001e e e like's go ahead and call the regular meeting of the board of education for Martina's Unified School District to order for um did I say March 21st 2025 at 24 oh my gosh no 25 yep March 24th 2025 okay well um do we have any public comments regarding closed session there are none okay as a reminder the meeting will be recorded via audio and video and then we will adjourn to close session e e e okay ready to call our meeting back to order um there's nothing to report out from closed session so um Lizzie will you join us in the Pledge of Allegiance United States of America to the stands na indivisible andice do we have any changes to the agenda I'd like to suggest um request uh the agenda to be
002amended to move number nine the highlights and recognition from alhamra high school to move to number eight before the superintendent search item from mcferson and Jacobson okay do I have a motion for that second student vote I all those in favor I I so moved okay so tonight we have from alhamra high school a little bit of a celebration so we're going to start um we have three different uh groups here we're going to start with our cultural celebration assembly Representatives we have Valeria Gonzalez and Ariana Navaro here to talk a little bit about the uh cultural celebration family that I believe they um either put together or they uh co- uh co-chaired or what do they call that uh mced that's what it is both they did both okay so come on up to
003the mic and uh introduce yourself and tell us what you did um good afternoon everyone I'm Morana Naro and I'm Valeria Gonzalez sanal and we are two of the freshman Le isand at Al HRA High School two weeks ago we organized a multicultural split assembly during a block day the assembly consisted of approximately five groups of students staff and Community performers the school was divided in half according to third period classes we opted for a split assembly to create a more respectful and comfortable environment for our performers students remained engaged and interested in each performance as we hoped and planned through song poetry and dance participants expressed their cultures these performances reminded every student that they should never never be ashamed of their Heritage and that representation is vital for fostering a sense of belonging
004within the community we hope to continue this assembly in years to come and have it grow this event brought a new level of representation to our school and it was amazing to see the school Community come together as everyone Embraces the roots of their culture and that's basically all we have for you thank you thank you next up we have um let's see from the boys varsity basketball team we have Jameson Krauss and Torrance [Applause] Avery introduce yourselves even though I just introduce you and tell us about your season uh hello my name is Jameson Krauss um I'm torren Avery uh our season was filled with a lot of ups and downs um but overall clearly it paid off in the end um um I want to appreciate the community for sticking with us throughout
005it all I was pretty rough season come January um and oh so um you know during J we like a really like bad start we have players injured sick my apologies so um Darren J had a really like rough start people had injury sickness and you know we coaches sick and people wasn't showing up so you know during during that time we just thought together to stick together and you know have each other's back with the rough time and you know uh we pushed through it and came across win the NCS championship and having our whole Community come out and just be be together so that was a really great experience for us and we hope to for next year for the guys to continue doing it that's it so they won the NCS championship
006and they are the um they also made it to the third round in States so congratulations boys basketball team and we have Emory nixdorf from sideline cheer are you going to speak as well okay come on hi everyone my name is Emory nixdorf I'm a sophomore and I've been on alhamra chair for two years a few weeks ago we had the pleasure of cheering at the NCS finals in San Francisco this was a great experience it was lovely to see our school spirit displayed and meet new people we had a great time meeting the the cheerleaders from International they were kind and they taught us two cheers and after that we taught them one of ours one of the best parts about cheer is meeting new people and getting to connect with them after the
007game the athletic director from International personally reached out to express how impressed they were this wasn't just a casual compliment it took it meant they took the time to recognize the impression our team made being a cheerleader is about more than just performing it's about leadership setting an example and representing our school with pride when we put our uniforms on we carry more than just the school colors we carry the spirit and values of our high school thank you thank you and I was going to speak a little bit about that in my superintendent's report so thanks for stealing my thunder so um and recognize the fact that we did indeed receive a letter and I I will talk about that can I have anyone who's here from the boys basketball team um stand up
008including coaches so thank you so thank you again for showing up and taking the time to come down here it really is quite the feat and it is the first time I believe that this has happened in alhambra's history for the boys basketball and we're all really proud and we've spoken about this for the last couple of meetings and comments here from our board well I just want to say that um thank you to all the students for coming tonight as you can see we have a really packed um house tonight we have a big agenda and I would just like to remind everyone in the room including all of us up here that this is why we do what we do and we're so proud of all of the accomplishments that you have and
009so when we move through this agenda as we go on tonight um I think it will be really important important to keep all of you in mind when we're making these decisions so thank you for being here and for reminding us of [Applause] that yeah we just want to again I want to Echo everything that Annie said um great job and I love the teamwork and you guys need something really be proud of so great job and looking forward to next year even another better better year great job guys I would like to say as a I'm on right yes okay I would like to say as a student who went to the game it was my first basketball game that I attended in 10 years um and I wanted to let you all know
010that first of all you played amazingly but second of all you were part of an amazing event for our school where you brought all of our students our community members together and that's definitely worth so much more than anything else so thank you for that [Applause] that the only thing I'll add is good job and go [Applause] dogs again congratulations to all of you and thanks to the parents also that took you guys to practice supported you gave you words of encouragement and that goes along for your uh teachers and the rest of the staff [Applause] so thank you very much and you are free to leave if you have homework or just go out for the beautiful weather thank you all for coming you guys can take your seats if there's seats available and
011just remember please don't block the entry way we in case Cas there's a fire or something happens we don't want to be shut down by the fire marshal okay and next we have superintendent search mcferson and Jacobson LLC do you need this um white board or chart okay appropriate I follow the basketball team my name's LeBron James okay maybe as many me thank you so my name is Ben Johnson I'm with mcferson and Jacobson and glad to be here this evening and we're going to have a little session about the superintendent search um one of the things that the board has made quite clear is um and hopefully one of the reasons why they picked us is that our our process is transparent we have um so we're going to kind of go over our
012timeline and process but one of the big key pieces of the process is making sure that all education partners are involved appropriately in the process um a big block of what we'll do today and you'll get to see the board in action we'll talk about the criteria right because one of the things that the community wants one of the things that the board wants one of the things that students want and parents want is continued growth and one of the ways you make that happen is you continue the great work that's already occurred here under your leadership but continue to grow that with um sustainability and Leadership um and then the last piece we'll talk about what those education partner meetings will look like so um let's let's go into the timeline that we've we
013think we have and and I'll go over from a high level here's what the search process looks like to so today we'll talk about the characteristics and traits attributes you want in your next leader um we'll confirm the timeline and advertising venues which we've kind of already done as a as a as a organization um but what meetings do you think those meetings will be better um in person or virtually um we will start tracking applicants I've already received I think two phone calls last week and one the week before about the district and the search um but we spend a lot of time evaluating so we don't just get resumés in and when we go through the evaluation process we don't just take what's said to us by those references we dig deep to
014make sure that there's no surprises and you and the families are getting the best leader you deserve for your students um and then we'll we'll get into the Weeds about how that works but not only do we um the board interview candidates um the stakeholders will have involvement before that through their own individual stakeholder sessions about what they want in their next leader and uh we've heard from the board a couple times one of the reasons why they picked us is that we have a two-year guarantee so for any reason if the superintendent leaves or the board says this isn't working out we come back and do the search at no cost to the district and the reason why we were confident we can make that guarantee is we spend a lot of time on
015the front end about the criteria because that's important fit is important there are a lot of people that are qualified to be superintendents in different districts but they may not be qualified to be your superintendent and so making sure that we we we do that um I I will say this without knocking any other firms out there we don't we don't have a stable of candidates we take from one District move them to another District move them to another District right we're really intent about making sure that um you have what you want for your family and your community so here's the proposed timeline it's it's not written in stone and um that we're doing the criteria selection today that the 15th and 16th for in-person sessions will happen on site in person um for
016those groups that can meet in person and then we'll identify other days based on calendaring um where where those meetings can happen virtually my thought is we will keep the position open either to May 5th or 9th um it depends on how quickly we can get things up and unloaded um but I think the 5ifth would give us almost six full weeks of being able to recruit um candidates and I want to be clear the recruitment is not just posting something on a web page um we we as I said and the board probably knows as I've already started talking to candidates already um that I think would be a good fit based on the size of the district and some of the successes of candidates that we know um May 19th the week of
017May May 19th is when I would like to present what we call our short list of candidates so we take the candidates that have applied for the job we take and remove any candidates um that aren't qualified but we also remove candidates that we don't think would be a good fit for whatever reason and those reasons usually come out of our criteria discussion the board always gets to look at every candidate that applies we don't make hiring decisions that's the board decision and I'll say that again to be clear we we don't hire the candidates the board hires the candidates the community doesn't hire the candidates that is the board's job is to hire the superintendent and so um we fully support that but try to provide them as much information as possible so the
018board can make an informed decision um so that that week of May 19th the board will probably take anywhere from three to four candidates from that list of we probably will bring them eight to 10 candidates that they'll pick from reduce that to probably three to four that they will interview um looking at potentially May 25th excuse me 24th or 25th or May 31st and June 1st for potential interview days and the goal is to have the superintendent in place by July 1 I put prior to August 1st because I wasn't sure when your official meeting is but prior to that date but looking at a July 1 start um the other piece that I mentioned that is um what also helps get the governance team right not just the board but the governance team
019a good start is that be prior to November 1st the board and the superintendent do goal setting sessions to help reinforce what those goals are and so um it's critical that it's not eight to 10 goals for the new leader because superintendant often get asked to do a wide variety of things and rarely say no but that's not setting up the leader for Success right it's identifying those two to three um I still call them big hairy audacious goals at the board and the feedback from the community that that it's wanted and desire to help that leader to be successful and more importantly your students to be successful because that's why we're all here um is it's all about students questions did I miss anything no okay keep moving so let's let's talk criteria um
020I'm going to put the board to work so I'm G to ask every board member to get a sheet of paper um and as you're getting your sheet of paper I I I want just kind of frame some things don't think of any potential candidates or anybody you know be transparent just think about the criteria um and then this criteria will help us fine-tune the application process it will also help us fine-tune fit um and it will also help minimize what we call unconscious bias so and I'm going to ask you to think about skill sets for a moment moment and think about kind of a reverse funnel so what are and this is a board discussion right it's not me just talking but it's what are the required skills that you want in your
021next leader so these aren't preferred or desired but what is something that you think your superintendent has to have um in order to even be considered qualified for the job required not preferred not desired we'll get to those but required are we yelling out answers here okay um somebody that's a strong leader that has proven leadership skills less um um criteria but like if you think of a job application let me give you an example must have cabinet level experience is that required yes yes what else are requirements I would like to see someone strong in curriculum because our dashboard we can all improve on that and you'll have to excuse my chicken scratch I'll take this home and I will what else required good there shouldn't be a lot required right because you can
022always find tune later I I try to remind boards think of reverse funnel where big picture items you can you can always bring people in and as you um see the quality of candidates you have you can remove things later what are the preferred skills that the board wants expanding on what T said I'd like to see somebody that has a um a strong you know background in curriculum and instruction I'm noticing a trend what else um I would say strong communication skills so we are now faced with a lot of ways that we can communicate to families and I think we need to have someone who's really strong in being able to use those platforms effectively so that people know where to find the information perfect Community engagement would have been mine but you
023just got it um but experience fostering equity and inclusion thank you anything else that stands out we we'll get into more criteria things in just one second somebody that has um relationship building skills to be able to build relationships with all the different stakeholders all right I'm going to take this off and I'm going to ask the board to write down their top five most important characteristics traits go here sorry sorry top five skills characteristics traits qualities that you think your next leader has to be successful just top five and and do those in rank order if you can like what's the most important most important to yeah of your top of your top five I get to be Vanna White tonight then and as you think about these just kind of wrap those and
024frame those in outcomes that you want and then just let me know when you're done and there's no wrong answer e everybody ready Madame President we'll start with and each person give me your number one only just your first one well I kind of had him tied but okay um okay I know I know you're killing me you're killing me um can't give you two huh okay just give me your first one it's okay we're gonna we're not going to stop communication all right number one um I said educational curriculum leader team building awesome I'm sure you're figuring where I'm going to go next you're number two oh sorry elab I apologize that's okay um dedication to academic growth which would that fall into educational leader for you I think mostly yes tell me why
025mostly um it's the educational experience and making making sure that each student is growing from where they are at and that there is growth going into that so I think yes what a great answer I'm gonna put that there because I think that frames what an educational leader is so that's that's perfect if you're okay with that that's just fine all right so we put that there why I said you should ask her Elizabeth we're going to start with you for your second one my second one was leader with integrity I want to put that separate do you want that separate or do you want that and Leadership skills as long as it is an important part of their leadership skills it can go under leadership skills with Integrity thank you want to hear your
026number two I said communication for my number two okay proac tell me what that means identifying uh the issues within the school district and be able to think ahead and how to address them thank you so I said Community Building skills and I think that we kind of have that under team building so I'm comfortable adding that Community Building skills and team building skills are they the same to you well person because there because I what I hear is different tell me if they're different because I hear community building is Outreach the community and team building I I understood as maybe internal right correct so one's internal one's more external yeah I will be able to read this when I get home I know I had honesty SL Integrity okay and now we're going to
027start here and go in for number three yep commun uh communication skills oh sorry was that yeah that's okay um I had problem solving okay and I had communication skills good negotiator I think relationship building which I think encompasses the team building and the community outreach Courtney if I may I feel like that is really what I was trying to get at so I'm glad glad you said that one so you want to put relationship building with Community Building okay thank you my third one was also communication does that mean I give my fourth now you do all right um classroom experience thank you yeah and I I said I said uh curriculum and instruction so I think that goes in with that you want it under educational leader or classroom experience I was kind
