Regular Meeting - Martinez Unified School Board - 04/10/2023

001all right good evening and welcome to the regular meeting of the Board of Education for April 10 2023. um we I'm going to go over a few guidelines for public comment and then I will call for public comment before our post session members of the public May attend in-person or live stream um at Martinez meetings on YouTube or via Zoom webinar the guidelines for public comment for board meetings are as follows in-person speakers will be provided the opportunity to speak prior to zoom speakers 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

002in which they raise their hand additional minutes cannot be added by using a second speaker's minutes time limits will be enforced to please plan your comments accordingly okay so with that do we have any um public comments before we adjourn to closed session these have to be comments regarding closed session items okay seeing then we will adjourn to close session will return at 6 30 pm foreign good evening and welcome to the regular meeting of the board of education for April 10 2023. we are just returning back from closed session and we do have one item to report out in closed session on a motion by Annie horak Martin and seconded by Courtney masella O'Brien the board voted five to zero to appoint Amy Espinoza as director one of Educational Services beginning July 1st 2023

003and in just a few moments we'll get to Amy and do a proper introduction um so we'll Circle back to that very soon and we are moving on to the Pledge of Allegiance and could I um embarrass Miss Greenblatt and have you lead us in the pledge please [Laughter] allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it scam one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you I'm sure I'm going to get a nasty text later but I appreciate it uh number eight is the approval uh we're on agenda item eight approval of the agenda and are there any changes to the agenda this evening there there is one change um under the consent calendar under contracts we had a contract for a

004team civics and that contract has been moved from the consent calendar and attached to agenda item number 19.1 a parcel tax extension okay perfect any questions on the agenda any public comments we'll bring it back for action we'll move to approve the agenda with the uh change noted seconded good perfect all right student vote aye all in favor aye aye opposed abstentions motion carries and item nine is our introduction of now not potential that our new hire and Dr Kota will present all right it gives me great pleasure tonight to introduce to you Amy Espinoza she has been in public education for 23 years serving students and families in the Central Valley and then the East Bay she and her Bachelor's of Science degree and a master's degree in administration and supervision from California State

005University Fresno she worked as a teacher instructional coach County office administrator site leader and District leader most recently she has served as the Director of special services for the Walnut Creek School District she has had varied experiences in her different roles including being involved in strategic planning and negotiations additionally she served on the climate and culture committee the equity committee and program indicator review teams Amy has lived in the Bay Area for 12 years she and her family live in Concord her husband Jose is also an educator and they have three children I'll let Amy introduce them later on Amy is thrilled to join the Martinez Unified School District she looks forward to working with a dynamic team and a diverse Community to ensure the success of students in a K-12 District she's excited to

006engage with the students staff and community on topics that impact students academics behavior and social emotional growth everyone welcome Amy Espinoza thank you everyone I'm thrilled to be here tonight and I look forward to joining Martinez Unified School District I'd like to thank the Board of Trustees and superintendent Rossi this evening and I I'm happy to be here on such a great night where we honor our Educators at our school sites as well and so um I will introduce my family uh we I have two of my children here so I have faith uh with me this evening Ganda faith good morning she came here straight from softball so um active will be at Alhambra High School this Thursday if anyone's interested in watching that softball game and I also I also have my son

007uh Seth with me this evening uh he is we're gonna steal him over here to be a paraprofessional sub I'm sure of it uh he's currently working in Walnut Creek School District as a sub paraprofessional and then I also have my husband Jose uh with me this evening and um he is also an educator superintendent so he was able he didn't have a board meeting conflict this evening so he was able to attend with us tonight so once again thank you so much I look forward to um starting July 1st I'm very excited and can't wait for the opportunity for a change right well thank you so much Amy and welcome again we're really excited to have you we know there's lots of work ahead and we're sure that you're gonna have lots of plans

008and it's very it's all very exciting and um and I hope you'll stay in while we honor our teachers but um but feel free to slip out anytime you need to uh item 10 is highlights and recognition the sort of the main event of this evening this is our certificated employees of the Year recognition and Dr Kota is going to present all right I love these nights I think that's it is a great night to be board approved because you get a crowd um I wish I had a um a cheering section like this what I hi see what I'm saying um all right so um tonight we honor our educators of the year and um and um all of them had their principal writes something about them some are short and sweet some went

009on for days I am going to read it just as the principal wrote it and um I'll give you and when I call your name after I um I read it out so you don't have to stand here come on up and please um if your principal is here we'd like to take a picture and and if you have your family here have them stand with you as well okay so I'll try to be loud okay so our first uh educator of the year unfortunately had a conflict and was not able to be here but I'm going to read what was said about her in in any case for Morello Park Cindy Courtney Cindy has been teaching in musd for more than 30 years and has been a teacher at morelo Park since it opened

010its doors in 1993. she has been a dedicated employee during this time working to mentor and support new teachers participate on many different committees and always has a strong focus on academics and student achievement Cindy has a warm and welcoming classroom environment and maintains high expectations for herself and her students her classroom is one of engaged Learners where learning is a fun and collaborative process she is a strong voice for what is best for our students and is always willing to lend a hand when there is need even though Cindy is a veteran teacher she continues to learn and grow alongside her students and colleagues she seeks out new ideas strategies and educational research that will support the many diverse Learners in her classroom Cindy is very well respected teacher in our school community and

011has fostered and maintained strong relationships with students and families during her tenure in musd and at Morello Park she is an asset to our school and community and we're lucky to have her at our school congratulations to Cindy Courtney on being Morello Park's teacher of the year all right representing uh Vicente Martinez high school and Briones is Paula Marchese cacamo is Paula here all right so um MC is a valuable member of our vmhs brione's team Mrs M.C has taken on an important leadership role on our staff she has been essential in creating a data-driven culture among staff to identify support and provide targeted instruction to students in areas of need her student-focused student-centered focus and calm demeanor creates an environment that makes students want to come to school each day she's an asset to

012our school and we are so thankful for her contributions to Vicente Martinez high school thank you Mrs MC all right next up we have um from Alhambra High School Isaac Raymond Mr Raymond has been an integral part of the Alhambra High School science team since forever um he is a highly reflective teacher that is always looking to grow professionally and to try new ways of getting his students to understand and connect with science he always looks for excellence in his students and in his own teaching if you were to step into Mr Raymond's classroom at any given time you would be likely to find his classes working in the lab engage in Hands-On exploration of a science concept throughout his tenure at Alhambra High School Mr Raymond has demonstrated an extraordinary level of dependability and

013flexibility to meet the needs of the school his department and his students often with very little notice he has taken on additional sections of classes agreed to teach courses that he's never taught and mentored new teachers closely all while engaging with the demands of a family life and never complaining when NASA supported his school Community he always Rises to volunteer and goes above and beyond to help by doing things like serving on interview panels over the summer to ensure we have a highly qualified teacher it's clear that Mr Raymond cares deeply about the teaching profession and about the quality of learning that happens in his classroom we are lucky to have him as a part of the Alhambra high schools team come on up Mr Raymond all right representing John sweat Elementary School Shelly Gonzalez

014um Mrs Gonzalez has been a teacher at John sweat since 2012. she is a fearless leader in and outside of the classroom she is supportive caring honest organized and the lead of the kindergarten team she is an outstanding teacher her students and families love her she forms strong connections with all of her students and pushes them to to reach their full potential Mrs Gonzalez is a tireless worker and really cares for her students her fellow co-workers and the JSC and MUSC Community she always takes the time if you need to speak with her even if she's busy she will welcome you with end the conversation no matter what Ms Gonzalez will always do what is best for kids and they are able to take in the love she gives them every day come on up

015Shelly there we go okay representing Las juntas and bringing a whole fan club is Jessica whitlatch all right Jessica has been the music teacher at Las juntas for the last uh 14 years she has always and continues to bring fun energy to the School Mrs whitlatch supports all students in our school and continues to provide a robust music program she creates memories for students and goes above and beyond with her music shows our school is lucky to have a strong and enthusiastic music teacher she has excellent leadership skills and is well liked both in her classroom and among the staff in her music class she Embraces diversity and teaches students about music from different cultures she is a joy to work with everyone Jessica with latch can you come up and have your picture taken

016with her please foreign I'm guessing he's going to be in choir or drama um next up representing Martinez adult education Leif Williams since 1987 Leif Williams has been helping students literally all over the world improve their English he has taught English to all ages in four other countries outside the U.S China Mexico Thailand and turkey he has been both a teacher and ESL program coordinator for Martinez adult education for the past 21 years his greatest accomplishments um in his own words are helping ESL students to realize their goals and supporting them in achieving their desired outcomes whether it is finding a job enrolling in a career training program or taking college classes Leaf is there to help them and encourage them along their Journey he never forgets to celebrate the students accomplishments there is always

017a celebration in his classroom he believes creating a sense of community in the classroom is a key to success for his students and it certainly shows everyone Leif Williams thanks Lisa okay for representing Martinez Junior High School Candace Monroe speed Candace Monroe speed has been a special education teacher at Martinez Junior High School since 2018. she has worked to build inclusive supportive and dynamic learning spaces for all our mjhs students over the last few years Mrs Monroe speed has collaborated with her colleagues in creating both 6th and 8th grade co-teach English courses her passion for and skill in creating positive productive and engaging learning experiences has been such an asset to our students in School Mrs Monroe's speed is incredibly helpful and collaborative with her students colleagues and administration over the last three and a

018half years Mrs Monroe speed has been an integral leader in the development and implementation of the mjhs PBIS program additionally Mrs Monroe speed has been committed to supporting diversity inclusion and Equitable practices and environments in musd she is a committed and active member of the musd equity team working to help support all students to staff and families in musd Mrs Monroe speed is a well-respected educator and a valued member of the njhs family everyone Candace Monroe population there we go hold on let's get the family in there all right congratulations and that brings us to our last honoree tonight and that is our um Martinez Unified School District teacher of the year um from John Muir Elementary Paula Parker Mrs Parker stands out in every way possible as an educator she exhibits many skills and

019qualities that create a professional educator that supports families staff and students it has been a privilege to work side by side with Mrs Parker as she has been an asset to helping John Muir Elementary accomplish its site goals and carry eyes mission and vision Mrs Parker has taken the initiative in working with her grade level team to establish and manage a student-operated green team volunteering her class to do community service once a week for trash pickup developing and implementing a leveled book reading room on campus taking on extra supervision duties and collaborating with the principal on new policies and programming Mrs Parker is driven to support the needs and goals of the jme community she has dedicated herself to becoming a lifelong educator and learner and she strives to instill a similar desire in all

020her students that she works with Mrs Parker is an educational leader and Advocate that will stop at nothing to support the greater good of the educational Community we are lucky to have her everyone Paula Parker congratulations again to all of our educators of the year thank you so much and thank you all for joining us uh we do understand you might have other more exciting things to do although you are very welcome to stay for our meeting um but if you have activities or homework or bedtimes we completely understand so we'll go ahead and take a brief moment for anyone who wishes to take off to do so and not feel like they're interrupting us yeah I mean then you could have had your competition listen to you too all right item 11 is comments

