001all right good evening and welcome to the regular meeting of the Board of Education for June 12 2023 I do have some instructions before we adjourn to closed session members of the public May attend in person or via live stream at Martinez meetings on YouTube or via Zoom webinar these can be found um under board agendas on the district website guidelines for public comment for board meetings or as follows in-person speakers will be provided the opportunity to speak prior to zoom speakers all in-person speakers will complete a speaker card and place it in the basket provided all Zoom participants must register a name upon entry to the meeting and be present and engaged by having their camera on three minutes will be allotted for each speaker speakers will be called upon in the order in
002which they raise their hand additional minutes cannot be added by using a second speaker's minute time limits will be enforced so please plan your comments accordingly so with that we will call to order and do we have any public comments regarding closed session items only all right so with that we will adjourn to closed session and we will return at 6 30 pm a regular meeting of the board of education for June 12 2023 we are just returning from closed session we're on item for those of at home following along or in person we are on agenda item six report out on closed session we actually have a vote to take on closed session uh the vote is um yeah yeah uh I'm not gonna the the vote in question is uh the expulsion of
003student number 2022-23-08 from the Martinez USD and we will need a motion and a second on this vote and I because I'm president this year and sometimes we have to do hard things I will make a motion okay and then I'm gonna go and it will be a roll call so each individual member so member Yama no yes yes hi no hi motion carries sorry for everyone watching I'm just recording the vote maybe just one minute all right we are on agenda item seven which is a Pledge of Allegiance please stand and join me 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 8 is approval of the agenda are there
004any changes to the agenda this evening there's one change we're going to from the discussion items poll item number 10 the office manager job job description as as it has not gone through the 610 process for CSEA it'll be back when it has or with any changes okay are there any public comments regarding the agenda everything then bring it back for action I'll move to approve the agenda as amended second all in favor hi opposed abstentions motion carries nine is employee organization reports do we have any one from our employee organizations doesn't look like it online no all right uh 10 is comments from the PTA do we have any PTA Representatives this evening 11 is correspondence do we have correspondence there's none all right staff reports 12.1 I will hand it over to you
005superintendent Rossi so um we're busy shutting down the school year we had a principles uh or an administrative uh half day Retreat where we brought all of our principles in and other administrators from the district around the district coordinators and program Specialists um and cabinet we had the opportunity to acknowledge each other in written form for any appreciation you might have had for something someone did to close the year out of reflection kind of appreciation we took a sneak peek at the raw scores for our s back data and spoke to the team about how next year's Focus will be on data-driven instruction and and using um first we have to to teach them about data and teach them how to dive down and to understand what the data says and we will model that
006AC what will happen at staff meetings at the site in terms of data-driven instructions so we'll we'll look at a district a district Focus area so let's just for example say it's attendance improving attendance and then we'll use data and we'll go through a cycle of inquiry and and come up with a plan and test that plan and put it in place and so on and so forth on but we'll work that out at our administrative cabinet Retreat on July 18th I think July 18th is it cabinet retreat and then those plans will be made for the rest of the uh the administrators will come back on the 27th and 28th they'll be back before them but they'll come in to meet and we will explain the process to them at that time and then
007they'll take it to their sites for staff meetings and so on and so forth at the start of the school year the um hiring a certificated hiring is I'd say 99 damn 99 99.9 done and classified we're still in need of para Educators so if you know anyone in the community that would like to be a para educator of all levels please have them contact us uh immediately and um I think um it was it was a nice easy close to the year the graduations went well and um everybody seemed to be happy and satisfied I didn't get a lot of negative complaints about the end of the year so it was it was it was actually it was actually nice the second semester kind of evened out from my own perspective and I think
008overall parents and and students and Community was was a lot happier with how things were going for us so I look forward to working with staff next year and moving in a direction to get us where we need to be both academically and social emotionally so great thank you we're on item 13 which is public comments under government code 549-54.3 members of the public have the right to address the board on any matter within the board's jurisdiction however the board may not take action on any non-agenda item individual speakers will be allowed three minutes to address the board 20 minutes have been allocated for this portion of the agenda additional time is allowed at the end of the meeting if there was not enough time to speak during public comments please see Zoom public comment
009protocols listed about those are at the top of the agenda to comply with the brown act the board May listen to comments from the speakers but can neither discuss nor take action on the issues presented members of the board are very limited in their response to statements or questions by persons commenting on items not on the agenda board members or staff may one ask clarifying questions two make a brief announcement three make a brief report on his or her own activities four refer a matter to staff or other resources for information five requests that staff report back on a matter at a subsequent meeting or six direct staff to place the matter on a future agenda um and for those people attending in person the comment cards are in the back and the basket to
010turn them in is next to our assistant superintendent ayet are there any public comments this evening all right and then we will move to item 14 which is our consent calendar approval of the consent calendar means that all items listed here under are adopted by a single motion unless a member of the board or the superintendent requests that any such item be removed from the consent calendar and voted upon separately are there any changes to the consent calendar there are no changes right any public comment regarding the consent calendar okay bring this for Action just recognition that the generosity the gifts received from Creekside Church blackball giving fund and Andy dykman is there a motion yeah thanks for watching for for doing that um I moved to approve the consent calendar second tip all in
011favor I opposed abstentions motion carries 15 is discussion and information items we have quite a few this evening number one is so 15.1 for those following the agenda is the Martinez Unified School District ad hoc committee regarding the Martinez Refinery company do you want to introduce yeah so um we did um talk about this at the last meeting that we would put this on the agenda again due to the fact that the soil testing report was due to be out this past week and it was I attended but I'm going to turn this over to Courtney and um Yasmine for their report um as they're the ad hoc come in I unfortunately was not able to attend that meeting so please feel free to add anything you think is important um I did read the
012newspaper articles that were out about it and my understanding is that the testing did not find um I forget the exact wording but basically it was like the Hazardous Materials were not hazardous enough to cause future health problems um that was just the soils testing they were not able to test the you know the air and stuff the days and after because of course the refinery didn't tell anybody this happened um so I think there may be more to come on this I know that it's still being investigated um but I at least I think the soils being not you know not toxic is good news so that folks can at least now uh eat their their vegetables in their Gardens and stuff like that so I think that what has transpired fortunately the results
013showed that there wasn't a significant amount of danger but I think a very good positive is the amount of communication that we now have between the health department and the district and the emails that we're getting out to parents in both English and Spanish so I think that's definitely a very good thing that has come out out of all of this and I hope to um that we continue to work and improve that system of communication and hopefully there will never be a hazardous the Earth is falling the sky is falling kind of incident with the refinery but if there were to happen I hope we are super prepared and able to handle and take care of our students in our schools you want to add anything Helen no I think we're good the health
014advisory um was lifted um about the gardens and the vegetables and and um that's that's pretty much I think you said it all in a little nut job and I just want to thank you for getting out those uh messages to our community so quickly you're welcome it's it's nice to have a partner in the city to be able to share our messages so so for the whole board what are we thinking should the next steps for this ad hoc committee or are there next steps do you feel that there's something else that we need to be pursuing I think we should be on standby at least for the time being um to see what else transpires or manifests out of all of this because I think the county and the city are still doing
015work in collaboration I think we should just be on standby and so we are abreast of what is happening in general in our community okay so we can just proceed with if there's something to report you can request that it be on the agenda um let us know and let the community now okay if ever is everyone talked about that okay perfect are there any uh public comments about 15.1 all right hold on we will maybe see this back soon and we don't know we'll see all right 15.2 public hearing and review of the 2023 I think there's typo here it should be 20 23 2024 budget imbalances I'm guessing in the title 2324 budget imbalances in excess of minimum reserves and this is presented by Andy Cannon thank you good evening board trustee staff
016and community and thank you for the opportunity to present the proposed 2023-24 budget for the Martinez Unified School District gracing the cover of our presentation today our members of the AHS Alhambra High School Canoe Club the photograph was taken in early spring this year as they were recruiting new members so I'd just like to throw in a little picture recognizing at least one group as we do these budget presentations that hopefully starts us all off with a smile before we get into the rigid numbers right the purpose of this budget report um is to show that we are required as a local Education Agency to adopt a budget by July 1st tonight you're reviewing this budget and you'll be asked to approve it on June 26th at our next meeting this process requires that we
017have a public hearing for the budget alongside the lcap plan and you'll hear that later this evening by Renee the budget includes estimated actual revenues so what we project to have spent this year not an actual because we haven't concluded the year but what we expect to spend throughout this year and also show the what we project the revenues and expenditures will be for next fiscal year that begins July 1st and it's the responsibility of the staff and the board to ensure that the district can meet its Financial Obligations for the next three years before we review the budget it's important to note that assumptions are used to calculate the revenues so we use all sorts of different standards that are listed here including average daily attendance our unduplicated pupil percentage cost of living adjustment
018and additions to our lcff revenue and other statutory costs so if you look at enrollment you're going to see that enrollment is going to Trend at a more of a flat rate so we're going to see a little bit of bumps in there but I think important to note for this year is that we are actually going to be increasing Ada and that's mostly due to our TK enrollment we had 48 kids in TK not that long ago this year we're at 78 and by the time we get to the last 2025-26 school year we anticipate that we'll have up to 135 students enrolled in TK so that's a sizable increase um and that and and that is the reason for both our flat and a couple little moments there where we actually increased there
019but overall enrollment is going to be eight students less than the current year so in 2023 to 2023-24 we're only losing eight students and again that's mostly responsible to our increase in our TK numbers also positive news is that we increased our attendance percentage previously we were sitting at 92.6 percent as we came out of the pandemic and now we have increased that all the way up until 93.5 it is still considerably less than what we did pre-pandemic which we were approach I think 96 somewhere in that range it was 97 okay um I want everybody to know that funded Ada is listed here and I haven't listed this before and I think there's a key reason why and I'll show you in a future slide but want to understand that the state when we
020were dealing with issues from pandemic and declining enrollment across the state they came up with a formula where we were allowed to use the grader of either the three-year rolling average the current year or the last year and so for us that three-year average is actually the best and so you're going to see that we receive funding for more students than we actually have because of that three-year average and we're going to see that that's a great thing and also a really bad thing and I'll show you that as we kind of move forward with this also on here you're going to notice that our unduplicated pupil percentage is being reduced we're reducing it by a considerable amount and we'll talk about why basically we're looking at the state is and the federal government is
021no longer allowing us to collect data the way we did during the pandemic which was much easier and so that is causing us to have a decline um and it will it will impact us for the next three years and ongoing until we balance out um also on here originally um analysts predicted that we'd have an 8.13 Cola the state has now came in and said it's 8.2 so that's positive news that we've included there um but at the same time there are ways in which the state is finding cuts to make that percentage occur and we'll talk about that as well and so eight to eight point two percent looks really good but it's not really 8.2 percent when actual funds also our pers rate you'll notice that it has gone up originally before
022we hit some of the inflationary measures that are being seen in the state and Across the Nation we were actually going to see a decline in our classified benefits rates and so that difference between what we thought we were going to get and what we ultimately get in the last year is about a five percent difference and so just a one-time five percent for our projected classified group that's about 350 000 a year um and then I think lastly our Kaiser rates that last line their Health and Welfare we just received news that Kaiser is projecting to increase its rate between 12 and 15 percent so you're going to see a spike in what our contributions have to be for next year so all of these things are going to get to a few Central
023themes that you're going to see and that is that we have kind of a gilded budget right it looks good on the outside it looks like it's nice and golden and inside it's a bit Hollow and we'll talk about where some of those holes are and what we're doing to mitigate um those factors when we look at revenues overall you're going to see that that 8.2 percent was positive to our lcff and we see a total change of about three percent increase in the money that we're getting in our lcff Revenue but the rest of those categories you're going to see a dramatic reduction because of one-time expiring funds so as the state and the federal government are no longer backing us up with one-time funding we're seeing those revenues decline sharply not only that
024the governor newsom's May revise and even what the legislature is working on right now still reduces some of our state one-time money that we were already promised and that is in an effort to keep that 8.2 percent Cola intact so they're paying for the cola by defunding one-time grants that were already promised to the school district so as we look in there there's a between the difference of that eight percent and what we see in our increase in lcff um it is about a five percent difference and that is approximately 2.27 million dollars so quite sizable um overall Federal revenues decreased by 2.5 million and again that's from the expiring one-time funds from the cares act so our sr2 and sr3 resources sr1 and sr2 are gone now they have finished we still have S
025or three left over and that will take us for about one more year the short funding of the block grants the Arts music and instructional materials block grant for us that's about a 1.2 million dollar decrease from what we expected and then the learning recovery emergency block grant is about 890 000 decrease now currently the legislature and the governor are through going through negotiations and we should find out the results of that somewhere around the 15th I mean we'll find out what they finally did the legislator is trying to walk back um the the size and the scale of the governor's cuts other reductions we have a kitchen infrastructure Grant so we had a one-time 500 000 Grant so that's coming off the books so it makes that number look larger from a reduction um
026we also have an anti-bias education grant of 200 000. and we have to offset that slightly we have increases in our elop when we look at the other local Revenue these are low and they're low purposely because donations go into this and we didn't want to assume what we're going to get is donations as we get donations in We'll add it here and so that number will tick up higher we also had insurance claims of about three hundred forty thousand dollars last year and so we won't see that same thing because it was a one-time funded actually it was paid back to us because we had already paid it what's not shown in here is Proposition 28 the state has still not made it hasn't given us Clarity one on a resource we have no
027resource for it and they don't know exactly how they're going to deal with some of the language that was in that proposition and for everyone proposition 28 was the proposition to to add more music and arts money from the state general fund to our budgets so one-time funding we talked about most of these but you'll look at the next slide where we see overall our federal decrease of 2.5 and so what we had left over of sr2 is about 400 000 that is fully expended this year we've spent almost 2 million investor three but we do have some we will have about 900 to a million left in our special education grants have decreased by 250 000 dollars the other state we described this this is the Arts music instructional materials block grant of 1.2