028of thinking more classroom experience but I think that it's kind of all related okay thank you having a good uh student centered Focus thank you um I had Integrity transparency so the honesty Integrity pieace perfect I had the relationship um Community Building okay and then my last one is empathy my last one is desire to stay a while desire to stay connect with Community right be here I said building Community which similar to team building everyone else said I did have empathy though and I crossed it out so I'm glad you got it she's more [Laughter] empathetic yeah and I had empathy and integrity all right my last one was somebody who has a family so some sort of actual stakehold and education and experience with it Beyond simply the educator standpoint or the um
029district office standpoint okay so someone with the family however they Define it yes you know we're all going to be working for her one day right holy freaking moly all right so we already did that we already did that um from this list on on these pick your top five thank you so on on these sheets it doesn't have to be yours but from what you saw from your peers identify which ones are your top five write write your so if you let's say communication was your number one write communication on the card and then put in the right hand corner one does that make sense so just one one thing for posted one posted so like one your first so if your first one is whatever put that on there and write one and
030then your two then your three and your four and your five does that make sense on separate sheets on separate sheets yeah on separate put your for and that'll be your number one then another one put your number two and another one put your number three number four and five and so on be alert which one is your number do you have your number one and then you're number one and you're number one this also I'm going to get my steps in all right two like I get your your everybody's for thank you thank you so communication educational leader relationship building Integrity problem solving building roots and empathy so what does that tell the board about what's up here thoughts on what's up here it's probably a better question well to me I'm looking for
031a person who's going to get out into the classrooms see what's going on see what's working work to build those relationships at every level I think that kind of encompasses the top three if you have someone who's a strong educational leader with communication skills and who's relationship building that's all going to be happening thank you what else let let me ask a better probably a better question what are the outcomes that you because everyone had in their top five some aspect of student Centric um academic growth um student focused what what what does that look like to the board someone's going to take the time to understand what the district's going through what some of the um issues coming up are uh going need to be addressed and try to understand whether it be the
032stakeholders students parents all the needs and uh come up with a plan to address those say that last piece again oh I don't remember um the the plan to address them right yeah to address their address things and plan for it awesome thank you I was I was going to say what you said earlier is kind of just like the bottom line is just to improve individual student outcomes yeah it's not just the dashboard we we need dashboards right we we need dashboards but what makes that student we you had people here some people still here from the athletic team from basketball team you cheer here and some of those things are what keep students coming to school every day right and so um I think the fact it shouldn't be surprising that all of
033you had what why are we all here is the educational aspect right um people get annoyed but it's it's not about the adults in the room all the time it's about the students and so focusing that and keeping that as your for like of better words North Star um is essential I I see communic so I think I I get a good sense of this and let me tell you why I'm asking asking these questions because as we work on the criteria we're not going to just put words out there that we're looking for an educational leader because that means different things and different people what it means to you as as a board and um it it could look differently here than somewhere else and so trying to capture that piece um communication was
034I think you're no actually your second one was Integrity honesty and empathy I'm going to lump those if that's okay lump those three together cuz I think um there's some overlapping overlapping themes what what does that look like and H how is that what does that look like because being empathetic could be let me just say one thing real quick sometimes people think of empathy always when bad things happen but empathy also happens when good things happen like if your best friend wins the lottery are you empathetic for that piece too right it's not just the negative things that people think about empathy so talk to me about what empathy and integ I mean I know what the words mean but how does that look to you and how do your how does your community
035how do parents how does students feel when those things exist I think it's a sense of belonging for every student I need you to say that one more time can you speak into the the mic and say it a little bit louder a sense of belonging for every student that's awesome I think it's an ability to understand how a person feels what they're experiencing why why I'm gonna ask why is that important because we whenever we're dealing with students teachers parents everyone's coming from a perspective in my experience they're all here for kids they might be coming at it from a different angle so it's really important to be able to understand why a person is approaching something from a different way it doesn't always mean that we come to an agreement but it does
036mean that we respect each other on a human level and try to get to the heart of why a person believes what they believe thank you putting principles before personalities yes right that that concept of a friend of mine always says when he starts his board meetings he always says assume good intent right not assuming that someone has an agenda or something negative and and the comment about people come from different backgrounds and have different experiences but assuming good intent as opposed to they're up to something right the US and them mentality thank you what else I agree with what everybody said and I I think it it comes down to me for just being a good leader if you don't um think somebody's in it for the right reasons and you don't trust them
037then you're not going to want to um go along with them and so that's why those things like empathy and integrity are important thank you I I and and that trust piece is Big um we we do an exercise called trust Builders and it takes a long time to build it but seconds to destroy right one of the worst things is when things get out of close session right you're and you think you're able to and I've seen it happen in other districts not that it happen here but I've seen in other districts where those things happen and the board has worked for years to kind of build this trust and then one thing happens and it destroys it and that makes it difficult for the district to move forward so thank you I think
038it comes down to it's not specifically about all of the physical trappings of our candidate yes we need them to have obviously experience in education in The District in different areas but we need to make sure that they have a strong character to go along with that and because that integrity and that empathy the fact that they are here and we can rely on the fact that they are focused on the students is what will be guiding them no matter what different experiences they have gone through what is their guiding principle is what's going to lead what they are going to do in our district what our new superintendent's guiding principle is going to be is going to lead every single action that they have in our district and their integrity their empathy their honesty
039is like the aroma of what their guiding principle is got communication and I want to talk about what that looks like and what you mean by that but the educational leader being student Centric um the inte and honesty piece right what what is their North Star their character the aroma right right what is that what does that what does that say about them and who they are and you can have all the knowledge in the world but if you um if you don't make people feel like they are valued and they're important um regardless of their role and um the rest of it doesn't matter and then you talked about relationship building um the communication piece is a is a big one I want to just jump to that for a second so I better
040understand your thoughts on communication because that commun a wide variety of things so let's talk about what that communication piece and how that's how that's articulated so I think the communication um is important between you know the classified staff the certified staff um cabinet the board the community um there just needs to be transparency and more open communication dialogue and you know this day and age you have some people still do Facebook the younger kids don't really do Facebook they do other things Instagram and such but I think um just having Avenues out there for the communication so people see what you're trying to say and so that everybody has the opportunity to get it um you know we have everything bilingual now um which is important but do we have it on all the
041different platforms and do we send it out on everything I think almost everything is that way but I think that's another important piece the communication thank you what else yeah I just think it's about realizing that different groups of people need to be communicated with differently um and and just recognizing um either a different method or different information depending on the the group of of people receiving that information I mean even simply communication with the board right all of you have different ways you prefer and one person has to make sure they're they're figuring that out understanding how to manage that right because some of people want texting some people want an email some people say it's too much and too little and but I often hear that a superintendent has five bosses right that's
042a very common phrase to use but they shouldn't they should have one because it takes three to make a decision right from a board so when a board's thinking about I may prefer texting but if my colleagues prefer email I may have to let go of that one thing so if I think about where do I want the superintendent's time spent it it it would be here right not on me right the education I'll get choked up when I talk about this stuff but if it's about me it should be about the students right because as the superintendent the CEO the organization he or she is going to be responsible for all these things and the thing the rest of the governance team has to do is what things can I do to remove roadblocks
043and barriers to make his or her job easier right and so I I've seen you know you have a seven member board is amazing right but imagine someone managing that and having two two to three hour meetings every week with board members how are they going to ever get anything else done so so when we talk about communication we thinking internal external combination of both and making sure that but the priority for communication does it aligned to this piece right here right so there's no surprises for the board and then there's no surprises for famili students in the community um I think the last one I think I get but I just want to make sure what relationship building means well for me it it sort of goes along with the communication piece in the
044sense that our our district is different than like a district with 40,000 students where our superintendent has to have relationships with all the stakeholders and that includes the students the parents the community the teachers the classified staff they they can't just be um you know know how to how to have a good relationship with the the the cabinet the board there's a lot of different stakeholders that they have to be able to um have a relationship with and communicate with thank you yeah I think Courtney really that encompasses all the different groups and I was thinking about that too and then I was kind of taking it another step which is why does that matter and I think it's because it creates Buy in so when you have all of these people and you've created
045trusting good you know open communication you're student focused everyone's on board I think that can get everyone behind the same cause if everybody's focused on what the students students and not just say it not that it's a good sound bite not that I look good on a bumper sticker not that it's just talk and speak actions speak louder than words and that means everybody that's part of that process so if we're focused on students and we assume good intent we may not disagree Logan may go I I don't like B ties dude that but he doesn't care about that right the focus is do we like the students and we care about the students and are we putting students first in everything that we do that's the challenge right getting the adults out of the
046way and focusing on students um so I think this leads into um you talked about your education partners and I think that's a big piece right we one of the things that we do is we include these individual meetings with education partners and um some people call them stakeholder groups we trying to change the word to education partners because it does sound different and the focus is we'll probably move to student Partners right because that's who our f focus is but what are some of the groups um that you think our team should meet with individually and I think it's important to note that we try to meet with a representation of those groups so picking under 20 people in a group and having a session where we focus on four really big bucket areas
047what's good about the community and we modify these depending on the district but what's good about the community what's good about the district what are the things things the next leader should know about the district before making the decision to take the job or even apply for the job that's one of the key essential questions the first two are focused on when we're recruiting right to be able to talk about what's good about the district what's good about the community but the second to we're making sure we have a good fit so what are the things they should know about the district before making the decision what are the things that everybody that here knows but somebody from out of town wouldn't know till they got here right and then it's too late and then
048the second piece we kind of went through some of them but these groups will have the same discussion but in a different format what are the characteristics traits attributes you want to that next leader and nikk I'm going to ask you to help me to capture some of these names because I will probably forget them but I think what are some of the groups that you want you want our team to meet with and do you think from the list would it be better in person or virtually um and so I think in most cases in person is better um I don't think the same Dynamics happen virtually but some groups because of whatever um virtually works and um so let's go through those groups and someone will probably ask the question we have some
049like if you have a dlac group we have colleagues that Spanish is far better than mine and the things I know I can right are all like uh those cabasa that's about it I me I have no Spanish skills whatsoever so but we do have colleagues that are fluent um and and can facilitate those groups and have those discussions because I think that as a primary language is important so I would would be doing those for our team so um I think there's some obvious groups that we're going to say you know parents um classified um mea uh but also um I think it's really important that we talk to the students and I would say that's probably virtual but I it would probably be nice to do that over lunch or something I think
050too because I think again you get a lot from face to face um and I think um maybe two sets of student groups one maybe leadership um you know like hamur high school has leadership group and as you can see from Lizzy she she has some good ideas but also um maybe some different clubs or sports or some other segment um of the population and maybe not just um you know the a students maybe you take students that we always hear from right let's pick right let's pick somebody that we don't hear from and really give them the opportunity to speak um I think that's something that I would like to see you also do and then of course you've got PTA um and I'm sure there's a lot of other you know groups we've
051got daac and and Dei but um I think the students really um will make a difference and I I think they have really good ideas if we listen to them I I I couldn't agree more I did an elementary search and met with third graders and people say why are you wasting your time with third graders and I go well a it's not a waste of time because let's be honest they're so freaking cute um but they're pretty aware of what they want and what they think's important you may use different language communicate with them um but we we should never underestimate our students so I I couldn't agree with more that having those groups is important and my goal is to be here like those two days it may shift as we look at
052schedules more detail but um to be here in person and then we can do some of the virtual sessions based on um people's individual schedules as well yeah all the ones that Tanya said and then I had a couple others um I had Masa which is our Administration our site administrators cabinet um and MEF is Martinez Education Foundation I think you mentioned daac and Dei so I think those would be good ones also thank you what anything else than any other groups yeah all of those that were already mentioned and also um maybe I don't know if you want to do it together or separate but the students and the Educators at the adult school also that's a great idea just with the students first of all I'm really glad you mentioned to the elementary
053students because I would like to make sure that at least our middle school and definitely some groups from the elementary are taken into account here as well I see and maybe it's just because I'm at the high school but I see a lot of things that go out to the high school and our new superintendent especially if it's one that will stay long which I believe is what we're all hoping will be affecting those students even more than they will be affecting our seniors and juniors right now um and so making sure that they have a placeholder in that I would also advocate for that to be in person rather than virtually I know that virtually is easier to get the students to in theory but you don't get the same input from students even
054if it's simply what you're seeing from their facial expressions when you're in person and you get um asked questions that is more valuable than seeing a black screen on Zoom which I know from other experience is what you will mostly be getting so if I do a zoom meeting you have to be on camera so you can can them to do that then they can't do it they got to be on camera that's one of my rules right I don't have a lot of rules they got to be on camera because I have four daughters and I know facial expressions very well so um they just got to be on camera because then it could be anybody right I I don't know who it is if they're not on camera but thank you for that
055um any other groups like business Community maybe developing some groups that can Encompass um like if you have can like sometimes Community groups can include Quan rotary those kind of organizations um rotary is funny but we could do those things as well um so what other groups am I missing anything okay any other questions I think we've got our criteria we will we will take all the notes from the Criterion compile it we will send it back to you to review and then once we get that confirmed we will post that with the opening [Music] um is there anything you think we missed or I missed I don't think so I would like to open it up to public comment though on this if there's any public comment okay perfect you can ask first and
