001e e e okay I call the meeting of the Martinez Unified School Board of Education to order I see no one here from for a public comment in that case do I have to say something else we're good oh did we receive any public comment we did not okay and in that case we will adjourn to close session e e e so we're reconvening the meeting after closed session and we do have two matters to report out from closed session so on agenda item 3.1 we're consideration of student readmission following expulsion pursuant to Education Code section 35146 student number 2023 3-4-1 do I have a motion I'll move to approve the readmission of student 2023-24 d01 second okay and then we have to do a roll call vote so I vote i u board member
002Melendez I board member buger I board member hork Martin I board member yamas I okay motion passes item 3.2 is consideration of student readmission following expulsion pursuant to Education Code section 35146 student number 2022-23 d05 do I have a motion I'll move to approve okay seconded okay I vote I board member Melendez I buger I hork Martin I yamas I okay okay motion passes now we will move on to I already reconvened the meeting and let's see Pledge of [Music] Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay item number seven is approval of the agenda and are there any changes to tonight's agenda yes there are I would like to
003add item 8.2 under highlights and recognition alhamra High School a ace membership mentorship program okay would anybody like to move to approve the agenda as amended I'll move to approve I second student vote I all those in favor I I okay and uh now we're on to do we have to do minutes or no it's not on there so number eight we'll do that next time the consent consent calendar sorry I'm thinking back to last year okay number eight is highlights and recognition and our first 8.1 is class classified employees of the Year presented by Dr Dan scuro thank you classified staff are those who provide the support our students and staff need inside and Beyond the classroom they are our pair of professionals nurses office staff cafeteria workers custodians groundskeepers maintenance and Technology staff
004their expertise and services keep our schools running and our teachers able to focus on our students each year schools nominate outstanding classified employees and the Martinez Unified School District selects one or more classified employees to be recognized at the county level based on the County's criteria for their outstanding contributions to the school and community so we're going to take a few minutes and recognize some of our outstanding classified staff all right good evening um John SWAT Elementary would like to congratulate congratulate Lori lot Lori has been an integral part of the TK program as a PA professional the last three years she is a positive helpful kind supportive colleague and loves being at John sweat she goes above and beyond in all that she does Lori extends her craft beyond the job description she genuinely
005loves kids and shows it every day with her gentle and loving nature Lori is dedicated hardworking kind and patient she knows the kid she shows the kids how to use their words and develop their social emotional skills with such Grace Lori has a way of always looking at things from a perspective of love and kindness and that emanates from her in all that she does she brings people together as a team inside and out of the classroom congratulations [Applause] pH all right uh my name is Megan delamater I am the proud principal at Morel Park and I am here to congratulate Lisa Greenwood office manager at Morel park it is with great pleasure that we nominate Lisa Greenwood our wonderful office manager for classified employee of the year Lisa embodies dedication and Excellence as the
006office manager at our school her commitment extends Beyond the Call of Duty consistently going above and beyond to ensure the smooth operation of our campus Lisa has cultivated strong relationships with students staff and families alike creating a welcoming environment for all her positive attitude serves as a beacon on our campus uplift uplifting spirits and fostering a sense of community Lisa's unwavering efforts are deeply appreciated and she is truly valued for the integral role she plays in making our school a vibrant and supportive place for everyone we including myself would be lost without her and are so glad she has chosen Mela Park as her home [Applause] good evening my name is Patty creso and I proudly serve as the principal at Lunes Elementary and I'm here to congratulate Miss Christy Fiddler um as our classified
007employee of the year at Lunes uh she serves as an SDC par C the Bullpup faculty knows just how lucky we are to have m chrisy fidler working at lunus as an SDC par educator we are proud to nominate Miss Christie as our classified employee of the year not only because she is amazingly skilled in her job duties but also because her love and dedication to our students compels her to do so much more um for the Bullpup Community although this year brought about unforeseen changes Miss Christy's caring and welcoming Nature has shown through as she um warmly as she's warmly welcomed and supported every new member who has joined um our class this year her Devotion to creating and maintaining a positive learning environment can be seen as she leads student- centered activities such
008as mindfulness and self- breathing exercises which have helped our students learn to adapt grow and Thrive this year because of her love for our kiddos at LJ she also shows up to all of our school events in full Bullpup gear along with some of her daughters um in full bu Bullpup gear um in order to let's see sorry uh because she is also so proud to to be um our our school mascot in spite of sweltering heat or a cold night at a dance Miss Christy shows up as our beloved Bullpup and inspires Beautiful Smiles to the faces of all of our students thank you Miss Christy Fiddler for being so supportive patient and collaborative um and for making the LJ and for making LJ a more welcoming and caring school for all of our
009kiddos this year thank you greetings it's with great pleasure that I recommend John Janice Collins for alhambra's classified employee of the year as our College and Career specialist Miss Collins has demonstrated exceptional expertise in college admissions and career planning Miss Collins meticulously manages the complex process of dual enrollment from identifying relevant courses to facilitating students Admissions and registrations related to the overall post-secondary experience her proactive engagement with students and families ensures that students and families are well informed and supported through the daunting college application and financial planning processes she regularly organizes informative sessions on financing college and strategic application planning empowering our community and others with knowledge and confidence Beyond her formal responsibilities Miss Collins's dedication to this community is profound her recent work under under tight deadlines and many edits to create an accurate
010and representative graduation program highlights her meticulous attention to detail and her deep understanding of the importance of celebrating every student's Journey Miss Collins is a highly respected and beloved figure in our community she is a beacon of support and guidance always going the extra mile to ensure the success of our students and her colleagues while miss Collins's humility and cander allow her to maintain effective working relationships with students school and District administrators parents and colleagues Miss Collins is the Ultimate Team player always willing and ready to assist with any task with any task placed before her her ability to handle her roles constants with poon patience even during Peak periods is it admirable her contributions are invaluable she truly deserves the recognition as as alhambra's classified employee thank you [Applause] right here right here okay
011sorry good evening martinus adult education wholeheartedly acknowledges Patty Pacho as our highly respected and deserving nominee for classified employee of the year to understand the great respect and truth that both Mae staff and students trust that Ma staff and students have in Patty one has to know her inspiring Journey at Mae from a beginning level ESL student to The Confident helpful and well-spoken ESL program assistant that she is today in 2013 Patty arrived in Martinez from her home country of Guatemala and enrolled in ESL classes at Mee her first teacher Mr Williams noticed right away Patty's willingness and perseverance to learn English as quickly and as well as she could these intrinsic qualities that Patty possesses has subed her in well in reaching her future personal educational and work goals Patty's organizational skills are exceptional
012she completes her many duties and then some in a timely and professional manner in addition to being the program assistant for ESL Department she helps to make sure that the Mae food pantry that serves over 175 families every Tuesday is well stocked and supported by eight volunteers the first Monday and third Saturday of every month Patty Proctors the high school equivalency exam her commitment to the school and really the entire Community is so valuable she is also a very important warm welcome to all our local adult immigrants who walk into the ESL office looking to improve their English during each new student registration and orientation Patty finds out their personal and educational and career goals caringly and patiently she guides them to the appropriate people and programs to start them on their Pathways toward achieving
013their goals Patty has stated that the most satisfying part of her job is working with staff and students in giving back to the school that has given her so much Patty has an incredible positive attitude and does not to hesitate to take the initiative if it's going to help students staff or the school in any way Martina's adult education is fortunate to have Patty as part of our school community and congratulates her on her nomination [Applause] good evening everyone John Mir Elementary would like to congratulate Julie web office manager Julie web is an expert in her field as an office manager she demonstrates a clear understanding and ability to perform the assigned job duties and has in-depth knowledge about the needs of the school Julie creates a welcoming environment that supports the needs of students
014parents staff and community members she supports students aid needs teacher classro material supply needs and parents requests for information Julie goes above and Beyond the Call of Duty to demonstrate good judgment in planning organizing and completing work assignments Julie is efficient and uses time wisely in producing a volume of work required for the position she is creative thoughtful a team player and is punctual Julie is the connection between staff students and parents that is needed to facilitate the school's educational purposes in the daily operations of the school and she does an excellent job exhibiting this skill every day congratulations uh good evening congratulations to everyone but mjhs is um congratulating May VC our classified employee of the year nominee Miss VC has worked for musd since 2007 and has been a constant source of support
015for our Bullpup students staff and Community each day Miss VC is committed to ensuring students are supported as they arrive on campus helping them prepare for their day throughout the day she continues to support not only the students as they transition from class to class and lunch but is also an amazing support to our teachers staff and administrative team Mrs VC is a caring supportive and integral part of the mghs campus she works diligently to uphold protocols keep the campus safe and always leads with care to make sure all are taken care of we are so lucky to have such an amazing campus supervisor and honor to nominate Miss May VC [Applause] have spread out phen J little stlo [Music] thank you very much [Applause] [Music] all right congratulations everybody thank you for all your
016hard work um if you would like to stay for the rest of our meeting you're welcome but if you have places to be we understand that too okay item 8.2 is the Ace mentorship Program my students are buried they're in the hallway so yeah Well's not over let's wait let's wait before we decide that you go you put it up here yeah you put it down here should they turn it or should it's kind of well presented to us so yeah okay yeah well this is good for us and then we'll we can we can turn it after yeah so the uh so the ace mentorship is is a national program aimed at connecting uh working Professionals in architecture construction and Engineering with high school students to highlight and promote opportunities in the construction field
017the local team this year which was hosted at alhamra high school consists of 11 students three freshmen two sophomores three Juniors and three seniors these students spent two hours a week after school for the past 16 weeks learning about various aspects of the industry touring project sites and developing the scope budget and schedule for a fictitious project that they identified and developed four teams developed and shared their projects with with one another one group went on to the regional event hosted by guinsler architecture in Oakland California on Thursday May 16th KK Naomi R Rivera Faith Johnson Angelina Garcia and Vanessa Rubio magana known collectively as team Court developed a project focused on improving the AHS Commons which they will share with us tonight here presenting representing team court and their project are KK Faith Johnson
018and Naomi Rivera all so our our idea was to redo the commons which is right outside the cafeteria we wanted we wanted to change this part of our campus because we feel like it it's a little underwhelming and there's a lot of improvements that could be made um to make it look nicer and be a lot more usable to students um so one of our three main goals for this project were to uh to add more shade to the area add more seating and um improve the traffic through the area so okay so to um give more shade basic to give more shade basically we decided to implement trees um let me start from the beginning we de to knock down all of the concrete um and we would repour the concrete basically to um
019take into account the new trees added um also the irrigation system for the new trees um also the way we would input the trees which would um basically take into account the natural traffic flow of the courtyard and we would recycle all of the trees sorry all of the benches that are currently there um on the raised concrete um which would save us money basically um and to also help our traffic flow we decided to um widen our widen the fence that leads into the commons um into the courtyard because it gets a lot it gets really stuffy so when we widen that there's a lot more traffic flow through that we also really weird like Jagged line in our fence right now so we decided if we would reweld the fence to make it
020a hard line um we could use all of that um unused space right now to implement more benches while also um implementing concrete benches around the fence area for a lot more seating because that is needed right now um we also decided to get rid of the Gazebo cuz there are no seating under it so a unused space and unused shade um um hello um so generally our goals with this project were to address something address something that we believed um could be improved within our campus and make an area that was much more um make an area much more usable currently we don't have too much seating and um we do have some our issues as Naomi and Kar explain earlier um and we believe that um making adjustments to this area will make
021it a much more usable space and a much more inviting area this could also help um students who currently sit in classrooms they could be more um willing to sit outside this could help with like food in classrooms which could cause infestation so it could help address that issue as well um and our total our total cost for the project is around a little over $200,000 which um is a lot but at the same time we are saving money by reusing a lot of our benches and um reusing a lot of our materials that we already currently have the duration of our project um is a total of six around six weeks and if it were to be implemented it would have um it is doable over the summer there's a lot of steps within
022our process that um Can Happen simultaneously and because of this that reduces the amount of time it takes the amount we have to pay like laborers stuff like that and just is overall more efficient and so that's like all of our goals with this project I want I'd like to point out in addition to that uh Faith Vanessa and Angelina our three seniors will be recognized on next Wednesday night they'll be receiving scholarships of almost $99,000 from the ace program to put towards their engineering educations two of them at Cali Pomona and one of them at kpali San Louis abiso so good [Applause] job thank thank you all so much oh sure all right thank you thank you all right item number nine is comments from our student representative good afternoon so at Lunas elementary
023students and parents made our book fair a wonderful success students enjoyed purchasing books and accessories thank you for your support first graders enjoyed their class field trip to the California Academy of Sciences this trip would not have been possible without the amazing support of our parent volunteers thank you to our PTA for making our 80s themed teacher appreciation week activities and dress up days such a blast and all and for all the love goodies and food throughout the week and the music was totally awesome our students and parents enjoyed our last lunch with the loved one last Friday second graders loved their class trip to Fe to Heather Farms thank you so much to our second grade team and to all of our parent volunteers we celebrated our TK students at our TK boot camp
024celebration students walked down our red carpet to celebrate the fact that they are ready to start Kinder thank thank you to miss alio for coordinating a beautiful celebration we will have a PTA meeting on Tuesday May 2st at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday May 23rd we will get to watch our first and second grade students perform their show Friday May 24th and Monday May 26th there is no school in honor of Memorial Day TK will take their field trip to the Martinez Police Department on Tuesday May 28th our Kinders will take a field trip to Smith Family Farms on Friday May 31st our Lunas Elementary carnival is Friday May 31st starting at 5:30 p.m. be sure to get your pre-sale tickets at John Mir Elementary the second grade performed the musical nuts for parents and classmates
025on Thursday May 16th the show celebrated The Circle of Life As Seen Through The Eyes of various Woodland creatures trees and nuts with a dazzling set choreography songs featuring various Styles and incredible costume design by our very own John Mir elementary students the the show was a resounding success and enjoyed by all our fourth graders had been writing had been writing Earth Day poetry and learning about the incubation stages of chickens after the chickens hatched students had the opportunity Unity to adopt them and take them home John Mir Elementary family literacy night is Wednesday May 22nd at 5:30 p.m. we are celebrating our PTA and volunteers on Thursday May 23rd at 8:00 a.m. John Mir International Fair is Monday June 3rd at 6 p.m. and the talent show is Friday May 31st at 6 p.m.
