that's that that purple that you see uh for ELOP. Next, we're going to zoom into what are traditionally considered contracts. These are professional and consulting services. This also goes from 1415 through today. And you're going to see a very similar trend as you saw in in books and supplies. So the colors here for the stacked bar graph are the same as on the previous slide. Orange general

014fund unrestricted. Everything else is restricted, but you'll see that again the COVID funds and the ELOP funds are are called out and you'll see a very similar trend as we did not just in overall non- labor and not just in books and supplies. Um, so what you'll see is a a substantial increase in overall spend, especially in the 21-22 school year. Nearly a billion dollars spent. Uh, of that the large amount that you see there in the orange general fund uh unrestricted is related to that uh COVID testing that that I mentioned. You'll remember that we were uh we did receive a substantial reimbursement from FEMA to cover those costs that were incurred against uh the general fund unrestricted. But you'll also see a sub you know substantial use of COVID funds in the blue

015as well as upon the inception of ELOP the first year of expenditures for ELOP being in 22 23 you'll see uh substantial sums spent there which is to be expected. ELOP funds again are for enrichment opportunities for our school for our students principally after school but also interession programming and the basic biggest example of of contract spending within ELOP is of course our high dosage tutoring. So again like you see in other trends we do see an increase overall even before the pandemic a substantial spike in the pandemic years and then a reversion uh back towards uh more closely to the pre- pandemic levels but still higher overall again because ELOP is is new uh it did not exist before we didn't have any expenditures before the 22 23 school year other restricted the biggest

016examples of other restricted are going to be our our spending uh in within special education and that this is a nationwide trend that we're seeing um higher levels of of spending for our our students with disabilities. Okay. So, when we look at the last school year and we look at the non labor expenditures, it was just under a billion dollars at about $954 million. um are sorry, excuse me, of the total non- labor spend last year of the $2.3 billion about almost a billion dollars was at the school sites. Okay, so this is all non- labor. This is books and supplies. This is other operating expenditures. This also includes non- capitalized equipment. Uh about a billion dollars was at our school sites. about $778 million was within the central office or centrally administered programs that

017are um other non- labor expenditures and a substantial sum over half a billion dollars were also kind of centrally administered but that we consider unavoidable costs. So, unavoidable cost is not an official term. That's not a term you'll find in the California School Accounting Manual, but it's represents the types of spending that really are are essential and and really uh typically cannot be avoided. And I'll I'll provide some examples of that in a moment, but but it includes things like utilities, uh waste management, um and and similar type expenditures that really are going to happen uh every year. So, here's a breakdown of that uh over half a billion dollars. There are of course special education services. There are mandated textbooks, utilities, the rubbish pickup, legal settlements, and then importantly insurance premiums. The insurance premiums,

018these are not premiums for health benefits. Health benefit costs show up as a labor expense. So when you look at our our budgets, you look at our financial reports, health benefit costs show up under that category of employee benefits, which is a labor cost. These insurance premiums are related to basically every other type of insurance that the district has. Liability coverage, property insurance, there are numerous cyber security insurance, there are numerous types of insurance that districts have to protect against risk. That's the concept of of the the necessity for insurance is to protect against certain kinds of risks. Um and so that is a very huge part of what the district's non- labor spending is is for. It's for those for that kind of coverage to protect the district against substantial risks. So we also

019want to look at uh the other professional services what are traditionally considered to be contracts you know consulting contracts uh services uh on contracts and so what you see here are spending last school year within certain categories of professional services contracts where the spendings with with the spending with vendors exceeded $5 million. So these are kind of the major major vendors. And so there are a very substantial number of approved contracts and vendors for a district our size. We do have several different vendors uh some that are summarized here where where our expenditures exceed $5 million, but also some where the expenditure levels are are much smaller. the district is continuing to do a a deep dive on even the smaller contracts uh so that we can provide that information both to the board and

020the public. Um but here you do see a good snapshot of some of the things that are are where we spend money with some of our our major our vendors. So the first is not surprisingly school transportation. There's tutoring and after school programs, IT infrastructure, uh equipment like computers and devices, digital tools, election costs, printed materials. Um, and so these are some of the major categories where we're seeing substantial amount of spending on professional services contracts. Now we're looking here at uh general fund restricted and unrestricted uh spending and operating budgets. And so here you'll see where we do include uh future years, right? We have this year and next year where we don't yet have final expenditure numbers. And you'll see in the orange that is kind of the central office or centrally administered

021spending. Now of course all of that spending is on on behalf of students. So a good example is is is tutoring. Even though tutoring shows up as a central expenditure, a centrally administrative program, it's of course students that are receiving the direct supports from those services. And then in the blue you'll see the school site portion of these other operating expenses. So you'll see a trend that's kind of, you know, substantial increases through the pandemic years and then a revision starting thereafter. Um and that's true not just for the central office and but also for schools and for schools we we see a very similar trend where you know during the pandemic years with a substantial influx of funds that were allocated to schools during that time period um this is this is what what

022we would expect to see. And then now when we're in moving forward into a time period of much more limited resources, we see that spent the the spending in the past and then budgets moving forward are of course lower. This is the numbers uh behind what you saw on on that table. And I think I want to highlight on the far right hand side the the percentages of the total budget that these figures represent. So there's a lot of numbers there are a lot of numbers on this slide. Uh it the rows are fiscal years. Uh the first set of columns are school sites organized by unrestricted and restricted and then the the subtotal for school sites. Same for central office or centrally administered services unrestricted and restricted. Then the subtotal for those then the

023grand total in that dark gray and then a column for what the total general fund budget was in each of those years and then the corresponding percentage of that total. And so you'll see kind of in the 1718 school year and fiscal year 2018, this represented about 12% of the budget substantially increased through that high point of the 2122 school year to 16% and now we're seeing things uh regress back towards the prepandemic norm. So for the current school year, the 25 26 school year about 12% of total budget and next school year as this point in time right this point in time next year's budget is uh 11%. When we zoom in specifically to the professional and consulting services, very much the same trend. Again, orange is those centrally administered and central office contracts.

024In blue, you'll see school site and these are the budgets. And you'll see a very very similar trend. So, not just at the school levels, but at those central programs and centrally administered services. Um, a substantial increase through the pandemic years and then a reversion back to prepandemic levels. Uh, moving forward, here are all of the details behind that graph that I just showed you. Again, the same columns. The school unrestricted and restricted, the central office unrestricted and restricted, the grand total, and then the percentage of the budget that these represent. So, pre- pandemic was around 4%, high point of 9% in the 2122 school year. um and at least at this point in time for next school year uh about 2% of the general fund budget for these professional and consulting services contracts. So

025this is kind of uh consistent with some information we provided last week when we talked about how uh both schools and central offices really prioritized to the extent that they could with the limited resources provided prioritized positions uh the the valued employees that that provide the vast majority of the services to our to our students and families. And what that meant was that other budgets, non- labor budgets were were were needed to be reduced substantially in order to maintain as much of the personnel levels as as possible. And so this is consistent with with with what we had shared with with the board last week. So obviously there are many things that influence and impact the level of spending on non labor. There are of course uh discretionary funds that schools are allocated and they

026have the discretion to either use them for instructional materials, books and supplies, uh contracted services or instead to use them for for positions. Um but also at the district level, there are there are policy decisions uh that get made that impact the amount of spending that happens uh in non- labor. And these are just some examples. And these are some some examples that even came up in discussions at last week's board meeting. So the first is is is tutoring. Of course, there's a substantial uh emphasis on on tutoring to to support our students and their learning. There's onetoone devices for students. There are digital tools that help our our student learning as well. There are transportation costs and there's also real estate utilization. And and what we mean by that is right now there are

027u you know substantial schools with with um in terms of the space utilization that that might be relatively low and there's a cost associated with that and some of that cost is borne by non- labor. The the the most obvious example of of a non- labor expenditure for uh a facility that might be quote unquote underutilized is utilities, but there's also maintenance costs associated with with those utilities as well. And so that's why we're highlighting it here. Also, we're always trying to be as creative as possible when we're contracting for for services. So we always want to get the best price. We always want to get the best value. There are competitive processes that ensure that we are getting a good price and a good value. But there are sometimes even opportunities for revenue sharing

028models. So, opportunities within contracting to offset the amount of spend that we have in uh non- labor expenditures. And that's especially true. There's some examples of that in some of our IT business applications where if we can we get creative in the way we contract because so much time and resources are put in to developing tools for LUSD given our size that and sometimes the the development of those tools, the final product um is something that can be used by by other districts and that presents an opportunity for us to to generate revenue that can offset the amount that we spend on those contracts. So that is uh a quick overview again of kind of historical trends and how again in in summary that like many districts we saw a substantial increase in in overall

029budgets and then the share of those budgets that were spent on non- labor and then since the peak of the pandemic years uh a revision a reversion back to to closer to prepandemic levels. And that's true not only when we look at the expenditures, but it's especially true when we look at budgets for this year and next next school year. Next, I want to provide a summary of yearover-year changes in school budget allocations. So, first we are looking at the change in total budget allocations looking at this year compared to next year. This does exclude school carryover as well as school donations. Um but it otherwise includes basically every allocation that schools receive um in the general fund. So what you won't see here also are our bond funded expenditures, capital expenditures that vary quite

030a bit depending on where projects are happening in any given fiscal year. So what you see on the table and I'll I'll go through it in in some detail but the biggest factor in determining a school's allocation in any year is its enrollment. And right now what we have for next school year is projected enrollment, right? We call it ECAS and that's really a projection of next year's enrollment. And that as we discussed a bit last last week as well, the biggest allocation that schools receive are what we call the norm allocation. Those are the classroom teachers, the administrators, clerical staff, etc. that schools receive based on their enrollment. And so the school, a school's projected enrollment is going to determine the largest amount of their resources in any given year. Enrollment decline is the

031primary driver. And what we see is that enrollment decline is the most substantial at our highest need schools. And that's what you see in in that that table below. So in the first column the this is organized by seen quintile. So these are the semi-quintile the most recent seen quintiles the quintiles that were the SEI rankings that were used to determine SENI allocations for next school year. So these are the very latest uh SENI rankings and the schools within each of these quintiles. And you'll see there the enrollment decline the average enrollment decline within each of those quintiles. And we do see the highest level of enrollment decline at our highest semi-quintile schools. 6.3%. 4.9% decline for high, 4% for moderate, 2.4% for low, and 1.8% for lowest. So the average change in total budget

032which is the next column very closely tracks those average percentage enrollment declines. And so the average change in total budget this is also an average of the schools within each quintile very closely uh is in close parallel to those enrollment declines. So, for highest, 6% year-over-year, for high, 5.1%, for moderate, 3.5, for low, 1.5% decline, and for lowest, an actual half percentage point increase. So, I want to pause here for a second. You might be asking yourself, why why would schools see an average increase in allocations even though their enrollment decline for the lowest quintile schools was still a decline, much less of a decline than our other schools. And the reason is even the norm allocations that schools receive, they get more expensive every year. The the biggest example of that are benefit costs.

