001e e good evening we are ready to call the regular meeting of the board of education for Martinez Unified School District to order March 10th 20 25 do we have any public comments in regarding closed session none seeing then we will adjourn to close session e e e we're going to go ahead and reconvene to the regular board meeting I have two items to report out from closed session in closed session on a motion by Logan Campbell and seconded by Courtney Mella O'Brien and by a vote of 30-0 the board took action in closed session to dismiss a campus supervisor employee from employment with the district second closed item report out in closed session on a motion by Logan Campbell and seconded by Courtney m O'Brien the board voted 30 to non reelect probationary certified
002employee number 3609 from employment for the 2025 2026 school year and directed the superintendent to notify the employee of such action will you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please Elizabeth flag United States of America and to the for stands Nation indivisible liy and justice for all do we have any changes to the agenda there are no changes do I have any public comment to the agenda no okay do I have a motion from someone I'll make a motion to approve the agenda a second all those in favor I I motion passes okay we have highlights and recognition recorder Club John Mir Elementary so tonight we have from John Mir we have Travis Price Savannah Bacon and tinker and Maddie Val here from with um their teacher Mr PSO to perform for us let's
003go all right thank you so much for having us this is the John M recorder club and I'm just going to talk for a real quick second before we get started because there's a lot to unpack I know you're probably wondering what are all these big things and small things so the recorder Club is kind of our Varsity squad for recorder they start in third grade and then for students that finish the unit they want to go on to bigger and better things we offer uh the recorder Club is an enrichment program and they they continue to study and learn new pieces and we do this thing called the record a ninja where every time they learn a song and they could play it from beginning to end without any mistakes all the way through
004uh they get a belt that they could add to the end of the recorder and everybody on stage here has earned their black belt in recorder okay so once you've got your black belt then you can start exploring different instruments so we have an alto and soprano sopranino different styles of recorders and we could learn how the instruments blend together and we're going to open our show um with a a Corral it's a four Park Corral with soprano Alto tenor base abide with me [Applause] [Music] for [Music] [Applause] thank you so um we only prepared two songs um and the second is the test for the black belt so they have to perform this song and by the way all of these songs are from our Quaver curriculum which is provided by the district and
005it's a dynamite piece of uh it's just a really really great curriculum so all these pieces are embedded in it in the whole program um so I know I use it like every day it's a really cool program and um this is their black belt they have to do it from memory um they have to be able to do the the entire song from start to finish and they also work on improvisation so there'll be little teeny tiny solos where they go up to the microphone and all of those solos are just whatever comes to mind so they improvise they have to have their memorization together and uh there's also some company with it so this piece is called [Music] Overdrive for [Music] what e [Music] we [Music] [Applause] thank you that was wonderful you
006[Applause] guys that was amazing that was wonderful you you know I go to the uh High School performances and I used to give the junior high ones and they do them together but you guys sounded just as good as them don't tell them I said that but that was amazing great job they they were really good yes um so are you guys gonna go on how many hours do you normally put into this on your own time do you ever practice I whenever whenever I have free time I practice that's awesome and so when you guys go oh on let's hear you too go on um I practice for like 30 minutes each day a week wow that's fabulous that's wonderful so when you guys go into junior high will you still be able to
007play recorders or do you have to switch to clarinet or something different do you know I don't know I'm curious uh I'm probably gonna search to something different okay I mean you can still go on like woodwin instruments but I personally decided this is s great well again thank you so much I don't know if any other board members have questions but you guys were fabulous very very impressed thank you so much for [Applause] coming anyone else NOP okay well you can go home and do homework or it was day off today so thank you for coming in on your um day off thank you next we have comments from our student representative yeah speaking of the day off it was really nice but also thank you to all of our teachers in the audience
008for all the hours that you gave in today to your um uh educational experience so that you can teach us better um I know as students part of that is yes it's required by your job but we appreciate the fact and the dedication that you put in to all of those different hours as teachers Las hunus elementary students had a busy week participating in the MEF readathon read Across America and spirit week thank you to all of our amazing guests who volunteered to read to the students this week loses Elementary also conducted elpac testing over the past two weeks students did an amazing job testing thank you to PTA for providing snacks for the elpac students during testing Los hes Elementary just started the third round of green team they had so many more applications
009than spots available thank you to all of our students who want to join the Green Team Los Hines Elementary will take class photos on Wednesday March 12th the fourth graders will be taking their field trip to Sacramento on Friday March 14th the next D and donate is on Thursday March 20th at Jax in Pleasant Hill please join in supporting loses Elementary John SWAT Elementary held a successful book fair with students having a great time shopping and being excited about reading students and staff took part in National kindness week and were awarded student of the month for being kind staff and students also celebrated read Across America taking part in the MEF readathon and having a book Spirit Week the PTA meeting is on March 11th at p.m. students and staff will be celebrating women history
010month thank you to everyone for supporting the readathon at Mel Park Elementary last week we had amazing participation and it was great seeing everyone get excited about literacy fifth grade had a successful trip to chabat Science Center on March 6th students came back about excited about learning science last week was Buddy time where Upper Grade and lower grade classrooms worked together this time they read books together and created bookmarks to celebrate the readathon on Tuesday March 11th there's a PTA association meeting on Wednesday March 12th is spring picture day on Friday March 14th there's the special someone dance in the morela Park Elementary M from 6 pm to 8:00 pm from martinus Junior High School a huge thank you to the PTSA students leadership and families for their support with the annual Color Run the
011wool pups held the pts helped the PTSA reached their goal and had a blast at the Run congratulations to the boys basketball team as they closed out their season this week boys volleyball and golf kick off with the bull pups ready to hit the course and Court the sixth grade science students started their spring their spring visit to the Garden last week in participation with new Leaf to check out the progress and growth of the space Thursday March 13th is the PTSA dine and donate at Masta CJs F field trip is on DVC on Tuesday March 18th is the School site council at 3:15 and the PTSA meeting at 7 p.m. the martinus junior high school spring musical The Music Man opens Thursday March 20th at 7M additionally a show will be on Friday March
01221st at 7 p.m and Saturday March 22nd there's a mattina at 2 p.m. from alhamra high school on Friday February 28th Conrad Dandridge a local public speaker visited alhamra High School to deliver a presentation titled African-Americans in labor aligning with the association for the study of American African-American life and history Ash theme this presentation explored the significant contributions and experiences of African-American individuals throughout labor history Student Government Guided by Maryann Griffin outdid themselves by organizing an outstanding Multicultural celebration thank you to the staff and students who participated we are all eagerly looking forward to another event boys and girls soccer teams were competitive all year but unfortunately did not make it to the North Coast section playoffs this season but great job to them for their participation the the the revised B schedule for this
013year goes into effect this Tuesday so anybody who has starting second period classes make sure you come to school a whole minute earlier the boys and girls wrestling team had many ath athletes make it to the NCS individual tournament including Grace leech who won the girls 115b division she moved on to the state tournament and made it through a few rounds before losing her second time and being eliminated girls basketball made it to the ncf playoffs being promoted to the division 2 bracket during their success throughout the regular season winning 19 games before losing in the first round to Maria Carillo High School boys basketball made it to NCS in the division five bracket winning the school's first ever North Coast section championship in school history beating International High School by nine points they moved
014on to they moved on to the CIF NorCal regionals for the first time ever also in division five bracket and won their first two games before falling to International in a rematch by one point in a game in which they trailed by 10 with just over a minute left congratulations to coach petiti and the boys on an incredible and historic run [Applause] at Vicente Martinez in Bron's independent study last week the District Attorney's Office conducted an assembly for all students on the dangers of substance abuse as part of the presentation students had the opportunity to experience impairment Sim simulation goggles which mimicked the effects of being under the influence of marijuana or alcohol student volunteers participated in mock activities such as riding a bike driving a car and walking while wearing the goggles highlighting the
015risks associated with drug and alcohol use the legal ramifications and the high risk of harming themselves or others while under the influence viente and Bion is met for the monthly staff meeting dedicated to data teachers presented results from the fastbridge testing and compared data from the fall and winter screenings the mindful life project pushed into classes during study halls last week where they worked with students on reducing anxiety and managing stress from Martine adult education on February 27th they successfully started the introduction to business communications class from DVC with 25 students it was a great opportunity for Martinez residents to take advantage of Community College level courses new cohort for the medical skills job Readiness pre pre-apprenticeship started today and will run six weeks upon completion students will be eligible to enroll in the optical
016assistant Apprenticeship Training Program Martinez adult education congratulates Maria and Samuel alenas who immigrated to the US from Mexico for becoming new US citizens on March 12th and 13th at 7 p.m. there's a pharmacy technician training program orientation there are 112 people registered for this orientation on March 17th is high set testing for high school equivalency testing on March 19th there from 10:00 a.m. to 12: p.m the DVC college has benefits to college presentation give me just a minute now I have my own thoughts I would like to share about a few different events I witnessed at alhamra high school this week that inspired me with the unity and support of our school first of all last Thursday the school had a multicultural assembly displaying Aztec Latino and Asian-American culture through songs and dances students were
017engaged at the event participating fully by clapping and waving along it was incredible to be see the engagement in the all school assembly for those of you with high schoolers it was incredible to see that most of the students were completely silent they were so engaged with what was going on and learning about other culture and sitting in the audience I was like wait there's nobody talking so that was just an amazing experience to see additionally this past Saturday our boys basketball team played marvelously in the game against International High School again this event showed incredible School support with the large turnout of parents and students in support of our team they played amazing and it was incredible to see everybody there thank [Applause] you thank you Lizzy uh do we have any any employee
018organizational reports perfect good evening members of the board and our community my name is Mary Rittenhouse and I am one of the co-presidents of the Martinez Education Association public speaking has never been my favorite thing and if I'm being honest I usually try to avoid it but tonight silence is not an option two years ago mea endorsed a candidate without knowing that this person had made donations to win red a conservative political fundraising group how did this happen I don't know I wasn't part of leadership at that time but when the news came to light it sparked a wave of emotion across our community confusion anger and a sense of betrayal the backlash led to the resignation of the mea leadership at the time and I was asked to step up I chose to step
019up because I believe in advocating for our students our Educators and the Integrity of our profession but I also faced an enormous challenge overcoming the stigma that our association had supported a candidate who associated with a group that did not share our same values I wasn't sure how to address it what could I say what could we do and so I made a mistake I stayed silent so here's the truth I'm a school librarian my focus every day is on my students at HRA High School supporting their learning and collaborating with my colleagues I have no background in politics nor do I have any desire to be a politician I don't receive release time to focus on my union work I come to work every day because I care about our students but by staying
020silent misinformation began to take root the false Narrative of mea being aligned with Maga festered in our community and there are people who choose to use this narrative against us claiming that we only think for ourselves and that students are not our top priority but that narrative is false and does not re reflect the true mea let me be clear about who mea really is we are your Educators we are the people who Inspire guide and support students every single day many of us are your neighbors here in Martinez and what unites us is our unwavering commitment to doing what's best for our students and that's why it is so disheartening to hear how some people people who don't even know us have chosen to misrepresent us the accusations the finger pointing even more disappointing
021is seeing members of our own School Board allowing these har harmful Nar atives to persist and at times even contributing to them yet despite all of this we continue to show up every single day we put our students first because that is who we are so tonight I ask you I know who mea is do you my name is Mary writtenhouse I've lived in Martinez for 50 years I have two students that attend musd schools and I vote in area one I've worked for 25 years in musd first as an English teacher in librarian at martinis Junior High and now as a librarian at Alhambra High School the best part of my job are my students at alhamra being a librarian allows me to support student in various ways and to engage with them outside
022of the classroom where I can learn more about who they really are I am MAA hi I'm Mary Hardesty I'm the other co-president of mea the other Mary as it is um I teach third grade at John Meir Elementary I started teaching there in 1993 so I have had the pleasure of teaching two generations of some Martinez families I do not live in Martinez I live in Napa and I commute here every day um people have asked me why don't you find a job closer to home and it's because I love my school I love my colleagues I love my students and I couldn't imagine working anywhere else I became active in mea because Mary asked me to and she needed help at the elementary level and I said yes um I believe it's important
023to support my colleagues and to support our students we at at mea believe that Martina's students deserve the best I love my job I love watching the growth of third grade through the course of the school year there's a lot of joy in my classroom and I invite any Schoolboard member to come and observe that Joy on any given day you're welcome I love teaching I am mea hello my name is Bronte Rell I've lived in Martinez for six years and I vote in area three I've taught in the district for five years calling lunus home for my last two years I teach fourth grade which I love I feel very passionately about our students and our school I started our school's very successful Green Team thank you for the shout out and I am
024a co-advisor on our School's First Student leadership team in over 10 years which we did come to speak at a board meeting several months ago I love my students deeply and I pride myself on the connections that I build connections that make them feel safe and valued in our district I am mea my name is Megan nicala I have lived in Martinez for most of my life and I vote in area three I have two students who attend musd schools I started subbing for musd back in 2007 and8 and picked up most of the jobs that nobody would take most recently I've taught seventh and eth grade history and science I have participated and chaired in School site councils site level Dei committees District Equity team I've sat on lcap curriculum advisory committee and I've
025run after school clubs I've also completed 40 plus postgrad units in classes that are around supporting all different Learners and English language Learners and also brushing up on my Spanish so I could offer bilingual education to my students I'm also a past recipient of the junior highest teacher of the year nomination I enjoy working in Martinez because of the community I am part of in and outside of the classroom I am mea good evening my name is Jen hussy I've been a homeowner here in Martinez my husband and I have been teaching in the district for over 20 years he works as a high school social studies teacher um who was a previous teacher of the year and I teach fourth grade at John Meir Elementary we raised our children here as well our oldest