056fill out the card later Mike Mike sorry no one mentioned anything about whether or not being a superintendent prior was a requirement if or not and I'm just saying clarify it is it or is it not a requirement we would love to have an experienced superintendent and their main goal is that they stay along time but what I would say is if someone was an assistant superintendent or Deputy superintendent and was in a larger District like if you're in shella UniFi because they're the biggest right and they they oversaw 20,000 a department of 20,000 people um I would say that person potentially could be qualified if they met the criteria yes so we can't do back and forth conversation I'm sorry yeah the public can't hear you also is a reason do you want to
057I'll the question the question was if it's not sorry back to the audience apologize if the um if it's required um for the person to be a superintendent and it is a not a requirement as according to the board as yet because they could be part of cabinet and be an assistant superintendent or Deputy superintendent but cabinet level experience is required okay we have one more public comment regarding this Craig ler ready thank you I came in a little late so maybe this might have been covered earlier maybe not but um I want to bring up the issue of representation of our minority students and lgbtq students and how do we finding a superintendent who can understand and empathize and relate to what students from marginalized groups are going through right now particularly with the
058climate in our country and I think this is a very important thing for this District in particular a district that has a very diverse population student population but does not have a diverse leadership as we can see by looking around this room right we have 30% Latino students um I think 43% of our students identify as white only what's the percentage of them around this room this is not an indictment on any of you you all care about our students you all work hard for our students you want to do right by all of our students regardless to their background but the regard but the reality is and I'm saying this as a white man and all the white people sitting around me know this as well I don't know what it's like to experience
059racism in my daily life I don't know what it's like to experience transphobia in my daily life I don't know what it's like to experience homophobia phobia in my daily life and so the question is does lived experience matter now if we select a superintendent who happens to be white straight well qualified what will that superintendent do the question becomes to relate to and identify what those students who have very different experiences from the experiences that person has had and the experiences that the leadership of this district has had because empathy and understanding are two different things there is no substitute for lived experience there's no substitute for experiencing something in your life either you there's no academic credential or degree or class that provides that you either experience it or you don't and so
060for those students who are from marginalized backgrounds what will this superintendent do to address their needs based on their lived experiences understanding the fact that the majority of District leadership cannot relate to or truly understand those experiences thank you did we have another public comment related to this okay perfect can you hand it in Janelle yeah hi um I'm Maryann Griffin and I'm a teacher at El Hambra high school and I was just listening and I understand and appreciate that mea was mentioned and I was just thinking what about staff meetings what about staff meetings I was trying to jot down some notes and I you know I I'm a try to be a problem solver so I was thinking perhaps either a secondary staff or Elementary staff and I know that probably time is
061of the essence but each of our four individ IND individual elementary schools and our Junior High and our our other sites they all have their own Vibe and their own feelings at staff meetings so just a thought I don't know if we can make that work for that and um yeah and then you mentioned the leadership so I also teach the leadership class and we do run a student Congress where we ask for representatives from all the captains of our sports teams all the um our club leaders to attend those as well and we're actually having one on Wednesday which is a collaborative kind of uh ideas to look for our activities for next school year anyway thank you thank you what's that any okay so I think that's it all right thank you very
062much thank you I will close with if anybody has any additional questions for me um Nikki has my contact information um my cell phone my email don't hesitate to reach out so no worries and if there's opportunities where you think I'll talk be more than happy to discuss that with the board thank you and actually can I just add one more thing they are going to be doing an online survey as well and you didn't mention that do you mind mentioning that real quick I'm sorry yeah the online survey should get posted what's today mon is today Monday why does it feel like Thursday um the online survey should get posted by Wednesday of this week it'll be up for three weeks and it'll allow anybody to answer the questions that we'll ask of the
063groups um and um it'll be in English and in Spanish It'll like I said it'll be up for at least two weeks probably three weeks um to make sure people can give feedback as well thank you and that'll be given into the board thank you yeah thank you very much okay oh just want to make one thing clear so your that statement wasn't for everyone here oh can you hear me now the statement that you made at the end about reaching out to you that wasn't just for us that was for oh sorry yeah that was for the entire Community right I I have was yeah we we we we work for the board but we also work for all the community as well and so if you have things that you want to give
064us feedback on or have questions is about it really is best if you direct them to to our team and and not the board because we're the ones that are doing the search and so thank you for bringing that up and thank you guys have a good night thank you very [Applause] much okay next we have um I was going to say employee but that's not right comments from a student representative I was trying to find it on my agenda here that's okay good evening everybody last Friday the Los hunus Elementary fourth graders went to Sacramento's train museum for their field trip although it was raining they still had a wonderful time thank you to all the families who supported the dine and donate at Jax this past week your support means so much to
065us Los hunus elementary students and families enjoyed their first movie night on Friday where they watched the wild robot together students will continue their lpac testing through the week of March 24th the third graders will take a walking trip with kids for the bay where they will learn about environmental impacts on our community Las hunus Elementary open house is Wednesday April 2nd at 5:30 p.m. and they will also have an art show for families at John S Elementary the world famous Michael the librarian visited the second grade students to talk about the magic of the library students are celebrating women's History Month with various projects and writing students have done a rem REM arable job earning respectful road runners this month for being responsible open house will be on April 2nd and the PTA auction
066will be on Saturday May 3rd on Tuesday Milla Park Elementary fourth graders went on a field trip to Sonoma and learned all about California's history by visiting the historic Mission and vallejo's house on Wednesday the third graders got to experience the Contra Costa Water science program the PTA hosted book clubs for TK and kindergarten and first grade and second grade this week to help Foster a love of reading the shadow band assembly con continues the theme of presents assembled of from music around the world on Monday Shadow band will share music from the Arab world this week fifth grade will visit the Bowman water plant to learn about the process of making drinking water safe the fourth grade concert will be on Thursday last week martinus Junior High School presented the music man with four
067amazing performances a huge shout out to all the Bullpup staff and Community who dedicated their time effort and talents to putting on great shows the seventh and eighth grade cjsf students visited DBC for a tour of the campus and looked at programs and classes available right here in the local East Bay Community the community cohort Scott started last week in preparation for April CP testing bullpups worked together to develop their cohort commitments during testing this week they will work on reviewing SK School progress and goals as well as set their individual goals on March 26th the mjhs book fair begins English classes will have an opportunity to visit and the book fair will be running at open house March 31st is the mjhs open house from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. April 2nd is the PTSA
068dine and donate at JP's beastro from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. last Saturday was the neon ball at alhamra high school it was a blast as everyone was decked out in their favorite outfits as a nod to the decades it was was pretty groovy juniors are taking the state Science assessment this week please encourage students to get rest and to do their best FAFSA FAFSA waivers are due students should reach out to miss Collins with their questions the week of March 31st the block days will be on Tuesday and Wednesday please check parents Square for the schedule please PL plan to attend the open house and concert scheduled for 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday April 1st the pgsa dine and donate at Lazy Dog is on April 3rd Juniors will take the Statewide
069assessment in math the week of April 14th and the assessment for English the week of April 21st at Martinez adult education on March 12th and 13th 74 people attended the orientation for the pharmacy technician training program 28 of those who attended have completed the full registration process to attend the pharmacy tech boot camps which will start in April March 19th 40 students participated in the presentation from Diablo Valley College benefits to college next steps DVC Representatives will be back in a few weeks to help students with the application March 25th at 10:30 a.m. is a kickoff meeting for the International Fair planning the fair will take place on Wednesday May 21st April 8th is adult education legislative day staff and students will be meeting with assembly members and senators in Sacramento to provide updates on
070the positive impacts adult education has on communities across the state and as a final REM reminder open house for the Middle School will be on Monday March 31st open house for the high school will be on Tuesday April 1st open house for the elementary schools will be on Wednesday April 2nd and all schools have a minimum day on Thursday April 3rd and no school on Friday April 4th have a great spring break thank you anything else you want to add nope that's it okay all right next we have um employee organizational reports no okay comments from the PTA okay we have superintendent report okay so as I said earlier I wanted to talk about um a letter that uh we received from International High School actually we received we received it from the um North
071Coast section of the California inter Scholastic Federation so tonight we heard representatives from the boys basketball team and the alham cheerleading squad and I want to take a minute and read a communication that was sent to the commissioner of the North Coast section of the California inter Scholastic Federation and all members of the Diablo um athletic league as well as to the principal of alhamra and our athletic director Anthony arola so um we received an acknowledgement form from the International High School athletic director recognizing the alhamra basketball team and the cheer section for an excellent display of sportsmanship during the D5 basketball championship game below is the reason the International High School acknowledged your school we appreciate your community and fan base for being positive stewards of the game keep up the great work and
072this is what was written I wanted to shout out alhamra high school for positive sportsmanship in their basketball championship game this is the the very first time that we have played against alhamra in my 13 years at International and it was a very pleasant experience their players were fighting hard on the court and playing the game respectfully I will say that my favorite moment was before the game the signl cheered coach who has been there for 20 years asked if she could meet with our meager cheer Club of eight students as it was our first year the squads exchanged cheer knowledge and showed each other show showed how each team manages their cheers it was really fun and our team learned a lot from their experience the team lined up and accepted their awards at
073the end with Grace and were respectful the entire time I was also very impressed that upon cleanup the alhamra team and their fans left zero trash behind a rarity in High School athletic school events signs said sh Sarah sha shaunessy the International School San Francisco athletic director so congratulations to the boys basketball and the sideline cheer and their coaches for not only a phenomenal season on the court but demonstrating excellent character and representing what it truly means to be an alhamra Bulldog so it's not often in my experience um being here at the district officer even a principal at the junior high that you get a letter um of this sort from an opposing team it's usually a letter um not so nice telling you of something that happened at a game and I just
074want to say this is a first in all my years here and I'm just so appreciative to be able to to get something like this and know that our kids are out there our families are out there um just setting a great example um on the court on the fields and just of good character so congratulations for that as well as for your your performance on the court so thank you thank you yeah congratulations again to the um team and to the cheerleading and that's amazing to get something like that so um you made us all proud so thank you again for doing that okay Food Service update Andy Canon uh good evening bort good evening uh tonight we are going to be presenting on the current state of our food services department and we're
075being uh led by that with Jeff ya who's our supervisor for food services so we thought we'd just give a nice opportunity to see what we're doing in our kitchens and how our kids are responding um I can tell you that personally that since I've been in this District now going on three years I've been very impressed with Food Services the quality of food that gets served the staff the diligence and just the overall interaction that our group has with with our kids and so I think it's really impressive and tonight I think you're going to enjoy this presentation with that I'd like to introduce Jeff again for everyone and he can tell you a little bit more about what's going on oh thank you Andy for those comments um good evening uh again uh
076my name is Jeff ya I am the Food Service supervisor um I want to first thank the board for allowing me to serve the Martina Unified School District with my 20 years of food experience in the private sector um it's been a very rewarding and refreshing experience moving from a corporate environment to working with a dedicated team that strong that has a strong loyalty to Martinez and its students um as a new role in the uh mesd I'd like to introduce my responsibility as a food service provisor first uh my responsibilities can be categorized in four separate areas the first one being accountability so one of my goals is my responsibility is to focus on driving Food Service goals um keeping the food source team accountable in performance in following set standards and regulations um
077managing and tracking our partnership with Chartwell secondary um my role is to manage the Food Service budgets and grants to provide the proper tools Staffing and training required to operate efficiently and effectively um one of the biggest obstacles is always sourcing Subs to cover abs and St with that um myself I also go help and sub if need third um connecting um connecting with students and building relationships with parents to attain um valuable feedback and address concerns and also bridging uh the CD USDA with School administration to be aligned with current and new um Food Service regulations and then finally Administration um this accounts like managing um Food Service documentation to include Administration um processing U free and reduced meal applications applying for federal state food service programs completing monthly um scheduled CD USDA requirements
078to operate as a Food Service Authority par participating in a national lunch school program and um School breakfast program so my biggest goal um role is basically to give back time to the school administration so they can focus on education um prior to my role a lot of this done was done by principls vice principal district office um positions so relieving them of all these responsibilities gives them more time to focus on each student's education um next I like to introduce our teams um many of them you've probably seen before in the community a lot of them are members of residents of Martinez their parents grandparents aunts and uncles alumni of uh martinz Unified School District um we have alhamra high school um e and her family's been part of Martinez for a while her
079brothers were all students of alumni of Martinez U unified um we have um Angelica vente whose uh children were all students of Martinez as well then we have our elementary um Adrian right there at John Mir she was a alumni of Martinez and then we have John swag Christen the lead she's actually was a student herself and her parents were as well students of Martinez you fact she's told me that um she remembers when she was at John Mir as Elementary School student um she used to run the me cart collecting money and helping doing dishes not sure if we could get students to do that now but that's what she done in the past and then we have Lunas Elementary in morela park um all of them have either relatives children themselves going to
080school here so as you see um a lot all majority of our staff is very committed to the students here because they have family members um going to school as well as um they have gone to schools here themselves um next I want to introduce um our chart World Partners um Anthony gagos and Bill michl they [Music] are so uh many of you probably familiar with Anthony um he used to be the assistant director of d services but recently got promoted to director of Dining Services um Brooke um here was promoted to a more Regional corporate position with Chartwell um Anthony's um here to make sure that our partnership with Chartwell um focus um keeps focus on helping us making sure our menus and our program meets USDA guidelines of meal um regulations as well
081as assist with programs to promote um food education and um and grow growth in our meal program um Bill recently joined us as well um he is our Chartwell Chef you can alely find him in the kitchens working with our staff training with our staff um helping make cinnamon rolls uh brownies and other treats for our kids as well as um chicken sharmas um all scratch made meals so and they have something to share later on in the presentation okay now to go to our goals of food service um our goal is fresh and healthy Focus um this includes scratch made um inding more scratch made menu items to replace prepackaged and highly processed food items um fruits and vegetables encouraging students to eat more fruits and vegetables by incorporating more options uh increasing participation