033So, uh, benefit costs go up each year. The cost of the premiums for the the benefit plans that we provide for our employees goes up each year. And so you could still see a school get the exact same number of let's say to use an example teacher positions from one year to the next, but the cost of that same number of teachers will go up. Um costs go up over time. And so that is why you might see even in spite of of in enrollment decline um a slight increase in the overall cost of of what's allocated. So this is an applesto apples comparison. This is comparing the way the the dollars that were allocated for the current school year during budget development as well as the allocations that were provided during budget development for

034next school year. That way we're doing a real apples to apples comparison. And so what it doesn't include are any changes that happened in norm day. So in during norm day, obviously as as you're well aware, our enrollment for the current school year was substantially lower than had previously been projected. that would have reduced the uh norm allocations after norm day. And so these percentage changes are a little bit higher given that these were pre the current the 2526 figures are are pre pre-norm day where where we did see those those enrollment uh counts being substantially lower. I also want to highlight that the change in total budget that you see highlighted here will ultimately be smaller after the restoration of unfunded position and this could be particularly true at our semi highest and high

035schools. So when we when we met uh with the board last week uh as part of the riff authorization we mentioned that we were moving forward with a a riff that was smaller than the actual number of positions that were closed during budget development. closed during budget development and and it's really because the the focus of the RIFF was on on central office positions. There were several schoolbased positions that were not part of the RIFF authorization. And so while we're aggressively going to be using attrition uh that includes retirements and other ways that employees might separate from the district to place people whose positions were closed but were not rifted into those vacant positions, it's almost certain that we're going to end the the year with positions that we call that they're restored, meaning that

036they're going to continue to be employed by the district. And so, um, depending on where those those restored employees, which schools they're at or which schools they're assigned to, it could very materially change the the figures that that you see here. And and meaning it'll make the year-over-year changes smaller. You'll see a hyperlink there, that blue text at the very bottom. Um, when clicking that link, you're going to see uh several pages of of of a table that show the school level detail that is summarized here. And so that that table is organized by board district for for your convenience. And you'll be able to see the year-over-year budget change at individual schools. You'll also see information about the enrollment change from this year's norm day enrollment to next year's ECAST or projected enrollment. And

037you'll also see some calculations that show those figures on a per pupil basis. So not only in terms of total dollars, but on a per pupil basis. And so um this again is just a summary. I think it's a trend that many board members have pointed out previously at board meetings where where we do see larger uh variance and changes at at our highest need school. But again, that's principally because of the change in enrollment that that we see across the district. So the budget process is as always ongoing. Where we find ourselves now is is in the end of February. Next steps are of course continued analysis as you've seen here on on contract spending on non- labor spending uh on uh the impact of different changes in in allocations on schools. And so

038what we expect moving forward is uh in in March on March 10th there's a board meeting for the second interim report. We're going to give an update on not only the current fiscal year's finances, but also on the two additional outy years, the 2627 and 2728 fiscal year. In May, we'll receive the governor's uh budget, the May revision or May revise. That's going to provide some updated information on proposals from the governor's office with respect to next year's budget. And then finally, in June, both the budget and LCAP hearing and the budget and LCAP adoption. And I can now pause for for any questions you might have. >> Thank you very much. Um and in your last slide, I see there's nothing in April. What could be taking place in April? >> I know legis

039um our legislation is going to be going through a lot of bills and money and committees and all of that, but >> that's yes, that's a good point. So there's obviously that the advocacy has has been happening already and that definitely continues from today moving forward all the time that we have between now and and the May revision to continue to advocate for the full release of the $5.6 billion that was held back by the governor as well as advocacy for additional funds to be allocated to LA US to LA Unified and to districts across the state. So you're bringing up a really good example of of the hard work that happens in April. Of course it's happening now. It's happened last month, it's going to happen in March, but but certainly in April as

040well because there's a lot of important things that are happening at the state level legislatively um that that could impact our funding levels. >> Yeah, I think April is a very important month and we really need to be hands- on deck and and um advocating throughout Sacramento. Um okay, so I will open up the floor to whoever wants to start questioning. Okay, Carla, Miss Gregel. >> Hi, Siman. Thank you. Um, on slide six, I notice that um the labor percentage has not um gone back to prepandemic. Um, and so I'm wondering is the is this also causing us not to meet the 55% um classroom that we're supposed to meet? >> It's it's a factor. So non- labor expenditures that you see here are not part of the 55%. So it is it is a

041factor, but there are a lot of other labor expenses that are also not part of the 55%. And there are so I think we covered some some examples previously but generally everything outside of the classroom whether labor or non- labor is is not included in the 55%. So that that would include important things like psychiatric social workers, attendance counselors, um a lot of the expenditures that are still providing direct services to students but are not based on the rules of the calculation included in the 55%. But you're absolutely right that non- labor spending does contribute to that as well. >> And then I noticed that it ends this particular slide ends with 2425. Others go on to um you know pred you know making a a prediction I guess of what it's going to look

042like in the future. Um and so where are we? Why do we not have 25 26 is it? >> So the graph that you see here >> are final expenditures actual final expenditures and last year where we have those final expenditures was last school year. last school year. We don't have them for >> well because we're still in the middle of the current school year. We don't have the final total expenditures, >> but we will but we will have at second interim which is just next month updated projections on how much we expect to spend in every category for the current school year. >> And so this is really meant to be just a backwards looking so that we don't kind of mix together expenditure figures and budget figures. the other the other graphs that

043you point out that do include this year and next year are are budget figures. And so we always try to be careful to make sure that we're comparing like for like and so expenditures against expenditures or or budget against budget. But ultimately at the end of the current fiscal year uh so but even even in March we're going to have a projection for how much we think we're going to spend this year and then at the end of the fiscal year we'll then have final final figures. >> And I'm wondering because in this slide you have percentages only not actual dollar amounts. Um, is there a way we can look at the dollar amounts as well? Of course. Okay. Because I' I'd like to see that. And then, um, for slide, um, seven, >> slide

044seven. Um, so these were the actual expenditures, right? >> Correct. >> I'm wondering how do they this is books of supplies, which is a very correct, you know, it's the one that we always ask about. So, how do these actual numbers compare to what was budgeted for those years? >> Okay, let me make a note. Yeah, we can certainly provide that >> if Yeah, I know you probably I don't know if you have it right now, but I don't. I'm sorry. Okay. So, if if you could provide that uh at one point that would be um and then just wondering if the budget for books and supplies has followed the same trend since 1415. Is has there been a shift? I just I would like to see what the trend was for the budgeting of

045those um of books and supplies. Um okay, I'm going to ask one more question and then I'll hand it off to other folks. Um let's see. Professional. Okay. So, it says here object codes 5800. Um, can you what is object codes 5800? >> So, per the California school accounting manual, there are uh object codes. They're they're numerical codes that we have to report spending within those categories. So, we also budget using these codes and we have expenditures within these codes. And so the the the name of the what's the name given to the object code 5800 or the description is professional consulting services. The 5800 is just the code. So depending on what document you might be looking at, sometimes you'll see both the name and the code. Sometimes you might only see the code.

046So we try to include both just so that folks have the ability to interpret other reports that that they might see. But it's again it's a numerical code. We don't decide the code. It's all school districts report using >> so it's all professional contracts. It's it's like this big umbrella. All right. Cuz I noticed that even as of last year, we were still pretty high uh compared to preandemic levels, right? In both um the restrict other restricted and general fund restricted >> unrestricted I mean that's right. So um like by a lot it seems like and um and then you also I think you said in this slide about special ed expenses going up in other restricted is that what you said in this slide? >> Yeah. So there's a national trend that no doubt

047you're familiar with where we do see um a lot of earlier identification of students with disabilities. And so what we're seeing nationwide um is as a result of that um higher levels of of spending and depending on the and I know you already know all this but the the depending on a student's IEP some of the services provided are often required to be provided by uh non-public agencies or or non NPS non-public schools. So, uh, those expenditures, while they are direct services to students, they still do show up as as non- labor because we're required to account for them in that way >> and they're contracted. >> Yes. So, NPA and NPS's are are considered contracted services. >> Um, and so you're saying that the the expenses for special ed have gone up because the

048identification of students has gone up. >> That's one factor. and also we are contracting out more for ser their services. >> Well, I think there's a general trend for overall special education that is not just about uh the percentages of students that have that are identified to have uh disabilities and have an IEP, but also that students with more moderate to severe needs. And so there is also a and this is also a national trend where within the population of students with disabilities a larger share of them have moderate to severe needs that require additional uh more substantial services and supports. And so it's the combination of trends there that you see again nationwide that results in not only larger amount of spending on often required within IEPs for non-public agency and uh non-public school

049supports uh but also on the labor side um where we also see of course because we're providing those those increased services. So, you know, I'm going to want to see what those expenses are for special ed because I think a big concern um not only in LA USD, but I actually think across the state, a lot of folks are concerned that uh districts are contracting out a lot of special ed services and it's really increased the um amount of contracts that are um that are sought by districts instead of, you know, bringing the workforce to our to our district. It seems that that's a trend in the state. I don't know if it's a national trend, but I know it's a I would hope that we analyze what that is so that we can change

050that. See if we can shift that trend and stop contracting out. That's >> it is it is definitely an area that we track very closely. And I think at the end of the day, we we honor what the IEP process calls for. get it >> and there's a lot of advocacy generally from from parents who want to see particular targeted services for students that sometimes the district cannot provide and even when we can there's advocacy to have external resources and and that's you know kind of a legal obligation. Um, I think one of the key things when we talk about special ed in general and tying it to kind of April advocacy and conversations that are happening at the legislative level is that we know that there's opportunities to legislate solutions that would actually help

051us generate additional dollars to offset the impact of increased mod to severe student enrollment. Um, when you look at the district's overall enrollment, you're seeing a we've seen a a decline when it comes to special ed, it's actually gone the other way. You know, we went from, you know, 65,000 students since kind of the post-pandemic environment to now about 72,000. So, they represent a greater share and they also happen to come with greater needs. And one of the things that we know is at the state level, the factors that are included in the AB 602 allocation do not account very clearly for that growth of need in special ed. So it's definitely a point of advocacy that we'll we'll be uh leaning into with Martha and the team. >> Definitely, it seems like it should

052be one of our priorities then if it is that an issue. But and I totally understand that the IEP is an individual education plan. The parents have a a full say so. I do think that we should look and analyze how we're training our own staff, how we're allocating our own staff. I think a lot of a lot of the reasons why parents choose to go private is because they don't trust that the services are going to get are going to meet this, you know, the levels of a private person. It just I I just think people in general tend to think that if you pay for something that you'll get a better service. So, I think we need to reestablish that trust with people and one of the ways that we do it is

053to have highly trained folks and um and you know well-paid folks who can do this kind of work because I think both educators, principles, administrators, the school community in general appreciates and values when we have our own employees doing the work just because there's a a a commitment and a connection to the school community and that goes a long way than just coming in for a few hours and being very limited in what you can do to support. So, I would like to see more um of an of a breakdown of where our our funding is going in terms of special ed um and then an analysis of that and then also um like an advocacy plan because I don't know if it was in the advocacy priority list and you know that's something that

054we should make it a point of of doing. So, I'll stop there and I'll ask more later. Thank you. Uh thank you um for the breakdown and the graphs. You know, I'm the visual learner here. um wanted to kind of continue with what Carla Grego was sharing about the special ed and get a little more detail in whoever can share as to the services that we do provide and those that we have to um outsource because we do not have those services within our school sites being that they may be at the NPS as I heard. Do we have sites that have the ability to service those students or that is a must place with a contract? >> So if I can clarify a couple things. So on the services part we provide a continuum

055of services that might be from uh speech and language services to the actual special education teacher and support uh occupational therapy physical therapy so on and so forth. Sometimes we do need to access non-public agency support. Uh as you all have stated, it's an individualized educational plan. And so we want to make sure that we're clear about what kind of services a student needs based on their IEP. Sometimes in those conversations as required by IDA and ED code, it may come up that a nonpublic agency needs to be providing those supports. Um many of the times I will say primary reason why non-public agencies are tapped is sometimes the perceived training that folks have. I think as uh board member Grego has talked about ongoing training of our staff is a critical element. Uh if

056we're identifying someone as having a certain kind of expertise, we need to make sure that they receive that ongoing training to provide that. So that way at the IEP team meeting, people can talk about the types of services and qualifications a provider has. Um, however, I think it's important to note it's still an IEP team decision. And so those types of decisions are things that we of course provide guidance information, but it is an IP team decision, but we can break down those costs further so folks can see where. >> Yeah, that would be helpful just so we can actually see where the cost and the same thing um with our highdosese tutoring. I know that it's kind of connected in one of the slides with another cost and if it would able to be

057broken down when on page 11 you says tutoring and after school programs how many how much of that is highdose tutoring how much of that is tutoring how much of that is after school uh programming because it just giving us a blanket dollar figure doesn't really help us to see where that tutoring is. And then of course obviously the the return for the investment and as we talk about outs outsourcing are those opportunities for tutoring can it be done with the said staff that we have now after school. Um we used to have EY s whatever the alphabet was um you know but that didn't no longer existed. So, if that's an opportunity for our teachers to be able to tutor their students knowing where they are, is that something that we're looking at to

058be able to bring those funding back to our workforce? >> So, uh Sam, I don't know if you want to clarify on that budget piece here exactly what's represented there and then I'll speak more to where uh tutoring is the direction we're moving with tutoring. >> Sure. So an important point here is that this is principally general fund restricted that is supporting these types of expenses. That's true for both tutoring and really all after school programs. The biggest source of funding for those programs is ELOP, the expanded learning opportunities program. And so um this is all general fund and but that component that piece right there is is restricted. uh it it's important still it's a it's a it's a it's a major program it's a major priority of the district but it is general

059fund restricted and so I wanted to make that that point. >> So to clarify then on tutoring um as we've been looking at tutoring over time when ELO funds were originally provided I mean there was it was right after the pandemic and so clearly people wanted to make sure that we were offering uh extended learning opportunities for our students because of the fact that we know there was so much to catch up on. Um and so over time however uh what we found was we didn't have staff necessarily able at that time uh to provide those services um uh as much as schools needed and so vendors were in addition to so we have locally designed which is our own staff as well as high dosage tutoring partners those folks provided additional support over time