028learning covery we had a total of 2.78 we received all of those funds already so that's also why we see such a large decrease in our other state revenue because we've already received this we will not receive an amount more and then what's worse is if we have to take and pay almost a million dollars back to the state we'll have an impact and that's not yet recorded in our budget because it hasn't been decided by the the state I spoke about this brief Clarity with proposition 28. what's really interesting here and could be really difficult for Martinez is the last tile where it talks about supplement versus supplant so in the language and based on the author of The Proposition they want to include every type of donation whether it's from a parent it's
029from a PTA or it's from a parcel tax so what that would mean is if the PTA no longer wanted to support Arts and Music we would still have to front that money for the program if the parcel tax were not to be renewed we would still have to pay for those same level of services and use prop 28 money to add on to that so it makes it really concerning for districts who have already prioritized music and arts it's almost like we're getting we're put in an awkward position because we had already valued those things and so we have to maintain them at an even higher rate with money that's coming in including with that is that the money is going to go straight to school sites and it will be put into their
030school plans and it will be up to the school site Council to determine how those funds are ultimately spent it goes towards music and arts funding but there is quite a few options that can take place into there but at this point in time we have no official allocation amounts we only have estimates and we do not have resource numbers from this state so they have not avoided but they have not solved this issue and it is it is on the Forefront of many of the lobbying agencies and our professional organizations to say we need to have resolution to this um the Saving Grace is that the funds do not have to be expended for three years so most districts in the state almost all and those who are in the know are recommending that
031we don't use the funds this year until we get clarity question on that um so I know like the music program gets a lot of uh instruments donated and funding and stuff of that so it would we have be we'd be tracking all that separately and verifying to compare what is supplemented yes everything yes we currently do not have the the structure in place to track it in that manner no you could um this chart is an overlay between our Cola rates and our actual lcff unrestricted Revenue only so not restricted and unrestricted only are unrestricted and the purpose of this is to graphically show you what 8.22 well the cola means when you have declining enrollment and when you have expiring attendance relief procedures so as you look through here you're going to see
032a spike from 2021-22 to the fiscal 2023 Year and that was last year's 13 Cola so you can see a sizable jump from 38.7 million up to 44 million and eight to eight point two two percent Cola is exceptional but yet you're only going to see that small jump in total revenue for unrestricted lcff as you progress through 2024 and the 2025-2026 school year you'll notice that our overall lcff unrestricted Revenue remains mostly flat even though there's greater than three percent colas in there and I'll show you in the next chart why that's happening that is a product of our funded Ada starting to meet our actual Ada so although our own climate our enrollment is kind of staying steady we are starting to see this slide of revenue from there so this is where
033you're going to start to see what's taking place so in 2023-24 we have an increase of 1.4 and our lcff which is a three percent total revenue increase it's still an 8.22 Cola it said that there are other factors that are making it look more like a 3.1 or B in reality of 3.1 as you push that out to the second year with our lcff funding you'll notice that an almost four percent Cola in terms of growth is only a point four percent increase or actually a decrease in our revenue and then you see that we're at a 0.2 increase in 2526 which means we're really flat at that point in time I've spoken a couple of times about how the state is looking at our one-time block grants that are already promised to help
034pay for that Cola so the second table is a little bit of misnomer they're out of two different pots right our lcff increase is out of our well lcff sources where the other two in red are from our other state sources but again the state is is leveraging these to pay for that Cola so for us we see about a three percent or three point one percent increase there but if you take out the dollars from those block grants we're actually seeing a reduction and that's in this school year and remember that this is a revenue decrease overall of 10 in 2324. so with all those revenues put together we are declining by 10 percent both of these Graphics here illustrate the impact of that expiring attendance relief and that's from the state um after
035the pandemic now the retentence relief was a good thing if you look at that chart on the right where you see the blue line and then you see the corresponding yellow dot below it in 2022-23 without that attendance relief we would have done or had what we call the funding Cliff we would have fell off and went straight down to 3505. that would have been a sizable reduction in our revenues but instead with the attendance relief you see that the average slowly lets us fall down so it's kind of like a slide instead of a cliff and so as we progress you're going to see getting closer to 2025-26 you're going to see our funded Ada what we actually receive funds for and our actual Ada are going to get really close to the point
036where in 2627 which isn't on the chart we're now going to be at the point where we are at equilibrium I'm going to add here if you look at 23 24 where you see the funded at 37.17 and the Ada actual 35 18 would it be truthful to say if we are attendance rates came up from 93 to closer back to our 96 or 97 the distance between those would be the yellow line would go up more so we have to remember we do have some control over this if we can get our kids to come to school so not a lot but a little and these aren't one-year turnarounds because we're using that three-year average we are able to kind of project it out in such a way so you don't have steep declines
037but you also don't have sharp inclines either and the chart on the left gets to show you that difference between negative Ada right based on our funded and you see each year we're declining an ADA funded and then your actual Ada so what's strange is that in this next year we have somewhere between 8 to 13 growth and but yet we're losing and we're not gaining that we're actually losing based on our funded 88 136 kids Worth right and you take an average and that's what the column in the on the right there is that's 12 151 represents the average dollar amount per student um students who are on duplicated Foster homeless English Learners you actually receive more from so it's just using an average it's not an exact amount what it does speak to
038though is that when you lose the number of unduplicated students you see an actual larger Revenue decrease and as we look at the next slide we'll see how that impact us as based off of the pandemic so during the pandemic the FED reduced a lot of its rules and procedures it allowed us to collect income verification from our families and so we did that during the registration process we did it through Aries and parents self-reported what their incomes were based on those income charts then we were able to report how many kids were living below the poverty line during the last couple of years we had 1600 students identified as living below poverty now that the pandemic is ending we're going back to a little bit more stringent requirements on how we identify students who
039are below the poverty line so instead of income verification we're now asked to do meal applications and we are projecting 1200 students and that's because we're finding that many of our parents aren't completing the application even despite many of our of our emails our calls our all the work that we do to try to explain that this is an important thing to complete and we will be working on this this year for sure and registration we've already met with the principals a couple of times with some different strategies to show you what that looks like in our chart you're going to see us tracking our unduplicated pupil counts starting in 2020-21 at that time we were right about 1200 you're going to see the the blue line is the top and you can see those
040spikes during the pandemic years where we collect meal application so Upp for Revenue purposes is also on a three-year average so you're going to see Sharp inclines where we got up to 1600 students and now we're going to be projecting it going back down to 1200. if we like superintendent Rossi said about attendance if our attendance percentage goes up we get more Revenue if our unduplicated count those parents who report and fill out the middle application increase we may see us tick back up to that 1600 Mark and that would be very good for us in terms of Revenue and providing programming for our kids expenditures and I apologize for the somber mood I'm already starting to feel it in the room but the budget is what it is and we'll keep trudging through this
041um salaries we were able to lower certificated salaries for this year and that's mostly because of the decline in enrollment that we've seen for this year so we have made reductions that are proportionate to the number of students that we've lost in the certificate of ranks at the same time we did through negotiations with our labor union at about 130 000 of additional one-time workday and that's for this fall the teachers have one more work date in their year classified salaries have increased sizably but the reason for this is that we had a lot of vacancies last year that went unfilled and so we are going to try to fill them again this year last year we had to use contracted services so although we were going up a million dollars in classified Services we
042also had a corresponding decrease in what our contracted services for the same positions are where we end we don't know we are actively looking for and recruiting individuals to fill those classified vacancies and with those vacancies you're going to see that benefits are increasing because of those vacancies and bring them back in there and also because of the potential increase to our Health and Welfare increases so when you're looking at benefits you're going to see about a 10 increase or 1.6 million dollars there alone our services of contractors again they decline sharply because of the sped contracted Services as a result of those vacancies that we spoke about and then you're going to see other outgo the cost for tuition for our County programs from sped is considerably higher and that's that can go up
043and down and that's based on the number of students that we have enrolled in those services looking at our multi-year projection we are required that to show that we can meet our financial responsibilities for the current year plus the next two and we can say that from here but that's not without reductions built within this chart are reductions each year to some of our categorical funding programs to materials and supplies to salaries health and benefits all of it is included in here and we have to make those reductions over the next couple of years just to be able to reach that three percent in the second out year what's important to look at here is the red the excess deficiency this is showing us deficit spending every year for the next three years so we
044project to be deficit spending by 2.3 million this year almost 3 million next year and almost 1.7 and 25 26. and you'll note that our beginning balance from 23 24 is going to decrease by 7.3 million dollars as we get to our ending balance in 2526 and at that rate of burn through reserves we would not be able to reach a three percent Reserve in the 26-27 year now the good news is we only have to project out the three years but it does require us to start looking at what our expenditures are and ways to increase our Revenue going forward these are are there funds what we've been looking at is our 01 or our general fund these are other funds that we oversee they are special funds and they have restrictions on how
045we can use that funding and you can see that in each of these we are pretty healthy and the ones that are low on we have good reasons why they have been expended to the point that they are so starting with the first one that's our ASB our student body account with 331 thousand adult education with close to half a million dollars our cafeteria fund for the second year in a row is showing profits again mostly thanks to Universal meals in the state providing free meals for all of our students so we see a good increase there deferred to maintenance was began this last year we started with 150 000 that the board approved by a resolution and we'll continue that so we've used a small amount of that money um and we project we'll
046have 300 000 going into next year um our building fund is down to twelve thousand dollars but that's because we've been doing a lot of work and we've been using those funds and if you drive by John sweat you're going to see how fast that work is coming together and so that school is really starting to take shape and we'll be in there in the early fall with uh with all good weather and good progress um other funds are capital facility funds we are expending those funds on projects our building fund is still at three million dollars and if things go well and the state continues to finance construction then we'll see possibly money coming back from the John Muir project and as these projects continue to go through and we submit to that we
047could be getting more here so hopefully we can get money from the state that will then work towards more items on our facility master plan that we have um and then lastly we see our donations there at 260 thousand dollars so overall and this is what we saw in the multi-year production we are able to put a positive certification forward to the county office into the state because we will meet our obligations for the current year and the next two years overall um we would definitely like to have a Rosier picture on our budget but the state of what we're receiving is what it is at this point in time we are seeing that our budget is showing deficit spending it's all a factor of our expiring one-time funds funds that potentially could be pulled
048back by the state to pay for that 8.22 Cola it's the expiration of attendance relief it is we are working on reducing our expenditures our budget is also a product of a nine percent raise that we gave out last year which was a healthy and sizable raise um going forward it is important that we're going to have to look at all of our programs and look at what is sustainable what is profitable from in terms of student outcomes and programming and we're going to have to look at it and make priority decisions on what stays what possibly gets reduced or if there's other ways in which we can increase Revenue again getting back to increasing attendance increasing our Upp count but overall anything that we do is we start working towards talks with our labor
049Partners we need to weigh them carefully against what our revenues are what our expenditures are and make sure that no matter what we do that we can meet our fiscal requirements of three percent in the out years looking ahead we do have a schedule and I'll probably put this slide in some iteration in every one of the presentations so you kind of know what's coming we are doing the budget right now in June if necessary we would do a 45-day rebuise but that's only required if there's substantial changes to your budget during the summer usually as a result of kind of chaotic or change within the state budget or new money sometimes that comes in then we've followed by our unaudited actuals we will close the books and we'll present that to this board in
050September and then we'll have our first and second interim which is our midterm assessments of how our budget is doing throughout the year as for next steps we're going to be asking this board to approve a budget on June 26th while you're in the middle of pondering that the legislature and the governor should agree by June 15th that they have passed their budget because if they do not pass their budget it starts impacting their salaries it means they don't get paid until they pass a budget and then by June 30th overall the governor must act on the budget they must either sign it into law or veto it so with that I am here to take any questions that you may have about the budget I got questions in uh so I know I know
051I know the answer to this but if you can one expand on to share with with the group or or people that are maybe listening um the the opportunity for increasing Revenue you know I know there was an article somebody sent something about going students in from other schools can you talk about the actual limitations and challenges associated with that so people don't think it's like a hey let's improve our sports program and we'll pour in more kids from other schools it's not that easy well I mean overall um there are lots of ways to increase revenue and you always need to weigh it carefully about what does that do to the overall culture and community in which you live in and what does that do to all the people who live and work here
052and I think there's an opportunity to help and to promote programs but it has to be weighed carefully against space about other requirements but we do have mechanisms in which we can do those things at this point in time we don't have any platform or program to recruit or to open the doors any wider than we are we do also have to recognize that every other District around us is in the same place and so in order to be able to come from another District to Martinez you have to be released and the releases stopped coming so freely I want to say I but five years ago before the pandemic people stopped when when declining enrollment started to really impact budgets people said uh-uh you can want to go but I'm not letting you go
053and they don't have to let you go and we can't take them without releases and even a lot of the kids that we already had for years were denied release because you have to get that release every single year so it does have an impact that way but we do have we do have some Singleton programs like our auto program or our Woodshop at maybe other schools don't have um so on and so forth but it's hard to it's hard to get a release it's not a carte blanche um you can also speak to I was looking through some of the numbers that you had included and provided and there were some of the charts talking about um expenditures towards um I'll say professional development or training that weren't fully expended um I think the
