001Good evening. I have the honor of reconvening the um December 10th, 2025 uh board of education meeting for the Mount Diablo Unified School District. Uh, I would like to announce for the record that this meeting is being conducted pursuant to California government code section 54953b concerning teleconferencing of meetings. Trust Trustee and Zewi is participating in this meeting by speaker phone from 2300 Dulles Corner Boulevard Hearnden, Virginia 2011. In accordance with the Brown Act, this location has been identified on the agenda for this meeting. I will ask Trustee Enzi to respond to the following questions. Are you able to hear our proceedings on this end? >> Yes. >> Do you have a copy of the agenda for this meeting? >> Yes. >> Has the agenda been posted at your location? >> Yes. >> Is your location
002such that any member of the public could participate in the public portions of this teleconference meeting from your locations? >> Yes. Members of the board of education, are you able to hear Trusty Inway? >> Yes. Everyone says affirmative. Thank you. Since we are having a meeting uh with teleconferencing, all actions will be by roll call vote. So, thank you for your patience in advance. Uh we will begin with the land acknowledgement item 6.1. We recognize that the Mount Diablo Unified School District sits on the territory of the Confederated villages of the Lassan, the ancestral and unseated land of the Bay, Miwok, and Northern Yokot, the successors of the sovereign Verona Band of Contraosta County. As members of the Mount Diablo Unified School District community, it is vitally important that we not only recognize the history
003of the land on which we learn, but also we recognize that the land we inhabit and learn on is the ancestral lands of these people who are alive and flourishing members of the Mount Diablo Unified School District and the broader Bay Area communities today. Would you please stand for the pledge of allegiance? Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So item uh 6.3 is the potential the review and a potential approval of minutes for the regular board meeting held November 12th, 2025. >> Madame President, I move that the board approve item 6.3, the approval of the minutes for uh the November 12th board meeting. >> I'll second that. We we have a
004motion by uh Trustee Lawrence with a second by Trusty McDougall re regarding the approval of the minutes for November 12th. Further discussion? Trusty Barrera Ariana, how do you vote? >> Yes. >> Thank you. Trustee Lawrence, how do you vote? >> Yes. >> Trusty McDougall. >> Yes. >> Trustee Mason. >> Yes. Um Trustee Enzi, >> yes. And uh Trusty Mayo votes yes as well. Now we will those of us in the room will record our votes on the agenda on ESB I should say and the motion is adopted on a 500 vote. Uh item 6.4 4 is the approval of minutes for the District Education Facilities Financing Corporation meeting held on November 12th, 2025. Make a motion to approve the minutes for the Mount A Unified School District Education Facilities Financing Corporation meeting held November 12th,
0052025. >> I'll second. We have a motion by trustee Mason with a second by trustee Barrera Ariana. Um is there further discussion hearing? None. Uh trustee Barrera Oriana, how do you vote? >> Yes. >> Trustee Mason, how do you vote? >> Yes. >> Trustee Enzwi, how do you vote? >> Yes. >> Trustee Lawrence, >> yes. >> Trusty McDougall, >> yes. and Trusty Mayo votes yes and the motion to approve the minutes of the special meeting is adopted on a 5 Z00 vote. Thank you. Um, the next item is review and potential approval of the agenda. Dr. Clark, do we have any changes for the agenda? >> No changes, Madam President. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, so we have a motion. >> I make a motion that we accept the agenda as presented. >> Second. >>
006We have a motion by Trustee Mason with a second by Trustee McDougall. Uh, correct. Oh, it was you. I'm I apologize. No, it's my deaf ear. Um motion by Trusty Mason with a second by Trustee Lawrence uh on the approval of the agenda as printed. Trustee Barrera Oriana, how do you vote? >> Yes. >> Trusty McDougall? >> Yes. >> Trustee Lawrence? >> Yes. >> Trustee Mason? >> Yes. >> Trustee Lauren? Um and Zwee >> yes >> and Trusty Mayo votes yes also and the approval of the agenda. Uh the agenda is approved on a 500 vote. Thank you very much. Okay. So now we are on the report out of uh action taken in close session which is item 7.0. Uh in close session by a vote of 5 to zero the board took action
007to approve the resignation of two employees per separation agreement. In close session by a vote of v five to zero, the board took action to immediately suspend without pay employee ID number 31528 and issue charges for dismissal. Under anticipated litigation, in the matter of one case of anticipated litigation, the board by a vote of 5 to zero gave direction to general counsel. In the matter of one case of anticipated litigation, the board by vote 5 to zero gave direction to outside legal counsel for a liability claim. The board meant in close session by a vote to five to zero. voted to reject a liability claim for damages pursuant to government code section 54956.95 by Brandon Lawson against Mount Diablo Unified School District. And on the final matter, in one matter, the board voted by a