082increase the number of meals served by um developing student appealing menus and finally following all safety regulations uh set by CDE USDA and local Health departments so with these goals in mind year to date we have so served over 320,000 meals in 130 days this is about 9,630 more meals than the previous year last school year and this equivalates to average of a, we're serving to the um 1500 lunches served to the 3,800 students we have Inward and each month we've been um increasing our meal counts so we're on a good Trend and track so what are we feeding our students um our students still love their cereals breakfast bars muffins chicken tenders hamburgers and pizzas but our focus is to encourage our students to make healthier food choices and choose our scratch made items
083made in our kitchens um we try to so these are some of the items we are serving from scratch made we got orange chicken shepherd's pie baked ziti chicken Sharma chag chicken fita um and then we have this Valentine chick uh cheese sandwich that kind of it's fun um so as you see we're trying to sort of a diverse many culturally taste wise um and then we encourage healthy choices by featuring items based on popular food Trends um for example Mediterranean restaurants in Cuisine have been popularly trending due to their healthy and tasty menus both fast food and high-end Mediterranean restaurants are popping up everywhere in the Bay Area due to its popularity so following this trend we have added chicken sta made with grilled chicken tomatoes cucumbers lettuce and wrapped in wrapped in soft
084um flatbread and dressed with a house made toiki sauce so everything's made from scratch even the Chiki sauce um sounds pretty good right and then if you're not really into chicken sta you like something baked um we always have stuff coming freshly from the oven if you are here early enough especially at the middle school because it seems like the vents from the ovens emulates through the air the Romas um you'll probably smell with some cinnamon rolls uh the monkey breads um from the high school calzones freshly made pizzas um you know one of our most popular breakfast items is the monkey bread it's basically um Simon do stuff with fresh bananas chocolate chips baked it's a whole wheat cinnamon dough so going back to the whole grains pron healthy um so our kitchen takes
085a lot of pride and joy in making and serving these scratch made items um and they take they take a lot of great joy and they're static when they sell out of these scratch me items versus you know you know when they're out of corn dogs they're kind of like whatever but when they're put so much effort into these baked items these scratch made meals and they sell out they take a lot of great joy um I want to bring up uh Bill and Anthony up here to describe about mood boost in kitchen and while they're talking about the moon boost um we have Bill made some brownies I'm going to pass out for you guys a little boost in the middle of our night all right um so as a parent and uh you
086know member of the community you know was feeding children it's like how do you how do you get these kids to eat you know how do you get kids to eat I some some days my my child she'll eat non-stop some days she'll live off one bite of an apple um you know it's always trying to reinvent the wheel and find new ways to get you know get get our kids trying healthy healthy things um so our mood boost program is a six- week program where we offer samples student engagement things like kale chips um plantain chips um that affect a specific mood um happy you know um confident the goal is to just get kids to try stuff you know um so many times I hear oh the kidss aren't GNA eat that they're
087not going to eat that but there's always that one kid that's like wow this is so good you know and it's just just getting kids to try new things um so we're constantly offering um just little samples each month um our Discovery kitchen at the the Junior High um which we actually sampled this uh this brownie last week was uh really successful was really successful um the funny thing is that they're made with black beans and not a lot of people uh not a lot of people knew that just finding new ways to get kids you know to to try things try try vegetables try their their zucchini so we've done zucchini bread you know carrot cookies things like that so I have to kind of ruined the little surprise about the black beans um
088I did want you guys to everyone to try them first and then get your feedback on them um I was kind of wor is some like Black beans is this any good or not and when I firstly tried them they're great um so I encourage you to try them they're filled with protein um fiber and they also whole grain um flour in there as well so it's um it's sweet it's decadent but it has a healthy aspect I'm not sure if Anthony explained when they were passing it out kids were also hes be it was advertised as black bean brownies and some the kids were like no way man I'm not eating that but as soon as some of them tried I I heard he got hoarded and kids were trying to go back back
089for thirds fourths fifths and they sold out so definitely try them they're this they kind of like fudgy and I'm not sure you guys tried the Mochi donuts and all that Mochi products but it has almost that similar texture so let us know how you like them so this leads to our challenges of course with everything um there's always challenges so student preferences um even though um with attractive and healthy scratch made menu options again students still prefer the the classic fast food items Burgers Chicken Fingers um and then a lot of the processed food items but we're hoping to introduce more creative stuff like the black bean brownies to encourage kids to eat the scratch made items to try stuff new um I'm sure not sure did you mention the kale chips yep kale
090chips were really popular with our elementary school kids um they love them time is another challenge um so time you know we're very limited in time with education school and everything including Food Service um there's a lot of regulations that we need to follow um checking each child's meal to make sure Encompass a balanced meal as they check out scanning their cards and everything like that so it's getting children students to go through a line by making sure they're getting the right breakfast the right lunch but we're working on that with our staff um with and with the administration so they understand that but we do have regulations we need to follow so we're finding more strategies assistance to get them um students through the line faster um the color green so since I started
091my kids I have two daughters myself they love vegetables so it was never that big concern with me but um I know I have friends and kids I know of because um I volunteered to feed my daughter's um swim team about 100 Kids barbecue from I know a lot of kids don't like the color green in their food um this is also very true with any colored vegetables so we're trying to in like the chicken scharma um I think the what turns kids off is the lettuce the tomatoes on there um we do nachos once a while again kids will ask I don't want the lettuce I don't want the tomatoes and stuff like that so we're trying to be creative going back to the kale chips to promote you know kale doesn't sound pleasing
092even to most adults but if you try one of those kale chips it will definitely change your mind so and then finally alignment um this is again going back to regulations held by its USDA that were required um and getting not only Administration but parents and students to understand some of these regulations we follow like we have a lot of students like I don't want a fruit can I just take the meal without the vegetables and we can't we have to serve them the orange the lettuce and I'm sure most parents want us to give them the fruits and vegetables with their their meals um again we that's just through communication so we have more you know we're working all these but we have more to come in 2025 the years 2025 2026 um this
093includes Global eats touch on that yeah Global Eads program is similar to our mood boost and our Discovery kitchen programs um it's featuring um basically International Cuisines um they realize that a lot of students don't don't eat outside of their you know cultural norms you know until they get to like a school type situation then they're exposed to a lot of different things so there's um there's six six countries China Italy India Mexico Caribbean and Korea so it's a six we program where we'll focus uh different you know um offerings um that were made up by um celebrity chefs to just help get kids involved in trying new things and outside of their cultures so we're very we're looking aside the through this next year um you know definitely will'll get open um hopefully educate
094and open our students eyes to not only foods of different worlds but culturals of different worlds right so food is always the best gateway to introduce different diversity to kids I think to everyone um instant feedback um so earlier uh this school year um Brook Ashley we um charwell has this little survey tool we tried with the elementary school students and I think it will be a great tool to use on food presence uh preferences to get instant feedback on what kids actually like um during these mood booths Discovery kitchen Global eats to incorporate into our menus um like kale chips if the kids like it they press love yes or no and we get good feedback we incorporate kale chips are many or those brownies and so on so feedback is very very important
095for us um communication um the web page I want to I plan to do a total overhaul on the web page so to give out more information of what we're doing fun facts healthy facts um regulations updated regulations by the USDA um CDA so hopefully for parents students even Administration that would be a a starting point if they're more interested in what our what we what we're feeding our students as well as um why um and then uh account ability to keep um basically our team accountable for the USDA as well as um we have some new standards um being imposed on us um dealing with sugar and salt that's um required by July 2027 um we're always trying to work before that so again we're going to work on those goals and TR change
096our menus to to meet those standards by next year so I know this is a played out kind of quote it takes a to raise a child but working in Martinez um I met a lot of people who are you know who who are part of our team who are very tied in as a small community and I do believe that each a lot of them have the heart to really you know help raise the students of Martinez um through their their um feeding the kids so um yeah so is there any questions yeah so where are you seeing uh most of the increase where do I see the most increase well yes you said I think it in the report said something around yeah we got about a thousand almost a thousand increase uh
097and meal counts so meals being served that's between breakfast lunch the biggest counts we actually see is our elementary schools so um I think last year we added some additional Staffing to the elementary but this is returning and bringing up the counts I mean I have some Elementary School between the breakfast and the lunches they're almost outperforming the high schools so that's good because it builds like trust with the students they're liking their meals and this will continue on through their school school life so when they go to high school more and more kids will consume more meals I believe and I just wanted to say thank you to you and the staff um most times we have somebody from leadership drama music coming in and you get to see the excitement in the teachers
098face the students uh and now uh the kitchen staff and I could just imagine all you in the kitchen and how excited you'd be there so it's great I'm grateful that uh we have you guys there and that you bring so much excitement to the job oh thank you and I do like answering a lot of questions feedback a lot of people know me I like to talk a lot not in front of a lot of people but oneon-one so um please contact me if you do have questions in the future thank you thank you very much and thank you for the brownies they were delicious you had me on monkey bread but the brownie was a close second it was very good I saw the monkey bread and I'm like oh man but um
099no awesome very good thank you thank you oh do Courtney have a question I was just going to make a motion to have snacks at every board meeting but oh I love that I'll second that it was very good thank you I was hungry too so thank you thank you thank you Jeff if the board would be interested in and seeing any of the kitchens or participating in any of the meal services how would they just contact you if they wanted to get oh definitely we always welcome additional help and observation if you like um truthfully we do so a lot of our subs are actually parents you know they either serve on the PTA or their noon Duty and they're actually amazed to see some of the stuff that coming out our kitchens they
100like the this is um like as restaurant quality items um the Middle School our newest League um never had any experience in school district he does have experience in hospital but he comes from like hotels and restaurants things like that so we are trying to raise the bar on presentation so definitely invite anyone to help us come conserve taste the food just um reach out to me thank you very much thank [Applause] you okay next we have public comments under government code 5495 4.3 me members of the public have the right to address the board on any matter within the board's jurisdiction however the board may not take action on any non-agenda item individual speakers will be allowed three minutes to address the board 20 minutes have been allocated for this portion of the agenda
101additional time is allowed at the end of the meeting if there was not enough time to speak during public comments when making a public comment on a specific agenda item please be sure to stay on the topic of that specific item each speaker will be given one opportunity for redirection before being asked to leave the podium so let's see here um I have for public comment I have Paula mcau good evening rhetoric in board meetings sporting events school meetings and conversations in our indiv ual homes is starting to heat up right now there is deep emotion in that rhetoric that is sadly including value statements about people so tonight I present a sample of Foundation Building part six in a series when you look at a Jenga Tower you typically see blocks All Uniform even
102color the goal is to pick and pull a parts pull parts to develop a strong tower that grows in height now as we pull pieces we test and decide what we think is no longer necessary to the original structure this Tower is special though we have a purple line in the middle of the tower we can see that this set of blocks clearly from afar as we pull out some of these parts the tower still stands other blocks that are pulled out seem the same from the outside but they too are unique they are marked with religious affiliations political Tendencies ideals about how to parent from the outside they appear the same but ultimately can also be labeled as different if I pull out all the purple blocks what will happen the tower will fall
103but if I pull out all the political blocks the tower will also fall in fact if I pull out all of any one group of blocks the foundation will crumble people are like these blocks they are important to the foundation we are building for our children some people look different from the outside others are different on the inside all are valuable I come here before you tonight because I'm deeply grieved that the rhetoric has degraded to the point of wanting one type of person to be excluded all people are created all are created equal all are endowed with certain rights that those in Authority should be protecting them all are precious even when they believe different than I do or you do they may parent different believe me as a person who helps other parents
104and kids in super stressed situations I know different parenting but they are all still lovely wonderful created individuals when one Precious part of our community is silenced we all lose we do not want any part of our community silenced through personal comments political aspirations or simply by being too tired to care what we what they say even the goal of being diverse Equitable and inclusive fall short of valuing individuals sometimes we want all our students teachers parents staff to be valued please know that you no matter what you believe what your views are or what you look like from the outside that you are special valuable and important to me no matter what others say I can see you the way you are created to be given special skills and abilities by a creator cares
105about you thank you next we have Craig lazaretti thank you first I want to start out by uh complimenting the basketball team and the chair team um for always referencing the letter that the superintendent read uh it's great to hear that type of sportsmanship on display in our community and we we need more examples like that and hear more examples like that so that's great okay so there has been a lot of heated rhetoric in the last few weeks over the special election and I think you know I think conflict is sometimes difficult but sometimes is necessary and it is good people need to speak their truth they have to speak their mind they have to speak what they believe in their heart but there's been too much hypocrisy too many examples of hypocrisy underlying
106all of this let me give you a few few exam few examples you know I've heard our former School Board trustee Miss yamus attacked repeatedly for not showing the commitment to serve out her term now before Miss yamus was elected to a higher office we had six resignations of City board members in this District over the last 20 years I don't recall an example of any of those board members who some of them resign very abruptly very early to their terms ever being attacked the way Miss yamas has been attacked that's unfair politicians run for higher office all the time while holding a certain office Barack Obama did that as a freshman Senator when he ran for president this is standard this is common that is hypocrisy about qualifications as I said we've had six
107appointments of board members to fill vacancies before this one and I don't recall in any of those cases the qualifications of the person appointed being attacked the way they have in this case we even had a former board member a few weeks ago who had the tarity to come here when he was appointed in 2016 without any direct educational experience without having a being a parent an active parent in the school district at that time and he was chosen a white male and no one questioned his qualifications yet in this case we've seen the person who was acked and whose ter appointment was terminated attacked over qualifications constantly you know and I would say let's any one of us have to be forced to sit around for three and a half hours and have to
108answer questions at 10:30 at night for a special appointment and answer questions off the top of our head and not stumble over one or two questions I've seen a lot of stumbling of white candidates who are appointed and I have never seen the attacks we've seen here racism is just not just entering the nword it often is implicit and we're seeing a lot of implicit racism in this community thank you thank you Megan nicala just embrace your inner Italian when it's nicel one of these days I'll get it right I know that's why I keep showing up I think wait can I get my 10 seconds back thank you this week as the special election story continues to evolve unfortunately the incessant and untruthful noise from the side that against the special election rages on