026son graduated from alhamra high school just last year and is now attending college in hopes of one day returning to Martinez to become a teacher here as well our youngest is currently attending Martinez Jor High I have been an active participant in many district teams and I'm currently a member of the curriculum advisory committee I love running to current and former students around town Martinez is my home and I am dedicated to the children in my classroom I am [Applause] MAA hi my name is Veronica Montes my parents have lived in Martinez all their lives they raised my brothers and I here and we all graduated from alhamra now I have the pleasure of raising my four kids in Martinez in truste Area 3 three of my kids are in school in in M USD
027and one that graduated last year and is currently at UC Santa Barbara all my kids felt supported and seen by the amazing teachers that musd has I have worked for musd for nine years six of those years in the classroom as a math teacher at the junior high I enjoy working in Martinez because it is such a wonderful and accepting Community I am mea hi my name is Amy gargaro I've been a resident of Martinez for 22 years during this time I've had the pleasure of teaching first grade at John sweat for the past 11 years as a mother of three adult children who attended Martinez Unified School District um schools from kindergarten through 12th grade I feel deeply connected to our community and it's truly rewarding to work in the same area where I
028raised my family one of the most fulfilling aspects of my job is witnessing the excitement on a child's face when they finally Master a skill after working so hard to achieve it I am MAA my name is Marilyn bruette I'm a lifelong martisan and I vote in area one I've taught at Bion school for 30 years where I instruct sixth to 12th grade independent study in the past I've served on the curriculum advisory Council and elcap committee for a decade I've held an mea executive leadership position and sat on the education committee for the central labor Council and received the 2018 who award in 2024 I was the educator of the year for the City of Martinez citizens of the Year celebration my work as a Bion educator has been a joy bionis is an
029independent study school while at bionis students Foster Real World skills such as tenacity problem solving perseverance time management and sustained motivation I love working at Bion school where my students are the focus of all decisions made I am [Applause] mea good evening my name is Katherine Hearn I've lived in Martinez for 25 years along with my husband whose family dates back to the late 1800s I voted trustee area 2 and I have three children who have attended or still attending the Martinez unified school district one of whom graduated from the United States Naval Academy uh last year another daughter who is in her last year at University of Hawaii and my last daughter who my youngest daughter who is in her last year at johnm elementary I have taught at alhamra school in the physical
030education department for 12 years and coached track and field for seven of those years leading students to NCS championships and state level competition I've been involved in mea leadership positions and I've also most recently been involved in the Ed Trust West planning blueprint panning Committee in a former life I spearheaded the measure H Bond committee which raised $75 million for our community and is the reason why we have a new pool parks and a library I enjoy working in Martinez and the best part of my job as a teacher at alhamra is spending every single day making meaningful connections with my students being their teacher their counselor and their mentor and their last stop along their K through 12 journey and I am Martinez's Education [Applause] Association good evening I am Sarah Stafford I've lived
031in Martinez for 31 years including 20 years in Area 3 I've taught at alhamra high school for the past six years but really 22 years in the Visual and Performing Arts Department um as a John Mir Elementary graduate Martinez junior high school graduate and alhamra high school student before I had to move away and come back to Martinez um I hold Alhambra high school and Martina schools very dear in my heart I've taught in other districts but I keep coming back to Martinez because it is my home uh as a current stagecraft and music teacher at alhamra high school I'm also a member of the Ed Trust West blueprint committee I love working in Martinez because I know I can make a positive impact in my community I am mea hello my name is j
032jenda and I've lived in Martinez for the last 10 years and I vote in area one I have two daughters who attend schools in musd my old daughter a straight A student is finishing up her last year at the middle school and my youngest is completing her final year at John SWAT Elementary with me as the school year comes to a close I find it Bittersweet as teaching at my children's school was always a dream of mine there will be so many tears shed in June and my principal has been warned I've been teaching at John SWAT Elementary for the past seven years bringing my total years as an educator to 18 I made the difficult decision to leave my tenure teaching position in Pittsburgh Unified where I taught first grade for 11 years to
033be closer to my family and to make a positive impact in our community at jsse I am known as the chaos coordinator the magic maker or the queen of TK as some of my colleagues like to call me it has been my mission to spread positivity and joy to our students and staff alike a few years ago I created the Road Runner store for our TK through fifth grade students to encourage positive behavior schoolwide this program is still used today additionally I revitalized our school Sunshine committee to bring joy to all of our hardworking staff members from custodians and Paras to cafeteria workers and Advent on a smaller scale I initiated a soup and lunch Club to foster a sense of community among staff members after all what better way to connect with a colleague
034than over a bowl of warm homemade suit perhaps my passion for spreading positivity led to my nomination for teacher of the year last year or maybe it's just the wonderful spirit of the Js staff either way I love everything about being a TK teacher okay maybe not the tattling and runny noses but all kidding aside it's what I was meant to do in this life being a child's first introduction to big kids school creates a very special bond that I'm so blessed to experience I have found my purpose and I hope to be known as the TK Queen for many more years to come I enjoy working in Martinez I love making everyone big or small feel loved heard and accepted I am mea hi I am Ashley Atkinson and I my family moved to
035Martinez when I was five and I went through graduated from alhamra here um I now live in area 1 with my family I have two children who are in school here in Martinez um I have taught in the district for 20 years in 2012 I received the teacher of the year award from the association of California school administrators um before teaching I received my master's degree from um a a department called the Department of Education culture and society and in that master's degree I did my research on how race class gender sexuality and um English language acquisition play out in public schools and that had a profound impact on me in my life and it guides everything I do and I try with every decision I make to advocate for children especially children on the
036margin and I love Martinez I love working here and I am a proud member of the Martinez Education Association I may not be able to read this so my name is Laney leech and I've uh lived in this community for 56 years my uh kids currently go to Al hamur high school I went to all of our elementary schools Monaco Elementary closed in 76 and then John Mir closed in 76 and they pull they all of our us kiddos went to either John sweat or Martinez l so I was up at Martinez L where my mom taught and then currently where I teach at the junior high High School is where uh the Elementary classes used to be so it's we have my classroom now is currently where my mom and uh actually father-in-law taught
037there's history here I've LED I mean I've been involved with so many leadership positions you know within my my 32 years teaching here in Martinez I mean it's a long time I love my students I'm passionate about what I do I was hired by Mike Bowers I taught English for 12 years 13 years I kind of moved into health and health education I love that and now I'm back into science where that was my degree I love what I do sixth grade's pivotal it's amazing I I mean to make the connections to have my kids have fun I spend hours planning um you know just my curriculum so they come in they feel safe they feel loved they feel welcomed I have 162 children who come in and out of my classroom every day and
038they feel good about what's happening and that's super important and I take pride in making sure that happens so I'm Laney leech and I'm mea and and and this what we do matters so hi my name is Melissa Stevenson and I've lived in Martinez for 49 years uh both my children are graduates of Alhambra High School my son owns a business on how Road and my daughter has just entered a PhD program in microbiology at um UC Santa Cruz um I've worked at John sweat Elementary for 29 years teaching third grade and a little stint in fifth grade as well and during my tenure I have really enjoyed collaborating with local community and environmental groups groups to bring Environmental Education stewardship and service opportunities to my site I am MAA hi um hello my name
039is Maryann Griffin and I've lived in Martinez for 29 years and I'm an area 3 registered voter I've taught at Alhambra high school for 31 years I serve as the Student Activities director leadership teacher yearbook adviser and teacher additionally I've served as the department chair from 2006 until 2020 have sat on the alhamra site committee the district's curriculum Council the was leadership team and was the school culture focused chair for over 20 years my three children attended Milla Park uh Martinez jior high and graduated from alhamra high school my kids collectively played football baseball softball tennis girls volleyball and girls lacrosse my youngest this is really exciting sent me a text today she's graduated from Northwestern University this June and she sent me a text that said I rece U today I received a text
040from her that said Mom my last tuition bill just posted for the last quarter and I was like I can't believe it and I responded we did it so I'm obviously super proud of her I was humbled to be selected as the Alro High School teacher of the year in 2020 and I also received the who award and then the CTA Gold Award for my work in advocacy on behalf of MBA um with CTA I've coached basketball at alhamra and the junior high for over 14 years of my career and I am currently the sixth grade girls basketball coach which is really a lot of fun uh I enjoy the classes I teach and I feel very blessed to work with the students and staff at alamro high school and within this District I am
041mea hi my name is Jessica Wagner and I've lived in Martinez for 23 years and I vote in area one I've taught first grade at John Mir school for 11 years and I was thrilled to be hired by musd after teaching 15 years in a neighboring District I love working in the same school district and same Community where I live my two sons went to John Mir Martinez Jor high and alhamra high school and my husband and I are so appreciative of the quality of Education they have received in musd and the dedication of all the staff that have helped them along their Journey my older son is at Santa Cruz and my younger son is a senior at alhamra high school who was just accepted to UC Davis this would not be possible without
042the hardworking staff at all levels that went the extra mile for my children and I will always be grateful I am a proud member of mea and I support everything our Union has done to help musd attract and retain quality teachers the the schools and staff are the heart of Martinez thank you I am mea my name is Jen fennel I have been teaching at alhamra for 11 years uh during that time I have taught Civics economics US History uh psychology world religions now AP Psychology I law I've forgotten several but I have taught about 10 different courses yearbook um at this point during my 11 years there and I have really enjoyed all of it but I'm also a parent I have two children in the district they're both at the elementary school level
043I want to tell you a little bit about them and their experience as uh students here they love their school they love their teachers and their teachers are also part of mea I am mea hi Ryan hussy a social studies teacher at Al hammer high school also married to Jennifer hussy who she was too modest to say she won teacher of the year a few years ago also uh so I'm also very fortunate I you know had the two kids well Jen's already covered that I see my placement in line all go fast but uh I'm fortunate enough to be a homeowner here uh pay taxes vote in area one um I on a bunch of boards on the site one of the site advisers to our Equity team or student Le Equity team I'm
044on the district Equity team um work with that edress West uh organization also and what I really do like about this community is that you live in the community you walk around in the community so we can you know say whatever but um if you do want to know us or mea if you go and talk to any of our students uh they will tell you how it is so it's great to be able to live out my values live out our actions uh and have our be judged for our actions inside that classroom uh thank you I am MMA I'm assuming that's all the employee organizational reports okay um moving right along do we have any comments from PTA good evening so this is the first time all year I've spoken um with my
045PTA hat on um and I proud to do so tonight as the current Council pta's president and treasur at alhamra high school's PTA um I'd also like to recognize Mr husy for his serving on alhambra's um PTA for uh previous two years so tis the season your ptas have been working hard doing fundraising all year long and this is the season this is our Pinnacle our school auctions particularly at our elementary level are kicking off this week if you're looking for something gift certificates for restaurants Goods maybe um a night out Winchester Mystery House Walt Disney Museum hundreds of things are available and if you don't have your ticket for an auction I invite you to do so our auctions are going to be running beginning now through the middle of May these auctions bring
046in tens of thousands of dollars into this community and it's turned right back around and helps it support our students and our staff at our schools we fill a lot of um uh open holes that unfortunately budget cuts have presented our school sites over the years and we would appreciate your support and I want to recognize this group behind me particularly the elementary school teachers who spend a lot of their own time and money either doing teacher for a day a teacher will sponsor uh a student or a group of students to mirror them or follow them around school or they'll host a party a luncheon an event those by far are our most popular events at the elementary school and bring in thousands of dollars so on behalf of the ptas of Martinez I
047invite you to please participate and I want to thank this group behind me thank you uh correspondents we have contracosta County Office of Education 2024 2025 first interim Helen Rossy so we received our um letter from the county office of Ed about our first inim and they agree with us that um our first interim report was with a positive certification um that we are meeting our financial obligations for this year and the two subsequent uh fiscal years they do caution us to uh take measures to um eliminate ongoing operating deficits which um we did we cut an uh 2.1 million uh dollars this year and I want to note that we have been making cuts um of about the size or a little bit less over the course of the last few years to keep
048up with the reduction of our cares uh funding as noted in 2020 when we started to receive them and I kept telling everyone what you get you're going to have to give back and we've been as the the pots have been dwindling we've been making Cuts all along so it doesn't hit as hard but we are down to pretty much um cutting what we need to cut but declining enrollment is not helping us but we're we're doing okay and we're able to um you know make our make our um certification so we're also doing things as you'll find out when Andy's um budget report a little a bit more about uh you know our res our uh Revenue increasing Revenue we're looking at things we've done um things with billing for we have our lv's
049billing we have our counselor's billing to help support those positions we're always looking for ways to rent out properties as our classrooms are empties and and buildings are empty we have an NPS across the street we got Wendy's rented we are renting out the old admin at Los hunas so it's continual we're always trying to find a way to make a buck and and increase our our our revenues and decrease our expenditures I looked at our uh pg& bills and some of them have gone down and where something's gone up that's unusual we're investigating finding out why is there something wrong at a site that it's gone up when everything else has gone down so we're keeping a close tab on our water bills our electric and so on and so forth and um so
050um we're we're doing what we need to do to to stay in line so um good job Andy and the business office and um we're moving on from here to our second inum uh presentation tonight so thank you thank you and now on to staff reports superintendent report right as you get water okay so I'm not gonna um thank you um Lizzie for talking about our boys basketball team I just wanted to say um I'm sorry I missed Saturday night's game I was out of town but I did hear all about it and and I did read all about it so I just want to say go dogs and and way to make Martinez very proud so I was very excited to see how far they got and and for making history alhamra history so
051um today was a a professional development day for all certificated staff members there were over 30 workshops offered for the 4-Hour morning sessions on everything from udl and co- teing to English math ELD Dei and assessments classified staff were offered the opportunity to attend to standard response protocol training presented by Janelle um which was very successful and and to say some important ideas and issues were discovered and discussed that we need to look at a little bit more closely uh came about from these discussions from our par Educators in in regards to uh special ed students and and things that maybe we hadn't looked into enough so it was kind of nice to have them in a smaller group and it worked well for us um a survey has been sent out and we're awaiting