060what we have been seeing because the investment in tutoring uh has decreased over time. Uh we are finding that more and more of our staff are interested in staying after school or working on Saturdays and providing that type of extended learning opportunity and our schools want to be able to use you know their own staff to be able to do that. Uh some schools will still need vendor support to be able to do that. I know uh DOI had sent uh information to the board on how our tutoring the impact of our tutoring has been. I think it's been a a critical part to our success. Um I I think it's it's a necessary one that we will continue. Um however, with ELOP funding not having as much carryover over time, we are making some

061decisions on one by using locally designed models, we can use our own staff and then how do we want to start to shift some of that investment in tutoring where it's appropriate. as students do better, you don't need as much tutoring offering as you typically have offered in the past. But, uh, that's one of the things that we're weighing and considering and moving towards a stronger transition to locally designed. >> Great. And then on, uh, slide six, you you mentioned the increases in 2021 uh, attributed to the CO testing. Is it possible to list those other areas that made this increase so significant? I mean, CO testing is one, but I'm sure there's other things that >> we can look at to be able to see and say this is why the increases there and

062we no longer have that, so that's why the number have changed. >> Yes. >> Um, and then the insurance premiums, I know you mentioned that this is a large number on our on slide 10. Now, with this premium, are we gaining funds from this premium or is this just money out the door and there's no um impact coming back to the district? >> No. So, what we're paying for is is insurance coverage. So, kind of like we have in maybe our our our home lives where we have coverage for property insurance, property insurance or auto insurance and sometimes even liability insurance. That coverage allows for the district under certain when certain claims are made to have either some or most of the cost of the claim covered by the insurance company. And so, the devil's

063always in the details. There are many many different types of coverage that the district has to protect against those risks. But it's meant generally speaking, kind of like in our own personal lives, to prevent against kind of these outsized occurrences that that might happen that would have a very substantial negative impact on the district's finances if we if we didn't have the coverage. Now, the type of coverage we have is not just determined by the types of risks that we have, but also based on what's available in in the insurance market. And sometimes depending on the year, sometimes coverage in certain types of coverage is easier to get, sometimes it's harder to get, sometimes it becomes more expensive and less expensive. And so the district is always making decisions on the types of coverage and

064the details of the coverage that we have uh to meet the best needs of of the district, but really it's meant to protect the district financially. >> And and I know it's it's needed. And I guess the question for me is that is this these premiums I mean kind of like life insurance right you pay into certain life insurance where at some point in time you may be able to cash out and I'm wondering in our premiums is there way for us are we gaining interest in some of these premiums that we have across within every year do we see that kind of change or trajectory >> so unlike in some life insurance policies are like universal policies that you mentioned where >> where you're getting you kind of have capital accumulation. You have growth

065in in the value and and even upon uh death there's still a remaining value. That concept doesn't really exist for for school districts. However, through the captive through our captive, we are generating returns on the funds within the captive. And so that is one of the substantial benefits of a captive is that those funds while they're there to capitalize the captive, meaning to provide the funding necessary to to pay claims, the funds that that are within the captive, earn investment returns. And and and sometimes when we're seeing large increases in investment earnings in the marketplace like we've seen over the last few years, uh that does very substantially benefit the district. >> Got it. And then I guess over time just being able to see what this number looks like because I mean this is

066a very large number. Just as you broke down some of our other numbers, it'd be great to just see how it fluctuates and how we're able to to gain some interest from that. And um I think that's it. I'll >> Thank you. >> let someone else go. >> Thank you. >> Okay, Mr. Mwin. >> Okay. Thank you and thanks to my colleagues for asking some of the questions. Appreciate this. I think as we um vocalized last week should have had this a few months prior but um you know I'll yeah noted um question just on slide starting at slide seven. So books and supplies um I know we've discussed this before but it is a place where schools park carryover even if they're not books or supplies. Can you because there's no other place to

067put it, right? >> Yes. Yeah. Do do you want me to describe a little bit about how >> Yeah. I mean, Miss Ggo asked a question about budgeted versus expenditures, which was one of my I think that's really important, but one of my we hear about this a lot and we're always and because the expenditures are usually lower than what's expenditures are usually lower than what's budgeted. >> Yes. Um, and so I think to the public it seems like that's an area where money is just kept. And so if I just think every time we have an opportunity to talk about this, if you could explain why and then if there's any state advocacy that's needed around like, you know, we've talked about allowing schools to maybe do multi-year budgets the way that we do,

068but if I'm a principal, and granted in this year we're we've swept carryover, but in the past when we were giving 100% of carryover or various percentages, if a principal said, I I'm going to hold some of this money for next year, even if that wasn't a district policy, this is where they parked. it. So can you just explain that whole >> Sure. So first the budget book the budget that is adopted each year and our first interm reports whenever we report our finances it's it's a roll up of the entire district budget. So as you point out it includes it's a roll up or an aggregation of all school budgets all central office budgets in in total. And so when we look at the budget for for books and supplies, it's a roll up

069again of all school and non-school budgets for books and supplies. And the way discretionary funds are allocated during budget development to schools, it's in the form of dollars. So seni is is is the maybe the best example of that. And so each year schools depending on the different factors that determine a school's allocation for seni receive those funds and then determine how to budget them. a number of positions, maybe some funding for for certain contracts for professional development. I'm going to just making up some examples. And then typically what happens when schools during budget development have a a an amount that has not been budgeted in some of those other categories that they want maybe to decide later what to do with those funds. It remains in one of the categories that is books and

070supplies. Within books and supplies, there are several subcategories. instructional materials. There's even one called pending distribution where sometimes before the school decides where to budget those funds, they are kind of put in a pending distribution subcategory. And what happens during the school year, once the school year starts, schools will sometimes move money from that budgeted area where they were kind of parking it to use your words and words that we've used before and they might use it instead for uh substitutes teachers because they're doing a a professional development opportunity or they might move it to X time or something else. And so even during the year budgets move those are called budget adjustments. It happens the bud and that's okay. That's a good thing. We want schools based on changing needs or priorities even within

071a school year to make changes as appropriate. And so, but even after those changes get made, even as the budget might get moved somewhere else, we have still seen historically that within the books and supplies categories, substantial underspend or or or amounts left over at the end of each year within the books and supplies budget. And in the past, what's happened either all or some of those funds within SENI or the general fund school program would carry over. That changed uh going into next school year. Um but but we did see those trends where where oftent times there was a substantial amount of spending when you're comparing the amount budgeted and the amount expended. And in part it's because either the the funds were were were not one that weren't spent, they weren't moved to

072another category and then spent. and and it is a phenomenon that we've seen over the last many years. One of the things when when you respond to our requests on the budgeted versus expenditures, I don't know how best to visualize this and maybe it's in an upcoming meeting, but I think the the concern or the claim out there is that because of that underspend that is money that we're kind of double counting or it's money that that or underounting I guess more accurate that we're saying like if we actually know we're only going to spend 800 million and not a billion that 200 million we could put on the table for raises or that 200 million we could put on the table for PS like lower, you know, that that's what we hear from our

073partners. And so I think it would just be helpful to as we articulate that like there's an element there is an element of truth like if we don't have money for one thing, we can potentially use it for other things, but it's hard to plan perspectively because most of that money is at school sites. >> Yeah, let me let me respond to that. So yes, you're right. It is true that historically we've seen uh the expenditure as a percentage of budgets and books and supplies be relatively low and one thing that we don't expect to see moving forward is probably the same trend one because the budgets in those areas have already been substantially reduced as I mentioned during budget development what we saw was a prioritization of of positions where there's a much likelier

074uh there's a much higher likelihood that those will get expended and so the variance or the difference between what's budgeted in books supplies and what's spent. We don't expect that variance to be as large as it has in the past just because the budgets themselves have been reduced so substantially in those areas. But another important factor is that um when we come to the board for a first interim uh the first interim report and the second interim report we're already projecting how much is going to get spent based on the months of expenditures that we already have retrospectively. So when we look at first interim there's several months of expenditure data that is used to project till the end of June and then at second interim we have even more months of expenditure data that

075allows us to refine those projections and so the underspend in those areas no the projections are not always 100% accurate right like the spending could end up being higher than what we projected second interm or lower but the the impact to our ending balances of that underspend is already reflected at first interim and then second interim. Another factor that's relevant is when we look just at the school portion of books and supplies where we do see that sub we have seen that substantial underspend is that those funds in the past were in our assigned balances because they carried over. We didn't they weren't unassigned because we knew that in the past based on the past practice they would be carried over at the school level and the fiscal stabilization plan that was updated most recently

076in December had one of the lines was the impact of the carryover a large portion of the carryover as you point out is from undersspend in budgets for books and supplies. The benefit of that undersspend, the financial benefit of that underspend is already reflected in the fiscal stabiliz stabilization plan because of the assumption that carryover and sending the general fund school program would be zero. So I guess more broadly what I'm saying is that we reflect the impact to our bottom line and therefore the bottom line meaning our ending balances our unassigned ending balances and how much money we have in those reserves and balances to spend on certain expenses is already reflected when we update our financials through that financial cycle of first interim second interim then the June adopted budget >> and I

077think it'll be interesting when we have the analysis I mean the variance like we want the variance to be as small as possible possible right and because I think to the point that advocates and partners are making is that like if if your variance is always large then you are you are budgeting inappropriately or or you know slot like sloppily such that you could have spent the money better like because then then this money that's carrying over is actually money that should have gone to the kids that were at school that year and so we do I mean >> I know that schools are and we see it I think with savvier principles and so we're working on principal training and budget you know specialists but We want that variance to be little because then

078we want to say the money we budgeted for and this board approved is going to what we approved it for because if we realize that we were going to have extra hundred million dollars that wasn't spent then we can discuss all the other priorities that we have and limited I know I'm saying something obvious but I think that that is what you know I think the community when they are criticizing or asking very legitimate questions is about that well like if you if you knew that why didn't you plan better so that we could actually give more in raises or could actually lower class size even further. So philosophically I agree with you that we we we always venture to spend the resources in the year that they're generated. Um right now we're spending more

079than the amount of resources that are generated. Right. Last year we spent even more than the new revenues we received, but we'd still have those reserves that allowed that to be possible. Um now I wouldn't I know you you weren't characterizing it as sloppy. You were kind of conveying what what sometimes is is set out in the public. But um if a school or budget holder were to park the money somewhere else instead of books and supplies, instead they money that they didn't quite know what they wanted to do with it, instead was budgeted in contracts, you would just see the variance there. Yes. But I guess one of the things I've advocated for is is why we don't have a line item like an accounting code that is like um you know next year's

080spend or or two-year projects. And I know that they can't, but that is where because yes, like they're you're going to have to choose. It's going to be parked and there's going to be variance, but the way to limit that variance is actually have a future spend. I mean, it's kind of like this pending uh distribution or dispersement or something. But um it would at least we'd be then more accurate with what we're doing. Um, I guess the other thing I was talking to our deputy superintendent about this is I mean years ago when I first got here I was encouraging the district to look at um software like all of you or I know we've worked with open gov but there are products out there that do translate these very esoteric accounting codes into

081like what's actually happening and I think one of the challenges even for this board is trying to figure out. So I would encourage us as part of that budget transparency work to still think about about that. Um I guess uh what percentage of books and supplies is school-based of that code object code is schoolbased versus non >> um I'm sorry I don't know off the top of my head but but we can >> I'd love that as a follow-up. And then also and I know similar but slightly different. What percentage of the non- labor costs that we're talking about are school controlled versus central office? because I think that is one of the um when I've talked to the budget team around a lot of these contracts, it's been interesting to me how many are

082schoold directed like some of the things you're talking about what LLP or tutoring or um you know even if it's a I guess a field trip and they have to use a contracted bus vendor because the districts are not available like a lot of this is school generated which doesn't mean it's not worth scrutiny but it's like it means that the that the beef that folks have or the questions they have are really at the school site like what you know um So I am curious what the percentage of the non labor cost is um on so just I think this was a helpful articulation as some of my colleagues have said some of it is like a deeper dive and I'll get to special ed in a minute but can you help me understand

083slide eight that final column for 20 um 425 for objects code 5800 >> is about 1.2 two billion if you if you add up that final column on the right but then on slide nine which is I know longer like more object codes we're talking about at this um we're talking about 2.3 billion so I'm just trying to understand how some of these slides interact with one another >> so so first the the final column the grand total is is the 566 million >> oh okay that's not I added that as a separate >> yeah no that that's just we've put that at the top as just a grand total for each >> that's helpful I added that to the okay so then how does that 566 six like so that's one object code and