021from our student representative Kiyomi go ahead the school reports for the April 10 2023 regular board meeting are as follows Los juntis thank you to all the families for coming to open house it was so nice to have the community at Las antis and join the work of their students a big thank you to our Bullpup staff for their hard work in getting the school ready for families we hope everyone had a restful spring break and we are looking forward to finishing the Year Strong TK is ready to attend a field trip tomorrow virtual PTA meeting with Board elections are tomorrow night s back testing begins at the end of the month John Muir families were able to engage in a Showcase of ukulele's recorders and Boomwhackers while exploring Student Art in the hallways and

022engaging in interactive activities in the classrooms fourth grade began in incubating chicken eggs students will be studying life science and learning all about various chicken breeds annual PTA auction is Saturday April 29th virtual PTA meeting is Thursday April 13th in John Muir book swap is Wednesday April 26th John sweat second graders released the fish they had second graders released the fish they have been raising in class back into the wild at the local stream fifth graders got into character to give their state reports all teachers put on an awesome open house where students showed off all their awesome work to parents ptas tomorrow evening virtually at 7 pm annual PTA auction is on Saturday at Contra Costa Country Club Morello Park Mrs Ben's fourth grade students released their trout during spring break it was a

023fun activity that is done annually during our open house our third and fourth grade students participated in a recorder in singing performance what an amazing performance this was open house was well attended and beautifully done by all of our teachers this was a great night to Showcase all of the hard work our students have done all year so far PTA meeting is April 11th at 7 pm library and virtually fourth grade field trip to Sonoma is April 13th second grade field to California Academy of Science will be April 14th buddy day will be held April 14th PTA special someone dance will be held April 14th fifth grade mbsd field trips will be held April 11th and 12th CAA spp and S back testing begins next week Jay and Deco assembly will be held April 19th

024and PTA sponsored stem fair will be held April 19th Martinez Junior High we had a wonderful open house where our departments connected with families and provided a peek into our bullpups learning with work examples and activities for all to try additionally we had our talented jazz band playing in the auditorium for all to enjoy thank you to all of our Bullpup families for shopping and supporting our yearly book fair it was a successful night week with visits from classes and during our open house for all to enjoy a special a special thank you to the parents and Guardians who volunteered their time now to our library April 18th PTSA meeting is in is in the mjhs staff Lounge at 6 pm Ela s-back testing begins next week April 14th through the 21st in math aspect

025testing will be the week of May 1st through the 5th mjhs spring musical The Sound of Music will be held April 27th through the 29th Alhambra High School for students planning to attend prom the deadline for all payments is April 20th 2023. today we have sold 102 tickets we need to sell 450 by April 20th the web store can be convenient option or see Ms Patrick in the main office espac testing resumes this week our PTSA meeting will be held virtually this Wednesday April 12th at 7 15. the AHS drama club presents Cinderella April 19th through the 22nd Vicente embryos Vicente Martinez completed our March Madness attendance awareness challenge congratulations to the vmhs students Louis Guerrero and Ricky for winning our challenge with 98 attendance for the month of March we're hoping all families take

026advantage of the upcoming parent education seminars presented by Cope Family Services focused on connecting with your team building a team survival kit and anxiety and fears in children cast casting starts Monday April 17th for mjhs for bmhs and Briones Martinez adult education DVC hosted an application workshop at Martinez adult education 11 Adult School students filled out applications as first-time college students 40 people attended the pharmacy technician program orientation the next enrollment date is June 12th Wednesday May 3rd from 10 a.m to 2 p.m Martinez adult education will be hosting the Contra Costa County adult education career Expo over 30 career training programs and employees and employers will be providing demonstrations and information on Career training programs across the country that are free or low cost thank you great thanks was there anything else you want

027to add tonight item 12 is employee organization reports do you have any reports this evening 13 is comments from the PTA do we have any PTA Representatives okay 14 is correspondence do we have correspondence this evening no correspondence nice 15 is Staff reports we'll start with you with the superintendent report okay so welcome back from break um we're in the home stretch we're starting with our s back testing this month going right into the end of the year activities and then promotion and graduation only 37 more days of school but who's counting I wanted to touch base on a couple of areas that were we've talked about as concerns for possibility for next year one is enrollment so I want to give an update as of today we know today's enrollment will not look like

028let's say um August 1st enrollment but it gives us a good idea of what is happening what our Trend might be so at the elementary schools we combine all four currently we're at 1772. um next year um we're at 17 right now we're at 1733 which is a decrease of 39 students in spite of adding um more more students to the qualification list list for TK so a lot of times we get kindergarten enrollment and TK enrollment a little bit closer to the opening of school and there's a lot of movement at the end of the year people moving out of state coming back in state so on and so forth but right now we're down the middle school is holding pretty steady a little bit of an increase of 25 but we all know

029that sixth grade is a transition year so that number used to always go up um um kids coming in from St Catharines but it hasn't been a trend as I don't think in the last seven or eight years so I'm not sure how that might pan out um so we are showing an increase and it is our only School showing an increase the high school I took Alhambra and Vicente and put them together because as you know students will graduate and then they'll start at Alhambra and they'll transfer over at the start of the year and then again at the semester so the two schools together are projecting a decrease of 20 and Briones is expected to have a decrease of about 15. so all together the with the increase and the decreases it's about

03050 students less right now so what we want to do is at least maintain what we have today and by doing that we need at least 50 more enrollments so it's just like a little preliminary warning and remember it's not just our enrollment it's our Ada the number of students that come to school every day on a regular basis and our P2 which is um the number the Ada that we report to the state for funding is due this month so when we come back on the 20 seventh I think our next board meeting I will give you the P2 Ada in my staff report it'll tell you exactly how the percentage of kids coming to school um we have openings the second area of concern is Staffing because you know it we went most

031of this year without classified staff in the areas of custodial on and off and para Educators especially um cafeteria we managed to to fill and now we already have an opening for next year but it's uh we do have and I just wanted to in case anyone's listening or you know someone we have in the classified area we do have those cafeteria para educator openings at all levels we have noon Duty supervisors for any new parents that you might know whose children are going to TK or Kinder especially in our full day schools the John swept John Muir and Los santasy or TK or kindergarten student goes full day next year and we could use some noon Duty supervisors we're still looking for apparent liaison to help uh translate for our parents uh custodian and

032a tech specialist on the classify or the certificated side of the house we're interviewing on Wednesday for a director of personnel we're looking for psychologists for math English PE and Elementary kindergarten and fourth grade I believe um special ed and CTE teachers so if you know of anyone looking for a job remind them that we take all years of experience on our salary schedule for teachers now and we have a pretty good salary schedule in comparison to other districts in the county free and reduced income verification at the start of each year parents are required to verify all the information in our student database before a child can start the year some call it registration some call it re-enrollment but it's just a verification and an update part of this process is obtaining income verification

033which determines whether or not a family is eligible for free or reduced lunch this may seem silly as you know all students receive free lunch and breakfast but unfortunately it is a requirement of the state in the federal government that these forms are filled out in hard copy as well by entering the information in the beginning of the year it gives us an idea of the number that will qualify when we don't get the hard copy forms or the electronic submissions of these forms outside of the areas database that at re-enrollment it has a huge impact on our funding for both our supplemental and our title programs it can also impact amounts we receive in some of our categorical grants as oftentimes the amounts are based on our unduplicated count number which is our foster

034youth our free and reduce our homeless and our El students so this year we reported our data based upon the input of the parents into our system if a family qualified based on what was reported we sent them a free and reduced application both by email with Adobe sign and Home in the hands of their child recently I just hand mail through the U.S post a bunch more out on Friday there are approximately 200 families that stated they qualified but we haven't received the hard copy form this may have will have a huge impact on the dollars we need to receive not only for this year but years to come I'm asking that these forms be returned as soon as possible so that we can continue to support our goals in the lcap as well

035as the services paid for title dollars such as para Educators counseling time intervention supplies music curriculum and professional development this form can be submitted electronically or hard copy downloaded by going to the district website and typing in free and reduced meals in the search bar I'm sending out my April newsletter tomorrow and it will have the same message in there with links to for submission so if you know of someone who hasn't submitted it even if they don't think they'll qualify even if their finances have changed from July to now submit it anyway because we need the backup for the submission in in July so this is my community plea to ask everyone to please help us help you so I think that is it tonight out one an update from last week when I

036talked to the group or the board about um my meetings with chief White and the community awarding system regarding Community warning system um Joe has since made generic email addresses for each site that linked to the principle so we'll get so the principal in case they change they will keep the email going so I did have Joe do that in response to the board's Direction last week so thank you all right thank you any Ms Johnson public comments all right uh 15.2 is Alhambra High School bell schedule and we have our principal Keisha emmendorfer to present good evening how are you um I'll just wait until the presentation come up but I appreciate the opportunity to share more information about next year's bell schedule okay first oh [Laughter] oh um yeah first time first slide

037sorry no yeah the whole presentation oh it's it looks like the tab is open in the next tab the presentation but go to them yay all right so uh tonight I'm going to share with you our process for changing our bell schedule for next year so we'll start by discussing the composition of the committee the process highlights of our discussions comparison um some bell schedules and then our next steps and so in terms of our committee so from the beginning of the year I would say sometime around October we formed a committee and we met a couple of times throughout the year and uh to discuss possibly changing our bell schedule our committee was made up of one teacher one para educator two administrators James and I and a student and four parents and when

038we met or when we extended the opportunity for community members to join our committee we asked for anyone who was interested in joining but we emphasize that we like for someone to commit to staying through the process just because of like where our discussion started and just being able to carry on from there so we met four times for an hour and a half each meeting and we when we first started meeting we wanted to make sure that our discussions would be grounded in Solutions and that we also had evidence-based to make our decision so again like we don't want folks to come in like with personal motives like I want to make sure that my kid can participate in XYZ and that sort of thing so we just wanted to make sure that we

039could support all students and so when the very first thing we did was we started with reviewing some survey data and I believe we had two surveys that went out to the entire Community students staff and families and then we read some literature regarding Bell schedules and how they support student learning and instruction and then we discussed the contractual obligations we have in terms of looking at what possible Bell schedules would look like for next year so we wanted to make sure that we made sure that our schedule included a seven hour work day but we had to make time or allotments for our Wednesday meetings we wanted to make sure that we could honor also other contractual obligations regarding teachers teaching first and seventh periods and then we needed to meet Ada so you