052feedback from staff on what we did well and what we can uh need to improve on so uh please make sure that uh those that received the survey answer it for us okay um so just a few reminders um I'm going to put out to everyone we're now functioning as a form member board and so I just want to remind everyone here that um first of all if there's a tie in case of a tie because this was an issue back on the 27th um a tie vote of 22 no action is taken but the board can choose if they uh to bring back that specific item when we become a a board of five again so it would lay dormant until the board can say we'll bring it back for a decision when we're
053a board of five the other thing is a majority is always required to pass a motion so for instance tonight we have um Vice President hak Martin is absent tonight so if we take a vote on something a majority is is no matter how many members are in attendance it has to be three so all three of these members if we voted on something would have to vote Yes in order for it to pass even though Annie is absent so you might see that and say well that's not a majority or that is a majority so four member board three people have to vote Yes in spite of one being absent it's not it's always got to be the majority okay and then I wanted to now that we all know that um I have
054a few months left I'm probably getting a little more vocal than maybe I should but I wanted to just um make some comments and share my thoughts about our recent public comments from last board meeting because it was upsetting to a lot of people in this room and I've heard a lot of feedback from um people in the community from the board from cabinet from people in the building to teachers to classified and so on and so forth so um um during sorry during last week's board this is my attempt at being kind of neutral but saying my piece on how I felt so during last week's board meeting the board received significant public comment regarding the provisional appointment from 12 127 and the Democratic process of calling for a special election which followed several
055community members expressed frustration with some making very emotional comments about the values of our school district the teachers union and our commitment to inclusivity a few comments were directed at our teaching staff accusing them of being racist or politically biased which was hurtful to many while we cannot censor public criticism nor do I want to as it is important for everyone to express their thoughts and concerns about the work we do as public employees of a public public institution it is crucial that we focus on respect inclusivity professional conduct and constructive criticism discriminatory language and personal attacks hinder progress and divide us detracting us from the important work we are doing to support our students and staff we must continue fostering an environment where everyone feels safe respected and heard while remaining committed to equity
056and inclusion I appreciate everyone's passion and dedication and I'm committed to Leading with Integrity respect and a focus on civility as we move forward I would like for us to work together to model the principles of respect we wish to instill in our students thank you and that's what I have for tonight [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you Helen okay public comments under government code 5495 4.3 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 additional time is allowed at the end of the meeting if there was not enough time to speak during public
057comments 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 looks like I have two public comments the first one is from Katie pittz good evening my name is Katie pittz and I am a registered voter in area three of Martinez as well as a proud public school teacher I've taught Middle School in the Lafayette school district for 28 years an mea you guys are a tough act to follow like hats off to you I'm very proud to do what I do and it's because of colleagues like this anyway um I'm here this evening to voice my support for the residents of Area 3 who have participated
058in the recent petition process and who have shown their overwhelming support for an upcoming special election to determine a new school board member to fill the district's current vacancy as noted by the fact that 89% of signatures from the petition came from community members it is clear that the residents feel strongly that the Democratic process be upheld and that a special election occur having read the applications and resumés of the two candidates it is clear to me who will receive my vote the students of Martinez deserve to have a board member who has extensive classroom experience and deep knowledge of the ins and outs of how public school districts in California can should and do run I am confident that the candidate who will be receiving my vote will advocate for and make decisions surrounding
059Student Success for those who may be concerned about the cost of the special election $40,000 is the estimate please rest assured that the district can absolutely afford the expense having been a member of the Lafayette School District's bargaining team for many many years I have extensive knowledge about how District's budgets budgets work I have seen this dis this District's budget and yes it is very clear that the district has the funds to support the special election thank you for your [Applause] time next we have Craig lazaretti well geez if I didn't know better I would think I was the reason for some of the comments tonight but maybe that's just me okay all right so at the February 24th meeting I thought trustee horic Martin was completely correct when she said that then trustee Britney
060AA was a highly qualified candidate for the board who had again shown her qualifications that night Miss AA shared insights and knowledge about issues and challenges facing our students in a short her short time in the board that I feel mashed and exceeded anything I heard from some past board members over the spans of year span of years that they served in their positions the absence of a unique perspective in the next three months will be a disservice to our students and the important work our board must conduct during our current crisis in public education this special election is not about democracy or about letting voters decide because if it were we would have seen past special elections in response to appointments of candidates far less qualified than Miss aala and we would not see
061some of the same people supporting this one some of them are in the room tonight who had no problem also supporting a candidate for school board a few years ago who gave money to a movement that literally tried to destroy American democracy that was was a betrayal of everything that flag stands for and nothing said tonight changes that no one suggested that the voters don't have a legal Democratic right to call for a special election though I think a good question asked is whether the effort actually originated inside Area 3 where I live or from others who live outside the area and perhaps the district as a whole we are simply calling out the clear hypocrisy motivating this unprecedented attempt to reverse an outcome that powerful interests didn't like costing the district valuable money the
062fund will surely be a very low turnout election that will not necessarily reflect the area 3 electorate I'd like to make another thing clear expressing criticism based on facts in Blunt terms may make some feel uncomfortable but is not bullying and is wrong to suggest that it is it is free speech and we need cander more than ever right now with what's happening in the society in our country and the trampling of individual rights that's only being allowed because too many people stay silent for too long instead of pointing a finger at those who call out hypocrisy in this District I think it would be more courageous to call out the hpoc ocy itself I'm talking about the hypocrisy that we saw during the pandemic and keeping schools closed longer than was warranted causing great
063harm to our most vulnerable students the hypocrisy of using students and families as pawns during contract disputes that ignore the realities of the District budget that will discuss again tonight and stigmatize District officials for the sin of exercising fiscal responsibility and I heard some pretty tough comments from MBA members during contract times in this room I never heard them being called out for bullying the hypocrisy of placing personal loyalty ahead of values including the values of democracy and Equity when it comes to election endorsements that they had every opportunity to resend three years ago and apologize for wrong before tonight and the hypocrisy of challenging a Schoolboard appointment on so-called Democratic grounds when it's really a naked Power gra our kids deserve better than all this I'm Craig lazaretti I'm a sisen I'm a taxpayer
064I'm a for parent and I stand by everything I said two weeks ago about MEA thank you next we have Megan Nicola I got you it's okay the amount of misinformation about the special election circulating on social media is staggering so I'm here to identify and fact check between what is said versus what is true the following list highlights the incorrect narrative and misinformation being pushed and supported by local keyboard Warriors this group also includes some current Schoolboard members misinformation number one it is a waste and Reckless use of $60,000 the fact is the actual cost as stated in the resolution reviewed on March 3rd is estimated to be just over $40,000 and an amount that the district can afford When comparing to the entire District budget what is problematic is to leave an elected
065position early and not verify or research the same person can sit on a district and county level board at the same time which led to this vacancy misinformation number two this special election is only bringing chaos to students the fact is the chaos solely comes from sharing and spread of misinformation in actuality the chaos directs energy away from the teachers considering we are the Targets in many of these claims but because the claims come from those who support public education it makes it okay misinformation number three the group behind the special election is a small faction of mea leadership with their own special interest the fact is that the 89% of community members to 11% participants with mea connections shows the dramatically higher rate of community members who are in favor of having a say
066in who they want as a representative and a representative to come in with experience and a background knowledge of the district so they can make the best student centered decisions misinformation number four the special election is a social injustice and racist action the fact is that it is absolutely unfortunate that a young hardworking well-educated Latino woman is caught in the middle of this evolving situation deib and Equity is incredibly important and therefore it makes sense for someone to come in with the background knowledge of the district to ensure success for all students and to continue to lessen the standards Gap across many sites and in addition so per and EST es Area 3 voters have seen a difference in this application paperwork and interviews and in particular an interview that shows an inability to answer
067half of the questions but that applicant was chosen what other conversations are happening between board members and other supporting individual ual when a board member admitted in an online Forum it is true that I was on the most part I was I had already made up my mind in regards to the appointment what other decisions and information are getting missed or not decided equally or with Equity how can the Community Trust information is being thoroughly reviewed especially in upcoming major decisions like the approval of a new superintendent when this is all said and done I know my reputation will remain intact because I speak from facts and I'm taking action to support my children all students and my colleagues for those who are struggling to see past the misinformation please ask yourself are my actions
068and words helping all students of musd or are they helping myself Todd Navaro Integrity trust and accountability these are the attributes that we as parents community members and voters expect of our elected officials as a result of a decision by voters in truste trustee Area 3 to allow a special election to represent the will of the voters including our teachers we have been the subject of name calling and bullying including cyber bullying it's been suggested by current elected County Board of Education and state officials as well as previous appointee that the voters in Area 3 should have allowed the appointment to stand as was only 18 months until the next election the attacks on voters including one of the applicants of Area 3 the open seat voters are to blame for the cost to the
069school district for the special election including blame placed by members of the board on social media are inexcusable if there's a need to place blame let's place it at the root of the issue the event that started this situation was the resignation of former board member yamus she chose not to fulfill her first full term as an musd board trustee and did not have enough confidence in her own campaign for the Contra Costa County Office of Education board to relinquish her seat so that it could be filled via vote during the general election in November versus Board appointment or special election if that doesn't work for you what about the trust that was broken by the current board when they did not exercise the will of the voters of Area 3 many who chose to
070speak publicly and those that sent multiple emails on Brenda leal's behalf versus three public comments and one email in favor of Britney aella after claims of having received multiple texts and emails in support of Britney many wonder what your motivations are and wanting to challenge the rights of the voters of Area 3 rather than simply remaining impartial on the matter once a special election was announced there are board members who either engaged in or simply did not denounce the demonization of our voting Community including our teachers what does what does this say about integrity of our elected board members who are entrusted to do what's in the best interest of our students and families if they engage in the very behavior that our teachers and staff who work on a daily basis to prevent and
071ensure the safety of our students against cyber bullying are you leading by example or via do as I say not as I do it's time you be held accountable to the expectations of your role because at the moment some of you are not rising to the occasion board members going after our teachers and their union leaders publicly for whatever the reason is is irresponsible and disrespectful particularly if you have limited to no working knowledge around how their workday work week or school year actually functions if you have a concern respect those individuals who are willing to dedicate El to do the job that most of us would admit that we likely would not choose to do and go to them and attempt a conversation it's time to reflect please ask yourself if as an elector
072Trustee of our most valuable Commodities are children can you look a parent in the eye and tell them that you have the integrity and trustworthiness to be held accountable for your actions as a trustee of the Martinez Board of Education should your actions ever be called into question by a parent constituent or other member of the community [Applause] next we have Maria MSA and then Mark Hodes Marie MSA my name is Marie denel Masa and I'm speaking tonight as a lifelong Martinez resident a graduate of the musd system myself and a parent to three students in the district I am also Latina and the co-founder of the Dei programs both at my workplace and at my children's elementary school because I believe deeply in the importance of representation inclusion and Equitable decision-making but meaningful non-performative
073inclusion isn't just about identity it also requires preparedness fairness and a process the community can trust that's why I'm deeply concerned about the misleading and diver divisive rhetoric surrounding this special election I want to address a false narrative I've been hearing this election was triggered because the appointment process lacked transparency and public trust not because of anyone's race the community was open to an appointment if it was conducted fairly however during the interview signif significant differences emerged between the candidates one candidate demonstrated a comprehensive understanding of our District's operations and challenges while the other displayed a lack of familiarity and experience the subsequent Swift decision made with little discussion after the interviews raised legitimate concerns that this was a calculated appointment rather than a true evaluation of the most prepared candidate because the process raised
074these concerns the community exercised its legal right under California law to call for a vote that is democracy at work it is not a waste of money it is an investment in trust and credibility if the previously appointed candidate is still truly the best choice in excuse me in the eyes of her neighbors then she should have no issue earning their votes division is at an all-time high in our country we all know this we should not be turning this election into something it is not this is not about partisanship identity politics or personal attacks this is about one of the most foundational strengths of our democracy the power of the people to vote I urge the board and the community at large to respect the voters of Area 3 and the special election they
075called for rather than dismissing it as political racist or divisive the special election is not a rejection of a specific candidate based on identity it is a call for due process and public trust and when there is doubt in the process the voter should have the final say thank you [Applause] hi my name is Mark Hughes it's been a long time since I've been in this uh building and in this room 25 years ago I sat up there where you all are as I was elected to serve as a trustee so um you can only imagine my disappointment coming here today because I want to see all the change that's taking place in the district and I was looking for the Maga sympathizers and the races and what the heck happened to mea so and
076then I come in here there's Maryann Griffin Marilyn bruette gosh Helen you were a lowy junior high school math teacher way back in the day my both my children had uh Miss Leal as a teacher H so on and so forth they go Laney there's there's Laney leech so nothing's changed go back and look at the 1998 strategic plan where Dei was one of the tenants of of our strategic plan way back then so I'm so pleased although disappointed for the theatrics that I heard about that didn't play out tonight and Miss writtenhouse don't be so hard on yourself I have tremendous admiration for the most important of all the virtues that's the courage and the courage you had to speak tonight that's to be applauded that's what is the role models were looking for
