Regular Meeting - Martinez Unified School Board - 12/8/2025

001Good evening. I'd like to go ahead and call the um regular meeting of the board of education for Martinez Unified School District to order. It is 5:00 p.m. And first thing we have are public comments regarding close session. And we have first up Katherine Hearn. Good evening. My name is Katherine Hearn. I'm here to represent Martinez Education Association as well as a parent of the Martinez Unified School District with a current uh sixth grader at the junior high as well as just a concerned community member because once again here we are um ringing our hands and quibbling about what has to be cut and unless unless there's conversations taking place that obviously I'm not privy to don't have to be privy to or behind closed doors. The appearance is that we're spending all of our

002time on how to cut rather than spending any time whatsoever on how to raise more revenue. It's always been uh well, there's just only so much pie, but I'm not hearing or seeing any discussion about how to make the pie larger. Simple as that. I'm going to read off a quick blurb from the Lafayette School District. to protect the quality of education and prevent deep cuts to Lafayette elementary and middle school programs in math, science, engineering, technology, programs we don't even talk about in elementary and middle, uh, reading, music, and the arts, maintain manageable class sizes to enhance student achievement, and attract and retain highly qualified teachers. Shall Lafayette School District establish a $290 parcel tax for seven years only providing $3,11,360 annually in dedicated funding for neighborhood schools with independent citizen oversight, etc., etc.

003Now, most people's first instinct to say, "Yeah, well, that's Lafayette, and isn't their annual median income, family income higher than ours?" Of course, it is. Sure, it is. But let's look at the math a little bit differently. $290 flat rate, not based on per 100,000 assessed property value. Flat rate, $290 equates to $5.58 a week. That's and I don't frequent the place myself, but that's about a Dutch Bros a week. And I know that we have plenty of families here based on the line that's outside into the street coming out of Dutch Bros. And that's just one particular establishment that is frequented by our residents. Um there's an old saying, pretty famous saying that we miss 100% of the shots that we don't take. We're leaving money on the table. Thank you. [applause] Next up

004is Mary Writtenhouse. Good evening, board members, superintendent, and community. My name is Mary Writtenhouse, and I am proud to serve as the co-president of the Martinez Education Association. I am here tonight because Martinez students deserve the very best, and MEA members are deeply committed to student success and justice for all learners. Our proposals ask that MUSD to make the same commitment we make every single day. Invest in great staff and create better learning conditions for our students. Our students deserve smaller classes. Every educator here knows that when class sizes go down, individual attention goes up. Students get more support, more connection, and more time with the professionals who guide their learning. Smaller classes also mean safer learning environments where teachers can meet the needs of every child. Our students deserve educators who are respected and

005treated as the trained professionals they are. When teachers are asked to work outside of their contracted hours, they should be paid for that time. We are proposing compensation for IEP meetings, SSTs, and 504 meetings that extend beyond the workday. Special education teachers in particular are completing assessments and writing legally defensible reports late into the night. This is specialized work that protects the district legally and serves students ethically yet is often unpaid. That must change. If Martinez wants great teachers in every classroom, the district must invest in competitive compensation. We are competing against surrounding districts that offer fully paid medical benefits. When we can't match those, we lose educators and our students lose stability. We are also calling for an end to the maternity penalty. Teachers who take parental leave for less than half the year

006should still receive their step movement. New parents, mostly women, are being disort proportionately impacted. If we want these educators to build lifelong careers in Martinez, we must honor their commitment to our students and to their own families. And teachers who pursue graduate coursework and professional development should be able to advance on the salary schedule without unnecessary barriers. When educators grow professionally, students benefit. Finally, I want to address the district's proposals. Pay cuts. Cuts should be made as far away from students and classrooms as possible. Cutting teacher and counselor workdays is a direct cut to student services and support. Meanwhile, spending on administration has increased by $850,000 over the last five years, 31%. If cuts are necessary, they must start at the top, not on the backs of the people who serve students every day. Martinez

007students, >> it looks like the timer expired. >> Thank you. >> Better [applause] Jill Lion and then Harmony Connor after that. Good evening. My name is Jill Lion. Um I work at John Mayir Elementary as a second grade teacher. Um I'd like to share something with you as a means of demonstrating several things which will hopefully become self-evident to you after hearing them. Uh the best resource I have turned to as an argument to champion keeping cuts furthest away from the classroom as well as an argument for providing the appropriate compensation to the people being asked to implement these lofty goals is the updated California standards for the teaching profession. The California Department of Education has recently updated this list of standards. I'm not sure if you're familiar with this rubric, but it carefully lays

008out what is expected of teachers in California under six separate standards. Each standard has between 7 to 27 listed criteria where criteria where educators can then be rated by their administrator as unsatisfactory, needs improvement, proficient, or innovating. I'd like to read to you the criteria expected of educators under just one of these standards. Demonstration of these skills would deem a teacher merely proficient, not exemplary, proficient in the standard. So, I meant to get my readers on here. Uh, this is for standard one, engaging and supporting all students in learning. Proficient uses data from multiple sources to make adjustments to instruction and meet individual identified learning needs. Students actively utilize a variety of instructional strategies that ensure equitable access to the curriculum. Implements activities and elicits questions that help students make connections between what they already

009know and the learning goals and objectives. I'm going to read these quickly. There's so many. Makes adjustments during lessons to ensure that all students meet the learning goals. Regularly incorporates knowledge of students cultural, linguist, linguistic, social, emotional, and developmental needs into lesson design. regularly creates learning opportunities that draw on students interests, experiences, and assets to support engagement for each student. Consistently integrates knowledge of students backgrounds into instructional planning. Provides regular communications to families about student progress and accomplishments. Elicits student participation through a variety of instructional strategies and resources intended to match students academic and linguistic needs. Uses differentiated learning strategies. Checks for student understanding and responds accordingly. consistently applies culturally responsive practices to promote equitable access and positive outcomes for students. Now, imagine if you will, this is just one of six standards that a

010teacher is being evaluated on. And the expectation is that we are exhibiting mastery in all of these criteria 5 days a week, seven hours a day. I ask you, is it fair to decrease our salary when every year our responsibilities are increased and our paycheck does not go as far? Is it fair to take money away from the positions that most closely impact our stakeholders, our students? You have heard only a fraction of what the state and district expect of their teachers, yet every day we show up working hard to live up to the rigor that these standards demand. If you move forward with cutting close to the classroom level, then if the California Department of Education had California standards for the district office administration, I would mark your evaluation as unsatisfactory. [applause] All >>

011[applause] >> right. Good evening, trustees, superintendent Patrick, and members of the Martinez community. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Harmony Connor. I teach fourth grade at Mel Park. I'm also the parent of a TK student there. So, I'm just beginning a very long journey um in Martinez Unified. As a parent, I'm here because I care deeply about the well-being of our students and the future of our schools. I have seen changes over the past few years and have already felt the impact of major cuts that may look small on paper, but are felt profoundly by children every single day. We've lost precious library time, time where students discover books that ignite their imaginations and shape their sense of cur curiosity. We've blessed reading specialists, experts who change the

012trajectories of struggling readers before the gap becomes a gulf. We've cut time with counselors, professionals who guide our students through academic challenges, social emotional struggles, and the growing mental health crisis that faces young students today. And we've lost specialist teachers, resulting in PE and music classes at Melo Park that have 45 students at a time. None of these reductions have happened in isolation. They form a pattern. A pattern that is clear when looking at student data and test scores. But it becomes even more clear when you enter our classrooms where we are working every day with students who feel the impact and we see teachers who are exhausted by asking to do more and more. During negotiations, the district proposed cutting teacher salaries by taking away two of our work days. One to set up

013our classroom and one to do report cards. Does that mean teachers will not be expected to do these tasks? Of course not. It means you expect us to do the same amount of work for less pay. The district gave a financial outlook recently where it was said that teacher salaries have increased 26% over the last 5 years. While they that may be true due to other factors like the six years that we went without a raise, um there was nothing in there about the increase in admin salaries. According to our calculations, their costs have gone up 31%. Even more than our 26. I would like to know this. Are they be asked to take a pay cut? Are they going to be asked to do the same job in fewer days? Will their calendar be

014cut? I read a quote from the United Teachers of Richmond who are currently on strike that sum things up perfectly for me. Their president said they are working toward an agreement that breaks the cycle of disinvestment in our students and educators. That is exactly how I have felt over the last few years. Teachers and students are not going to put up with this for much longer. Tonight, I am asking you to keep all future cuts as far away from the classroom as possible. Thank you. [applause] I think that's it for public comments. Okay. So, we will adjourn to close session and we'll be back at 6:30. right back to um reconvening to our regular board meeting. And I do have one item to report out on closed session. On motion of member Logan Campbell, seconded

015by member Annie Horak Martin, the board in closed session voted 40 to approve a confidential settlement agreement with the matter of Martinez Unified School District versus student to resolve a special education dispute and demand for certain educationally related costs including attorney's fees where the district received waiverss and releases of claims. names in exchange. We had four eyes and one person abstained. >> Matthew, do you want to lead us in the pledge of allegiance? >> To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Do we have any changes to the agenda? >> Yes, we do have a change. Looking for my notes. Okay, Trusty President, we're going to add a resolution to item, is it 17.1? 1

01617 number one I'm sorry 17.3 17.3 >> You're changing it to what? >> We're adding a resolution to it. >> Oh, okay. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. Do I have a motion? >> I make a motion to add the amendment to the resol of the resolution to 17.3. Just as amended. >> Oh, as amended. >> I will um second the uh approving the agenda as amended. >> Student rep >> I. >> All those in favor? >> I so moved. Okay. Next we have organization of the board procedural item. Dr. Patrick, do you want to start that or just me go into it? Okay. Um, so we're it's time for us to do the election of board officers. We've got um three. We always do president, vice president, and clerk. And um if there's any changes, we

017can move around afterwards. Um and does anyone have a discussion or questions for president? Uh well I did have some discussion. I know we normally just jump straight to um nomination but I think I would like to propose something different than what we have previously done and so I thought it might be useful to discuss. So um typically we have always moved every year and changed the kind of the order has gone up. Um it is actually in our bylaws that um people can serve in a position for two years. And as I think all of us on the board know, it is a good amount of work. Um and so I'm proposing if Tanya is willing um that we keep things status quo for an additional year. And the reason I have a couple

018reasons for thinking this might be a good idea. One, I know we're all very busy. So if Tanya is interested in willing to do this, it might be beneficial for a year. It's also having served as the president, I sort of like the idea of having the consistency for two years. I think you gain a lot of knowledge in your first year and can really add to the role. So, I'm totally open to hearing everyone's thoughts, but my proposal would be we stay as is for one more year. >> I would be open to that. I think we've had a lot of change on this board in the past year. We have two very new members and we have a brand new superintendent. Um and we are all working on working as a team. I

019think we had a really good um uh opportunity to work on that last week when we were at the CSBA conference together and have done more than one governance training together in the last six months which all of this has been helpful and working towards um being the best governing team that we can be and I think that some consistency for the next year would probably contribute to that. Yeah, I totally um I'm okay with that. Um thank you. I think uh we have been working really well together recently and we have gone to some classes and um I think we're kind of on a roll now and so we're kind of status quo and I do believe you get a little more confident as you've been doing it for a little bit longer. So

020I would be okay with that as well. Do we have any other >> to what the board is suggesting? >> We haven't heard from you, Logan. >> I don't have any comment. I >> don't. Okay, Matthew. Any comments? >> Not really. >> All right. So, do we have a motion to have >> So, I think we still have to do them one at a time. So I guess for uh 81A, I will um move to nominate President Buger to continue in the presidency for one additional year. >> Second. >> Student rep. >> I. >> All those in favor? >> I so moved. Uh so 81B for vice president. I will then nominate um Annie Horic Martin for vice president. >> I will second that. >> Student rep >> I. >> All those in favor? >>