040know 64 800 minutes and what counted towards those instructional minutes which included passing time instructional time regular days and minimum days and so some of the schedules that we looked at were from some of the surrounding areas so we looked at alkalanes Clayton Valley Monta Vista Piedmont and then last year there was also a discussion within the high school there were two schedules that were already presented there so we wanted to take a second look at those and so that was those schedules were also included in what we were discussing During the period of time um we had a like probably one of our entire meetings included a discussion about a six period day versus a seven period day because um of the county schedules listed there were very few schedules within the county that

041offered seven period days but um that was a but our committee was um set on making sure that all students had the opportunity to take seven classes um because of electives and so the criteria for moving a schedule forward to the staff included we wanted to make sure that we included seven periods there was also like an access or support period and again we wanted to make sure that we could provide the opportunity for students to take electives that they were interested in taking and so the committee landed on three schedules that we passed on to the staff for consideration so it was our current bell schedule we decided whether or not we wanted to remain at the status quo we looked at a Tuesday Thursday block schedule or Wednesday Thursday block schedule and those

042were the three schedules that we moved on to staff and then staff had an opportunity to look at those three schedules and then we came to we reached a consensus and this is the schedule that we landed on so it's very similar to what we're currently offering we still have the two block days uh the block days now instead of 95 minute periods their 89 periods also on Wednesday and Thursday on our regular days our regular periods are 49 minutes um still same time for passing and brunch but then what we included was a 20 minute support period was which was extremely important to the committee we wanted to make sure that we could support students within the school day or interventions if they wanted to if they needed to make up test quizzes and

043that sort of thing and so those went so the support periods come right before lunch for 20 minutes and if you ever get the chance to visit campus during lunch you'll know that a lot of teachers already have their classroom doors open although they're not required to but that 20 minute period before essentially if a student starts a test or quiz gives them like full 50 min minutes to work on something that they may have started with the teachers permission um and so as far as next steps we do have four teachers going to look at some um different so look at two different schools in their support period that they're offering and we're tinkering with the name if we're going to call it a support or an access period because not all students necessarily

044need support maybe they just need time or maybe they can support their peers and so we're still you know kind of messing with the name but the two sites that they're visiting this week is Anisha on Wednesday in Monte Vista on Friday they'll report back what those interventions or that support period looks like and then we'll plan Logistics and make sure that we have a clear message to staff and students and families what that time looks like and we are committed to making sure that it works we don't want it to feel like oh my goodness this is a mess this is confusing we don't want to do this we're committed to it but we do recognize that it will be an iterative process and so there may be some changes and tweaks along the

045way Happy New Year we ask questions thank you yeah go ahead okay sorry um hi Keisha um so you said the classes on the Block days are now 89 minutes what were they currently uh currently they're 95 minutes 95 okay um so there's just going to be periods one through six and two through seven again like this year or it's all one through six so we're in the process of building or hanging the master schedule we're doing our best to move as many students within that one through six period we do recognize that we're not going to be able to fit all of our classes within that one through six period but we when we submitted our or excuse me when we sent out the course request to students we asked them if they wanted

046a two through seven or if they wanted seven periods and so we're doing our best but I don't think it's gonna it'll be very similar to what is currently offered okay because right now you have about 50 of the kids two through seven and okay um and then the Support classes um the 20 minutes you have on the two block days so you have a child that's excelling doesn't need anything the library Can Only Hold so many kids what are those kids going to do so during the support period right now students will be assigned to a teacher so for the first couple of weeks they're going to be assigned to a teacher that's already built within their schedule and then once we kind of discuss the process the logistics and how they will move

047to a place where they may need to for some support then we'll start allowing students to like get a pass to go to another class and that sort of thing which could include going to the library for peer tutoring or something like that for students who don't necessarily need to the extra support but maybe they can lend some support to their peers okay and so they're not going to be walking the Halls they're going to definitely be someone's monitoring we will definitely be monitoring I am confident that is we're going to be hurting cats for quite some time but we're kind of bracing ourselves back but we're not expecting them to to um just linger in the hallways like and that was the reason why we wanted to assign them to a class in the

048very beginning instead of them trying to figure out where they're going to go I'm very impressed that's very good um so I had a question again can you pull up the schedule [Music] um the support you said it's before lunch okay um because I know that I've heard from parents and from some of the kids saying that um the good food or the food that some kids like they run out really quick and I'm just wondering if um how if that's going to impact it if they're still going to be um you know if they get there early because they weren't a support room or in a library is the librarian Mary is going to monitor them and say okay you can only go out at this time or they can be able to get

049into the lunch line early or just to make sure that's fair and consistent for everybody the expectation is that they will be inside a classroom until the bell rings at 1208 okay and so if people are getting there early thank you those are all my questions good job I know it was a lot of hard work for you guys doing this thank you thanks for doing all that thank you for your support maybe this is an easy question or maybe it's not but when are because I've already heard from some parents today let me know what the schedule is when when are we going to let them know uh so we some sometime before the uh end of the school year we want to give students an opportunity to take a look at their schedule

050just to say like does it seem right um and as long as everything is correct then we'll move on like I know people are worried about my child gotta have a one through six or two through seven um those things we we can't necessarily promise we are I failed to mention that we are prioritizing siblings um that they do have the same schedule um but they will get a first look before the end of the school year and then of course we'll be working throughout the summer and at the very beginning of the school year to balance things out yeah I think that's very fair to say yeah thank you thank you this is really well put together and uh informative I I am curious on one of the topics that was um uh highlighted

051in the discussion of the um the equity audit um you know in your background I'm assuming that there was played a role into it and it's kind of interesting that we the schedule we had is going to be maybe the schedule we're going to accept and I'm curious to know with regards to the equity audit and and we do it right the first time and we got lucky or what uh can you kind of speak to that right I think the biggest thing at least what I learned from participating in an equity audit before is we wanted to give students an opportunity to for intervention within the school day and so I think that we are at least checking that box with this schedule um there may be some other things that come out of

052the equity committee or yeah within the equity audit regarding the bell schedule that we'll definitely address but that was another reason why we were like let's not get to make too many changes right now because we did know that the audit potentially was coming it would potentially mean that we would need to have another structural change I have a question um how would the students get picked to a teacher like I know it would be the same teacher that they've had before but how do you know which one to put them in as of right now it is going to be kind of like randomly selected with whatever teacher is currently on their schedule because also within the contract teachers can only have so many contacts per day and so we didn't want to exceed

053that number so it's definitely going to be like randomly selected and that's why we also know that we're going to have to have an opportunity for students to move around to teachers that they need help with because if they're assigned for example to the staff or during their support time they may not necessarily need support from the Stafford in the moment and then she could give them a pass to make a mad class or something like that would it be like their same classmates or would they have different like different people but they both have that same teaching it could be different so are you saying like with would it be like all first periods yeah classes be in the support period not necessarily random I did have one more question I'm sorry um so

054the electives and all that you've fat you're going to factor that all in and actually have the schedule done before the end of the year to let the students look at it impressive okay that's great okay that's I mean that usually never happens I'm just really impressed thank you for doing that and then also the support time um they can still like if they need to see a counselor for something or talk about schedule they can do that during that support time as well yes besides making up tests perfect opportunity for them to see the council okay perfect whoops um more well I guess well correct I'm talking more about the classes so so they'll get a first glance um by the end of the school year is what we're hoping to do just to

055make sure that we can kind of clear up any kind of in the first glance you I think okay so like I thought right okay thank you do you mind filling out a public comment card thanks for me thank you yeah so in the future just fill out the card and then do it come up and I know you were just trying to clarify something which I think is really important but we want to make sure we're doing it right are there any other questions or public comments on this bell schedule all right thank you so much um we are gonna stay with the high school for another report and this is we're on 15.3 teaching walkthroughs program this is presented by James Stewart hey all right guys I'm James Stewart I'm one of the

056assistant principals at Alhambra High School um it's my pleasure to introduce you today to our professional development program that we're using this year um the walkthroughs program so uh Joe let's go ahead and go straight to slide three uh what was the one before that that one yes okay so what are the walkthroughs um each walk through in the program represents an evidence-based teaching practice that falls into several categories it is a practice that a teacher can open and look at and it's broken down into five easy steps what you see on the slide in front of you right now is what one of the pages in the books looks like so if a teacher was to open up the book to this page it's a walkthrough called make everyone think and it's broken down

057into five steps that they can use to improve their classroom practice so the walkthroughs program comes in a variety of modes as you can see in front of you there's very easy to approach books that are part of the walkthroughs program there are three books uh each walkthrough also comes with a set of slides a video a workbook and several other resources and they also have an app that teachers can use to go through each walkthrough if they need to so the walkthroughs in addition to providing a toolkit of evidence-informed techniques that we can give our teachers for professional development also solve a few problems that we have in education so there are a lot of these techniques are pretty well known techniques that have been in education for decades but what happens is as

058they're shared from teacher to teacher they often go through what's called a lethal mutation and a lethal mutation is when a teacher takes an evidence-informed techniques and then just tweaks it just a little bit for their own use and it ends up undermining the effectiveness of the technique right because they've tweaked it just a little too much so the walkthroughs help us avoid lethal mutation by providing a template that teachers can go back to to reference when they're practicing these techniques in their classroom the other problem that this solves is transient words so transient words in education are when we use one of our acronyms that we're so well known for or one of our you know names that we come come up with for a technique and then we mention it in a professional

059development and it just kind of disappears from a teacher's mind over time right which brings us to professional ambesia which is a lot of times when you mention techniques like this to teachers they say oh yeah I used to do that in my classroom I don't know why I stopped right and so if we have a a toolkit of techniques that we can always go back to then we have something that they can refer to over and over again so that that doesn't happen okay okay so there's a video uh it's about two minutes long that I think is really good at introducing what the walkthroughs look like and what they're good for so if you would please indulge the video for a few minutes step by step walkthroughs or visual five-step guides to the

060key techniques that teachers use every day they're being used right now in 2500 schools in 40 different countries we understand that classrooms are Dynamic environments teaching is complex and professional development can be difficult School leaders often lack the time and resources to design their own high impact PD that's why at walkthroughs we have made it our mission to create curate and connect the very best approaches for Effective teaching with instant access to a wealth of materials guidance and training resources our walkthroughs toolkit helps you to build knowledge develop teaching techniques and embed good practice into the routines of everyday classrooms while the modular nature of walkthroughs enables Educators and administrators to create their own clusters of techniques for themselves or their wider teams in a manner that's flexible and also integrated at the heart of

061walk dreams is a selection of 150 evidence-based teaching strategies rooted in a deep understanding of how Learning Works they're organized in six series behavior and relationships curriculum planning explaining and modeling questioning and feedback practice and retrieval and what we call mode B teaching each walkthrough breaks teaching techniques down into five clear steps guiding the teacher through every stage of the process making a real difference to their confidence and their students learning alongside our popular books we have created a range of digital tools to help you build your own professional development programs in elementary secondary and continuing education teachers can access a multi-platform toolkit that includes videos slide decks workbooks and coaching resources the power of walkthroughs in an organization comes from the reinforcement of a shared understanding of key practices and Concepts and are easily