008vote of 5 to zero and decided not to hear an appeal of complaint against a district employee pursuant to board policy administrative regulation 1312.1. And now we have um the matter of 7.2, two, which is the stipulated expulsion agreement for student 08-26. Trusty Mason. >> Madam Chair, I move to approve the stipulated agree expulsion agreement for student 0826 prior to readmission. Per the agreement, student 0826 is required to meet the following conditions. Students must not enter the grounds of any district school at any time for any purpose. Student will not attend any school sponsored activities whether on or off campus. Student will complete his coursework through attendance at Golden Gate uh day school per the agreement. Student will complete 15 hours of counseling. Student will demonstrate a successful school experience which includes no violation of
009school rules rules and education codes 48900 or district rules and regulations. Satisfactory academic performance which is to earn minimum of 40 credits. Satisfactory attendance 80% attendance and no excessive tardies. Student must not commit any expel expelable offenses as defined under the code. >> Well done and second. We have a motion by Trustee Mason and with a second by Trustee Lawrence regarding the stipulated expulsion agreement for student 08-26. Is there further discussion? >> Right. Um Trusty Lawrence, how do you vote? >> Yes. >> Trustee McDougall, how do you vote? >> Yes. >> Trusty Mason, how do you vote? >> Yes. >> Trustee and Zwee, how do you vote? >> Yes. >> And Trustee Mayo votes yes as well. And the motion is adopted on a 500 uh zero vote regarding the um approval of the stipulated
010expulsion agreement for student 08-26. Now we're moving ready for the exciting part of the meeting. Um 8.0 organiz organizational meeting items. 8.1. Dr. Clark, do you want to Oh, or would you prefer I read it? >> Go right ahead, Madam President. >> Thank you. Uh, annual board of education or organizational meeting, education code sections 35143 and 72125 require that the governing board of each school district hold an annual organizational meeting. In a year in which regular election for governing board members is held, the meeting shall be held on a day within a 15-day period that commences with the date upon which an elected governing board member takes office. Organizational meetings in years which no such regular election for governing board members is conducted shall be held during the same 15-day period on the calendar. Current
011board policy 9100 calls for the election of a board president and vice president at the annual organizational meeting of the board. Okay. Um so 8.2 uh election of the board president. I uh will open nominations for the board president. >> Madame president. Thank you. Trustee Enzi, trustee Lawrence. >> Uh se second. And then may I ask a point of clarification certainly would be our procedure would be uh to take the first nominee and vote yes or no or will we have multiple nominations? >> In the past, we've had multiple nominations. Uh would or would you prefer to do it differently? >> Happy to go either way. I just wanted to understand the procedure. >> Thank you. Um, are there further nominations? Hearing none, nominations are closed. Uh, would you please Oh, I have to do
012a roll call vote. Okay. Um, we will start with Trusty McDougall, how do you vote? >> Yes. >> Trustee Lawrence, how do you vote? >> Yes. >> Uh, Trustee Edwi, how do you vote? >> Yes. >> Trustee Mayo, how do you vote? Yes. Trustee Mason, how do you vote? >> Yes. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Trustee >> Barrera Oriana, how do you vote? >> Yes. >> Thank you. Now we have to wait for ESB. >> I'm trying to election president. >> Yeah, we have to >> No, I'm just I'm not able to vote. They'll move it back. >> Okay, they'll fix it in a minute. >> Patience is a virtue. >> Is it snowing in Virginia? Trusty and Zei. >> It is not I've gotten warnings of snow, but it hasn't snowed. >> Okay. >> But
013it is very cold. >> Colder here >> in this room. >> Is everything decorated for the holidays? decorated inside. >> Okay. Um, they have to back up one. Thank you for your patience. We're waiting for ESB to catch up with us. We're trying to catch up to it. I see the circle of death spinning up the screen. Okay. So, we've already voted. So, congratulations, Mrs. Mason. You are now the president for 2026. Gavl and We still have to wait till we go to the next item. >> Okay. So, the next item would be to elect a board vice president. So, on nominations are open. >> Madame President, I nominate Trustee Edwi. >> Second. >> Okay. Any other nominations? Trusty and Zay, do you accept the nomination? Yes. >> Okay. Oh, no other nominations. I think
014we'll go ahead and So, we'll go um with our student first this time. So, uh Trustee Barrera Oriana. >> I vote yes. >> Mayo, yes. Trusty McDougall, >> yes. And >> trusty Mason votes yes as well. vice president. >> It's not going to come up. >> Who in law? >> Do I get to appoint the board secretary? secretary. >> Dr. Clark, would you be our board secretary? >> Is that the appointment? >> Okay, we're rolling along here. Okay. Review and potential adopt. >> Do we need that? >> We get to vote on this one. It went out. No. Yeah, it's all up. >> We're waiting for a reset. >> Oh, there it comes. >> We have to sign in again. >> Yes. He's not happy. There is progress. login. Mine didn't. >> So, we'll just