026at John SWAT elementary students put themselves out there to show off their talents at the John SWAT Elementary talent show talents were from singing to dancing to playing piano third graders had had an educational field trip to to the to Los vakero Watershed fifth graders did a pra practical experience with the district cooking services and they all made their own they all made and ate their own kelzon fourth grade fourth grade gold duster bust May 30th to June 1st fifth grade promotion is on June 6th EMD Park Elementary our fifth grade performed their Wonder their play Wonder on Friday they did an amazing job we are so proud of them our first graders performed their music performance and it was based on songs with the color in the title they did such a wonderful job
027we were so impressed with their singing ability fifth grade attended their shabo field trip and it was a great experience tk/ kindergarten did their annual field trip to the Smith family farm it was a fun day for all color Wars is on May 31st field day is May 31st and the fifth grade promotion is on June 6th at Martinez Jor High last week our band and Orchestra students played in their spring concerts led by our awesome Mrs F and did amazing seeing SL hearing their growth was so cool additionally having the orchestra and concert bands Forum Festival Awards on display were they placed in the silver category top 20% of all schools was a great reflection of the wonderful program at mjhs our slam advisers and students headed to the Stanley Middle School to attend
028the slam fam jam with Area Middle Schools to engage discuss and share their experiences with slam the actions they have taken to be anti-racist and how they are working on to how they are working to impact their own schools it was wonderful to see so many thoughtful and impressive voices work together thank you to the mjhs leadership students for planning and hosting the spring tropical dance last Friday it was a great time with good music fun games and dancing on May 22nd the a AHS Sports showcase at lunch May 23rd there will be the 2024 to 2025 web leader kickoff on May 29th there will be a bu Bullpup of excellence awards on May 31st the day on the green6 flags and June June 5th is the promotion practices and promotion at alhamra high school
029the end of the school year is Bittersweet as it marks a time to celebrate student accomplishments and bid farewell as our seniors Advance towards their post SEC secondary Pursuits last friday music director Sarah Stafford celebrated musicians from the class of 2024 as to be accept as to be expected the concert was amazing showcasing Stellar performances by each band and Orchestra as of last Friday our spring testing season is over nice job to our AP testers in all subjects and our 11th grade Casp testers in science math and Ela thank you to all the test Proctors ensuring that all would be that all would go well for our students so they would have one less thing to worry about during these very high stake exams please congratulate our softball and baseball teams who advanced on the
030second round of NCS playoffs both teams played extremely well on Friday and had and have had an extraordinary season Mr Alhambra was a hoot great job to the hosts and contestants our very own Bri Barnes has a future as a prominent TV host and Dave Mathers as a stand-up comedian leadership students did an amazing job organizing senior sunset with the gadia bar suets games and yourbook signing class of 2020 2024 we are going to miss you we have we have had a modified schedule this week Tuesday is an odd block day Wednesday is an even block day and Thursday is a rally schedule please check the school website for specific times there is no school this Friday Monday is also a designated no school day for students to honor our fallen soldiers this is also
031Spirit Week at alhamra it's the end of class it's the end of classes sorry of class of 2020 4's era Tuesday wear school appropriate Beach attire Wacky Wednesday and on Thursday wear blue and gold for the rally PTSA needs our needs your help please check parents Square for the Sign Up Genius link to let us to let us know if you can help with donations for the student ice cream social schedule for this Thursday we will honor students who have ex excelled in various academic or other Scholastic achievements during our award Awards and scholarship night this Wednesday in the PAB athletic awards night is Wednesday May 29th at 6:30 p.m. in the gym please check the bulletin for the final exam schedule which begins on Monday June 3rd finals are 60 Minutes long office hours
032Monday Tuesday Wednesday from 8:30 to 9:30 no office hours on Thursday fifth period finals begin at 8:30 a.m. for 9th through 11th graders no finals for seniors on June 6th however seniors must attend the senior breakfast from 8:00 a.m. to 9 9:00 a.m. and rehearsals there is no specific end time for rehearsals rehearsals we just need to practice until we get it right at vienta Martinez Bion independent study all caps all Casp makeups are complete at vienta and bionis caps and gowns have been picked up by students and they are ready for graduation School School site Council approved our 2024 2025 spsa ventes started a student leadership team and officers have been chosen the leadership team is already planning some great events for next school year bionis is is working with their students to finish
033up the end of the year assignments and get and getting students ready to wrap up for the summer both Bion and vienta students are excited for our Field Day end of the year barbecue and gains at the Nancy Boyd Park from 11:30 to 1:30 on Wednesday May 22nd at Martina's adult education three more students completed their high school diploma and one additional student passed the high set test we had 24 students who tested for their High set high school equivalency last Saturday several are taking multiple tests uh and four five of them this will be their last test 12 ESL students completed the IET in oh inte integ segregated education and training class focusing on the healthc care careers three students will continue on with the pharmacy technician training program boot camp several are interested
034in the CNA certified nursing assistant and medical assistant and they are applying for funding to enroll in those classes in the fall on May 22nd there will be the optical assistant training program orientation and it is on Zoom at 3:30 p.m. Thursday May 23rd our students f our students focus groups will meet provide feedback on their classes and experience at Ma at Mae this past year their input will be considered as we meet as a school and review our curriculum and school policies you're going to miss doing that aren't you anything you want to add I'm I'm perfectly fine all right thank you okay item number 10 is recognition of our outgoing student representative sure sure that's a good spot so at this time I'd like to thank our outgoing alhamra High School school student
035representative to the school board Marisol has been a great addition to our board advocating for all students districtwide she will be graduating in 11 days and is currently deciding which four-year College acceptance offer she will be taking we thank her for the endless hours she has spent preparing for and attending the meetings and wish her only the very best of everything as she moves forward into life's next adventure we will miss your smile smiling face thank you so much [Applause] okay Court Courtney you want to oh you have to introduce the next one before we sorry okay um I just wanted to thank you Marisol for you did an excellent job you always um you always tell us what you thought and it was always very thoughtful and articulate and um we always appreciated your
036perspective and um I know whatever you end up doing and wherever you end up going you're going to do a wonderful job and I hope you find something that makes you happy thank you so much anybody else want to say anything uh likewise yeah thank you very much for for your your dedication and and presence and and good luck with your future endeavors look forward to hearing great things yeah we've just always enjoyed your SMI smiling friendly face and again your comments like everyone else said are have been very thoughtful and we're going to miss you good luck to you and come back and check with us and tell us how you're doing yeah I think you've continued a very good Trend that we've had the last couple years of student reps that speak their
037mind and bring the unique student perspective because sometimes I think that we tend to get you know be up here and we're very high level and policy and you're like okay so here's what I think students are going to think about that and that is you know you have to bring us back down sometimes and you've done a really good job of that so very much appreciate that and I hope I think you would be great in elected office in the future so I hope this was good experience for you and that you might pursue that at some time down the road so I actually knew Marisol when she was in her mom's tummy um so it's congratulations to her parents you did an amazing job raising her and I'm so proud to have sat
038with her this entire year on this school board and I'm really proud of you I know you do really well and I also want you to run for office I I really just want to thank Helen Rossy and and all the school board members and everyone in this room you guys have helped me grow so much this year and I've learned so many lessons and know how a school board runs and board meetings and I really appreciate that you guys have made me grow so much in my public speaking skills and I just thank you guys so much for all the opportunities you've given me this year you're very welcome is there any public comment on this no okay all right so with that thank you very much and now we are going to go
039on to introduce our incoming student representative do we want to have her come up okay so tonight I'd like to introduce Elizabeth mcau and I'm just going to call her Lizzie okay from now on so Lizzie mcau was recently elected as the alhamra student representative to the school board for the 2425 school year she has attended the district school since May of her second grade gr year she is a valued member of the alhamra marching band who will be serving as the 2425 drum major she is a student rep on the alhamra High School site Council and is a positive advocate for the students at the in the district I would also like to take this opportunity this is a little side note but I think it's important to congratulate Lizzie for her outstanding performance
040on the ACT test she earned the highest possible composite score of only only one quarter of 1% of all test takers earn the top score which for the class of 2023 which is the only data out right now was 2500 students out of 1.39 million score perfectly this being said I would like to read an excerpt from the letter both principal emendorfer and received from her parents Jeremy and Paula we are very thankful for her academic achievements but know that the credit also belongs to all of those who have given their time and energy to helping her develop her god-given talents she has been in this District since second grade and is a product of our District's teachers and administrators efforts Elizabeth has never attended a community college class nor has taken nor has had
041any special tutoring or Ed educational program we would like to acknowledge the results of her elementary middle and high school teachers and District administrators who have aided her all the along the way to accomplish this feat it is only through her wonderful district teachers that she had the education she needed to accomplish this we thank God and the Martinez Unified School District for her successes thank you [Applause] so you will report to duty Lizzy in August okay second meeting in August and I'll you'll hear from me before then okay all right and and thank you for stepping up to do this um you sound like you're very busy so we appreciate it and I'm sure you're going to do a wonderful job okay any comments from the board or the Public's okay all right we'll
042we'll move right along um number 12 is employee organization reports none tonight okay comments from PTA all right and number 14 is Staff reports first up is the superintendent report so um it was a pleasure to see so many of our classified employees honored here tonight our classified staff are the backbone of the district taking care of all types of issues and preventative measures to clear the way for our teachers to be able to teach our children they ensure that our facilities are clean safe and operating efficiently and effectively and they provide us with support in lesson prep communication and technology and ensure our offices run smoothly so I say to all classified employees in this District thank you for the essential support you provide every day to be to make the best possible learning
043experience for our students congrats to alhamra Vicente and Bion for earning a six-year wasque accreditation each of the schools did this year which is amazing and last but not least um we have 11 school days five promotions and two graduations until the end of the school year congratulations to our students and a huge thank you to all the Martinez Unified District or ified School District staff for another fantastic Year enjoy a well-deserved rest and we look forward to seeing you back in August doesn't mean you're leaving today you still got a couple of weeks but we don't have a board meeting until after the school year end so thank you so so much and to the families as well because we know that um our families here in Martina support their students in their educational
044and athletic Endeavors and that takes a lot of effort and a lot of driving and a lot of patience with homework and we do appreciate you so thank you okay thank you item 14.2 is the alternative pathway diploma presented by assistant superintendent Janelle yet good evening um tonight I wanted to provide you with a brief overview of the alternative pathway diploma um that is based on uh recent legislation so thank you um currently our students with special needs have uh two options to complete um High School one is to earn a high school diploma and the other is to earn a certificate of completion our special education students are eligible to receive their services until the date they receive their high school diploma or until the age of 22 whichever comes first recently our California
045legislation um pass legislation that um changes and add and ads an additional option for our students um in June 2022 uh legislation was passed that requires school districts to um exempt um students with special needs who qualify from all coursework that goes above and beyond the California state minimum graduation requirements um and allow them to receive a high school diploma um however or in addition the change does not um uh prohibit or does not change the district's obligation to continue to serve students until their age of 22 so a student will um May complete the alternative Pathway to to their diploma but remain and receive services within the district until the age of 22 so what that means um there is a certain set of students that is eligible to participate in this alternative Pathway
046to to to the diploma um it goes into effect for students who entered 9th grade in 2022 23 school year or later students must have a significant cognitive disability the student um must also be eligible to take the state alternate assessments which is the California alternate assessment or the C instead of the Casp testing um and then finally the student is still required to complete state standards of line cour workk to meet the course requirements specified in Ed code as we um we formed a committee this year to um to uh develop this course of study and um the committee members uh included myself uh our program specialist program specialist from the selpa Miss emendorfer from the high school um a special education teacher from the Junior High um our special educa one of the
047special education teachers from the high school as well as our postsecondary um special education teacher and some of the considerations the team cons oh and Amy espanosa excuse me um and um some of the considerations that the committee con uh took into account was the need to balance grade level content with the developmental needs of the students who are eligible to participate in this pathway we want to make sure our students um continue to have access to Hands-On learning opport unities we had to think about the curriculum options for students as well as the algebra requirement as we know um students must satisfy Algebra 1 in order to earn a high school diploma and that does not change with this alternate pathway students still must complete um Algebra 1 in order to earn a high