062transferable to a wide range of different settings in classrooms so if you're looking for an affordable exciting and future-proof solution to the challenges of delivering professional the last part is just an advocacy welcome to walk throughs Bill great okay so how are we using this at Alhambra High School uh we are using it in what's called three stream professional development meaning it's used in three ways one is in whole staff training so before faculty meetings we might pick a focus walk through for the school and go through it each walkthrough comes with a set of slides that makes it really easy for us to do that it also comes with videos right if we chose to show a video that walks them through the technique right it's the main walkthroughs the second way that we're

063using it at Alhambra High School are in our plcs so this is a time when teachers get together and they look at techniques together they talk about them they talk about how they might use them in their classroom and then they commit to trying something so that the next time they come back they can report on how it went this is a time for teachers to explore evidence-based practices and this is a whole toolkit of evidence-based practices that they can go to they can identify their own needs for their classroom and then very easily find the exact walkthrough that would meet that need right the Third Way that we're using the walkthroughs at Alhambra High School is through our instructional coaching program so in our teacher evaluations we frequently will reference the walkthrough techniques right

064both positively and as a way to give the teachers some way to grow in the classroom we can say hey I saw you use these really excellent techniques from our walkthroughs program here are some techniques that might assist you in the future right um the walkthroughs give us a common instructional language so that when I say hey I really think that you could benefit from using think pair share in your classroom we both can go straight to think pair share in the book and know exactly what I'm saying right um so this is the three stream PD model that we're using uh the rest of the slides it's just I encourage you to look through them at your leisure I sent them to all of you it's just a list of all the techniques if

065you'd like and can also provide you with the login so that you can explore them on the walkthroughs website if you'd like to okay I'm here for any questions if you have them so um when did you start using this this is our first year okay and it's been successful so far yeah yeah so far I mean the the PLC process is always a learning process uh research shows that it takes a few years to get teachers kind of into that Groove um we call them cyclical professional development meetings right so with the idea that these are going to persist for a long time and you should expect to come back and report on your practice and what techniques you're trying we anticipate using these for uh in the foreseeable future it looks really good

066interesting I wouldn't mind getting a login just to test it out like mine thanks just curious to know what the reception's been like from the teachers I've gotten good feedback um one thing that we're looking at doing in the future is in our plcs we would like to um right now they're meeting as departments right so the Departments get together and they're looking at these practices together but in the future we would like to have more focused learning forums that would focus on specific areas of needs so if a teacher identifies for instance um questioning uh and feedback as an area of need all of our teachers that also identify that area of need will come together and look at questioning and feedbacks techniques together right now as our teachers get together in their departments

067sometimes it can be very tempting to discuss Department business right and so I would like to give our teachers the opportunity to find the area of need that they they have that they think they have and to explore those needs together so I'm looking forward to that I guess I'm trying to understand I understand the theory I'm trying to implement the Practical on my head and um I don't I'm thinking like you know if I'm a math teacher you're going to start teaching Pythagorean theorem you're gonna go to the book and do what while there are General classroom practices that are common to all subject areas so for instance if you need to get the students attention every teacher has that need right so there's a technique in the book called signal pause insist and

068that's a technique that teaches a teacher to have some kind of routine in the classroom where you can signal students for their attention it teaches the teacher to pause until you have that intention or attention from the student and to insist on that attention that is a technique that is translated to all subject areas right so most of these walkthroughs are translatable to all separate areas how often are the teachers being um I don't want to see reinforced but reminded to use these methods so the teachers meet monthly to do their CPD Cycles so at least monthly they are looking at the walkthroughs together um we also use them like I said whenever we provide feedback to our teachers so we have recently put up posters around the school that include some of our some

069of our Focus walkthroughs so one of our professional developments that we did over the October professional development day was on research-based practices in the classroom called rosenshine's principles of instruction and what we have done is mapped the walkthroughs to each principle of instruction and created a poster for that and put it all around the school so that teachers we talk about the walkthroughs we use the language of the walkthroughs regularly so we all have a common instructional language in the school and we have visual reminders around the school so we we anticipate to continue to make this a focus of our school are there incentives tied to teachers using this available other than the other than their professional fulfilling their special professional responsibilities during our staff meeting time I wouldn't say that there are any

070specific incentives in place and does this program if the students were aware that you know these methods are being used on them would that strengthen the program or would it do we know what would happen if we got the students to buy in to these methods also that is a future goal of mine actually I would very much like the students to be involved in knowing what the focus walkthroughs are for the school what kind of techniques they should expect to be seeing used in all of their classrooms so that when they go from classroom to classroom and they see the teachers using the same techniques they know why and where it comes from yeah I think that's a great idea any other questions public comment s do we know where this method originated well

071all of the walkthroughs come from various evidence-informed places so um the program itself originated in the UK there's a gentleman named Tom sherrington that put it together um but he has pulled many of the techniques from several places a lot of them come from Doug lamov's work with teach Like A Champion a lot of them come from other areas like um professional teaching journals like rosenshine's principles of instruction some of them come from books that have come out throughout the years and he's what he's done is he's taken all of these evidence and form techniques that we know work put them into one place and then produced an unintimidating way that teachers can approach them by breaking them down into five steps which is why we chose to go with this program over something like

072teach Like A Champion which also is a toolkit of evidence-informed techniques but it's a very very thick Tome of a book right and it doesn't come with as many PD tools for us to use so ultimately we decided to go with the walkthroughs to help inform our instruction at our school just because it's so approachable you talk about the apps being available is that just like the free download for teachers uh they're Kindle books they're five dollars a piece all right thank you okay thank you [Laughter] okay great uh item 16 is public comments got a big long spiel so bear with me and then we'll get to our we do have a couple of public comments under government code 54954.3 members of the public have the right to address the board on any matter

073within 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 protocols listed above those are 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

074report 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 we do have the first one that came in is Sarah Stafford representing the AHS drama club good evening Sarah Stafford teacher at Alhambra high school I just wanted to clear elaborate a little bit on Cinderella opening next week we are doing Rogers and Hammerstein's version of Cinderella the 1957 version with Julie Andrews is lovely beautiful music 40 actors and actresses we've been rehearsing for 12 weeks we have 11 student musicians and also seven techies and it will be next Wednesday through Saturday Wednesday Thursday and Friday at 7 pm and Saturday at 2

075pm in our performing arts building and it is our first musical in the high school performing arts building since 2019 since Bye Bye Birdie so this is really a big big show um over a hundred costumes it's yeah it's a lot multiple scene changes and it's just really exciting to have all the kids there it's just a really great energy um Mr Weiner and I have been working on shows together now for over 20 years and so we're really excited to put this on um I'll be Tech directing and actually playing in the orchestra with the kids so we want to invite you tickets are only 15 for adults um ten dollars for senior citizens and students and five dollars for kids ten and under so I brought a couple posters we have some QR

076codes and all of our tickets are through go fan and we're really excited to share this huge musical again and just brimming with excitement and beautiful beautiful music so just want to invite you all to our show thank you so much thank you sir a good question yes please the uh the revenue that's been generated is it's going to into the drama department or does it go to the boosters or how it would yeah it goes right up back into the drama program um our our costs are pretty high to put on shows and so it funds this show all the rentals because all the costumes are rented we rented all their music and also the rights and also um to pay the choreographer and the conductor um and then we also pay for forward

077shows we pay for our forward shows but then I know our drama boosters are going to be there each of the nights and they're going to be fundraising to selling items during intermission and those funds go right into uh scholarships scholarships for our seniors so we try to um give out as many scholarships as possible to to our drama seniors and if somebody wanted to make a donation they can do that on the Alhambra Web Store I believe the Drama parents do have the drama boosters have has a a portion on the Web Store I'm pretty sure 99 sure so yes yes oh and then I forgot to say the art gallery will be open actually during all of the shows with artwork from all of our students from the visual or the visual part

078of our department so which is almost finished actually they've already hung in their whole show so every night of the show they'll have that open too it's really cool thank you so much great thank you oops I have a question actually so does the ability exist for it to be broadcasted on TV where people can pay to watch it we we would want to do that except we would have to pay a lot of extra money for that right because we run we went through um MTI it's the company that we rent through um and we're not there technology wise yet quite yet um I'll put it towards to Mr weiner as a future item possibility but the streaming rights are kind of cost prohibitive for us for just a basic show for this show

079it's about three thousand dollars starting so to do the rights would rather spend a little bit more on our costumes and our sets so yeah sorry about that yeah we also can't um record it yeah that's it's yeah they have rules all sorts of rules about that sort of stuff too so but it's live theater it's beautiful any other questions I'll see you at the show right planning on it thank you all right next we have uh Craig lazarati good evening School Board um I wanted to talk tonight for a couple minutes about the issues with the Martinez refining company in relation to the spent Catalyst toxic dust release from last Thanksgiving I'm sure you've been following this issue but there's been some important developments in the last week or so that I want to

080make sure you're all aware of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District 8 presentations last week at the city council and to the MRC oversight committee uh wherever it presented the plume model for the dust release where they did a computer model looking at where they believe the dust fell and I'm not sure if you're aware of it one of the highest concentrations were found in terms of visible dust which is found at Martinez Junior High School um there's a few issues here and I don't think I've seen it come up in a public manner um and I haven't seen public engagement on the part of the school board at the many political uh political public meetings that have been held on the topic uh but I think there's a couple of things you will

081need to be aware of here um of course we were fortunate that this happened during a Thanksgiving week where schools were at a session but um there's the refinery in its first Public Announcement about the release I told the public on social media a couple days after the release that the material and the Spanish Catalyst the tastic dust was both harmless and to this day they've never rescinded that statement even though Contra Costa Health authorities have said repeatedly that the material was not harmless it was filled with heavy metals now uh this does fell on your property and I'm not sure what you knew about the dust in the days after this incident or what you did about the Dust but um you as well as the entire Community were led to believe that the

082dust was harmless um and it wasn't and um part of the point of the plume model now is to do soil samples see if there's any long-term health and environmental effect on the soil and hopefully some of the soil on your property will be used in a soil sampling in which a consultant has just been hired the other thing that I want to point out and it came up I'm glad the superintendent brought up your presentations the community warning system as you may know the uh Refinery failed to activate the community warning system in relation to this release and in fact Contra Costa Health authorities only discovered this release through social media posts from community members the only way they knew that this release that this 20 to 24 tons of epoxy dust had fallen

083into the community now this matter has been referred to the Contra Costa district attorney for review and possible legal action um this is very alarming because as you know how many campuses exist within close proximity or Refinery and the idea that the refinery were not um activate the community warning system in fact said the reason it did not activate the community warning system was because it did not know that it had dumped 20 to 24 tons of dust on the community I think what you need to state that so these are things I think where I'm out of time but the commute the school board and the school district needs to become publicly engaged at a very significant way that I haven't seen yet thank you all right thank you and I know um superintendent