021I. >> So moved. And then for 81 8.13 for clerk, I would nominate Logan Campbell. >> I'll second. >> Student rep. I >> all those in favor? >> I so moved. >> And then secretary is always the superintendent. >> So does anyone want to make a motion for that? >> I'll make a motion that we nominate Dr. Patrick um as our secretary. >> Second. >> Student rep. >> I. >> All those in favor? I so moved. Congratulations everyone. And we don't have to move chairs. Yay. Next we have establishment of committees. Dr. Patrick. Um okay. So before we um have the discussion about committees, I just have one um update that is going to come off the committees list and that is MEF. Um and MEF is going to be removed from the list primarily

022because it's its own entity and it has a separate board that governs who serves on the committee um who rep a representative from the district. It is not the district's decision. It is MEF's decision. And so they will no longer be considered one of our committees. A board member can and may still be selected to serve on the committee, but it is not through our process of committees. If that makes sense. >> It does. Okay. So, um I'm just going to go through if it's um fine, trusty president, or if you want to do it. Um whatever works, but we do need to um have members start with the other committees deciding who is going to serve on what committee. >> Sure. >> So, you want me to do it or >> you can do

023it either way. >> Okay. Sure. So the first committee um is the board city council committee and right now serving on the on that committee are trustees Campbell, Trusty Berger and Trustee Meella O'Brien as the alternate. And so we need to decide do we want to keep this or do we want to make changes to this committee. So, I've been on this board for five years, and this is actually one of the only committees I've never served on. So, I would really love the opportunity if someone is willing to make that change. >> I really like this committee as well, but um >> I can come off it. >> Okay. Thank you very much. >> And then Courtney, are you okay being an alternate still? >> Okay with staying as the alternate or if somebody

024would really like to be the alternate, I would be okay with that, too. Does Logan want Do you want to be the alternate? >> I mean, yeah, I'd be the alternate on that one. >> That's fine. >> All right. The next committee is the curriculum advisory council committee. >> I'm happy to give that one up just because um it's a real difficult time for me to make that particular meeting. >> Okay. And Trusty President, you are the alternate. Are you wanting to stay on that committee as the alternate? >> I can stay as an alternate. Yes. This is Brenda, are you interested in this or >> I would be interested in that committee, but I'm interested in two other ones as well. >> Okay. I'm going to go ahead and put you down for that

025one though. Is that okay, Trusty Leo? Okay. All right. the C contraosta County School Boards Association right now that is Logan and uh Trusty Annie is alternate. >> So Trustee uh Campbell, do you want to stay on or >> I can stay on unless somebody else would like it. >> Okay. And what about you, Trusty Herac Martin? You want to >> I'm okay alternate. Yeah. >> Okay. Okay, we're going to skip over MEF and go to liaison to the supervisor um scales Preston's office right now. That's Trusty Campbell. Do you want to keep that or >> again? I I'll keep it unless somebody else wants an opportunity. >> I wouldn't mind the opportunity to do that if you're okay with that. >> Yeah. >> All right. I will make the change. Thank you. All right.

026So, the next one is our budget advisory committee, LCAP district tech committee and athletic finance committee. We have trusty Campbell and trustee um O'Brien. And are we making any changes here? >> I'd like to be considered for that committee. Uh, >> do you want to serve as the alternate or the primary? >> Well, I have a question. So, for example, right now we have >> Don't we have two people on the budget? >> We do not. This is the official list of who's on here. >> We're going to change it now. So, it's what? >> You could probably two put two on there if you wanted to, right? We >> Well, right now we have two. We have one and an alternate. Are you saying two and an alternate? >> Yes. >> Um I don't

027think there's anything that prevents us from doing that. >> So >> that's what I thought in the past. Yeah. >> So okay. So Trusty Campbell, you want to stay on? Who else wants to be added? Trusty Leo. Okay. And then um Trusty Myella O'Brien, you you okay with staying on as the alternate? >> Yeah, that's okay. >> Thank you. Okay. And the next committee is the Health and Wellness Committee, Integrated Pest Management Committee, I IPM. And right now, trustee President and Trustee Vice President are on this committee. Do we need to make any changes to to this committee? >> I think that only meets twice a year or even once a year. Um, and I think I'm on that and I have a meeting tomorrow, so I'm I'll stay on it. >> Okay. What about

028you, trustee? >> Yeah, I'm fine. Stay on it. >> All right. Thank you. The next committee is the facilities advisory committee. Um, do we have any changes to that committee? We have trustee uh Misa O'Brien and Trusty Berger. What do we any changes? >> I would like to serve on that one this time. So, okay. >> I I would like to stay on it. Um, but I'm I'm willing to be convinced otherwise if somebody else really wants to. >> I think that's the one everybody wants it because I know I'm interested in that and I think Trusty Le is interested in that as well. Right. >> Okay. Um I I can be off of that one. That's fine. So, I won't give up my spot, but or who wants to. >> Okay. Do we do

029we I'm willing to let um trustee Leel take my place. Do we need an alternate for that one or no? >> Um no, you're you're still good. She the trusty president stepped off, so you're good. >> Oh, but I think Logan said he wants to be on. >> Oh, Logan wants to be on. >> So Logan. >> Okay. So Logan, Trusty Campbell, and Trusty Leo. All right. >> And I can be an alternate if we need one. >> Okay. We'll add you as an alternate. Okay. Next is the DAC committee. Right now we have trustee vice president and we have trustee Leel is the alternate. Are we making any changes to that committee or are we keeping it status quo? I'm okay. But if you also wanted an opportunity to be the primary, that's works

030for me. It's >> kind of going to their meetings >> anyway. So >> you could be the primary. That might be um >> we'll switch roles. >> Switch. And since we've been going anyway, >> we could do that. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> All right. And the last committee is uh the diversity, equity, inclusion committee, DEI. And we have three members on that committee. Um do we need to make any changes to that committee or are we good to stay where we are on that committee? >> I wouldn't mind being on that committee. >> I am happy to give mine up only because I can never make this time. So I always feel terrible. >> Okay. Trustee president with being the alternate You can still go to the meetings >> or do you want

031>> I can't have three because that's a quorum. So only two can go. That's why I'll just be alternate. >> That's fine. >> You want I can guarantee you there will be a meeting I won't be able to go to. So I will as long as someone lets me know about it. Okay, perfect. Thank you. >> I'll put you down for the alternate position. >> Thank you. And I think this concludes our committee assignments and we'll get an updated list out to you sooner sooner than later. >> That might be the >> We still have to vote on that. I believe >> that's what I was going to ask next. Is there do we need to take a vote? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Do we have a motion from anybody? >> I will move

032to approve the updated committees list. >> I will second it. Student rep. >> All those in favor? I. So moved. Um now we can wait until after comments comments. >> Okay. Next we have um approval of governance calendar. Dr. Patrick. >> Okay. I'm sorry. I missed something. I didn't know I had the governance calendar. You don't you Yeah. Do you want to Okay. Okay. So, um trustees, what you have before you is the governance calendar for this year. Um and since we now have had our um governance elections and we are estab established with where we're moving forward, the calendar just basically delineates um specific dates that things should be happening as it relates to specific district business. So you will see for example um in January we're reviewing the governance calendar um reviewing uh

033the dashboard SARCS the governor's January budgets um in February we have um the district makes decisions about non-reelects for example um the governance calendar includes all aspects of the district's work. So you see that um we have governance team, we have um the LCAP uh setting and direction, we have the student learning, achievement and ed services, we have budget policy, fiscal services, um community relations and advocacy, student presentations, uh programs and reports to the board, student services, special education, English development, innovation and technology and HR personnel and facilities. So all um throughout the calendar are um organized actions and events and things that we need to discuss or review or the district staff will be bringing to you um in many instances for action items. Um also in some instances providing information for you. And

034so if you have any questions um based on the information presented in the calendar um this is a great time for us to for me to respond to them. And then if not um I believe we have to vote on this document. So are there any questions? I'll entertain them for discussion if you have them. Uh, sorry. I had a question about, so the LCAP, if you look, it's like the second row. Uh, in March and April, it's kind of it's the only item that I could see that's like stretched across two months. So, >> first of all, I don't I kind of don't understand what the first part of that is saying. Um, but then also I was going to ask, is this survey data presentation is that going to be on at one

035meeting? Is there going to be like a different one at every meeting? What's [clears throat] the what does that entail? So typically, so um there is a period of time where a survey is pushed out to all stakeholders for them to weigh in on specifics around things that we value that are typically aligned to the mission, vision, values, and goals. Um this every 2year to threeyear review is the district's vision, goals, and focus. And since I am new, um we are continuing with the current goals that are in place. However, um more than likely next year, we'll embark on identifying um updated mission visions and goals that align to where the district wants to see us move forward in the district as well as possibly creating a strategic plan. So, this is the calendar. It

036just kind of helps us. It's a holding space so that we always know that during this specific time we know what we should be focusing on and what we need to do. It's it's very easy to get off track if you don't have it memorialized somewhere. >> Okay. >> Keeps us honest. >> Does that make sense, Matthew? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Do you have any other questions for me? >> This is like very very nitpicky, but I noticed there's like a typo. Uh I it's not like of any consequence. I just wanted to know if you could like fix that really quick right now if that's possible or we have to like bring it up at the next meeting which that's not worth it. I was just thinking like >> no before we publish it

037I mean a roll it out we can make edits. It's always a working doc because the information can be amended or changed if we need to. We just have to bring it back. If we make like we add something to it we need to bring it back to the board for their review and approval. >> Okay. >> So absolutely. Where where is the typo? It's um down in the the second page of the document. It's the student presentation success row. Towards the end of that row, it's uh Indian education, but the C and the U swap places. It's really very minor, but just like >> Okay, we'll make note of that. Thank you. >> Yeah, and I have no other questions besides that. >> Thank you. Any other questions? I I I think you answered

038my question. If this is a living document, so it's possible it could change. Like for example, I know some of these things are um we have deadlines from the state that have to be accomplished, but other things such as the student presentations are just suggestions. Correct. >> That is correct. >> Looks good to me. Any public comment on that or anything discussions? Okay. Do we have a motion? >> I will move to approve the uh governance calendar for 2026. >> I'll second. >> Student rep >> I. >> All those in favor? >> I. So moved. >> Thank you. Okay. Next, we have approval of time and dates of the regular meetings for the calendar year 2026. action item and I believe for Dr. Patrick there are two um dates next year. One is um Memorial

039Day May 25th as a holiday so we need to change that and then we also have Thanksgiving break. Um so I think in the past we've kind of done either the Monday the week before or the week after. Do we have a May calendar that we can put up on the screen or no? Can we put a May calendar on the screen or no? To look at the dates. >> Thank you, Joe. Appreciate that. Okay. So, okay. So, we can either do um I mean sometimes we've done the day after the holiday unless people are going out of town or sometimes we do we could do two backtoback or we can change both and make it May 4th and May 18th. But what because I think May we usually have pretty quite a lot going

040on. So, we need to So, um any suggestions from anybody? Do we know what what day um graduation is this year? >> It's in June. Um >> I did look it up just a Let me see. Graduation is um June 4th is Alhambor High School. [laughter] >> Matthew knows. >> And then yeah, >> he's counting the days. >> Oh yeah, of course he would know that. Of course. Good job, Matthew. I think could because I think last year we had a board meeting that graduation week because there's nothing Monday. Is that what you were getting at? >> Yeah, we did. >> That we could move it to like >> we could do it >> which wasn't necessarily ideal but we did. >> No, we were it was a very busy week. >> Yeah. Because we