015keep going. >> 8.5 Review and potential adoption of certificate. >> Oh, we didn't vote on the sec. Oh, we got to vote on you. I can't just appoint. What's the fun of being the the chair if I can't be present? >> Okay. Uh, trustee uh Barrera Ariana. >> Yes. >> Trusty >> Lawrence. Yes. >> Lawrence. >> Trusty Mayo. Yes. Trusty Zwe. >> Yes. >> Trusty McDougall. >> Yes. >> And I vote yes. >> Okay. >> And I think uh Madame President, I think you you made the motion and I would have happily seconded that that we just did. Did you need a motion and a second >> the appointment? Okay. >> Yep. >> Want to go back and do it again. Anyway, >> I'm just saying that you I I I seconded your motion. >>
016You second it. Okay. So, we're good to go. >> Okay. Are we back online or just keep going? >> That's it. >> Okay. Review and a potential adoption of certificate of signatures for the 2026 calendar year. I'll entertain a motion. Madam President, >> Madame President, I move that we approve the um certificated certificate of signatures for 2026. >> Second. >> We have a motion in a second. Trustee McDougall. How do you vote? >> Oh, yes. >> Trusty Mayo, >> yes. >> Trusty Lawrence, >> yes. Trusty Barrera Ariana >> yes >> and trustee Ini >> yes >> and trusty Mason votes yes as well. >> Okay 8.6 reviewed that was adopted on a 50 vote with the consent from our student board member. Okay. review and potential approval of resolution 25-26-37 to establish regular board meeting
017dates for the 2026 calendar year. >> Thank you so much, President Mason. Um uh whereas the establishment of meeting dates to maximize public opportunity for participation should properly consider potential calendar conflicts of recognized religious observances within the community with particular attention to those observances which include work restrictions. And whereas herein those power those proper considerations have been given in consultation with the national habad.org or and the Jewish Community Relations Council. And therefore, be it resolved that the Mount Aba Unified School District Board of Education establishes its regular meetings for the 2026 calendar year as such. Madame President, I leave this resolution in the hands of the board. Dates are posted. >> Thank you. >> I'll entertain a motion. >> Madame President, I move that the board accept the resolution as presented. >> I'll second. Okay,
018we have a motion and a second to approve the calendar as presented. Trustee Ber O Ariana, >> yes. >> Trustee Lords, >> yes. >> Trustee Mayo, >> yes. >> Trusty Enzwi, >> yes. >> Trusty McDougall, >> yes. >> Trusty Mason votes yes as well. That passes on a five zero vote with consent from our student rep. Okay. Public comment. The public may address the board regarding any item not on the agenda. Public comment will also be allowed on each specific agenda item prior to the board's action thereon. In accordance with the Bor Brown Act, the board may not take action or engage in dialogue or items that are not on the proposed or posted agenda. Having said that, do we have any com public comment? Madame President, while we wait, I believe that I'm at
019least now able to join the board meeting online. If at any point we want to resume voting, >> if you sign up at the ESB, >> you'll be able to vote on >> Oh, we're back in, huh? Okay. >> Out by joining the meeting or signing with the >> I think I have to sign in again. If you're inv. >> Okay. Are we caught up now or are we going to have to go through each of them one by one? We're caught up. Okay. Now we're on public comment. So, first speaker, JN Schuber. Uh, I can't even go ahead. I can't even attempt the second. I can't wait to hear you pronounce it. >> There should be a little button there and a green light. Come on, so we can hear you. They're going to
020have assistance for you. No problem. Okay, good evening. My name is Guyana Chubarian. I'm a student of intermediate low one, low two. Our teacher is Matthew Plitner. I want to give my opinion about the school and how important it is to me personally and to all of us. I've been in the US for 17 years and haven't had the opportunity to learn the language for various reasons. I work with Russian speaking people and now I'm retired and can go to the school I dreamed of for those years. The school has excellent professional teachers who deliver the material in an easy to understand way. After going through the first term of the school in the spring, I began to speak English and was less shy. I felt more confident and it's getting better this term. I
021learned a lot in this three months. Our teacher is a very positive and an open person. He is very kind and attentive to the students. We often talk about our families and everyday life which improves our communication skills. Our classmates are friendly because of our teacher. Now we we are having reading practice. It helps us to compose sentences. The school gives me energy and joy. My goal is to attend school until I begin to speak English more fluently. I really hope that this opportunity continues to be given to us. Thank you. >> You I think you deserve an A+. >> Next speaker, Deborah. >> Deborah Hickey. Good evening, Madame President, board members, and superintendent. I'm writing I'm here to request that you reinstate the Aries rights that our community service coordinator, Carla Solari, has previously