084Rossi you did go back and watch that city council meeting soon yes I I did meet I'll reiterate what I told you last week I did meet with um chief White I've spoken with him at length as I was directed to him as our city liaison to um for this incident that happened and he was the city's rep to the community warning system I did meet with him I understood the problem um we talked about solutions to um the warning system and and the level two in the city putting in the text that's what I was referring to when I spoke to to Joe about Joe putting in the um the emails and also that Los Angeles um is not at this time able to put in for that because it's in the county but

085they are working on that solution which should be in place in the within the next month or so if it's not already I have to double check this week but um I am and then I did go back and watch uh on the recording on Thursday morning I watched the Wednesday night recording so that I had a good understanding of what was going on and um had questions asked of me as to whether or not I knew Martinez junior high was one of the observed spots and I said no nobody had ever told me that so there's a lot of information that is out there that is coming and I am reeling that um to the board as it comes through so okay are there any additional public comments online all right 17 is the

086consent 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 request that any such item be removed from the consent calendar and voted on upon separately do we have any changes to the consent calendar this evening not according to the amended agenda okay perfect and I did have a comment which is we have um one resignation and Dr Kota has been spending the last two meetings uh celebrating and recognizing our excellent staff here and I just wanted to wish you the very best of luck as your new um in your new promoted role of superintendent and thank you for your service to us and we wish you all the best in the future well I'll look for

087that thank you Dr Dakota efforts it's been a pleasure working with you um the other thing I'd like to highlight and I'm always astonished how much generosity this community uh we see or this District receives from the community um and the acceptance of gift donations we've actually received over fifty thousand dollars in donations there's a one that's a little bit of um very generous but obviously in light of what we're experiencing the twenty thousand dollars from Martinez refining obviously just need the money and we appreciate it it's hopefully it's um in um and that was done that was done way before Thanksgiving we're just playing ketchup but the other one is from the two ptas Morello park in Los juntos their generous donations to both schools so thank you to your community members any public

088comment on item 17. sure thank you I'm relax by Stephen Lynn has brought up MRC donation because I didn't ran out of time and practice to address this but um I hope you all understand that the issues involving the refinery and its activities in relation to the safety of our children need to be totally separated and divorced from any Financial contributions made to the district any support um those are two totally separate things and I trust that um you will you will when you receive these donations from um businesses or corporations or entities who have a direct impact on the health and safety of our children that you will create a clear line between those two different assets of the situation thank you any additional public comments who will bring that back for board action

089move to approve the consent calendar the change second student vote hi all in favor motion carries item 18 is a discussion and information items 18.1 is the review of the resolution um I think the year here we might need to make a correction or just an addition it says 20 23-20 I'm thinking it should be 20 23 Dash oh that's the resolution sorry okay sorry I was thinking it was the year uh recognition of lgbtq pride month and uh superintendent Rossi will present so last year uh during the month of April a resolution um was presented to the board in recognition of lgbtq pride month um stating that the district office would fly the pride flag for the month of June and that was for only for 2022 so I brought it back to see

090if the board wished to continue or to do this again this year for 2023. no and so I presented for a discussion tonight okay and I wanted to you know if those who follow our meetings we there have been some resolutions that might appear to be missing and they're not really missing what we have done is we've created um superintendent Rossi created an entire area on our website with um all of the recognition months that we have previously had a resolution for and with links to resources for families and things that we're doing in our schools and so there's a lot of really great information on there actually more recognition months than we had resolutions for so there's always room to grow and I think that's really great this one though does come with the

091action of um flying the flag which is why it doesn't need to come for board action so it's just for information tonight but open to any discussion um I'll take I I brought the resolution last year so um I think that it's really important that we do this because it it's very meaningful to many of our students and families and community members and it's also something that the City of Martinez does uh one thing that was brought to my attention last year excuse me was um a couple of community members asked if Flags could be flown at the individual schools but I know that we're not we are I think our last day of school this year is June 1st so um it may be a mood issue um if that was something that a

092let's say a a principal at that one of the schools wanted to do is that something that they could do or would that have to come back to us for action I believe the way the resolution is um written is that it's for the district office black because we are the only building that is um still running for business in June do the other schools do they raise the flag in nons on non-school days if the custodian is not on break okay yeah so it would be it wouldn't necessarily be I would have to check I would have to check with Jared okay on that okay foreign so one of my concerns um last time when this came up was that it's not representative of all community members and while I'm very supportive of the

093the proclamation and the support of our lgbtq community um it's I'm concerned that this ends up becoming more divisive than it does uniting or showing support for one group and not showing support for another group we had a parent you know come and present how their child didn't feel safe in in some of these situations um where a transgender or identifying an individual was sharing the bathroom and it concerns me and I'm curious to know what the board's perspective of this um uh that we by recognizing or promoting or celebrating one we inadvertently uh diminish the rights and concerns for another group and um I with how politically contentious this subject has become in this day and age especially as it translates to the the email we received earlier regarding uh the Title IX requirements

094for for transgender youth or athletic participation I'm very concerned that this ends up becoming more divisive position of demonstration than it does the uniting and supported the proclamation of all in favor of the demonstration of the flag that we don't do that for any other organization or community group is concerning Becky would you like to speak yeah I mean I I know you expressed similar concerns last year um and I think what we talked about last year is that we would address things on an individual basis if we were asked to raise the flag by other groups and we haven't been um I'll just say that it's just a flag and support it's not celebrating or promoting anything and supporting a community that's traditionally uh we we deal with students that are bullied uh there's

095a higher suicide rate we talked about all of this last year it's just showing support it's not taking away from anybody else that's my perspective yeah I I agree with uh trusty Masala um my children are straight um but we do have gay family members and friends and as a Latina and being a member of a marginalized Community I can understand the need to be in solidarity with this group um and it doesn't take away from me or being a Latina or a Chicana if I see a gay flag flying anywhere if anything I see as more of a Unity towards communities that are pushed to the sides more often um and if someone does have an issue with something I think you know dealing with it on an individual basis is probably the best

096route to go but I think it's also important that these conversations come up because we can't continue to ignore them um if these conversations aren't being had in the open this is when kids are getting bullied behind closed doors or when there are no adults around amongst themselves so if it triggers conversations and uncomfortableness then I think that's important and it has to happen because we're not going to overcome these issues that affect us if we're not having these discussions I'm glad you brought that up because it does it has it happened to me personally of being dismissed and um being effectively called out for not knowing the difference between equity and equality and my position you know it wasn't if I didn't see it this way then I was against it and and feel

097I didn't feel heard I didn't feel listened to I didn't feel give me the opportunity to discuss the matter in an open forum and so my own personal experience with in in trying to engage and ask questions and and let's come together that wasn't the result and so that's why I think this becomes very concerned um I think that what Yasmin just said is true I mean um I think we're having the conversation now which is important I mean it's it's happening on a national level I'm sure we all watch the news and we see the laws that are being passed which is why I think it's more important now than it ever has been um because the students look to us and the community leaders to know whether we think they should be safe

098or not and all we're saying is that we support you you're safe we're not saying that they're safer than anybody else we're saying that everybody should feel safe yeah I I see that and I I see your point and I think um you know there are certainly families have the right to teach their children and discuss and any of these issues in the way that they see fit and I see our role in the school district as protecting keeping these kids safe knowing that school is a place where all are welcome that does not showing support and making sure that kids feel safe to me is not the same as we're promoting a particular anything I think it's just showing support for the students that we have because whatever a person's beliefs are the reality

099is we do have lgbtq students we have lgbtq staff we have lgbtq community members so it doesn't really matter like for me it doesn't matter necessarily my own personal beliefs it's these are the children that we are serving and so I see it as a responsibility of the school district to make sure that every student feels comfortable walking onto campus and knowing that that we are doing the best that we can to provide a safe place for them and I also think in practice we did we had a we did this last year I didn't and I don't I cannot speak for any other board members and some of them aren't here anymore so I don't know what kind of feedback anyone got but the only feedback I got was positive so that was the

100sort of in that first year I didn't I actually just didn't really hear a lot about it at all but I I got some some positive feedback from some families certainly people who had come here when we were voting on it um so for me it seemed like a I think it's for me it's it's easy to separate any personal beliefs from here's the reality of a group of children that we are serving we know they exist we know that we're serving them and we have a responsibility to make sure that every child feels as safe as possible and as welcome as possible at our schools I agree with everything you said I just I don't know that a flag that flying flag that does that but I mean it definitely is a symbolic gesture

101and I think that we are a history we have a long history in this nation of doing symbolic gestures and sometimes it takes us a long time to catch up with that symbolism but you know there we are I certainly it is only symbolic yeah we do actually have a public comment on this did anyone else on the board have anything we can bring it back to the board hear me any comments no all right so we'll bring it to our public comment um Craig lazarati again um for 18.1 okay thank you well thank you for the Civil discussion on a sensitive topic I wish we could have that kind of stability everywhere in this country so I'm coming here to you tonight as the father of uh transgender childhood Dental appliances non-binary so this

102is very important to me and I applaud the board for its leadership and passing this resolution and going Beyond worth but doing something some um symbolic and blind lag it does mean something to the transgender Community who are under such assault and attack across the country um so trustee Melendez to your point about singling out particular groups why we single out one group and how what message it sends um the reason we single out the LGBT community in this regard is because they're unique and they're unique in being attacked from seed to shining sea and school boards and legislative houses across the country with laws being passed that to mean them that attack them that make them feel threatened and they just want to be left alone to live their lives they're not asking for

103special treatment they just walk to live their lives they just want people to understand who they are and let them be free to be who they want to be in conjunction with their families and their doctors and whoever else is involved and that's all they're asking for and when we talk about political divisiveness where does that come from because someone's making things divisive that don't need to be divisive you know we went through this a few years ago with uh racism after George Floyd how we teach the history of racism in America and we had a moment there where we we had a reckoning and coming to Jesus type moment where we decided well we're really going to teach history in a more meaningful way peel back all the layers you could get below the

104surface then of course all of a sudden it was divisive it was backlash it was teaching white people to hate their country I've read the 1619 project book from cover to cover it never taught me to hate who I am and never taught me to hate my country all it did was open my eyes to things I never learned in school that I should have learned you know I was glancing that to Abraham Lincoln things back there I think Abraham Lincoln was a wonderful man he's one of my heroes but when we teach our students that he ended slavery that's a lie he did not end slavery it's not that simple the Emancipation Proclamation never ended slavery you know and so when we go to LGBT issues what we're talking about like racism is you