084then on slide nine I'll also note that your slide 9 has 4,000 to 6,999 and our version has 5,000 to 5,9 999 like at the header for slide our slide 9 is just the 5,000 object codes and yours says 4,000 to oh >> this so this slide is all of non- labor which is the objects starting in 4,000 all the way through All of the 6,000. >> So, was ours wrong? >> Yeah, it >> ours is the same figure and dollar amount. It just says 5,000 at the top. >> Oh, >> my apologies. Um, but that is correct. It's the Okay, I'm just I mean, again, this goes not that I can tell you what the individual object codes are, but I'm curious. Okay. So how does so the 2.3 billion on slide nine and

085the 566 million like what what's account what is on one and not the other >> the 566 million is a subset of this >> 2.3 billion. >> Got it. >> One of the codes. >> Yeah. There the there are different ways we're trying to slice it to tell the overall picture. Um, in some cases we're zooming in to um, general fund only within professional services contracts. In other cases, like here on slide 9, we're zooming out for all non- labor, but then cutting it in a different way that's showing kind of unavoidable, which again I said is not within the California accounting code. There's no unavoidable category. We're just trying to differentiate the kinds of spending that we know typically for districts cannot be avoided. um just to paint the picture about the way that

086these funds are spent and for what purposes. >> Another kind of discrep or question I have about the slides and then I'll go back to some of those unavoidable costs. But on slide 12 like if you look well actually if you look starting at um let's look at that slide nine. If you go back to that slide slide nine for 2425 that school sites is 953 million. Mhm. >> Then if you look on slide 12 for the 24 school year, the school site spending is just 250.35 million. So what like what's part of the you know what's that other 600 50 million? >> So this slide 12 is looking at other uh services and other operating budgets only. And so for these, the school's share is is smaller than the school's share of total non-

087labor. And so at the top, you'll see this is the object codes, the 5,000 >> missing books and supplies. >> Got it. So that's why I was because on our version that says it's the same object codes, but on your version, >> so our slide nine only has the same object codes as that, and that's why I was confused by those numbers. >> Okay. My apologies. >> No, no, that's um helpful. And then um okay so just going yeah I guess I mean I you know I do I think unavoidable the term unavoidable I get what you're saying I mean maybe it's like maintenance of district because I think to Miss Grigo's point is there are some some things that are the actual dollar amount is maybe is is uh less unavoidable like when we

088think about legal settlements when we think about uh utilities and some the like kind of space allocation. I also think I echo Miss Grigo's call for that next level of data with special ed, but like I also agree with her line of inquiry that some of that like is and actually I have a question for Dr. Estrada are in our district BIS are they required to do any training? Not currently there isn't a required training and so we do provide training um but it's it's been part of our onboarding but I do think there should be required annual training. I think those are the things that we're trying to explore especially as people get certain additional uh certification and training. So, we do provide that, but it's not to the degree that I think we

089could potentially provide >> cuz I and I'll put an asterisk. I know that's more about sped as opposed to the budget right now, but I think to Miss Grigo's point, like the it is the IP team decision, but some of the perception that what you pay for is better is actually grounded in a reality that we have no required training for our district BIS. So, I'd really like to see as a district priority required training for BIIS. And then I think you have a way to reduce not necessarily the MPS's but the MPAs because you know so I I think again that's that's just I I took issue a little bit with the unavoidable because I think there are ways that we can reduce those out. >> Yeah. Let me let me characterize that a

090little differently. It's not unavoidable doesn't mean it will always be in those amounts or sums. Obviously, you're well aware of substantial energy efficiency projects happening across the district that will lower utility costs that otherwise would have been incurred. Certainly with insurance premiums, as I described a little bit earlier, we are always making decisions each year upon renewal of policies to determine what makes the most sense in terms of the trade-off between what it costs and what it's protecting. And so unavoidable doesn't mean again that it's always going to be in these amounts or it's always going to be in higher amounts. We always want to scrutinize what we're spending and seeing if it's benefiting the district and our students, but we will always be paying some amount of utilities and we'll always be paying some

091amount of >> waste removal and textbooks and and so of course working with the procurement department and and and you know negotiating hard and and making sure we're getting the best price and value will always help in in lowering what we might otherwise have spent. >> Yeah, understood. And I think that's a great segue just a couple more questions on slide 11. One of the things many of us have asked for is around to your point the kind of evaluations of some of these programs and contracts especially with limiting limited resources. And so I just want to um make a plug again for the evaluation of the tutoring and after school programs the IT infrastructure. Um one thing too I know I've seen posts on social media and I'm think my colleagues have as well

092talking about a 1.6 6 billion in tech contracts. Do you know where they get that number? Because I know here we have 58 million, another 26.7 for the actual computers and devices, 22 for digital tools, and I know this is part of a broader conversation we're hoping to have, but do you know where that 1.6 billion comes from that we're seeing? I know UTLA put it out in an infographic. >> Well, um, obviously we are spending in contracts. last year >> this was >> 566 million. And so certainly it's not possible >> for the tech contracts within any one year to be that high because the spending was a third of that in all contracts. And so the only thing I can I don't know let me just answer directly. I don't I don't know

093where that figure comes from. It's I would guess it's looking at multi-year contracts over a long period of time and and summing them. But but I don't I don't know how they've arrived at that figure. >> And and it generally you know it comes down to what the definition of tech is right and so and when you look at the category you can look at tech as hardware and devices right so you think about laptops iPads etc. um network um infrastructure which actually a large some of it is reimbursed through so it shows as a spend here out of general fund but then we get reimbursed to offset that cost >> um when you look from the federal government when you look at digital tools um what's actually utilized to provide supplemental instructional supports um

094and so it just varies licenses and access uh you know depending on how those licenses are being utilized whether it's on the instructional side, operational side to support transportation, facilities to um food services. So the the categories can be broad, but the purpose is varies depending on how it's being utilized and I know that there's usually a catchall under technology. Um but it can be broken down. And I think we would benefit from a disagregation on how it's actually being spent because it's being spent on students and to support operational needs of the district. >> Yeah. And that's definitely a conversation I know some of us want to have that disagregation and then the instructional piece of it. So the on slide 11 those besides the evaluative piece those budgets or I know you different

095slides have different slices but like are those is that money coming from the buckets on slide 11 like the or sorry on slide 8 like those within that object code 5800 that's where you're then getting the the 87 million for school transport or like where >> correct >> okay got it >> correct >> um the Okay. Um, last thing on this and then one question on impact analysis. Um, I know I've asked this many times. I did a resolution about this that I don't think has been fully um, responded to a conversation around ELOP spending specifically. We hear about it a lot from schools when it comes to um, you know, field trips, but also after school programming and so and maybe Dr. Rivous would be open to a future cow specifically for that ELOP

096presentation. But uh it is in a board resolution I did and and we can resurface that. But I think besides just talking about in this conversation would love the ELO plan given that's a relatively new pot of money. Um and there's a lot of exciting things that can happen there. Um and I guess you know I'll pause. I will say thank you for putting at least it wasn't in the presentation on slide 18 but if you look at the link the school by school budget details it is there per pupil which is something I've asked about because I think that's a helpful analysis I will just channel miss Ortiz Franklin by saying that it is a PDF which makes it harder to manipulate not manipulate manipulate is the word but that sounds nefarious to filter

097and sort. So, if we could maybe get that as an Excel file, but I'll note for folks that that the per pupil change is included in that um link on slide 18. So, uh thanks Dr. Ris on uh slide 27, books and supplies. Does that include um technology such as like laptops and connectivity devices? It can when they're purchased in smaller quantities typically. Um >> smaller quantities. >> Yeah. So they can and this is a little convoluted unfortunately but sometimes those types of purchases will be reflected in non-capitalized equipment but often when it's a school purchase of a small number of of technology then it's typically shows up as as books and supplies even though it's not a book or really a supply. >> Define capital expenditures for our audience. >> Sure. So a capital

098expenditure are things that have to use the technical term then I'll explain it in in in a lay person's terms. So a capital expense is something that has basically a useful life of more than a year. So that's kind of how the IRS defines it. It's something that lasts for for more than a year and it's a physical a physical thing. And so the biggest example for a school district of a capital expenditure are facility construction projects uh mo comprehensive modernization projects but also certain technologies are also required to be capitalized because they have a useful life of more than a year meaning they can be used for for more than a year. And so what gets reflected as capitalized or non-c capitalized is actually governed by accounting rules. uh the accounting rules determines whether

099it's capitalized or non-c capitalized and there were some recent changes in accounting rules that actually changed so that more things are reflected as capitalized than uncapital capitalized like for example leases which most of us don't think of as a physical thing. Um so so that's the the hope the high level overview of what what's considered to be a capital item. Okay, thank you. Thank you for that. And my main main main main question is school transportation. 87.4 million dollars in school transportation. What in the world are we buying for 87.4 million? >> That is uh primarily our sped um contracted route services. Um >> who drives the buses? Um it is contracted teamsters drivers um through zoom and sta. >> Well, how about if we use LA USD school buses and LA USD drivers? Can

100we save 87.4 87.3 million? >> It would require us to um actually take on additional equipment and we're talking about the needed specialized uh buses that are required to transport particular students. And the district has historically for decades utilized a contracted model so that you have flexibility to acquire particular buses. There are upwards of 19 different variations of buses that are intended to serve the different unique needs of students, the type of lifts and equipment that are necessary. And so it it allows the district to have flexibility on how it actually serves the student. But is there an opportunity to actually um identify savings by reducing contracts? Yes. But that's actually through uh the mechanism of streamlining uh common bell schedules um looking at eligibility um around transportation. And there are a number of different

101strategies that we intend to execute on that are intended to optimize our available uh fleet and drivers so that we're actually servicing more with our drivers, our buses, and less relying on contracts. And I agree with everything you said, especially about aligning bell schedules so there's a easy pickup for kids. And I agree that we need specialized school buses, but $87.4 $4 million worth in my thinking is just way way too much. But I understand what you said. Thank you. >> And on that question on transportation, is that all that we're spending or this is just the the portion that's coming out of general funds? >> This is general fund and these are with our our major vendors where the spend is more than $5 million. >> There's additional expenditures on transportation like grants or

102that come out of grants, right? So not just >> there's there's capitalized expenditures um associated with the acquisition of buses in our fleet. Um yeah >> grant-based uh acquisition that are focused on the charging infrastructure that we're deploying. Um and then ongoing just maintenance which are we have to purchase um equipment um I would say the replacement um uh parts for a lot of our vehicles. And so usually we have contracts in place so that we can order a fuel pump or anything that's necessary for our fleet as we're maintaining them. >> So on all of these on on um slide 11, all of these major expenditures, this is just a snippet, right? There's actually that we're spending this. >> That's exactly right. >> Yeah. >> Um well, I'll have a question. Um >> Huh.

103I haven't had my turn. Yeah, I haven't had my turn. I just want to have a little turn. Um just what two questions for now. Um so several of the slides uh uh compare current levels for >> the fiscal year 22 which was the co right so that seems obviously like an outlier because of what was current. Could we also see uh comparisons of prepandemic baseline years for fiscal year 18 or 19? um so that we can evaluate structural growth independent of one-time ESR funds. I know you have it there, but just you know because it seems like we're always going there and and and comparing it, but I think we really need to be looking at 1819. >> So you're right. Um of expenditures. >> Yeah. >> So yeah, just >> certainly and we

104can even go further back than than 1415. Um >> but the these are in each of these cases actual expenditures and so it does include 1819. It goes back about you know a little bit more than 10 years but we could always you know there there's a lot of historical data and we could certainly look even further back. Um but we thought a 10-year uh time horizon would give a good I would there would be enough prepandemic years to kind of see what >> what the trends look like before the pandemic. But that you're absolutely right though the c especially on this slide eight like you're absolutely right 2122 is a very substantial outlier in terms of the total expenditures and um let's see sorry my how does the total cost of sustaining the district's

105onetoone device model compared to traditional instructional investments such as textbooks or library materials? Um, sorry. And has a comprehensive costbenefit analysis confirmed that the current replacement schedule and digital portfolio um are fiscally unsustainable or fiscally are fiscally sustainable. So I I don't have a comparison of of the total cost of one to one device which would include not just the devices themselves but you know the software the maintenance the the personnel as compared to like textbooks. Um but we can certainly provide something like that. Um it it is a substantial investment though. I mean without providing the exact dollar comparison it is a substantial investment um in in for the district. Um, and it is kind of why we highlighted in terms of like the different kind of policy areas that directly impact spend exactly