041have the other graduations. >> I don't really have a preference on >> I think it had to do too with staff um if they were um able to get information to us for the next if they had enough time in between. the meetings. I mean, do people are you going do you think you're going to go out of town or do you want to just do the Monday before and just do because we've done that before, too, where we've done on the two in a row. Yeah. >> It would be the 11th and the 18th. >> Is April 6th, is that a school day or is that still spring break? It's still spring break. >> It's a It's a non school day. >> School day. >> Yeah. >> I just want I just want you

042to make sure you know there are quite a few things that happen in May, >> right? >> So, um I mean and I'm thinking I'm looking at this as if you know it's not in stone, but there's enough here that I know will definitely happen that is pretty impactful. Um, >> so then I would propose that we do either the uh May 4th and May 18th. >> That's what I was thinking. >> Which would be two meetings in a row from April 27th to the 4th. Or the other option would be the 18th and June 4 and June 1st. But I think that's probably less appealing because the rest of the week we have graduations and then we would have another meeting on June 8th. >> I agree with the first option too. >> The

043fourth and the eth. >> So >> May 4th and May 18th. Yes. I like that. >> 18th. >> I'll go ahead and uh >> we haven't talked about the other one too. >> Oh, >> we still have Thanksgiving. Yep. >> So >> can you put the calendar? Thanks again, Joe. [clears throat] So there we have November 9th and we would do it the 23rd, but that's the Thanksgiving week. So, um, we could do November 2nd, November 16th, but that's also a week in between. So, um, or we can just do November 9th and November 16th. I think that's what we did this year. >> Did we even have much in the calendar that month? >> We didn't, but we should have it on there and then we can always >> Take it off or >>

044you could just add one on, too, if you needed it. >> We could just add one on. Now, >> I I would suggest just having the one in November because it was like we had meeting after meeting that were like hour and a half long. So, I'd rather have one regular three-hour meeting versus two short ones. >> Okay. So, do you want to do you still want to maybe move it then till the 16th just so that it's in the middle of the month so that they're not >> Yeah. >> so far apart in case something happens. And if we need to add one then, you know, >> I mean, I do agree with that. It is hard to add one later to get everyone coordinated, but I do agree that historically we haven't really

045felt like they're quite as jam-packed >> at this time of year. So, I'm I'm okay with whatever everyone wants to do. But just knowing that >> it is hard [clears throat] to coordinate another meeting if we should we need one >> or maybe it's just one really long meeting if we need it to be Did you have something you wanted to say, Matthew? >> This is a separate date, but so there's a meeting that's scheduled to be on October 12th. Um, and that's actually a staff development day. So, I don't know my my uh successor 3-day weekend if we want to change that or if that's okay. I don't know what been done in the past in terms of that. Yeah, I think we've kept it because it's a work day for teachers, but I

046do agree with you that if you have kids in school, it is nice to have that um off, but I think um it was kind of a non-issue for the board. So, um do we have any public comment on that? Any thoughts? No. Okay. Um so, I think we'll probably just leave that one because we don't like to change our board dates if we don't have to. Um, so as far as November, I think we if we're going to just do one I think November 16th, um, just because it's in the middle of the month. Do you have any thoughts on that, Trusty Leal? >> I want to make sure everybody has a chance to talk. >> Yeah. Give that two cents. >> I'm just looking at that and wondering if I I'm looking at

047the 16th, but I'm also thinking I was trying to go backwards and see how long it would be between our last meeting in October, but it looks like it's It's about three weeks. So, I guess we could call an extra meeting if we had to have one >> earlier than that. >> I mean, because we don't meet until December 14th, we could add one or we could I don't know how we want to say we could add it and then take it away later or we could add it provisionally on November 30th, which would still be two weeks. It wouldn't make a backtoback because we don't >> That's good except that we have the conference usually. >> Yeah. This >> But not on Monday. >> No, not on Monday. >> We want to do two.

048>> Oh, that's not a good idea. >> Maybe the two would be the two the second and the 16th and stay away from the holiday and close to the conference. >> You're still um a week apart because the October meeting is a week before the second. So Annie, is what you're saying is have one on the 16th and the 30th and we can just cancel the 30th. >> Yeah. I wonder if there's even one that we write like um if we put it on the governance calendar that says if needed or at and then >> typically if it's scheduled [snorts] >> but if you don't um you can also do if you want to not go as far into the month, you could also do the ninth. The problem is it just leaves a big

049gap. >> She's saying the 9th and the 30th. >> I prefer keeping it the ninth only because people are used to the second and fourth uh Mondays and if we keep the ninth that's the second Monday. It's less change. >> Um I forget what meeting we changed recently and some people didn't realize >> that it was because we had changed the date of the meeting. It was >> So should we add though then November 30th because otherwise you're looking at five weeks five weeks before we have the December meeting. >> I mean I think so I could be wrong but I think what you're referencing is when we had a meeting earlier and then some people were running rushing here because they had like water polo. I think that's what what was the issue wasn't

050that the data changed but I could be wrong. It was recent. So, um, neither of those people Oh, one might be here. >> Put your mic on. >> Your mic. >> Uh, something to consider. Staff is not available to create the agenda. >> So, um, >> for the week of Thanksgiving. Yes, >> they're off. Okay. >> Unless we did it like on the Monday. Are they gone the whole week? You guys are gone the whole week? >> I mean, we could do the agenda on like Tuesday. Right. If >> right Okay, that's what you're saying. >> I I do like I understand I do hear what uh trustee Liala is saying and I also think that because of the holiday that is not something that we have that's something that has precedent when there's a

051holiday weekend that it's sometimes there are months it's not the second and fourth. So for for the purposes of not making it so many weeks between our December and November meeting, if we are thinking we only want one November meeting, I think the 16th makes more sense because it's not quite as long of a gap. >> Yeah, I agree with that too. >> I agree as well. >> Just one meeting on the 16th if we just want one meeting. Otherwise, >> yeah, we just have two short meetings. >> That's fine with me. >> Okay. So, um, who wants to make a motion mentioning all the dates? >> Do we write them all down? I know. I was just thinking the same thing. >> I wrote them down. >> Okay, great. Make a motion, please. >>

052Well, I I hope I can. Um, I make a motion that in May of 2026 that our meeting dates are May 4th and May 18th. and in November of 2026 that we have one single meeting in November which would be the 16th. >> Seconded student rep >> I. >> All those in favor >> I so moved. Oh, that was hard to get that calendar figured out. Okay. All right. Let's see. Okay. Next we have highlights and recognition. Yay. The fun part. Um, Alhambor High School NHS peer tutoring. It says NHS, right? >> Yes. Okay. >> So, that's the National Honor Society. Um, I have the privilege of being the club adviser. My name is Jen Fennel. Um, and I'm going to introduce two of our officers who are going to talk about the peer tutoring

053program that we have. So, um, NHS is a national program. We have four pillars. It's scholarship, service, leadership, and character. We have multiple projects that we do to serve the community. So you see students out and about at all sorts of different community events. Um but our two main onampus ones are peer tutoring and we recently opened a hygiene closet in the counseling office. So those are our main ones on campus. But I'm going to turn it over to our officers who are going to talk about our peer tutoring program which is has been funded this year by MRC which we are very grateful for. Thank you. Hello everyone. My name is Ron McCaulay and I'm the proud president of the Alhhamra National Honor Society chapter. NHS has been active on the Alhhamra campus and

054we have Martinez Refining Company to thank for this program as it would not be possible without their generous donation and support. Our peer tutoring program has been actively going on for two years now and it has already shown significant progress. Just this semester alone, our student volunteer tutors have actively tutored for about 80 hours. We have seen significant improvement in our peers as grades have risen and our feedback has been positive as well as the hours that students have come to us for help. My officers and I will hope to see how this program will continue to grow. thanks to MRC's support. Thank you. >> I have a question for you if >> um you said they've been doing 80 hours. So, do they normally come during access period on Wednesday, Thursdays? Do they come

055before school, after school? I'm just curious when what's the most popular? So our access has actually grown of as in the number of students who have come to us asking for help during their access periods which my other officer will also talk about a little bit. Um but we also are open for peer touring sessions after school on Mondays and Tuesdays and by request during access and lunch. >> Thank you. >> Congratulations on being early accepted to Harvard too. >> Thank you. It's I'm very excited for this next step in my life and I wanted to thank the people are in my life and just give the honor to God. It would not have been possible without him and the people. So, thank you. >> Congratulations on that. >> Hi everybody. Um I'm Anna Messer,

056the secretary of National Honor Society at Alhhamra High School. So, I've been in the club for two years and I have seen so many beneficial changes throughout my time here and especially due to MRC's donation. We've been able to expand tutoring extensively this year. We have added tutoring during access lunch and have continued our afterchool program. Students from all grades now have increased access due to these new opportunities and we have been able to help significantly more students than in previous years. Along with expanding tutoring times, we have also increased access to tutoring for non-English-speaking students, specifically Spanish speakers. We have students translating and assisting uh tutors with helping Spanish speakers as well as utilizing our Spanish for honor students to communicate with them and assist in all different kind of subjects. Um, we have

057also connected with athletics, helping student athletes maintain their GPA eligibility for sports, which has been driving student attendance and helping students across all athletic teams. All these opportunities would not be possible without our student volunteer tutors who have assisted students in many subjects such as math, social studies, science, and even various electives across our campus. All the topics that we tutor in are expanding year after year. Yet, the tutors keep up with it and are able to assist their fellow peers. Overall, peer tutoring has improved so much over the past year. And we want to thank MRC tutors and supporters of the club like Miss Fennel and the school board. Thank you. >> Thank you. And isn't Matthew one of the tutors? >> Yeah, he is. >> Yes, I am. >> That's awesome. So, I

058love that you guys all interact so well together and it's so nice to hear that it's going forward. Do you guys have 11th or because you guys are all seniors. Um you're a senior as well. >> Uh yeah, I am. >> Just my thought. Um so do you have juniors and sophomores that are rising up to take over your responsibilities? >> Um yeah, recently we just elected a new volunteer coordinator and she is a junior and we're also holding elections for other officers next semester. So it's exciting. >> Great. I know people have comments too, but um congratulations on all the hard work and glad it's so successful and that's wonderful that MRC has helped contribute and made that happen. So, thank you for the recognition for them as well. >> Any other comments? >>

059Yeah, I'd just like to say uh great to see you guys. Um it's really cool how we're expanding the program. As I said, I'm a tutor. Uh it's just so so great and I've really seen the impacts. I've tutored kids myself. Uh, and yeah, I just again thank MRC for all these wonderful programs. I know they fund like our mock trial team as well. Um, yeah, just all this amazing stuff. >> So very inspiring what you're doing to help other kids. And it it's more than just helping them keep their grades up. You're really helping them connect and and come to school and feel successful. And you both are incredible speakers. So, I just I was so impressed by the way that you spoke and I could really hear you and you have a lot

060of power. So, um thank you for everything you do. >> Just want to say thank you to all of you that participate in that. You could be doing a lot of different things with your time. So, the fact that you chose to help others speaks a lot about you. Thank you. >> And I love hearing that you're um that you're able to um tutor uh students in in Spanish as well. That's great. So, thank you. Is that everyone? Okay, thanks again for coming. You guys may go if you have homework to do or something, but um thank you for coming by. Next, we have comments from our student representative. Okay, really quick before you guys go again, um I know trusty president just said it, but congrats to Ron early admission to Harvard full ride.