105first talk about understanding let's just have a conversation let's not politicize everything we have one side that wants to ban everything books bam books band transgender rights we banned everything but assault rifles we can't touch the assault rifles but the books are going to kill people the transgender rights are going to kill people Louisville today again again but is that divisive so we can't talk about that thank you is there any additional public comment on this item and then online all right is there so this will come back for Action um next time is there any other discussion from the board at this time I just wanted to clarify um you're asking it to be the way it's on here just flying the flag here not at the school sites yeah unless unless a proposed

106I mean we could find out it does sound like I mean yeah no and I think um you know the district is fine I just want to make sure that we're talking the same thing I want to understand what we're what we're talking about so what we will unless there's direction to do it in a different way okay what will come back for Action is the resolution as it is written um in the agenda this evening unless all right and even if there is we could still decide how what what we want about right because it's not Junior got it okay thank you that was my question so do we really have to renew this every year like I would be okay for it to be for the next four years of my term um

107that I don't know we can we find out that would it can be worded any way you want it to be worded um I kept it year to year because the board changes and it gives everybody a voice otherwise it just is just status quo um it's up to the board really however I just copied last year's as I was asked to write it change I don't know and that might not even matter but last year I was asked to write it for that June yeah I wrote it for that June and it well then I told you the governance plan hasn't come back every year at the same time you know I think it's a good conversation topic to have so I think it's better to have it annually renewed or talked about discussed

108just my thought I mean I see the value in doing it I also see it is a discussion point it is you know something I think that the community is interested in it does bring It Happen give us an opportunity to discuss it each year um are you comfortable Yasmine leaving it is year to year do you want to look into options for defending it um we can discuss it again next time right the next meeting well I think whatever we want to do we give staff Direction because we would need to write it a particular way so whatever we it could always go another two weeks out and still be in time for June that's true it'll start early because we wanted to make sure that we are not running into a timeline crunch

109so um well you know two years since there's two years I think like on you guys maybe better but I I see your point of discussing it every year I don't know and I just think if there's other groups out there that haven't realized that we have done this um it just gives an opportunity for people to hear and and bring up if they want to do it too I mean you know theoretically you could get to the point where you have every month a flag of some sort so when we passed the resolution last year this did this came up and this was a concern of mine and some in the community I got a little bit vilified for it actually and what my concern was was that we were not opening ourselves up

110to anyone comes and says hang this flag can you do this and so we adopted board policy in conjunction with the resolution the board policy says that it has to be voted on by the board and it has to be in conjunction with a nationally recognized month of like observance so like a um right it's not written it's not it is no it has it it is it has to be not a whole conversation like it would have to be something that is also a nationally recognized month or time period like um like Hispanic awareness month is not actually just one month it spams September October so it would have to be something like that it would also have to come up for for a board vote so in our board policy someone can't just

111because I had said well doesn't this just open the door for like what if someone wants to come to us and just like I don't know fly there like Local Union flag and we wanted to make sure that we're not just you know fielding all these requests and making unnecessary work for staff and that we still have the oversights to make sure that it's in accordance with what we're doing as a school district and that's one of the reasons I think annually is better just because but yeah okay yes can I tell you how it's right yes in the policy it says in addition the board May through the adoption of a resolution authorize the display of a symbolic flag or Banner in support of a specific Awareness Month okay so are we comfortable leaving

112the resolution of is then and bring it back and if we could still make a change and then bring it back in two weeks but we'll we can bring it back for Action in two weeks I like it the way it is I would not make any changes to the way it's worded right now okay just my opinion all right so that's what we'll do we'll leave it as is and we will see this again in two weeks uh okay moving on to 18.2 this is recommended changes to board policy titles also presented by superintendent Rossi so when the um the old gamut system transitioned into the new gamut system which is our assembly system that we use um there were some title changes so for instance a policy 420.4 which was Charter Schools is

113now Charter School authorization or summer school the policy has been changed to Summer learning programs so um csba sent us a list of title changes all of the title changes were made during transition and they're brought forth tonight to for the board to approve the title changes I've reviewed every one of them and will have them for review with my board policy committee that's meeting this week I believe and um I'm asking the board to um take a look at them and if there's any issue let me know before the two weeks are let either Carlos or Tanya who'll be meeting with me know that you have an issue with the title change none of the policy is different just the title so okay any board discussion or questions on that any public comment on

11418.2 I think we'll see this again in two weeks 18.3 is review of csba updates March 2018 December 2019 May 2020 October 2020 June 2021 and March 2023 presented by superintendent Rossi okay so tonight I have the updates on the following policies that Annie our president horak just Martin list well I'm having a night um and you can see there are some from 2018 to 2021 and when I went through all of the policies um to make sure that we captured all of them in our review I found some that were still stuck in draft from the transition and these uh the the ones from 2018 to 2021 are those and so I fixed them up and have them ready to go for approval they too will be reviewed as well as all of the

115March 2023 which I really think this will now put us up to date but I'm gonna find one next month you know it so I've heard that before but I think I got it now so um I'm asking the board to review these they will be reviewed with the um my policy committee um this week and if you have any questions you can direct it to either Tanya Carlos or myself any questions or discussion on any of those so I did notice on one and now of course I didn't even mark it so I apologize I don't remember which one but it's the one about homework um and this is I think a long overdue new update to our homework policy and I'm hoping that in your committee um we can look at that and

116maybe and this might be more for Helen but I want to make sure that all schools are actually doing the policy if that makes sense I know there are some schools that have had a no homework policy and that's not quite what word policy is so um I think that the homework policy one was in one of the older ones that I found in draft which means we had the policy and for some reason it didn't transition so I had I couldn't find evidence because they deleted the old bank so I put it in here but upon approval of these policies they will be sent out to all site Administration to make sure that they are aware of it and that they're being followed okay great is there any other questions or discussion a public

117comment on item 18.3 all right so we'll see these again in two weeks 19 is action items we have one that is actually information or at possible action tonight this is the parcel tax extension presented by Andy Cannon uh thank you before you tonight is a contract for services with a vendor called team Civics and this is the company that we are recommending to help us with that partial tax renewal with us virtually so these will be hopefully our first participants on Zoom but with us our joy from Team Civics and Jeff from Isom advisors and so I'm going to go briefly through the items that are here on the board agenda and they are going to be our resource to share any additional information so to start with uh if you guys can just

118say you're here so we know you're here you can hear us and you'd be able to respond so Joy are you with us uh yes I am and this is Jeff I'm here hi everyone it's talking about is we will have it'll be like a walkie-talkie where you have to push the button pause speak let go pause and switch so we'll we'll see if this works out well for us this evening um so the contract if you have it open I want you to go ahead and turn to exhibit a and so there are three main points to the contract that we're looking at with Team Civics and they are feasibility assessment and this is going to include a survey so we'll be working with the team of folks to be able to determine what

119are those questions and what is the information that we want to receive from our community about a possible um partial tax renewal the second part of it will be a ballot measure development and so this is where again um if we choose to go as the board chooses to go with this contract we would have joy and her team start putting together the information necessary to put this on a ballot measure and I'll tell you when we're projecting to do that when we get to the timeline the third part is public information so this is about getting the word out to our families about what the parcel text does and for everybody who is listening our parcel tax pays for our libraries and for our Arts education and so it goes directly into people for

120those purposes and also counseling thank you um if you could go ahead and look at the Timeline that's also attached to the board agenda and we are trying to move fairly quickly here there is a lot of work to be done um and so we had initially looked at tonight with possible board approval on the contract if that's the case we were wanting to meet with a small feasibility committee by April 13th we are going to have to move that date a little bit because we're not going to be able to get everybody there so we'll look at something for next week and hopefully joy and Jeff I'll talk to you more about that when we're done today see if we can figure out what that is for next week as you look through April

121we would work with this group to put together that feasibility study they would go through the process of sending out information and talking to the public in May and then we'd be able to get word back to the board about what information was collected and to see if if the board wanted to move forward with that partial tax renewal as we go through this timeline you're going to see there's an extensive media campaign that we would go through in order to be able to publicize the information and the impact of what a yes or no decision would mean to the district to its staff and its students with an end date in mind that we would be going for the election date of March 5th of next year so our timeline is tight in the

122sense that our parcel tax will sunset in June of next year so this date of March one of the concerns that was out there is would we have to notice staff of potential layoffs because of the timeline of this information well if everything works according to a plan here we would actually know a reasonably know if the partial tax would pass and that would avoid any type of layoffs we would have to make at this board for the staff that's employed because of that partial tax um getting back to the contract the terms of the contract are stated within here and so they are a five thousand dollar a month fee for services and those Services if it's a partial month which it could be for the starting out and at the end then it

123would be prorated based on that partial month if there is no work being done by our by our by our vendor then that would not have a charge as well um and what I'm describing here is listed in exhibit exhibit B under fees in item two of the exhibit via fees there's also an estimated cost of what it would mean to put a mailer out and so roughly about 11 000 households in the district for that communication it would be about 9 500 for sending out so the contract before you is a seventy thousand dollar not to exceed seventy thousand dollar contract uh based on all of these inputs the five thousand dollars a month which is roughly a 12-month period and the possibility of having mailers sent out through the program um and joy

124if you want to add in anything that I may have missed or something that may be significant for the board to consider you can unmute yourself and let us know thank you good evening members of the board superintendent cabinet uh pleasure to be with you tonight um I've had the opportunity to work with many districts on renewing their personal taxes uh over the past 15 years also help them pass parcel taxes although it does seem like the timeline is tighter I assure you we've got a good amount of time to be ready for that March election and I'm happy to answer any specific questions you might have either about the work that we've done or anything else that I can so we'd be happy to entertain any questions by the board for either one of

125our our members on Zoom or for me can you remind us or kind of explain when when is uh this effort allowed allowable by the board and when is it non-administration on board time non-school time that we can work towards the passage of this this uh measure well I'm not going to butcher This Joy do you want to go ahead as the expert and weigh in on that uh yes I didn't know if I need to wait for you to mute um so it so actually until the board votes you are in an informational phase and by vote I mean vote to put a resolution on the ballot and you can see that that vote won't come until very late this year in order to qualify for the March ballot so all during this time

126um we'll be doing a lot of informational work to help the community know that your parcel tax is set to expire and that the district is simply looking to renew that parcel tax uh once the board votes to put the resolution on the ballot the district can continue to provide information and information can come both in the forms of what the parcel tax has done in the past and how it helps the district and also if there would need to be any Cuts if the parcel tax didn't pass in the future so there's really easy guidelines that help us make sure that we're providing information accurately as the district what the district can't do and those acting on behalf of the district is advocate for the passage of a measure so once the board votes

127an independent Campaign Committee would form and anyone can volunteer on that Campaign Committee including you know parents board members um uh teachers other staff they can volunteer it just has to be done off work hours so it can't be done using District resources or District time and so those are activities that happen outside of District work hours the district can provide information the advocacy campaign is the ones that actually ask people to support it and vote Yes so hopefully that answers the question but during this period before the board votes to put something on the ballot so tonight's vote on our contract is only to help with the work to provide information and prepare the district to vote later on this year to put something on the ballot and all of that is allowed to