048school diploma um and so as we were developing our course of study options we um considered this as well as how students would um access the material in a way that was um modified and appropriate for their developmental needs um so here on the slide you can see um the graduation requirements um on the second column you can see our current requirements for alhamra high school students so it's a to total of 220 uh credits to to earn a diploma in the middle column is the California state minimum requirements this is um the minimum requirements that the state of California requires students to complete in order to earn a high school diploma and districts put additional requirements on top of those 130 and adopt them within our board policies as we have done and part
049of the task of the committee was to make a recommendation for our students who are eligible to participate in the alternative pathway um to determine how many credits we believe these students should also um complete in order to um earn their high school diploma so you can see the difference there um the committee is recommending 180 credits for the alternative pathway with the primary difference being the uh number of years of math um and the elective credits um our students will still um complete a community service project but it will be completed within their government course their fourth year because students will need support in order to complete um those activ activities this is a sample course of study for a student who might be eligible for this pathway and you can see the classes
050that they would take um these would of course would be the modified courses that we'll be bringing forward at the next meeting but you'll see that they take English all four years the complete the life science and the physical science requirement the three years of History um an algebra Concepts class and then a 2-year algebra series to complete their algebra requirement and and then a transition class which focuses on life skills and independent living and then elective credits so where we are in the process um when the um legislation was first passed we did notify families of all eligible students for the class of 2025 um about the alternative pathway that their student would be eligible um the board did approve policy updates before the start of this school year in order to meet the
051requirements of the legislation um we've been talking with IEP teams this year um for students who are eligible to make sure it's being addressed within um their transition meetings appropriately we had our committee um meet three times this year um we presented this work at um CAC last week and tonight it's being brought forward just for stop for information and at the next meeting um the course of study will be brought forward for information to the board any questions how many students are we talking about um right now for the ENT for the class that's first eligible it was three students who were notified for so we're talking about a small number of students but know that this um every year we would look at eligibility for our students and um we project that the
052numbers will increase over time um as we know our students who are entering through our intensive um programs for students with autism for example um so again student students who are eligible may not choose to um take this pathway this is one additional option for students they don't have to do this and how does how does this affect enrollment are they still just they're shown enrolled as as uh students of funding and all that is yes so maintain enrollment um they will be issued a diploma and they will continue to um participate in postsecondary activities um until the age of 22 in our um adult program working on um employment skills Independent Living skills and other related services that they may need and if I remember correctly isn't the vice Cente um unit requirement at
053180 as well is this a similar structure it's not a similar structure the um the the credits for vente I think are 200 or 200 yeah okay so my I the um the law says that they're they should be Exempted above and beyond what the what the state requirements are but ours has more credits can you explain that yes so um there's the the piece around legislation that says we um exempt them but we also our guidance has been that we need to be able to provide access um for students similar to what any other student at alhamra May um be able to participate in um in terms of electives or other course requirements so that's why there's a difference in credits okay that's what we've been advised from legal okay thank you question okay
054one other question sorry um the faap what's that acronym fape it's free and appropriate public education oh thank you okay is there any public comment on this topic okay all right so this was just informational nothing for us to do this time got it okay our next item is board member reports and uh board member buer is going to talk about the alhur High School spring concert so last Friday uh May 10th there was the alham High School spring concert and as usual it was a fabulous production um first H it's it started actually officially at 7 but at 6:30 there was a band playing in front and the kids in that band actually play in downtown Martinez um and it's all Al hamur high school students um and again it's it's concert band Orchestra
055and jazz band and there's a lot of seniors graduating but um the music I mean I would go to Wy Creek and pay to listen to these kids they are fabulous and it was just really um you can see the excitement and um the love they have for Mrs Stafford and you know the they pick all the music themselves so it was it's kind of fun how um they kind of all had the same theme one was from Barbie um so they just and Disney and so they just had really uh Pixar so it was really um it was just really fun and um well well done and you know it was just it was a great evening and they were very appreciative of Miss Stafford and it was just a really great event and
056you know it's funny CU all the sports everyone pays to go and the concerts are all free and so I'm surprised there's not more people going because again I would go to wallet Creek and pay to hear these kids they are just so phenomenal and they were all just really enthusiastic and um she had former um students sometimes come and fill in if someone couldn't make it so it was just a really it was a wonderful a wonderful event so thank you very much and I totally enjoyed it as did everyone that was there I think it was just it was really fabulous so thank you did did you see your students got like a shout out in the conasta News Gazette that were playing downtown last Friday yeah [Music] okay got it but they
057are our students right awesome cool all right thank you okay item number 16 is public comments under government code 5495 4.3 members of the public have the right to address the board on any any matter within the board's jurisdiction however the board may not take action on any non-agenda item individual speakers will be allowed 3 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 comment and I have two public comment speakers I have Craig lazzeretti and then Kim Hundley you'll each have three minutes yeah our city our state and National level and you know I think one thing that all of us were able were a toow up
058timey demy respect I remember vividly U when I was a fourer we remember our I remember1 with me and you know it breaks my heart absolutely breaks my heart that in MD Dro this country when we inaugurated in2 first thing they saw first experience they Dr winess VI Insurrection demy Thats My and um it's very important we realize that that this is not a matter ofal we live in a very polarized time right we have a lot of intense political debates discuss political issue later tonight that's not what this is about we need help we need help across the and people who know me know one thing we have to always understand political differences are not about whether we respect elections and respect democracy and that's a fundamental thing we need to teach our children
059our children need to understand that what's happening right now about democracy and respecting elections isn't about political differences it's not about polarization it's about a fundamental value we always took for granted for some strange reason we can't take it for granted anymore and they need to understand that and that me we need CLS and school boards and City councils who understand that and respect democracy and so when our politicians look at their ements this year and group look at their ements keep that in mind and ask that question first okay thank you um next up is Kim Hundley testing okay hi my name is Kim Hundley I'm a concerned parent from John SWAT Elementary School um I was just there today on a field trip um my daughter's in the third grade class there and
060we've been hearing a lot of complaints from the students and the teachers that it's just too hot in the classrooms right now um we've built this beautiful school it's brand new I understand there's going to be some you know shifts and changes and things that need to get done at the school um but it's so hot in my daughter's classroom she can't concentrate and she's one of the top students in the school I mean in her classroom not in the school but um so this is just a huge issue I've discussed it with a lot of other parents um and also with teachers at the school um I send a letter to Mr Canon regarding this issue um I know it's currently being worked on but if we can just focus on this um issue
061it would be really great um I have some comments from teachers that I would just like to read um so one of the teachers was saying the new school had a high low feature in the ventilation AC before Spring Break um and then they modified something over spring break and when the teachers came back there wasn't that option anymore um so this is causing the fan seems to be barely working within the classrooms um it's a new building and so they also brought up the subject of off gassing um and if there's no ventilation or fans um that's something to worry about as well the warmer the room the worse the off gassing is um and then another teacher wrote there's also a discrepancy on temperature the thermostats are set to 72 and I actually
062saw that today in my daughter's classroom she has her own thermostat and it was at 75 was the actual temperature and the thermostat in the classroom was 72 um so and you can't adjust them up and down um the district said that they can go down to 68 but it's been at 72 the whole week or as long as she's seen it um so the teacher should have this ability to control the air and the ventilation in their rooms this is really important and so I just wanted to address that um and I'm also here to support um Pride I'm going to let these other people speak as well thank you all right thank you okay um consent calendar is item 17 and are there any changes to the consent calendar there are no changes
063to the consent calendar okay questions or comments no just like to recognize our donations uh Marella PTA U the sh Shutterfly Creekside Bible Church and a sizable Anonymous donor yeah thank you to all the thank you for all the donations are there any public comments about the consent calendar okay seeing none um is there a motion I move to approve the consent calendar okay I'll second uh student vote I all those in favor I I okay motion passes okay and item number 18 is our discussion and information items 18.1 is K through 5 history social science review of new instructional materials uh presented by director Amy Espinosa good evening board members and superintendent Rossy tonight um I have the pleasure of going over our elementary history social science pilot information so I would like to
064start off by recognizing the participants in our pilot and giving them a huge thank you there's a lot going on on as um as we head into spring and you'll see our timeline coming up next but I did want to give each one of them a shout out um Jill lion from John Mir Elementary Michelle Brisco from John sweat Haley Summerland from John sweat Patty Crespo from Los hes and from Moro Park Tammy Welch and Amy Benz as you know they have a lot going on they were packing unpacking and figuring things out but but they still um came in and volunteered to participate in our pilot this spring so to go through our timeline um I sent out a few different uh Google docs to or forms for people to volunteer and we did
065F five t or well we had five participants volunteer Patty creso um is a representative from Los hunus because I was unable to get a teacher volunteer but she participated and was able to give the information back to Los hunus and so we began in January we had um a few different programs that we looked at and decided to move forward with two different programs to look during the spring so during February and March we piloted TCI social studies alive and then in April and May we did SAS my world interactive during this time frame the teachers did receive training um from both companies and were able to formulate a rubric a 76 Point rubric that they used to determine um which what they were going to move forward with in may they made a
066recommendation and then last week at CAC I was able to take that recommendation and present it I wanted to share some highlights that they shared when looking at the program that they decided on they felt their themes um and key disciplines were evident the primary sources were good there were ample resources that could be used within the classroom there were interactive work texts and activities citizenship skills the rig this was huge for the teachers because there was a distinct difference between the two programs in the rigor and a lot of it had to do with the amount of writing that um one program had very limited writing re requirements and the other program had a much more rigorous requiring writing component and then there was also diversity throughout the resources this was also something that
067we had a big conversation about was how um certain groups of people were represented in the program and if they were represented correctly and thoroughly the team did uh decide to move forward with a recommendation with Theos my world interactive and I did take that to CAC I wanted to go over the program costs as well so each grade level will receive the following things it comes to in total um there at the bottom you'll see and this re I just want to remind you is for our K5 and so training is also included this training will occur before the beginning of the school year we have it slated to be on the August 12th date so teachers will receive the training prior to the beginning of the school year if we receive um board
068approval so each class will have a hard copy of materials as well as an 8year sub subscription and digital license activity mats teacher additions and then like I said the training is included we're very excited um to be making this recommendation because our last adoption was in I believe so any questions you said this already went to the curriculum advisory committee it did last Wednesday okay great um well thank you I know um I don't I was on CAC for hack for a a long time and I'm not this year um so I'm seeing this for the first time I I really like that you um called out both the rigor and the diversity through the resources I know these are conversations that we have um in lcap and in Dei and so I'm guessing
069that our 2006 materials might not have as much representation throughout and so I think that's really positive and I also saw that one of the um the other one that was rejected and one of the key points was the that there was I don't know I can't remember what it said exactly it was like in maybe not a fully accurate picture of Native American represent that's right so there was some depictions of certain events but then they weren't the full depiction it's kind of would stop short okay so this is great to see and to hear this will be really huge and will I think nicely dovetail with a lot of our other Dei efforts and what place is more important than in our history books to get this right and to have the representation
070so it's very exciting hi um I actually was at the cic meeting but um will you refresh my memory as the training is it in person or is it virtual so the training will end up being virtual and how it'll run is um the elementary school sites will be able to be at their own School site and the principal will be able to project the training and be able to be the moderator between like if there are questions or anything like that but then they'll be able to receive the training throughout the district rather than having to Lug the materials to a centralized location they'll be able to be at their School site and then have time to delve into the materials and then we'll build in time for them to actually take the time