061That's crazy. So cool to see like uh other Alhamra students just like succeeding and you know going out and finding our place in the world. So yeah, congratulations to Ron and let me get started. Okay, Las Hunus Elementary enjoyed a fabulous week of spirit right before Thanksgiving. Thank you to all the families who sent students dressed up every day. Second graders were treated to the Nutcracker Ballet at the Leer Center and they thoroughly enjoyed their day of dressing up for the ballet. Third graders participated in Kids for the Bay walking field trip where they explored our local habitats and learned about their impact in conserving our local environment. Lasus Elementary will will host their annual holiday bullpup store for students to buy special presents for their loved ones on Monday, December 8th. And fifth graders

062at Losas will begin making their fifth grade tiles over the next two Fridays. The Lasus PTA will provide teachers with delicious holiday breakfast treats on December 16th. Thank you to the PTA for always providing for our community. John Mir Elementary celebrated Native American Heritage Month with a toolkit of books and activities provided by the PTA for John Mir teachers. There was an informal there's an informational display by the library and an exciting interactive dance assembly performed by the 7th generation rising dance company. John Mir Elementary's infamous ukulele club will perform for our local convolescent homes. Parents and guardians can be active participants in the fourth grade annual Victorian tea party at John Mir where students dress from the 1830 to 1910s era. TK classes at John Mir are caroling for their parents and volunteer classrooms

063on Friday, December 19th. Spirit week is next week, December 15th through 19th. The TK gingerbread hunt is Thursday, December 11th. At John Sweat Elementary, students are being celebrated as student of the month for showing gratitude around campus. Third graders had a presentation from the Garden Project from the Contraosta Water District. And fifth graders had a hands-on bake forgood session where they all made their own bread from scratch. The John Swed Elementary Winterfest is in the cafeteria from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. And the kindergarten winter single thon is on December 17th at 8:30 a.m. Mel Park Eagles have officially submitted a thousand pieces of art to their school's online art gallery on Art Sonia. On November 20th, Merllo Park's fifth grade class visited Shabbo Space and Science Center and explored. Our students attended a bucket fillers

064assembly right before Thanksgiving break, and it was all about acts of kindness and generosity and how to fill other people's buckets. Mela Park has a gingerbread house night on December 11th. There will be a movie night in the multi-use room. See, it's going to be the Grinch on December 12th. And there's a second grade winter concert on December 16th. And I just like to say I'm coming back after a week of being sick. So I don't really have much to report from between the meetings, but I just want to say I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. And I'm sad this is going to be our last meeting of the semester. So happy holidays to all of you. >> Oh, well, thank you. We're glad you're feeling better and you're able to make it today.

065>> Next, uh we have employee organizational reports. Do we have anybody from MEA? >> Yes. >> Perfect. Hi. So, the Martinez Education Association is hosting a pajama drive and we are collecting um new pajamas for all ages, all sizes. And we are going to be working with Yadira here to donate some to Yadiraa to give to some families within our school district. And then we'll also be donating some to um Christmas for everyone so that everyone can have a nice pair of warm comfortable pajamas. So donations can be dropped off at school's main offices. We do have bins set up and Friday will be the last day for donations. Thank you for your support. Thank you very much. What a worthwhile cause. I love it. Um do we have anybody from uh CSEA? No. Okay.

066Uh, let's see. Comments from the PTA. No. Do we have correspondence? Dr. Patrick? Yes. Um in at towards the end of November, the district received a letter um from the county office of education uh basically regarding our unodudited um actuals and we were found to be in compliance and everything is in good form. So I'm happy to report that. >> Wonderful. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Okay. Next we have public comments. The public may address the board regarding any item within the jurisdiction of the board of education of the Martinez Unified School District. For items on the agenda, the public may comment at the time the board considers the agenda item. For items not on the agenda, the public may comment under public comment. These comments are limited to three minutes each. 20

067minutes have been allocated for this portion of the agenda. Additional time is allowed at the end of the meeting if there was not enough time to speak during public comments. To comply with the Brown Act, the board may listen to comments from speakers, but can neither discuss nor take action on issues presented. Members of the board are very limited in their response to statements or questions by persons commenting on items not on the agenda. Do we have any public comments? Okay, seeing none, um we're moving on to a consent calendar. Do we have any changes to the consent calendar? >> Yes. Um, we are asking to pull item four. >> Okay, thank you. So, I will make a motion to approve the consent calendar as amended, removing item four. >> I'll second. >> Student rep

068>> I. >> All those in favor? >> I I >> Excuse me, Trusty President. I'm sorry. before we vote. Um we also um had to make an adjustment to a contract that was um being presented where all of the information was redacted um by mistake and we have updated copies where we actually unredacted the actual vendor because the vendor's name was redacted. It was um a uh settlement Did didn't we already vote just now? >> Is that >> which the one I asked about? >> Yes. >> So, we'll try this again. Um, I'll make a motion to approve the consent calendar as amended. Removing item >> used. I'm sorry. So, >> the ask is not to remove the item. I'm clarifying for you because the information that normally would not be redacted was redacted on

069the original documentation and it has been corrected but we could not correct it before it came to you because it already had gone out to you. So now we have to do it in open session. >> So do we get to see that? >> Oh, thank you. >> We have it. So we're not taking item four off then. You're >> we are taking item four off. This is a different item. Okay. >> So, if you want to take a moment to look before you vote just to be sure. >> Yeah. So, right. >> Or you can vote it down. You can vote it down and then redo it too >> per Robert's rules. >> Yeah. We're going to um revoke the original approval. Correct. >> And then we will do a new motion. And the

070new motion would be approve the consent calendar as amended removing item number four. And that's the only thing because the other one is already you've given the new document unredacted. >> That's correct. >> Second. >> Student rep >> I. >> All those in favor? >> I so moved. >> Thank you. And we apologize for those changes, but thank you. Let I'd like to make a motion do a fivem minute recess. >> I'll second. >> Student rep. >> I. >> All those in favor? I so moved. Oops. Okay, we're back to our regular meeting. Um, next item up is discussion information items and the first one is 2025 Martinez Unified School District CASP and dashboard results. Um, Amy Espinosa. >> Good evening board members and Superintendent Patrick. Um this evening I'm going to review the CASP

071and dashboard for 2025. Here um are the CASP scores in the three areas of academics that are tested throughout the district. So we have English language arts in the first column, math in the second, and then science in the last. And here what I did was I showed what um our percent was for our meeting and exceeding standards across each of those areas as well as the growth or at this point it's growth. So the growth that we made compared to last year. So you can see here in ELA that Martinez unified um compared to Contraosta County as well as the state of California is above in meeting and exceeding and we had also a greater um percent of growth here with 2%. Then for math, uh you can see that we're above in meeting

072exceeding as well. Um both compared to the county and the state and that we are about in range with the state and county for the amount of growth that we made in math overall. Then for science, uh the same. We continued to be um scoring above the county and state and we did end up with a 3% which was just a little bit above um both the county and state for the CASP for the dashboard. Just a few reminders um because the slides are going to be showing you screenshots throughout. And so here I just want to remind everyone that the dashboard is um to provide parents and educators with meaningful information on school and district progress so that they can participate in decision making. As well I want to uh remind you that there

073are 12 measures of school success. The state measures are the ones that have the gauges and then the local measures are the ones that say standard met. So they don't have the gauges, but there's a narrative that's attached to them. Of the 12 measures, they fall into three main categories, which are academic performance, academic engagement, and um conditions and climate. And I put that on the bottom of each of my slides. So as we go through, you'll know which of the main categories it falls in. I did want to remind you that the gauges are made up of performance is based on two factors. It's the current year data which is our status but and then the difference between the current year and the prior year. As you can see here, we're doing um very

074well with all of our gauges within green and blue with the exception of chronic absenteeism which you know is one of our focus areas for the year. No, you're good. Here, um, go ahead, Joe. [laughter] Sorry. Here we have language arts. Uh, you can see that over on the left hand side is the main gauge, but then the other six show where we are within the equity report. And so, you'll see this on each of the following slides. And then I'll just say a few highlights. So, and you can ask questions um at the end if you have any questions. Here you can see that we had an 8.6 above we were 8.6 points above standard which was an increase of 6.5 points. And so that's with all students. And then below in the equity

075report in each of the colored areas that's where you'll see the corresponding gauge on the right hand side of the screen. So you can see we had one student group within red and that was our homeless students. Our next slide um which is mathematics we did we are 23.5 points below standard but we did have an increase of points which was 4.1. We do have two student groups within the red which is our homeless students and our students with disability. On this slide, I want to also point out that if you see a no performance color, which you can see in the bottom corner there for American Indian, foster youth, and Pacific Islander, that indicates that we did not have um an insize of 30 or more students in that student group. And so that's

076why it's grayed out. Yep. Go to the next one. Again for academic performance we have English learner progress. We are at 57.9% making progress and this is an increase of 7.5%. You can see that there are only two student groups in this area which are our long-term English learners which are within the yellow band and our English learners which are in the green. Just a reminder, um, when myself or Yira have done, um, presentations on ELPAC, this is where we talk about long-term English learners are students that have been, um, deemed an English learner for over a certain amount of days. And so that's why they're in between the two categories there. College and career indicator, we have we're at 50% prepared. This was an increase of 3.2 2% and we have no student groups

077um that fall in the orange or red group. But you can see that we have um student groups within the yellow as well as the green. As you can see, we have a lot more students in the no performance color because these are our students that are only at our high school level. Moving on to academic engagement, we have our chronic chronic absenteeism. Here we have four student groups within the orange. We have African-American, Filipino, homeless, and students with disabilities. We have we're sitting at 10.5% chronically absent and we maintain. So we had a very slight decrease which resulted in a maintained rather than a decrease or an increase. This is one of the um indicators where we want to see a decrease. And then with our graduation rate, we're at 95.1% graduated, which is

078in the blue. You can see we have no student groups in the red or orange. And we continue to have um two student groups in green. Our white student group is the one that is in the yellow. This is also a maintained with our suspension rate. We're moving on to conditions and climate. We have four student groups that in we were in the orange indicator and we did have a small decline of 6. So we're at 3.1% suspended at least one day. Here um we have a few um items that if someone linked onto our dashboard they would see and they're listed asformational purposes. One is science. Um currently we now have a gauge. This is our first year having a gauge for science. And I did put the equity report to the side there

079although it's only forformational. So there's no accountability tied to science at this point. But we did maintain with uh 1.3 1.3 points and we're at 56.8 science points. Science is completely different from u math and English language arts. They're high the highest points you can get in science are 100 and so it has a completely different ranking system than the other two. So it doesn't say from standard like the other two do. And then our teacher assignments is also something that is part of the dashboard. Go ahead. That's it. Questions. Thank you very much for the presentation. Um, can you just clarify teacher assignments 90.8% clear. What does that mean? What is that related to? Janelle might be able to answer this a little bit better, but this indicates that the teachers that are assigned

080are appropriately assigned with their credential based on the class that they're teaching. >> Okay, gotcha. Thank you. That makes sense. >> I don't have any other questions. Does someone Matthew, do you have any questions? >> Nope. >> Okay. Anyone else? Public comment. Well, that was a wonderful presentation. Oh, nope. Annie's got one. >> That's actually a comment, but um I think it's really we know it's been really slowgoing since the pandemic. We know we're still seeing a lot of students who are coming to us behind and struggling. And um I think that something that I see in our community is that we are very much aligned, parents, teachers, staff, and everyone in this room in focusing our priorities on these areas. So, um, just so that the public knows what we've been up to since

081Dr. Patrick has been rapidly onboarded, we've been working, um, with her on her goals, and the goals are very heavily related to exactly this dashboard. So they align with our LCAP, but they're also very specific with reading goals, improving mathematics, reducing chronic absenteeism. And so I think um it's just good to continue seeing and recognizing that I think this is an area that our entire community is really aligned and sees our purpose and is and I think there's hard work happening at every level. So um it is slowgoing and it is frustrating that we don't see enormous changes but I think overall we are seeing some improvements and that's really really positive movement. So that's that's not any one person that's that's across our entire system. I think that's something to be proud of. Thank