054one that ran the numbers on we were about 100 almost 130 000 that we didn't spend can you kind of speak to some of those those uh where does those funds go and and what happens there um those are restricted funds so they don't go into the calculation of our three percent so saving those doesn't necessarily do us good for our out years and what we have to show what we do is we strategically look at them over time so if you're looking at the educator Effectiveness block grant we brought up a plan to this board it was approved and it was a multi-year plan to take advantage of spending all the way until 2026. so we we store that money away and then we allocate it out every year based on that plan around
055need for professional development looking at various different groups and so we do that with a lot of our funds we anticipated doing that with the Arts music instructional materials block grant and the learning recovery block grant as well which went out until I think 2027 and 28 but since then we've had to start making plans for reducing it not knowing where the legislature is going to land so the short of it is we bank that away and we put it out every year to kind of slow us from having to do the cuts in the current year I think those are important questions thank you I've got one um the on the expenditure slide where you talked about the um increase in the cost of special education is that purely a um result of the
056number of students or is the costs are cost per student also increasing um it's the cost per student for example um our County program costs have gone up significantly the County Office of Education increased the amount per pupil that they're charging so that was an increase of twenty thousand dollars per student do we know why that is is it because they're not getting the money they need and they're passing it down to us or they are passing it on to districts um they have um historically contributed a portion of um the operating costs from their own budget and they are over time have informed districts that they are no longer going to be doing that and so the costs are going to be charged to the district directly but they are still putting in I
057believe it's like 2.2 million there's they're putting in from their own budget towards this but the just like the rest of the districts things are getting tight for them too so so I have a I have a question um harpreet sen who was here I think last meeting encouraging us to apply for Grants how beneficial would it be for us to actually maybe have a position or two to apply for Grants and help fund or bring in additional Revenue through that um it depends on the grant roughly though a little over 80 percent of our Revenue goes to pay for Staffing and so the trouble with grants is that if you want to have people who run those programs you have a short time with it so if the grand is only for two years
058then you're prospectively hiring someone from two years to run a program only to know that you may not have the resources to continue it going forward so grants when you start looking at from a person's standpoint have like a a limited value depending on how much money you receive grants that provide stuff things that are long-term capital goods that have a longevity those grants seem to be you know much better position and that's why we went out for the cops Grant looking at fencing and cameras and and security type of purposes because we wouldn't be hiring staff for that and that could get us potentially half a million dollars but it gets us stuff the reality is is because of the the cost of Staffing it's just really hard to do the one-time funds we
059have a number of people who are being now paid out of one-time grants that may have life into 26 27 and 28 but the reality is is a state and the federal government said we want you to hire people to help with learning loss and all these other things and they said hire people they gave us one-time money to hire these same people which leaves the inevitability of when reductions happen it's going to be somewhere in that 80 percent rate of people so to answer your question more directly if we bring on people to do grant writing we have to do that a general fund which shrinks that down then we have programs that go towards stuff if they're grants for materials and supplies we still have an increased amount of Staffing costs if the
060program hires staff great as well but it has a shelf life of a couple years three years at the most when we do that and so we have to really wait carefully the output of whatever that program is and it has to be high in order to match the cost of recruiting finding training only to lay off I just wanted to clarify on the prop 28 so it hasn't yet been decided whether how we're going to be able to spend that or not like we haven't been directly told we can't use it for the things that you have we just don't know if that's we just don't know so they're very clear on what you can spend it on and that is fairly flexible but they haven't told us what dollar amount it's going to
061be they haven't given us an account to book that Revenue to even start making plans so if today if we were to hire three teachers four teachers which we were starting that in the process back in February we would have teachers on the books right now that we would hired and we'd have no funding source for them we wouldn't be able to insure that the worst part of it is that is what do we have to calculate there are some school districts although I think mostly just out of frustration are saying we're not going to use the money just go ahead and take it now um so if if they keep it for three years and don't use it it just goes back but if they attempt to use it and they can't afford all
062the programs without supplanting they will have paid for those programs Plus have to pay it back so there's this worry that they would go into the hole by moving faster because of what the intent of the voters was but the the way in which the bill is so worded so poorly or lacked such detail for us to administer appropriately that it causes too many problems so fun that's all that's not great I also right right uh so June 15th is three days from now so that it has to be passed but it sounds like there is still some movement in the legislature in terms of what these Cuts might look like and where they're coming from yeah the the political landscape is this is that Governor Newsom has some very signature positions on things the
063elap program the after school program nothing's going to touch it that is his um very important to him is universal meals so those things aren't going away and they are sizable in the amount of money that it takes from the budget so there is wiggle room on the Block Grants the legislature is already fighting what they perceived as other ways to reduce it so I think the one that Helen and I excuse me superintendent Rossi and I saw today is that they may be reducing it but we just don't know if Governor Newsom is going to agree with the ways in which they're funding that eight percent Cola because everybody agree trees that they are going to fund an 8.2 percent Cola that they disagree on is what are they cutting to be able to
064afford that and that becomes the debate um and the likelihood of it being less reduction of our block grants I think that's true but nobody is pulling out a number right now and it's so close to the timeline it's almost useless to try to guess at a number it's just wait a few more days and we'll see what it comes out okay so we might expect a 45-day revise presentation it seems like there could be some significant changes I don't know yet um I know that we've already booked the 2.8 of one block grant so if nothing changes that's not an impact because we've already got it received in our books okay if they take it away then we may have to say we have to reduce that um so there's there's a lot of
065um gray area on the 45d revised so superintendent we're asking I'll look at that when it's all said and done and we'll work with the board on whether we need to come back okay thanks all right so part of this then the public hearing so it sort of works the same way as public comments but we actually have to adjourn the meeting and we'll take any public comments and then we will reopen the meeting or we come back from our adjournment okay perfect so I am going to go ahead and adjourn this meeting and we are opening up the public hearing uh in regards of the budget and balance oh no sorry but yeah budget and balances in excess of minimum Reserve so is there any public comment regarding item 15.2 all right seeing then
066we're going to adjourn the public hearing and we are back to our regular board meeting and we're going to move on to thank you we know this is a ton of work and um a lot and it's a lot to start the meeting with but there you go we appreciate all the hard work and we're going to stick with you for 15.3 resolution number 2023-21 regarding the education protection account thank you this resolution is an acknowledgment that the excess tax revenues that are sent directly to the district and the board in its adoption of the of the budget which we just heard so when you adopt the budget you are by proxy saying that the tax revenues that we receive in excess of what we expect are going to be determined by you in the
067budget so circular reasoning there but ultimately whatever extra we get the board decides on how it's spent it's not restricted by the state those excess tax revenues um and again EPA funds are unrestricted because this was passed in 2012 and because the state said that you needed to do this every year we have to bring this resolution forward so the resolution before you tonight is um to approve that we use our EPA funds in the budget as presented this evening and then that'll action will take place on the 26th so this is for information I'd like to I'd like to see if we can bring that back on the consent calendar if everyone's in agreement on the EPA I'd like to ask the board to consider that I've noticed that a lot of other school
068districts are bringing it back that way and seeing as we use our APA money specifically and solely on teacher salaries there's no um there's nothing else that we put it towards it's pretty simple I'm comfortable with that bringing it back um so we'll see it back next time on the consent calendar but before that time is there any public comment on 15.3 don't see none uh we will unless there's anything else from the board we will see this back on the way about the 26th on the consent calendar all right we're going to move to uh what are we 15. yes 15.4 public hearing and review of the 2021 through 2024 local control and accountability plan and the 2022 2023 update and this is presented by Renee Lopez okay good evening um so just a
069little bit about uh the purpose of the lcap which is the local control and accountability plan each district uh El Cabot must include goals actions and services and then it's related expenditures it also must include services that Target specific student groups so I have listed the student groups there the purpose of the lcap it's a three-year plan we're in year two um so next year will be three it describes the goals and actions and services and the expenditures to support positive student outcomes that address the state and local priorities so it's a line to our state and local priority areas which are on the next slide I'll talk about them so there are nine but the ninth one is for County Office of Education only the state priorities are all of them but when you
070look at the dashboard it takes an account and shows us the progress for the state priority number four which is our academic achievement and our English learner progress State priority five which is our student engagement which is also um and then number six is our school climate and then number seven is our course access so those are the ones that are all of them are on the dashboard but those are kind of the state um dashboards that they take into consideration but we also have local priorities that we report out on and those are basic Services number one number two is the implementation of State Standards number three is our parent involvement and then also six and seven which is our school climate and then our course access and I'll go in a little bit
071more about um uh our local indicator data so our first one is basic services so this reports on um our appropriately assigned teachers student access to standards aligned instructional materials and a safe clean and functional school facilities so we look at our teacher Mrs Simons this also takes in the data from our school accountability report cards which are sarks we also do our quarterly Williams reports and then we um I also report out to the port the student access to instructional materials the next one is priority two which reports on the implementation of the state adopted academic standards so this is measured by our adopted curricula also our assessment data our Career Technical education expansion within the district our Arts and Music full-time employees and also our professional development that's aligned to instructional standards priority
072three is parent engagement parent and family engagement so we look at we have our family Liaisons within the district we have our parent-teacher conferences we also have workshops and trainings and webinars and events for parent engagement we have our committees which is our School site councils our district executive advisory committee for El Cap and then our elac and d-lac which is our English language um acquisition committees and then we also have a various communication platforms and we look at our healthy kids survey results priority six is school climate so this looks at student perceptions of school safety and connectedness so we look at our data with through the California healthy kids survey that students take we look at our attendance chronic absenteeism and our suspension data priority seven is course access so to the extent
073of which all students have access to and enrolled or in a broad course of study so this looks at a our variety of course offerings so we look at our master schedule which reflects um courses we also look at our courses that we offer for advanced placement courses our CTE courses our a to G completion rate we also have our co-teaching model that's implemented at our middle and high school high schools our Elementary music and PE at all sites and then also our academic indicators are used to identify our gaps within our subgroups which is on the dashboard as well so all the components of the lcap are the lcff budget overview for parents which I'll go over are 2324 lcap and then there's a federal addendum that's also included within this health cap so
074all these components make up the lcat so I'll discuss a little bit about the um budget overview which Andy went into uh greater detail more detail that I'm going to go into but just as a reminder the acronyms um lcff stands for are local control funding formula which is the formula for allocating our district funding and that our expenditures must be driven by the data and outcomes so that's listed in our lcap and then again our lcap is our local control and accountability plan so it's our spending plan for lcff money and it must align with our other site and District priorities and our plans so looking at how lcff works like Andy said we have we get a base Grant which is generated um for educational costs such as teachers and salaries and then
075we also get supplemental so that's based on our low income our English Learners and our foster students which generates more funding and then there's something called concentration grants which we do not get because districts um therefore districts that have at least 55 percent of their students are high need low income but looking at our overview for the lcap um the total revenue projected for Martinez unified is uh around 58 million and of that is uh around 46 million for our local control uh funding formula um and then you can see that uh 5 million is other state funds uh almost 3 million is local funds and then 2.5 is our federal funds um so if you you look at that are 46 million of our lcff funds 3 million is generated on the enrollment of
076our highest needs students so that's our supplemental we also look at um uh increased or improved services for high need students so you look at our total budgeted expenditure for our high news need students versus our compared to our actual expenditures so you can see that there is a difference of of approximately a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars and that difference is attributed like Andy was saying we um we're using a lot of our one-time funding that was not listed in our lcap so that's why there's that difference so now we're going to look at our goals and our actions so goal one is our academic achievement and so examples of some of our actions are professional development and we're looking at assessments teachers have collaborative time we have tutoring intervention enrichment our credit recovery
077program also looking at the expansion of our transitional kindergarten to all four-year-olds some of our metrics so how we measure this is using our s back data also our formative assessment data so our fast bridge data so that this is um part of the data that I reported on for academic achievement um I just want to highlight some of our some of the things that we have been doing to reach this goal we have um our teacher collaboration days on Wednesdays to look at our data to look at small groups across grade levels within departments across departments implementation of our assessments and data analysis so we can look at that within that teacher collaboration time we've also during our professional development and initiated aligning our instructional pacing guides to our standards we have implemented tutor.com
078at the secondary level to help students with their courses it also helps them with college essays has a lot of um different services within tutor.com and we also expanded it to the middle school as well this year looking at we restructured our math Pathways and our expansion of our transitional kindergarten we've added a new class for next year and so um currently that's the birth date for five years old is September 2nd to February 2nd with the expansion of next year it's September 2nd to April 2nd looking forward within this goal kind of some Focus areas for next year is um focusing on our students with disabilities and special education and how can we support all students early on with district-wide Tier 1 and tier 2 interventions looking at Universal Design for Learning which is
079a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all students also within this goal is the focus area of early literacy and grades TK through three and looking at our mathematics pacing throughout the grades of fourth through ninth so that's kind of looking forward goal two is um in regards to our English language proficiency for our English Learners we provided professional development to support the implementation of English language development standards we've provided support with at home through our family Liaisons we also have the tutoring intervention enrichment for El students and then we also have English language development acquisition courses at the junior high and high school and we have our bilingual para Educators that work at our elementary sites ways that we measure the schools through the summative lpac so all English Learners take