071to look at the materials and work together and the um eight-year subscription is the to replenish the supplies that they're using and but that's only for six years right yes so we're right now I'm trying to gather information to ensure that eight years is an appropriate amount of time um we are behind in the adoption cycle so um the last adoption cycle should have taken place in 2017 um and so I want to make sure I line us up so that we hit the next adoption cycle because it will come much quicker than what we're used to having um being a little late and again I know you haven't showed us the other um proposal but um the reason this is 271,000 is because you've got a lot more students in the grades so yes
072so it's across yes just a reminder K through five so acrost our elementary thank you and the um pilot team is obvious students or teachers from the district was there any Outreach or engagement were there other districts that were that are using this this program that were just you know checked in on and and see how they're how it's working for them they did ask when we first were making our decision on our different um programs to move forward for Ward with we did reach out to our neighboring districts to see what they were using so that they had an option to determine if they wanted to look at those programs so in CAC in um December we came up with a protocol for doing a pilot and we wanted to ensure that we didn't
073try to Pilot too many items or too many different programs but at the same time look at what our neighboring districts were doing so yes we did take a look at what our neighbors were using using and then decided which programs we were going to Pilot and move forward with is there any public comment on this no okay thank you Amy and I think you're still up for 9.2 which is the 9 to2 science review of new instructional materials yes so it's been a busy spring um and so I will give you some highlights of our n through 12th grade science pilot ready a year at the end that is that is the right one but you're at the end slide surprise okay all right sorry about that so again a huge thank you to
074our pilot team at the high school level this looks a little different uh I'm working with a department so a group of people that are working together already and so they came together and requested they do a pilot the last pilot for was ranged anywhere between 2006 and 2013 um for science so here I've listed um our pilot team and as you will notice uh this took a lot of effort from some of our teachers because they did pilot multiple programs so you'll see uh Dave mats for example example he piloted anatomy and physiology as well as biology and chemistry and so this took a lot of um a lot of time and a lot of finesse to ensure that they had adequate time to make a good decision um I will say a huge
075thank you to James Stewart who supported uh the science department throughout the process so again very similar timeline here we began in January a little bit sooner than the history social science but um we looked at well we looked at two different um programs for each of the areas with the exception of physics and so you'll see here I listed out that we did saas first in the February March timeline and those are the different um titles with the different courses listed there for you and then our second pilot began an April right after we came back from spring break or so and again we went with McGraw Hill and we did activate learning with the physics only um the our pilot team made a recommendation and it also went to CAC last week uh
076I will say throughout the process process uh Subs were needed so they needed to write sub plans so that they could attend training and they were trained in each of the programs throughout so um there were multiple times where they needed to step away from their classroom and able to ensure that they had the appropriate training to move forward so some of the highlights and I clustered them all together um relevant rigorous alignment to ngss and um The Common Core State Standards digital and writing activities available so that meant it wasn't just a digital platform but that there was also availability for writing the organization of the material um so being able to sequence and follow it and build on prior knowledge was important um part of the formative assessment tools where they gave them
077an A+ and then Hands-On experiences and then accessibility so ease of access to um to the material so here you'll see the recommendations um five of the content areas went with mcra Hill and one went with activate learning here I outlined the program cost there is some variance here and the reason there's variance is this is based on the current um projected master schedule so the current number of courses being offered with with the max number of students and so that's why you'll see the variance between so um for the most part each of them allow for an eight-year digital subscription this includes print copies as well as digital um there are some add-ons here like actively learn is an add-on so that's an addition um thing that we will receive they all will receive
078teacher additions and then you'll see in mcra Hill that there's a add another add-on called the cast success guide so this is an alignment with the California science test and so um on to the next page as well very similar here the numbers are based on the current um the current projections and we'll make some modif ifications some small adjustments um as we get closer to to ordering to ensure that we have enough here you'll see for the active physics that their refill kits are included so there are refill kits for ongoing um supplies that are going to be needed and then for the chemistry um you'll see that Alex is an add-on which is a a math component that's added on any questions so I do have a question um you have print books
079and I don't know if you've ever picked up a backpack recently but I they weigh 30 pounds they've got the Chromebook and if they have a book um do you are you providing are you buying two books in case they want a book book um as opposed to looking online you know internet goes down or something um so that they don't have to take the book to school because the backpacks they don't even fit in the gym lockers if they have gym if they have PE um because there's so much stuff in them and um I think kids are going to start having back problems here um eventually because it's just so heavy so I'm just curious if that or are you just looking at one book and is it you know just in the
080classroom are they taking home do they require them to go back and forth that's just something that um I've heard parents complain about that and I know that I've picked up my son's backpack and I'm like I very heavy and I don't think I'm in that bad a shape that it's that you know but it's just really heavy I will say that um before making the order I will adjust accordingly I do know that we want to ensure that students don't have to uh to transport them back and forth to school that we would have a classroom set and that we would have it available if the student wanted to have an at home home um book as well and so that will be something that we ensure to support their [Laughter] Anatomy okay is
081there any public comment on this all right thanks Amy thank you okay item number 18.3 is review of board stiens uh per California Ed code 35120 and our bylaw 9250 so last year um the board uh requested information on how School Board stiens are increased and we reviewed and a 5% increase was added to the board stien um I this is the same PowerPoint from last year until it isn't so basically the California Ed code 35120 tells you do how much per month a board member receives as a stipend and it's based upon the number of students not the number of students I'm sorry the Ada of the district okay Martinez would fall into the greater than I'm sorry uh 10,000 but less than uh I'm sorry greater I can't even talk thank you greater
082than 1,000 but less than 10,000 thank you so that would be $240 our bylaw 9250 which is a board bylaw um talks about the how that can be increased and basically it cannot be increased annually exceeding 5% the school board is also not required to accept payments so they could deny a St stipend um they have to attend all meetings but if they miss a meeting um they stien gets deducted in that month for that meeting unless a resolution is passed um that would provide an exception and we currently don't have one of those our school board member is not allowed to receive compensation and Health and Welfare benefits are offered to the board but they have to participate at their own expense at the Martinez Unified School District rates which are um less rates
083than going out on your own each board member receives this year a stipend of $252 less any absences for for 12 months including the month of July the access to health benefits is there but they have to pay the full cost so this last slide um is a chart showing I was also asked um to find out from other districts what they offer their board members for Health and Welfare and you can see in uh the pink well the pinkish color I should say from aalan to a they do not um have a stipend nor that do they offer any type of Health and Welfare benefit um the next group in yellow um is a comparable size uh in falls in the same category as the Martinez unified so you can see Brentwood they collect
084240 and they do offer benefits and it's split between the district and the board member that's the d/ um BM John sweat UNIF offers benefits and the board member has to pay them Martinez is 252 because we increased last year and we offer benefits but the board member has to pay and then Oakley is uh 240 with the uh district and the board member splitting it and it's usually because there's a co-pay if the teachers get in the districts where it's a split D um BM if the teachers pay a portion and the district pays the other portion that would be identical to what the board member gets um Liberty unified has um a a stiped but they do not offer any benefits Antioch um Contra Costa County West Contra Costa all offer benefits and
085the district picks up the entire tab San rone offers benefits but the board member pays and Mount Diablo with their recent um settlement package for next year they are offering all staff members from any unit including board members two years only of fully paid and then it reverts back to what they're paying now which is part employee part um um district and unless something else is negotiated during the time between now and then so this is the information that I'm bringing forward that it was requested and a discussion um can follow about what the board decides to do for this year it cannot be done in perpetuity it can't be done in in two three four five year clusters it has to be decided every year so and when we when we um gave ourselves
086that $12 raise last year that was the first time that the board Sten had been increased in yes how long ever yes okay so um okay anybody I mean I uh I think in order to get quality board members um because I was thinking about it and we spend probably on average you probably more because you're the president um maybe 10 hours a week on average if you factor in when you have meetings um the committee meetings you're on if you're going to training either once a year um things like that um so I think you know it's a appropriate to do the 5% increase it's it's $12.60 per month um so it's you know it's it's not a huge amount I mean if everybody attended every single meeting it would be $756 for the
087year um and not everybody attends every meeting I don't think anyone's actually I think I've attended every meeting but other than that no one's ever attended every meeting um so um I think that's I didn't until last year and then I got sick yeah and that's understandable so yeah um so I would say that I would think we should you know do the 5% raise you know I mean it it's not a whole lot of money I I actually brought this up last year because um you know I I I don't think any of us is doing this for the money um like Tanya said it's we spend a lot more time on it um than what the the the stip and reflects but I I thought it was kind of an equity issue because
088we tend to get um you know people there was a history and of having um you know retired members of the community and stuff doing this job which makes sense because it is a really big time commitment and um but we also saw the value of having diverse perspectives and having you know all of us now have a child at least one in the district currently um and so we thought that was a valuable perspective also which is why I brought it up I'm not really sure it's something we need to talk about every year I think since we hadn't talked about it ever until last year it it was valuable it's you know it's not a whole lot of money so I'm sort of okay either way whatever everybody else feels like they want
089to do I know we are there are other things we're probably not going to do this year that we've done in the past because we are having um in case you haven't heard a significant budget crisis um like we in the past have gone to conferences and stuff to try to improve some of our skills and and and governing workshops and stuff like that which we're probably going to be going to have to cut back on that sort of stuff I don't think you know this 700 a year or whatever you just said the numbers you just gave really make a difference either way so that's my my kind of ambiguous undecided opinion oh sorry I mean I'm just kind of with Courtney on this in that or maybe even I don't know I it
090doesn't it just doesn't feel like a priority we have this huge agenda tonight and it feels like this to me feels actually like the least important thing that we're talking about and I mean you look at throughout the county I mean sure some people are making more but there's a whole lot of people doing this work for free and I knew what I was getting into when I pulled those election papers and I certainly did not think that this was going to be any kind of um lifechanging money for me um and certainly $12 will not make it life-changing so um I don't really see it like in my opinion we've already spent too much time talking about it but I will I guess to long story short whatever you guys want to do it
091I'm I'm okay either way I just I feel like it's a really really low priority at the moment I'm okay moving on okay do we does anybody want to bring it back next time to talk about again and and maybe vote on or should we just table it until maybe next year or some other future so in terms of I mean I'm glad it is $12 it's insignificant but I think if we want to get a more diverse board we definitely need to move do something to move the pay to something where it's more Equitable I'm a single mom you often probably see that I bring my son Nico with me because I don't have a babysitter and yes I have a job that I can support myself with but not everybody's in my shoes
092not everybody that is Latino or a person of color or an immigrant can afford to hire a babysitter for a Schoolboard meeting and those $12 will help it may not be of high priority but for me for a person of color I think it's important that we do these increases so that this position is attainable for people that may not necessarily be a stay-at-home mom and be supported by someone else or have two income household or have a very well-paid job I want to see diverse people on this board that have different socioeconomic status and yes $12 isn't a big difference and yes it is low priority but we need to do something to get the pay higher so we have a more diverse board so I think it should come back and I think
093we should vote to just increase the $12 every year until we get somewhere where you can cover your gas or a babysitter at least I can get behind that okay so um why don't we put it on the next agenda please all right okay thank you okay um oh I'm sorry yes public comment sorry about that oh we don't we don't have any public comment cards there you'd like to okay can you make sure you did you fill out a card good evening board members anamarie abala feras um as someone who has served my community as a lifelong Martinez resident um I think we're kind of missing the whole point um you know some of you Tred to Echo that um it is about Equity diversity of being able to bring diverse perspectives to this