082you. Uh next we have review of annual developer fee report regarding accounting of developer fees for 2024 through 2025. Andy Cannon. >> Uh thank you. Uh tonight we are looking at our developer fee report which is done in compliance with government code. It gives us an opportunity to look at the annual um report and what the developer fee shows is it is about any group or individual who wants to either build new residential, build a hospital, build anything within the boundaries of the school district, there is a fee that's assessed. The idea behind the fee is that fee is to help support the increase of usage and the services needed to be able to do our school system. Um, so what you have before you tonight is the report beginning July 1st of 2024 and

083it goes all the way until the end of June 30th, 2025. Um, we have an 180 days after the end of the fiscal year in order to produce this report and that's what's before you. U, this is not the resolution that'll happen in January where we actually rep approve that. This report tonight gives the public an opportunity to see how the public's um funds and fees are being used, both collected and what they go to. So on page two, you're going to see the table that shows what our fees are. Uh we began part of the year in the uh what happens to be the second column. That was our original rate. The board may remember that we had a developer fee study. That developer fee study was done after many of our elementary schools

084were modernized where we added classroom space. So once we did the update, it actually allowed for the community to have a less rate because we were able to house um so many of them are students and we have more space available. So the second rate began in January after the Nexus fee study was adopted and you'll see it's a significant um decrease. So, for families who want to add on an ADU um to their current home or want to build a home, they would be charged that $3.7 per square foot rate. We began at the bottom of that page, you'll [snorts] see that at the beginning of the year for 2024, we started with a balance of about $324,000 and we ended with about $857,000. And then page three, the majority of the revenue that

085we received is from the Denova um homes project which is outside of Mela Park. Um they have about 45 homes that they constructed um during that time period. And so of that total of $537,000 worth of revenue, that single family, which also shows up here to be a about $494,000, uh $423,000 was from the Denova Homes um creations. Um so overall, we collected about $510,000 worth of fees. You see the multifamily, the single family, and the office. And of that dollar amount, we earned almost $25,000 in interest. So, a good year and aptly put um because we do have needs at Mela Park Elementary as the board knows. We talked about construction projects and we have one going forward tonight if the board approves it. Um, and so we hadn't necessarily planned on spending these

086funds on Mela Park, but I think in light of seeing um, the development around there, um, we may be able to use some of our fund 25, which is developer fee funds that'll go into that project. Um, for expenditures, what we have spent um, is very little so far. We have an annual professional legal services. This helps us to um, to keep and maintain um, legally our obligations for developer fees. Um and then page later on page four and some of those questions and we had talked about using this for Alhhamra or from Martinez Junior High School because those are our measure O projects we have going forward but we may add this into um into Mel Park and whatever the case is for next year when we do this report we'll have our spending

087so we should be spending down some of these funds and we'll be able to report the actual projects and how far along they are. Um, we did not have to do any inter fund transfers, no loans during the fiscal year. Um, so this is a fairly clean developers report. Um, I mentioned it already, but you will be um, asked to approve the resolution and that's going to be at the January meeting when we get back from the break. Um, and again, this purpose is that gives the public an opportunity to review the data to ask questions. Um, so no action tonight, but I am happy to entertain any questions you may have about this report. Thank you very much. That's actually a good amount of money for um you said what 55 homes that were

088>> 45. Yes. >> Yeah. That's that's nice. >> So the largest I think the smallest home that was sold there was about $9 to $10,000 in developer fees and the largest one was just shy of $12,000 in developer fees. >> Great. Wonderful. Um do you have any public comments? Yes, sure. And then fill out a form afterwards. Yes. Go ahead. Um, sorry if that went real fast, but I was a little bit confused because I saw that the fees had gone down um from before and that just seems a little bit contradictory given concerns about income. So, I mean, it's great to see that we got this amount, but I'm kind of wondering why we dropped it in the first place. Um, and then, uh, yeah, sorry, I I have one more question, but I

089lost it in my notes. So, but yeah, and I can't answer my my questions directly, but I'm just throwing it out there for a question. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Board questions. What? >> You he can Yeah, go ahead. You can answer real quick. Yeah. >> So, when we did the developer fee study, we hire an agency that looks at um current space, our demographics with the number of students and what we have there. And through kind of a convoluted process why, which is why we pay contractors to do that, they'll come out and say that based on that, they feel as though we would need to increase services by certain amount over the next few years. So they calculate that dollar amount. What happened is as we built Los Hunus, we had

090additional rooms because we left the old admin and two of the classrooms there. As we built John's sweat, we left many classroom facility spaces there for MEIP and other purposes and created a new building with extra class sizes. We went from having less classroom space for this amount of kids to having more classroom space for the same amount of kids. So, in that process, they say the district doesn't need as much money to develop their facilities because you have adequate space to house up to so many kids. So that's it's not our choice. Um to be responsible, you know, to taxpayers, we wouldn't want to gouge anyone, but on the financial side, it benefits us to have a higher rate, but that's not our choice. That's what we're determined by a lot of how the

091state law works and how the vendors figure out that number. >> And that money is restricted. >> Yeah, it is. It's for construction purposes. >> Yeah. So, and we're not obviously running dangerously low on funds for construction, right? >> That's correct. >> Yeah. Yeah, I remember that you told us that last time, but yes, that's a good re reminder for everyone. But yeah, we don't want to gouge our customers. >> You can if you come up to the podium so we can hear it and then yeah, we're going to get public comment before we do our discussion. So yes, >> um I'm Laney Leech. I teach at the junior high school. So on fund 25 the extra development fee like the I guess when you guys go to review um my question would be who's

092going to choose like if Martinez Junior High School needs funding versus maybe the Mela Park needs to I want to know like again what committee does I'm not questioning needs we all have needs but as I'm wondering what committees and what group of people again will make those decisions that's my question >> it's usually facilities committee I can go ahead and answer kind of a combination >> we we don't have a defined process for input necessarily. What we do is we look at our facility master plan and we determine what projects we have there and then we look at the various different sources on how we can fund those projects. We already know that we have more need in our facility master plan than we have with measure O. Um, previously we used fund $25

093to pay for furniture. So the junior high school's furniture was paid out of fund 25 when we only had measure R number. So, we were trying to still be able to do projects but leverage things. Once we got measure O, now we have more funds for the high school and the junior high and we could probably use fund 25 to help supplement because we're almost out of measure R dollars and so we can supplement that project is is kind of the thinking. Um, but if we needed to have more input or other work, we can we can do that at the budget advisory not the facility advisory committee too, we can bring that up. >> Thank you. So, kind of a follow-up question to that though, if we had I mean the developer fees in

094my understanding the primary need would be like if we had an enormous housing development and we had all of a sudden a big influx of students and we didn't have classrooms for those students, it would first be used like if a school had needs that exceeded our current space facility. Is that am I understanding that correctly? Which isn't our situation now. >> Right. I I think that would be prudent in the example you gave. At the same time, it allows the local control to have the flexibility to choose how those dollars would go, which I think is beneficial to us because if you don't have that, you don't want to sit on a pot of money when you have other facility needs. So, the great thing is as long as we are in compliance with

095the law and give this report, we're able to kind of pick and choose how we use the funds. >> Thank you. >> But the in to your point, the funds were brought in by increased housing within a specific area. comments, questions, or discussion? I think that's good. Thank you very much, Andy. Next, we have action item. We have review and adoption of resolution 2026-07, authorized signatures resolution. Dr. Patrick. >> Yes. Thank you, Trusty President. Um, as you know, school districts are required to adopt a new authorized signatures resolution for submission to the California Department of Education at the time of their annual organization meeting um of the board of education. And so the board is being asked to adopt resolution um 2026-07 um to meet this requirement. Okay. And it's basically just saying that you

096guys are authorized to um yourself, Janelle, Ayatt, and Andy Cannon are authorized to um sign and Yep, >> that is correct. Okay, we do this every year. Um do we have any public comment on this? No. Okay. Questions? Okay. Do I have a motion? >> Make a motion to approve resolution 2026-07, authorized signatures resolution. I'll second. >> Student vote >> I. >> All those in favor? >> I. So moved. >> Thank you. >> Next we have our very fun. We love to hear from Andy. We'll do our first interim report. Uh today we present the 202526 first interim report which reflects our district position financially as of October 31st of this year. It began with July 1st and runs all the way until this past October. Um, education code requires that we have two interim

097reports each year to ensure that we can meet our financial obligations um, in the next two subsequent years. So 2026 27 and 2728. And it reserve the first interim is kind of like an early warning system in that it allows us at this stage in the budget to determine can we make um efforts on every one of our goals and projects that we have within that and if not we need to make adjustments. Um so tonight we're going to start first with our assumptions. So each time we bring this forward we have assumptions because you the budget and the way it's set up with the state of California is they don't just give us cash. They make us use different formulas to tell them how much they should owe us and then they check on

098our information at the end of the year and they true it up. So we have to be very cautious about what we put in these assumptions. Um typically school districts will use information from school services of California. Um and so that information you see in front of you, much of it is coming from their dart board. Um when you look at enrollment, you'll notice that we continue to see a decline in enrollment over the next couple of uh years, beginning at 3,828 uh for this year and getting down to under 3,800. So 3,754. Um we have seen that our transitional kindergarten enrollment has now flattened out. We've reached the top of where we are and so we'll be back to declining enrollment. At least that's what our projection is showing at this point. Um for

099funded ADA uh this is the amount uh based on our either our three-year average, last year's average or our current year amount. So you'll see that in kind with our enrollment funded ADA will drop over the next two years. When we go through the budget process, we take an assumption of 94.5% um attendance rates. So that means on any given day, 5.5% of the students are gone. Um right now we are trending higher than that. um as we reach through P1 which is our um our January uh reporting date. So we may be able to see some growth in that. Um ultimately we look at our P2 which is in April and that determines our ADA percentage and overall how much we're going to get for our LCFF projection. Um when we look at cola

100we have a 2.3% cola and then we return back to very favorable colas um at 3% gains. The caveat is that in 2026 27 we're already looking at projections that say that that colon may be reduced down to two or 2.5. So we'll see that as we get to the governor's January budget and see what he um and his colleagues say it's going to be. Overall we look at an LCFF increase because and we'll talk about this at the next slide. We have COLA and then we also have LCF increase and they're not always the same thing. So this year we see an increase of $1.3 million in our major revenue source and then steady increases over the next two years. Inflation is is starting to go down or at least it's trending that way

101up from at a point of 3.1% all the way down to 2.72 in the second year out. Stirs employer rates they stay the same statutoily they cannot increase over 19.1%. Um PERS small increases up to 27.8 8. And the real unknown is um health and welfare increases. This year it was favorable. We only saw a 5% increase. We generally budget for this 8% that you see in the next two years, which is a possible savings for us if health costs do not increase next year. And that's not something we choose. That's based on the CalPERS rate. But 8% is a better figure and we'll adjust down if if it works out that way. So again, looking at an enrollment projection, this chart gives you a chance to see it in a little bit different light.