128be done by the district in this seventy thousand dollar expenditure would is pretty much the only investment the district would make towards this effort afterwards it would be whatever fundraising and uh whatever done by the committee to get the measure passed correct yes this amount is the extent of what we're putting for you tonight if there were a case where the board felt as though they needed additional things to go out there then we could revisit this and increase that contract [Music] foreign [Music] we talked about this I think it's three board meetings ago now and I thought we were going to try and get a bid from multiple companies and it looks like this is the only bid we have um and I know that there were some issues in the past um so

129I'm just curious why we didn't get other bids and um you know she you're saying it's not a time crunch but at the same time you're you know it is going to take some time um to still move forward with all of this to make sure that we you know would hopefully get an approval and wouldn't have to do any layoffs so can you answer some of those questions yeah we worked with Jeff with Isom advisors and so he put out um requests from several vendors to submit a proposal for this so we had three that we thought were going to work out but we only received two and of those two we had some really qualified folks including team Civics so their experience and the information they gave and how they presented themselves was

130really appealing to us and so I know Helen and I and Annie looked at that information I'm not sure if we had others and when we did so we came back and thought that that they would be the best group from what we had seen so I appreciate that I was just thinking from transparency that you would have shared it with the board so we could have seen it and we I'm sure would have agreed with you but it would have been nice for the board to actually see it since I believe it was the board recommendation that we see multiple bids it wasn't our RFP it was not our items we hire ice and ice and put out the RFP to look for um people to help us with the campaign he and Jeff

131was nice enough to do that and we had uh we chose from the list that we got so okay I'm just curious about that and then the five thousand dollars monthly that um that would start immediately because it sounds like they're doing something every month except for the first month where it's prorated so it would um and part of that's within the contract here so they would prorate the first month which would be this month if you were to approve it tonight and then that would work through um and again it depends on the nature and the need for the work as we go through those months right now if you look we're anticipating that each of those months would be necessary but there is a possibility let's say in the month of July where

132there's not a lot of things going on July might not be a month where we receive any type of charges it's just depending on the nature of the work that's necessary during each of these periods And to clarify Tanya we weren't putting out an RFP to replace Isom we were looking for someone to do the campaign and Isom put out the RFP no perfect thank you um and we part of the polling will be to extend it but also if you can increase it because is this going to be a special election so the cost is greater or this is the regular election so initially what we're going to do is um that's the next meeting in a smaller group is to come up with those survey questions and so to look at it and

133so we are going to be presenting some of those same um you know those comments and ideas and suggestions that you had they will be incorporated into that survey so we'll look at the duration of the survey if there's any amount that would go on top of that so people who are completing that survey will have different options and then based on those options you will be able to see that feedback and then as a board make a determination on on what you actually want to see on the ballot measure that's going to go forward and are the surveys done over telephone is that how you normally do your polling all right Joyce you know speak more specifically about their approach to that polling foreign so very similar to uh what the district has used

134in the past um you've worked with vendors that work directly with Isom advisors um Jeff and I have been working this past week which I've done before my contract was approved just because I wanted to you know come close to our timeline and I felt like it was important to help the district where I could so we've been working on the survey based on the old survey draft The Firm that they use I'll let him speak about their methodology and and how they do it but in our exchanges and based on the polling numbers that the district have gotten the past it seems uh we feel confident that we would you know get an adequate amount of information to help make the best decision to move forward so Jeff if you want to speak about

135your firm we can certainly yeah very quickly um I'll just uh describe you know we Outsource to a third party a polling firm and they make phone calls to as many respondents as they can get and they attempt to get about 400 uh people to respond to the survey the full survey and with that information we compile all the data and bring it back to the board uh to see where people support uh the measure and various um questions about the measure whether you do the same amount of years five years or if you go longer or if you do add an escalator so we ask people's opinion about that and we'll bring all that information back to the board but stepping back to your question it's primarily doing we've primarily done it historically through

136phone calls though we're going to look at doing text messages um as well this time around great thank you very much um and if I if I might add um just briefly I'll also say that recently what we've seen with parcel taxes um and what I've had great success with these last few years is um it's it's tougher sometimes to get increases to a parcel tax uh to increase the dollar amount in total simply because voters are feeling a little bit concerned about inflation and they're feeling some of that pinch but we have had great success in colas so that is one of the strategies that I'm asking the district to look at is potentially renewing at the existing rate but considering a cola a cost of living increase that would happen every year to

137the parcel tax so it would be a gradual increase step up every year again no final decisions or anything like that but it is something that we initially were looking at as a possible solution to help the district you can speak to that survey the efficacy of the survey just by phone calls is there any other tools um I'm thinking like you know uh electronic Outlet or anything Survey Monkey right or Google forms you know but trying to get more information and not just to the district current families currently uh you know in enrolled in the district but obviously uh folks that are in this in the district but not with children in the district yeah the survey does definitely go out to people um a wide range of people in the district within the

138district boundaries so you're not only going to get parents you're not only going to get grandparents you're going to get people with no connection to the district you're going to get males and females and um a little bit of everybody in the district because that's going to give you the best idea about you know or the most relevant um polling information data um regarding your question or back to your question about um the method of you know doing the polling you know again we're going to go we're going to stick to what we've done in the past and look at adding text messaging and what we've done in the past is phone calls is that is that uh cell cell phone as well or is it predominantly just home phones cell phones as well so

139I have questions for a superintendent and Ann or president um so I'm trying to understand how we arrived at selecting Isom is that the group Isom has worked for us for years Isom was never I was never given direction to change financial advisors so then if we were like in the future or anything else that comes up if we were to say we want request rfps or any new vendors or any new providers of anything we would have to give you direction to do that because I'm trying to understand how we arrived at the decision to use them civics no the decision to use Isom is Isom has worked with us on our parcel tax since its Inception and we continue to use them because I've never had a complaint or Direction not to Isom

140has been absolutely awesome to work with as a matter of fact Jeff and his children were out campaigning during measure K themselves living in Walnut Creek and driving out here to help us at no charge at no cost the question came into play with the campaign um I don't know what what do you call the name of the what is it campaign consultant and that's when I asked Jeff to see because Jeff works with the campaign consultant so Jeff said I'll put out a quick RFP and see because Annie and Courtney had expressed concerns over the campaign consultant that we used the last time I do not go out and go for an RFP every time we need a new you know we do a new project or a something like this unless there's an

141issue and I was given direction to see what else was out there Jeff put out the RFP we've got three responses to the RFP that would work with Isom and Annie got them Andy got them and I got them we looked at them and made the decision to choose Civics that's a normal procedure so it wasn't a board decision to use isil it was just this is what we've always wanted I assume we have a contract with Isom and the board did approve the contract with Isom a while ago we approve it every year and we and I will add to that Courtney and I had specifically said we we didn't want to change that because we have been so happy with Jeff and he did so much for the campaign I think Carlos can

142attest to that as well so the change really wasn't we never wanted I mean we've always been really satisfied with the the work that Jeff has done for our district so that wasn't the part that was in question in Impact we specifically said don't do anything on that end right thanks but then so a board vote wouldn't have been necessary because you're saying you just went along with the decision well there was no change because there was no change we pass a contract which I don't know Jeff when's the last contract we signed usually it's every year we signed one yeah last uh fall or late summer yeah it comes to the board every year and that would be the board's opportunity to say because we've had discussions sometimes on some of the legal firms

143that we've used because we use more than one legal firm and there have been past board members who've said you know do we really need to use them I don't like their price structure can you go and see what else is out there we may do an RFP or we may talk about it and decide to stay with that that's how that's done when their contract comes up but this served the campaign consultant is found by Isom for us and that's how they work with different campaign Consultants and then from that I think in closed session it was Tanya Carlos and I asked for more bids if I recall correctly for civics for more bids for civics and we put out the RFP for three firms I just want to make that clear reiterate that

144and we got uh two bids one firm did not respond they chose not to respond so then after we were provided that information we asked for it to be opened up again did that happen Okay I want to be careful we can't talk about anything that happened in closed session on a public meeting so we want to be careful of that I did not go out for any bids on my own I don't hire the campaign consultant so to say um they work in partnership with the advisors and I did not go out nor did I direct Jeff to go out for more bids he went out for bids he got for three different companies that they work with two responded we chose from those two that's how it went and it is I mean

145the request that we made as a board was to go out for those rfps the staff still has agency to to select the best one and bring it forth to us which is what's happening tonight so we could still say I mean if there was if we didn't like this or we wanted another we could request that but we can say no to the contract right this is the best one that we had and so that's what we're presenting to the board that was the process there the staff did I've I've never seen when we go out for any kind of RFP even when we go for the big 38 million dollar bill to school rfps um we solicit out there the construction team picks the best you know the the best value however it's

146worded and they choose the contractor and we bring the contract here to the board and usually there could be 15 or 20 bids that we get but they'll put the top three bids or four bids or whatever we get and they'll select the person and say Helen this is the contract that needs to go through because they're offering um the best and I will bring that here I will review it with them and I'll bring it here and the board could either accept that contract or not accept that contract and tell me to go back out that's the board approves the contract or doesn't approve the contract does that make sense it does but from that but we don't bring the rfps to the board so when the committee select these contracts and this is

147aside from this do we know if there's any like familial relationships with people that are offering these contracts or any friendship relationships between them committee select so we don't vet for that to see if there's any ties like that like if any of us have ties with you know you're talking about contracts in general right so we get four bids and then somebody selects the best one do we vet to see if there's any familiar family relationships well we can't on the board we couldn't hire a company that is going to financially benefit from working from we would actually just not be able to enter into a contract of that nature where like say if for example um you know one of our spouses was the owner of the construction company that it wouldn't even

148be enough for that person to recuse themselves we just as a district couldn't enter into a contract of that nature so that they're I mean there are safeguards in place for that so there can't be something where the board is benefiting from entering into a continent there's a conflict of interesting board policy so I understand that but I mean like relationships within the district right if if somebody on the staff or somebody in the administration is bringing a contract if I can answer that a little bit I can give a little bit of clarity so when you go out and you start entering into contracts and requesting Services when you do an RFP you put together a whole platform of criteria in which you're going to judge it against your responsibility when you're on that

149RFP committee and you're looking at that is to look at the the lowest and choose the lowest most responsible that are there and so being responsible means is that you check off all the boxes that are listed in the RFP familial status family relationships friendly relationships don't factor into that RFP because you still have by labor code the responsibility to enter into that lowest that's responsible that meets all the criteria that you have with there there is specific word policy on familiar relationships and things go with it but that RFP process prevents the board from entering into something that way because you are either choosing to go with the recommendation of that committee based on that scoring and their scoring criteria or you're choosing against it so that what it does is it eliminates the