094board um it is insignificant but even more to give a bigger picture um boards are constantly in the newspaper because you're not doing your fiduciary of keeping up with inflation and moving the pendulum on the increases because they are minimal um and it has two tiers of Effect one that you don't get behind from not doing what you're supposed to be doing with these positions but also thinking in the future of recruiting Because not everyone comes from a middle and upper class Community uh socio economically to afford to be able to serve and we need to create a space that we don't create burdens on community members who want to serve their community so um I'm not really sure why we need to continue this because it's pretty commun you know common practice throughout boards
095to take that increase um and it's beyond you I know it's very difficult to talk about money especially when um you know you all are the recipient of that but I see it from a Compu Community lens that it's sign okay thank you okay um item number 19 on our agenda is information and possible action items and 19.1 is the musd Schoolboard yearly self- evaluation so last year the um School Board voted to uh adopt bylaw 9400 for the first time it was never adopted before in our district and this bylaw um talks about the board's self-evaluation so the V the board voted for the self- evaluation each year which is totally fine but there's one part that has to be brought back for discussion each year and that's the method of evaluation so last
096year we chose or the board chose to go with cba's um self-evaluation tool it was a cost of $300 the cost is the same and um we and vote and opted not to bring in the um the facilitator for I think it was $3,700 and this year the costs are the same and I'm putting this out that I I I think it would be a good idea for the board to use the same evaluation tool to for at least to be consistent in in what you're evaluating and what you're using until you become more accustomed to an evaluation and so on and so forth so a timeline for this um we could if the board chooses to go with csba um there are other options I can I can research other companies that can help
097us or we could try to Janelle and I could try to um put something together inhouse like through a Google form and then um tally it all up but it is nice to be able to have um everything done for us in especially in this busy time but I I think the the timeline would would open up towards I maybe the middle of next week and stay open for three weeks and each board member would have a 3-we period to be able to go through and you can do it in little pieces I believe um and answer the questions and then we would get the report sometime in June from csba and then have a board study session before the first meeting in August when we come back U like from 3: to 4 depending
098on what the agenda is to review this year's goals and progress to look at the results of this year years of the current evaluation and then make new goals based upon um areas that still need Improvement or areas that you decide would you'd like to grow in so that's what I have and if you you want us to create a tool we can do that too that's up to the board thank you um I thought this was a really valuable exercise that we did last year um and I think that um you I don't think we need the facilitator I think Janelle you did it last year right yeah you did a fine job um I I think for the $300 cost it makes more sense just to pay for it rather than you all
099have other important things that you're spending your time on so that's just my two cents all take that one f with that what about the timeline did you want to try to Crunch something in before the end end of June or can is everything okay for the first meeting in August I I I think that's okay I rather I would rather wait till August yeah rather than crad yep okay so um shall we vote oh I don't know why I keep forget I know why you're all here so that's sorry any public comment no okay um okay um so it's possible but I I feel like are we ready to vote okay um yeah I see three shakes of the head so we're going to vote um does somebody want to make a motion yeah
100I'll move to approve the uh board self- evaluation uh for the start of the next academic year and to it's spend the cost of the 370 for csba 300 300 for csba second okay um student vote I okay all those in favor I I all right okay moving right along to item 19.2 recognition of LBT lgbtq pride month and pride plages flown at all Sites presented by Helen Rossy okay Nikki he doesn't have a copy of this because it was locked to put up but I need to get a copy to him can you do that to Joe to put up for me please electronically yes okay so tonight we have the um the pride uh the pride flag issue coming back and it was a request that I received and the board received to
101bring it back because there's some confusion and there is confusion uh between what was put on the agenda what was discussed and what was on the resolution and um so I what I did was take a look at the res the request was to put to fly the pride flag at all School sites in June during the school days it's after school the flag after school closes the flags don't normally go up depending on construction project projects so that's why it's during school days um so what I did was meet with Courtney we decided to put it on the agenda and in order for things to be more clear to revise the resolution and this is like the comedy of errors with this um it's not even a comedy It's just sad but I did
102I will take responsibility we did redo the res resolution and Nikki did put it on the agenda but there's a little lock on the agenda item that was hit so when we do student expulsions and stuff that we put confidential documents on the agenda so the board logs in and can read them but the public can't because we can't stare share student information the lock was hit and I said to Nikki you put that on she's like yeah it's right here it's right here and she came in and said the lock is on so the resolution wasn't posted with the agenda and I take full responsibility which is why we're trying to figure out is it coming up do Joe Joe is going to pull it up now so this is how it was posted
103if you can scroll down to the yellow this is the change that I put in in the um in the uh resolution gave it a new resolution number to put location because the last resolution did not have location but the board agenda item did and the summary did and the discussion did and the decision did but the motion did not so it was it wasn't consistent nothing was consistent so tonight I bring to the board a revised resolution saying includ flying the progress I have the wrong glasses flying the progress pride flag during the month of June at the district office and flying the flag at school sites at on the days it's got to say in June um on the day school is in session so this is for the month of June so
104we're probably gonna top it's at the top yeah okay designates June it says in the first part okay it does okay sorry it's what happens when you don't have the right glasses on um I went so I went back over the weekend and we talked about this at three meetings last year um I'm actually the one that asked this to be put on the agenda in April of 2022 and then um we brought it back last year and talked about it at three meetings and at the second meeting um because usually what we do is we put something on for information and then the next meeting we vote on it um we at the second meeting I asked the question is it just the district office or are we doing can we do this at
105the schools too and the answer was well we don't have school in June and then right after that somebody else asked a question about why do we have to vote on this every year why can't we just do it in perpetuity and so that then the conversation switched to that and we never talked about schools again doing it at the school sites so I don't think this was necessarily intentional but unfortunately it was unclear because neither the resolution or the motion that was made specified location and um our agenda did say at the district office so that's why we're back here hopefully this now uh we'll clear it up it's at um it is an information and possible action but like we did last time we can have three shakes of the head if people
106want to and vote on it tonight so um yeah I think thank you um for clarifying and I know you know I've spoken with a lot of people over the weekend including a lot of people in this room and some of those people more than one time um and I know a lot of people are really disheartened that we're back here and I I totally hear that and I I think this really was something that needed to be handled on the administrative end to include Clarity so for me I felt like to be honest I hadn't looked at the resolution since we passed it last year because we did pass it in perpetuity and in my mind I was like great we did it we're good and then when this came up I went back
107and looked and it was like oh this really doesn't spell out exactly what it is we're doing in regards to the flag and so for me I see this simply as just including specificity um I heard from people also from folks this weekend who said but there's nothing in the resolution that precludes a school from flying the flag and with that I I agree my concern and my I feel my role here is that we want to be a United did and um we want to show as a district that we are making these efforts for all of our lgbtq plus students so I think without adding this very clear specificity we could have a situation where some schools choose to fly the flag and some schools choose not to fly the flag and I
108think that would be not at all the message that certainly that I want to send and I don't think it's in the spirit of the resolution that we already passed and which you'll notice we didn't change a single thing to except for adding this language so from my perspective I'm not here to reopen wounds for people or to make people doubt our commitment to this I mean that this resolution was passed unanimously last year for me it's just a simple matter of adding this specificity so that hopefully we don't have to come back hopefully um and I'm certainly ready to take action tonight on this anybody else want to say anything before I take [Music] comment so on a on a different tone and this is just I want to address um I received two
109emails from two Educators with musd District email addresses asking that the pride flag not be flown I was saddened to receive these emails the message that I received was that of intolerance when I hear someone say I don't want to fly the pride flag I also hear I am intolerant towards immigrants I am in an towards people of color I am intolerant towards people whose first language is in English I hear all of these phrases when I hear someone say they don't want to fly the pride flag when I send my children to our Martinez schools I want to send them to a place where they can feel safe to be the authentic and genuine individuals they are I want them I want to send them to a place where they and their peers will
110not be subjected to homophobic racist racist xenophobic comments or Prejudice getting these emails from District email addresses is not okay um that tells me that we need more training internally with these issues because if a child is going to a classroom and this is the ideology of their educator it's not a safe space and I'm talking to those people that sent me those emails and anybody else that may share this mentality I did not like getting that email okay I have quite a few public comments so here's the thing okay um there are 59 minutes of public comment we allow for 20 and then the rest have to be done after the board meeting so I mathematically speaking as I do everything um with my math teacher background we if if everybody took 3 minutes
111to start it would set the first seven speakers so we might want to see if anybody hears something they don't repeat or whatever and we'll get in as many as we can in the first 20 okay yeah um oh maybe we should take a break before we start because it's after 8 or you don't need to or okay okay that's fine that's fine um I'm going to go in order if you want to volunteer to wait till after the meeting please do that is that okay okay so the first I'm going to so the first three I have are and I I I really apologize if I don't say your name correctly I have Akira and Dalia and then I have Megan KET and James Wilson yeah I'll hand them to you as I hi
112my name hi my name is Maddie via and I'm a fourth grad at John M Elementary School I'm here to tell you why you should put the pride flag up at schools one reason is that kids can learn about diversity and they could learn it at a young age another reason is that adults can appreciate it another reason is that lgbtqi plus kids can feel included lastly lgbtqi plus kids can feel proud of themselves and also feel that the district is proud of them I hope you enjoyed this presentation of why we should put Pride flags at all of the schools thank you okay um hello my name is dollia Dyan and I am here to talk to you about hanging the pride flag in front of the schools I know that we should hang
113the pride Flags in front of the schools because people at my school John Meir Elementary make fun of other people by calling them gay or lesbian and to me the pride Flag represents that it is okay to be both of those things the pride flag also represents that the the diversity of the um of our school our schools and the world and that makes me feel very good thank you for listening hi my hi my name is Akira higashi and I'm here to tell you why we should be able to raise a pride flag we should be able to raise a pride pride flag because it can teach you what Pride means another reason is it feels really good to show people they belong also you do not have a good reason to say you
114cannot raise a do you no you don't you can tell us what your good ideas is but it's not good we are all trying to tell you that we are really out number thank [Applause] you okay next up is Megan and then James Wilson wh can I just hold it hi everyone um I'm sure that others will speak to the technical reasons why this resolution shouldn't need any clarification um but I would like to First raise the voice of a queer teacher of color that I spoke with recently who agrees that the flags should fly at the schools lgbtq students historically have been left out and having the flag fly at the campuses shows the district's support in each school's Community denying to fly the flag goes against the district's Dei commitment and continues to
115perpetuate the institutionalized biases that exist uh the only reason we're talking about the resistance at least from my personal experience is and with respect Helen I do want to share an experience I had with you at the recent Dei meeting when I asked how we would ensure that the pride flag flies at all schools your response to me was oh we won't be flying the flags the flag at SS I was uh this was unexpected and disheartening to me I am new to all of this and I just after going over the resolution I assumed based on reading it that it would not be a problem at all to fly the flag at sites um when I pressed you for a reason I really felt like your response to me was quite dismissive I felt
116like you were very frustrated by the question and defensive towards me um and this was even before we discussed it being about the resolution what I heard you say were excuses that had nothing to do with the resolution the first thing I heard you say was that it's because the students won't be there in June and when I said well I do believe they will be there in June you looked at your calendar and agreed they'll be there for the first four days of June um these days set the tone for the whole year it signals whether our schools are safe and welcoming for our lgbtq a plus students um also families exist even when the school is not in session I mean second um you mentioned construction is happening at many sites I just
117feel like construction should never be an issue in this there's a lot of creative ways to put a flag up at a school site it can be on a fence it can be on a wall it doesn't have to be on a flag pole there's ways to express our support that isn't specifically flying it up the flag pole the point of all this is that I've asked myself why the resistance why the immediate resistance and what I'm worried about is that there is just a deep fear of push back um from those in this community that are opposed to lgbtqi plus rights and I think that that's also explained by the emails received um and by prioritizing their comfort and by prioritizing you know not having the conflict we harm these vulnerable students and families
118um so I ask that you know maybe you all and all of us do some self-reflection about your own biases and fears and Privileges and just consider the message that you're sending when a parent asks a simple question um I didn't feel supported and your leadership style sets the tone for our entire District thank [Applause] you okay James you're up next and then Craig lazaretti and Courtney Jensen thank you uh thank you members of the board thank you student representative thank you Miss Rossy um so I'm a proud Road Road Runner I'm a proud bull pup proud pool dog um in high school um as an ally was part of the gay straight Alliance at that time in the anti-racist action Club um and here we are almost 30 years later um I had a