102Um, again, we look at declining enrollment all the way through 2728. Um, you'll see this chart represents that enrollment to ADA percentage, the dark blue being enrollment, the yellow being the actual ADA. Um and what's what's great in here is from 22 23 all the way up until um this year you see an increase in enrollment. That increase in enrollment is from having almost no kids at the age level for TK up to now maximizing it out. Um this year we have 224 kids in TK and we believe that should be about our average going forward. Um and so now declining enrollment is back um in in our eyesight. Um, and you can see that from the chart, that steady increase up and now you're heading back down into the 27 28 uh year. So,

103as we kind of build on this concept of declining enrollment, I want to put in the perspective how COLA and LCFF work together. So, if you look at the 23 24 year, a very healthy cola of 8.2% 2% which related to our LCF increase of 4.75. So what was the difference? Declining enrollment. So as our number of students decreased, the COLA was only applied to the amount per funding per student. So if you lose student funding, then you don't have as high of an LCFF increase. Last year was a particularly difficult year. As many of you know, as we were going through the process, we had a very small cola of 1% which actually meant that we had almost a 3% decrease in revenue. So, we really struggled hard there. We had to look at

104a lot of different reductions which this board was a part of um in order to be able to maintain the academic programs we had as best as we could. Again, looking at this year, we see a little bit different of a perspective. We have a larger cola, 2.3% and we have a larger increase of 3%. But I want to highlight the fact that you go from losing $1.3 million to increasing by $1.34 million. So you kind of cancel out those years and because one way you can look at it is we went down and then increased or you can say that we went flat on average over that two-year span. So we have not regained um we've just just regained the ground that we lost from last year in terms of LCFF funding. Future years

105you see the COLA 3 and 3.42 and then the corresponding closer to those numbers 2.8 and 2.9 LCFF increase and these are based on our LCFF calculator which is a tool that was put out by FICMAT and that allows us to determine what our revenue is over the multiple years. So we use one tool we don't guesstimate on this. We put in our assumptions and the calculator spits out what these values are. Another way to graphically represent the LCFF and the COLA is you'll see this great increase through 2324 the 2425 year where we lost and then we see um the prospects of a steady increase over the next few years. And that upward trending line is what we want to see because we want to see growth in our revenue which allows us to

106maintain um our services and to be able to absorb any of the cost of living increases and other programs because um contracts, services, insurance, all of our things that we spend money on, they go up every year. And so this helps us to be able to maintain those service levels. So getting into the the actual aspects of our budget for this year, our local control funding sources, we'll see a 1% decrease and that's because we expected a little bit higher enrollment at the beginning of the year. We didn't have our kinder numbers turn out in the way in which we did. Federal government stays flat. Other state you see a 1% um increase there and that's by our one-time block grants that we received. Um, so we were we received full funding for our learning

107recovery emergency school block grant that the state had held on to for a couple years and our new student support services block grant, but it is also offset by the fact that our afterchool program dollars, we are not getting as much per pupil at this point as we did last year. Last year they gave us an extra chunk of money. Um, so overall that's a 1% um increase. Other local we've seen that our um a couple of things happened here that increase this amount. We've increased by $200,000 in our projected interest on our reserve account. Um, we have started a pay for services for the afterchool program and that's about $300,000. We also have used a level up grant that Helen Rossy, the former superintendent um got for the school district and we've spent um

108almost $100,000 of that. And then we had an antibbias grant which we did not put in the budget yet because we're still working on what that program looked like by coordinator Zahada. Um and since that time we have now budgeted that for services. So that's another $100,000 that we end up putting into the budget. All told we are 2% increase in our revenue for all of those things that are just described. for expenditures. Um, as you go down, our salaries have decreased slightly. Um, much of that is due to unfilled vacancies and other support needs that we've had. So, the alternative side of that is we've had a decrease in salaries and we've had an increase in services. Those services of 7.1% also include um some of our special education costs which have grown um

109considerably. about $300,000 more in non-public school costs than what we had anticipated for that. And then other services through there. Um our books and supplies, that's a larger percentage, 6.4, but it's a smaller amount. You're looking at less than $70,000 increase there. For other outgo, this represents our county um tuition for our special education students. We have less kids attending county programs. So, you'll see that 10% deduction there. And then indirect cost is the amount that we charge for our restricted accounts for services and we transfer that over into the unrestricted side. Um in total we have right at 02% increase. So we're pretty much flat with our expenditures from where we expected in the multi-year um view. Um what we look at here is you want to take your revenues minus your expenditures and

110that tells you how much your deficit spending. So in the case of this year for both our unrestricted and restricted accounts, we are planning to deficit spend by almost $2.8 million. In 2627 and 2728, we've already assumed that we are going to make approximately $2 million worth in cuts. And so you'll see that that deficit spending amount is going to go down to 1.8 million in 2627 and to 1.7 million in 2728. So even with cuts of $2 million, we will continue to deficit spent. Um but again, some of that is known because you do have restricted dollars that you have to spend them down. Um and so we'll we'll show that a little bit about how that gets broken down shortly. Um when you look at our beginning balance this year, both unrestricted and

111restricted, it's just short of $10 million, 9.16. Go to the bottom right hand corner. You'll see that with all the deficit spending and everything we planned, including $2 million worth of cuts, we have 200, apologize, we have we're looking to see only $26,000 above our reserve. So, I wanted to start at that kind of move to that bottom corner and then work our way back up. $26,000 above the reserve of 1.95. So, what that means is that we are dangerously close to falling below our statutory requirement. Now, that is not to say that you can't do things about that. That's why we're going to be going through a process of talking about reductions. The board may choose to go with more reductions than $2 million or less, but it will have an impact on that

112bottom right hand corner of $26,000. We have to keep that above zero. So, as we look ahead, that means that our reserve is almost $2 million that we have to protect. Um, and that's in the unrestricted account. If you go up and you'll say, well, why does it say $2.92 million in ending balance? That's because it's both restricted and unrestricted. So, of that ending balance, you have about a million dollars left. So, next slide. We do have other accounts besides fund one because we spent the majority of the time there. Um, we have very healthy uh accounts in fund 8, which is our associated school body account, $365,000. Adult Ed has a sizable balance, 1.2 million. I'm always happy to see fund 13 in positive because that means that we are not contributing to the

113cafeteria fund. They are self- sustaining and doing well and holding at that $570,000 mark. are post-employment benefits. This is an extra amount that the board years ago put into the account and it's almost $800,000 sitting in that account that hedges against um dramatic increases in retiree benefits for those that have retired from the district until they reach the age of 65 where they can u become eligible for Medicare. Um our building fund because we sold u one of our three bonds for measure O is sitting at almost $28 million. We're starting to spend that with projects. Um now um our capital facilities fund fund 25 which we just talked about $965,000 is what we expect at the end of the year. Uh fund 35 another sizable. So when we talk about this district has positioned

114itself well for modernization and facility work. These are all evidence to that fact. Um fund 40 um will sit there. That's anything that we've sold for um property that we sold and that's almost $600,000. Fund 51 is used to pay down the bond interest that we have on measure K, measure R, and measure O now. And then fund 73 is our um our trust accounts, our scholarships that our high school seniors um get as they go on to college. So with all of this uh in its current state, we are able to say that we will meet a positive certification for the first interim. Again, that means that we have enough funds to cover all of our obligations for this year and the next two fiscal years. Um we do have uh some things ahead

115that we have to deal with and the first one and we've sp spoken about this many times and I'll continue speaking about it is deficit spending. Um we do want to reduce our deficit spending to the point where we could actually restore our reserve amount. Just right now $2 million is our 3% reserve give or take. Uh but that is not enough to cover payroll for one month. So we do put ourselves in a tough position um when we do not have sizable reserves. We do have expiring block grants. Um the art music instructional materials block grant will be completed this year. Learning recovery emergency school block grant will also um end this year for funding purposes. And we have upcoming costs for our curriculum um for math adoption and in the next few years

116possibly English adoption which will take up most of our student support block grant or possibly other funding sources. Um so we're starting to see closer and closer to the end of those. As always, special education is a program that we absolutely need and we want to support kids and it also is very expensive and it is not funded by the federal government at the rate in which it was ever intended to be. So, we have to make up the difference. And those contributions continue to grow with non-public school cost, contracted services, and other things to be able to support the kids and the staff in those programs. And then lastly, with collective bargaining, um, as you've heard tonight, we have not settled with our labor partners on that yet. And those will have an impact

117on the budget um, with whatever is decided. I put this slide in every time. So this is what you have to look forward to with fiscal reports. The next one will be our second interim and that will be um in March and that should say 25 26 second interum. So I apologize I missed that. Um budget will be in June 45day revise and then unodudited actuals and we'll be back here again in December of 206 for the first interim of the following year. And I think with that I'm open to questions. >> Thank you very much. Very um good presentation. Before we get into board discussion, do we have any public comments? I'm Laney Leech. I teach at the junior high school. Um the question I have I think currently there are contracted teachers um

118that we've employed. I just want to know the number of contracted teachers were we've employed. They're not MEA members. I'm curious. I want the I want to know who they get full benefits. I just got this information just recently and I was unaware that we had hired contract contracted teachers because we were not able to full to hire those positions on their own. So like we were missing a math teacher here or a science teacher here and so the district has had to hire contracted teachers because we've needed people in the classroom. So I just want to know how many we currently have. >> Okay. Um, do you guys want to ask questions first? I have some questions, too. But, um, actually hers are kind of very similar to mine. Um, the Let's see. Where

119is it? What page? I'm looking for it. Sorry. Where is it? Oh my gosh. Okay. Yeah. So, under services, um, the adopted budget was 10 million. the first interm was 11 million, but um I did want to know also um I'm assuming most of that is teachers or for special ed and I just wanted to find out um or just kind of throw out there does it also I mean what all does it include? Can we hire them directly so that we pay them less? And I am surprised that we pay their benefits. I if that if that's the case or not or if that's that's not I didn't think so. um because they get benefits from whoever um the company that we contracted with. But um I am curious uh I know we've talked

120we've heard a lot about um if we can get teachers to uh teach here or do um interns here and then kind of get them hired. Um, so I'm just trying to figure out how if there's something we can do to get more because So just give me I guess basically tell me what is all in there. Is there a lot of teachers in there and are they specialed which I know is specialized or are they credentialed teachers or what categories are we needing to do? I'll let Andy answer the detailed questions, but to answer Lane's question and what you're getting out as well, we have one contracted teacher who is a special education teacher at the junior high school. >> So, not much at all. And we do not pay >> I didn't think

121we paid benefits. I was very surprised about that. So, good to know. But what else do we have in there? I mean, do we have um So, yeah, tell me what else we have in that services. >> That's a very broad category. And I probably would take a long time to go through that. Um, I can do one of two things. If you have maybe specific like you did the example of the contracted teacher, I can help with that. Um, but if you have other questions, it might be easier for me to if you have specific to follow up with you at the board report. >> I can do that update. >> I I will that's fine. I will do that. Yes. Uh but overall u many of our services and restricted is going to

122special education services many of for like non-public school or non-public agencies. Um other examples is our speech and language pathologists which we have a hard time um recruiting and finding those which everybody does in California. Um and so we have to contract out those services. Um, there are things like insurance, for example, cost us about $700,000 a year for property and liability insurance. Our PG&E bills cost us um, you know, $700,000 a year. U, water, sewer, um, there's so many things that, you know, many people do with their own homes that goes into that contracted services um, category. >> So, this isn't paying for like crossing guards or >> It is crossing guards come out of here. That's about $160,000 for our six crossing guards currently. And then the city, >> you know, gave us

123a money for a seventh for the junior high school. So yeah, anything that isn't So generally we look at it, your books and supplies or your 4,000 series is things you can physically touch that you buy that isn't staff. Your 5000s are anything you can't touch that are services. Um, where you get into a little bit of differences sometimes is if you have a physical textbook, that would go into books and supplies. If you have an electronic textbook, it would go into services because you don't touch it. That's the most general way to look at it. >> Um, and just crossing guards in general. I guess that's not a high dollar amount, but um, that would be something I'm curious if we could hire or get people to um, because used to be the crossing

124guards would just do it. It would be like parents or and it would still be I'm just curious what the cost is of that if that's a substantial amount or if it's a small amount. You probably don't know off the top of your head. So you can tell me in the weekly update. >> I can say when we overall when we look at doing things for services, you look at can you sustain things and what is the difficulty a lot of times um the agency that everybody contracts with around here that's what they do and so it' be much harder for us to find and to fill and to maintain those positions. And so it is beneficial for us sometimes to pay a little bit more because we're they know what they're doing and it's