150fact where people could enter into contracts illegally because of relationships or other things because it still is going to be based on that lowest bid and most responsible piece of it and and just to kind of piggyback on top of that the cost in this contract does not even reach the level of what we're acquired as a district to do an RFP it doesn't mean you don't do rfps rfps are a good idea because you get a sampling of other things sometimes you need to see other things that are out there but this doesn't at seventy thousand dollars even bring it up to that level what would that threshold be so it's based off of a calculation from many years ago so it started with the state I think at fifty thousand dollars and then

151it's grown based on essentially inflation or the CPI index each year I believe this year it's somewhere around 110 112 000 so each year the labor department puts out the information and CDE posts it to their website and it has a lot of information about that contract law and what those limits are so as a service contract it would be under as long as it's under about a hundred and ten thousand dollars if it's a construction or Public Works contract it would have a different amount okay thank you are there any other questions it looks like I have um I hope this is a short answer at what point um so I I I've read the contract and and um once we do this vote to actually put the Resolute via ballot measure on the

152ballot in November um anything after that would any additional costs would be paid by our fundraising through a Campaign Committee right or through at the campaign committee's fundraising is that right Joy I think so if if could after that day if there was an informational piece mailed out that um would that be covered by the district I remember something about that when we did measure k yes so once the district votes um I I will say the fppc has been more uh Vigilant they're the oversight body of course that is looking at campaign finance and financing for campaigns in the state of California so once that board vote happens and I I think it's important also to note that the work that we're doing now is informational it's not really campaign uh the campaigning will

153happen at that later date that committee does raise its own funding and then the board can sometimes well the board can always provide information using any regular means that it normally uses throughout the year so if you have a normal habit of sending newsletters home to families every Friday you can continue to provide information in your newsletters about the ballot measure about the board's action again about how the parcel tax helps the district what would happen if the parcel tax didn't pass and these are all things that we can help you with as we transition but the independent Campaign Committee does raise its own funding they do things that are very specific about advocacy they're the ones who you know write knock on doors or put up yard signs any of those campaign activities that

154we think of when we're asking people to support a very specific ballot measure so they raise their own funds separately and then work specifically on that the work that we hope to do over the next few months is really just focused on information to the community uh and helping people understand how critically important this parcel tax is to the district especially to those important arts and musics and programs and your libraries of course Andy one other question regarding the contract for the services we are talking about both items right one and two the feasibility and the ballot measure development and number three on the next page so there's two pages to exhibit a okay let me just clarify the reason I asked that question is because um it seems to me you correct me if

155I'm wrong um even though our with the contract we're asking we're being asked to vote on is not to exceed seventy thousand it's possible maybe the um the the fees under this contract the 5 000 a month maybe that's only until December and then after that your fee is paid by The Campaign Committee correct uh so if that is directed to me then the answer to that would be if The Campaign Committee chose to hire us um and and we worked with The Campaign Committee yes I would work with them to help build a budget that they felt they could adequately fund and provide Outreach to the community in order to do that advocacy work uh that I would say happens 95 percent of the time in the work that I do but not 100

156of the time there are times where I only work with the public uh entity such as the school district and I help provide information out and you know for various reasons sometimes there's no campaign um or sometimes it's a very small campaign it just depends again on on resources and that Campaign Committee but that is very separate work it is not the same as the work that I do here with the district yeah and just to clarify on the mailing so because of the prorated nature anywhere from ten to fifteen thousand dollars could essentially be saved on the commission so if they don't work in July um partial month for April partial month at the end of March that's where the mailer can come in and go through here of that 9 500 so that's

157how it fits into the the whole package but we're still approving if we at this contract we would approve the 70 000 plus the 95 or is that the nine the 70 000 includes the 9 500. yeah the 70 000 is the total contract amount and it could have variance in there depending on the the nature and the amount of work that they do over the time thank you I'm just looking at their website and Charles Heath is he was the gentleman from measure k so those are some of the same strategy or is this we have a different agent okay yeah they they have a team of individuals and so um in in getting to know Joy a little bit from her bio that she put within the package and from our meetings with

158her um I think her affect and her experience have kind of really showcased that she you know demonstrates a willingness and an expertise that can kind of smooth out some of what you thought with those rough spots at least what were perceived to be the rough spots previously um and we've been very vocal with Jeff about the need to have a quality survey and how that interaction between whether it's a phone call or if it's a media device that it has to be a very positive interaction one that's engaging and supportive of of both parts to get the information add that Joy has our district before before um that our previous measure here or was it measure R I think it was measure k Joy we've had two measure case though it's a little confusing

159first k it uh yes it was it was a while back yes yes it was not any of the more recent work so um yes and and again I've worked with a lot of uh districts in this area specifically around uh parcel taxes I live in the East Bay myself um and I do I I understand that uh you know everybody has different personalities and I really think what I bring and could bring to the district I think we'd have a great relationship and I think you'd see that my my style of working with a community is one that would be agreeable to you and your community okay so this um well let's actually let's open it up for public comment are there any public comments on this item foreign a couple of thoughts I

160had a trouble following all the back and forth of the contract but I'll just for what it's worth I understand district has its Mo and processes but it seems to me on an issue is important as a parcel tax in a campaign consultant where you have that could potentially raise Millions upon millions of dollars for the district over many years to benefit directly students and you have two bids and not all of the school board members have a chance to weigh in or see the two bids and discuss the two bids to me that's not ideal I'm not going to say there's anything wrong with it ethically I just don't think it's ideal I don't see why on something as important as this you wouldn't want to have the entire board discuss the two bidders

161to make sure you're all on the same page so that's for what it's worth um so you know personally I'm inclined to favor a partial tax extension because for the reason that I voted against the bond measure because this would invest directly in human infrastructure whereas the bond measure was all about physical infrastructure and we're in a situation where we have a flat out National crisis full-blown National crisis when it comes to the human infrastructure of our students and school children in this country including Martinez and we have a emotional health crisis in this in this country and so I'll be inclined to support a partial tax that deals directly with that issue and not that just directly um puts a few bucks here a few bucks there to benefit particular isolated groups of students

162because I'll tell you right here I know there's been a lot of discussion about the mrex academic struggles in recent meetings and you're not alone all there's academic struggles everywhere this problem will not be fixed at musd it will not be fixed if any school district in America until you address the emotional crisis affecting children children who are not in a good place emotionally are not going to succeed academically they're not going to be motivated they're not going to want to succeed and so keep that in mind when you start you know laying out your strategy on how you're going to spend the money or tell the public also please meet not only the letter of the law but the spirit of the law and the mailers information you can provide informational um wording not

163advocacy a lot of times it comes down to semantics it crosses the line just follow the spirit of the law too if I don't see Shenanigans and I've seen too many Shenanigans politically over the years on Election matters particularly when it comes to special interests you know the bond measure 50 60 000 bucks spent from the Independent committee that from groups that would directly have benefited from that bond from that tax it would have been lined up at our district office looking for their piece of the pie just do it the right way thank you okay is there any additional public comment on this item okay so this is listed as discussion possible action so we can we certainly can bring it back we can make a request of Staff we can vote we just

164need some sort of Direction consensus as to how we want to proceed I'm okay with voting and getting started okay so I'm seeing three shakes of the head that's usually our measure uh okay so sure all right all right um move to approve the um the engagement agreement with Team civics LLC one second all right student vote hi all in favor hi hi hi opposed abstentions motion carries okay item 20 we do not need it's additional comments from the public 21 is comments from the superintendent board members and future agenda items we'll start with you tonight yummy do you have anything for us just to repeat we do have a home game on Thursday against College Parks if you guys have nothing to do it's going to be a good game kill me 4 30.

165April 1st through April 30th is autism acceptance a month in 2023 the CDC reported that approximately 1 in 36 children in the U.S is diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder according to 2020 data boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls most children are still being diagnosed after age four though autism can be reliably diagnosed as early as Age Two autism affects all ethnic and socioeconomic groups people of color tend to be diagnosed later and less often early intervention affords the best opportunity to support healthy development and deliver benefits across the lifespan early intervention can improve learning communication and social skills as well as underlying brain development applied Behavior Analysis and therapy based therapies based on principles are the most researched and commonly used behavioral interventions for autism many children

166affected by autism also benefit from other interventions such as speech and occupational therapy developmental regression or loss of skills such as language and social interest affects around one in five children who will go on to be diagnosed with autism typically occurs between ages 1 and 3. according to the CDC data and statistics on autism spectrum disorders and the article racial and ethnic disparities for people with Autism whites are 30 percent more likely to be to receive an Autism diagnosis than blacks whites are 50 more likely to be diagnosed with autism than Hispanics not only are blacks and Hispanics diagnosed at a later age which results in the delay or absolute halt of resources and services but women and girl with women and girls with autism are continuously overlooked in August of 2016 the national autistic

167Society insisted that medical professionals improve the way they diagnose women and girls with autism spectrum disorder and ultimately work towards narrowing the gap between women of color with autism and their male and white female counterparts however when medical professionals are challenged with diagnosing women of color with autism they often rely on racial and gender gender-related stereotypes that explain away behavior that is in the article The Forgotten girls racial and ethnic disparities within the disability community Through The lenses of black women and girls with autism as Educators and board members it is important that we View and assess and make decisions pertaining to our students free of biases both implicit and explicit that we can provide the early intervention and necessary services for all students on the autism spectrum to succeed to conclude famous people with

168Autism have included Albert Einstein Emily Dickinson Michelangelo Sir Isaac Eaton Beethoven and Greta thurnberg thank you I just wanted to say again congratulations to all the certified employees of the year um and I also enjoyed attending the John sweat Elementary open house it was really nice to see all the classrooms and all the hard work that everyone put in their presentations um yeah I wanted to congratulate all the teachers of the Year also the the thing that I love about this community is I my daughter had several of those teachers um and one of them was our neighbor for several years so it's just really nice to get to know people on a personal level also and to be able to recognize them tonight and then I'm really looking forward to seeing Cinderella next week

169at the high school yes I was fortunate to attend the mjhs open house as well as the John Muir open house where we got to bring home my son's silkworms which I'm desperately trying to keep alive and he seems to be working really hard against that but they're alive right now um so thank you to the efforts it was really great excuse me to see um all of the projects that the classes are doing there a lot of them have have things like that going on it was really it was just a fun Community night so I appreciate that and I also am looking forward to Cinderella next week I'll leave it to you Helen again congratulations to all the nominees and actually to all the teachers and Educators that in the district for another

170phenomenal year having put three sons through the system I know a lot of them firsthand I know how they teach and I know how they care about children and I just want to say thank you and Paula Parker was actually Stevie Ray's first grade teacher um and he's 20 going to be 29 so I I um I really admire the work they do and I'm so thankful to be a part of the system thank you all right with that we will ensure in at 906 pm