022held. Carla has been a dedicated member of Mount Dabble High School for 11 years, and her rights were unjustly revoked this year. Since the beginning of the school year, Carla has spoken with Wendy Agiley and others, but she was informed that she had too many rights. This is not accurate, and I kindly request that you visit Carla to assess her actual limitations instead of simply saying what she possesses. Carla's restricted access to Aries is hindering her ability to effectively assist our parents and causing her significant frustration. She is compelled to seek information from other office staff who possess the necessary data, which makes her feel like she's intruding upon their work. I understand that Carla's primary concern is prioritizing our family's needs and I hope that you can emphasize with her as well. Please restore
023her rights to access attendance, discipline, medical, and all associated notes. These are the things that our Hispanic parents frequently contact Carla for and request. Once again, please restate Carla's access. Thank you. Eli Rudolph. >> Hi. >> Good afternoon, members of the Mount Diablo Unified School District School Board, Superintendent Dr. Clark, and community members. My name is Eli Rudolph, and I am a student at College Now from College Park High School. I am here with my peers Abarami and Zeni to introduce an important policy that I believe will help position our district as a leader in environmental sustainability and climate action while benefiting our students, schools, and broader community. The proposed policy aims to promote environmental education. This initiative aligns with California's broader commitment to EV education I'm so sorry to environmental stewardship and climate mitigation
024as outlined in policy 5030 student wellness. By adopting this policy our district can incorporate sustainability principles into their curriculum, fostering environmental literacy through hands-on science curriculum in the school garden. Gardens lower costs for hands-on science supplies. Instead of buying one-time use materials for lessons, the garden provides ongoing reusable resources for instruction. This resolution demonstrates our commitment to the health of our community and the planet, setting an example for other districts across the state. This policy aligns with goal three of the LCAP goal and addresses the urgent need for action on climate change. As a student, I have seen firsthand how students express disdain for undeveloped grassland as middle of nowhere while on field trips, which shows their disconnect from the land that sustains us. Implementing this policy will empower them to take meaningful action and
025develop skills that will serve them throughout their lives. Initiatives like this can enhance the district's reputation and attract families who value a forwardthinking education system. I urge the board to adopt a policy action that makes sustainability a priority in our district. This step will not only benefit our students, but also contribute to a healthier, more sustainable future for our entire community. High school students across the state are calling on their districts to take a relevant climate action. And we want our district to be a part of this growing movement for a sustainable and climate resilient future. Thank you all for considering this important policy action and for your leadership and advancing opportunities that support our students and community. I am happy to answer any questions or provide additional details as needed. Thank you. >> Thank
026you. >> Okay. Next we have Abra Abraham. >> Close. >> Um so good afternoon everybody and members of the MDUSD Unified School Board District, Superintendent Mr. Clark and community members. My name is Abrami Narayan and I'm from a student um at Northgate. I'm here with my peers Eli and Jen and wanted to bring up an important policy that I believe will help our help position our district as a leader in environmental sustainability and climate action while benefiting our students, schools and broader community. The proposed policy aims to educate students on the food system to treat uh to teach healthy food habits. So this initiative aligns with our um district's mission of supporting students wellness through health education, physical education and other activities um health services, nutrition services as outlined in policy 5 um30u which is
027student wellness. And so the ways that we plan to support the resolution is by impact have impact on the student education. And so we so we're going to adopt this policy and so uh that our district can incorporate sustainability principles into the curriculum which can foster environmental literacy among students through hands-on science curriculums in the school garden at Northgate and other schools. A well-maintained garden reduces the need for for higher landscape services. So these are the financial benefits we have and instead of just paying for mowing or decorative plants um the garden obviously has become a lowcost educational green space that students can help care for through various activities. So the envir um environmental and community benefits are that this resolution demonstrates our commitment to the health of a community um and to the planet
028setting an example for other districts across the states to look upon us. Um connection to the district and obviously the broader goals is that the policy aligns with the goal three of LCAP goal and addresses the urgent need for action on climate change. As a student, I've seen firsthand how students rely on easily accessible packaged food when they are um obviously hungry instead of valuing having a nutritious breakfast which affects them throughout the day in their academic and ath athletic performance and other um activities they do throughout the day. Personally, my story is like I'm a vegetarian and so I basically eat no meat, right? No gelatin, no eggs. And so I'm confident that I'm giving my body the right nutrition that I need. And so because my mom like family and we all always