080the lpac we also look at our English learner progress and um our reclassification rate and through our formative assessments we specifically look at our English Learners and their progress through fast bridge and illuminate and of course s back data so we have made um quite some progress in this goal 23 percent of our students received a level four which is the highest level on the lpac and that's the first step in reclassifying as an English proficient student so that's an increase of 5.47 percent from last year we've also provided designated English language development professional development at our at John Muir Elementary in Los juntis which is our two higher population of eels and we focused on second and third grade so we trained all our second and third grade teachers at those two sites we
081also hold our d-lax or our district English language um advisory committee meetings are held regularly at the district office and we've been working to hear parent voice and choice through these collaborative opportunities we have also provided summer programs for our secondary newcomers we have an increase of newcomers um this school year especially seventh or 6th through 12th grade so we're providing that opportunity this summer and we have our bilingual para Educators that work at our elementary sites and we've been really focusing on having our students reclassified by the time that they leave fifth grade or early sixth grade and those para Educators have been very helpful in that process they also went to the junior high and met um in the English language development acquisition classes I met with the students we were more student
082focused this year um usually students are pulled out and given the lpac without kind of any warning or any like pre um information it's just like one time a year they get pulled by a stranger so we really focused on having those students really learn about what that lpac is and what it means to get a four so teaching them how to look in Aries and look at their school report where they were last year and kind of explaining the process of reclassification and having that reclassification celebration this year too so it becomes a bigger thing um things to look on for next year is more professional development at all Sites uh training staff regarding the lpac and the reclassification pro um criteria and looking at having the bilingual pair as we found it successful
083for them to go to the junior high and talk to the students and maybe going to the high school next year and talking to students and telling and letting them know the importance of the lpac assessment um let's see what else hole three this focuses on our College and Career so examples of the actions are building teacher and leader capacity um we worked on The Graduate profile this year also this has to do with course access and materials or AP courses our CTE courses academic counseling and goal setting is within this goal and also our College and Career specialist some of the metrics that we use to measure this goal or graduation rates our College and Career Readiness indicator which will be out next year on the dashboard EP enrollment and performance data our CTE
084pathway completion and enrollment so for students to complete a pathway they have to complete the first year and the second year so we look at that data and then also looking at our a to G completion rate along with our CTE completion rate so how many students are completing a through G as well as CTE and then we also look at our Dropout rates um some things that we have been doing to um to make progress toward this goal is we have our new teacher induction program so new teachers that do not have experience we have the teacher induction program where they get a mentor teacher that helps support them we also provide administrator coaching and professional development we developed the graduate profile this school year we've uh and we've you guys have adopted new
085CTE Pathways for Consumer science which we're excited about engineering will be starting next year we'll have the new CTE pathway of stagecraft next year and then also we're excited about having careers in teaching uh we're going to continue the dual enrollment with DVC so having DVC courses on our campuses on our Alhambra campus uh our College and Career specialist Janice um has been instrumental uh with all of the College and Career activities um we also had our College and Career coordinator this year and then our academic counselors have been helpful too to help with the school so we will be continuing with the College and Career specialist next year we're also looking for the future of developing our high school students have four-year plans but we're also looking at discussing that and moving that um
086to the middle school as well and having counselors meet with each grade level to discuss what a to G is and have them thinking about more of um what their career or college Focus might be for the future and not just waiting till we get to the high school um having like parent education nights to discuss those things as well um we're also going to have professional development for um our AP teachers a lot of them haven't had professional development in a while so we're sending we have new teachers and then some teachers that want to refresher so they're taking that this summer um so those are a few things we're looking at goal fours are social emotional learning goal um so we have our social emotional learning programs um positive behavioral intervention and supports
087so you'll hear the acronym PBIS um we have that at the junior high looking at our parent engagement our counselors our school safety so we have safe something we want to make sure our facilities are safe so that's those are all actions within this goal some of the things that we use to measure this goal is chronic absenteeism suspension rate attendance rate expulsion rate and we also look the we'll look at the perception of safety and connectedness on from the California healthy kids survey so some of the things that we've done this year is professional development for all staff so we've had that throughout the year with social emotional learning trauma-informed practices we have our Wellness coordinator this year Patty O'Malley we've also increased counseling and mental health it's at each School site we've held
088student assemblies this year regarding social emotional learning um all Sites have safety plans and it we have district-wide emergency preparedness uh we have our Wellness website and we also have had a parent education seminars um so looking forward we really want to increase parent education workshops um continue our training on social emotional learning strategies um and um and looking at our discipline and our suspensions our last school is diversity Equity inclusion so some of the actions within this goal is professional development on racial equity and social justice parent engagement including a Community Partnerships and recruiting hiring and retaining staff who we represent our student population examples of metrics for this are policy review student data collection related to course access and connectedness student surveys and then also all of our work with the equity team
089that we have been doing this year so we've had professional development our district Equity team leaders we drafted the diversity Equity inclusion plan that we've brought to the board um and then looking at the future within that um the diversity equity and inclusion team is an increasing maybe having more Dei committees at all Sites um providing parent engagement activities at the site or District level um develop a more comprehensive survey so I talked about that when I presented the Dei plan and then continue to provide training within this area are there any questions on my goals before I go on I have one last thing where I can wait okay and the last thing is our lcap federal addendum so this is a supplement to the elk cap um it's um it's completed and submitted
090to the California Department of Education it doesn't drive the lcap but some of the funds are integrated so the state and federal funds are integrated within the lcap so no new goals or actions or services are associated with it as just translates how the lcat meets Federal requirements so some of the federal programs these are our title programs we have title one two three and four the title funds are meant to supplement to not replace existing state funding for education so when we're looking at Title One funding we're looking um this funding is for programming for students from low-income families who are socially economically disadvantaged uh Title II supports teachers principals administrators and staff in professional development title three is for English Learners and our immigrant students to help ensure that English Learners are a
091team English proficiency and developing high levels of academic achievement and then our title for is student support and academic achievement so it provides like a well-rounded education so for Fine Arts World languages and other programs it also helps support a safe and healthy environment so like our social emotional learning and then lastly effectively using technology is within that title money too so these funds are released yearly from the federal government and then the state allocates them to the district and then the district allocates some of those funds to um like Title One funds will you'll see those in the site plans so to sites lastly is our lcap tie line timeline So within the fall and winter this year consultation and data analysis begins in the spring we meet with educational partners and we have
092engagement involving um all our educational partners that includes parents and gardening and staff um and uh students and then now we hear in June we have feedback and input about the draft um and then lastly I'm bringing it here for information and then bringing it back June 26th um requesting approval and then this um the budget along with the lcap is submitted to the county office for approval okay question all right thank you I see really meaty presentations it is they are yeah I feel like I just wanted I was excited when finishing this presentation like even though it's like a lot of information to see like how much work the district has done um and all of the partners that have uh included feedback and input and um all the work that everyone has
093done from the board to superintendent Rossi to our district administrators our staff our site administrators and staff um just to see all the progress like I know there's work to do but to see um the progress we made and then where we're going at the future um is exciting thank you Renee I know it's um I agree I was on the committee this year and it was exciting it was a really good committee I feel like we had a lot of really good conversations um and students and parents and everybody participated which was really cool um and I'm just curious so I agree with you that we've we've done a lot and um one area where I would like to see more done would be in the area of drug and alcohol prevention and I
094don't know if this is a question or comment appropriate for this or more so for this your next presentation the sepsis um but if we were wanting to add something either a goal or perhaps that would fall under goal for the Social and emotional is that something that the committee would look at at the beginning of next year or I guess I'm just looking for some guidance as far as like how would we how could we make that a focus or a goal of the district I think it's embedded within goal um goal four two because it's professional development there's also different activities but you're right too that it can be one nice thing about the El Cap and then you'll see in our site plans too as they're they're very connected so um whatever
095we do and we've worked really hard this year to make our framework of focus our lcap and our site plans kind of all align and I know the high school is working on their wasp as well so they're all kind of cohesive so that could be um based out of the lcap it could be based out of site plans but it does fall under goal three or goal four yeah Renee you're I fully agree with what you just said how the elk happen that and the sepsis are are interrelated and so a lot of my comments are kind of geared towards the next presentation on the sipses but it's I guess it's a good point to talk about be going through what we have as far as some of the goals and the actions they
096there does seem to be a separation of age appropriateness or level appropriateness like obviously College and Career Readiness is it lends itself to the the higher grades but there is an aspect of it that can be applied to the lower sites and with all of these and I'm trying to figure out is it driven by the lcap or is it created in the sipsa that that hierarchy and how these the goals are are driven or how they can be applied at the different levels because I I do I do see a a a cohesiveness as you've kind of identified but it does still feel a little disjointed um one amongst the sides because like if you look at the different Simpsons their metrics are are kind of all over the board and so there doesn't
097seem to be a cohesive um uh approach to to monitor or track and it becomes obviously then really critical because once everyone comes to the junior high or to the high schools um you know they're all on different playing fields or you know coming from different you know motivations from the different administrators and so I'm trying to figure out where where is it best to get a dress is it part of the lcap and having a a tiered system of or a graduated system of as they as they grow and the different examples and and metrics or is it specifically applied to what we'll see further in the sipsas and and how that gets managed yeah I think it's it's a little bit of both right so the lcap is like the overarching one and
098then the site plans are for the individual sites so like the lcap is taking our district data and the sites are taking in their site data and what we're doing is we're analyzing that data to drive our goals or to drive our strategies but I do agree with you for example the College and Career one that you can do and make those opportunities at a younger age so for example you might see in a sips or a site plan where they're having um like the read Across America week where they're having different career people come in and read books so they're being exposed to that or I know in kindergarten they have um activities where they have a presentation that they make they pick a career so it's all kind of integrated but you're right
099at this at it's just like the overarching and then it goes down to the site but each site has that autonomy and looks at their data to drive their actions and and strategies all right so if there's no further board questions this one works like the last one so we'll open this for a public hearing I'm gonna go other were there any other word questions for Renee okay so I'm gonna go ahead and close this and open I'm going to adjourn the regular meeting we'll open the public hearing and review for the lcat plans for uh 2021 through 2024 do we have any public comments all right seeing none we will um close the public hearing and return back to our regular meeting and this we will be back on June 26 for approval perfect
100um I'm going to go ahead and motion to take a five minute break and we'll watch we'll also give Renee break before she has to go again so um is there a second okay all in favor aye aye okay opposed all right welcome back to our regular board meeting we are on item 15.5 for those following along this is the review of single plans for student achievement also presented by Renee Lopez okay so this year I wanted to do a presentation about um School plan for student achievement um the acronym of sipsa um and just how it's developed kind of at each School site so I'm going to talk about um what it is Who's involved in the process how it's created and why it's important so the sipsa outline school goals as you can
101see they're aligned to our district lcap goals it also includes strategies and actions for those goals just like the lcap um it's it's built on a road map for school sites for improving student achievement and an Administration Administration works collaboratively on the sipsas with educational Partners to ensure ensure that their resources and goals are Equitable for all students and title funds are spent appropriately or all the phone funds that they're allotted are spent appropriately so how the school plan is aligned to the district goals so we have our sipsa we have our lcap goals um just like our El Cap H site assesses their students needs so they do A needs assessment by identifying using data identifying strengths and areas of improvement through their data results as a team they develop strategies to support student
102achievement and then they allocate resources for each of those goals and strategies and then they engage Partners so parents teachers School staff the site principals on the team and at the secondary level students so who's involved it's the School site Council so the School site council is a group of elected people it's composed of the principal and then it's representative of teachers and teachers are selected by teachers so only teachers can vote for teachers at the school and then there's other personnel and those people are only voted by other school personnel and then we have parents of students attending the school and then we have secondary students like I said before so all of these groups are elected people and they have the responsibility of developing monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of these plans including
103the proposed expenditures um so the School site council members work on the sipsa during scheduled School psych Council meetings all educational partners are invited to attend any of these meetings um time is always allotted for public comment and if any changes are made to the sipsa the School site Council committee is asked to approve the changes so anytime there's a change in expenditures or they want to add um um a different strategy or something it all has to be approved through the School site Council so how they develop the steps as they review the past year sipsa so as a committee they look at the past School plan they evaluate the goals and strategies and resources and they reflect it on the effectiveness of how their plan uh worked for the school year they also
104review a lot of data so achievement data or local data to examine um kind of where they're at and where they want to be so then the next step is to evaluate their needs So based on the data they consider the effectiveness of some of their strategies they identify obstacles they examine their budget and then they seek input of where they want to go for the following year's plan and then um like I said before they align all their needs and resources to those goals Based on data and also within our lcap and so then they Implement every time new data comes out or they're reviewing the goal they're looking at data and how are they making progress on that goal so we have a success so that the school sites can have focus and
105Direction it also gives the school an opportunity to develop this plan with their educational Partners um and then it drives their plan for next school year so this plan is for next school year so they're already planning and allocating their money and have their strategies so they're looking forward to next year it's also a shared decision making and it's accountability for the sites and looking at their goals and strategies and monitoring their progress and then it's also looking at their plans they're able to show Improvement So within their plan and goals how are they improving on their practices and then what steps do they need to make maybe to improve maybe something did not work these are all living documents so they can be updated at any time a School site Council approval so like