125a specialty on their part. >> Yep. I just wanted to make sure that the public knew too that we were actually looking at things critically and and not fluffing money out there. So, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Other board questions. >> Yeah. So, just to touch on that. So, what I hear is that the first option obviously if it's something we're going to have long term is that we try to hire and if we're not then we have to contract it out because we have to have the position filled. Correct. >> That's correct. So when I bring the budget in June, we make the assumption that we're going to fill all the positions and we then backtrack from there if we're not able to fill through the summer hiring season. And then we

126work with a lot of times u Matthew Jensen will be the one that's helping with setting up those contracts if it's sped related or um Janelle will be working with it if it's non-sped related and we all come together and do that and anytime we have a contract for those things it comes to the board. So that's on the consent calendar and we make a very um strong effort to put everything on there even sometimes the zero dollar amounts for contracted services so that the board and the public is aware of what we're doing in the district. >> Great. And then um at what point do you find out like what our health care costs are going to be for the following year? >> Well, we have to budget in June and we find out

127in July. >> Oh, okay. So your 8% is just an estimate based on like trends or what you're hearing or >> Yes, it it is. Um and then we make adjustments accordingly when we get it out. So last year um we were able to save money. So if you look at the benefits section of that 1.4 most of that 1.4% drop is because we came in at a lower rate which was the 5% for health increase. So even if we have a let's say the reduced amount of 2.5 C cola for next year with higher insurance workers comp health and wellness declining enrollment we're pretty much just just float. >> Yes we it puts us in a pre precarious situation and we would have to make other adjustments. The lever of action is to look

128at future years. So if let's say that spending is projected to be more than what we have in 2627 that would mean that by 2728 we have to already start looking at deeper reductions or increased revenues from some sort. So we have the ability to do it in the third year but we usually like to make those reductions in the second year so that we don't have to wait too long um for the things that you just described because there can be fluctuations in expenditures and cost. And then the one last thing which I'm I'm not sure how much that affects us or not but obviously with inflation coming down the amount of interest that we get on money that sits usually goes down as well. Have you that? >> It is but it's hard

129to it's hard to budget that because you you don't know what it is. We look at our trends and averages and we try to be conservative there. I believe last year we were somewhere in the neighborhood of $400,000 in interest. This year we're projecting 300. Um, it could go up or down depending on the markets. Thank you. >> Questions. I just wanted to clarify what I'm hearing you say is the the biggest reasons why um the expenditures or the expenditures are increasing is the special ed education costs increase declining enrollment and also the the block grants that are now expiring and being so basically the state said here's extra money do some nice things for your kids but you only get to do it for a couple years and now you don't get to do

130it anymore. >> Absolutely. Um the impetus was on a lot of the block grants to hire additional staff to support learning loss and the programs that are necessary to help kids transition out of the COVID um period. U but when you do that, that means that then those positions go away without additional funding. So exactly what you described and it's putting us in that really tough spot. [clears throat] >> Thank you. Just to add on to that, the only thing that I think that would be missing from that is the what year would it be? The um some of the raises between was it be 2023 2024 spilled over or now? >> They're all factored within the budget. Um but over the last, you know, few years, I think we've had a 26% cumulative increase

131across all the bargaining units um and administrators. So across the district, we've had healthy raises for the last few years. >> Okay. >> Matthew, did you have anything you wanted to add? No. >> No. >> Okay. Um the only thing I'm just going to throw out there, it's not related to this particularly, but um the biggest change that we can do to get more money is to write letters to your congressman, to your senator, to everybody governor because there's a governor race. um because enrollment if we could get um instead of having funded by ADA get funded on enrollment we would be in a much better position. So um I know you guys MEA and different unions do letterw writing campaigns but that might be something that um you know everyone in general if we

132write more letters maybe that can change and that would be a big help to the situation. So I'm throwing out an idea out there. Um, okay. >> And Candy, I just um wanted to know, can you tell us for every 1% we drop chronic absenteeism, maybe a dollar amount. I think you had that somewhere. And I, >> you know, I do. I'll I'll give it a different way is when we calculate our LCFF funds, it's about $70 a day when a kid is absent. And so you can look at that. Um, and then for those of you who haven't, if you go on to the um the board documents there, I do an executive summary. So, if you want to know more, there's more detail in there. The the PowerPoint is kind of quick and

133and down and dirty. And then the executive summary has a lot of narrative and some other charts and information in there, too, if you ever want additional information. Well, and something I was I was I'm going to talk more about this when we do our board reports um because um we of course talked about funding at our CSBA conference and every like maybe once or twice a year I get on my funding soap box and talk about how unfair it is how California funds it schools. But one thing I learned is that TK and kindergarten are part of our ADA, but they are not required students are not required to attend TK or kindergarten. So, we're basically penalized if a student in TK or kindergarten doesn't attend. And I'm sure parents don't know that because

134if I had a four-year-old and you, you know, wanted to go to the zoo or something, I would, you know, they're not required to be there, so why not go to the zoo? But then the school is penalized for that. So, another fun thing California does. Okay. Uh, next we have um RFP26-01 Mela Park Elementary School TK building project in Alhambor High School new gymnasium as well as a resolution. Andy Cannon, >> thank you for having me back. U we had a request for proposals that went out in September of this year. That RFP closed on November 12th and what you have before you tonight is the results of that RFP for a design build project which includes the high school gymnasium and two new classrooms at Mela Park Elementary School. Um so for those

135that that don't know a design build project means that the district hires a team construction management team the architect and they create bridging documents which is the outline and requirement for a project. Um they take those bridging documents we put it out in an RFP and then we see who is going to bid on that. It's up to the contractor to put all of that together as long as they meet our requirements. It includes the contractor going to the division of state architects and getting everything um approved by the state before completing the project. Um so for this RFP we had three bids submitted. Um and you can see that on the scoring document that's listed there. Um we had JL Construction, ORA and RHDAN builders. We went through a process according to the rubric

136to score u with the highest um highest pointed item being price followed by schedule and then we had technical design and construction building systems life cost. We did not do an interview. Um, when we had these sealed bids, sealed bids delivered and opened, we found that three were responsive. And so those you see the results there with the lowest responsive bidder being ORA at just under $13 million for the project. Um so we are um asking um the board to approve both the resolution to award the contract to ORA and the contract that's associated with it tonight. Um and just for reference, ORA is the agency that built John Sweat Elementary School and also um Losas. >> Thank you. Do we have public comment? Okay. >> Okay. >> Sorry. I was just My name is

137Alexis Brown. I'm I'm a special education teacher at the high school and I was just curious about Mel. I live pretty much across the street from it and I saw the development of it in the last several years. And um if the TK enrollment is bottoming out, I'm just curious as to the funds going towards a TK building and what they're currently using right now. I hate to get in the habit of answering all these questions, so I think I'm going to we've answered all the other ones today, so we will answer this one as well. But in the future, we will not answer questions from public comment. So Andy, go ahead and answer if you don't mind. >> Yes, we currently are undersized for TK and K classrooms at Mela Park, meaning that we

138have kindergarten classrooms that have rooms that currently don't have a bathroom with inside the facility. We actually had to install an exterior door at the old kinder wing so that the other classrooms can go in through a door, not disturb those classes, and get to the bathroom spaces. So we have adequate classroom space. If it was first through fifth, we do not have adequate TK kinder classroom space. So this allows us to do that. If we ever got into a situation where our Mela Park TK and kinder numbers were to be reduced and such that we don't need those spaces, the location of that building will be on the side of the campus and we could always rent it out to other users like Woodbridge or other groups. So down the road we have a

139revenue generating plan if we don't have revenue coming in for kids attending um the school because of enrollment. >> Thank you. And that goes into great planning. I'm sure um Helen Rossy was part of that. >> Absolutely. She was [laughter] >> kudos to her. Um board questions, comments. just um one about ORA and uh correct me if I'm wrong, but the projects we've had with them before, we've felt like on time, on budget, it's been a pretty successful partnership. >> Thank you for bringing that up. Um yes, um under our project labor agreement, we have had success. Ora in both of its projects did come in on time and they gave uh a reductive change order, meaning that we actually saved money. they did not spend all of the allocation that we put inside. So

140I think there's great merit in in moving forward with that if that trend holds. >> Any other questions, comments? >> I'm just glad that we have experience with them. That was one of the questions I asked you. Um because I think that their track record is good. Um so very positive. >> Yeah. And just to speak to that, also put in there that that they are more of a local company. So they they have headquarters just right around the corner from us. >> Wonderful. Okay. Do we have a motion? >> I will move to I'm not quite sure how to word it. Um move to approve RFP number 2601. Does that accomplish what we need? >> 26-01. >> And is there a resolution with that? Is that >> it's at the bottom >> part of

141it? That's what that is. Okay. All right, just >> second. >> Student rep >> I. >> All those in favor? >> I so moved. And then my apologies. I did not vote on the first interim report. So, um, going back to that item, can I have a motion? >> I make a motion to accept the first interim report from Andy. >> Student rep, >> I. >> All those in favor? >> I so moved. Apologies about that. Okay, so we're getting to the final stretch here. Um, superintendent report. >> All right. Thank you, Trusty President. Um, I just want to say we are clearly aligned in our efforts and many of your comments kind of eclipse my report, but I'm going to still share because I think it's important. Um but before I get started, I

142would like to say that um MUSD uh celebrates our diverse cultural and religious celebrations. And so I'd like to extend a merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and Kanza. All right, [sighs] so I'm going to try to get through this. As you can probably hear, I have a little bit of a cold and I apologize. Um, I'm going to jump through it as quickly as possible, but I wanted to share that I was very privileged to attend my first California School Boards Association conference um, as a superintendent with the board and um, it was just a really for me being a new superintendent, it was a very informative um, experience. I um tried to think about things that really were applicable to our district. So, not just randomly going into sessions, but really spending time looking at

143what sessions were talking about things that we're grappling with in our own district. So, um I attended a session that was focused on fiscal challenges for California school districts. And I want to just put my first few points into context and then I'm going to give you a quick overview. Um I'll also highlight some key factors that I think um contribute to the fiscal strain based on what was shared. Um also discussing some central themes um and then a closing message. So, one of the things that was discussed in the session was that school districts across California are grappling with serious fiscal issues. It doesn't matter the size of the district. It doesn't matter um you know if you're rural, small, mediumsiz, large, urban, it does not matter basic aid or if you um have

144a significant population of unduplicated students. We are all grappling with fiscal challenges and it's all relative to wherever you are. Everyone experiences it based on just the needs of their their specific district. There are a coalition of educators including both classified and certificated um employees that are actively advocating for solutions um to address some of these concerns. Um on the panel were superintendent was an uh education educational director and a CSEA leader. The focus was identifying um and discussing challenges impacting public education funding. Um and we discussed the key factors that contributed to the financial strain. So you don't really hear a lot about this. You know, everybody talks about declining enrollment, but declining enrollment is occurring also because of population declines. So, there are a million people that have left the state of California

145in the last five or so years that impacts enrollment in schools. That's that's a significant impact. As a result of that, that has affected um the gross domestic product uh in terms of allocation to education. It's dropped from 4% to 3.2%. Um so we know that Proposition 98 it's it's widely seen as insufficient. It is not meeting our current needs. Um but what was interesting was to trustee president's point is you know we focus on um and we're compensated for ADA but not really for enrollment um and so you can have a certain percentage of students that are actually an actual number of students that are enrolled but you're only being funded for those students that attend school. Um, so that right there is flawed. That is not a sufficient way to fund public education.