109but despite that I've continued to meet with a variety of people and talk and share ideas back and forth and I wanted to share a takeaway a question was posed to me well what would you like the board to do and I had three immediate shares from my active parent teacher experience and perspective my first would be to make a change in the literacy foundations and the TK to two to three grades in support an idea of Science of in a pheic awareness throw away Lucy ckins out the window compared to writing out the adoption cycle this program helps a very typical learner and not every student the board can make these changes beyond what the curriculum advisory committee can suggest and support my second idea is to make more change in support and make
110every student bilingual or multilingual Learners this can be done in a variety of ways but requires the board to act just like they need to act with literacy my third is to develop an encourage a grant team to help with the never-ending EB and flow of funding these three ideas are all based around creative problem solving and solutions solutions that Aid and bring greater success to our students no matter what their learning style and their background or past experiences are interestingly enough this current loud group has past members who have had the opportunity to bring change and to create those spaces and to overall support public education as they're stating but no actions have been made and they didn't stay around to keep making and pushing for these changes but yet seem to use this
111board as a stepping Zone to higher levels we don't need people who are self-identified as politicians we need people who are here to make the changes that our students need there's also members in this group that have honed in on the skill of saying one thing but then turning around and executing the exact opposite so how can you support and have Student Success when your actions don't align I hear and I understand acknowledge around the hesitancy based around the cost and the short length of term that would last but if people are feeling distrusted from the recent decisions made the lack of actions compared to the statements made and the amount of noise simply coming from the opposing side how can we get this real work done time is of the essence and our students
112deserve a trustee who will take action compared to the lip surface that appears to be more prominent to anyone is in doubt and exhausted from the mental load of all of these untruth comments and efforts to be putting the positive and truthful side for a candidate whose experience and brings Decades of knowledge and perspective to what is needed in the classroom and to make a greater change in every school I see you I am with you our efforts are needed because our students deserve better and more than these empty words and limited actions okay next we have Todd tomorrow during the board meeting on January 27th a board member claimed to have received multiple texts and emails in support of Britney IA although those individuals were not in attendance at the board meeting nor had
113they submitted public comments upon review of a public records act request these comments can only be substantiated through the receipt of multiple emails on behalf of Brenda Leal and onea Emil and support of Britney IA and no text for either candidate one text however was received from Contra Costa County Office of Education board member yamus notifying another board member that Britney had submitted her application to which the board member responded woohoo thanks for telling me while this text is not dated based on the deadline for submission of the open seat applications the text was likely prior to the application window being closed and prior to applicants being qualified for the open board seat please define for me how this is impartial or unbiased in a separate public records act request based on Logan Campbell's social
114media post where he claims to have received 40 emails from people in the community and another 20 or so that reached on for both candidates my math tells me that's approximately 60 emails in fact board trusty Campbell received a total of only 17 emails in support of Brenda Lea and one in support of Britney IA that's a total of 18 this is the same social media post where Mr Campbell states that it's true that for the most part he had already made up his mind again where is the unbiased impartiality in this process why is this so important if this were an employment hire in a business a preconceived bias such as those noted above as well as seemingly intentionally claiming that records lean towards one candidate versus another purely for the sake of advancing
115a possibly lesser qualified candidate could be deemed as discriminatory or possibly even ilg legal as we all know this board has embarked on a journey to hire the next superintendent of the martinus Unified School District to say I have concerns that this can be accomplished in a purely unbiased fashion if you have knowledge of a candidate pool or applicants or you have a desire to meet some other objective with this hiring should be worrisome to the community the most disheartening part of having to stand here and make these comments and assertions is that I and likely other community members have lost trust in some of you to make solid decisions that matter with regard to Student Success while I may while I should feel disheartened possibly feel disenfranchised by not having a trustee for Area
1163 be part of this extremely critical decision process I have greater anxiety over some of you who are part of it and that you will have the ability to remain impartial throughout the entire process taking in feedback from stakeholders and stakeholder groups who will be part of the process and actually utilize it to guide you in your decision because of this as of late you have not proven your ability to do so be better and do better please okay do we have any changes to the consent calendar there are no changes we also have some donations um we have the blackb giving fund k Club of Martinez and bring change to mind so thank you for those donations um do we have any motions I'll make a motion to approve the consent calendar second student
117rep I all those in favor I I so moved uh next up is discussion information item review of csba update dates December 2024 Helen Rossy so um last board meeting I brought you the bulk of the csba csba updates from December I had one pulled the bylaw for conflict of interest um for the board and its uh uh corresponding exhibit to be reviewed by legal there were two changes um one was had to do with um increasing the threshold on campaign donations and the impact of um contracts that were being board approved um it went from 250 to 500 and uh both conflict of interest uh board policies and administrative regs this one's a bylaw but the other one that's in the um Regular board policy and administrative regs I usually have um legal go
118through both just to make sure because they have to do contracts that we pass and I want to make sure that we get them right and and nothing passes and we know who has to abstain and who doesn't so I did receive it back and it's good to go um right now it also um has in it the new um regulation for the ethics training that board members who are in office on January 1st 2025 they have until January 2026 to take their ethics training course and then they have to repeat it every two years so I will provide information to those of you on the board um which would be all of you that you now have to take a training so um that will be forthcoming in the near very near future okay
119so that's what I have the last remaining for the December 2024 um for review and it will come back in two weeks um for adoption perfect any questions any um public comments comments okay um next uh Janelle aat Martinez adult education appren ship salary increase good evening tonight I'm bringing forward a request from the Martinez adult education program um the program employs part-time teachers who teach apprenticeship classes for the Contra Costo electrical joint apprenticeship program and these teachers are paid at the journeyman level and their salary is being increased to 745 for an hour um funding for these teachers comes from the related and supplemental instruction funding that's provided by the state to support apprenticeship Ed education and there's no impact to the general fund um so this is being um brought for information tonight
120and we be brought forward for Action at our next meeting thank you and I know we do this every year so um any questions any public comments okay we will see that next time uh with that let's see I need to close the regular meeting and I need to open the public hearing for ab 1200 disclosure and public comment for the tenative salary agreements with mea CA Massa and confidential supervisory unit uh the purpose of this public hearing per ab200 is to allow for public comment on the district's disclosure of the cost to fund the negotiated salary settlement for the 2425 school year with the Martinez Education Association the California School Employees Association the Martinez Association of school administrators and confidential supervisory unit the settlement includes a salary schedule increase of 1% effective July 1st
12120124 through June 20th 2025 and Status Quo for Health and Welfare Ben benefits for 2425 is there any public comment yes okay's Craig laar ready I just want to uh voice my opposition to the board voting on this matter tonight as a voter and taxpayer from area three I do not have a representative on the board tonight to vote on this matter that deals with the expenditure of taxpayer money and the District budget I made a growing budget crisis I believe this is unfair to the voters and stakeholders of are three this 1% increase according to the letter from County Office of Education will cost the school district $ 46,2 180 for fiscal year 2425 this will be funded from The District's reserves which are already in a precarious situation barely on Pace to to
122hit the 3% minimum State minimum this is uh fiscally rless in my opinion and this decision should be postponed until we have a full board and until area three is represented if you decide to move forward and vote on this tonight I would like to State uh I would like to ask and state my opposition that this is not in the best interest of students it will cost the school district over $400,000 that will neate more budget cuts that will come out of the classroom it will do nothing to increase our ability to retire retain teachers we have already given 25% in salary increases over the past three years to retain and recruit teachers if the 25% wasn't good enough to get the job done one more percent is not going to do the trick
123okay so we're basically throwing away $46,000 and we talk about students coming first and our students deserve better and we throw these slogans around and we use our children as pawns I'm sorry people don't like to hear that but that's what we do we treat our children as pwns and this is a perfect example so I challenge anyone in this room to justify how this is responsible and how this puts our children first where could that $400,000 go hey we could put it toward Equity programs to our our ongoing efforts combating racism I heard a Al Hammer High student grow emotional in a community event two weeks ago talking about a Latina student talking about the ethnic slurs she is subjected to on campus the hate and racism she is subjected to on campus and
124she repeated those slurs I've heard too many of these stories over the last five years I know you've heard too many of these stories over the last five years I'm tired of hearing these stories and we're going to continue to hear more of these stories over the next five years because the situation is not ending okay and we don't have representation on this board we do not have ethnic representation to make these decisions okay so let's put the money toward that thank you thank you um next we have Maryann Griffin hi um I'm GNA stick to my script here uh I I'm Maran Griffin I teach at alhamra high school and I served as the bargaining chair for mea and on behalf of the mea bargaining tip ah team my script went away uh we
125just wanted to thank the district bargain in team and the board for the collaborative nature of the discussions through the past bargaining cycle we look forward to continuing discussion next fall during the next round of bargaining as the focus for mea is always to look to create the best conditions to keep a positive learning environment for all of our students thank you okay think that's it oh so there's another one okay Paula McCully when it comes to our teachers you all know or you may not that I chose to be here and I chose Martinez Unified School District because of the education that my kids would receive I've been in the highest I've been in the lowest of the school districts in California I've been out of state I've been in state and when we
126came back to California we chose here one of the reasons that we chose here is because of our teachers and spefic specifically because the teachers were taking steps to be proactive in the academics of our students of your students and we saw that observed that for about five years before we moved when we came here our children were attending all the way through we did not pay for tutors we did not send them to DVC we relied on the education they were getting in the classroom and obviously from the results one of them sitting in this room tonight um they did a pretty darn good job and I have students who have achieved at the highest levels not because I did anything brilliant despite what people may think it's because they had the opportunities to
127expand and they receive that education in the classroom with the teachers in the school district when we give a 1% raise we send a message I understand it's not enough to Signal all of California that you should apply here to have the best educ best salary but we are sending the message that we care we're sending the message to our teachers that we value them to our staff to our administrators and that's why people stay and every time we retain a teacher we save the district dollars more than $400,000 actually if you start doing the math for every time that we have to replace someone it costs us time and effort and we lose experience so I thank you for valuing our staff by giving them a raise and I thank you for finding the
128money in the budget to do that because it took a lot of effort on your part to do that and I thank you for deciding that they're worth the effort we think they are otherwise I wouldn't be here and I just want to thank you for the outcome of my five who have already graduated and my four that are still to come so thank you thank you is that it yeah okay so with that we will close the public hearing and now we're going to go back to reopen the regular meeting um and we are on to action item uh Andy Cannon uh so board tonight um you've heard from the public you've seen the av1200 document so we are asking for the board to to decide the matter on whether to approve or disapprove
129the 1% raise um additional information that may be noteworthy to you um this process does require us to send in um information to the county office county office has reviewed our disclosure and they agree that we can afford the 1% raise um obviously are there looking at our bottom line for three years out and knowing that we're dangerously close to our Reserve amount there um but even that being said U we did valid date that we can't afford this race for this year so it's up to the board to decide whether to move forward or not thank you Andy board discussion um I can't speak for anybody else up here but I think we all agree that teachers deserve to be paid like our uh Frontline workers um unfortunately this board doesn't have any power
130uh over what the state does and how much they fund um and as per this letter from the county uh Board of Education we made we were able to give that 1% by making Cuts in in part um so you know I thinkk everyone that was at the negotiation table for realizing that anything beyond this was wasn't going to work without making more cuts and I do want to point out out you know our cabinet members have done an amazing job in trying to find one-time funds and ways to uh kind of get our bottom line up improve Ada numbers uh but I hope everyone here understands next year it's I mean I could be wrong but between what's going on at the federal level and including the state budget there's just a lot of
131things that have to align in order for uh us to continue um supporting our teachers and the rest of the staff so uh I this is my first year and I'm very proud of what the board uh before we did and supporting the teachers and the staff uh but I think we're going to really have to uh do some soul searching and Bell tightening in the upcoming year and I hope if just everyone remembers that and if this board in the future isn't able to make everybody happy you know it's not because we don't believe in everyone and that they deserve more uh it just because it's not there so uh yeah that's [Music] it any other discussion no I I think that was well said I I and I do appreciate that the process
132was collaborative this year um it hasn't always been I hope it will be in the future and um yeah I mean I'm a Public Employee too I know um we don't do it for the money um but we do need to be able to support our families and pay our bills and um it's really hard when you aren't a revenue generating business that can do something about what what what the revenue coming in is but we've all everybody in this room has tried really hard to stretch the money as far as we can and I'm glad we were able to at least come up with something this year and I hope that we're able to be able to do that in the future also any public comment or I'm sorry sorry go ahead I do
133um I'm really proud of the raises that we have been able to give since I have been on the board and a lot has been said about the pretty sizable donations donations oh my goodness so sorry raises that have happened um over the past three years and those raises were necessary to get our staff from the bottom of the county we were literally last place I don't feel good sending my kid to a school and dropping him off and entrusting him to people who are not compensated fairly for their work the raises that we have given have ensured that we have community members who stay here who are committed to our schools and to our kids because they are our precious resource we're not talking right now about teachers running away making tens of millions
134of dollars like some of the people running our country currently we're talking about people who are trying to live in the Bay Area and support families of their own 1% I think is reflective of where we are this year the cola was under 1% just slightly we've been really trying to meet that as Mr Canon mentioned we have a lot of safeguards in place to ensure that what we do is fiscally responsible and I think there is no better way that we can spend our resources than on the people who are caring for our children and teaching them in our absence okay well we like I said we we agreed to this and it we were able to do it um within our budget and um we hopefully will be be in a better situation
135with onetime funds and some money coming in um this is uh we're only approving the form on this one so do um we don't need public comment is there a motion I'll move to approve second student rep I all those in favor I I so moved okay it's 8:45 I believe 8:43 um can we have a motion for a five minute recess a second that oh I make a motion for a five minute recess I'll second student rep I all those in favor I I so moved so we're GNA take a quick recess e e e okay we're ready to call the meeting back to order hello all right we're ready to call the meeting back to order uh project labor agreement Andy Canon uh thank you um we are bringing back the project labor