106that the the one to one devices. And this did come up a little bit in conversation at at last week's board meeting. And so, um, I can't speak to the the research in terms of the the the impact on on student learning, but, um, certainly it's something that's worth interrogating, uh, moving forward as as we face the very challenging financial outlook that that we are facing. Um and in terms of um spending on um professional services >> um are you able to break down the professional services spending by unrestricted versus restricted funds? So breaking it out and uh clarify how much of the unrestricted portion is discretionary versus legally mandated. >> Yes. Yes. So what we what we have on this slide is we do have the restricted but what we don't have is a

107distinction of legally mandated um and so we but yes we can we can provide that. >> One last question um has to do with the equity impact on and u schools. While enrollment decline is cited as a primary driver for of reductions, the data show that semi highest schools are facing allocation decreases of roughly 15% nearly double the proportion of decline of the lowest quintile schools of of about 7%. Even accounting for enrollment shifts, why are our highest need campuses absorbing larger port proportional cuts? and have we fully reviewed contracted services and spending and central spending to determine what can be reduced, renegotiated or brought in house before those site level reductions move forward for our highest and highest needs. >> So if I can just answer the the the second question first. Um yes,

108I mean the the budgets for for non- labor and specifically for contracts has declined substantially from last year to this year and then even further from this year to next year. But that doesn't mean that the work is done. Um, obviously the board has a substantial interest in it. The superintendent uh and the leadership of the district has a substantial interest in in lowering those figures even further in the interest of addressing the financial outlook and to minimize the amount of reductions that otherwise would need to happen elsewhere. And so the answer to your question is yes, very much so. um we while the substantial reductions have already been made uh the district will go further. Um and with respect to the the year-over-year changes, I think you did highlight that the enrollment is the

109biggest factor. Um the fiscal stabilization plan included two two major areas that had a direct impact on on school allocations. The first was the carryover that we've talked a little bit about and the second was the reduction in the SENI allocation and the SENI total allocation was reduced from 700 to $6001 million but 14% reduction but the impact on the school wasn't that every school saw a 14% reduction in their SNI allocation some schools would have experienced a larger reduction than 14% others a smaller reduction than the 14% and the reasons for it and I know you you you know this already The reason for it are because there are other factors that go into that that Senny allocation. So there's the the SENI ranking which does change from year to year. In some cases

110it's quite stable but some schools will see a a substantial change in their ranking. And then the enrollment decline also affects SENI because SENI is allocated while not based on total enrollment. It's instead based on the unduplicated count but that's still affected by the trends that we see in enrollment. And so you will see a school that is a highest need school within that quintile that might see because of all of those factors a larger than a 14% decline in in the Senny allocation. However, and I know we've discussed this before, but the the the the Senny formula didn't didn't change. So the way it's calculated, the fact that the top ranked school gets uh 3x the per student rate as the the lowest ranked school, that all stayed the same. And so the fiscal

111stabilization plan, the way that impacted schools was was really just a portion of the year-over-year change that you see demonstrated here. There were other changes like federal grants that we always allocate based on the actual sums that we're going to receive. The norm changes that happen every year. And and one thing I should point about the the norm changes that probably feel more the changes feel a lot more substantial for 2627 is that over the last few years we've been implementing class size reduction as part of the previous uh agreement with with with UTLA and so schools that still had substantial declines in enrollment might not have seen as big of of a change in for example the number of teachers because at the same time as there was declining enrollment we were lowering class

112sizes, but because the class size enrollment was fully implemented by the current school year, we no longer have the class size reduction being implemented at the same time as as schools are experiencing declining enrollment. And so that is just another relevant factor that that the class size reduction that we saw over the last few couple years as it was being implemented did blunt the impact of declining enrollment that schools would have otherwise seen and that they that they typically see have seen over the last 20 20 plus years. Um and last question. As we approach the second interim um next month and the May revise, which non- labor decisions remain flexible? >> Well, I mean contracts and non- labor spending is not subject to any statutory deadlines. Unlike unlike the the unlike positions, unlike employees

113that are subject to statutory deadlines, non- labor spending isn't. Now there are of course you know the contracts themselves are certain agreements and and often they're the amount we spend on a contract is based on how much it's used. So it doesn't mean that we have to spend whatever the the total value of the contract is. Other contracts we are kind of committed to spending a certain amount that that has been agreed upon and approved. So, I think to to answer your question, I think it's probably unlikely that we would reduce school budgets in non- labor. Um, their allocations have already been provided for next school year. They they were already lower as demonstrated here than they were in the current year. So, I think it's unlikely that we would explore uh reducing budgets at

114schools for non- labor, but but everywhere else that it is possible. And and that is kind of what I was alluding to about um that while the budgets for those non- labor, you know, especially the contract has substantially declined, that the work is not done. Um and that we're looking at not only savings beyond what's already been achieved in the budget for next year, for next year, and even for the remainder of of the current school year. Um that is how significant our financial challenges are that that we really do need to reduce spending even further than than we already have and and and in the areas that you highlighted >> like OPE. >> Uh yeah. So, OPEB, yes, it's not it's not non- labor spec technically speaking, but um but yes, that it's the

115contributions for next school year wouldn't start until July at the earliest. Yeah. >> There you go. You have any questions? >> Sorry, I I apologize. Earlier, I thought you had said you were done asking questions and that's why I jumped in. But, um All right. on um let me see here on um I don't know if this has been asked um but the tutoring contracts and after school programs are they separated I think it's in uh slide 11 that it comes up and if or yeah where you talk about tutoring and oh my gosh I can't see tutoring and um and after school programs is there a way We can separate those two um to know what um he already has it. >> Yes. Uh of that total. Thank you. Um 5.4 million is attributable

116to afterchool programs. Um and the balance is with uh tutoring uh companies. These are just the the again the major vendors kind of summed up and what we've categorized the way we've categorized it here is really just to be as accessible for for the public to understand the way that things are sometimes coded as we're required to in our like official financial documents can be a little inscrutable like a little hard to understand and so this was an attempt to try to categorize in a way that that was more meaningful but but anyways the answer to your question is is uh >> and this tutoring is this is the the highdose tutoring Right. >> Yes, >> pretty much. It's not the It's not the school-based one. >> No, it's the highdosese tutoring that's virtual or

117in person. >> Okay. And have we done an analysis of of that and gotten some feedback from families and and also the educators because just from speaking to folks which is you know just anecdotal um I know school sites have some issues with the tutoring because they don't get to see the data and it's very difficult to track how the kids are doing and how to connect that to the instruction. So I'm wondering do we have um an analysis of how we're doing and some feedback from folks on uh these tutoring services? So yes and we can provide more of a deep dive for you but uh they do gather feedback from principles for each of the different tutoring companies that is part of how they get evaluated. Uh Dr. bias does do kind of

118like their own data dig of understanding where they'll look at I Ready data to say, you know, how are they doing compared to us as a district overall based on that service. Um, so we do go into that degree of of feedback. Um, but I do think, you know, one of the things that we've heard, uh, again, you know, the dependence on the our vendor partners was at a time when we didn't have staff always necessarily able and willing to work on those after school and weekends. But now, as over time we've been decreasing that vendor contract because of the fact that more and more folks want to have their own locally designed. And then over time, you know, our principles have also said they'd like to further transition over that. That's why as we

119look at ELOP for uh 2627 um that's where we're reconsidering what the funding for tutoring is going to look like and how do we start to shift it more to schools who are able to to be able to do their locally designed. I think the other thing too with tutoring I remember that there was initially the ESSER funds that were used to also fund this as well. So slightly different funding source than ELOP that we've been using in the past few years since Esther sunseted. >> All right. And then for the contracts that are above $5 million that you have >> um in one of these I'm wondering have we also done an analysis for efficacy on these contracts or any student impact? Um so for for school transportation I think Pedro described earlier uh

120the kind of the routes and the services that are being provided by by the um by the contracted transportation services. So it's more about meeting a lot of the requirements to transport uh our special education students. Um and and then again the a lot of the other items are I can't speak to the the efficacy reviews that have happened but um a lot of them are based off of just either district policies or practices and um and for example like one onetoone devices and I know that there had been some comments earlier in questions about uh whether we would want to further explore uh the the efficacy the impact on student learning of those of those practices but I do think it's important to your point that we always evaluate especially when we're in the

121fiscal circumstances that we are to really evaluate all resources even even those that are funded in in general fund restricted. While the primary challenge that we're facing is on the general fund unrestricted side, it doesn't mean that we don't want to closely monitor and evaluate the things that are in our general fund restricted budgets because even there just because the main issue is in the unrestricted side doesn't mean we don't want to be um effective in how we spend money elsewhere. And then for um slide 14, we have a projection for 2027. And I see a significant decrease in central office, right, for consulting services. So I'm wondering is that are we projecting that because contracts are going to expire? We're not going to renew them. Are we are we projecting that we're doing an

122analysis of of what we have so far? Yeah. >> Like what? So this is this is the budget within this category for next school year for the 26th 27th school year as of today. So obviously the budget will is finalized and approved ultimately by the board in June. And so this is how much based off of budget development and the blue is the schools obviously schools making decisions about how much they're going to budget regardless of any contracts that might exist. This is how much they're budgeting and basically how much they expect to spend next year. And then that's the same concept for the non-school for the central office is that through the central office reduction exercise through the normal budget development that happens every year. This is the aggregate of all those decisions that

123have been made which is to prioritize services that are being provided instead by by people even though there were substantial reductions in central office positions that were uh brought forward to the board last week. Um but departments and divisions also made reductions in these areas. And so you can you can reduce the budget for contracted services and therefore reduce the amount that gets spent without making any revisions to the contracts. You just spend less against them if that makes sense. So, it's not so much that this is reflecting a renegotiation or a cancellation as much as a uh an expectation and almost a necessity based on the budget being made lower that at most this is what would be spent in these areas next year. >> All right. And then I do remember, thank you

124for this, and um but I do remember we talked about a way that we can see the upcoming contracts for the year because usually we get them right before our meeting, right, our board meeting. And um it would be nice to have them for a year. I mean, we we should be able to know what contracts are coming up, which contracts need to be renewed. that way we can have a conversation as to whether you know >> in advance continue in advance of a meeting right so um I don't know um I'm I'm requesting that um orally but um if we need to put it in writing we could do that as well but um I think it's it it would help me um make decisions um when I know what our outlook looks like

125and um in terms of the plans that we have for any contracts Carla, Carla, we must decide what is in advance. What does that mean in advance? Okay, we need a clarification. >> Okay, thank you. Um, I would say a year. I mean, we should know right a year ahead um in at the beginning of the of the uh fiscal year, we should know what what's up ahead. Um, a year's view of the contracts and especially major contracts, right? Um, we we should have that information. Thank you, Scott, for making me clarify that. And, um, what else? Um, I think that's all I have for right now. Um, other than our sub, wait, one more question I do have is about the subcategories. Um, or um, are they all included in here as well in

126these graphs? Like any subcontract or sub agreements? >> They would be included. Yes. In uh the professional consulting services. Okay. Yeah. >> So, they're also in there. >> That's right. >> And again, it would be good to see some major ones that are are included in here. >> Uh All right. I think that's it. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Um thanks. I'll be brief. Uh my comments are really just about the equity um opportunities here. So, I really appreciate slide 18 um coming public. Yeah, we've looked at this for a little bit internally and I understand that enrollment is the largest reason for which the budgets have been declining. Um, and I'm also hopeful about some district covered positions that might be restored that we've talked about in our last uh board meeting together. Um,

127and I'm encouraged about uh a history of potentially second allocations going out to schools as we've you know gotten more information from the state or additional dollars. So my comment really is just to the team as we do get these choices in front of us, whether it's restored positions or additional money from the state that we keep a a keen eye on equity and we focus on these high and highest need schools that have been destabilized for far too long and we want to make sure we're doing everything possible to protect the kids that most need the system to work for them. So so really just a comment on equity um for for that piece there. Um, and then just a a connection back to a resolution we passed on budget transparency. As we're developing

128these tools, I would just encourage the team to add them to our budget transparency tool that's online. Um, I think that would have helped as well with um, board member Gomez's resolution around doing this equity analysis to whatever extent we can make this easily accessible. I know you all are receiving information from the public who are beta users on the the budget transparency tool right now. Um, and we've previewed it with our family advisory council and folks really do want information like this and they want to help lift up their voices. I know uh we hear from the pack and the CAC really often that they want to make sure they're giving us input, right? Not just um getting information and learning about things, but um helping us as we get in uh into some

129tough uh budget decisions. Um and then my last comment really, you know, for for my colleagues here, we are um making big decisions on almost 90% of the budget as we um come up against some labor contracts. Um and so I appreciate the conversation on professional services contracts. Um but I hope we have, you know, as keen of an eye on our our big labor contracts for the 90% that the budget really does go to because um we uh should similarly have a very fine comb for how our values are showing up. um through through labor which I hope we can settle soon. We are all looking forward to agreements with our labor partners. So thank you for a few moments you so is that questions? No more questions from anyone? Okay, great. Wonderful. Well,