029cook home food, they we don't purchase like too many like packaged items which ensures again that I'm providing my body with the right food it needs. Implementing this policy will empower them to take meaningful action and develop skills that will serve them throughout their lives. Furthermore, initiatives like this can obviously enhance the district's reputation and attract families who value a forward-thinking education system. >> Okay. And just to reiterate for our students, we're not allowed to comment or ask questions during public comment, but we are hearing everything you're saying. >> Okay. Thank you. Then good afternoon members of the Mount Diablo Unified School District School Board, Superintendent Dr. Clark, and community members. My name is Jen Hoy Huang, and I am a student at College Now from Northgate High School. I am part of the California
030Youth Climate Policy Leadership Program, which supports students across California who are advocating for environmental and climate action in their school community. I'm here with Eli and Oparami to introduce an important policy that I believe will help position our district as a leader in environmental sustainability and climate action while benefiting our students, schools, and broader community. The proposed policy aims to reduce stress, create hands-on crosscurricular learning opportunities that build confidence and a connection to nature. This initiative aligns with our district's mission of supporting psychological and counseling services and a safe and healthy school environment is outlined in policy 5030, student wellness impact on student education. By adopting this policy, our district can incorporate sustainability principles into the curriculum, fostering environmental literacy among students through integrating all school subjects to have a hands-on component in the garden.
031School gardens often attract community donations, grants, and volunteer support. This helps the school receive free materials, tools, compost, and even small infrastructure upgrades that don't come out of the district budget. This resolution demonstrates our commitment to the health of the community and the planet, setting an example for other districts across the state. This policy aligns with goal three of the ALCAP goal and addresses the urgent need for climate action. As a student, I have seen firsthand how the sedentary lecture style classroom environment is placing a toll on students mental health. Implementing this policy will teach students to have a healthy outlet for stress management through outdoor education on campus through incorporating curriculum in the school garden. Furthermore, initiatives like this can enhance the district's reputation and attract families who value a forwardthinking education system that
032makes school fun. I urge the board to adopt a policy action that makes sustainability a priority in our district. This step will not only benefit our students but also contribute to a healthier, more sustainable future for our entire community. There are high school students across the state that are calling on their districts to take relevant climate action. And we want our district to be a part of this growing movement for a sustainable and climate resilient future. Thank you for considering this important policy action and for your leadership in advancing opportunities that support our students and community. I am happy to answer any questions or provide any additional details as needed. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hey or Terl, >> Terry, right? Felito. Okay. Just make sure there's none of them. Good evening, uh, school
033board members, Dr. Clark and community members. Um, my name is Terry Felo. I am a part-time ESL instructor at LMA Vista. I've been with the school for almost six years now. Uh, we first introduced ourselves back in April and I'm here again to talk about the hidden gem which is adult education. We are trying to highlight what we are doing at our school to demonstrate all the positive impact that we have on our community. Uh there are several students here and a few teachers this evening. Not everybody could attend, but we wanted to take this opportunity to present. One of the important factors that I'd like to bring out, which is we have now over 300 parents with children in the district in our school that we are teaching. We wish to strengthen these ties
034going forward and to ensure the success of both. Another essential component of our programs is the increasing integration of our ESL students continuing on to our introduction to health careers and early childhood education classes which then leads to enrollment in any of our CEK programs. In fact, four of my current ESL students are taking uh these additional classes. We look forward to the support of our new administration and helping us provide the necessary teachers and classes coming up in the new year. I have some important um data to share with you and I'd like to hand those out and then next is Colleen. Good evening. My name is Colleen Thornberg and I'm a full-time ESL instructor at the Lomav Vista Adult Education Center. I have been working there for full-time for the past eight years.