077our children so with that said uh yeah the the Thunder I had and the excitement had to come down here and uh to see things play out but I'll be supporting uh Miss Leal um from day one I know her true intentions uh and let me tell you uh as a supporter of hers I promise you I'm not a racist or a Maga sympathizer in fact uh worked under the president of the United States and you would have found me on the on the first president Mission as I was at FEMA I was on the Southwest border mission for unaccompanied miners I was on the leadership field team to set that up so far from a racist uh just so pleased that the freedom does ring democracy prevails we'll have a special election looking forward
078to a vigorous transparent election and made the best person win thank you now we're on to the consent calendar um do we have any changes no changes do we have any comments I'd like to recognize the donations from Creekside Church um to alhamra high school and also from the Kanis Club to John Meir and alhamra as well great I'm glad you remember that since caros is not here um do we have any public comment in regards to the consent calendar no you have a motion I'll move to approve the consent calendar second student vote I all those in favor I I I motion passes okay we're on to discussion information items review of csba updates December 2024 Helen Rossy so I apologize the tardiness of the December 2024 updates I was a little busy in
079January and February but here they are and I have uh described the um on the guide sheeet I've kind of taken it apart and described the changes in each of them there are a couple on the guide on the uh checklist that do not apply to us as we don't have um uh Child Care Centers and so on and so forth so I've left them off and the one the bylaw that in regards to conflict of interest for board members in terms of donations and voting on contracts I have that with legal right now I'd like for them to review that to make sure that I get it correct it's it's a rare occasion that I do but every every so often I send one out to Legal so that will come back at the
080next board meeting um should they get it back to me in a timely fashion so you're going to have two weeks to review these if you have any questions at all um please um make sure that you give me a call and I'm happy to go through them or I'll meet with you and go through them one by one as we don't have the uh committee anymore it seemed to work okay by me doing it this way and putting the changes there and whether or not it's pertaining to a change in the law or it's uh just a simple um revision of of capitalization or a period here or there you can see it as I on each of them I've just kind of made that cross out for you so um they're here and
081will they'll come back in two weeks for approval or non-approval so that's it thank you any questions okay uh then we'll go on to or any public comment nope okay we'll go on to action items first one is the 2025 csba delegate Assembly Election information Helen Rossy okay so last week I presented the um the ballot for you to look at the nominations and it's back again tonight so you're going to need to nominate two candidates this evening to serve for the two-year terms from April 2nd to March 31st so Tanya I'm going to turn this over to you to call for discussion and the nominations um to be called out and uh voted on so they're due by the 17th so we need to do this this evening okay thank you um did everybody
082have a chance to review the okay so generally in the past I know we have gone with um candidates that have a similar school size to ours um but we're open to if there's other thoughts on it well I reviewed them in LIF through um looking at both their school size along with what their different priorities were um I I looked for the ones that looked as if they were interested in things like budget shortfalls and teach retention since from my experience that something we seem to be struggling with more um and the two candidates that I felt were most qualified for this were twe down Jensen and Stephanie Tavis um which I'm definitely open to hearing your guys' thoughts on that but that was my first initial thought that um I think that's a
083good way to look at it I I um I actually have um Interac with twe on other um boards and and uh in csba setting and think that she's really qualified and a really great Schoolboard member um I also know Tam La Hol personally um but I also don't have any objection to Stephanie so I'm open to what others have to say Logan any thoughts Timo is my top choice so but I'm not one between either uh other two that are mentioned yeah I also um liked the uh candidate from Brentwood un Union School District um so do we have um I just knowing that uh tlaa is from a high school district I was wondering what are your specific perspectives that um like why what is your idea for why you believe she's the
084best qualified candidate I just want to hear that out in the open one of the things she spoke about with budgets which you mentioned as well so that was that was my main reason all right thank you I mean for me I think um even though it's a high school district there is you know a lot a lot of the same things we have to do um and I also feel like um I want to look at people that I know have been involved previously and I know will continue to be involved because um this is not a small job that it's in addition to their board member role that they're signing up for um so I think that is um really at the Forefront of my mind um I know that let's see I
085was looking to see I I believe twe is an incumbent I was looking to see who our other incumbent was because I don't remember that off the top of my head if there is one Susanna Ordway is the one that I know of right thank you yeah I mean I'm like I said I'm I'm pretty open I think um this is kind of a big thing for anybody to step up to be able to do extra and top of you know whatever their day jobs are their board member roles um I like I kind of like the idea of of voting for one incumbent and one maybe a new person to bring A New Perspective um so it looks like we have some good options yeah I agree with that I think um it's nice
086to have a different perspective on there too so I would be okay with that with one incumbent and one other new one so who was the incumbent that we decided we liked I think twe TW Johnson yeah yeah um and then what was your CH what was your choice Lizzie um I had said Stephanie Tavis but I can understand Tam Tamila Holly as well I definitely did see the budget outlook on hers as well so I'm fine with that as second Logan were you to say something no okay so do we have a motion from someone I'll make a motion to um I'd like us to vote for Tamila Holly and Tweed Al Jensen second student student vote I all those in favor I I okay motion passes oh look at that we get Andy
087again uh the 2024 and 2025 uh second interim report and Canon first time tonight though uh good evening board uh tonight I'm going to be presenting to you the second interim report based on our fisal year 20242 and as I've said many times Education Code 42130 requires that we as a school district submit several different reports and this is just one of those um it is an opportunity tonight for us to go through um the board the community and staff to see the Financial Health of our district and make sure we meet our financial obligations um so with that you are going to see the change in the budget from first interim which was given to you in December and now all the way through March um it does cover the period from um the
088beginning of the year all the way through January 31st and one of our primary roles is determine whether or not we can um project a positive a certified or a negative um um fiscal Outlook anytime we look at a budget we start with assumptions this is how we kind of get the building blocks for how do we determine what our revenues are going to be and then later on we add to that the expenditures based on staff and other items um so what I want to highlight first is that this year we continue to see enrollment growth um and we've had now two years of enrollment growth why is that significant it's significant because we've been projecting declining enrollment for some time now and we're still projecting that through 2526 and 2627 and the the
089key indicator is going to be when we get to October if we see another year where our attendance is about the same or increases then I can change that attendance outlook for the future and we may not be looking at declining enrollment going forward even if we do not continue to see declining enrollment we are more likely going to see flat enrollment and that's because when we look at our birth rates um we're pretty much we're we're getting every other year spikes and so in average they are kind of coming about to show this enrollment also and why we don't want to change this projection too early a lot of this enrollment is based on the increase in TK students coming in through so we want to see that that continues um to stay steady
090at this top reach where we are right now what's also good to look at is our funded Ada and you're going to see that we are projecting the same funded Ada for this year and next year and this is because of our um the way in which the state allows us to look at attendance um we have for the past few years because of clining enrollment used our three-year average because it is given us the largest Ada and therefore the most um Revenue but this year we're actually looking at our current year Ada being the highest and again that is a trend based on two factors increased enrollment and kids coming to school at a higher proportion than they have in the last few years which are all positive things coming out of the pandemic
091it may feel like we're far from the pandemic but relatively speaking attendance is still recovering overall our 88 percentage we've been able to tick upwards um last year we were trying to focus on getting 94.5% attendance we have now improved to the point where we can look more in the 95% range and as a first interm I believe we're at 95.4% so we'll see what that ends up being typically we dropped between a half percent and 1% over the last few years um so we're we're really close in that margin on duplicated pupil percentage this is continuing to decline um most of this is because of the three-year average and we saw that some of the rules around collecting um free applications for student or free application for meal um with our students has declined
092um one of those reasons because everybody gets free meals some people choose not to fill out those forms please parents um always fill those out at the beginning of the year it really does help our schools um Cola you're going to see a change here in the next two years so our current year 1.07 has stayed the same but next year we originally going to be a little closer to 3% I think 2.93 um right now it's projected to shift down by half a percentage but then in 26 27 we should go up in half a percentage I'm not going to say that's offsets each other but it's kind of balanced news in what the state's doing uh we won't know exactly what cola is going to be until every year and it takes a
093while so these are projections and they can change um particularly when we get to the uh May Revis by the governor um CPI which is a um price index is staying about relative just shy of 3% now that looks good right now but with um with tariffs and other stressors on the economy we just don't know what that's going to be it could shoot up it could shoot down there's lots of theories about it we're going to have to wait to see a little bit more on how that indicator plays out and ultimately the role of inflation within our school district it can continues for prices to go up or are we going to see some of these more moderate um 3% increases um stirs purs our employee um benefits um are about the same
094as they were before and we're looking Health and Welfare of modest increases which again could change but right now we're budgeting at about 3% to continue talking about our enrollment projection um we are expected decline by 60 students over the next three years and that would be the uh the gray bar that you see on the chart um and what's not on here is that we have already seen a funded Ada decline of 131 students that means that last year we got $131 131 students more of Revenue based on their grade span differences and because we used that three-year average and we had such a high 9 through 12 population we saw that that money was uh even greater than what we can see grade spans and I'll show that in one of our next
095slides here um again we are looking at about a 95% um enrollment and just to put that into perspective um a 95% um attendance rate on a daily is about 176 kids absent each day for us on average uh so again let's make sure our kids are coming to school not when they're sick but every time they're not sick please be there um as we look at this chart I want to put it into a greater perspective over the last couple of years um many of the districts in contracosta county has talked about local Cola um and we did so as well here I want to talk about that in terms of lcff increase because let's just to suppose what a cola is that the state authorizes and what our actual lcff increases and for
096this year and we've talked about this several times we have received a positive 1.07% Cola but because of that decline in funded Ada it actually is the same as a 3.1% decrease in our lcff to the tune of $1.4 million that means lcff we have $1.4 million less this year than we did the previous year as we continue down through the chart you're going to see that that Trend continues um the next year 2526 2.43% Cola but only a 1.8 lcff increase going all the way to 2728 where they get closer to balancing out 3.63 to 3.4 so again the idea is Cola is not synonymous with lcff increase and that's what I want to make sure that as we continue to look at our budget and the likelihood that we'll have to make reductions
097over time that superintendent Rossy talked about that that's always in the Forefront of how we're making responsible decisions here just to push even further on this topic um we have a chart lcff and cola in here you're going to see some amazing um increases in our budget and that's back to 202 2122 isn't shown here but that was a great year 2223 another great year you see it continue to drop off into 2324 which is our last of three really amazing Cola years with increases in revenue and then we get this small one of this year 1.07 we will not regain the ground of our lcff Revenue until um 2027 28 so the next couple of years although we see some positive signs from the governor's budget that as projected we still have to recover
098the ground from our lcff funding so what makes up our lcff change here um overall we see that we're basically flat in what our Revenue change is from um first interim to Second interim and I'm not sure why that slide says adopted budget that one snuck in there somehow that should be first interim and then the next column should be second interim my apologies there um so lcff we saw a0 4% decline um we talked about this at um one of the last board meetings this is because when we've we've got enough Ada projected that we switched from the three-year average to the current year average or current year amount and the difference between the grade span of high school getting about $2,300 more per kid looks like we may adjust about $180,000 downward we
099don't know where exactly we're going to end when we get to P2 which will be in April but if things change and not that I ever want a lower Ada but if the Ada is just a little bit low enough that we can get an extra $180,000 if that were to occur then that would go back into our June budget and show in un audited uals which will be in September so we'll stay tuned for that in federal Le Revenue we saw 6.6% decrease and that's because viente is no longer eligible for CSI funds they received about $165,000 a year to help them but um great news their achievement um increased and because achievement increased their funding decreased because they were no longer separated out for that level of support likewise in state funding they
100lost the equity multiplier so that was a oneye over $90,000 that they were be able to use to help with um things at the school for this year um but that is now gone um at the same time we did see the college pathway grant that U that Amy was able to to get for us of $90,000 we saw some Transportation um decrease a little bit and some other small changes um and then local U we found our tuition for out of District students uh Matthew has been great about talking to other school districts and taking in special education students when we have space and helping to increase that revenue and then superintendent Rossi was uh highly important in getting a $256,000 grant for mental health supports so again all of this is a hustle
101to continue to get as high of revenues with multiple different sources all for the point of being able to help support the educational system here when we look at expenditures um overall again we see not much change from first interim to Second interim just a 0.4% and to put that in perspective out of $64 million that's a difference of $280,000 in change now at the same time those are coming from different sources here in certificated and classified sources usually this time of the year we look at our substitute cost and make a change in projections if we can we were able to cut back a little bit on substitute cost and also some of the unfilled vacancies in classified with books and supplies um we were able to also identify $80,000 that are either unneeded
102to be spent this year or can be delayed to next fiscal year and then our largest increase other outgo this is an increase in tuition for our County Special Education students so we saw an increase there but again overall 0 4% um change from first interim to Second interim um we are required to look for not just this year but over the next couple of years our multi our multi-year projection and so this chart does that for us by combining both unrestricted and restricted sources what's key here is looking at that excess deficiency line which would be line three in the text and you'll see that we are still deficit spending um even though as superintendent Rossy mentioned we did have a $2.1 million reduction that the board approved in February he's just going to
103the [Music] bathroom like you're right we'll wait yeah so I can't make a motion because he walked off yep e e e forgot there okay so Andy thank you Craig multi-year projections um the chart before you shows both unrestricted and restricted U projections over the next couple of years so the current year and the next two um what I was pointing out in the excess deficiency line is that the deficit spending this district is continuing to look at although it is dissipating you go from nearly $5 million this year to a projected of almost 1.6 in 2026 27 and that is again based on um the reductions that the board made in February plus looking at our budget and scrubbing it as tightly as we can um in anticipation of meeting with our bargaining Partners
