001e e I'd like to go ahead and call the meeting to order at 9:00 am. this is a special meeting of the board of education on March 3rd of the Martinez Unified School District pledge of Alle agents do you want to lead up do we have any changes to the agenda there are no changes do you have any public comment regarding the agenda okay so do I have a motion or discussion on the agenda I'll make a motion to approve the agenda thank you second okay student rep I all those in favor I so moved want to public comments under government code 5495 4.3 members of the public 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
002speakers 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 comments we have Yasmine llas is the first public comment good morning the following previous musd board members were appointed to their seats without being removed via a special petition by collected by some members of the mea Dedra siguenza John Fuller Jonathan Wright Jeremy janelli and Carlos Melendez Britney aala is a District Parent UC Berkeley graduate and a higher education professional that works at the most prestigious Public University in the world was removed by from her seat via petition circulated by some members of mea she was more than qualified for the appointment as shown by
003her application and her performance on the February 24th board meeting I have video Snippets posted publicly on my Facebook page the following was dat the following data was presented to the board note that standard is used as a reference to the minimal Baseline and should not be considered exceeding or excelling in mathematics all musd students are negative 27.6 points from the standard long-term English Learners are negative 139.0 points from the standard students with disabilities are negative 114.1 points from the standard a African-Americans are negative 70.9 points from The Standard English Learners are negative 73.8 points from the standard Hispanics are negative 60.4 points from the standard socioeconomically disadvantaged are negative 69.8 points from the standard white students are negative 14.9 points from the standard alhamra high students are negative 69.3 points from the standard John
004Mir students are8 .5 points from The Standard Las hun students are negative 58.6 points from the standard martinus junior high are negative 63.9 points from the standard biona students are negative 149. points from the standard in the area of English language arts English Learners are negative 53.5 points from the standard long-term English Learners are negative 94.5 points from the standard so socioeconomically disadvantaged are negative 91.2 student points from the standard African-Americans are negative 42.3 points from the standard Hispanic students are negative 26 points from the standard emergent multilingual students and students with disabilities lack Equitable and meaningful access to grade level standards in college preparatory courses a through D completion rate for all students was 47% 2022 to 2023 but only 13 % of multilingual Learners below the state's rate of 19.3 that year and
0050% of students with disabilities 0% of students with disabilities met the a through G completion rate to apply for college musd recently voted to cut 2.1 million from the budget one of the positions on The Chopping Block was for Janice Collins's career position we have to cut you off it's three minutes thank you Megan thank you superintendent Rossy for moving forward in the election process in a timely manner so the voters can have a say in this vacancy it's amazing how far a genuine thank you goes this is one of the many messages mea members instill in the students population in preparing them to be Global Citizens mea members show up daily to teach collaboration the art of inquiry perseverance without question around the students background or learning style because mea special interests are our
006students so to stay or question where the staff members when it comes to Dei issues is a major criticism that holds very little truth because that work is done every day not to mention those who go above and beyond in running and participating in Dei programs at site and District levels just as board member hork Martin mentioned last meeting this is a democratic process that the voters have a right to to place the incorrect lens on this process in purpose to bully those and threaten those involved is unacceptable unprofessional and ethically questionable the voters will continue to stand for a candidate who will not throw away their shot compared to talking less and smiling more thank you yours is on the action item oh oh yeah absolutely sure absolutely Jonathan rght good morning Ramadan mabarak
007Jonathan Wright Area 1 is where we live we John M parents remember Martin thank you always for your endless Integrity it's unfortunate that we're here today this board has so much work to do we need to hire a new superintendent thank you superintendent Rosy for everything we need a fair and Equitable budget we need to use the new Bond wisely with a real construction plan we need to recruit and retain top quality employees the first order of business is keeping students safe from Maga speaking of MAA I've heard people including some of you accusing the organizers of this election of being MAA including Martina's educators of course every accusation is a confession MAA is anti-public Services anti-science racist transphobic homophobic sexist xenophobic anti-union undemocratic fascistic and cowardly Maga is taking contributions from PS that also
008fund Trump's agenda a primary agenda of Maga is to destroy the public sector so they can fully privatize or create rent-seeking opportunities for their billionaire buddies they intend to gut public education and replace it with Charter and private religious schools the charter school industry is Maga what's not MAA labor unions anti-racism diversity social justice democracy at The Ballot Box democracy in the workplace High equality free public education Martinez Educators LED in the creation of District Dei they work to get students back to inperson instruction ahead of other districts they keep our class sizes small via their Collective bargaining agreement they are the reason we have music PE and Science in elementary schools they advocate for our most vulnerable students they are heroes and beloved in our community if you cannot accurately identify Maga and how
009can we trust you to protect our children from the Maga agenda people didn't sign the petition because they're MAA or want the district to waste money they did it because your appointment of an underqualified applicant in a highly suspect process forc them to exercise their rights under under the law because they have agency because this is a democracy because they think your decisions lack Merit your titles are trustees you are tasked with operating in the public trust and the community does not trust you elected office despite what you might think is not a place for revanchism venality or fecklessness SAT words look them up whether we voted for you live in your trustee areas or agree with your beliefs or not we thousands of families are depending on you we need you to succeed to