035The instructors are excellent educators to work with and the students are amazing. My colleagues and I have witnessed students advance to LMA Vista's high school EMT, CEK and CNA programs. Many have gone to DVC and have started their own businesses. They are now active members in our communities and giving back. Even some have come back to work at our school. You may hear from them soon. The success stories are never ending. This past summer, I had struggled with whether to continue working here or not because of lack of raises and non-competitive wages due to our economy. I decided to stay out of loyalty to my wonderful students and I have seniority in my full-time status. I was able to add a part-time job at Luma Vista working on Fridays from 9:00 to 2:00 p.m. This
036new position adds to my full-time position, which is 4 days um and 4 day work schedule. Three days of the week are 9:00 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. from 12:30 to 2:45 p.m. and then back at school again from 6:30 to 9:15 p.m. Personally, this is a crazy and very challenging schedule. How can I and other full-time teachers continue to be effective teachers with such grueling schedules and non-competitive wages in today's economy? My colleagues and I look forward to you actively supporting and acknowledging us as valued teachers in the ESL program. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Alise Styi. >> Okay. Um, members of the board, Dr. Clark, my name is Elsa Steckle. I'm a former teacher um at Lomma Vista teaching ESL. I was there for 10 years. I am currently teaching for another district,
037but I'm here today to support my my co my former colleagues and I will read a letter from one of our teachers who could not be here. I'm an adult education educator at Mount Diablo and have been serving the Mount Diablo community for over 24 years with utmost dedication and commitment in the SL department. In my last 24 years, I had the privilege of serving families and individuals in my many roles. From being an ESL instructor for all levels of English learners to creating curriculum for parents with homework help while learning conversational English. Also, for the last 13 years, I've taught career pathway classes to help adult learners interested in becoming preschool teachers to transfer to DVC to peruse the associate teacher certificate and beyond. I'd like to share some successes of former students to
038show the profound impact of adult ed on members of our community. Some of the successes may seem really small to you, but they were incredibly important on the lives of these students. The students not only become productive citizens of the community, but help shape our future generations while working in preschools and the new TK programs in our communities. An Afghan mother of four girls wrote thanking me because she was now successfully helping her girls with their homework and could confidently attend PE parent teacher conferences. To add to her success, she was hired as an aid in the elementary school and it was all due to my ESL class. An El Salvadorian young man came to visit me to express his gratitude for all the patience and hard work helping him learn basic English grammar. He
039used to work for very little money during the daytime as a painter when he joined ESL class. Now he owns his own company and has five employees. More than three dozen students from the career pathway class are working in the Mount Diablo community as preschool teachers. and they visited me to share how their dream of becoming preschool teachers in the US has become a reality after they joined our adult education ESL early childhood education class at Loma Vista and transferred to DVC to earn their associate teacher certificate and continue to earn their AA and BA degrees in the field with site supervisor permits. These are just a few examples of some of the ways adult educators impact our students, their families, and the larger Mount Diablo community. Thank you for your continued support of the
040important work done by Mount Diablo Adult Ed instructors. >> Thank you, >> Msad Beina. Sorry. >> Good evening. My name is Masud Bina and I am an ESL student on Lamov Vista Adult Educational Center. Security challenges forced my family and me to flee thousands of miles from our homeland. Coming from a very traditional and undeveloped country, I suddenly found myself in a progressive and prosperous first world nation. A place where the language, cultural, religion, and many other aspects of life were completely new to me. Our greatest concern after arriving was learning English so that we could begin our new life saxfully. Fortunately, we were introduced to Loma Vesta Adult School and immediately started our language studies. my spouse and me and I along with thousand of other students at this center express our sincere gratitude
041to its founders, administrative staff and teachers. Without learning the language and understanding the way of life in America, continuing forward as immigrants would uh would have been nearly impossible. This school and other adult education centers offers far more than language classes. After completing several semesters, students can receive vocational training and even support with job placement. I can honestly say that what I have learned at this school goes for beyond English. Much like high school student, I gained valuable knowledge about American history and civilization. In October of this year, I participated in the career exposition in Martinez. I was fortunate to enroll in the optation program, a field in which I previously worked in my home country. I will begin my coursework in February 2026 and look forward to returning to my profession. I am also
042the father of three children who attended schools in the Monte Diablo school district. In closing, I offer my deepest gratitude to the people and government of United States for their sincere support of immigrants. Thank you for your time and attention. a void. Is that closed? There he is. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Navidid Zedi and I am originally from Afghanistan. I come from a strong background in technology, education, and community service. For more than 14 years, I work in the telecom and information systems field and I also had the privilege of teaching at Cabell University where I instructed the students in programming, database systems and computer fundamentals. Earlier in my career, I worked with the USA uh OOLPCA project, one laptop per child, where I helped deploy thousands of computers and set up