104which I'll talk about about that in a moment as well um what we're looking at is that for this current year at this moment for second interim we're looking at an 8.77% um Reserve level which is sizable and that is up by almost half a percentage um from what we looked at at first interim um next year 6.5% up almost 0.9% and then the third year out 4.6% which is a 1.56% increase now I need to couch that by saying that that is before the raise because at the time of second andm closing which is January 31st we had not had even tentative agreements with our bargaining unit members for both csca and mea at this point if all staff receive a 1% salary increase which is what the tenative agreement states the reserve in
105fiscal year 2627 will actually go down to 3.13 and that is about $86,000 above our 3% required reserve and now just so you know I've kind of gone back and forth between unrestricted and restricted as a total which is in this chart but then transferring to just talk about our our unrestricted amount because it's the unrestricted amount that we have to show that 3% Reserve um so I can definitely answer questions at the end for anybody on the board that has it um if I didn't explain that clearly what I do want to go and make sure we understand is that when we combine both unrestricted and restricted funds we go from what is it line five which is $12.4 million which is our beginning balance that we started in July of this year and
106we will go down to $ 3.35 million and that's Before the Race so we do see substantial deficit spending continuing to happen over the next couple of years at least under this projection that doesn't include a 1% raise that doesn't also include um any new income from the state if it comes to so to talk a little bit more about deficit spending um and we mentioned it now a couple of different times here all right there it is um we as a board you did approve a $2.1 million reduction for um the next year's U budget but it does include at first interim we were looking at a 1.9 million deficit because of those reductions we looked at our second interim of about 1.6 that 1 Point 1% raise if approved is going to get
107you to 1.8 so unfortunately the work that was done by the board to reduce um those expenditures that 2.1 million did not have a significant impact on the deficit for the current year and again it leaves about $85,000 left for 2627 when we look at the restricted expenditures this is where a lot of the cuts were and they had to be done because our one-time funds are expiring um we did look at it from a lens of the boards focus on mental health and counseling support trying to maintain those services in Ft as much as possible and make Cuts outside of it as available we are though and this is a bit of good news right sometimes I think I come in with just the negative stuff um but we do have some good news
108from the governor's budget there may be some new one-time funds this will help um as we get for the rest of this year and it will decrease deficit spending in the short term but again if we still continue to have all those expenditures it will um wear thin eventually and we'll be back in the same predicament which is talking about reductions when we look at the fund balances um we have spent so far in this pres presentation talking about fund1 we do have other funds and they are listed here our Student Activity fund 310,000 Adult Ed has a very healthy balance I'm always happy to report when fund 13 our cafeteria fund has a positive balance that means that the district through fund 01 is not contributing any dollar amounts there it's running in a
109self-sufficient manner fund 14 has a small amount from a couple of years ago when we put money into that um and as you continue to go down fund 21 is our building fund we are just about out of that and later we're going to talk about Morel Park and the exhaustion of the rest of measure k and measure R both of those are are essentially gone and then as we keep going down fund 35 is having steady growth because over the last couple of years we've gotten rebate checks essentially rebate checks from the state based on past construction projects so we're hoping to continue for that to grow it may grow more as we look at John sweat if we get funding from it Mel Park and then our future projects hopefully through measure o
110it can add to the potential of what we can spend and see the scope of those Pro projects may be increased um bond interest is just there alone in fund 51 to pay for the interest on the bonds that we already have and then fund 73 we've done really well um in this community about supporting scholarships and so we have a healthy balance there to continue to provide scholarships for our kids so all of this is to say that and looking at our entire budget we do project that we will have a positive certification meaning that we'll be able to meet our financial obligations for the current and the next two fiscal years so some high notes here and I kind of alluded to it um but we're going to spend a little bit more
111time looking at these um the state and Governor Newsome is looking at increasing our TKA budget we don't know exactly what it's going to be yet but it's rumored to be somewhere in this 3253 range and that is in order for us to meet our 10:1 ratio of adult to students in TK now mind you most of this funding will go directly into our T clay classrooms and providing additional staff both teachers and Par professionals um but it is an increase to support us um The Learning recovery emergency School block grant they do not get any shorter I think they get longer each time you get a one-time Grant um but what we look at here is that we should getting somewhere around $400,000 is at least the hope and then of course the next
112one student support and professional development discretionary blog Grant this right now is proposed to be about $320 per Ada if that were to hold true we'd be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.3 million um but this is restricted dollars this isn't going to go into the unrestricted pile to be able to sh up um our budget there but it is going to be very useful um as we start looking at how are we going to plan to continue some of the the programs and offerings that we do here overall um for our school district we are still looking at deficit spending and we're going to have to continue to have that conversation um each year until we get to the point where we are no longer deficit spending um our state block grants um depending
113on what happens with the the new block grant that may come out depending on how that goes in May and through the legislature U we could um either increase um some expenses and look at programs to increase or we can just continue to pay what we have that'll be something we'll work with the board to determine we know that special educ a spending is only going up um that amount in encroachment is growing by more than 3% each year and that's because of inflation it's because of contracted cost uh a multitude of factors but it is increasing we have to budget for it and then we know that collective bargaining is going to continue um to the point that we are um prospectively looking the board is that is at a 1% salary increase and
114that would be included in any June budget as we look to the Future um keep this slide in every time just so you kind of have an idea of where we're heading in June we will have our 2526 budget and we're going to start working on that relatively quickly um I know it's it may seem early to most but you start planning at this time to be able to get everything ready and right so that we can start school in the fall um if we need to we'll have a 45d 45 day revise in August followed by un audited actuals the closing of the books for the 2425 school year then we're back to First interim and then just a short short year from now we will be doing the same conversation for a second
115inter room for 2526 and with that I am open to any questions about the budget the second interim or anything else fiscal that you uh need answered thank you very much always um very informative you do a great job of explaining things um I'll ask you guys if you want questions first do you have any go ahead all right I guess I'm starting okay um when you were talking about changes in revenue and changes in expenses um you mentioned that the in the other local Revenue the increase was largely due to special education contracts that were coming into our district um and then in the expenditures you mentioned that the places where there were increases were also due to money going out of our district because of those special education costs costs I was just
116wondering if you could explain a little bit more about that and I guess looking at it overall it appears as if that was still a positive thing because our revenues stayed relatively stable and our expenditures went down um but just explaining a little bit more about that yeah when we look at um let's say we have a space in an SDC classroom with one of the elementary schools and we have a neighboring District who has a kid that they don't have space for because of various different reasons we could contract with them for you know $ 4050 $60,000 depending on what the student needs and that all becomes Revenue that comes in the same cost for the teacher the aid and for all of the facilities exist so those are all really positive things for
117us unfortunately sometimes we have kids who cannot fit within the school system and they have to go to non-public schools I wish that was 40 50 $60,000 sometimes it can be upwards of $200,000 so we we not a game but we continue to kind of Hustle toine opportunities to fill our spots to gate Revenue but it often times feels like we're pushing a boulder uphill to be able to reduce those expenditures one step forward two steps back sometimes yes um and then the other thing for the multi-year projections the 3% Reserve what is the 3% based on is it based on the number of the amount of expenditures that we have the revenue that we have how much deficit spending we have because that number appears to change all the time but what's the link
118yeah it is based on expenditures okay so as you increase expenditures you have to have more reserve and that's what kind of gets to be weird if you didn't spend any money next year which you know you can't do you wouldn't have to have a reserve um so it's kind of strange in calculating it for the last few years we've been somewhere around High 1.8s 1.9 this year's a little bit more based on total expenditures but we should see that drop over the next couple years okay and then on that same page of multi-year projections you show our total revenues as being projected to go up um by am about million to $1.5 um is that based simply on lcff funding expecting to increase or there other um Revenue increases that are playing into that
119um there are um so for lcff we see that is going to increase by Cola and also then calculated times the funded Ada for for um our federal and local we usually do a multiplier of about whatever CPI is so we're looking to right around 3% so we follow that same CPI indicator to show an increase in revenue and then each year as those Revenue sources come in we'll make adjustments based on what they are so it's always an approximation and we hope that we're a little under to be conservative yes um okay and then you touched on this a little bit but the fund 35 that's money if I understood correctly that we got paid back and reimbursed from the state for projects that we already complet it correct that's correct okay it doesn't
120have to work that you complete it and you get money back but generally speaking the state in the process by which it goes takes longer so we do the project first with our bond measure and then we submit for for that matching funds so rebates is probably the wrong word to use it's matching funds by the state that's allocated in every year um California's budget or in this year um I think proposition two was part of that because the state couldn't Finance it so the voters um voted for prop two to come out of that and go towards facilities and I'm gonna add something Lizzie I don't know if you remember we talked about it when we didn't get the first Bond measure that we went out for recently we decided to um stockpile a
121little bit because we didn't know if we get the second one and we have HVAC problems at the two secondaries we needed to make sure that we had money just in case we didn't get the second bond to make sure that we had heating and air conditioning at the two schools so and we made the decision to hold on to that money and not do anything with it okay we didn't get the bond we wanted to make sure that you were warm enough or cool enough so we'd have at least money to put aside there and so we we racked it up and now that we have the bond we need to hang on to some of that to make sure that as we spend our our measure o money that we can our turf
122field because we're out of bond capacity with this community we know that we have to replace our turfs every 10 12 years or so so we have to make sure we keep some of that we'll get a little bit more with alhamra and the junior high but keep some of that for the cycle for the turf fields that we do have so you'll see a bulk in there but it's going to have a plan on how it's spent okay so um does that also mean that there's a likelihood that as we spend money with measure o that we will get more money back into that fund yes that's correct okay all right thank you all right always good questions Lizzie okay thanks Andy and um thanks to everybody that's uh working on increasing Revenue because
123um that's really important um so you said that we will be in a position to regain the lcf revenue of where we were around 2728 um but is that also I know the special education costs are increasing due to inflation this doesn't take into account other expenditures are also going to increase due to inflation right when we do the multi-year projection I put in that increase so for special education right now we operate at a 3% increase every year for that and then as we look we make adjustments throughout it um but yeah generally we do the same thing as we just have multipliers based on that CPI rate so as we get a 3% increase in all of our other um accounts we also do expenditures 3% it's Cola that's a little bit more
124flexible and that's why it's positive news that we're starting to balance out at least we're not going to see those declines in lcff again and um do you know or have you looked at um our our declining enrollment are other districts in the county or in the Bay Area are is everybody kind of in the same boat as far as declining enrollment or I think I I I can't say it with with all certainty but I think the last time we were in a CBO meeting it was somewhere around 2third was still in declining enrollment and about a third were either flat or increasing um and I think that is a little bit better than what it's been over the last couple of years what that means long term I'm not sure but I can
125tell you that many districts you may have seen this in the news are cutting many more Millions than we are and they're going through a really tough time doing it not just because declining enrollment mostly with the one-time funds yes so thank you for this report I actually spent versus my first one this is my second a lot of time reviewing this and I'd sent some questions and uh I think it's uh I think it's important to mention you brought up hope a lot and I know you guys are doing a lot of work around the clock to find new money uh new ways to drive up uh attendance but and you know of course we're trying to stay competitive right make sure we keep the best teachers and offer them uh what we can
126but let's say next year doesn't go as smooth uh in negotiations or we have you know a big cost that we don't have other funds for have you already started planning what like where we're going to make Cuts because it just seems like we're living paycheck to paycheck right now and it's 85,000 is that's not a lot of room I completely agree with you and what our process has been is that um generally speaking about October I start looking over the budget I start working with cabinet and then we begin those conversations about what does our budget reality look like and what do we need to change over the next couple of years and that led us to a very similar process to we had this year and even the one before where from October
127to December we start identifying where are those reductions we need to take place making sure our revenues are accurate and correct and we can count on what we placed in the budget and then as we get to January we look at what other reductions do we want to take place um the complication in that is we're usually looking at at how can we balance our budget reduce our deficit spending at the same time we're going through um negotiations with the bargaining unit members who want to see a raise um so I don't have a good answer for where we're going to be exactly next year at this time other than to say that we are going to have to do additional reductions depending on how we use the potential you know new on you know
128ongoing or excuse me onetime funds um from the state um but to say that we are living paycheck to paycheck is is pretty close to it right now at the same time that's kind of the nature of how School business works is that you continue to look three years out but you could have a lot of different factors change the state could have a really good good um fiscal year like they've seen in the past and you can see a cola of 133% and that 13% can go a long ways into paying for budgets and to be able to cover that deficit um and and that is kind of the the science um in the the study of what we do in the business services world is try to figure out when you're going to
129have those highs and those lows and how to balance them out the difficulty is always though that we want to provide more for our kids and so we keep looking at how do we provide more and by squeezing our margins that closely we do provide more for our kids if we if we squeeze too much we're taking away from those kids opportunities and we're not a business that that grows um you know a stockpile as dollars to do something in future years we're doing it to support you know this year's dollars go to this year's kids so I think there's always that give and take that we go with it the key is just saying hey let's make sure we stay above that 3% of Mark and so in saying that we will have $86,000
130more in three years that's 86 on top of the $1.87 million that is our reserve and so we're looking that part I think is is beneficial but again you know when you look at it and for many's people approach that's not enough to pay for a whole Year's worth of payroll either so we it's just one of those things that school businesses do I can say that there's very few school districts that go into negative qualification um and are not able to meet their bills so we just continue to work through that and what's been really positive in this school district and this is from you know superintendent Rossy for many years has worked diligently to make sure that she talk with school groups principes community members and maintain that budget and so I've been