119lot of friends in high school that had a lot of different kinds of issues in terms of feeling comfortable at school um and then learning after school and into college that they felt closeted or felt closed in and that they couldn't Express themselves and I just want to just briefly mean uh mention how much even though a symbol is important um these things bring Comfort but they also show that you as leaders are comforting them and you have their respect and also you're looking out for them so um thank you for the clarification and look forward to the other public comments thank [Applause] you okay Craig Courtney Jensen and then Ur ursina Ramirez okay thank you So Courtney and then URS Selina and then Joshua Jensen I'm not going to list the statistics about people
120and kids sorry hi I'm Courtney I have two kids at John SW Elementary um and I'm not going to list the statistics about people and kids who identify as a member of the lgbtq Q Plus Community you've heard them they're devastating and sharing them in this room is not beneficial I've heard it said in this meeting time and time again that it is about the kids and this is another exceptional opportunity for you guys to show that you guys mean it if it's about the kids then it is about all of the kids especially the ones who are brave enough to own their differences those that muster the vulnerability to share with the world their peers their teachers who they are they need our support they need your support they need a rallying Cry of
121anyone who will join and accept them while a plan to hang a flag on the district office is great the kids and community members who need to see the tangible reminder of support the most won't often see it I'm talking about the high schoolers that I spoke with at The Pride Celebration from alhamra who admitted that it's still incredibly challenging to be out or open about who they are on campus that their teachers and students alike clearly don't welcome who they are I think about the kids who have parents or are a member of the lgbtq plus Community who are surrounded by people hellbent on father daughter and mother son events they need to see a symbol that says that they belong too I think about kids who have to endure outdated harmful and Snider
122marks wondering if the people who run this District the adults who walk in their Halls have the same awful perspectives a flag in front of each school is the easiest way to tell them that they do belong here that they are accepted that they are wanted and that we are proud to have them as a part of our community I am not naive I know you will hear push back but to put it simply hanging a flag of support shoves zero agendas down anyone's throats and literally hurts nobody not hanging that flag at our schools isn't an appropriate compromise when the lack of support has the potential to cause harm to a multitude of families and kids that you are serving all of the kids are our kids let's act like it [Applause] okay urina
123Joshua and Joe would you would you let us know when we like minutes to the end hi um my name is ursen Adas I'm here as a parent I'm actually here in two with two hats I'm a parent at John Mir Elementary School um I have a kindergartener and incoming te care I'm also uh have dedicated my life's profession to insuring that young people have access to educational opportunities and live meaningful purposeful lives I'm here in support of having Pride flags at the schools not just at the district office you all have very hard decisions to make all the time this isn't one of them this is about ensuring our students feel seen and supported let me tell you what I wish I was here to talk about I wish I was here to talk
124about how we allocate our dollars to support programs that are affirming for our students and supporting our LGBT Q plusi communities I wish we were here to develop curriculum that's inclusive to all of our students that we serve I wish that we were here to talk about increased access to Mental Health Services because you all know the statistics of what that means for lgbtqq plus students especially transgender and non-binary students but we're not here to discuss any of those we're here to discuss a flag we're here debating on whether a pride flag can be raised at our schools a flag that illustrates to our unwavering commitment to young people and their multifaceted identities I'm here asking that you all raise a flag that means so much to so many in our community and requires so
125little from you I leave you with one thing and that's a quote from Nelson Mandela may your choices reflect your hopes and not your fears thank you okay Joshua and then Isley Jensen all right good evening um I'm a parent neighbor um healthcare worker in the community um and um here to support my um the community um I Heard a remark from the front earlier observing that families are here in support of our students uh that's absolutely correct I hear I see families here in support of our lgbtq community to to me the discussion about whether a pride flag should fly at our schools is unnecessary this flag should be flying proudly in and support of our students and teachers whe where it can be seen in our schools this feels like a discussion we
126shouldn't need to be having and I would rather be here advocating for the community's other needs such as um supporting students forms of identity expression in the classroom every student in our district needs to be supported cared for and more importantly to be seen they need our support and we shouldn't be the only ones asking for it therefore it is my request that the pride flag be flown at Martino unified um sites during the month of June in perpetuity thank [Applause] you okay Isley and then Nick web hi I'm Isley do you want to spread good messages to families in the city then let's put up pride flag they can spread a nice and thoughtful message to people in our school communities flags are a type of symbol and they have meaning different flags have
127different meanings and displ pride Flags has the ability um to make everybody feel like they are AC accepted and important humans are amazing because we are all different the pride flag celebrates that people can be their own and also feel included because it's who they are so please put a um Pride flags at each school to show [Applause] this okay Nick um hi um my name is Nick web if you don't already know me from many meetings like this um I first want to write or talk about like before everything I've written out the emails that were sent um this makes me as a queer and transgender student incredibly disgusted and worried because it makes me wonder how many students how many teachers how many district and board members look at me and think ew
128or think sinner or think worse things that I am not going to stay here but you can all guess um so now to what I've written um I'm a and or I'm a I'm a 17-year-old senior concurrently enrolled in alhamra high school and bentti high school I'm a queer and visibly transgender student and I have identified in this community for eight years I also have two queer moms so I've had experiences with the acceptance and more often discrimination I have experienced with the entirety I've been in this District which is 12 years I would like to start by saying if you do not already know when I say the term queer I'm talking about the entire lgbtqia plus Community I'm here to speak about the resolution of recognizing pride month if you don't feel your
129previous resolution was clear enough I urge you to pass an this amendment tonight do this not just for the queer students although that should be enough but for the students with two moms or dads or for the children of gender queer or other queer parents the kids who have queer friends um and friends with queer parents who have queer teachers babysitters Aunts Uncles siblings cousins acquaintances do it through the people who don't know if they can come out who don't know if it's safe do it for the kids in other states who aren't safe to be themselves and other countries for the people who are punished for it do do it for the students who hear insults or slurs in the hallways in the classroom and have to sit back and pretend it's okay or
130hope that someone else will fix it because they aren't safe to do it for the kids who do not get the same opportunity as others due to their identity which there is many which whether this is acknowledged or not um do it for the children in this District who are considering more drastic options than to go to the school in this District because they're unsafe do it for the kids who are scared to go to school afraid that this day will be their last because of their or their family's identity do it for the bullied students of which there are many do it for the kids that are here do it for the kids who aren't do it for next Benedict a student Oklahoma whose life was cut short due to being queer do it
131for Brianna gay a student in a student in Britain who lost her life due to being transgender do it for the kids who are out do it for the children who don't get to come out do this while laws against queer people specifically children are in the rise and this and other countries do it while discrimination is on the rise in this and other countries do this knowing that you have made a small step towards kids feeling safe in their schools and then work to do more like if this is an accepting School District why not Pride or fly the pride flag here year round thank [Applause] you okay thank you five more minutes okay minutes okay um next is meline BBA okay Fernando you want to pass okay Lisa I'll find it good evening
132any everyone I'm Lisa Sanders I am a proud parent of a fourth grader at John M and I'm here just to speak on um behalf of parents but I actually want to use my time to Simply uplift the voices of the most amazing young people in this room who are actually up past their bed times um with their parents and I also want to uplift the voices of young people who are not in this room um as a parent one of the big discoveries we sometimes make is that our voice is actually not the most important and that by simply being quiet and listening to our young people we can learn so much and so I just want to actually thank the young people in this room for speaking up and for being brave and
133sharing their voices um I think it's really easy to underestimate um what our young people understand what they know and what is relevant to them and every single young person in this room that I know has someone that they care about who identifies as lgbtqi plus and it is relevant to them and I just want to uplift that perspective that voice that hurt of being worried whether a pride flag is going to be flown at their school I also want to acknowledge that yes those four days matter but I don't want to be here spending time talking about 4 days I don't what I want to do is I want to spend time talking about the rest of the days of the year that are intended to most support our lgbtqi plus youth whether it's
134policy whether it's more integrated intervention and mental support whether it's stronger support for our GSA clubs whether it's rainbow clubs at schools that's what we want to SP our time focusing focusing on and so it is unfortunate to spend time discussing the semantics of a resolution I'm really um relieved to hear that things are going to be specified and put in writing and that we aren't back here next May to talk about a resolution or a flag because we want to talk about the other issues that most support are lgbtqi plus Youth and that I will tell you for the families that are most impacted it's not tonight it's not the four days but every day matters when you look at the Stark reality and fearful reality of the statistics of our youth thank you
135the rest after take the rest after 1 minute and 30 seconds we have two left yeah why don't we so the two that I have left are um Craig and anamarie so come on up so that means I don't get three minutes or I get three minutes you get three minutes just just for you and for you also um so it's clear you're going to pass this which is great to see it's great to see the community come out like I did last year and support this and support our lgbtq students and I hope that's the overarching message um I know a lot of us felt this anxiety come over us after we went through last year to go through this again and you never know who's going to show up and what kind of
136you know insensitivities are going to be um spoken um that will harm cause further harm to our marginalized students um so um I want to um just really I've been wanting to do this all year but I want to really applaud your leadership Courtney as the school board president for bringing this issue back but bringing this issue up in the first place um you know when I first started getting active in school board politics in 2018 you know school safety was a big part of what got me coming out here um but you know this wasn't on my radar the way it should have been racism wasn't on my radar the way it should have been um we all have our blind spots and our tunnel vision issues we focus on and you know I'm
137I'm I am proud of the fact that I show up at city council me and School Board me a range of issues not just harping on one particular issue that is part of my agenda or what I care about but this is an issue that um hit home for me personally over the last few years that wasn't on my radar and it should have been it's a learning lesson for me and we can all learn we can all grow we can all evolve um you know um Saturday or Friday last Friday was the uh 70th anniversary of the ruling and board versus Board of Ed uh Brown versus Board of Education to Kansas which desegregated Public Schools we all know the hero of that case was thir Good Marshall and I came when I was
138researching that it's unfortunate I hope it got some attention in our classrooms it didn't get much attention in our national discourse on Friday unfortunately but the anniversary but um thir Good Marshall once said in recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings we pay ourselves the highest tribute and uh I think that really hits home with this issue because when that those flags are flown at all our school sites that's the message that we're sending to all members of our community that we're all the same you know we're all human beings deserving of the same rights the same dignity the same respect and we have to WR raise the flag because lgbtq members of our community and our country in the world have not been afforded those rights those respect they've not been allowed to feel
139saved so when you do receive the push back which I'm sure you will remember this quote in recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings we pay ourselves the highest tribute that's why good evening G I don't come for a few weeks and then I want to hang out with you um anamarie Avala FAS as someone who was here for front center with you Courtney two years ago um you know I think sometimes government tries to be a little too bureaucratic um if we would have listened to the audio it was very clear the spirit and the intent the first time it was passed and the second time um and I don't think there was any need uh I understand you all administrative wanted to clean up the language but these are also actions that are
140harmful to our community and as a parent um you know I I'm really disappointed that we're here again my but I'm honored to be here standing with my community um but most importantly I'm honored to see so many young people and children here um taking a role to use their voice and being active because the last few years uh it's been quite a lonely place here and so um again let's not get caught up in bureaucratic processes uh the minutes were very clear the spirit and the attent uh two years ago and last year and I'm really disappointed that we're here again um trying to to uh interpret what the spirit was of raising it throughout the district thank you okay this is on for information and possible action so I think I saw three
141shakes of the head to vote tonight yes I'm shaking my head two more people yeah okay um so I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to approve resolution 202 4-26 and raise the pride flag for the school days in June at the district office and the school sites second student board member I all those in favor I I I I motion passes [Applause] unanimously okay now do we need to take a five minute break are we okay okay all right okay okay you want to make a motion make a motion I'll motion to take a three minute break okay second student vote I all those in favor I I okay e e e back up so we are on to item number 20 with which is action items and 20.1 is review and