106you said if there's something that they see that's happening within their school they can take it to their school site Council or the school any member from the um School Community can go to the school site council meeting and um have input on it so do you have any questions so I had one um yeah how many people are generally on the council then and or do they change every year so each member holds their position for two years and then they cycle through so it could be every other year um yeah they so it's a two-year commitment for each School site it's a little bit different but um like I would have to look at the numbers for each School site okay thank you at each grade stand there's a different requirement and it's
107all in Ed code who and how many have to at least be on okay it does depend on like his Elementary or middle yes yes there are different makeups um laid out in Ed code and I can send that to you in the weekly update so at the high school it's a minimum of 12. he's got it the main school it's a minimum of 10. um and the difference between middle school and Elementary you can make a choice whether you want to include students or not Elementary doesn't include students the whole key is you have 50 which is School staff and 50 which is non-school staff so teachers community members um parents all of those kind of fit into the mix and it's all governed by the bylaw so each School site Council has a
108bylaw just like we have board policies and it describes all of those things that go in it including election procedures and what those positions are and how often they are including the term of two years or sometimes they can be one year depending on how people write their bylaws okay thank you and then um how often do they meet just curious um it's it's there's no um requirement for how many meetings but we do lay out a calendar at the beginning of the year um it's really Ed code States as as many many meetings as they need to um meet all the requirements but usually at each site they have one once a month okay so and the parents if they want to go to the meetings it's on their website it's on our website
109right so they have to post their agenda beforehand and then I know that they um all Sites have an announcement that a school site meeting is coming up perfect thank you I was just gonna say I was on the School site um councils for Morello and at the junior high and I don't yeah I was going to ask about the students we didn't have students on those ones but does the high school do we know do they have students on theirs they do okay yes and I what I don't recall is I know that it comes like this we are sort of as the board the top level reviewers of these but what processor does it go through after the site Council does admin review it before it comes to us or does it come
110straight to us from the site Council so admin reviews it um they kind of then they develop it jointly but the administrator does um write everything out in detail but they do discuss everything at the school site council meeting and it is approved at the school state council meeting they also get input from their elac committees as well um for input they don't approve at their meetings but they do present it and get feedback and input and this this year especially um Renee has done a good job of meeting individually and reviewing each I I did a little bit I tried to help a little bit but it gets a little busy sometimes but met one-on-one because it has been a long time coming to clean up these zip plans because there's you know over
111the years I've I've noticed um that some of the strategies then the goals remain exactly the same year after year with no real creativity or thought into what's working and and what's not working so I think Andy comes from an area of this was his last job and he's been very helpful and beneficial to and services department and myself and and guiding Us in um getting a lot more detail and and more alignment out of the sipses especially to the lcap and then into the budgetary system where now every expenditure at a school site is labeled as to where it fits in the sipsa and the lcap so it it's um it's making a lot more sense I've reviewed every one of these and I was really impressed to see as much alignment as I
112did see compared to what I have seen yes I I would agree like each site has put um a lot of thought into each one um and working with their School site councils um and where they want to see their schools be next year um also in the past School site plans haven't been approved until Midway through the year which didn't make sense before because um you're in the current year working on the current sipsa so this year I'm we actually brought two sipsas to this board this school year so this school year within the mid-year and now this one but it makes more sense to bring them now for next year so they can kind of hit the ground running and gather all their data from their s backs their local data from the
113spring and constantly and this will fit into the district's goal of using that cycle of inquiry using data and it has been a big help I mean I think all the staff within the district has been helpful to support the school administrator and the sites and with the budget with them having that lens of where do they want to see their School site cool so when I thought we had just done this I wasn't hallucinating we did yeah okay are we we're gonna do it at the end of the year from now on or try to yes and then we we will have um uh we probably will have an update I don't know about in the future but I think that it should be maybe like an update like we do for the El
114Cap kind of mid-year kind of have a progress what you will see as we get to the fall is those sites that receive Title One funds when we close out this year with their title funds so we look for carryover you'll see that in uh most likely at the end of October you're going to see the three sites that have Title One funds come back and they will have allocated any carryover funds from title one that were unspent from the previous year so that'll be another opportunity for you to see how they're going to to kind of use those funds to extend the work that they've already looked at for this year based on their current allocation because those funds aren't in there right now from what you've described and read through this am I
115correcting understanding that there's no collaboration necessarily between site councils between different sites no not for their School site plan I mean principals do talk to each other though don't get me wrong I mean they do principles collaborate kind of like what are you doing in the school or what are you doing in this area so that they can have different ideas also different schools have different funding allotment so our Title One schools have more um allotment of funds that they can play around with where you look at the other school sites where they have less funding so they have to be a little bit more creative and and but that's the beauty of it I love that aspect that it is site-specific but the I guess again taking advantage of the small district and the
116fact that they all end up at all the students end up at the same Junior High and high school it would go back to the overarching and trying to get this in line with each other in line with the lcap and get all all metrics and and what everyone's paying attention to even though they change from site to site it will help streamline and and that's why they're aligned to the lcap as well so if there is something that a site may need where they do not have specific funding we can kind of go to the lcap and help support them or maybe they have um a little bit of funds in an area and then the lcap can help some supplement something you know like in that goal or whatever they want to do
117so say they want to do a professional development and they only have certain amount of funds maybe the lcap can can match it or we can work with them and that's why they're aligned as well so in my experience Renee has made huge progress in one year to do this it took me several to kind of work on developing this whole process across the district um and what's what's great about it is every School site is responsible to the lcap metrics so they are singularly locked in there then the sipsa has extra value added on so a lot of times you know School sites forget to mention what they know is already in the lcap but they are still providing data to that and when Renee and Ed Services meets with them they're still talking
118about those overall lcap metrics was their responsible for improving so I think that all works together as well so for example two you'll see in the Simpson where they might have a strategy but it'll have zero dollar amount and that's probably because it's like through the lcap or through different funds like so the West tread West trust Ed at the the equity audit at the high school is in their school plan but they're not funding it right it's coming through the district but if we do have specific observations or comments on aspects of each sipsa is it best to go to that site Council or to provide to what's the what's the best mechanism I would say bring it to me and I'll bring it to them to the administrator and remember our elementary principles
119meet once a month our secondary nuts once a month as well used to be like every other month but it's once a month as well and so they do collaborate in a lot of things they are and it's it's just like raising kids what do you get well what do you don't get and what do you have and um there's there's a lot of that sharing kind of going on so there's nothing really done in isolation when it comes to especially our elementaries because there are four of them it's like having four kicks well thank you it sounds like we've made a lot of improvement in this in this process and that now we're on a really good track for the future to be um in a more timely manner with these so I appreciate
120all of the work it sounds like this was a real collaborative effort but especially thanks to you Renee are there any public comments on 15.5 all right we will bring this back then for adoption on the 26th and we'll stay with you for one more 15.6 review of new instructional material fantastic okay so tonight I am bringing for information um a new textbook so reviewing um textbook um adoptions or a review of instructional materials so we're looking at the AP US Government and politics uh textbook um for the the AP board changes um sometimes kind of their outline or requirements or what they assess so the AP board content changed in 2019 um and at this time we don't have a textbook that aligns to the AP assessment or test so our old textbook has
121a copyright of 2013. so Mr Hussey brought this forward to the curriculum advisory Council for approval and it was approved um to bring this textbook to the board for information and the next time hopefully for approval um and he was stating that this textbook connects best to the exam it was written for the AP US Government and politics course it's organized in a manner that follows content logically and sequentially he did look at other textbook um textbooks and he found them to still be kind of aligned to the old um assessment um so this one he feels confident that it'll meet the needs of of his his course and help students do well on the on the AP test I'm just going to make a comment um that um Annie and I are both on
122this committee so we saw sat through his presentation and um what really stood out to me is the number of students that are enrolled in AP politics and government it's a lot of students there's currently 85 students enrolled yeah what I I just was impressed by that number I think especially in this day and age that's really important that we have students that are interested in learning about politics and government it seems like he's doing a great job if he wasn't I don't think he'd have that many students enrolled so I was excited to support him with um you know something that potentially would be more helpful to the students than what they have now do you have a sample of the book I do yeah any other questions from the foreign any public comments
123right we'll bring this back on the 26th for adoption potential adoption and we're on 15.7 review of resolution number 20 23-23 teacher consent to teach subject matter courses at continuation independent study as allowable in Ed code 44 865 and this is presented by Dr Dan cedaro and this is just for information you see these uh these are three different education codes uh that we utilize for local assignment options you see them every year this first one uh resolution 2323 uh has to do with continuation schools and the independent study program that we have agreons public comment on 15.7 all right we'll bring that back on the 26th 15.8 is review of resolution 20 23 24 teacher consent to teach subject matter course so that middle school as allowable in a code 44258.2 yeah this is
124uh about education code 44 258.2 as you just said um this has to do with multiple subject teachers who teach at the middle school level there's just one teacher feeling of uh next year any questions on that one public comment all right the last of these such resolutions is 15.9 review of resolution number 2023-25 oh wait am I right yeah okay the committee on tutors assignments in Ed code 44258.7 so this one is about uh electives usually call it at the middle and high school level um this particular group of employees that you see here will be taking through the um committee on assignments to approve them this is something that happens each year right questions on this one public comment all right so we'll see all three of these back on the 26th thank
125you thank you okay 16 action items uh 16.1 is our personal tax survey results and we have some um visitors who've been very patiently waiting I'll let Andy Camden Andy Canon present and then we will get some information well I'm glad to be joining us again with hopefully happier news for the board um with me tonight we have uh we have Team Civics led by joy and we have Tim who's going to be joining us via Zoom from True North research and as the board recalls you gave direction to put together a survey to figure out from the community whether they would support a partial tax renewal so the presentation you're going to see tonight is describing that survey and it's going to give information to the board for you to choose what actions that
126you may take in the progress of renewing that parcel tax so with us joy please take over and uh and tell us what you found foreign enjoy I'm sorry I I can't hear as soon as you went to the podium there's no audio via Zoom to me I could hear Andy I just couldn't hear you yeah okay there you go Dr mcclarney we are having some technical difficulty with the podium microphone but what um Joy was saying is that we are ready for you to go ahead and present the feasibility survey so okay all right great I apologize I just couldn't hear her so um uh good evening uh Tim mcclarney with uh True North research we're a firm that over the last 20 years is specialized in working with school districts around the state
127and helping them through surveys to develop a statistically reliable understanding of the communities and the customers that they serve we've designed to conduct over 1200 research studies to date and about half of the work that we do is what we call Revenue as your feasibility studies like what I'm going to be sharing with you tonight where the goal is to understand if it's feasible for a district to move forward with some type of Revenue measure be it a bond or a parcel tax this is Andy would it be possible for you to turn up your mic on your end I think just because we're not as used to doing with zoom it's not broadcasting as well um the audio so if there's any way you could speak louder or turn up your microphone it'd be
128really helpful okay let me let me give this a world does that help a little louder yeah that's that's much better um you're almost probably at the need where you have to shout what's that oh I have to shout all right that volume is acceptable there okay so um so uh what about half the work that we're doing these days is what we call Revenue measure feasibility studies like what we're going to be talking about today where the goal is to understand if it's feasible to move forward with some type of uh Revenue measure like a partial tax or a bond and if it is feasible to determine how do you go about structuring that measure in a way that it's going to be consistent with the type of measure that your community is interested
129in supporting um so tonight I got a PowerPoint presentation which covers the highlights of the parcel tax feasibility study we recently conducted for the district um and as I go through this slide I uh presentation I welcome questions from the board as I go over at the end whichever is your com uh your preference so next slide please okay so I covered this a little bit already but um you know in terms of the purpose of the study the goal is to understand if it's feasible to move forward with a partial tax measure and by that I mean if you were to place this measure on a on a ballot in uh 2024 does it have a reasonable chance of success the answer to that question is always yes sometimes we look at this data
130and no matter how you kind of stare at the results there's no way to get you from where you are today to where you need to be to be successful uh on Election Day and if that's the case I'll be the first person to tell you that when we do see that there's feasibility the next uh sort of bullet that we're trying to address is to determine how you go about structuring this measure in a way that it's consistent with the type of measure your community is interested in supporting there's a lot of components to revenue measure there's what you're going to fund what's the tax rate does it have an a cost of living adjustment or not there's also issues around uh when what's the appropriate election timing to place this on the ballot
131Etc so the survey can help guide that and then finally it's an opportunity to understand how important information is in helping your voters come to an informed decision about this measure I'm a big believer that if a public agency is going to take the step of putting a measure on a ballot it's incumbent upon that agency to actually communicate and educate voters uh with uh about what uh decision is they're asking them to make and so you're not advocating up or down for the measure but you are giving voters the information they need to come to a well-informed decision next slide please so methodology or how we went about conducting this study we started uh with your overall voter file and then we identified what we call likely voters these are voters who based on