131able to continue in those footsteps and we'll continue to see positive certifications I don't think there's been a time in this District when it hasn't been positive at least not since you started so I think it's just kind of a natural process that we have to go through unfortunately and just one followup question question are those Cola numbers for the next two years will those fluctuate potentially yes because um there are there's a whole group of indicators that have to take place and they and I don't know them off the top of my head but they stagger throughout the year so you may start with one Cola because it seems that way different economic indicators come in until the end of the year um so it is guaranteed that it's a 1.07% for this year
132but it's still uncertain and they can go up and down [Music] so I had just one just to kind of educate everyone but for the Ada um just a reminder that if someone has a doctor's appointment or something like that there's a certain like in high school I think you have to attend four classes or three classes to still for the school district to still get the Ada and I just want to make sure that um the public recognizes that um if child does have a doctor appointment you don't have to miss the entire school day um because we still do get Ada and I was curious um refresh my memory on the elementary school um how many hours if you could so um that's kind of a gray area um if a kid is
133marked present at any point during the day then we get Ada for that students um so in your example I would absolutely recommend if you have a doctor's appointment come to school at least for part of the day yeah and I just want to make sure that everyone realizes that because I think some people don't um okay and then um I did have have a question on your potential additional Revenue you have student support and professional development discretionary block grant um potentially $320 um for each um Ada so um but that's restricted so does that is student support what is that exactly I mean is it um tutoring is it what I mean I know it won with to teacher salaries but can you be more specific as to what that would go to I
134can't but I can tell you the reason why I can't be specific is because the state looked at um they didn't think they were going to get as much revenue in this year as they did but they don't want to fund ongoing prop 98 increases so they're saying the credential extra dollars they want to give one time because they don't know the state of the uh the economy over the next couple of years so they put it into a block grant and they have not clearly defined it as of at least January as we get into the May revise I'm sure there's going to be some more stuff coming out to say here's some of the con ceps around it but right now the last time I read it was very general around these Concepts
135um the one caveat that was different um the Arts music instruction materials blog Grant which we currently have listed a bunch of stuff and then said other operating expenses they made a point that this won't have an other operating expenses which is to mean it won't be as flexible as what we had before um but what it exactly is I haven't seen yet and I'll look forward to that and explain it as we get to June great thank you um and then speaking of the Arts and um Grant um isn't there I understand that um the more kids enroll the more money we get right um so can you explain that a little bit more I think there's two and so I can maybe separate those out the Arts music and Structural Materials block grant
136was a one-time block grant that we've already received all the money for it was part of the windfall after covid um and that's kind of spoken for then there's prop 28 with this voters passed a couple a couple years ago now year and a half ago the voters passed that gave 1% of the education budget back to schools to pay for Arts music um education and then that pot of money is an ongoing pot of money that we receive that we give out to the schools that they're supposed to use at least 80% on staff and they can use up to 20% on materials and supplies those dollars we actually allocate to the schools the schools in turn work through the school Council to put it in their school plan for student achievement that this
137board approves and then they go about each year in you know using utilizing those funds for the purposes outlined in their plan and if we have more students enrolled in music classes and things we will get more money no that's based on total Ada so it's total on enrollment so technically if we get more kids enrolled in the school we would get a little bit more um but it's not necessarily kids going into the program it just pays for the program so the kids have opportunity increased opportunities because I know that um we've had so many more kids um doing music programs in the junior high and transitioning to the high school and um I know that um I don't want us to have to do a lot of work or anything like that but
138I'm curious if we kind of get a focus and that we are because we have a wonderful program and if we can somehow get a committee together or do something where we look at how can we increase that so people from other districts Say Hey I want to come to that school and maybe we do do some kind of um you know promotion like I don't want to say YouTube but you know we do some kind of um social media blitz and really be known as kind of you know we have like a Music Academy or something program that's really special um and how would we go about doing that because obviously we don't want to have staff get doing that um because you guys don't have a lot of time but um that's just
139something I was you know I've been thinking about that for a while we just have such a wonderful program and even in the elementary schools I mean you heard the recorders today um they were fabulous um so and I think kids really like that and enjoy that and I think that's a way to get more Ada so just how would we go about doing that or we just have to think about it we can bring back another time I don't mean to put you on the spot yeah I'm not I'm not sure the second interim is exactly the point for that okay I know but we're talking about money so um know we are but I I do I do believe that you know the more that we have great programs for kids it makes
140the community and the kids themselves happy and excited and I do know that you know um assistant super at IAD is looking at in District transfers when kids come in so there's a there's a part there that we do bring in kids when we have empty seats that do bring in Revenue also with it and help support our programs and then I know we have a public comment on this oh wait I have one I have one more sorry oh sorry it'll be quick um so and then for our mental uh mental health counsil it's that onetime funding when does that end and is there any plans to is there anything out there to potentially keep that um yes we are prioritizing that right now we're using our learning recovery emergency School block grant for
141that um and then on the slide that we were actually talking about here we should be getting up to $400,000 back from the state they had reduced our amount um a year and a half ago and now they're suggesting they're going to return that so we would continue to be able to use that funding source along with some of our Title One funds to support our our Title One schools our elementary schools that is um that funding resource I believe ends um summer of 2028 or 29 we will expend the funds before that time so we're looking at at least one maybe two more years of that and then we will be bringing to the board I I would presume when we get any new one-time grants is do we want to Parlay that work
142into the new restricted G grants to keep it running for as long as we can with it we also have them U billing under our new program so yeah and that's the the all the capacity grant that we talked about that can provide some of that that $256,000 that'll support that staff and work and then we also are able to um turn in medical building and we get reimbursed from medical for services then that goes right back into it so it's it's a nice machine that we've got running that the the grant supports the setup and all the expenses in the setup and the training for all the the Mental Health Counselors and right now special ed counselors have been um billing for a long time and it's now our general Ed counselors who are
143being trained and they will now start to bring in an income and we have to they'll start July 1st they're in cohort 4 and so we have three employees now who are putting this all together and they're partially paid under this Grant and they're working with um putting together they've just been trained so they'll put together the training for the counselors the the General Ed counselors and then we'll see how much income generates and we can get a better idea of what we can support with the money coming in under that program right there and so we have and just like with the the lbms so we just found uh Beth a way for Beth our district nurse to um submit billing for um the mandated vision and hearing screening at all three grade levels
144or four grade levels that she does bring it brings in like $8.32 a student and um that's going to be a nice chunk of change to support our LVN on top of what we're already doing so we're we're working hard to try to find ways to have people work a little harder to make billing to support their positions it's it's not the right thing that they should have to do but it's what where we are right now so so just to find wrap that up so is it safe to say that we're at least covered through next year for those thing right now um the budget does include that all the way through next year um but we will be looking at next year again we'll we'll present to this board here's what we have
145and here's what we could reduce and let you guys tell us again reaffirm or change priorities and then talk about what those reductions could be okay any other questions all right now Craig so the main thing that caught my eye on this letter for the superintend county superintendent's office was the statement that your reserves should be much higher than the 3% minimum and right now you're on Pace to just barely be at 3% so basically you're walking with you're walking a tight rad without a safety net where you're going right now and I think you know you really should think carefully about this 1% across the board raise because in the grand scheme of things 1% is pretty small because on top of the 25% in the previous raises I don't think 1% it's going
146to make a material difference in your ability to recruit and retain Educators um so I would I would really think you need to do a pay freeze at this point if we really want to put our kids first if our kids deserve better and our kids really are our special interest across the board I think we need across the board pay freeze right now given the extent of the budget situ ation so I just want to throw that out there um you know I think it needs to be said too that um in light of what was spoken earlier today that it's it's a fact it's a mathematical fact that if you had granted the level the bra pay increase that MBA demanded for much of last year when was threatening the strike when was
147picketing out thats Side schools creating a distraction for our community among an education crisis if you had granted that it's a mathematical fact this District would be bankrupt there is no doubt about that and when we want to talk about misinformation in the community let's be honest you know I all I want is fairness and accountability across the board I'm tired of some groups being treated as Beyond reproach Beyond criticism holier than now that they can stay and do whatever they want and everyone else has held to different standards okay there was misinformation about the budget last year from mea and what the community was told that was not fair that was not right the extent of the budget crisis was not acknowledged by them during their strike threats last year you know and I've
148heard a lot of comments and claims over the years about claiming the district is hiding money you know the superintendants overpaid you know is that not bullying is that not bullying enrollment I think we need to look at if there's other extending factors that explain our drop in enrollment Beyond just demographic Trends is it the refinery incident is it the concern about the refineries because if we're losing students because of the refinery whatever they do for us in the in the r education has to come close to making up for that is it the pot shop that the trade unions supported putting next to our high school that drove people away was it the extended shutdowns of the schools in 2021 I remember those meetings in 202 to Spring I remember how parents were at
149the breaking point begging to get the schools reopen so I think we need to look at all that okay thank you um so let's see here all right so um yes okay just out of curiosity is there any information coming out of the state about potential hits from the wildfires things that they're were not covered for that the state may end up having to pick up that may impact their May re May revise so we don't normally answer um questions that you have but um um I can certainly um if you want to send an email to Helen I'll I'll cop I'll send it to thank you I'm sorry thank you very much okay um so this is an action item what action are we supposed to take on this item so we have to
150approve the interim report make a motion to approve the interim second interim report I'll second student rep I all those in favor I I motion passes okay now we have notice of completion from Alton construction for the murel Park Elementary School campus renovation project and guess what Andy you're up again I know um so we have some really good news uh we've been working with our morela Park renovation for quite some time now um we were able to get as as all of you know um fully o full occupancy we had all our kids our teachers in there working since the first day of school but it's taken some time to finish up all the other pieces for that project um but tonight we're happy to say that we have a notice of completion before
151the board U we are requesting approval of this notice of completion and I want to highlight a deductive change order in the tune of almost $48,000 so what that means is that um after change orders um which were absolutely necessary because when we started taking off the roof we found lots of spots with rot that had to be replaced so those were most of the change orders there but after everything all said and done we are finishing the project with those change orders and still having a $48,000 reductive change order um so we're happy with this we're pleased that we're able to move on to the next phase which is the warranty phase of the project which will take place over the next two years but again tonight we're looking for approval of the notice
152of completion thank you um questions Bo um and I just want to be clear that 48,000 is back in to the facilities fund not the general fund right right that goes back into our fund 21 U and we will make some we'll move some stuff around to be able to pay for things because we did dip into fund 35 to cover Mela Park not being sure when we first budgeted for it how much of it's going to be so when it's all said and done we will actually run out of fund 21 based on um the last measure um and then we'll be re re uh you know putting money back into fund 35 but that's just some of the the normal Movement we do all right all right thank you and um thank you
153for the good news I'm happy you got to deliver some good news tonight yes any other questions do you have any public comments okay do I have a motion I'll make a motion to approve the notice of completion I'll second student rep I all those in favor I I so moved this is information action item uh CD and power rental services sales contract Andy Canon um since I've um started working here almost three years ago I think we've had at least 10 power outages at the district office and I believe it's happened much more frequently before I got here um part of our process has been to have our maintenance staff bring down a trailer generator bring it down here try to plug it in before Joe's backup batteries on our servers go dead which
154doesn't always happen which shuts down a lot of the information systems at our district now all the other schools can still be online but those centralized Services go down and we are in a really strange precarious situation where sometimes the lights are off and we're trying to find ways to continue to work and be productive while trying to maintain critical infrastructure and it has been a mess for us um I think we do a really good job of being resilient and working through it I believe though that we're at a point where we need to look at providing some type of generated power um so what staff has done we've looked at everyone on our um cupka list we talked to different people we got different um quotes and this is the one that seems
155to be the most responsive for a diesel generator the idea would be is we'd put a diesel generator just out into the parking lot area here and when the power goes down we would be able to to have power that would keep this place going what's important about that is that if power goes out in this community our schools are a hub and a place where folks go uh gyms and those things are great areas for emergency services and we want to be able to provide that centralized care which we believe at this point without that generator services an emergency we we don't have the ability to do the critical infrastructure report um so we're hoping that the board because of the um sheer cost of this we can't make this decision um by District
156staff we are bringing it before the board tonight for discussion and hopefully approval of this quote for a generator and I just want to add um our servers are located right in there and what happens when the power goes out here the little air conditioner that keeps all of our servers at the right temperature goes out which which means our servers overheat and they don't work anymore and they control the computers and the phone systems for the district right Joe and so without those servers we're dead in the water so it's the race to get the little trailer and bring it over here and get them to get back in here and hook it up and um it only lasts for so many hours and I've about had it so nobody has any pH nobody
157has any computers and we're all texting each other from Principal to the district office and thank God we're not as big as Mount Diablo because I don't think I could text that many schools and and administrators in one text on my thing so this has been I mean it's it's been a nightmare with the amount of power outages and people hitting polls and so on and so forth that I don't think it's safe we we just have no form of communication to get out to our parents or our community when something happens so this is a solution and we have the money in fund 35 to be able to put this in to keep Communication open so yeah thank you Andy thank you Helen so yeah I totally think this is very important um in