136agreement side letter this was the letter that was introduced um at a previous board meeting U the intent behind the S letter is to continue the services that are currently going through with the current project labor agreement which was signed in 2018 what this will do is it'll add uh measure o which is our $90 million General obligation bond that was um passed by voters in November of this last year to add that onto for the purposes of um construction at the high school the junior high and martine's adult education okay thank you um and just to clarify this is the exact same side letter that we presented before uh I think changed the date and one little tiny thing in there but the essence of it is the same okay and if for some
137reason this did not go through the funds are expected to close out in 60 days yes we will finish measure R which is what the current pla was designed around um and so that will be finished with the morel par project and so the pla then would be closed out that's correct it will sunset at the closure of measure our funds in projects okay all right um any discussion yeah um this is really difficult because I um value everybody in this room and the work you do and I know some of you are going to leave upset tonight no matter what happens with this vote um I'm trying to look at it you know I was really hopeful that a different side letter would be coming back and that there could have been agreement between
138um the different parties but unfortunately that didn't happen and so I think something Ben said earlier is really important um to get the adults out of the way and focus on the students and that's what I'm trying to do and I don't think it's good for our students or our voters or our measure o projects to not have a PLA and that's the choice I'm faced with either we continue those projects under the pla or the pla goes away yeah I agree Courtney I um have been unwavering my support of the pla I look around at our elementary schools that were built with measure R funds and I see safe schools for our kids I see wonderful learning spaces I see projects that came in on time and on budget and so I want that
139want that for our kids um I do hope that the Carpenters participate I really we value your work is really important it's really critical I do not see this letter as being exclusionary and I hope you join us so I think back to the comment that um Courtney made last time about you know the parents divorcing and separating um I think it's terrible that we are put in this position that we have to pick one or the other um and I I think you know what if we go with this and then um the Carpenters pick it and then you have high school students that are driving through picket lines and things like that I don't think they would do that but you never know um and I I look back and I think did
140we do all the things for the students that we had in the original pla so I'm really torn and I think that you know the city said it best you know let you figure it out um I mean I I was the first one who said yeah I think a pla is good and I I still think a pla is good but at the same time if this were two kids fighting about something I would say you to go back and figure it out and once you come up with a solution then um we'll make a you know then we'll move forward um and I so I had a couple questions so one um we still pay prevailing wage on projects even if we don't have a pla um yes and we would not stop
141the work because the taxpayers voted on this so we would continue um moving along with the project yeah I think it's our responsibility to continue to moving forward with our projects because the voters did right exactly and I would not want to slows that down at all and if um you know the two groups came back later at another later date and it would be fairly easy to bring a pla back I mean they would we would have to you know go through the process but I would assume that it would be a agreement that they both are willing to um work on if that was the decision if you like you said to the kids you know do you want to have a pla or do you not um it would be fairly easy
142to bring one back if we reive direction from the board to do that then we could that's not what's in here tonight but no no I know I'm just thinking if we because so um my thought is if we had an area three representative we would have you know a fifth person and I you know and that's not going to happen if we don't move forward with the pla because would expire before we had somebody appointed so I'm just I'm just trying to get all the Avenues just get the questions asked you could take it in a lot of different ways um tonight is the S side letter that would continue it going forward the board could choose to bring back or to renegotiate that or direct staff to do that at a later date
143but if you were to approve it tonight you would have to invalidate this one in order to try to do something else well no what I'm I'm thinking is if let's say the V was 2 two I don't know that it is but that would not pass and it's not going to change until so the um pla will expire right because it would expire in 60 days we would not have a new person before then so down the road if the two groups the Carpenters and the Building Trades got together and could work out what they should have been able to work out in my opinion um then they could come back with some kind of a new pla agreement that would be relatively I'm thinking straightforward um if if this is not approved or
144if it's pulled from the agenda then the current pla from 2018 would continue until measure R funds are exhausted at that point in time we'd no longer have a pla at that point there's numerous different things that could happen based on board Direction okay but again that's in about two months okay um just asking questions and talking any other comments yeah uh I want to say I believe in collective bargaining and I can see all the members here um there's a reason you joined the Union right it's because you believe in that and I have faith that everyone can come to an agreement that's satisfactory to everybody this thing become really political and you know again keeping students uh first you know I understand um there could be some R of ramifications from the current
145pla expiring but again like I said I have total faith in everyone here that there can be a middle ground uh unfortunately we're not there right now but I think we can do it in time I just want to add I think um you know from my perspective putting the students first um if this pla expires then we have to start back from the beginning and that means renegotiating a new agreement which is going to cost this District time and money and I don't see a reason to do that when we have a pla that has worked and that everybody in this room has gotten work from and we're we are in a different position than the city is in because the city does not have a pla theirs has expired and so they have
146to start from the beginning no matter what we do not have to do that and we also have projects that are ready to start building this summer the city also does not have that so I don't think comparing where we're at to the city is at is is really all that helpful what this would do if we pass this S letter is just going to basically keep the status quo what we had worked our projects came in under budget and are good quality projects and I'm not sure why you know I understand the different sides I've thought about them a lot I've thought about all of you I've talked to many of you and I just don't think it's in the best interest of this District to change anything other than to keep our measure
147o projects as part of the pla that we already have I completely agree to all of that and I don't disagree with uh most of what you you said but I I don't think it's us starting over because we have the building blocks uh it's just a matter of making sure everyone comes together because of course we could approve this now and then one party could choose to pick it and uh you know again I'm just going to go back to that I have full faith that everyone here can really look at what's most important which is the district and the students students but also the members right there's lots of parents here that have been able to thrive and succeed in parts of all these different um unions so um again I'm I'm going
148to hope that uh at some point whether it's tonight or in the future everyone can come to an agreement okay um I'd love to hear from the public so we've got a number of uh people signed up Brenda leil is first and then Tim saon is second is it on I support the pla as it's currently written it's been good for our community it's been great for our kids and they're in some really great schools right now because we were able to come in under budget it helped our district and um I would hope that you would adopt the side letter and extend it to the new Bond so that we can get on with doing what we need to do for our kids and discussing our kids at these meetings thank you Tim good
149evening Madame President uh Board of Trustees I want to first start by thanking the superintendent staff for bringing this back and I think the reason it's back before us tonight is because it worked um this has been rewarding meeting because I think hearing the focus the student centered Focus especially during the presentations of the schools earlier and then hearing with during the superintendent search everything was focused on the students and actually I think Madame President I I understand the analogy about the parents um but when the parents are debating or having an issue the focus is still from the school standpoint not the parents but we focus solely on the students and I would argue that the evidence shows that the pla has work for the students I couldn't agree more uh with the comments
150that have been made about that we see schools that have come in on time under budget so much so that you're able to actually roll over additional funds to make additional improvements at a different school so I think it's important to note that it's worked um when it comes to what's best for the district the efficiency from a staff standpoint not having staff trying to manage a new some new process like pre-qualification or some other thing or or to run the whole Bond program but we do that through the pla in partnership with staff so in a time when you have budget difficulties and trying to put every resource into the students this is an efficient project proven delivery model so I know it's like well you can wait come back maybe you guys come
151to an agreement your students don't have time to wait you need your students deserve an efficient effective project delivery model now that has worked um so I want to stress that the thing I really want to stress the most though as a former educator who spent 24 years in the classroom is you need the best specialized crafts at all times doing this work students don't learn when the HVAC systems aren't running right you know we've had the presentation from nutrition services when the refrigeration Services don't work that's meals that spoil when you have science labs that aren't constructed properly in terms of the equipment in terms of the sinks when you have Plumbing that backed up when you have roofs that link uh electrical work that's not done properly you need specialized craft and I
152would say this you don't want to wait to well we'll do these projects some other way outside of a PLA and oh well there's there's prevailing wage that's true prevailing wage W but we also know that prevailing wage sometimes is goes to the lowest irresponsible bidder so I would submit to you that you don't want to wait to say well maybe someday this will fall under some Union specialized craft we got to do this work now um and also because of the broad section of that we represent you're also going to get more parents local hire because we have a broad section of crafts the other thing that's new from when the pla was adopted is we have an apprentice program a pre-apprentice program CWI construction training Workforce initiative where we can embed right now
153within your classrooms within your Adult School within your continuation school within your high school not waiting 12 months we can get started this fall for your students who deserve these Services now that's all part of the pla we ask you again there's a lot of noise a lot of focus on the interests of adults but if you block out the noise think about students the pla is the way to go okay we have Mary writtenhouse and then Monica menesses good evening my name is Mary writtenhouse I'm co-president of the Martinez Education Association I'm speaking tonight to encourage you to vote Yes on the project labor agreement a yes vote on this is a vote for commitment to Quality efficiency and the well-being of our district we are very fortunate that our community passed measure o
154which will allow us to finish updating the remainder of our buildings in our district the work done on these buildings should be performed by highly skilled properly trained workers the pla guar guarantees that local labor is prioritized and instead of Outsourcing the work from outside our community job opportunities can be created right here this will not only strengthen our local economy but ensures that there is some accountability to the work being done using the pla will help our projects stay on time and on budget which means that our students and employees will get the safe modern and well-built schools that they deserve using the existing pla can be considered an investment in our future many of these agreements include a aips programs that provide young people with career Pathways in the trades by supporting plas
155we're not just building schools we're building Futures please make the smart choice for our district please support the existing PLA and ensure that our schools are built to last by workers who care for the students who deserve the best thank you hello oh hello board members uh I'm a mom and an involved parent at the John Mir PTA I would like you to support the pla as it's currently written that's how I support it it's been great for our community and great for our district and it saved us a lot of money please adopt the side letter extending it to the new Bond thank you I'm tempted to just say Megan but nicolella I'm so proud of you um Megan nicolella parent teacher Dynamic Problem Solver I'm also here to support the pla as written
156and I do want to thank uh trusty horac Morton and M O'Brien for also making it pretty transparent on the support in doing what's best for the community because it has been working and to keep the jobs going and the good work working thanks thank you we have Craig lazaretti and then we have Rick soless so I totally agree with this sentiment that we have to keep the focus on kids students and board business needs to be focused on our kids and students and so let's take a little history lesson now let's go back to 2018 when the this pla was originally negotiated that was a long uh painful process that divided that board it lasted a year it took an immense amount of time and resources away from our students when I had children
157in the district and I'm still offended to this day by the amount of time that was taken that was unnecessary it dragged on for a year the negotiations did not have happen in good faith I have a quote here because you know public records were a thing even before they were about overturning boid board appointments I have a public record from 2018 from our former Superintendent at that time to a former B board member who summed up the negotiations as such quote as we know the negotiations weren't even really negotiations but we didn't know that until most of the way through after most of the initial frustration after we learned through the process the hard way this was really about signing on to what the BTC was seeking as they never really moved off their
158key area resources away from our students but it's always students first right so let's fast forward January 2020 after year and a half after the BTC got their precious pla on a silver platter what happens what happens there's a proposal to put a pot dispensary next to our high school the school board is universally opposed to it the superintendent is universally opposed to it right what happens at a school board meeting minutes from the January 15 2020 School school board meeting quote Greg Ferry on behalf of the contracosta county buildings trade Council addressed the board regarding their support for the Embark dispensary wow and then a week later all the public comments from the city council meeting on the dispensary that night overwhelmingly opposed overwhelmingly opposed you know what half of the people that spoke
159in support were affiliated with the BTC students come first we've had nothing but we've had nothing but study after study Public Health officials saying time after time that now we have an epidemic with teenage cannabis use that being close living close or being close to cannabis dispensaries is directly correlated to teenage cannabis use our contracosta health officer said last year at a city council meeting that we recommend keeping them far away from schools as possible kids come first okay mea leaders show up tonight to talk about pla hey how about when the when the lgbtq kids were here in tears and emotionally talking about the pride flag when there was opposition to race the PIP rack how come I didn't hear any meba leaders then talking or when we talked about we heard about the
160examples of racism on campus and the students talked about their experience with racism how come I didn't hear any MBA leaders talking then blind loyalty stop being sheep good evening president and board members my name is Rick Solis with the northcal Carpenters Union Local 152 your neighbors domiciled here in alhamra Avenue in Martinez it's good to see you all again I just had hoped that it would have been under better circumstances as we all know we were all here back in January to discuss this very issue but unfortunately we have not been able to achieve a very positive outcome according to the proposed agenda the picture has been painted very clearly that because the Carpenters Union is no longer affiliated with the Building Trades Council we sought to be named as a third party to
161this pla giving us the ability to speak for ourselves and for our members when necessary and not allowing another organization to speak for us which I can't imagine any of you would allow somebody to speak for you it has also been very communicated that with with all sides that anything short of that we would not be able to to support in the past couple of months you've heard from both the Building Trades and their affiliate Representatives as well as the Carpenters Union on the benefits of a pla um as well as the acknowledgement from the board regarding out your approval on how the projects from measure R went so each one of those projects was done by a signatory general contractor with the Carpenters Union by the way you all expressed your satisfaction and that
162you wanted to continue that recipe for success by adding the funds from measure o however as explained many times the recipe has changed so expecting the same outcome When you subtract the largest labor union that performs The Lion Share of the work seems counterproductive to that goal it was even commented last time that the statement I made about Carpenters doing roughly 70% of the work on any school job was a fabrication so what you and or that person that said that may not know is that amongst the Carpenters Union there are numerous Apprentice trades that include carpentry which includes a vast array of Scopes in itself drywall metal stud and La hardwood flooring Mill RS pile drivers the mil cab industry insulators acoustical scaffold uring Erectors and office modular installers so you want to talk