132what their when they registered to vote what elections they've participated in are we anticipate are likely to cast ballot in the uh March 2024 election we use what's called stratified and clustered random sampling which I can get into if you like but suffice to say what it ensures is that we wind up at the end of data collection with a sample that is in fact representative of your likely voter Universe on all of the characteristics that we know are related to how voters tend to vote on these types of measures so things like gender age partisanship household party type as well as Geographic sub areas within the district once we've selected our sample we reached out via email text and telephone so three different methods of recruiting uh each of these invitations or each responded
133that we tried to reach there was a unique pin number embedded in the hyperlinks so that if somebody clicked their link on their invitation and came into our system we knew who was on the other end of that click that protects the site so that nobody from outside who wasn't invited to participate in survey could have accessed it it also prevents somebody who um decided that they wanted to share this invitation with their 10 best friends they couldn't do that either so it protects the Integrity of the site uh respondents had the option of participating online or by telephone and we had set out I think our contract was to do 300 completed interviews we walked back in the door with 415 so we had a stronger response to the survey than we had anticipated
134which is great resulting in an overall margin of error of about plus or minus 4.8 percent at the 95 confidence interval next slide please okay so on to the results here this first slide shows the results of what we call our most important issues question where for each of the issues you see there on the slide we simply ask voters to tell us how important is this issue to you uh is it extremely important very important somewhat important or at all or not at all important uh we asked this question because it's a nice warm-up question it just gets respondents into the groove of taking the survey but it's also an opportunity for us to understand how education as an issue Stacks up against some of these other issues that also compete for tax dollars
135in particular how does the issue of improving the quality of Education in local schools stack up against the issue of preventing local tax increases kind of a rough rule of thumb but it makes a lot of sense that the more importance that voters assign to improving the quality of Education in local schools relative to the issue of preventing local tax increases the better positioned you are to move forward with some type of education related measure and in this in your case we do see that the number one issue among those we surveyed was in fact improving the quality of Education in local schools you had 92 percent say that that was extremely and very important as you move down the list you see maintaining local streets and Roads and improving Public Safety as you get
136down towards the bottom you see preventing local tax increases at 56 percent so that Gap in your case is larger than we typically see most of the time we're seeing gaps of somewhere in the neighborhood of about 22 percent yours is 36 percent so it just tells us something about your community at sort of the 30 000 foot level that relative to most the communities that we survey they care more about education at a higher level relative to this issue of preventing local tax increases um and when you're thinking about a revenue measure for Education that's a good thing next slide so at this point in the poll we get right to what we call the initial ballot test and the idea behind the initial ballot test is that before we get any deeper in
137the interview and we start talking in more detail about how these funds could be spent or conveying arguments pro and con about this measure we want to present to voters a mock-up of what we think that 75 word ballot statement could look like it's a really good gauge of where your voters are at on the natural with respect to this proposal because this is all they've seen at this point is the 75 words the district was interested in testing two variations on this potential ballot measure one would be a partial tax that did not have a cost of living increase or Cola the other is a version that did include a cost of increase a cost of living increase or Cola so what you see here is the no Cola version um the uh the
138subtleties in this is that right in the beginning in the parentheses there you can see that there's this statement and without increasing taxes if you do not have a cost of living adjustment in this measure and you're renewing it at the existing tax rate you have the ability to say things like without increasing taxes in the actual 75 words next slide please in the cola version we don't have that statement within the parentheses because where the cost of living adjustment the tax rate is going to increase over time and you also have to include a little towards the bottom there the phrase annual adjustments I see if I can just uh make a comment here for the board members too for those of you that weren't involved in the committee when we talked about the
139ballot question uh we are required uh we can have up to 75 words for voters to review um everything starting pretty much from that paragraph shell Martinez Unified School District much of that language is required by law so you can see that we have to talk about the tax rate how many years it would be in place the dollar amount it raises annually in this case about 850 000 annually and then annual adjustments there is where we include language that would let voters know that this is the cola so those bullet points really are all the room that we have to describe the types of programs that the district would use this funding for it doesn't restrict you to the only those four bullets the resolution will dictate what the money can be spent on
140but it is supposed to give voters a clear idea of what you would spend the money on uh this is based off of much of what you used before when you pass the original parcel tax so just so you know it is weird language it is it does seem a little uh tongue twistered but a lot of it is stuff that we are required by law to include in the 75 word ballot question okay so as I mentioned we have the two different versions there one with a cola one without and on the next slide you see the initial results so at that initial ballot test we had for the no Cola version we had 73 percent of respondents say they would support the measure with about 48 saying they definitely vote Yes for the
141cola version uh slightly lower overall at 72 percent with 43 saying definitely yes so both of these measures are above that two-thirds threshold that is required for passage of a special tax in California um but the strength or intensity supports the little higher for the no Cola version than the cola version now one of the things we also know though uh is that the differences between these two ballot statements were kind of subtle and a respondent may not actually pick up the difference initially like they would ultimately discover say during an election cycle should you choose to place this measure on a ballot so we also want to clarify for respondents a little more about what the cola version means and the no Cola version means so for the no Cola version We went on
142to say voters approved a parcel tax in 2008 to fund a variety of programs and services at local schools the total amount of the parcel tax is 75 dollars per year and that the proposed measure would have not increase the tax rate that your household currently pays it would simply extend the current amount out for another eight years for the cola version it was a little different we said again that voters approved a parcel tax in 2008 and the total amount of the parcel tax is 75 dollars per year the proposed measure would renew the partial tax at the current rate of 75 dollars per year and allow that rate to adjust up to three percent annually for a period of eight years in other words the rate would increase by less than three dollars
143per year with that clarification we then went on to ask knowing this where do you stand and that's on the next slide and I asked what happened to the one percent and the no Cola questionnaire the one percent yeah there's one percent missing on the no Cola oh see the very top bar there the little black line it only comes up with 99 I'm just kind of curious what happened yeah do you see the the black bar at the top of the graphic there's a little black bar on that side at the very top it's one percent was prefer not to not to answer but the bar is so small we didn't include the the percent in that I'm sorry I can't hear anything on this and I don't know if that thank you okay
144so um after clarification I just mentioned how we clarified what the no Cola version means it would be a no tax increase extension of your existing 75 fee the cola version would allow it to increase by three percent annually and as you can see that the moment you provide that clarification we see a split between these two versions The no color version support level goes up to 80 percent at this point when they understand that this is a not going to increase the cap the taxes their household currently pays is going to extend it in the future the cola version on the other hand um checks in with 70 so the support levels go down so it opens up about a 10 point gap between these two versions next slide please so we take a
145a side step here in the poll we asked um respondents to comment on the overall quality of Education provided in the school district would they say it's excellent good Fair poor very poor we do this because we tend to find that the better job they think you're doing in your primary job of educating students the more likely they are to support a revenue measure and you can see that about half of the voters that we spoke to rated the quality of Education in the district is excellent or good you had about 26 percent it's fair you had less than 10 percent who said poor very poor and you've also got this slice of about 17 percent who are unsure right so they they're not connected enough with the district at this point to be able
146to know enough about you to be able to comment on the quality of Education provided in the district and so one of the I think education or one of the sort of communication goals moving forward is to fill in that gray area a little bit these are often voters who do not have students in your schools currently they probably didn't have students in your schools in the past they moved in after they were empty nesters and so it's important that as part of the communications that those voters learn a little bit about the district and the good work that you do so you can sort of fill in that gray area that tends to make them more comfortable ultimately when they go to the ballot to make a decision on this proposal next slide please
147we also wanted though to ask how uh they would rate the job the district has done in managing its finances and as you can see here a lot of Voters sort of confess to not knowing anything about this 43 said I'm not sure and then among the rest you can see it it's generally sort of split between 22 percent who say excellent or good 21 fair and about 12 percent of State poor very poor so here again um you know this might be an opportunity As you move forward especially when you're talking about a parcel tax as an opportunity to sort of fill in that gray area a bit in terms of the good work that you've done with the parcel tax to this point what a what a sort of supports within the school
148district and you know why ultimately it would be important to renew that source of funding next slide please so at this point in the poll we get to the programs and services section here is where we want to do two things one is we want to educate respondents more about what this measure would accomplish up to this point we only had that 75 words to describe uh the measure and what it would do here we get to unpack it into the series of programs and services you see here on this slide and in doing so respondents are now getting a better idea about what this measure will accomplish the other thing it allows us to do is understand of all the things that you're thinking about spending the money on to see how voters feel
149about those uses of the funds and which of these ultimately rise to the top of the list in terms of their priorities and you can see here that everything tested was popular even the lowest rated item there had better than 80 percent of respondents say that they would favor spending some of the money on that item the two sort of top three there are um you know continue to providing high quality stem programs uh providing Hands-On science labs and instruction and attracting retaining qualified teachers so those are the top uses but again everything you're considering spending the money on was popular next slide please so if the board chooses to place a measure on the ballot in March 2024 there's going to be an election cycle and during that election cycle you're going to have
150Advocates of this measure step up and and talk to their neighbors and friends and try and explain why this is needed and why they should vote Yes you might also have some opponents right who step up and argue that this measure isn't needed we shouldn't do this and here's why for this survey to be a reliable gauge of the feasibility of a parcel tax measure we need to know not only where your voters are at Naturally which was that initial ballot test but what's going to happen to their support once they're exposed to the type of discussion and debate that's going to occur uh before you know they ultimately choose to vote on this measure in March and so we do that by simulating that discussion and debate in the space of the poll by
151conveying both positive and negative arguments about this proposal shown here are the positive arguments that we tested here again we see that a lot of these argument let's get some traction with voters uh the very top one is that studies show that a well-rounded education helps students become better Learners and succeed this measure protects art music programs which are essential to a well-rounded education second argument there was about how all the money stays local uh it can't be taken away by the state or used for other uh purposes um so after the positive arguments though we get to the interim ballot test which is on the next slide and the idea here is that voters have now heard a lot more about this measure than they did initially we had a chance to talk in
152more detail about how the money would be spent we had a chance to convey positive arguments so we Circle back and we say now that you've heard a bit more where do you stand you can see that the no Cola version of this measure checks in at 77 percent overall support that's about 10 points above that two-thirds threshold you need to be successful on Election Day with 53 percent definitely yes the cola version is a bit softer still again at about 75 percent overall with about 47 percent who are uh definitely yes and then we get to the negatives on the next slide and the behind the idea behind the negatives is that we want to pressure test voter support for this proposal by peppering on them with a few of the negative arguments that
153they are likely to encounter an election cycle uh or may encounter during an election cycle you'll notice we test fewer negatives than we do positives that's by Design uh typically in most education related uh campaigns the pro campaign tends to be larger in number better organized they raise money they have a louder voice than the opposition to the extent that it exists and so we simulate that disparity by testing fewer negatives that said the negative Arguments for testing here are designed to be hard-hitting negatives so we're designed to to see and to sort of convey the most persuasive arguments we could think of as to try and convince somebody to vote no and so you see that there are a few of the negative arguments get traction the top one being kind of the top
154negative argument I've seen in most school-related measures over the last cycle which is just now is not a good time right we've just came out of the pandemic we've got inflation we've got high gas prices and people are struggling not a good time to be raising taxes so we do this to see how much erosion and support can we create by sharing these negative arguments and the answer is on the next page next slide and the answer is not a lot right you see that at least particularly on the no Cola version on the no Cola version we check in at the final ballot system 77 support so we're still 10 points above that two-thirds threshold that's needs that is needed to be successful on Election Day the cola version still here a bit softer
155at 74 so you're about seven points above that two-thirds threshold you need to be successful so next slide please a couple wrap-up slides here um what does all this mean I you know I think I'm gonna Circle back to that overarching question I mentioned at the outset as to why we're conducting This research is to understand if the district were to choose to place a measure on the March 2024 ballot does it have a reasonable chance of success Is it feasible the answer that is yes I think we see a lot of positive signs in this survey that indicate that you have a potentially winnable measure here we saw that voters rated the qual improving the quality of Education in Local Schools is the most important issue facing the community and it was 36 points
156higher than that issue of preventing local tax increases that translated into strong natural support for renewing the existing measure at 73 percent which is about six points above that two-thirds threshold you need to be successful all the programs and services that you're thinking about spending the money on were popular we have positive arguments that resonated and importantly at each point in the survey when we came back to a respondent and we said now that you've heard a bit more about this proposal where do you stand all of those ballot tests were above two-thirds and that was even after opposition arguments and so all of that taken together indicates that yes I think you have not just a reasonable chance of success if you place this on the on the ballot in 2024 I think you've
157got a good chance of success if you place it on the ballot in 2024. next slide please now having said that I think it's really important to remember that a poll like this is a snapshot in time it's not a crystal ball looking forward to Election Day saying you're going to get 73 on Election Day you know what happens on Election Day isn't dictated by what your poll says today it's dictated by everything that happens from this point forward right and so it's really important that when you're going to move forward with a measure like this you make smart decisions about what the measure is that you're putting on the ballot and asking voters to decide on so that's well aligned with what they've told you they're comfortable supporting and two you got to put
158the work in in terms of communication the other thing to keep in mind is you know there are some challenges also we saw a lot of positive signs in this poll but there's also some challenges that we need to keep in mind one of which is we did see the negative arguments get a little bit of traction we saw that when you explain what the cost of living adjustment is that that really cold support down for that version at that point in the in the survey and it kind of never really recovered back to being even to the Noco aversion um there's also if you step back from the poll there's a lot of unknowns between now and March of 2024 we seem to be in a good place with the pandemic but I think