158phone service for parents if they want to reach their kids if they need to take them out of school for some reason if there's a Refinery fire if there's I mean the communication is very important and I think think um we have had power outages a number of times so um I for one think this is well worth the money and I know it's coming from um fund 35 so I am 100% behind this I think it is really critical um that we do it and I think um you might as well do it sooner rather than later it's going to cost the same it's not going to if anything it'll get more expensive um so yeah I think it's something that is really needed and again like you said um the computers and everything
159so um I think it's a great idea any comments yeah um I me we have solar panels out there is there any reason why not using like batteries uh to store that power and use it over a generator uses diesel uh yes um because the the ability for us to get solar is going to be a lot more with batteries and the time length for getting those installed is much longer um so when we looked at feasibility um the diesel made the best sense because when we run out of that battery juice if it's a prolonged thing diesel will still be there and going through so it it's just a decision with cost and with also um just efficiency so you said lead time here I see like what it's like 30 some odd weeks
160to 40 weeks lead time so that that's a it was significantly more lead time for the batteries and the batteries were more expensive yes and it's only exacerbated for further by the different fires and the different things throughout here so there's a real drain on it um I don't have the exact um number with me but we did have our construction management team reach out to a solar person and start looking at that and what we found is that this was the the most efficient uh cost productive uh way to do it and the only other concern is if this is a two-year warranty where I believe battery storage is probably 10 plus years so was that factored in [Music] no we didn't Factor it in with this quote again this came down to um
161uh superintendent Rossy and and cabinet agreed that we needed to move quickly on this because of what we have this is the one that gets here uh the quickest and installed it's also the one that is the most cost responsive um and as much as we don't like necessarily using diesel um it's kind of proven and it works well I don't think they'll get give it to you but if you can if you can try to milk an extra year warranty out of that that would be awesome but thank [Music] you other comments just to reinforce this this is coming out of fun 35 right which is that fund that we just saw had $16.5 million in it which means and that's a restricted fund meaning this expense is not something that's cutting any sort
162of teacher position whatsoever it is money we have saved specifically for this purpose so that we can keep our schools and our facilities running for our students to be able to continue their education correct that's correct all right thank you any other thoughts okay any public comments so do we have a motion I will move to um approve the uh generator second you can second I'll second student rep I all those in favor I I so [Music] moved okay um review and Adoption of resolution 20 25-20 establishing building fund 21 resources 0072 okay Andy um yes tonight you have resolution 2025206088 solution to create um fund 21 resource 0072 for the purposes of depositing measure o funds that will be used for construction on alhamra high school the junior high and also the adult education
163program okay thank you very much it sounds pretty self easy is this just like having two separate checking accounts in one same bank account for somebody so that it's just separated out and we can tell which is going where yes okay is there any extra cost associated with that none great any other comments public comments do I have sure yes because I'm I know you can't answer questions I'm GNA put them out there anyways when this goes into effect it would be nice to know how long is the lead time for when these projects actually get started and my other question goes into the oversight committee oversees that we have that I know there's one slot open for but the they oversee the implementation of this does that committee change between measure our measure and
164I know you can thank you you can send an email and to the superintendent she will be happy to get back to you as H and cringes sorry thank you so do we have a motion one other question go ahead do we know what uh rate the bonds are going to be at no we don't um part of our process is um we have to update our master plan and so we're going to be going through a process will most likely in the next couple of board meetings bring a proposal to this board for that update once we understand that update that and the timeline of when those projects could happen so we got a lot of time still to go then we can start looking at how many how much dollars we need in
165what time period we need once we ascertain do we need 30 million do we need 45 how quickly um and what number amount we want up front then we can go out to sell and look at what um the markets say and then we'll be going off of the best market rate okay and I'll just you know for the anyone that remembers the alham highlands Bond the city there was a delay that ended up costing a lot of money so right now I me I mean I'm not an economist but rates are pretty stable but I would encourage to move quickly as possible so we don't end up with a much higher significant rate in the cost yeah and and just to speak of that the type of bonds that we sell usually have less
166flexibility fluctuation in it because they're so large it's and it's more of a secure type of thing um but we do work with our bond Council in our group to look at that and I know superintendent Rossy had a meeting um maybe about two weeks ago and then we're do for another one here pretty soon too to check on [Music] that any other questions okay do I have a motion I will move to approve resol resolution D20 25-20 I'll second student vote I all those in favor I I any nay I didn't hear you say I oh okay perfect I didn't hear it thanks so moved all right the next item is approval of superintendent search firm um and I'm presenting that one so we did have three uh companies that sent us rfps uh
167Annie and I were on the committee and we did um interview two of the companies and her and I both were in agreement that mcferson and Jacobson uh were was a company that we were really interested in going forward with I knew we have the um gentleman here from that company I think he flew up from Southern California um but one of the things one of the reasons that we chose this um so 80% of the administrators um that they've hired have stayed over five years um 60% have stayed over 10 years and 40% over 15 years and we think that stability is really critical also if you look at um the companies they um have a ton in California I don't know if they're California based or not um but they have you know
168bonisha unified Berkeley Albany Antioch I mean they've done a lot of um so big company you know big school districts small school districts they've run done a really good job they also are very good about um talking to the stakeholders so um you know we were thinking you know four or five and they were like oh we do eight or nine we talk to and you know the teacher Union the the um all the different uh unions we talk to parents we talk to cabinet and so it seems like they do a real good thorough job um and um one question we had had a little bit was um you they have something in here about um being competitive and they gave us a price that is based on our Ada so it's not um
169which I think is very fair and one of the things I also really liked um when they talked about interviewing people and and and getting or searching for company for PE potential candidates that not only would the board interview them but they had when you get down to like the last two um they talked about getting to know them on a personal level as well because that makes that has an impact on um you know you might interview really well and I don't know maybe you're not as comfortable out in public or you know with other people so it's just kind of a uh second way to kind of get to know the candidate before you make a final decision so overall um Annie and I were just really impressed with them and I would
170love for him to come up to the podium oh sorry oh and Adam Adam Clark Adam Clark is here yes this is Dr Adam Clark from Mount Diablo actually he works he works next door but he also works for um Mick ferson and Jacobson which is uh uh affiliate with csba so and we have someone else do we have someone else someone on the phone right on U zoom zoom yes Mr gangler is going to zoom them in first of all I just want to um thank you Madame President trustees student board member super so to be here 22 they are located in Nebraska however um they have search Consultants all over the country and I'm one of the consultants in California and with me um this evening who's going to be zooming in and
171who you met with was um Ben Johnson II he will be the lead on the search when we do the searches we um they usually assign two Consultants one as a as the lead who is the direct interface with the with the governing board usually the board president and uh representative from the district office usually the superintendent administrative assistant and then um and then there's an assistant consultant I would be serving as the assistant consultant um and what the um assistant consultant does is help with the uh paper screening recruiting um meetings as you as you listed out um also with the interview process and things of that nature so again Dr Adam Clark um I am the superintendent of the mount the Ala UniFi school district and I usually work on about one search
172a year um and try to do something local so that um so that I can put my all into it and um really help you all hire a superintendent to work collaborative with the board to serve the students and staff and community of um whichever District I'm working with so um do you have my partner zoomed in so he is going to introduce himself I I think I'm here can everyone hear me yes we can hear you uh good evening um my name is Ben Johnson um Mr Dr Clark said I'm I would be the lead consultant for the search and we are privileged and honored to um do that I I think we did have a really good session um talking about the process and I think it's important to note that we have
173a framework of what we think will um will serve your District well but I think it's even more important to note that it's your search and so our process um is to really spend a lot of time on the front end I don't know how much you want to go through the details of what that search process look like if you could bring up the slides um I can kind of give you a high level overview and then really probably spend more time for for Q&A for the board but um what we would do is we would um we would set a session to talk about the criteria that you wanted in your next leader um that would I I would recommend whenever we do this session it would be separate than a board meeting
174so the board could really be focused on just one thing right and that would be the criteria the search Pro of what you want in your next leader um what kind of um interview process do you want we would we would talk about that piece and then we would spend time with talking about what your calendar is and so some of those things we can talk about a little B bit tonight but making sure that we had um a framework was built to your specific needs so when we're looking for candidates and I and I mentioned this um during our session we don't have a cohort of candidates that we move from District to district and they small started a smaller District then three years we tap them on the shoulder again and go let's
175go here then three years we tap them no we really try to make sure that um the candidates that we identify are fit for you so there's going to be a lot of people that will be qual qualified and um will apply for the position but that time and effort will we spend with not only with the board but um if the board wants to have those stakeholder sessions which we definitely recommend those help narrow down the kind of criteria and the characteristics traits attributes you want in your next leader um so is are the slides available I know they have yes and I cannot see them so we're on search consult assist the board with and then thank you so let's let's move um next slide please and I want to get to the
176slide that has all the phases on it and that will there we go right there right there perfect so um let me just walk through this at a high level and as I said we can we can get into the details but phase one as we call it is really us spending time with the board talking about um what do you want in your next leader what are the characteristics traits you want um and even though you may get really granular as you go through your process I I do recommend to the board that you kind of I always use the reverse funnel right you start and bring as many people um yes you're gonna have certain things you want but bring as many people into the process and then start kind of narrowing there
177um phase two is critical so before we even present anyone to the board we spend a lot of time um making sure that we're doing those background reference checks ahead of time and not waiting till we get further in um when we get to our finalist we definitely go deeper but even early in the process we want to make sure we're understanding who these candidates are and are they not only a fit but does everything that they say align to what they've actually done so we start that again right away and then in phase three um we screen out those candidates the first group of candidates we screen out are the candidates that that aren't qualified so if the board says for example I'm not saying the board has said this but if the board
178said we want someone that has cabinet level experience well if that person hasn't had cinal experience they automatically get screen out of the process and then from that next up we talk about well I heard someone mentioned earlier have they served in a district of like size or were they a superintendent maybe they were a superintendent for two years at a district of 200 students and and so we would in my mind we would take somebody like that out of the process unless they did amazing things but two years really is long enough so we would we would present then a board um what we call a short list of candidates of roughly eight to 12 people um that really kind of align to that criteria and when we present those 8 to 12 candidates
179to the board the board would have not only their resume and and um background information but they would have seen a video of that candidate um answering questions and then from that list we recommend the board take those eight to 12 and pick roughly four candidates that they would want to interview and we would develop an interview process um that's mixed with um interview questions but other things so the board can see really the full picture of that candidate and usually by the end of that process the board has enough information to say um here's who we want to here's who we want to recommend and make an offer to to be the um superintendent what I failed to mention too is while this is going on we're also doing um stakeholder meetings and those
180stakeholder meetings are individual sessions with different groups and some of the examples that were given before would be for example the the president your Teachers Association would say here's the eight to 15 people that I I want to sit in a meeting with with with myself and have those kind of discussions your classified president would do the same thing we would pick your cabinet um and then the board would tell us here the other groups that are in our community that are unique groups that have a unique voice um where we would take that information and kind of create a document for the board and for the community and for the candidates it's a public document that that we really focus on four key areas what's great about the district what's great about the community
181um what should the candidate know about the community because that's that fit piece right to make sure that um they understand all the good and all the challenges because every district has them before they take the position and then the last piece are what the characteristics traits attributes that the district wants in their next leader um so all those things are are happening and that information um is done before we actually start interviewing so that can be given to the candidates um when they go through the interview process and then roughly I like to say 45 to 60 days um after that person's on the job we would come back and do goal setting with the board and the new Su the governance team right the board and the superintendent would have a session on
182developing what are the goals that the district wants to focus on and and not five to 10 but two to three um to ensure that leader has success um so I'll and and we put this on here um I've never had to use it but if that leader leaves within a two-year period um we come back and do the search again for the district at no cost except for travel and expenses um and the reason why we know we can do the guarantee is because we spend a lot of time um making sure that that fit and that connection is there but if it it isn't like I said so we want to make sure the district is successful so we come back and do that for free um I'll open up for questions I
183if there are any and uh Dr Clark did I forget anything I usually do hello I can't hear anybody for e e you saying engage with the community or with or with um um um Martinez Community folks staff students um community members and then later on come back to them is that what you were asking yeah so early on in the process as they give input to us and uh on like what we're looking for and then when we actually have candidates uh being able to help us narrow down the process based on their feedback right so that would be um that would be as we designed the the the actual interview so if you want to um have them participate in in any way that would be something that we'd work out with the
184board right and one last thing I'll mention um yeah the two-year guarantee that's like that's not common so that's extremely valuable and I I think speaks a lot to uh you guys' work and your experience thank [Music] you yeah oh go ahead I said sorry I'm back now they I couldn't hear anything before I apologize that's okay I answered it I'm sure you did thank you um I um yeah I I like the two-year guarantee i' I've worked with recruiters myself where they they do like the the employer pays like half and you know and then another half in six months or something like that um I like I like the twoyear guarantee I also like um that you meet with all of us after to talk about um goals because that isn't something that