010keep our district moving forward so our community can Thrive now more than ever trust is earned do better free Palestine thank you no more public comments I believe okay all right moving on to action item review and Adoption of resolution number 2025-the use of mailed ballots for June 17th board vacancy special election Helen Rossy election code um section 404 allows a spe special election in a school district to fill a vacancy on the school district's governing board to be conducted wholly as an all male ballot election if the legislative body of the school district adopts the resolution authorizing the use of the mailed ballots for the election so resolution 20251 19 authorizes us to use mail mailed ballots for the June 17th 2025 special election ordered by the Contra Costa County Superintendent of Schools to
011fill the vacancy for trustee Area 3 of this district and the um in speaking with the elections Division and the Contra Costa County Superintendent the use of mail in mailed ballots will save the district at at minimum um $20,000 in the election in the special election so um the minimum cost goes down to 43,000 versus the maximum cost of 64,000 if we should use uh ballots so I'm the uh election uh resolution was put in on Friday to the election office by the contracosta county superintendent uh Lynn Mackey and the election um office is awaiting this um resolution should it passed today um to be filed for the mailin ballot should the board decide to go in that direction um to uh finish finish the process and and of calling for the election for the
01217th of June so I put the resolution before the board this morning in a special meeting so that we could open the window for a candidate thank you discussion um when will the window be open when I take this down to the elections office today okay and when does it close March 21st so I just want to clarify because I did get um a question from a Community member so we are not here this is not a vote on whether or not to have a special election this is just for it to be mailin only right the election is already called and set for June 17th this just makes it a mail-in ballot to um lower the cost of the election and then can we clarify because I I also got a a question aren't
013all of our elections in Contra Costa County pretty much mail in but but on Election Day there are poll workers in a normal election where someone can go right vote in person so that is the difference right there would be no option there be no option to go into a a voting um facility okay thank you but you could still bring the ballot to the election the elections office that day yes okay any other thoughts yeah um I'm definitely in favor of trying to keep the cost down I agree with a lot of the comments that have been made at this meeting and our last meeting I agree with um trusty hork Martin that voters do have a right to call for a special election um but I am also disappointed that we have to
014spend the funds on this that could go towards students um as one of our speakers said we have not had a special election after several appointments and I've seen the uh applications and resumes from all of those appointments and to say that the one the board made this time is not qualified is just simply not true and I'm disappointed to hear that I stand by her appointment I hope she runs I hope she does well but of course this is a special election that we have to hold and um and I understand why you know I know there were strong comments last meeting I understand why some of those people are upset as well so um you know we'll let the voters deci side and I'm glad that we do have an opportunity to try
015to keep the cost down as much as possible I would like to say as a student who even though I'm a senior so I'm on the way out I have siblings and friends in the district who yes will be affected by the cost of the election but I am proud of our District 3 parents and community members for calling for this special election because what it represents is that our community is do not lack in their commitment to their students they want the best possible education for their students and no matter which person that they elect this means that that is what they believe is the best education for their student and so regardless of the cost which yes I know is not fun for our district having sat through these budget discussions for the
016entire rest of our year that I would like to thank all of our community members for the fact that they are interested and invested in my education in the education of my friends in the education of my family members and my other students that they are willing to put in the effort even though they are getting a lot of lashback for it in order to make sure that the best possible person that is chosen by our community is filling this role so um I typically would in in the pive been support of of a special election versus an appointment I actually participated in one of those processes and although the result wasn't myself being chosen I didn't choose to contest it in this particular case it was fine and only once we made a selection
017did some of the uh people that participated uh in the process are now upset so it's hard for me after you know we made millions of dollars in cuts which means you know you know worse outcomes for students because we have less staff whether it's a groundskeeper teacher career college readiness gave raises or potentially going to give a pay increase which you know resulted in cuts and then now we have this so it's hard for me to justify in my head why this is Student First L but again it's a democratic process as Annie said it's fair for people to participate um as the student representative said you know it's great that we have engagement and I hope uh that we see even more participation in the special election uh because I felt like the
018two candidates we had a lot of um other potential people that might have wanted to join I heard of a third so we'll see what kind of comes out of this and uh I want to say that I think we had and I I haven't read uh all the old resumés but I felt we had two very good people and uh the reason for my selection which I've uh already said um is that I felt my choice was someone that was free of any bias or influence that's not to say that everyone's experience wasn't valuable or that they didn't bring a lot to the table but I felt what this board lacked was we all have been influenced at some point or another or bring our own biases so you know uh I wish the
019best for everyone that participates and I hope it can uh stay you know um professional as possible and wish everyone the best thank you for all your comments um so this is you know the special election it's happening and so this is really just discussing about the mailin ballots and it's going to say us a little bit of money um I think the community will um decide on the best candidate um and who they want so I'm happy about that so um do we have any public comment on this item do do we need to we had public com I'm just asking again just to make sure so um if no public comments do we have a motion I'll move to approve the authorization of use of mailed ballots for June 17th 2025 board vacancy
020special election second student rep I all those in favor I I motion passes and that is it we are adjourned at what time is it 9:20 9:19 okay thank you for