130thank you um Mr. Bravo Karimi for answering all of our questions and I know there's several follow-ups so if you can get that information to us that would be great. >> Thanks. Now we are going to move to our second presentation who have been they've been waiting very patiently. Um so we shift um to the um facilities and construction um me um looking at measure US investments to schools with the greatest environmental and socioeconomic need. ensuring that our prioritization reflects both equity and student impact. So we have um Miss Christina Toes, chief facilities executive, um Isam Daul, director of facilities and planning development and also Mr. Scott Singleary, deputy director of facilities and uh planning development. So um Mr. Hes, yes, the floor is yours. Good morning, superintendent, board president, vice president, and members of

131the board. Today, we're presenting the final prioritization and next steps on the major greening and shade programs under measure US. This work represents months of analysis and refinement in direct response to the board's direction and ultimately it's about improving the daily experience of tens of thousands of students across LUSD. I'll walk through this methodology, the final school lists and then our path for implementation. So, you may recall in November we presented an initial prioritization plan for the major modernization category of the school upgrade program. That's our current bond program. Following board member input, we conducted additional analysis on three outdoor improvement programs, something we call playground and campus exterior upgrades or paceups, green schoolyard upgrades, and shade shelters over play structures. We tested multiple approaches and weighed various options to ensure we were directing investments

132where they would have the greatest impact. That work is now complete and we're excited to move into implementation. So this slide shows where today's three programs sit within the portfolio that we call the major modernization category. And this is the largest with uh about $4 billion allocated. As of today, prioritization is complete of four of the seven program categories, including all three greening and shade programs. So, we're advancing multiple programs in parallel, and this is deliberate. It reflects our commitment to delivering the full promise of Measure US. And at the conclusion of this presentation, I'll talk a little bit about some of the other programs that we will be bringing forward to the board shortly. So, this final prioritization was built on three key principles that we heard from our board and leadership. addressing campuses

133with the greatest need, driving equity by incorporating climate and socioeconomic data, and ensuring a fair distribution of investment across all board districts. So, following board feedback, we did update the shade shelter methodology to incorporate SENI, ensuring that investments reach our most vulnerable school communities. And the result is a framework that's transparent, defensible, and centered on student impact. And we're looking forward to bringing these projects forward to the board as early as summer of 2026. So with that, I'm going to in turn it over to Assam Dul, our director of planning and development to walk through the playground and campus exterior upgrade program and green schoolyard upgrade program. Thank you, Christina. Good afternoon. Assam Dadul, director for planning and development um asset management and facilities. I'll be walking through a little more detail on the playground

134and campus exterior upgrade program as well as the green schoolyard um upgrade program. So just to give a little context in terms of the two different programs and the scope and scale of each of them. Um our playground and campus exterior upgrade pro uh program with measure us we have an allocation of $480 million which we anticipate um will provide up to 28 projects at a range of 15 to $20 million. A little detail about what a campus uh and uh a playground and campus exterior upgrade is. Um, it ultimately removes deteriorated asphalt from a campus. It's got 100% I FCI score, which is a facilities condition index. It means that it's past its useful life and it is a critical repair um, a critical need to remove that asphalt and replace it. And so

135the projects would replace the deteriorated asphalt with hardscape as well as um, landscape and grass fields to meet the goals of the um, to get align with the goals of the green schoolyards for all plan. Additionally, we would be required to provide any accessibility upgrades as necessary to meet division of state architects requirements. Um, and then it will also look at any utility infrastructure as we're digging up um the asphalt as required as well. As part of these projects, we would also be going through and painting the exterior of the campus because the entire playground will be get a a refresh. We also paint all the exterior of all the buildings within that campus. on the other side of the the um the slide, the green schoolyard upgrade uh program. Um slightly different than the

136PASP. This is really to get to as many schools as possible and provide greening. Um we're anticipating with the $480 million for measure US. We can um get to 42 projects and if there's additional funding, we'll continue to plan for more. We anticipate about 8 to12 million per project and we're currently going through the process of budgeting those and and determining what the final budget is before we bring them to the board. These projects are very specific in terms of providing greening um to each of these campuses. We would also have to um deal with the accessibility um requirements as part of the division of state architects and any utility infrastructure. So the key difference between the two programs is on the PAS projects we're removing all of the asphalt. On the greening we are

137not. We're it's a targeted area. So only certain portions of the campus will receive improvements so that we can align with the green schoolyards for all plan to get to um to more greening on that campus. And we're also not painting all of the existing buildings on the green schoolyard. So if you're a visual person like I am, um this is ultimately what I just said but in a visual format. And so I'll go from left to right. If you look at an existing school site as an example, you can see for a green schoolyard upgrade program, it really is a um going in to provide greening throughout the campus to meet that green schoolyard for all plan. Um it's it's very strategic in terms of how we're going to go through and provide landscape

138and trees, playfields, etc. Um we would provide any seal code of the existing asphalt as necessary um so that it all kind of comes together. Whereas on the PESA program, the playground and campus exterior, not only are we inserting the green greening and improving it from that standpoint, but we're also doing a full replacement of all of the asphalt and replacing it with both hardscape and landscape. Um, and then you can see little boxes around all of the buildings to highlight that we're repainting all of the buildings under this program as well. So, how are these prioritized? So um if you remember back in November when we presented at the workshop um this is the prioritization that we used. There are uh the green schoolyard index category 1. There are 216 schools on that um

139on that list. The category one identifies schools that have elementary schools that have less than 10% green space on campus. And so that how that's how we've got to the 216. Then it is then ranked based on the calen virro screen and the heat index to determine what the ranking of that 216 um campuses are. And there's the highest ranking is is really in our most vulnerable um neighborhoods that are overburdened um with um environmental issues. Of that we have 105 schools. 49% of them um already have projects in place. So of the 216 49% of the of the schools have a project at that campus to increase the greening. And so the this program this will address the remaining 111 schools. Our goal is to maximize student impact. Um so we utilize a minimum

140enrollment of 275 students which is which would hit 75% of the schools on the list and then an equitable geographic distribution throughout the board districts when uh possible. So specifically, I'm going to walk through the paceups and how the PASups were selected. So we started with, if you go from left to right, we started with the green schoolyard index, as I mentioned before, 216 total sites, 105 sites um that already have a project that are underway, remaining 111. And then we've added a filter of the enrollment of having a minimum of 275 students. And so that narrows down the 111 down to 70 student 70 campuses. And then we go from um which of those campuses have 100% FCI which is the facilities condition index of the asphalt itself which is ultimately another way of

141saying where is there a critical need to replace asphalt um on these campuses. And so 60 of those 70 again using that filter um qualify. And so we then if you look at the last we took we're trying to identify 28 projects of those 60. And so we went to the highest ranked um schools on the list that met all of those criteria with an equal distribution across the board um uh via the board districts. And then on the green schoolyard um upgrade again I'll go from left to right. We start with again the green schoolyard index. The 216 schools we've already got projects at 105. That leaves 111 schools. same as what you saw before. Using the filter of the 275 students, that narrows it down to the 70. Um, and then knowing that

142we're going to you do pesup projects on the 28, that leaves 42 eligible projects for the green schoolyard, that will then exhaust the green schoolyard um, sorry, the the green schoolyard index category 1 for sites that have at least 275 students. So, as I mentioned back in November, we held a workshop and we received feedback and I think some of that feedback we heard was we wanted uh to look at alternate enrollment uh models. So, utilizing not only just 275, could you look at other enrollment uh models and then also making sure that we were looking at any previously approved projects that we had um at other campuses. So we went back ran uh additional analysis and ultimately from that what we determined was that the enrollment threshold of the 275 maximizes the students served

143in the highest need school. So we we believe that the 275 threshold for enrollment um is a good one and that's um how we should how we're recommending to continue to move forward. The higher thresholds um shift investment to category 2 schools. So if you go to um schools that have u more students then that then shifts things into the category 2 which would then not allow you to focus on those that are below 10% of the greening um index. And then if you removed enrollment altogether and didn't make it a criteria then you would be invest shifting the investments over to schools that have much lower enrollment. And so we're trying to focus on schools that have higher enrollment so that the overall program maximizes the number of students that these um funds get

144to. And then through this on the pace up um equitable geographic distribution is preserved. So this is just a visual representation and an example of what I showed um or what I just mentioned in the first column. You'll see there's if utilizing the 275 student enrollment as a threshold and filter, it addresses the largest student population um percentage of students I should say and the pace of projects are equally distributed across the uh board districts. So in this um scenario the list of schools that results it results in about 30,700 students at the prioritized schools. When we looked at alternative models, the enrollment of over 300 students, it then, as I mentioned before, goes into the both category 1 as well as getting into the category 2 rankings. So, it goes to schools that have

145a higher percentage of green over that 10%. And so, then you're skipping over some of those category 1 schools. So, that was why we didn't we're not recommending moving forward with that. And if you removed enrollment altogether, you can see the number of students that are totally affected by this um goes down to 25,800. And so you're investing in schools with lower enrollment. So with all of that, where does that leave us? It leaves us with this um utilizing the um 275 student filter for the paceup program and the green schoolyards. This is the paceup list. So this is the schools um that would um ultimately we'd be moving forward with to start to plan um and bring forward to the board projects um for implementation. And then this is the list for the green

146schoolyard um program. Again, utilizing the 275 enrollment um and moving forward um to try to focus on those category 1 schools as well. And with that said, I'm going to pass it to Deputy Director um Scott Singleary. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you very much. It's good to see you again all. Um, following up on our board uh uh workshop from a couple months ago, as a reminder, we've got about 380 schools that don't have shade shelters over their existing play structures. That's on the on the big kid yard. We've got about $40 million to address this need. And so we're proposing to do seven projects per board district just to start the program. Um, we hope to get to more, but we want to make an impact at the highest need schools as quickly

147as possible. So, we're going to put a play structure over a shade shelter and do whatever improvements are necessary along with it, like ADA improvements. Um, if we need to deal with some things in the foundations, we'll deal with the foundations as well. Following the board workshop, we incorporated the SENIS score. We heard a lot about SENI in the previous presentation. We wanted to get to socioeconomically vulnerable school communities. We also heard that we wanted to exclude sites with existing or planned greening projects. So, we coordinated all of our lists so that we make sure we're we're sort of spreading the wealth a little bit with the shade shelter program and getting to those schools that aren't getting other investments. And similar to what Assam just showed, we looked at different rankings. We also heard

148potentially looking at um uh temperature or shade as a ranking. So, if you look at the middle column, this is another option that we looked at. The first column was the original ranking we had proposed when we first met. We said, let's rank per board district by the top enrollment. So, go from the highest enrollment down. Um, we heard about the the shade, we heard about the temperature, and we looked at it and we said within each board district, temperature really doesn't shift that far of the needle. If the play structure, the slide, the monkey bars are hot, they're still really hot within that board district. Um, similar with the shade, uh, it's relative to the whole playground. And so, if the play structure is still really hot, we're not addressing it by looking at

149maybe a cluster of trees over in a corner of the playground. So we thought Senny was a really good way of looking at it. And then as we folded in SENI scores per board district, we wanted to make sure we got to enough schools and also focused on high numbers of enrollment because we want these shade shelters to at least as we start rolling out the program affect as many uh students as we can positively impact the students. So what you see on the right is our our proposal. With the proposal, we would reach to about 18,000 or more students. That's based on 25 26 enrollment. Um, so we're getting to a considerable amount of students with shade uh throughout the district. Um, so this slide shows our list of the preliminary 49 projects, the

15049 schools that uh we're going to start uh implementing projects on. You can see we've highlighted the SENI scores to show that um you know we're we're focusing in where the SENY scores are are the highest and also the enrollment um shows us that above 250 we get to at least seven schools in each board district and we'll roll from there. So and I'll turn it back over to Christina to wrap us up. So as I mentioned earlier, this is just one of the categories of measure US. Um there are other categories that we will also be doing similar prioritization efforts with. Let me just talk a little bit about what the next steps for these three programs are. So we need to do scope development now at each of these campuses across all three

151programs. That's walking the site, doing our site due diligence, budgeting, and scheduling before we can come back to our BOC and our board with project definitions. On the shade shelter program, we're anticipating that we'd come back to the BOC and the board in the summer of 2026. And then Paceup and Green Schoolyards, we'd like to come um in August or September of 2026. And then also we have programs that we also are going to be working on prioritization that I know are important to our school communities and your board districts. High school athletics, that prioritization is underway. Um we'll be sharing information that we currently have with the idea that similar to what we did on greening, we'd be coming to the board in the fall of 2026 to share that with you and get

152your input. Also, portable classroom replacement. This is looking at campuses which have the highest percentage of uncertified portables um compared to permanent. We'd also look we're working on the prioritization of that would bring to you that in fall of 2026. And then we're adding some um additional guard rails um and criteria to our critical repair and replacements. That's an ongoing proc uh program, but we're going to be refining that. also want to share that with you in the fall of 2026. So with that, I welcome any questions that you may have. >> Thank you uh for that presentation. Yes, I will open up the floor for questions. Nobody. Okay. Have one. Um I'll go. Um let's see. for schools identified as the proposed pace up um projects. What are the formal steps required before a

153project can begin? Um what is the anticipated timeline? Prioritization from construction prior from uh prioritization to construction and reopening and when can a school uh community realistically expect the green space to be accessible to students? What is the turnaround? >> Sure. So I'll walk through the steps that it takes first just to bring a project to the board for definition. We already have been working on this list. Um so our team is mobilizing quickly. We did not want to set expectations um at our school sites until we had this meeting with the board. Now that we've had this meeting, we'll be engaging with our principal and school staff um so that we can quickly define what the scope and budget is. We'll be bringing those to you hopefully in August and September. Um, and then

154these do require DSA because there's an accessibility component to those. Um, typically our design can take about 18 months. DSA can take about 6 to9 months to review. Then we go out to bid. When we're doing paceups, we have to do that construction and phasing because we can't leave an elementary school with absolutely no playground space. So we'll typically do half of the playground and the other half of the playground. So at all times the school has some playground space. That makes the construction a little longer, but we're factoring in about two years. >> About two years for the for the construction. Yeah. >> And then the um the other school will be relatively less time. >> Green schoolyards because the scope is a little less. We'll see that that probably takes a little quicker.