185I expected to be part of this process so that seems like an added value um are do you find that the um the uh the governance teams you've done that with do you get feedback from them have they found that to be successful and helpful they find oh go ahead Ben I no I I think so in my experience they not only find it to be beneficial but often times um many boards say we want to continue to do this work and so not only do they um want to do goal setting the first time they want to continue to do goal setting because it's hard for the superintendent many superintendents facilitate their own goal setting but if you're part of the governance team how can you facilitate your own engagement and so um they
186they find that to be extremely beneficial and it provides some neutrality and someone that knows the board and and the governance team too because they've worked with them yeah just just to add on that is that it's it's a extra set of eyes oftentimes it's really hard to see things W within yourself and um and so that might be for the leader or for the for the board and so to have a facilitator to be able to talk with both sides and to really get a um a good sense of of what's working what's not working that's why we that's why we give it a couple months and and to kind of just see you know what are some areas that um we really want to focus some more attention to that it really does
187help in um you know in sustaining that relationship and just one thing the the most the only hire that a board does is the superintendent and that is also an extremely CR iCal hire and so therefore if that doesn't work out for whatever reason then you're going to have to go through this process again and ultimately that can impact students and and employees and the community and again if you're talking about bonds and and and moving moving things forward so we don't want that to happen so that's why we really spend a lot of time on trying to make sure that we have very well- defined established goals and metrics along the ways and checkpoints so that so that we can ensure the best possible situation so this person can be successful thank you and
188you know this is so in my time on the board this is my fifth year on the board and this will be the third superintendent that I've worked with um and I'm just curious if you I I feel sometimes like the you know we are a smaller district and um sometimes that you know has kind of limited our pool and also limited retention I think of superintendent um you know just from my perspective but I'm curious if your company has experience with um districts similar to ours absolutely we um you I know in The Proposal we usually provide a list of of districts where we um where we place superintendence and everywhere from extremely small districts to uh middle middle-sized districts and and large districts I just want to say that this District um is
189bless you is um you know is a district that has a great reputation is in a prime location has amazing students and just huge opportunities here that um you know that you all should be extremely proud of and should be very picky when you look at who your next leader is going to be and who actually gets the privilege and opportunity to lead this District thank you just so you know I have the list in front of me so um for example um Albany Unified School District District 3714 employee I mean um Ada uh you've got Central Union High School in El Centro uh 4116 you've got um you know big and small but you've got quite a few uh delord Unified School District um Golden Valley Unified School District Madera um 1950 U you've
190got quite you know they've even got smaller and they've got bigger as well so they really do have a um broad range of and these are all in California I mean Oakley also um that was an elementary school district that had 4,900 students so we really looked at that as well to make sure we got a good base um and I would just say um to Logan's Point um you know I think they do a really good job of um looking at the stakeholders the multiple ones so I don't know that you know necessarily we'd have to go back particularly but um you can maybe do the final but I think um they're going to do a really good job upfront and because they're going to talk to so many different stakeholders and I really
191love the fact that students were one of them and they would do Zoom so um that's something that I think is critical um cabinet I mean they just really had a variety parents um you know different just a variety and when they said you know most of them were saying you know four to five and they were saying yeah 8 to 12 we're like wow and you know so not only in person but also Zoom so I think they're going going to do a real good job of that UPF front yeah and and also I didn't hear it mentioned but there's also a an online survey that we have for everybody and um and again we we um provide that information to the to the board and then we publish that and so sometimes you
192may see some things in there that are really glowing about the district but then you also may see some things in there that um you know that shows some real great opportunities um that that a district may have so it just gives people the and and it's all it's there aren't names tied to it and things like that so there really is that confidentiality that that goes with that and really giving the input so that not only not only do the candidates know exactly the strengths and weaknesses of a district but also your community of employees and students and and community members also see that concerns are documented and are in there and um are being addressed through this process and I had never met you Dr Clark before but um I know that um
193Annie had brought up a question and I just wanted in case it was on anyone's mind she said is there a conflict of interest because he's Mount Diablo and I don't think there is and I think if if nothing else it's nice because the candidate whoever is selected would know you and could also use you as a resource and because you're so close I think that's just a plus but that was something that she did bring up so I just wanted to kind of throw it out there that I don't think it's an issue but one of the only if he was applying for the job I don't think he's going do that one of the things um the reason why I didn't sign up to be the lead on this was because of my
194proximity to the district so but definitely working in the background and helping out and being an assistant um is very appropriate and my board is aware that um that I do do these searches and do work with District so of course um I haven't mentioned this to them because it's not official yet so there's no reason to have mentioned right right no I just I just wanted to kind of throw it out there but um and then I do know we have a public comment on this topic and then um we go to that oh sure goad just had a question just me being careful none of this was attached are we still able to take action well but are we okay all right yeah I had it obviously but um okay so I was
195unaware it wasn't attached I'm sorry but if I here's what will happen I can attach it to this next agenda and put it off that means that we do that that with a contract it goes another two weeks so that's you can also ratify you can we can do what you we discussed this earlier so on on the item itself it says that um upon approval by the board a contract for services will be presented at at the 24th so we can do both at the next one yeah I just want to make sure there's no Brown issues yeah that's totally fine yeah I mean just kind of throw my thoughts in there I'm kind of thinking that this will take some time and that maybe we don't want to wait the two weeks um
196but yeah I mean I really think and like I said Annie and I did do we we did see it all and yeah I thought it was attached and realized it wasn't but um you you what what I was saying earlier though is that if you directed The the our firm to start work and you had it on your next agenda to approve and ratify the contract could still Begin work um and would have no problem doing that before the board technically approved the contract we'll put it on the next contract for ratification and we will attach this and I'll make sure I send it out to to you person on the Friday update you trust um and so um then we do have any other questions and then we do have a public comment
197Craig Lazer ready so I just want to start out as a resident of Area 3 I'm really disappointed that I won't have a representative on the board um leading the superintendent involved in the superintendent search over the next many months I feel like speaking on behalf of the voters of Area 3 I think we've all been disenfranchised um in this situation um we really should have a full board involved in this critically important hire that obviously doesn't happen all the time back when we had the last search for outside search for superintendent I believe it was in uh 2020 I was actually one of the community members who spoke with the search turn team the executive team hired for that search and offered my input as a community member and one of the things that
198was shared with me by uh the person I talked to as part of that search is the importance of board stability in a superintendent search and basically the what was conveyed to me is when you have an unstable situation on your board um that makes it more difficult to attract qualified candidates who want to come into the position because they're OB they're ultimately working for the board and when there's the prospect of turnover on the board when there's uncertainty on the board or the makeup of the board um that has an impact on whether some people are are going to put their foot forward put raise their hand to uh to um apply ultimately um and I think that's something you're going to have to brace yourself for now given the chaos and the uncertainty
199of what's happened I have a feeling I'll go on in a limb but and um the search firm couldn't correct me if I'm wrong but I have a feeling that they probably don't have a lot of experience of searching for a superintendent for a district in the midst of a special appointment to fill a board vacancy a very routine matter that happens on boards all the times being challenged and that appointment being rescinded I have a feeling that hasn't come up a lot and so I'm they're going to have to share that information with the candidates they recruit and that's going to be an issue and I'm sorry we're in that position you know if we would have put our kids first in the interest of our kids first we wouldn't be in that position
200but we are so good luck trying to make the best of it you're also going to have to warn them or find someone who has a very thick skin to come work in this District given uh the abuse some of our superintendant and leaders incur especially around contract negotiation time U being characterized as kind of a combination of Jeff Bezos eaner Scrooge Elon Musk you name it um but that's the way it goes you know that's the way our wonderful public education system works with all this harmony right except when it's contract time and there's no Harmony thank you okay any other I I I I let me I will address one thing that I think is appropriate um that we've had I did the search in Oakley um which candell is an amazing group
201of board members and they they all became board members during covid they had never met each other face to face they were a board that was put together by the county because the other board members that were on the board had resigned because someone was miked and all that that stuff happened and um they have maintained their superintendent um but we were transparent as we are with all of our processes to make sure that there's a good fit that all those things good positive whatever you want to call them because if people are aware of it and the governance team the board and the superintendent all are focused on students and what's best for students people will stay superintendant don't leave Dr Clark you correct me if I'm wrong but many times superintendents leave because
202there's not good collaboration doesn't mean there's not passionate debate but oftenly because there's not good collaboration the governance team but if the board's committed to that and the new leaders committed to that great things will happen not only at the Das but great things will happen in your classrooms thank you for that um and actually funny that you should say Oakley because actually Logan and I met them um at our csba conference they're awesome entire team and they were and they hadn't met each other and the superintendent was there too and yeah it seemed like a really good cohesive unit yeah that was a great thing works together Within good very good yeah they're doing some good things so um and full disclosure when we interviewed them I did say I hope you will have
203the person look at the um board meetings because they have been some chaotic board meetings I did disclose that and I said you know the person needs to realize what they're getting into because one of our key focuses is we really want someone who's going to stay here you know at least five years hopefully 10 years you know um knock on would it get even longer than that um so we did disclose that and it didn't seem like it was that much of an issue because you would look for that and you really do a good job you don't move people from place to place which some of the other firms I thought maybe might do yeah we don't have a stable of candidates right yeah so um I don't think that would be an
204issue maybe I watch too much CNN but I think our board meetings are pretty tame actually well they they are but I was talking about like the pla um you know Thea that's the chaotic one I was referring to um when is a pla not chaotic don't watch that one right I think I'm sorry go ahead I apologize gonna say we we're well aware of the current situations and public Education and Leadership and things of that nature and the dynamic of of school boards but it's also why we really work on the importance of being part of a governance team we are not looking for someone to come in here and ride in on a horse and save you all we're looking at someone who's going to roll their sleeves up and sit side by
205side with you and work together to provide the very best education for students so that's what we're going to be looking for great yeah and I think we all agree that students are the key and we have to just keep them at the main focus and we are all I think committed to um doing what's right for the students in the district so yes sorry quick side tangent here do we need to extend our meeting all right I'll make a motion to extend the meeting to 10 o'clock second a student rep I all those in favor I I so mve thank you she's really on the ball she's a great student rep I'm very impressed yes um so anyways H any other questions comments what do you guys think we can either take action or
206we can do it next time is that what you're telling us I think she was saying we would basically ratify it at the next meeting but they would start their search if you give us if you give us direction we will begin the work and then you can ratify it at the next meeting okay yes I I think that's the way to go in my opinion well I'm in favor of them starting their search I as well I just my only thing was the brown act with the uh it not being being attached but we're not going to ratify or do anything with the contract until the next time so we're not in violation of a brown Act if we don't have any if we don't make take action on a contract for them until
207the next meeting right but they will trust us and start if we think we have the votes yes I'll make a motion to approve the superintendent search form that firm then right is that take that we're not take that back we're not doing that iend my motion so Tanya's going to give direction so my direction is right yes yes so my direction is um we would like you to kind of move forward we will put this on the agenda um and ratify it with the attachment um at the next board meeting which is March 24th perfect thank thank you and what we'll do in the interim um is we will start working on dates um I think the the first date that we want to we'll start working on dates and process with the board
208I the first thing is trying to schedule that meeting where we can do um the criteria session and then the board be thinking about what are the stakeholder groups um that you want and the third piece would be um to at least get something posted as soon as possible um rela to a survey because people know you're doing the search and and those kind of things and those will be the first Big Buck of things for we to work on um to get things moving that sounds great thank you now do you need um a contact do or a time slot on the meeting agenda aside from the ratification or just the ratification on the next agenda just just the ratification and we'll work with you all is Miss green will be working with yes
209okay Nikki thank you and one thing I will say that I I do recommend the boards even if we don't use the time is to have um once I I think really starting the next board meeting every meeting has has an item for the search on close and open session doesn't mean we're always going to use it but if something comes up last minute um it's a easy way to get us on the phone and publicly or in Clos session to address those issues that's a wonderful idea great thank you all so much look forward forward to working with you thank you very much thank you for com than you a long meeting thank you both thank you okay uh we don't need any additional comments from the public um so we have comments from
210the superintendent board members futren items Lizzie do you want to start us off yes I will um in light of the upcoming special election I have a request for all of our community members as a student in the district I would like to urge all participating parties to remember that the purpose of this election is not for political gain or statements but our students as such I strongly hope that this election will be conducted with Integrity free from Petty threats ad homonyms and personal attacks each and every child and student in this District relies on this school board to ensure they receive the best possible education the only way that that will truly be achieved is if our community remembers where the focus of these elections should be put aside from personal gain and opinion
211and focus on the good of the students thank you I just want to thank all the public speakers um I think that um it's hard no matter who you are even if you um enjoy public speaking to get up there and those that said that they didn't still did a really good job so thanks everybody for coming out and I'll just Echo a little bit on that uh I want to thank mea for coming out uh I had the pleasure of being Mary and I'm sorry sorry is it Maryann I think uh on Friday getting to talk to them a little bit that was my first time ever getting to speak with anybody from there uh directly so um and glad that they were able to show up and talk a little bit about what
212they're about thank you just want say thank you everyone for coming um it's always a pleasure when we have the public come out um even if it's longer than anticipated we appreciate your feedback um and that's it thank you it's always tough to listen into how you're going to be replaced so on that note I got nothing else so we will go ahead and um close the meeting at is it [Music] 9:36 e e e