159we've all been sort of trained to expect the other shoe to drop at some point we have high inflation there's discussions about a recession and you know we're going to have you know a climate next year that's going to be fairly partisan um both for the primary in in March as well as in November and so all of these things can create a little bit of Crosswinds for your measure as it moves forward we want to keep in mind ultimately when you look at the res at the survey results you know I think given that the although both measures look like they could be feasible I think the risk reward calculus here rewards going for sort of uh favors going forward with the no Cola version the reason is you're going to get one crack
160at this measure right it has to be renewed in March of 2024 after which it will come off the books and so you've really got one crack to renew this measure um and for the added risk that comes with introducing the cola which we saw in the poll versus the benefits of having that I think it just argues for for moving forward with the no Cola version I think you're it's a little less risky certainly and it allows you to use that argument which is I think the most compelling argument you have when it comes to the no Cola version which is this is not going to increase the taxes that your household currently pays it's just going to extend that existing rate out into the future and then finally you know in terms of
161putting in the work I think and Joy's gonna have some slides on this it's really important that the district uh continue the conversation with the community help make sure that they're informed about the decision you're asking them to make and then ultimately there will need to be an independent campaign to sort of uh Shepherd this measure through the election cycle and so with that let me uh end my presentation um I I hope you could hear me on that end I'm trying to shout on my end um and welcome any questions from the board if there aren't any all right thank you yes we were able to hear you as we went on so um are there any board questions we'll just open it up hi um I just had more kind of comments um
162I initially said when this came out that I think we should definitely keep it the same um you know the 75 because you can you know the voters will be happy that it's not an increased tax or anything like that however now with the budget cuts of Newsome I'm starting to rethink that thought but um the cola is such a small amount that I don't know that that makes that big of a difference because by the end of your eight it only gets you to 95 which is I mean it's another 200 000 a year in that year but um that's not a huge difference what is the feasibility though if you said you know let's make it 85 is that because then you're saying you are increasing it but it's only ten dollars I'm
163just curious what I know we didn't survey that and so I'm just now with the budget cuts you know from Newsome I'm just really just rethinking this a little bit what are your thoughts on that oh do you want to take that Joy so we didn't test that amount and I do think it does change how voters respond right it it really it doesn't allow us to say no tax increase and the other thing that is interesting with even the cola is that what voters see is that 75 dollars and that's what they're paying now and so even though we've said there will be annual adjustments and they can read about whatever percentage that is they're still seeing 75 dollars and it's consistent with what they're paying so to now add in a new number
164it could very much change these results and we just don't have a clear indication um you know it it doesn't mean it wouldn't be feasible but it would clearly be a tax increase and the language would change enough that voters might notice that yeah and I would say anytime you're whether it's adding the ten dollars to the fee or introducing the cola um you know you're adding risk right but the question is what's the reward right is is the ten dollars that you're going to gain in terms of a tax rate worth giving up your number one argument right and potentially having this measure fail in March in which case now you know we have no opportunity left for a no tax increase extension so I always look at it that way and that's why
165I was in part suggesting the risk reward calculus favors the no Cola version because it's it's less than three dollars a year that the tax rate will increase well that's actually more than the ten dollars right that you would get if you just did the flat rate so it in the end I think so I would you know I think the thing to do given again that this is March is your only opportunity to renew it at this point I my suggestion would be to renew it as a with a no call it in March and then the next time you come around to start a little earlier in terms of the renewal process and give yourself two cracks at it the first crack you can be a little more aggressive in terms of the
166rate and or the cola and then if it doesn't succeed you could always come back with a with a no tax increase extension your second time you would have another bite at the Apple so to speak right now I I agree with that I was just kind of throwing it out there I mean it's 113 000 approximately a year but that's not gonna you want it to pass so yeah okay I think the other thing that the other opportunity that you would have with an eight-year parcel tax is if the environment were to change and the district were to say for example in three years they were interested in a supplemental parcel tax there are many districts that I've worked with they protect their initial parcel tax and then it's eight years so you have
167an opportunity somewhere within that eight years three six whatever and you can say well let's test a new parcel tax and maybe that's you know fifty dollars and you see would the community be willing to support a new parcel tax for fifty dollars without risking the 75 that you already have I'm curious if you um did any feasibility studies for this coming election cycle that showed that the um personal tax was not viable in other communities um short answer is yes um we've and I've even done it with bonds right we're at 55 percent where they're not viable a lot of that has to do with in part what the demographics of your electorate look like you know we work in some communities that are far more conservative and um you know it's it's difficult
168for those communities to you know hit either a 55 percent on a bond and oftentimes you know near impossible for them to hit a two-thirds threshold yeah I I will add that this um this past two years I worked with six different districts on parcel taxes uh some were new some were renewals some had colas uh some were straight renewals and there were a variety of reasons for how the district would move forward uh in each case and uh two really good examples that mirror a similar situation where they had existing parcel tax and they were trying to decide whether to increase or add a cola one District again the numbers were very close they maybe could have gone for a cola but you know how would the environment change could they risk their initial
169parcel tax and ultimately they just decided that they needed to focus on renewing the parcel tax and they felt like that was something that the independent campaign could take on and accomplish in another District's situation they face similar numbers uh and they had a group of parents who were just fired up about increasing the parcel tax and getting a cola right and those parents had already raised a substantial amount of money for the campaign and were willing to dedicate their time and teachers were putting in time and effort and so they went for the cola and they passed so again sometimes it's it the numbers give us one look ahead but we have to consider all the factors when we're looking at which path might be best for you as your District like do we
170have the resources for that independent Campaign Committee do we have a group of people who want to raise money and go knock on doors and convince people to give the district more money or does it make sense to protect what you have and then look to the Future to see if we can raise interest in perhaps a supplemental parcel tax did you come up with the eight years uh I think that's what it was before was it eight years originally it was five um I okay so then maybe it was with the committee when we talked about it we decided eight years to try to get a few more years out of it um it must have been then yeah and when we were there we talked about if we extended it we would have
171an opportunity to go back well in advance and it would extend a little bit further so we thought it would be more palpatible for the for the community to do that eight years so they're not seeing it so regularly and then we could always add on as we of course I think that was your direction yeah that's right that's right from our committee uh questions yes uh so if there's no more questions of Tim uh I'll I just have three quick slides outlining the next steps and then of course we uh would like your but if there are more questions for Tim all all pods here all right thank you so much Tim for joining us and for presenting that information thank you appreciate it uh so as we look forward the election uh the
172primary election where you would qualify for the ballot is March 5th of 2024. that means the board would need to vote and deliver a resolution to the county no later than December 8th of 2023. there are a few steps that I like to think about when I think about how do we get from where we are right now which is this feasibility stage to where we need to be for the board to vote and we like to think of it as these kind of four steps feasibility awareness building so making sure the community understands why there is this need to renew the parcel tax and to also help educate them about the quality of education and fiscal management and then the actual major development which is putting together that resolution and the types of programs
173that will be funded uh bringing all those pieces together for the board to come back and vote on and then finally at that point the independent Campaign which is a separate step funded completely privately from the district so very different so on the next slide we'll take a look at the next steps so I only have two slides here uh so June and July will work with the district on the communication plan based on the direction of the board which direction you would like to go Cola or no Cola uh will create fact sheets uh talking points that principals teachers and staff can use will work with the district to update the information develop an FAQ and then also start to brainstorm Outreach lists so people we want to make sure to talk to in
174August when families come back and back to school starts we want to be able to hit those back to school nights with some of that information so that we can start early making sure internally all the families understand how important the parcel tax is and renewing it and then also at that point look at an informational mailer to the community that helps describe you know what the parcel tax has been used for and why the district would like to renew it in September we'll be doing that external Outreach helping the district decide which groups are most important to get information to and begin drafting the resolution and that takes us right up to our next slide which is October um you know updating materials based on any feedback finalizing our Outreach and then either bringing
175that resolution back to the board to vote on on November 13th or the 27th um and we can utilize one or both of those meetings if there's further discussion about it once the board votes uh it the resolution is delivered to the register of Voters and the work transitions to that independent Campaign Committee would raise funds and you know ask people to vote Yes thank you any questions on any of those three slides I have a comment it's not really a question but I I like your um your timeline I think um as we saw in the survey the informational mailers are going to be really important and I think maybe we we you know we don't do a lot of bragging but maybe talking a little bit about you know our successes with the
176last parcel packs and the last Bond measure that um people that don't have kids in the district would be interested to learn about I think that would be really a good idea thank you so we should talk about what action we want them to take tonight absolutely I do think it's important sure that our communication materials present from day one a unified decision about what we would like to do it's it's easy to kind of it's easier to say we want to consider renewing it and and atikola and then walk back to nocola and just a straight renewal than it is to start from a straight renewal see that you know the world is a shiny happy place and decide to move forward based on that and like we have a robust Campaign Committee it's
177really hard to start small and go big that said I think the clear Direction based on what we know today and you know the world we've lived in the last three years our recommendation both myself and Dr mcclarney's would be to consider a straight renewal ultimately it's the decision of the board and we'll build a communication plan based on that thank you I am yeah I just want to comment on that because we've we've talked about in terms of colon no Cola but for me with this parcel tax I think it's really important for people to know that what this translates to in our community currently is people valued staff members one of whom is in the audience right now with us but these are actual people who have actual salaries and so while icola
178would be amazing because we know that those costs also increase with health care and with contributions to retirement and with any raises that our staff get we would be looking at enormous Cuts if we can't just maintain at the level that we're maintaining and because we are talking about real people we know exactly what that would look like and that's a pretty devastating thing to think about and to look at so for me um I feel like the safe the safe bet is the one where we can maintain the programs that we have and and that's the smartest that's where I am is the no Cola because of because of looking at what that would equate to in loss for our district yeah I agree I think um Dr clarney's um you know risk reward
179is the risk worth the reward analysis was spot on yeah I would totally go for the um no colon so it's just no tax no tax increase yeah so Joy said something that really struck me you said that in that one district there were the parents that mobilized and did what they had to do to get the higher number um I think that our district has that I think that we have the parents that can mobilize but I think we need to catch them early um like now before summer like gets into full effect um and I've done the numbers and obviously logically and pragmatically the no Cola has a you know when you add in the margin of error the 4.8 so we have the 77 that support no Cola you add in that
180margin of error which is the 4.8 you're down to 72.2 passage likelihood with Cola you're down that's a five percent difference of support with the cola you add in that margin of error we're down to 69.2 which is only a two percent like threshold with the cola um so obviously my mind played safe but we do have that strong Grassroots parents who have who do whatever it takes in the district to get things done so I don't I think it would be a good idea to tap into them and see what they if they're willing to help us obviously and what they want do they just want the cola or do they want no Cola and based on the response we get from them I think that's the decision you should make because I've seen
181the ptas work their butts off like at the elementary level Middle School also High School somewhat but I think we have enough Elementary School parents that can mobilize the votes that we need to get the cola um so before we even decide to go the safe route I think we should entertain or ask see what the parent response would be as far as what they want us to do for them how would we do that beyond the survey that we already just did I would tend to agree with you or I did agree with you up until the bond measure because I said those exact same orders I think you know this this community would deliver and um you know we have put to the testing there were other external variables that ended up impacting
182that vote and it didn't pass and so we are where we are um and Andy crickman from wrong there's no really practical way to model this as far as the budget and the going beyond the the three-year Mark I mean it's kind of a little bit of a crap shoot with the with the state budget and yeah I think what you do in that scenario is you look at kind of average salary increases over time and you can model it out from that to see you know what the amount now would be based on the FTE that we hire with these funds and what potentially the additional cost would be for salary and benefits so you can look at something that way based on our current trajectory we will exceed that with our current FTE
183but we do make adjustments for that so it can be modeled but there are factors that we don't know about in five and six years we're more in the kind of three and four years out that we can model and and then one more thing Carlos in the last few years the the turnover in um music teachers let's say at the elementary we've gone from those at the top of the salary schedule to the bottom of the salary schedule and then they leave and then we get the middle of the salary schedule so it's we're constantly moving people and well people salaries in and out of the parcel tax because we can't predict who's going to stay and who's not going to stay right that that has an impact on what you how many positions
184we support and correct them I'm wrong but theoretically the uh the 2028 the one that was supposed to guarantee funds in the last election too that was a match that was supposed to be in theory the way it was drafted it was supposed to be a match correct it was supposed to be one percent of our total prop 98 minimum guaranteed so not necessarily A match from that sense it was just that you were to add new sapping so 80 of that should go to new Staffing at minimum and then it should be an increase so supplementing meaning that whatever you have now you have to add to and the question is do you is it a supplement when your local donation money or your parcel tax money pays for it versus your state money
185so there's those things are being um sorted out right now and and I advantage that you get with an eight-year straight renewal is that you have time to activate those parents to consider whether to do a supplemental parcel tax I will say um at this point with the district I mentioned um you know those parents were already activated by the time we were presenting poll results and they were you know had already fundraised for their campaign nearly a hundred thousand dollars so you know they sent a lot of mail they did a lot of door knocking it's it is hard work to pass parcel taxes parcel taxes take work even when there's a community like yours that has um you know a clear desire to support the things that you care about they still take