155um you know I I passed a resolution to help um to streamline that process. So where is that where are we in that implementation of streamlining the process of just the the green schoolyards? >> Um we'll be providing an update on that resolution um I think by March or April with kind of all of the findings that we have including how we can look to expedite these projects. >> Okay, great. Look forward to that. Any questions? No. I'll just say we have our facilities and procurement committee this afternoon where we've agendaized shade. Um so I think people know my thoughts there. I think there's still more we can do even uh and we're going to discuss this this afternoon but reducing um standardization to reduce costs. I think when it comes to the critical climate

156emergency, if we can find a way and say you you don't get to design your perfect shade structure, but we can do off the shelf, and I know Mr. Freriedman has been talking to us about that as well, I think there are ways to reduce the cost, but I still think, and I'll mention this this afternoon, I I think that there have been attempts to justify or explain, I guess, why a shade structure should cost $400,000. And I think a lot of my colleagues join me in saying we're past the point of it needing to be justified. It's just not acceptable. And if that's not on the district, but is on the state or the federal government, then I think there's advocacy going well. I know there's advocacy going on. I appreciate Miss Alvarez uh

157and her team who are made shade structures yet again a priority, but it just can't we can't go out to the community and tell schools and parents, many of whom are raising money or looking for donations, that it costs half a million dollars to put a tarp over um a shade structure. So I I appreciate that we've been like getting different levels of granularity, but it's not about understanding, it's about saying enough. Um so thank you there. I am interested in the upcoming um in the little teasers you just gave around critical repairs and what those program refinements are going to be. Another thing we're agendaizing this afternoon is um modular structures, um pre-fabricated structures. And I think when I look at the portable classroom replacement, that's like a great uh opportunity for that. The

158one thing I want to flag just for my colleagues and appreciate your team for sending it over is there were and this was flagged when the board considered this resolution, but there are six schools um that are caught in kind of this limbo. Let me pull up the list. um Roy Ball, Uni, Uni High, Marquez High School, Sodtomire High School, Angelou uh Community High School, and Fremont High School that are caught in this limbo between the board's analysis of grass over turf and the need to replace fields ASAP. And so I don't have a great solution right now, but I do want to talk to my colleagues about like Uni High, for example, um their church the field is closed because of safety concerns. Their baseball field is closed because of flooding. Um, Pali High's

159baseball field, which is not too far away, is is covered in modulars because of our of the fires. And so there's just limited field space on the west side for school. We also have Hamilton that's affected. So we had to build at Webster. Um, but also for so many community partners. And it's really hard to justify to the community that one of our flagship high schools will have no field space for like mo most importantly for the actual students of course, but also that's a a field that's used by the community. AYSO, club soccer. Um, so I do want to ask my colleagues to help us think through for those, you know, we're in the process of this larger analysis, but we might need some relief for these schools to kind of come through and

160whether that's just a like forlike replacement. UNIS is turf or we decide that we're going to invest in grass, which is maybe the more conservative approach, but so you know have to find a way in public because there are more than two colleagues uh who are on this list. I think it's more district 2, nine, five, and seven, but would love to find a way and be solutionsoriented around those schools, how to really quickly replace a field cuz they're closed. Um, and I just I think that's an unintended consequences consequence of a good board policy that I just want us to explore. So, just making that note now um for future discussion and thank you as always for being so responsive to our team's questions and school uh school needs. Yes, thank you Christina and

161team for uh the report. Always exciting to hear what's coming up. I didn't even have any questions until now. But um for the shade um structures, I'm wondering are we going to assess the condition of the place structure ahead of time and what if it needs replacement? Are we going to include that in the project? >> Yes. So, um, that's part of why we have a little contingency or float is that we expect, um, then once we have boots on the ground, we're going to have play structures or playground matting that is so deteriorated, it doesn't make sense to put a shade shelter over it and it would need to be replaced. So, we expect that that will happen at some of the sites we're at. >> All right. Okay. Thank you. >> I have

162a question. with um you the scope development which is underway this spring. What is the projected capacity to deliver the shade structures the shade projects in the summer of this summer and the pace up and the green school year projects in uh fall as you outlined what is the capacity? >> Um so we have uh teams already assigned to this work. Um, you know, we do have a tremendous amount of work in the pipeline, which is why you're seeing this kind of staggered prioritization. Um, we're working on the seismic that we shared with you in November, and we'll be bringing projects in the summer. Um, so we do have people in place, but we are also hiring where we need um on the bond side to ensure that we can deliver these projects in a

163timely manner. And my last question with the 275 student enrollment threshold um was selected to maximize student impact. How often will that threshold be reassessed moving forward with um enrollment shifts and all you know anything that could happen there. So, our uh suggestion is that we're planting a flag using 2025 and we're going to bring the board definitions for all these projects within the next year or two and rather than rerrack and stack every time enrollment goes up or down that we use this data. >> Yeah. >> Great. Thank you. >> Okay. Miss um new bill Hindi >> just really quick to the point where you're saying the reassessment and using will there be circumstances that would trigger or flag um considerably change in the analysis or the use of the criteria for analysis. We're

164hoping not to because we plan on um letting these schools know that uh we are anticipating a project and what we don't want to do is raise expectations at school sites letting know that they're on a list either for bringing a project you know this summer or fall or shortly thereafter and then have to go back to them and say oh because you lost 10 students you're now off the list and you're going to go to another site. We think that that would be um not an effective way to necessarily plan these investments. We think that shade shelters are really necessary at all schools. This is just where we're starting. And so if there is some small fluctuation, it doesn't mean that we're not going to get to other schools later. >> And then the

165subsequent list, uh do we already have that kind of in the making when we this was developed kind of the the second tier so to speak? Do we already have that? We um well we could definitely continue the same prioritization model if we decide to go for another bond and it were to pass. Our intent would be that we could continue this work. There's any lessons learned or variations of why we should change this approach obviously we can do that. And then as we talk about funding, obviously the cost um and I know this is not the conversation, but with the investment of 8 to 12 million per project, is it possible that schools could go out and find their own funding and be able to uh put themselves on a list or be able

166to look to see where they land on that list as to what would be a tool for them to advocate for funding. um we are in the second tier and you know we needed this funding and we saw that we we were shy and we weren't able to get there. Um is it possible to have that so that the school sites could be able to see that? >> Yes, absolutely. Um you know there are schools that have either through um partnerships or um through other means have been able to fund raise. Typically we see that on a smaller scale with like a seeds type of program. I don't think we'd expect our schools to fund raise between the 8 to 12 million, but we're always looking for through partnerships or smaller programs that we can

167increase um greening at these. We also know that through our seismic projects and our portable replacement projects, there might be some opportunities to do some limited greening as well, depending on where the footprint or the buildings are at. We know that when we remove portables, there's often an opportunity to add greening. So even though they might not get to the full 30%, it doesn't mean that these are the only projects that will have any greening on them. >> Got it. That's it. Thanks. >> Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Miss Tes, u Mr. Da, and Mr. Singleary for your for your presentations and all the information. And I do look forward to uh particularly the um athletic facilities upgrades. So looking forward to that. Now we will move to the next portion of our

168meeting which is public comments. So Mr. McLean. >> All right, we have a number of speakers today. I'll call on the folks who have listed themselves as being in person first and then we'll call on those who are speaking remotely. Maria Luis Aalma, I see you're here. Come on down. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. And then after Miss Palma is Danna Guen. And then after Miss Guen is Monica Razola. Why not Miss Palma? You have two minutes to speak once you begin. >> Please come on down, Miss Palm. I see you're ready. >> Thank you so much. What are you doing board members? Some who left to stop to prevent sex abuse of students. I think this is your and your predecessor's fault. And Miss Grigo, who walked out the door

169there, has the nerve last week's meeting to ask the CFO, Mr. Bravo Karimi if more judgment obligation bonds will be needed to finance those sex abuse cases. Well, what's in the bargaining agreement that you all have negotiated with UTLA? So, do they get to get away with credible sex abuse complaints? Are those being swept under the rug instead of immediate mandatory reporting? So, are you just still passing the trash into marginalized communities? Huh? in the communities where parents are intimidated into silence where parents don't speak English when they don't understand the system. Is that equity? Was the mirror monte case was that equity for that community? So if you continue to protect sex abuses through the bargaining agreement with UTLA and other unions, you are complicit in this protection racket. Now you have approved judgment

170obligation bonds to finance liabilities that you incurred historically. So you're kicking the can longterm increasing interest expense. So we going to have less general funds for future students. I say don't do that. I say pay the cash now that you have in general fund before you pay the raises for UTLA and the other unions. Wouldn't isn't that appropriate? So special funds you are asking the state to to set up so that you don't have to pay for them out of education funds here. Well, that's just another hand in my pocket and all the other taxpayers pockets and children's lives have been damaged. Any amount of money is never going to fix those ch those children's lives. Even one case is too many. So, if you continue to agree to the same protections for teachers in

171those bargaining agreements, sex abuse is on your heads going forward. How do you sleep at night? >> Thank you for your time. Danna Guen, Danna Guen, not here. Monica Razola, I see you are here. Mr. Razola is going to speak in Spanish. So, if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English, please put your hands up and we will get you these translation headsets. Okay, graciastos. >> Gracias. >> Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Monica Rasola. Oh, I'm sad to see Miss Carla Grigo leave. I am here because I want to talk to you about Olada, Inc. We have 12,000 followers. I want to bring a paper trail. I also want to talk about the subject we spoke about last time which right now in Olyada we have 130,433 likes with 9,000 comments.