043digital classrooms across Afghan schools, expanding access to the technology for students and educators in multiple provinces. I immigrated to the United Stateates at the end of last year and soon after I joined Blomma Vista Adult Center with the guidance and support of my wonderful instructor mystery. Uh I completed the full course and greatly improved my understanding of American English especially the accent and communication style. Shortly after I shortly after completing the program, I was offered an opportunity to join a school as a senior instructional assistant. And I started my position on November 3rd. And I am very happy and proud now to be part of this community where I can support the students who face challenges with English just like I did when I first arrived. It means a lot to me to help others
044build confidence and succeed in their new journey. And thank you, >> Norma Vasquez. Hi. Good evening. My name is Norma Vasquez. The proposed this letter is to Loma Vista Adult Center and all the teacher for their patient and willingness to teach and help us with the English language. Personally, I need a very much my grandchildren don't speak my children language Spanish and it is very difficult for me to communicate with them. Furthermore, is essential because is the language of this country. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be given and placed in the classroom and as I find it very difficult to speak and express myself in English. I will do my best to continue preparing in class. I would like I thank my teacher Matthew for all those patient with all of us his
045student. is not easy to teach several people with different language and culture. I greatly appreciate his dedication and support sens with gratitude and respect. Lasquez. Thank you. Good evening. Uh my name is Tinday. I am from Mongolia and I am student of Tama Vista Adult School and today I read about why learning English is important to me. I want to connect with other people and socialize using English. I loved teaching children about what I know. That's why I was working in Mongolia as a preschool teacher. I love seeing children learn from me. It inspires me. It has been 3 months since I started ESL class. I am getting better at learning English because of my teacher and classmates. because of them. I want to learn more and get even better. My final goal is to
046become more fluent in English so I can continue my job as a teacher in the United States and Mongolia. Thank you. Alicia or Alicia Galliston, Laura Powell. Oh, last advocacy work. But as I was preparing, oh, as I was preparing uh my remarks, I realized that I had numerous examples of practices that violate the spirit and in some cases the letter of the law. One issue I addressed is the constant surveying of children's emotional states. A lot of this is done through social emotional learning or SEAL. And despite this district struggling to fulfill its core mission of academic instruction, it devotes an inordinate amount of time to SEAL. Teachers who are not trained therapists ask children to share their feelings on a near daily basis. And this may sound harmless, but constant self-reflection is not
047the key to good mental health. And sometimes these sessions probe further and turn classrooms basically into group therapy sessions. Another issue I raised in Congress was curriculum access. Uh when I request to review materials related to sensitive topics like sex ed or SEAL, uh district staff drag their feet and create unnecessary barriers. After months of back and forth, I've obtained only a handful of documents related to SEAL. Um, the district's general counsel claims that all materials are exempt from the Public Records Act. This stonewalling has done a lot to erode my trust in my children's schools. Parents right to opt their children out of any instruction that conflicts with their religious beliefs was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court this year. But this district asserts that parents must identify the specific content that they find objectionable.
048And this is an unreasonable burden given that schools do not readily provide full access to instructional materials. If schools focused on academic instruction, conflicts with families beliefs would be far less common. Instead, educators increasingly behave as if guiding children's emotional and moral development were their role, but it's always been the domain of families. I hope that the district will start living up to its rhetoric about seeing parents as partners because in my experience, parents who ask questions or assert their rights are treated as intruders. Thank you. >> Thank you. And last speaker is is it Monica Olsen? And since it started, okay, excuse me. Thank you, too. Um, I just wanted to share with you, I think you may be receiving some letters of support for the garden, and I have um petitions from students
049that some of them have already been sent to you, but I just received some more that I'll also share with you as well. they would like to see their garden continue and we are being informed that that is not going to be possible. Uh but it's a little unclear about why and I know I've reached out to our board president Linda Mayo to see if we could possibly talk about this and just see how we can work this out. So um part of my understanding is that there are some new requirements. there's a new administration in place and trying to get everybody up to speed so that we're going to need a new agreement. We have been a volunteer project since 2007 and we've also included then all of the additional requests and proposals for
050additions and uh restoration and so on of the garden. the garden itself as the petition says which I have I think right here in front of me uh says that um and these are the from students at our area district schools um but also we do reach out to the community and so there are sometimes students, parents and community members, businesses and others that also are part of what happens at the garden. So we, the undersign support the vision and mission of the Pleasant Hill Instructional Garden, wish to see it continue its programs, events, classes, and community education. And our mission is to educate the school and the community on air, soil, and water conservation techniques, best researchbased restorative, healthy, and sustainable gardening practices, and to promote wildlife habitat stewardship by developing a California natural
051living demonstration garden. We already are seeing that we have become a community resource that community organizations do come to us and not only uh want to participate in events and classes and so on. But we also see that we students come to us because they've heard about the garden from some of the other organizations and they're coming whether they're coming to be doing community service, whether they're coming to do uh an actual class part of their curriculum with uh you know another class. So we have classes that do come out to the garden as well. And then of course we have some that come out and do special projects. Some of them are doing internships as well. Thank you very much. >> That concludes our public comment. Next on the agenda is communications. District organizations.