142Adoption of resolution number 24-23 recognition of classified school employee week Courtney presented by Dr do we need to do a motion because it's after 9: or it's just at 9: 9 it's 9:30 okay Co all right but thank you hold that thought hopefully we don't need to but we'll see Dr Dan so resolution 202 24-23 acknowledges the vital role classified employees play in providing for the welfare safety and positive inst structural environment for our children uh the staff recommends that the school board U approve resolution 202 24-23 thank you um it was really nice to see everybody here to get their Awards and their flowers earlier um th these employees are the backbone of our schools we wouldn't be able to do anything we do without them so I'm happy to see this resolution here
143tonight any other comments or questions from the board okay I'll keep it short because it's getting later and we still have a lot to get through but uh likewise thank you for all all you do and the support you provide the district okay and any public comment no okay so um who would like to make a motion I'll make a motion to um where are we to adopt resolution number 2024-25 recognition of classified school employee week and I will second that motion Marisol I all those in favor I I Okay resolution passes thank you 2020 sorry excuse me 20.2 is approval of the slam contract presented by Amy Espinosa good evening I'm here to um ask for approval for the proposal contract for year two of Slam program for the 2425 school year okay and
144we had a presentation on this last year last last meeting yes um May it's been a long month uh any any additional comments or questions okay any just going to recognize we had a lot of students here tonight on agenda item 19.2 and we don't have students here for this tonight but we did for discussion we had a lot of the students who participated in this program and so I just want to give them a shout out and thank you for coming and giving us so much free information about the value of continuing this program at our schools good point okay any public comment okay we'll bring it back for Action I will move to approve the slam contract for oh I guess that's just the I'll move to approve the slam contract okay I
145second student vote I all those in favor I I okay item 20.3 is review and approval of the revised job description coordinator student services principal viente and bion's job description we also saw this as an information item uh at the last meeting this is presented Again by Dr sco thank you so yes you saw this at at the last meeting the title we switched it around so now it reads coordinator student services SL principal venti and bionis um everything else in it should be relatively the same it's the same job description that we talked about last time to enable us to utilize uh the principal currently at Vincente to take on additional roles around student services uh the staff recommends approval of this job description okay thank you any additional comments or questions okay I
146see no public comment um so we'll bring it back for Action I'll move to approve the revised job description for the coordinator student services principal viente and bion's job description seconded okay student vote I all those in favor I I I okay number five is revised Massa salary schedule for the oh sorry number four is approval another approval of new job description for the Food Services Supervisor uh so last time you saw the food services supervisor job description uh you had mentioned that you wanted us in the qualifications to make uh a year of uh experience or training uh and a requirement so we did that uh otherwise the job description Remains the way that you saw the last time we met staff recommends approval of this job okay great thank you any anything further
147from the board any public comment okay we'll bring it back for a motion I'll move to approve the new job description for the Food Services Supervisor seconded student vote I all those in favor I I I all right moving right along number five is revised Massa salary schedule for 20242 to include the revised job description present Ed by Andy Canon um excuse me make sure I'm on the wrong um this is kind of a a natural fact of the last two um because we have created these new positions we need to place them on the salary schedule so what you have in front of you this evening is the current salary schedule that includes these two new positions this salary schedule would be in effect starting July 1st of 2024 so we're asking for approval
148this evening okay and this is the same as we saw last time as well did we see this last time no this is the first time that this is coming here okay but it's the it's the two jobs we just talked about that's correct okay correct and you previously approved the rest of the mass that salary schedule right okay makes sense any questions or comments public comment okay Mo to approve the mass salary schedule second student vote I all those in favor I I I okay 20.6 is approval of the new facilitron rates also presented by Andy Canon um common theme uh we did discuss this uh at length at our last board meeting um the addition was uh in a Friday board letter um the board received a utilization chart showing the different um
149renters and their utilization by the number of hours and what their um contribution has been to the district for the use of those facilities um other than that the rate increases have remained the same and again tonight we're asking the board to approve the rate increases as presented um in the facility use rate increase document attached okay any public comment oh sorry Craig so um you as you recall last time I brought up the issue of um the local youth Taco Football League running your facilities and my concerns about uh the dangers and harm of Taco football developing brains at a very young age a very young age and um I I I definitely know and expect you to as much as I would like it I don't expect you to decide you're not going
150to ring your facilities to this league anymore but I would like to at least get this issue uh on people's radar or conversation purposes so I I would just ask that um whether it's this league or any Youth League that you do your due diligence when you rent these facilities uh Beyond just you know figure working out the the fee rate and how much they're going to pay you but uh really with this one in particular you know making sure um what are your Protocols are you following all the rules and regulations for safety um what do you convey to your parents um about uh what's known medically because there's actually reports on the CDC website that go into great detail about tackle football and its impact on developing brains um just making sure that
151they're doing their part um now you know people could have honest disagreements about an issue like this and I understand the argument of Parental choice but parental Choice only works as far as parental parents having the information they need to make the proper decision and when you for whatever reason whether it's the media or the people in charge of these organizations or the people in charge of these Sports when they decide that you know an issue that was front and center a decade ago and everyone was talking about a decade ago um is just falling off the radar we're not going to talk about it anymore we've forgotten about it anymore then parents don't have the information they need to make the right decision so I just want to get like kind of what I'm
152trying to De with cannabis policy in this city you know when that terrible decision was made four years ago to put Embark where it was and there was just dismissive attitude all of a sudden because it's legal it's safe it's harmless you know nothing to worry about um now we see all these concerning studies coming out and I just want to get the conversation going I just wanted to kind of change the narrative a bit so that's all I'm really asking for I mean I hope when we get some new legislators in in Sacramento maybe we can actually get this bill resurrected and we get tackle youth tackle football uh ban you know just needs takes a little political Courage by our governor and others all right thank you okay so this is an action
153item tonight I'll move to approve the new facil on rates okay seconded stent vote I all those in favor I I I okay our last action item tonight is amendment to the superintendent contract um so at our last board meeting on May 6th the board approved a 6 % increase for all members of mea cssea masasa and confidential supervisory employees so tonight um we are considering an considering an amendment to the superintendence contract which provides the same 6% increase to the current salary for our superintendent um I will say that I was on this board when we hired Helen as our superintendent and she really came in in a very um a really tough time there was a lot of turmoil a lot of turnover it was pretty you know we were all recently back
154to school after distance learning and although I think we all recognize that there are still challenges and things in the district that need Improvement I think Helen also recognizes that and has been working really hard to address those things and she does a really good job of I think working with the board to do those things and I think um for the salary that she receives it would be really difficult if not impossible to find somebody that would be willing to do the job which I know is really 24/7 because I often hear from her at night or on the weekends um for and have the experience and the expertise that she has for um so I unfortunately I think there was a little bit much to do about nothing recently about the amount of
155her salary I actually think we're getting a bargain deal and I I I support the increase yeah I thank you everything you said I totally Echo I think you know here we have a person it's a very rare situation to have someone who has started in the district as a teacher and who has worked in literally every Department in the district office um I think except for one right and uh I I think it's it's a true it's this is truly what we love to see happen in Martinez when we can have our own people continue to grow into these these positions and so with that comes you know a wealth of institutional knowledge that I think you know you can't really put a price tag on that and um but you know you could
156I think if you divided the to Courtney's point if you divided the number of hours that Helen worked a day by her salary it would not be the number that like if I don't think people would have sticker shock people go oh okay um so I think you know she's the last one left we even talked about salaries for increased for us and so she's literally the last one that I think we I absolutely think we should do right by her and give her the same recognition that we gave to all of our other employees [Music] so I um I think Helen has done a very good job I think it's been a you know trying times um my concern is that eventually I mean I think Helen has been here for what 32 years
157is that right no how long have you been here um 30 and a half 30 and a half okay so I know that um Helen you know eventually wants to um enjoy life and I think the precedent that set when we have the salaries I mean I I look at like Mount Diablo salary and I don't think it's that much higher I think it's like 15,000 higher um so I'm no I think it's quite a bit higher is it I don't know okay I again this is kind of um we put it as an as an action item as opposed to information action which we normally do so I was just curious what other superintendents are making and maybe consider um like some other Industries I mean I know that um in public schools we
158tend to give the same raise to everyone and um the correlation between superintendent and teachers is somewhat different I'm wondering if maybe we want to do a bonus or something a one time um just so that in the future when we eventually have to replace Helen which would be um very hard to do um with the knowledge that she has I'm just wondering if there's some other options out there and I just wanted to kind of get some other um statistics and really um I know the we've had different people have said different things about salaries um and I just wanted to get more information before we just jump and say yes let's do this not again not taking anything away from what the job Helen has done C can I just jump in and
159so um because I hear what you're saying in in in terms of like hiring an next person and being a president but the superintendent contract is unlike any other contract that we have in that it is negotiated for the person person and it is commensurate with experience so for example our previous our superintendent right before Helen it was her she was um did not have as much district office experience she did not have the longevity in our district and so her contract was very different and she was making less and so a board whether it be us or another makeup or some of us would always have the option to create a brand new contract and to negotiate that salary so unlike where we're setting our salary schedules for all of our other units it's
160not that way just because I mean you couldn't go back and be like oh well we're going to give you like 50 grand less but but there is definitely um wiggle room in there to um create a new contract thank you for that information so my comment is coming solely from a pragmatic fiscal perspective there is zero emotion in what I'm about to to say um we just cut a tremendous amount from students in terms of resources supplies programs nurses a vice principal from Martinez Jor high and other expenditures in the magnitude of millions we received many emails from parents asking that the nurses and the vice principal not be cut in addition we were unable to give the teachers as a bargaining unit the cost of living raises that they were asking for further
161the state budget deficit continues to to increase in the fiscal Outlook of the state and our district grows Grimmer and Grimmer by the day I had previously suggested that administrative salaries be cut to help alleviate the cuts in other areas but that was not entertained as the highest paid administrator in our district in good conscience I cannot vote Yes to increase the superintendent pay I think that brings up a good point so Andy I hate to put you on the spot but was an increase um for this position budgeted for next year when we look at the cost of 1% we look at that across the district because generally speaking over the last years at least that I've been here everyone has received that raise whatever we decided upon so for this year um the
162superintendence increase was included in our calculations for that 6% what we could afford okay thank you um so I think that's important to recognize and although I hear what um what you're saying as I mean I think that you know when you look at the big picture you have to look at the unintended consequences of things and um when we start looking at having trouble hiring people that have the experience and the skills that we need to do a particular job which we all know that superintendent and everybody in this room all of our um dress district office employees they're not easy to come by and um we have to consider that as well why would somebody want to do the job if we're not willing to compensate them for it so I I'll add
163to that um from a few different metrics of you educated well educated professional who dedicates multiple hours at all all times of day um which is not part of the job description though it is though it is um and Unwritten and the that salary is not reflective as a professional is not reflective of what Helen what you do it's reflective of what you know the emergencies you avoid the catastrophes that are averted or mitigated and so that institutional knowledge that you bring to the table the effort that you undying effort that you bring in solving these problems and addressing these things this is this fails in comparison and this this person deserves more than this and it's great that it's been budgeted um but I I do think we are actually saving money by how
164much we are avoiding and not having to pay in other other variables other aspects so uh I fully endorse this and would Advocate throwing more on it you can you can do that if you want we have Andy we um why don't we why don't we have two public comments so why don't we take those so I have um Anna Marie and then Craig good evening board members first of all I forgot to clarify I am not here in my elected capacity or any campan capacity I'm here as a morous resident uh as a lifelong resident who went K through 12 uh as a parent uh and as a taxpayer of several School bonds um I think you all just once again Echo you know the echo chamber you all are in um you fought