172Another video of the same subject with thousands of comments and likes. Another one with the favor of Mr. Pan Panda with 134,700 related to that topic. Mika Luna with 4,530. Goa with 29,000 likes. Another one with 29,000. And I just want to say that related to this topic that we discussed, it's not just me who is mistaken. I just want to say that out of 50,000 comments made, the majority are blessings for me, which I appreciate, but a lot of the rest is a lot of things against you, specifically Carla, who supports what's going on in schools. And I just say as teachers you have the responsibility onto students to prepare them academically and you have not done that. All you've done is prepare them so they can be wrong mentally with so many things

173with who they should be sleeping with and not. And my point is, as a mother and with the support of all these other parents, I'm being asked to not send our kids to school. And you can prove it if you'd like to visit our Olad to see how many parents are in favor of not sending our kids until they can be prepared adequately. And I'm putting this right here so you can take a look for yourself. >> Uh Carol Verde, are you here? Carol and Stephanie Calvio, come on up. You have two minutes to speak. Once you begin, hello. Uh, good morning committee of the whole members. Uh, my name is Stephanie Calvio and I am an urban environmental planner by training and have been tracking school greening as a researcher at the LA Alliance

174for a New Economy. Uh in my current research, I have focused on Uklid Avenue Elementary School in Boil Heights. Uh a TK through5 community school with over 500 students. Uh Uklid sits in one of the top three spots on LUSD's greening index with 0% uh schoolyard percentage green. It has a history of environmental harms and disinvestment in the surrounding community and is in a densely populated area with exposure to high transportation corridors. As a community school, Uklid's recent assets and needs assessment identified school greening as a top school priority. More recently, in tracking how Measure US bond funds will be distributed, I was super excited to see Uklid on this on the list chosen for a new playground and campus exterior upgrade or PAUP project as explained earlier by Miss Tes and the rest of

175her team. uh I have had the opportunity to learn more about the process and next steps for this investment at their school and how to get involved. I have also met and worked closely with the Uklid student council, a group of student campus leaders who have shared their dreams and hopes for the future of their schoolyard campus and they have also encouraged their peers to do the same. Uh the parent and school leaders have been engaging other parents, students, and faculty about this new investment coming up. Um and have been sharing their vision for their new green spaces at their school. Um because unfortunately this public comment for this committee meeting unfortunately coincides with school pickup at Uklid. Um meaning it is difficult for the parent leaders to join here in person. I am here

176to relay this message on behalf of Uklid and excited to share that they are extremely ready to begin the engagement process um and look forward to more ways they can get involved. Um and we do understand that the timeline is um a little bit longer but they are very excited and ready to get started. So thank you so much. >> Thank you for your time. All right, we have folks who are calling in. So, the first caller will be, let's see, Liliana Cortez. Liliana Cortez, not on the line. Uh, Kevin Miller. Kevin Miller, also not on the line. Uh, let's see. Janice Jackson, I see you are on the line. Janice, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Janice, >> Janice Jackson, I see you're

177with us. >> Yes. Yes. Good afternoon. My name is Janice Jackson and I'm a teacher resident with the Wats of Power Foundation and a student teacher at Windsor Hills Elementary School. I want to begin by thanking the superintendent and the board for their support of black educators, students, and families. I'm here today to ask for a strengthened commitment to support black educators. Over the last 10 years, the percentage of black teachers district has declined by 4%. That statistic is not abstract to me. It reflects lived experiences like my own teaching career over 25 years ago. Despite my success in the classroom, I faced systemic barriers in the credentiing process and eventually was asked to step down and become a substitute teacher. This change meant stepping away from a position I deeply love, pushing me out

178of the profession I had committed my life to. That calling became even clearer when my husband was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer. Watching him fight with courage and ultimately overcome it strengthened my resolve. It pushed me to reclaim my own purpose as an educator serving children and communities who need teachers who understand them. With the support of CS CUDH and Dr. Watts, I was shown that returning to the classroom was still possible. Today, as a teacher resident, I stand as living evidence of what happens when systems fail to support, retain, and uplift black educators and also what becomes possible when pathways are reopened. My story is not unique. Too many talented black teachers are lost because of systemic barriers. If LUSD is serious about equity, then recruitment must be paired with

179meaningful support, specifically formal partner with community, formally partner with community organizations providing support and care for black educators, including organizations like the Watts of Power Foundation, publicly report on outcomes of LA Unified educators disagregated by race and ethnicity in a way that's transparent and accessible to the community. I ask that we continue this work so that future black educators do not have to leave the profession they love in order to survive like me. >> Thank you for your time. All right, the next speaker is Naima Rollins. Naima, are you with us? >> Naima is not online. Uh Laura McGawan Robinson. Laura McGawan Robinson, I see you're on the line. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Laura, >> greetings, chairwoman Rivas and members of the

180LA USD Committee of the Whole. My name is Dr. Laura McGown Robinson. I'm founder and CEO of Diversity and Leadership Institute, a statewide nonprofit dedicated to building and sustaining pipelines for diverse TK through2 school leaders since 2019. I'm also a proud member of the Charting the Course to Equity Coalition, also known as the CCEC. I'm here today as a part of the CCEC Black Educator Gratitude Campaign to commemorate the 2022 passage of the LUSD Black Student Excellence through Educator Diversity Preparation and Retention Resolution. First, I want to express my gratitude to board member Ortiz Franklin for championing the resolution and to the L USD board for it unanimous support and to the superintendent and the HR division for taking steps to improve to toward implementation. The resolution was a powerful acknowledgement that diverse educators matter,

181not just symbolically, but systemically. In 2022, the resolution recognized the urgent need to recruit and retain black underrepresented educators. And that urgency has not changed. California serves nearly 6 million TK through 12 students, approximately 79% of whom are students of color. Yet only 30% of student of teachers and 20% of school administrators reflect that diversity. I urge this committee and the board to strengthen its commitment to the recruitment and retention of black educators by adopting the recommendation shared by our coalition was which was reflected in a letter submitted yesterday by email. And lastly, we urge LUSD to support our coalition's campaign to advocate for California's reinvestment in the diverse educator leader pipeline initiative grant program or deli, which was awarded to LA USD and other grantees in 2024. Delai represents a critical state investment in

182LUSD's efforts to strengthen its diver diverse educator pipeline and it's imperative that we sustain this program. This year's Black Educator Gratitude Campaign is both a celebration and a call to action and I urge LUSD to complete the work it started to protect this progress. Thank you so much for the work that you do and for your support of our work. >> Thank you for your time. The next caller is Maria Daisy Ortiz. Miss Ortiz, I see you're online. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak when you begin. Maria Daisy Ortiz. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Maria Dei Ortiz. I am here astounded with how much cynicism you are there approving all these things because this was approved in June when you approved millions to defend pedophiles with

183the dinner the money that was supposed to go towards education for our kids. This is being taken away from programs and this lack of transparency and the way in which you like to cover up these pedophiles that you have that you even defend. You are re you're giving them a salary even you should pay this money because you're indebting the district. The superintendent doesn't care because by then he will be gone and pensioned and board members as well because they have political agendas and within those agendas you have this pedophile cover up. People who pay taxes don't want their taxes being used to defend these abusers of children. So I asked the district for transparency equity with these budgets also contracts with >> books books who evaluates so that you can have economic interests associated

184to them it's a shame and I and you are the worst representing education without conscience or shame I demand that everybody be more transparent and pay from your own pockets these lawsuits because you permit when these things happen, you you hide them. Thank you. Have a great afternoon. >> Thank you for your time. Uh Myra L, are you on the line? Are you in the room? Uh Myra is not here. Marcela Garcia, are you in the room? You're uh signed up to speak remotely. I do not have you in front of me. Uh, Karina Lopez, you are online. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Karina Lopez. >> Hello. >> Okay. >> Good afternoon. My name is Karina Lopez. The public comment is for Well,

185yeah. How is it that you ask for loans and then in debt the people and segregate students even more? There needs to be a way that the abusers, sexual abusers that have been that they pay in a civil manner and to recoup that money because that money is for the children. It's for the students. is those of the decent those decent um employees that day after day get up so that they can go and prepare our students. It is not for the abusers and also it's not for those that how do you give them licenses with those type of people that are abusers of sexual abusers and also those that uh mistreat students and children and most of all those students that need well what happens when a parent hits a student everyone comes after

186them. So what are we all going to do with those abusers that has been proven that there has been abuse all that nastiness that they're doing with the students that is dangerous not only for those that are asking for the loan that is complicit and is protecting those abusers. No, we can no longer allow that. You need to recoup that money and we should protect our students, the people that are decent, those employees that are decent. Thank you. >> Thank you for your time. Uh Raquel Diaz, are you on the line? Raquel Diaz, I don't have you online and you are not in the room. So Raquel Diaz, not here. Sarah Brown, I see you're on the line. Sarah Brown, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once

187you begin. Sarah Brown. >> Good afternoon everyone. My name is Sarah Brown and I am a partner in the charting the course to equity DCEC and a supporter of educator diversity and equity efforts across our schools. And I'm calling today to thank the superintendent and the board of education for your continued commitment to advancing educator diversity and supporting students who have been historically unserved. And I'm here today to speak about the importance and continued investment in that recruitment and retention of black teachers and leaders, not only through LUSD's black student excellence through educator preparation and retention and recruitment resolution, but also through also through California's diverse education leaders pipeline initiative, also known as deli. As a community partner, I've seen firsthand how representation in teaching and leadership changes student outcomes and school culture. And the

188research and communities and families and students already know is clear. Diverse educators and administrators matter for all students, especially black students. Having black and underrepresented educators improves academic outcomes, belonging, and long-term success. And in the face of ongoing budget pressures and the fiscal stabil stabilization plan, I'm I urge the board to continue to strengthen its commitment to the recruitment and retention of early career black and diverse educators through DelPI, including making educator retention and diversity data transparent and publicly accessible. and in sustaining and reinvesting dedicated funding for DELPI and diverse educator pipeline. Um, thank you so much for your time and your leadership and for listening. >> Thank you for your time. Let's see. Dian Guen is now remote as opposed to being in person. Miss Guen, please press star six to unmute yourself and

189you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Diana Gen. Good afternoon members of the board. I think that you gave very important information today and truly as a parent we feel that you are not giving us the schools are not giving us the right information. there's a lack of transparency on what is the funds state funds because you're always it's the SSE uh committees for the federal funds but what happened about all this what happens with all the state funds every school has a lot more state funds and you have not wanted to change the policy the policy where you require principles to show all the school funds they're not required to do so so they don't do it why I don't we don't know Why? And so what happens is that is why

190the parents we are leaving the LA Unified School District people does not trust you and you are creating all of this. You are losing children or students and then you can blame anyone you like. But truly people are leaving because they don't trust you due to the poor education that they're receiving and the lack of parent engagement. that aside because those parents of us that raise our voice you treat us like criminals you treat us poorly the you uh slander you make parents fight with the other and we have spoken to Mr. Placencia many time about the types of things that he does so that the parents are infighting and that we can never get to an agreement. So when will you listen to the parents and that's what I want to know in school

191safety to it is deplorable. You have not responded that you let my 12-year-old student leave the school. There has been no answer. I sent an email Mr. Carbalo and there is no response from the operation. So, how can I trust you if you can't even give me a written re uh reply to those things that we are asking for as parents? I hope that all of this that we are speaking about that one time or another that you think about and that you listen to the parents that come here to do a job that is for our community because we do uh care for our children and their future. Thank you. >> Let's see. We have Liliana Cortez. You're here now. Liliana Cortez. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes

192to speak once you begin. Liliana Cortez. >> Good afternoon. My name is Liliana Cortez. I'm an adult ESL teacher at Abram Freeman Occupational Center. We strongly oppose the budget cuts being made by the executive director of DACE, Renie Nara. Due to the invasion of Trump's ICE agents in our city, attendance and enrollment has decreased because many adult students are afraid to go to school or working extra hours because they've lost their primary bread winner. So, how does base respond and show support for the immigrant students they claim to value and champion? By threatening to reduce teacher and advisor hours, by quote unquote combining support positions, and reducing course offerings, all while refusing to allow teachers to switch to a hybrid format and let students attend class online. Dave has stable dedicated funding sources through CAPE

193and WEOA which are separate from the LU USD general fund and we're expecting the funding increases for California's adult education programs. But now I'd like to yield the rest of my time to one of our ESL students, Rose Smith. >> Hello, I am a third student at the Arab Freedman Occupation Center. Today is important day because we are giving hope to the people. Every day I going to school for education. Education is the foundation for community. Everyone understand how this works. We talk, read, write and listen. But how does this work in society? Humans are friends. Business is working. Difficult becomes simple. Life is happy. But today my city is car I agent in LA. My friends and classmates don't come to class. People are nervous. Fair can be the truth for communication in community.

194We are worried. I think about this political problems but I want to study. I need a school. Please don't touch our schools and adult programs. Education is the last obstacle between living on the street and having a normal life. My teachers, classmates, and I accordingly invite you to visit our classes. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. Uh that concludes our callers and our in inerson speakers. >> Thank you very much and thank you to all of our um those who made public comments. Thank you so much. Uh as we close today's committee of the whole I want to be clear about what is at stake as you heard here today and the presentations and the questions. The decisions we discussed today are not abstract. They shape whether students learn in safe, climate

195resilient environments. They shape whether school communities already facing the greatest challenges experience stability or further disruption. Our responsibility is not simply to balance numbers. It is to ensure that equity is not the first thing to be compromised when budgets tighten and that investments continue to reach communities that have been historically received the less the least. We must direct resources where need is the greatest. We must scrutinize decisions that disproportionately impact vulnerable students. And we must remain transparent about the trade-offs before us. This is a work of public governance. Thank you to the staff, colleagues, and labor or um public um speakers, members of the public for your engagement and accountability. The next committee of the whole will be on Tuesday, March 17th, and this meeting is adjourned. Thank you all.