163about apprenticeships those are the ones that are run under the Carpenters Union so you may think that the proposed language satisfies our intent by adding our name but it does not it very simply says that you're not part of our club but will let you play on our field with us that's what that's saying and it further States from the board that we are not interested in the success in the this agreement so we will knowingly water it down and hope for the best so as mentioned previously if you really feel that this agreement has served you and the students of Martinez unified well then the choice is clear that you ensure that you include the largest component of that success instead of quickly streamlining a watered down version just for the sake of having
164an agreement thank you you're out of time real quick I'm sorry I'm the only one speaking for 40 people present so if I could have 20 more seconds I'd appreciate it is that okay justification for plas is not is What's Up For Debate here tonight so to save the time of hearing from multiple speakers on this point of view I will simply state that unless this pla is amended to includes the Carpenters Union as a third party to this agreement we urge a no vote you're gonna have to cut it I'm sorry a no vote on the addition of measure o funds and the continuation of this PL pla via the side letter until we are allowed to participate thank you all right we have Mike Conrad [Applause] next good evening uh my name is
165Mike Conrad I've got a few different mik not close enough my name is Mike Conrad I've got a few different connections um so kids I've got four I've got 13 years into the school district I got 12 to go so fun numbers um I'm I'm so my wife's very involved with the ppta raised a lot of money for John Mir in the auction recently so excited about that uh I'm fortunate to have been able to work for the uh School District um I I work with overall construction we're signatory to the Carpenters and we built uh Los hunas we built John sweat so it's it's been exciting to be able to work for the district and in my hometown so um excited to be here for that and I don't like conflict um and it
166sounds like there's some conflict that's been going on I I think that there's some uniform decisions I think everybody wants there to be a pla I think the school district wants a pla I think the The Building Trades Council wants there to be a pla I think the Carpenters want to be part of the pla um I I think that the seems like the Ripple is that the Carpenters want to be listed on the Mast head and the Building Trades don't want them to be on the mass head and it's that's seems like where we're kind of stuck at so it's I'd like that there would be a way for the carpenter to be listed on the Mast head I think that'd be a nice way to just have the the pla same same way
167it's written don't don't change a thing just put and and the Carpenters Union if that's a way to resolve it that that would be a simple way to to keep things where you have a good pla intact um I know there's probably a lot more to that uh however this unfolds I I'm trying to figure out how to connect myself in more with those that are making decisions I'm reaching out to the uh CA the construction employers Association um meeting with the uh the Carpenters Union I want to try to find out how to meet with the Building Trades Council to figure out how to get that Unity because I think everyone works works strong um together the Carpenters with when they are on the the pla they're able to work with the Building Trades
168council at the same time so I think that's why that there's the the conflict that you see behind me is because they really want to be a part of that and it's it's important for them to to be recognized in that way I don't know how to solve it um and I and I'm I wish you guys weren't stuck in this position where you're at I I do hope that we can get a pla that recognizes everybody so thank you for your time thank you uh we have Eric Haynes probably butchered that too good evening Eric Haynes I'm a business representative with Sheet Metal Workers Local 104 um you know the pla does include everybody it's as simple as that I I can't I'm going to move past that I I think I'd like to
169provide some clarification on the mythification around prevailing wage prevailing wage requires that if you are not a registered Apprentice in the state of California that you have to be paid as a journey person without a pla there is no requirement to have Journey persons dispatched from the appropriate hiring hall for the jurisdictional craft doing that work what that means is that you have non-union subcontractors that overa loves to use on non pla projects having guys who are typically labor level skills doing sheet metal work doing Plumbing work Public Works prevailing wage is not what you think it is without a pla it is an unfair unlevel playing Ground for every even the Carpenters I have done so much compliance on Public Works in almost every single project that had lots of wage theft on it
170were Carpenter signatory General Contractors on Nona projects and their subcontractors the Carpenters were not the issue but the subcontractors that were below par being used were the issue we already have something in place that works perfect keep it as far as a strike is concerned you cannot strike a public works project that's California law so if somebody's telling you that they're feeding you a line of Croc so you know if you want education on how public works works feel free to reach out to us Carpenters or Building Trades any one of us crft that deals with it we know it better than anyone else because we're out there doing it and then it's just important move the pla move measure o into the pla if it ain't broke don't fix it they're included I I
171don't read it it's in plain English in print a legal document is that it for public comment right I got them all okay oh we got one more my my name is Anthony viscuso I'm a business agent for heaten frost insulators Local 16 and just slightly to piggyback on what Eric just said um and to address what uh uh Logan said earlier he said you know somebody's gonna leave here on happy today that's not true if you guys go with the pla the Carpenters win and the Building Trades wins they are still going to do the work do you think OA is not going to go out and bid the next project do you think they're not going to win the Project based on the work they've already done no we work great together I'm
172telling you it is a win-win situation no matter what happens here tonight the Carpenters Win Regardless no which way you go but there is one way you can go where everybody wins so i' urge you guys to include it include the new money in the pla thank you does someone need to make a motion to extend the meeting I make a motion to extend the meeting to 10 o'clock 1030 10:30 just to make it okay just to play it safe I'll second a student rep I all those in favor I I so moved okay well thank you everyone for your your comments and um can I ask a followup question you go for it so um earlier he said or somebody said this summer is when we could start breaking ground uh I'm not in
173the facil facilities committee and I haven't been following it well so I apologize but um from what I understand there's not even any plans yet so could you give a reasonable amount of time that uh because I know in the pl would expire my question is when like if there was a nuclear football when would that something else need to be in place in order to uh have that work uh been under a new pla if that's what we went with um is it possible yes um right now the path that we're on is that we need to update our facility master plan and so we're working on that process um we've been a part part of some different Communications with focus groups with sites and listening to what they have to do um but
174right now we're not ready to move forward with that except to say that some of the projects that we do that may be under that million dollar threshold um could potentially be started as early as the summer or even in the fall so right now we we can't conclusively say one way or the other because we've got a little bit more work to do and more input from the community and we haven't sold any bonds and we have not sold any bonds yet um and that process could take anywhere from eight to 12 weeks to do so but so a follow-up question to that is for the bond part do you have to have the pla in place and also in order to finish the or submit the master plan do you have to have
175the pla in place you do not have to have a pla in order to do projects um it is the board's desire to do a pla so that's part of your decision- making today but if the board chose not to do or to approve this side letter the pla would Sunset but District work around measure o would continue can I make a motion I'm going to move to approve the 18.2 item side letter second I I N I care about the students I don't want to cost the district money I am extremely disappointed with the Building Trades however because I do agree that cannabis shop should not have been there and you got that near a school and I think it's ridiculous that the two groups cannot play nice together however I will vote I
176motion passes next on it we have approval of superintendent search firm just a minute as per our board policies I would like our one member to specifically explain why he is voting no on this item good I think everybody should be included in it okay um approval of superintendent search firm and contract um as a February 24th meeting the board agreed to bring back the proposal and contract of the executive Recruitment and development firm of mcferson and Jacobson for approval to provide services for a comprehensive search process for a new superintendent for the Martinez Unified School District um I believe the contract is is attached um and just to clarify on that the warranty I believe it's called warranty um it's for the two-year warranty is also for um if we decide the person that
177was hired is not the right person it's a guarantee could you repeat that last part again I couldn't hear you or just wait okay so um the guarantee is for if we hire somebody and in two years they leave or in two years if we find some reason to let them go the search firm will um do the search again without cost now there is still some cost Associated but just to clarify that one point so I think this is a good contract you've seen it do you have any discussion on it I mean we we met with Ben during close session he gave a good great presentation I am enthusiastically in support of this and happy we're getting started awesome do we have any other comments from here or public comment okay do I
178have a motion I'll make a motion to approve the superintendent search form search firm and contract all second student rep I all those in favor I I so moved okay um Helen Rossy adoption of csba updates is this the same one oh other December 2024 items so tonight I bring back all of the um December 202 2024 board policies and administ regulations that I brought forth two weeks ago um boards had two weeks to go through look at the changes and they're back tonight for approval thank you I know I've had a chance to review them and they looked good to me you've done a great job of highlighting the differences any discussion do I any um public comment do we have a motion I'll move to approve the csba updates from December 2024 all
179second student rep I all those in favor I I so moved ratification of contract between the Martinez Education Association and the Martinez Unified School District Janelle aat good evening um I'm happy to bring forward tonight for the board's um review and and consideration the ratification of the tenative agreement with martinez Education Association um the settlement includes a 1% increase retroactive to July 1st 2024 and staff is recommending approval of the tenative agreement and the associated salary schedules that are attached okay thank you any questions this is essentially just the next step from our first action item correct yes it's the salary increase plus language changing changes in the articles that were sunshin okay thank you any other discussion board members no okay uh we have a public comment Craig lazaretti I apologize for losing my
180temper earlier as you know I I get riled up sometimes this Rossy has seen many times over the years but don't ever take it person okay I just want to reiterate my opposition to approving the salary increase as a voter and taxpayer from area three I do not feel I am represented in this decision I believe that this matter should be put off until we have a full board I don't think waiting uh until the summer to put through this agreement will cause any great harm to anybody and given the role that certain mea members played in leaving me without a representative in area three um I think it's only fitting that they should have to wait till the summer to get this uh this raise approved um I don't think it's going to maturely
181affect student welfare student well-being the only thing it will do delaying it will do is improve our budget situation which has a direct bearing on the welfare and well-being of our students um and allow us to devote additional resources at $400,000 to serving our St students and instilling Trust among the community in our school district now I know some people have had wonderful experiences at musd and I had I sent two children through musd and I had some wonderful experiences but as some of you know I also had some frustrating experiences okay and I think we have to be honest with ourselves when you lose 10% of your enrollment in four years that's not just demographics there are parents who have pulled their children out of the school district because they aren't happppy with the
182school district they AR happppy with the direction of the school district they are unhappy with what's happening they're they don't feel like their children are receiving the level of support they deserve it has nothing to do it has nothing to do with salary increases or all this rhetoric it has something to do with what they experience on a day-to-day basis okay people have pulled their kids out of our school district because they've had negative experiences here and cutting $400,000 from the budget is only going to amplify those negative experiences so once again I just stating the facts okay the facts speak for themselves I think the facts are compelling people can talk all day long about their personal experiences their own anecdotes I can do that I can talk about my children the things that
183went well the things that went badly but these are just anecdotes the data is the data the facts are the facts okay and we can't continue to put our head in the sand and pretend like everyone's having a wonderful experience here because a lot of parents aren't and a lot of kids aren't thank you okay um do we have any more discussion do I have a motion I'll make a motion to approve the ratification of the contract between the mea and the musd I'll second student rep I all those in favor I I I motion passes oh that's right sorry you can't vote sorry um does a new motion need to be made or does my motion stand let's just do a new motion because you did it so I'll go ahead and move to
184approve yeah sorry I was just trying to find it item 18.5 ratification of contract between the mea and the Martinez Unified School District I second all those in favor I motion passes um ratification of 2024 D 2027 contract between California employee Association chapter 99 and Martinez Unified School District Janelle aat good evening um before you tonight is a full new three-year contract with the California School Employees Association chapter 99 in the district so you'll see um in the summary I've um indicated which agreements we've reached we negotiated almost every article of our contract and um we had a very collaborative negotiation process just like with mea this year and we are asking um the board to consider and approve the new the three-year contract for 24 through 2027 and uh the associated uh salary increase
185with the salary schedules noted here thank you any disc question I have a question for clarification so the mea is our teachers correct that's our certificated staff correct and then is this our class and school psychologists and speech language Pathologists and Mental Health Counselors everyone who holds a credential okay is under mea and then CSEA are are non-credentialed employees like clerical Food Service par Educators all right those and then since I don't get to vote on this one I would like to voice my support for this okay thank you thank you and I did want to say also I think a lot has been said tonight about specifically mea and not a lot has been said about CA and these is in my mind really the bread and butter of our district these are people
186who see our kids at every level from the person who greets them in the office to the person who gives them a Band-Aid to the person who serves their lunch um and they are really really critical staff and in many many cases our lowest paid staff so I think that these raises are really necessary um and it and I also appreciate our district bargaining team and the cdaa bargaining team for negotiating a three-year contract that's not easy and so I know that was a lot of time and collaboration so thank you for your service you forgot to mention janitors oh my gosh and the people who I mean there's so many people right but you're absolutely right the people who clean up after the lunch okay any discussion any more any public comment okay any
187motion I will move to go ahead oh you can do this one go ahead all right thank you I will move to approve the ratification of um the new contract with cssea I'll second all those in favor I I I motion passes okay ratification of meet and confer between the Martinez Association of school administrators and Martina Unified School District Janelle ayat good evening this is the tenative agreement um with the martinus association of school administrators this includes our principals Vice principals um our classified managers um program Specialists all administrative um service members um um they're not a union it's a that's why it's called a meet and confer um so we don't bargain as Mossa members it's a meet and confer process and so um we are proposing um approval for the 1% salary increase
188retroactive to July 1st 2024 with status quo benefits any discussion first of all thank you for the language clarification that was very very nice um second of all I've heard in different areas statements about how oh well even if we're giving more money to our teachers in order to increase that interaction in the classroom that our administrators are so overpaid that they shouldn't be and I would just like to say from a student perspective how many different interactions I have with administrators every single day and the vast impact that they have had on my educational experience it is our teachers do a lot our administrators also do a lot um and so I believe that they deserve this to the same level sorry okay um any oh public comment we have Craig lazaretti so just
189for the record I oppose all these actions including this one because I am not represented area three the sport um okay so I was never good at math but I know a little bit of math so I know that like one% of a large amount is bigger than more money than 1% of a smaller amount so obviously our administrators get paid more than our teachers and our janitors and our PA of professionals so in terms of the take-home money even though was 1% across the board the administrators end up taking home more right okay and they deserve it I understand they do a great job everybody does a great job everyone works hard parents work hard in their jobs and sometimes they can't get the raises they deserve you know I mean I think one