186work so you know I I think if you have parents who are really excited about it and want to get involved that's great and maybe that would prepare them to be ready for the next time around um I I just I would be nervous if I you know to say otherwise um yeah can we can we stand out like a sir I mean I I hear you yeah but I think that the seed needs to be planted so even if we just sent out a survey like a Survey Monkey would you be willing to support it would you be willing to help mobilize and organize just plant the seed and then the seed will itself grow itself as we're campaigning just to do the no Cola and I think it's important to get that idea
187out there if that narrative started for the supplement in the future so we did those I mean we did those for measure K we did it we did a Carlos and Courtney and I worked really hard on measure measure pages but I think measure K was buildings it wasn't losing teeth no no I understand that it was different but I'm saying in terms of mobilizing because we we did really have this confidence that the community was gonna common support and it was it was a challenge I would say a real challenge to get people who wanted to be not that we just vote but who wanted to be actively involved in the campaign that was an extremely hard thing to come by my concern here and I I agree with joy and I totally agree
188that if people if there is that interest in increasing or adding a cola if we pass this at the same rate we have eight years we could decide at any time to go and change it and still be safe I'm just feeling like at this point especially coming off our last our measure that that didn't pass I I want to feel like we're making the choice that is that we have the most confidence that it can be successful it didn't pass it to lower threshold right so I mean I absolutely if there's people who want to if there's a hunger for adding that I think we have plenty of time to add that on but we don't I don't feel the need to do that right now yeah I was going to ask that is
189there any public comment on this one nothing online all right you could go fill one out after you want to come up yeah so Annie you just you just said you didn't feel there was a need to to do that but we're still going to need their helps to door knock or no Cola so we still need to plant that seed right I'm just saying I don't want to put from from my perspective I want to make a decision so that we can move forward because another thing we learned from that timeline is we were on a really tight time timeline this this time around a little bit less but it's not all the time in the world and so I do feel like there are things that need to happen but I think we
190could come up with I mean certainly we need to start getting people to volunteer but that's I'm just saying that that's where I am I am I'm I am for tonight moving forward with a no Cola done this today okay we do have one public comment Sarah Stafford Martinez president so I did get the email actually as a resident and a voter um and of course being like really invested in this as a full-time music and stagecraft teacher um um but also the other thing that really happened that changed for me just in the last year alone is we purchased our house um and so now all of a sudden I'm fully adulting and paying taxes and really and even in talking to my husband because I got the survey but I talked to my
191husband and right away his whole thing was we're just continuing it oh okay I'm okay with that because that's the one that I got um so that was how we felt in my household and I feel that as I'm talking to friends and neighbors and and of course people who are involved in my program in the music program there's just that oh we're just continuing something so there's that Comfort adding any kind of cost looking at what our our world is right now and how expensive our world is right now just continuing a cost was much more comfortable in in every conversation I've had and I feel like personally this is just me I can I can sell that too and with what I can do with my program and and also I'm very obviously
192very supportive and I have very supportive music teachers surrounding me that we definitely want to get out there and be super involved and I know Julianne was this first time it went around and what we can do how we can support that and get those parents mobilized how can we get my music parents mobilized how can we get our Arts parents mobilized we have really good groups that I think we could get really involved so I'm definitely for that um but I also have that comfort and seeing those numbers tonight really just made me feel a lot better too about okay we can sell this we can do this and we can bring the band and do the hurray and get it going and get it get people excited though and mobilize too so thank
193you thank you are there any other public comments no okay so we can bring this back for further discussion we can make a motion we can take action tonight I'm comfortable doing that but it is for action or information so we would need to have three knobs ahead if people feel like they're ready to catch them I'm just curious um Joy you said easier to start big and downsize than vice versa so what would that look like if we decided we wanted to start with in the mindset that we wanted to have the cola but then if we decided in a couple of months to just do a straight renewal um we would start thinking Communications about again just you know the some of the same things so the need what the current parcel tax
194does uh how it's you know what programs and things that's funding uh we would talk about the need for it to be renewed and that the district was considering uh renewing it at its current rate with an annual adjustment um three percent so we have to be in District Communications very specific and we have to be very clear about the tax rate um there's no you know there's no um there's no way around not saying that it would be a tax increase right it would be clear that we would be increasing the tax by three percent um so you can start that way and then you can decide say you know October gosh really everything we're hearing in the community is that we just need to renew it the problem is sometimes you erode trust
195and people think you're gonna do some bait and switch and they don't know what to trust anymore and that can be harmful too so I think um I think if there is a definite interest in going forward with considering and having more conversations around Nicola it's okay to have more conversations but just know that that could you know there are repercussions so you can come back you can say after hearing more and doing more we we are just going to do a straight renewal but there will be people in the community who will have heard the first thing and they just may not come back to us to the no tax increase no matter what we say it's I mean it's a tough thing and it's a I know that I mean I sat through
196the budget presentation as well and I know I know how hard it is and I I know that um you know that there are a lot of decisions you have to make but I do think the risk reward is still on our side for a straight renewal in a March election and I feel confident that we can renew your parcel tax for eight years and then we can look at other options down the road or your other needs whether it's a new parcel tax or you know whatever that is I want to add to that or you know perspective that I've kind of come to realize um being on the board and just you know government General is the longevity aspect that you know we really have to think the long-term fantasy then it is
197it would be nice to get get it all right now but I think it is if we Pace ourselves get the trust start the message hey it is only 75 this year we would like to go in the future and start planning the seed of um you know whatever we want to start an increase in there to make it uh cost of living base with the with the mindset of longevity I think we've been doing ourselves sir absolutely absolutely okay just to interrupt real quick we are about to run into our 9 30 time limit so I'm going to we'll come right back to this conversation but I'm an emotion that we extend our meeting by 30 minutes second all in favor all right opposed abstentions motion carries okay right back in this since I
198was very vocal about it um I will move to move forward with the parcel text at Street 75 no addition of cola second all in favor aye aye aye opposed hi extensions motion carries all right great so we will be looking forward to continuing timeline and we'll get lots more as the time goes on and starting this summer thank you thank you for being thank you thank you for uh sticking it out with us for three hours have a wonderful evening okay fifth uh 16.2 is approval of resolution 2023-22 to establish temporary inner fund transfers of special or restricted monies presented by Andy Cannon uh this resolution is for temporary inner fund transfers it allows the district the flexibility to borrow money from other accounts when the cash flow is depleted um for most people
199don't realize this with our budget but we do not get evenly distributed money per month so we get different funding sources pays at different times so sometimes we have ups and downs based on our salary that is more or less even throughout the year or large purchases so what this resolution does is if we get into a situation where we run low on cash flow we can borrow from other funds to make sure that we're making payroll each month it doesn't mean that we are going to run low it just means that this is an extra flexibility for that purpose so we're asking for the board to to approve this tonight it's something we do every year at this time just in case we get in the situation so it's a once a year at
200the end of the year for next year any questions on that public comments all right we'll bring that back for action move to approved resolution 2023-22 seconded all in favor opposed abstentions motion carries 16.3 is author authorization of title school-wide program at Martinez Junior High School also presented by Andy Cannon um we have a few sites that are designated as Title One sites and so they receive site funding for that all of their site funding currently resides in their school plans which you've had an opportunity to look at and we'll probably peruse even more what I found when I first started here I was unaware is that our elementaries and our continuation schools are school-wide programs but our junior high is a targeted assistance program so the difference is this in a targeted assistance program
201the funds can only be used on the kids who are identified with need so we fund based on poverty levels so if you have 100 kids who are living below the poverty line you get funding for those hundred kids but when you allocate the funding in a targeted assistance kids who are live in poverty may be well adjusted High achieving students you actually use the funds on kids who have academic needs so the federal government has an allocation formula but then they also have an implement augmentation strategy so when you do targeted assistance it can be a little bit more rigid for school sites to be able to determine which kids need help through testing through other measures when you target assistance doesn't require a school plan but if you have a school plan and
202you have a School site Council moving to a school-wide program allows you the flexibility to take all of your funds put it into the school plan and then you allocate it anywhere with need and you're not stuck with some of the strings that are attached to the federal programs at that point so that's a very general there are still always strings with federal dollars but it's less stringy right for lack of a good adjective there um so what we're proposing is to make Martinez Junior High School the same status as our other schools the site Administration and School site Council has already planned out their their sipsa in that manner so by doing this it's going to allow them the freedom of that flexibility to use and to spend funds they are still accountable to
203their school site Council they are still required to meet with their Title One family members to discuss what those programs are and they still are required to meet the educational needs of the neediest students Through Math English social emotional and other activities including homeless Foster within that as well so what we're asking you and normally we would bring this earlier and ask you to review it first and then do action the timeliness of this to syncing it up with the school plan we're asking you to both review this and to take action on it this evening put anyone on the spot so maybe this is the Helen question but why why is it like that or why was it why was this junior high different than other schools because the percentage of students that were
204that qualified for free and reduced lunch was lower than a school-wide John Muir was made a school-wide by resolution um maybe 10 years ago and Vicente and last one just always had the numbers the percentage the junior high used to be title one and then stopped being title one they just became title one again last year was the first time that they qualified again and had a portion of money sent to them so it was uh just by the percentage Yeah and to add on to that and it might not have been the reason but the federal government over the years dating back to the 70s when they first started school-wide programs they have gotten more and more lenient about that percentage so it used to be you know way back you know around the
20590 mark it hovered down to 40 and now it's down to 35 percent and it will allow it to be a school-wide plan and when when the junior high was the title one it was always targeted when I was the principal and our number was about 36 and it had to be 40 percent and then it was about 32 percent when it had to be 35. so it was always targeted so looking ahead if our population changes there we are we meet the eligibility right now for a school-wide plan let's say it were to drop next year we can get an exclusion for one year and then look at it so if it had to we can make adjustments as we move forward where we indicate this is in our Consolidated application process so I
206will submit this documentation each year to the federal government depicting on what type of services we use so in doing this it's not just a one year we would get at least two years out of this and then we can move forward but there's all sorts of fluctuations that happen based on your your free and reduced income a number of students and just Government funding and what you do programmatically as well can you give me an example of what the money would be used for today if it were just targeted for the kids and what it would be used for if you do a school-wide just to make sure that it's still fair for the people that are supposed to be getting the money I'm just yeah curious so just in general we look at
207it for academic intervention services so supporting kids with math and reading in the elementary school sites a lot of times it looks like additional reading teachers or push-in support um that helps all students um sometimes focusing on special education sometime on general education but there's no line between the two creating new programming that might utilize computer software systems so it could be Alexia service it could be an i-Ready it could be some of the other programs that we have here it could be extra time for tutoring after school so there all of it still has to go towards what Renee described as their needs assessment based on student achievement data that has some type of connection to actually making meaningful change thank you so one of the things that we used to do when we
208had Title 1 and targeted assistance was we hired high school kids to come to the junior high and we paid them ten dollars an hour on time sheets with Title One money to tutor Title One students so some of your title one students the kids who are earmarked for title one who maybe are straight A students they didn't need the service but somebody whose parent hadn't turned into a free and reduced form or didn't qualify for free and reduce that was maybe needing math or English tutoring couldn't get it because they weren't a title one student if that kind of cuts and shows you what it was so is there any public comment on this item we'll bring it back for action so we'll move to authorized Title One school-wide program at Martinez Junior High
209second all in favor all right I opposed abstentions motion carries 16.4 is Martinez Education Association mea and the Martinez Unified School District some sunshine proposals for 2023-2024 presented by Dr scudero so we're bringing uh to the board both meas articles that they wish to reopen and talk about in negotiations in the district articles that we wish to be open and talk about during negotiations it's called the Sunshine process we're just letting everybody know including the public what we're going to be talking about so we're asking for the board today from the board today is to approve the sunshine result it looks like there's no questions any public comments we'll bring it back for board action I'll move to approve the Martinez Education Association and the Martinez Unified School District Sunshine proposals for 2023-2024. second all
210in favor opposed abstentions motion carries and 16.5 adoption of csba updates policy 5121 which I think we've seen 106 times third terms of charm can you pull up to the bottom of the just go I don't know which document you have the new one just pull pull it up to the bottom where the changes so when I presented it last time the board had suggested two more changes one that I fix where it said unexcused absences versus excused and change it to just absences and then underneath the Highlight though that was the last time so this time the last part was um this the very last sentence this information shall be provided to all students at the start of each school year and I didn't put in the syllabus because you'll have that one person
211that says but I don't put one out so it doesn't apply that's why I didn't tell my kids so I put that it has to be to all students at the start of each school year and I did inform all principles of the change that was coming to the board should it be approved they all know that this needs to be communicated at the start of the year So and I've presented for approval I hope all right any further questions or discussion on this item any public comment on this item all right we're doing it tonight action I make a motion to um approve the adoption of csba updates policy 5121 as amended all in favor opposed abstentions motion carries 17 we don't need we don't have additional comments from the public 18 is comments
212from the superintendent board members and future agenda items no comments yeah I'm tired I have no comments either I will just throw it I really enjoyed the graduation week it was a it was a good week congratulations and I really appreciated the uh alhambra's I guess taking on making it making other students and and the kind of making it their own it was really really nice though congratulations to all those have graduated yes I Echo all of that and uh tomorrow's the start of summer school so for all of our teachers and staff and families that are attending good luck and I hope it goes really well and I'll I'll be there I'll be around so um I'm hoping for a successful month I just want to remind everyone we have one more graduation the
213adult school and Nikki has emailed everyone hopefully you've all replied um Suzanne is very excited and looking forward to it and I believe it's at the PAB this year so okay that's it all right uh with that we will see everyone back here on June 26th thank you