146And so we really need to organize around advocating for public school funding to shift because the manner in which we're doing it is just wrong. similar to trustee um Courtney's position that the information she shared that you don't require TK and kinder students to come to school and so okay when we see high chronic absenteeism it's because we it it's it's the message is not sent to families and community that it's important for them to be present. So again, it puts the burden on school districts to have to go out there and work with families and educate them and you know really uh remind them of the importance of t attending school when that should also be coming from the state. If you want us to provide educational opportunities for these groups then we need

147to make sure that everyone understands how important it is for them to attend school. Um, so chronic absenteeism is a big issue. It causes significant decline in funding. And I think that our CBO had a really good presentation that he gave throughout the the district talking about the impact on lost dollars when students are chronically absent and how it's really hard for dis for districts to recover from that lost funding. And so that is also a big issue. So some of the things that the panel floated some ideas around addressing this issue was really um I liked it and that was a proposal to increase base funding. So, you know how we have our unduplicated students and um you know we have okay we're going to give our concentration and supplemental funds but the base

148is you know not it's it's it's given us a a specific amount but if all of that funding just went to the base then you can meet the needs of all of the students as opposed to having these restricted dollars that can only be used for certain purposes. is um as well as we discuss shifting perceptions about attendance because the way in which school systems are funded, it appears that it is not costly to educate students that don't come to school. Well, CBO just shared every time a child is absent, that's $70 a day. So, it is costly to educate students that don't attend school. and it has a significant impact on our budget. Um it's so interesting how we were all aligned in our comments. And lastly, there are multi-tiered um systems of approach.

149Um we need to continue to look at innovative strategies to promote and help increase attendance. That is where we will see revenue enhancement by increasing our attendance. We have to work with what we have until things change. Attendance is really important. So, we have to really focus on increasing our attendance. And lastly, I was very encouraged because the coalition will continue to advocate for fiscal reforms. Um, and the panelist said something that really resonated with me. What we measure and monitor gets done. So we have to be very intentional about how we address these attendance challenges and our fiscal challenges and really monitor and measure what we are doing because that is where we're going to see um improvement and make some significant changes. And this concludes my report. Thank you very much. >> Thank

150you very much, Dr. Patrick. Courtney, do you want to start us? Board reports. Thank you. >> Yeah, I mean, we are kind of enlined in our comments because I I'm I'm going to cut down what I was going to say a lot because you covered a lot of it. No, that's okay. Um it doesn't well it might actually it might bear repeating but um uh yeah I mean we've talked about this before in these meetings how enrollmentbased funding would be a lot better for all our students all of our educators um everybody if uh this the state got rid of this wacky ADA formula that it has. Um, I did a little research and it kind of depends what source you look at, but kind of the theme is that basically, you know, we live

151in I think California is ranked like fifth in GDP like in the world with other countries. Um, and if you drive down the peninsula, is it is it higher than that? Lower than that? Somewhere around >> fourth. Okay. Um, you know, you drive down the peninsula, like a half an hour, 45 minutes from here, and there's just miles and miles and miles of these big tech billionaire companies. Um, it's and yet we, if you do some research, our per pupil spending is ranked somewhere around 16th in the country. And if you adjust adjust for the cost of living in California, it's around 30th. Um it's just kind of it sucks. Um and so I understand, you know, nobody wants cuts. Gosh, we we don't we want we want to give as much as we can

152to our students and we sort of are in this spot where we have very little control over how much money comes into our schools. Um and it's clearly not enough. And we're in this position every year and it sucks. And um I agree with the advocating. When you talk to our state legislators, legislators, they really don't understand how it works. And I don't blame them. Like it's very complicated. I only, you know, I don't understand it as well as Andy or maybe Dr. Patrick. I understand it a little because I've done a lot of reading on it, a lot of seminars. Um these people don't get it. They're only going to get it if we explain it to them. And um the letterw writing campaign I think is a great idea. I try to talk

153to people, you know, we we do have the privilege of seeing some of these people out at events. Um and sometimes, not very often, but sometimes they call us or email us for our opinion on stuff. Um I think it's our responsibility to try to get in front of them and explain it to them as much as we can. Uh but um constituents, voters, you're really who they care about. Um so I hope you will do it too. And um I know CSBA does have a sample resolution that they are asking school districts to pass to um encourage the state to change the funding formula. So I think that's something we should talk about at a future meeting. That's all. Thank you. Well, I think you guys have said a lot. Um, there's not much

154left to say. I did find the general session was very um depressing. Um, I I actually had to force myself to stay in it. Um, what they told us is is depressing. And I think that um some of the some of the courses that I went to talked about chronic absenteeism, which even if we go full force and we correct that problem, which we should because those are the kids that we're also seeing struggling in school are the same kids that are chronically absent. So, we really help ourselves by really focusing on that and figuring out how we're going to get those kids to school. We can't teach them if they're not here. They're falling behind. Um, I did find it very helpful also to listen to how other districts are solving problems and um,

155there was a district that talked about math proficiency and how much um, they have the huge gains that they've made. And so um, I think part of that is we have to look to people who are doing things differently maybe than we are and see if that if that can help us um, do better. Um, and I think I think that's it because you've you've covered it and like I said, it's it's depressing. So, um, I do want to make one more comment and that is that we are going to be in a crisis. We're already in a crisis where we cannot hire people to do the job of taking care of our children and teaching our children. and to continue to devalue education and to not fund it is going to cause us not

156to be able to hire anybody. There's not simply not going to be the professionals out there to do the job when we constantly balance our budget on the heads of our employees on our workforce. Um it's it's simply not fair. And that's always where we look to come up with money is how can we how can we do less for the people that do so much for us and our kids. So that's >> uh I won't talk about the conference. We were all there. Um but some great class uh uh classes, a lot of good networking, an opportunity to spend time with trustees uh and the superintendent. Um, I just want to let people know that there's a winter concert for Martinez Junior High School, uh, 129 from 6:30 to 7:30. And then there's a

157second one, uh, two different times, 5:30, uh, the next day on 12:10. Um, then, sorry, the first one is the orchestra and then on the 10th, it's the band. There's 5:30 to 6:30 and 7 to 8:15 at the auditorium. It's free. Um, there's also the winter concert on the 11th. Uh, and that's Alhamra High School from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. And I also had the opportunity um, one of the things that we talked in the uh, city council joint um, school board meeting was trying to cross over and they were kind enough to invite us uh, to walk in the lights parade and uh, that was a first and it was very exciting. a lot of families out there. Tons I mean I don't even know how many thousands of people. So uh we

158were very appreciative for their invite and be able to uh participate. So I will jump on the ADA bandwagon. I have a slightly different tack and I just think that something that happens when we talk about ADA and when we talk about the cost of a child coming to school which we have to do because we have to make a budget. So, no one in this room is doing anything wrong, but our kids, our learners are not a dollar amount. They're people. And sometimes they're sick and sometimes they need to stay home and re recover. And we give that grace to adults and our own staff. We understand that. I think we saw a really like a slight glimmer of hope in this area during CO and then we have all forgotten about that. Um,

159and so I think that because of that, we can't differentiate between someone who's chronically absent because of factors that are happening that maybe they don't want to come to school, maybe they have a family situation that makes it difficult, and just a child who got hit really hard with the flu and missed a week of school. And so, so I'm of course a huge advocate for enrollment funding versus ADA. Um, CSBA does have that stance, the California Schoolboard Association, but I believe also that CTA and CSEA also have that stance. And I have seen this community come together. I have seen our staff. I've seen our parents when there is an issue that matters. And I really do think that our voices can do a lot in this. I saw I really saw it being

160talked about at at the CSBA conference in a way that I have not seen in previous years. It was really a throughine in a lot of sessions. And so I think we have an opportunity here to use and leverage our organizations which already have a lot of lobbying power in Sacramento to continue this conversation at the forefront because this is not a Martinez only issue. This is statewide and I think it's really about educating our families. Of course, we are all everyone in this room understands how important it is for our kids to be at school. They can't learn if they're not in school. And also, we have to be able to have an education piece to families about how does it impact when you go on a trip versus how does it impact your

161child if you send them to school when they're sick just because you don't want them to miss a day of school. There has to be a balance and I think we have to have faith that people can understand that and can can recognize and differentiate and do the right thing for their families. Um and our every other student shouldn't suffer because of those decisions. So um so I really like that we're we're seeing that and I think we have an opportunity to have a collective voice here. Um, another session I attended that has been of interest to me is how a lot of the things that are rapidly changing at the federal level are going to be impacting the local level. Um, it was put on by a panel of attorneys. I don't know that

162they had all the answers and they even said things are rapidly changing so what we say today might not be what is the reality tomorrow. But I think they gave a lot of really good um analogies and ways to think about just processing that information and how we can ensure that we're in compliance with ED code and also continuing to receive our federal funding. So that was interesting and also sort of depressing, but I felt like I had a better handle on it after I went. So I was glad I went to that session. >> Okay. So, we've been talking a lot about um usually we do the uh CSBA conference um updates I think in January, but um we're doing them all here now. So, uh yes, I thought the sessions were great. The

163general session was well. I was going to ask Matthew, you went the first day, right? >> No, that was during my week out sick. I was because we were looking for you. Okay. >> Yeah. I was so sad to miss it. I I mean, I woke up that morning and I was like I had to hear that and like it was just too bad. I saw other students there. >> I was stalking you, but you were never there. >> Okay. All right. Well, so off off topic. Um but anyways, it was really I went actually um Brenda and Logan and I went the day before the conference started, we each took different sessions. Um they were all really good. Uh the one thing that the first general session that Brenda said she was going to

164really depressed and have a heart attack, she was screaming. It was pretty funny. Um and booing, but um I digress. uh the governor's debate was they were there talking and I think um this is a really good year to like again to advocate for um enrollment as opposed to ADA and people are really um they were trying to play to the audience but they did not do that good of a job um and there was lots of booing actually from teachers or not teachers but superintendents yeah they >> there was yeah it was interesting um so I think there's a lot that we can still do. And one of the sessions that I really liked um okay, this is for like mental health, but um and Courtney will know this better than me, but the

165guy gives me this dog, this little stuffed animal dog. And I'm like, "Oh my god, this is a great dog." And he's like, "Well, do go follow him on Instagram." And I'm like, "Okay." Um Courtney's like, "Okay, I know you don't do Instagram. Let me follow him." And so, but it's a real dog, but he has a stuffed animal, but it's an emotional dog that walks around the school and um with the counselors. And so, um, if a classroom has someone that's not having a good day, she calls the counselor and the counselor brings this dog, um, in and the dog walks around, sees everybody, and they pet it, and the dog sits down next to someone, and the teacher says afterwards, "How did you know that that was the child that was upset, having

166a bad day?" Just the dog knew. So, I thought, "Oh my god, we need to do that in our schools." So, I'm going to be like bugging everybody. Um, we need to get a counselor that has a um emotional dog. But even the stuffed animal was like I was petting and playing with and stuff. So, um I just thought there was some unique ideas and I want to find out from that school how they do that. But, um it was just a really good I think we all um got to know each other better and it was a great um we all had a good time and I think we learned a lot and we bonded as a as a group. So, looking forward to this being a really um a great year coming up.

167And um yeah, everything's funding and believe me, we we appreciate everything you teachers do. We appreciate everything the staff does. Um, and you know, if money grew on trees like some people think it does, um, we then life would be wonderful. Um, the only other thing I wanted to say, and yes, the winter concert for the high school is coming up and the only other thing I want to say is last board meeting we talked about, um, the parcel tax, and I just wanted to clarify, I reached out to um, ISM adviserss and yes, if you are over 65, it does not income related. You can wave that. Um, and that's just because we have such a wonderful community that if someone has a hardship, they can not pay that for one year. It has

168to be renewed every year. But, um, that is out there. I just wanted to clarify that point. Um, and with that, I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday. It's I can't believe it's going to be Christmas soon. We're not going to have another board meeting till January. Um, so [snorts] yeah, have a wonderful Christmas and New Year and Hanukkah and Kowanza, whatever all the holidays are. Um, and thank you all for everything you do every day. We really appreciate everything staff and and teachers and everyone. So, and parents for bringing your kids to school. With that, we are adjourning at 8:49. Thank you.