190of the things we all have to teach our children is there's no money tree out there tree you know we keep pretending that the money grows on trees and for the record I'm definitely empathetic and symp athetic to the cost of living um challenges that everyone in the district faces um that are justification for these raises that unfortunately the budget just is not does not have the resources to support and that's why it's been really frustrating for me the last few years when I go to City Council meetings and I they're going to have a meeting in tomorrow and I hammer them and I hammer them I say affordable housing affordable housing affordable housing we need to do something on affordable housing we need to make this a top priority this is more important than
191a marina you know our workers our families cannot afford to live here they're fleeing our city and I'm the only one no one ever joins me you know and these people the folks that complain about they need these huge raises because the cost of living well why don't you kind come to the table and fight for affordable housing to solve this housing crisis because it's hard for me going up against the thousand nimes of martinus all by myself it's hard you know they have a lot more people than me you know and I know you're going to go talk to them again you count the number of nimi dog whistles you hear every time you hear local control that means no housing no housing and that's going to continue to hurt administrators teachers janitors and
192they're going to continue to bash you and tell you to find more money when there is no more money when we can all solve the problem together and the problem is housing and the problem is nimbyism we need to confront it but as to this I think you guys should not do the 1% for the administrators or do a half percent do less because you're you're costing yourself money that you don't have there is no money tree there is no money tree okay um do we have a motion I will move to approve the um ratification of the meeting confer with aassa I'll second all those in favor I I so moved next ratification of meet and confer process between the supervisory confidential unit and the Martinez Unified School District Janelle aat good evening um
193this is being brought forward this is the um tenative agreement with our confidential supervisory unit which is comprised of two employees our confidential employees um at the district office um in the payroll and superintendent's office and um the meeting confer um process resulted in an ATT tenative agreement um for the rep retro 1% to July 1st 2024 and would like to add two most very very important jobs in the district one is um payroll making sure everybody gets their paycheck and the other one is Nikki who makes sure that I'm organized and the board has everything they need so very important job and they're confidential supervisory because they provide um support for negotiations they're the two employees that that provide if we need uh reports or anything run for negotiations they're the two that that
194take care of that for us so thank you discussion public comment do I have a motion I'll move to approve the ratification of meet and confer confer process between the supervisory confidential unit and the Martinez Unified School District second all those in favor I I I motion passes information action approval of board stiens California Ed code right did I am I right yeah okay 35 120 and musd bylaw 9250 Helen Rossy so each year um the school board stip ens according to California Ed code and Martinez unified bylaw get reviewed for um an increase for up to 5% based upon the size of the district the our district excuse me falls into the category of um less than 10,000 but greater than 1,000 that would be um an a monthly stipend of 200 excuse me
195$40 um three years ago the board voted to um increase the stien for the first time it cannot exceed 5% and they voted um three years ago in March for a 5% um increase and then again last year um for another 5% for um a total I think um let's see they're at $264 60 a month I believe that's correct right is and so if this year's increase was another um five% that would put them up another $132 3 a month for a monthly total of $277 183 if they attended both board meetings in the month so if they were absent they would not get half of that so um as you can see on the last page here the board is entitled to sign up for um the last column here is the board's
196entitled to sign up for district benefits but they must pay them at the employee rate that we're charged they would have to pay for the that amount not they don't get the discount that we get they'd have to pay that full amount but at the calers rate rather than to go out and pay it at the other rate and you can see across the county some districts um don't provide a stien some do provide a stien I checked with contracosta County um they got they gave themselves um a raise last year they're up to 700 in I just heard from Michelle today which is why it's not on there they get um $658 77 instead of the 597 but the other um if you look at Antioch us the ones that have the D after
197the yes that means that that school district pays for their benefits so we're kind of like in the middle there so that's what I have discussion yeah um so I can't speak for anybody else up here but um the stien I mean I support raising it because myself I don't I don't need the money but for other people that want the ability to serve on this board I could imagine if they were a single parent or had to take time off from work and they couldn't really afford to participate that's something that's if we want it be as inclusive as possible we got to make sure that people that don't you know necessarily have the ability to donate their entire dipen every year um to be able to participate in uh add to the conversation
198and not just people and again this isn't this isn't a Slam against anybody up here but I mean we all make decent money I'm pretty sure we're all homeowners and uh I just want to make sure that anybody regardless of uh income can participate here on this board in the future I agree with that and I think that's why it was originally brought up a few years ago um I do not agree with that um I am on the record last year saying that I think this item was the least important item on our agenda I'm okay with amending that a little bit I do understand that the stien does have the benefit of compensating us a small amount for the work that we do I don't think that the level even with a 5%
199raise gets us to the place where it's going to make this an attractive position for someone who who um isn't doesn't have another source of income and it certainly is not covering any sort of basic needs um but tonight I would say my biggest issue is that I too can do math I understand that we're talking about a much smaller amount but to give ourselves 5% on a night that we are giving every single employ 1% feels wrong to me and so for that reason I will be a no so yeah it's $1 1323 but I was going to say that too I I mean I think 1% makes sense since that's what we did for everybody else I I could take it or leave it it's not that important to me but I I
200actually am the one that brought this forward three years ago because of what Logan said that I think I thought it was an equity issue um you know we're not it's not like $800 a month like Mount Diablo or some other places it's a pretty small amount um I would support a 1% raise I would support no raise it's it doesn't really make that big a difference I don't think anybody's up here for the money um we're certainly not up here to make friends uh but um we're here be because we care about the students so um yeah I mean I I don't think this is something we need to discuss every year but if if it's on the agenda now it's it's here we might as well um like I said I would support
2011% but I don't think we need to do anything other than that I think just my opinion because it's such a small amount that it's $13 you have four board members right now if anybody misses a board meeting it's cut in half anyways so I think we should do it because if there are somebody that wants to run for office [Music] and they have kids and they need need to have a babysitter or something I think it would warrant it and again it's a very small amount so I think the 5% is something that should happen um we do have a public comment so um oh I I just sorry go ahead I might have missed this earlier when was the last time the board had a stien increase last last year oh last year
202okay so they do we've done it last yeah two rows in a row yeah just I wanted to clarify um go ahead can you anybody know what the stien increase was the last two years 5 5% yeah so okay and I hear everything you're saying I don't disagree Annie um but I think to measure it you know 1% this year I'm pretty sure it was other raises were higher than that but again mine just goes back to you know and again this is just my opinion um I think and there's this isn't just related to our board it's a lot of different boards City Council included um there's a lot of people that want to participate that can't they can't fund raise the way they want they can't take the time off work that they
203want so this is just my my uh view of uh leveling the playing field okay Craig lazaretti so I agree with the stip in increase for a couple Reon reasons as I mentioned earlier tonight we have an allh board we have an allh leadership team um as we know a lot of people from marginalized backgrounds who have suffered systemic racism through their lives um have not had the the the U ability to accumulate inherited wealth like so many of us have they live paycheck to paycheck and this may not seem like a lot but perhaps like pres like board president Ruger said help with babysitting daycare expenses um you know it could make it a little more attractive for someone to step board and say I want to serve I want to be part of
204our democracy we know that we have a lot of races that go uncontested we know in a lot of boards a lot of agencies can't find people to even one person to volunteer to sit on an elected board and then we see what you guys have to go through some the inuendo the abuse you've been subjected to and yeah some sometimes you get abused from me too you know I let you guys have it pretty hard sometimes but I'll say this I've been following school boards in this District since 2018 I've seen lots of school board members come and go since 2018 and I can stand here tonight and say that this board is more committed to student welfare and does more to walk the walk on student welfare and centering student interests than any
205board I've ever seen before and the one in 2018 didn't even come close you know and I'm sorry that you guys are are attack that people claim that you did things underhanded because I reached out to all of you before the appointment and I know that none of you knew how that was going to come out the night of that appointment and I didn't know when I went to bed that night because I didn't stay up for it you know and we know the truth we know the truth and there were other appointments in the history of this board where there were Shenanigans behind the scenes where there were discussions about who was going to get that appointment I know there was and maybe that's why so many people think this was underhand but anyway
206if we wanna if we want to encourage people to be part of democracy we have to make it easier for them and if you don't need the money then put the money in way in account and use it to fund your election campaign so you don't have to rely on so much special interest money especially special interests that are not involved in the education of our children because we all know that the vast majority of money that funds Schoolboard races not just in Martinez but up and down the state throughout the county comes from groups that have nothing to do with educating our children because if they did they would still be in the room right here they all went home okay now I'm not saying this is not about pla being good or bad
207this is not about being pro or anti-union this is about letting the facts dictate how you believe on and what where you stand on any given issue thanks thank you so I agree with everything Craig said um I would like to make a motion that we approve a 5% increase which is $323 all second all those in favor I I no okay um we didn't say effective date 41 24 25 okay so moved uh earlier I was asked to give an explanation if I was the the only no okay oh sure I think I did but uh we gave a 1% to everybody else I would have been happy to do a 1% I don't feel comfortable taking a larger percent than any other employee group in the district um additional comments from the public
208we don't need um comments from superintendent board members and future agenda items want to start us off Lizzie yeah sure um I guess um just for everybody have a wonderful spring break not this week but next week um next week enjoy all of your open houses a lot of the different um schools if you heard are having separate events at the same time so there's going to be a lot of fun going on it won't just be walking around so be sure to come in and listen to the music or watch the performances and otherwise have a very happy Easter I totally forgot that spring break was coming up so I'm glad you reminded me um I I will not be on spring break but um I just want to thank everybody that came out
209tonight I I I hear the frustration in a lot of people's voices and I I think that even when I don't vote how you want me to I've heard what you've said I try really hard to do that and I usually agree with at least something that you said even if I don't agree with all of it and that goes for every single comment tonight especially tonight um it's really tough like I I've said um this job I have not made friends in this job I think I have lost friends in this job um and you know you can get up and try to impune my integrity and make something out of the fact that I was excited that at least one qualified person applied for the appointment when I didn't know about anybody else
210that had applied you want to think that's nefarious I guess you can look at that and you know um it's unfortunate that people don't assume good intentions for everybody because I'm not sure why anybody would come up and do this twice a month um if we weren't here for the right reasons I can only speak for myself but um as I have always said you can come up and say whatever you want I have developed a thick skin um and but you can also talk to me I think I multiple people in this room have reached out and asked to talk to me outside of a meeting and I always say Yes um so I'm not really sure the point of my comment other than I hear your frustration I feel it too it's been
211a really tough three months on this board um I'm hoping that maybe we can start to move forward and I'm glad we got at least a couple of really important things done tonight and um I hope that that work continues and uh you know um there's a lot more to do so anyway thank you so I think tonight showed and at me really every meeting right that although there's a lot of people in the community that don't agree on a lot of things they are involved and you know I haven't sat in on any other school board meetings outside of Martinez but uh I can say I'm proud that people are getting involved making their voices heard and uh you know uh I've had people reach out to me recently and then even some people
212tonight had commented about some of my comments uh on social media and there are people in this room that reached out to me to see clarification and have an open dialogue and I really respect that um there's others that have you know uh said things behind my back and you know that's fine it's their perspective and their belief it's a little disheartening because you know some of these people I I had a lot of respect for and you know I think just people sometimes again what I said earlier during the uh search uh like what we're looking for is you know putting our principles before personalities and just even if somebody has a different perspective on something um or an opinion like I'm not going to Discount that so and again I'll go back to
213my comments uh on social media they made some people feel a certain way and you know I have to do better right like I'm not perfect there's a lot of work I need to do and I need to strive as best as possible and uh you know um on the other hand there's some people that have uh in the community going back a decade to when a former board member had made some I don't know if I want you know some really hateful comments um about uh AC and Lunes and some of those kids are still in the district right and some of that pain still hurts for them and uh you know I think from I've only been here for few months but um what I've learned from everyone up here and parents and
214people that have reached out to me is Martinez has made huge strides uh around Dei and becoming a better um city and a better school district so I'm proud to serve up here and again my phone number is public it's on my Facebook if anyone ever wants to talk I'm open to listen uh I'm mostly never right so uh and I appreciate different perspectives thank you well I wanted to bring up a little update that we have on our work with um Workforce housing and I'm glad that Craig brought that up because I'm sure it does feel like you're alone at the city meetings and I don't go to those so you probably are totally right you're the only one but here oh I'm not supposed to say just I was just to say an
215update on our on the workshops that we have completed one of the one of our sessions and we have two more coming up and so these are things that we are actively looking at options for our district as we pass that resolution and that work is continuing this semester so there's nothing specific to report but just that that is happening and um other people are aware that affordable housing is definitely an issue in Martinez well I want to thank everyone for coming out it was a long evening um and Tim I am going to make sure that you follow through on your commitments because I'm going to be on you because I am disappointed that you two are not playing nicely and it's um was a hard decision to make and you know I do
216agree with the students but um and I hope there's no striking even though you say that you said they can't pick it anyway um so I went to uh cmea festival and this is a California music educators Association Bay section Festival um and I asked Sarah to send me some information because she wasn't able to be here tonight she usually comes and Sarah uh Stafford and so I just want to read you a blur about it because I thought this was really exciting and fun so um she said that it's intended to encourage musical growth and support Educators and their students through adjunct did performances that include feedback from local professionals Al hamur High School string Ensemble attended their first Festival on Friday at campolindo high school as this was a new experience she chose
217for comments only to be um from three um people and a clinic instead of site reading one of the adjunct adjudicators sorry from the theater followed um them into the clinic room and worked with the musicians for half an hour to better their musical um rub rubric um and it's not a competitive against other ensembles it's rather a judgment of The Ensemble against performance standards so um they did a great job she was really proud and the kids were wonderful um and the kids were the ones that asked for the opportunity so this is something that she's going to start doing every year and if you haven't heard the music or you want to hear the three songs they played um they are playing it at the open house on April 1 so um I
218think it's something that um I'm really proud of our music program at the high school and um I think she does a fabulous job and I think this is just another kind of a notch in her cap and looking forward to um when we get the Junior High um remodeled and a bigger um theater there because I think this is going to continue to be growing so um just want to do a shout out to Sarah for that to Sarah Stafford um and yes uh we have spring break coming up but Easter is like after a few weeks later I know it's crazy um and that's it thank you I'm good okay with that we are adjourning at 7:04 think or sorry 10:04 my gosh I'm tired e