165the school teachers uh when they came with 9% uh you yes you settled on amount you you know uh board member yamas eloquently spoke of the budget woses that are going to hit the school district here in the next year or two and the fact that we continue in public education to to be top heavy with administrators and think that this is okay is once again disappointing uh and that we're ready to just without debate and color this lens uh you got to hear public testimony of some interactions with our superintendent um where are the performance outcomes why is there a need to you don't necessarily have to give your superintendent a raise and I'd like to remember you know I've been here long enough to remind you all that an active recruitment happened uh
166without recruiting people she was handed this position without doing a national recruitment um I know we like taking care of our own here in Martinez and uh we we do it not in the proper way taking care of our own is educating our children making sure that our children are meeting academic needs um 75% of our children alhamra can't even do basic math and reading uh our Latino students and are marginalized consistently in this District but yet we're doing a great great job and the person who's at the realm no accountability but we think it's okay to move forward with the pay increase without those metrics and again this recruitment happened several years ago uh with it was an appointment it wasn't even a recruitment so I'm very confident this doesn't scare me um she's
167great on other fronts but we saw tonight there's a lot of room for improvement and we should work towards a raise and we should be conscious of the financial impacts that are about to hit this district and I don't know how you all can sit there saying we need to give more money to our administrators one there's all these gaps in public education really shameful okay we have next is Craig and then um Paula mcau well on a more positive note um if someone an advocate for government transparency and accountability just the fact you're having a candid discussion uh like this about um administrator pay superintendent pay which you talking about pay is never a very comfortable thing talked about in a public session so upsetting in the fact that there are differences of opinion
168there legitimate differences of opinion on this issue um I don't have a strong opinion about whether what you should do here because I don't know the intricacies of this District works you guys all know that better than I do I will say this from when I was still a parent in the district um you know during the pandemic was which was a situation unlike anything that's ever been faced in public education before uh this District uh lost superintendent in the throws of the worst uh portion of the pandemic uh when schools were still closed there was no idea there was no vaccines we still didn't have all the information we needed about how to keep people safe um and Helen had to pick up the pieces and kept the district together during those as an
169on an interim basis and during those very difficult months I remember the zoom board meetings when she'd be calling in and be on the zoom meeting from her office at 10 o'clock at night and I knew she had been there all day um and then you guys went ahead and hired an outside superintendent and then a chaos ensued uh the superintendent only made it a year there was chaos on the school board people uh you know abruptly resigning um you know a legal appointment um of a to fill the vacancy it looked like there were plal games being played um and then the uh that superintendent for whatever reason uh resigned and I don't know how you would have gone about finding a decent outside candidate given all the chaos and drama that Wasing District
170I don't know what would have happened if Helen hadn't taken over now uh do I think anyone in this room is perfect or great at every aspect of their job no I mean I'm not a great parent I wish I could go back 12 years and Le know what I know what I know now know it then and do so much better as a parent that's the beautiful thing about education right you always get a chance to start fresh you always get a chance to learn and grow and evolve you know in our parenting we get one shot at it and we screw a lot of things up and then hopefully at the end of the day we we we put the pieces back together we move on but um you know I I guess
171I spent three minutes think I really don't care what you do here but uh but uh I don't think you should give uh more than the teachers got I don't think you should get less than the teachers got I will say this I don't believe the meba shows a lot of respect for democracy I'm guessing Helen shows respect for democracy so from that standpoint I'll give it to her okay Paula thank you very much for your time I just wanted to say a few things because I didn't want to hear end on that note when I walked in the district one of the first meetings I went to was the parent meeting to hire the new principal at John sweat Elementary School which is when I met our then Acting Superintendent in that meeting I
172heard a lot of comments about what kind of princi we should be having what kind of Administrators we should be looking for and I was a newbie but I have been around the block a lot in this state for education and I made a comment that we should not just be looking for someone who's going to live in the district forever but we should be looking for someone who has goals and visions and dreams it's a hybrid that you're looking for that has goals and visions and dreams and is going to stick around to make sure that those goals and visions and dreams take root and grow and are successful that is extremely rare I know this I have lived this experience I have a lot of family members and education some who have been
173superintendents in the state because of that I have watched more than five positions of superintendant for my children in the time that we've been in this District the superintendent is the CEO they run this District they run it as a leader of leaders in order to teach Future Leaders we don't take that lightly and we need to make sure that we put effort into finding this person now I understand that it may seem like getting another superintendent is easy it's not we pay a significant amount of money to head hunting companies in order to find the superintendent you can look back past hiring Helen Rossy and see how much money we spent on those efforts it's costly it is also costly to retrain all of the people in the district office to work with new
174staff but we don't have to do that because we have found the rare combination of someone who has the skills and abilities to drive goals directives Vision future for our Future Leaders but also has the willfulness to stay put to not be looking for more Glory somewhere else to not be trying to get something for themselves to not be putting their their name first and if we can just give a little recognition to that I think we've done a little bit of service but on a more personal note as another California state employee family our Cola was 3 to 4% so I'm super thankful that our teachers were able to get what they were able to get and I thank you for that and I thank you for the fact that you worked so hard
175to do that because I know I've talked a lot of you I've seen the effort you put into this and I appreciate it my children appreciate it and I'm not coming here with only four I'm coming here with about 20 kids that I have taken through this District so thank you okay thank you um so I a couple of points that I wanted to make that I hadn't haven't made already um and that's an I'm also a public employee and my cola this year was 5% so thank you for pointing that out um oh yeah do you um I'm going to make a motion to extend till 945 second student vote I all those in favor I okay thanks um and we so one of the things that we have to do as a board
176is we are the superintendent's boss and I really think um it's difficult sometimes because we have to do this these um salary increases in public but the employee evaluations we have to do in private but you can see when they're on the agenda because they're on there often so to say that there's no accountability I don't think is very fair because we do talk about it often and um I will tell you that we have talked about reducing um where we can and I think we've done a pretty good job of trying to be um mindful of that and also to we have switched things up and moved around administrator positions we've combined uh director positions we've um we talked tonight about a position that we combine two administrators into one position so we have
177I think been mindful of trying our best to not be topheavy but recognize that one person cannot do the work of five people that's how you lose employees so just wanted to point all of that out and that was not my intent when I said what I said I my intent is that you know other other ways to fund the money and you know bonuses and things like that I mean again I'm I'm not taking anything away from Helen um I have a lot of respect for her and I think she you know as has been stated she does have the history and and as the knowledge um but I was kind of like with the as me looking at the fiscal impacts and and future years and again um you know if you look
178out you know if the economy stayed the same would would we be able to sustain the you know the dollar amount and stuff so um it was just really open for discussion because unfortunately we do have to have this in an open setting um and that's you know so that was only the reason for my my comments yeah and and I I wasn't just directing it towards you just just in general thoughts that have come to mind in the last 10 minutes um any other questions or comments okay um okay this is an action item so um do I have a motion I'm move to approve the amendment to the superintendent's contract second um marisel it's your last vote oh she can't oh she can't okay the last one was your last vote sorry um
179okay board members all those in favor I I do I have any nose no okay I'm gonna say nay also did you say I'm sorry I didn't hear I said nay also okay so we have three yeses and two NOS okay all right motion passes with that we do not have to have additional comments from the public because we got through everybody last time um so our comments from the superintendent board members and future agenda items and I'm going to let you go last if that's okay with you marisel okay when you nothing okay I just want to um thank everybody that came here tonight it's always nice when we have public participation at the meetings and um it it's it's nice when um people come and say positive things too you're welcome to come
180and bring your criticisms um I know that's usually what gets people here but um the the positive comments are are appreciated as well um and I cannot believe it's already the end of the year it in some ways it has felt like a lifetime this school year but in other ways like it's gone really really fast so we do not have another meeting before graduation so um I just want to say thank you to everybody for all of your hard work this year students families staff members and um congratulations to all our graduates just want to remind everyone that uh Wednesday night is the local Awards and scholarship night at uh at the high school is always impressive uh and exciting to see how how much money these students receive in scholarships to put towards
181their their education After High School um oftentimes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars so uh that starts at 6 o'cl and I think it's in the PAB 6:30 in the p 6:30 in the P so that's not right because they have the awards I believe at reception is at 6 I believe it at five I believe so and then and 6 to 6:30 is the reception yeah and then 6:30 Beyond is scholarship Awards or scholarship yeah is it all on elham's website yes okay sorry it's on the website and um I believe I'll put it in the well it's too late I thought I put it in the Friday update but we'll make I'll send we'll send you an email how's that I just want to say thank you everyone um also who came
182to the meeting and we'd love to hear the positive feedback you know I I think an open mind um so you can hear you know take the positive with the negative um is important and um I know AP testing is over and I know that um I saw Mr Stewart at the high school and he was like oh I can hardly wait this is the longest month of the year so I think he's really excited that that is over um and uh yeah congratulations to all the graduates and um we're going to miss you Marisol um it's been a pleasure having you but we're really excited to have Lizzie um starting in August so um welcome to that and U that's pretty much it good night yeah I think everyone said you know congrats to
183all the graduating students and we made it through I I think everyone in this room would agree this was a this was a challenging year maybe more challenging than we've had since a pandemic year for a variety of reasons and so because it's on my mind now and I might forget I know we have two more meetings in June but I think uh people who don't often get thanked are our cabinet members and Nikki for being in you know in these long meetings on a Monday after they've had a full work day and um so I appreciate all of your hard work and for being here and answering our questions even when we catch you off guard and you're not ready ready for us um you know you really are great at rolling with it
184so we appreciate you and I oh and I was actually gonna say to Lizzie thanks for sticking it out you you're not on official duty but I hope this was a good this meeting was actually probably a really great one to attend because we did have so many members from the public and we had you know issues with a variety of opinions and I think that's a really good taste of what's to come so hopefully this was positive for you and thanks for sticking it out the whole way they're not always this long AR so I think a few weeks ago we all got an email about cell phone usage in the schools I think I don't know if you remember that um but on May 18th The Wall Street Journal did an article called
185the teacher did all he could to keep kids off phones um he's putting in frustration under my breath but I think it would be important for us to to re to visit that um this article is talking about how um the teacher would stated that he was careful not to blame students for their phone dependency so he's calling it an addiction um he explained to the students that the apps were designed to be addictive and taught units on the neurobiology of addiction so I think we need to as a board we need to discuss this issue more in depth because it's not just an issue of kids having phones like we are having serious issu isues with children being addicted to their apps on their phones and it's interrupting the education that's happening in the
186classrooms and in this article they also talk about school districts and what they're doing to ameliorate and solve the problems that cell phones are causing in the classrooms so I would like to put that on the agenda or on somebody's radar so that we come up with a solution to address this teachers reached out I don't know if a response went out from Helen or the president regarding it but I think we need to look deeper into this because it is a dependency issue that's all and and um and Helen did respond to that email but I I think that's a good idea I think we will we can have that conversation in the future for sure I will say it is becoming a problem towards the end of the year I think students are
187getting more rest uh what's the word uh Restless in classes and I've had a couple teachers say to the students that next year they'll be implementing pockets for cell phones which some teachers have and I've heard that'll possibly be coming back for teachers that don't have that now and it does work in the classes that I do have to put my phone in a pouch I'm much more focused on my work um but I just really want to thank the cabinet the board superintendent for all of the help that you've helped all of the help and lessons that you've taught me this year being on being on the school board and all the opportunities that I've had I've really appreciate it and good good luck to you next year good luck to Lizzie next year
188I know she's going to do great in filling this position and I can't wait to see what happens while I'm off to college I can't wait to come back and see what's improved all right and with that we will adjourn our meeting at 9:39 e