052At regular board meetings, a single spokesperson of each recognized district organization may make a brief presentation. Items are limited to those which are informational. Do we have one tonight? >> Oh, okay. Okay. Linda Ortiz on Good evening, President Mason. Trustees, Dr. Clark, members of the audience, I want to congratulate the newly elected board uh school board president and vice president. I am looking forward to working with you in your new positions for such. So, and I also want to thank the students who spoke earlier. Um I always am warm to hear our students speak. Um, I want to thank that our adult ed educators for showing up and sharing their stories as well as those um, students. Um, I love the fact that our district is providing services for our different culturals um, and they're
053learning English. I just when I was a teacher, I enjoyed learning um, about their cultures as well. I also want to give out a shout out to my friends and colleagues at the United Teachers of Richmond. as we were all listening and watching. I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who came out to support them. Um, in honor of their settlement, I decided to wear red tonight and it's festive. I would also like to report that today I received several adverse working conditions forms due to the heating issues. As the days get colder, I would like to remind everyone that our students learning conditions are affected when it is too cold or too hot in our classroom. And yes, Dr. Clark, it's been very cold. um in our um in our neighborhood. So,
054please be prepared for these changing weather conditions so that learning is not lost. I also want to give a shout out to the payroll department for their work on updating the salary increases on the November pay period. As someone who has worked in finances, I can appreciate the time and effort that was put into preparing the new changes. Moving forward, I want to remind the school board and members in the audience that I am here to work collaboratively with site administrators and district managers to resolve issues before they are accelerated to a grievance. Working together to find a resolution is more helpful than pointing fingers or placing blame. My goal as the media president is to continue to work collaboratively with the district management on how to solve problems before they directly impact our students
055and our educators. Finally, in the spirit of the holiday season, I want to share my gratitude for all of those who I have worked directly with to resolve issues on behalf of my members from the benefits department, human resources, payroll, special ed, and others. Thank you for taking my calls and for those and for those of my members. I hear from my members that they don't have the time to call because they're teaching, but they would reach out to me and I appreciate when I call the district different departments that someone returns my call or my email. So, I do appreciate good customer service. And to everybody else, I wish everyone a happy winter break. Thank you. Are you can you hear us now? >> I'm sorry. Can you go ahead and repeat that, Trusty
056and Ze? All righty. Recognitions and resolutions. Recognition of College Park High School graduate Matias Joseph for selection of the Association of California School Administrators region 6 2025 Every Student Succeeding Awards. >> Yes. Um President Mason, just very excited for this for this next quick item. you know, we're um most of our administrators belong to AXA, which is the um which is the California Administrators Association. And um couple weeks ago, we were many of us were in San Francisco. We were in a great big uh ballroom with about a thousand people there. And um they showed a video of this young man, talked about his story and how um individuals within the Mount Diablo Unified School District supported him through his journey in getting through our schools with all these other things that he had going
057on. So um without any further ado, I'm going to introduce um uh Chris Filios. Miss, what's your first name? >> Christina Christina Filios. And um and also um Demetria Hoffford. Huffford. Haford. Beautiful. And um yes, Jenny Vargas and our young student. >> Thank you. >> Take it away. >> Good evening, President Mason, Vice President, and Zei, board of trustees, and Dr. Clark. It is my great pleasure to present the best uh part of the board agenda tonight, which is our recognition of Matis Joseph, a recent College Park High School graduate, class of 2025 as the region 6 every student succeeding honore. And tonight I'm representing region six for this um board agenda item and Jenny Vargas is representing Diablo Managers Association. So just a little bit about this award. The purpose of the award is
058to honor students who have succeeded against all odds. And Matise is just such a wonderful uh wonderful recipient of this award um exhibiting incredible resilience um and succeeding not only in high school but also beyond. He's a current uh Los Madanos uh college student and plays on their basketball team. Um and uh we're very proud. Um this award is unique in that it also recognizes the team of educators who support the student in their success. And so I'm very honored to also have the Mitra Huffford with us, sore case manager, uh who recognized Matis with this nomination. So this is the um the quote that was uh uh shared um from Matise um at the um AXA uh state uh summit recognition and then uh we are going to watch a very short video that
059AXA produced that shares his story before we present the award to him. I met Matise three years ago. The first day of school, the the counselor called me up. He goes, "Hey, Saul, we have this uh guy from France who just walked in the door. He's interested in playing basketball." >> I'm from a little part of France that's called French Guyana and it's it's it's in South America. So, it's next to Brazil. And then when I got in high school, that's when I moved to America. >> It was a nice gift in my lap of a 6 foot five big guy who can get me rebounds and he's a good teammate and wants to play basketball. We have to move from house to houses, cities to cities around here. So yeah, so day definitely feels
060weird. >> I think basketball was a place where he can go to to get away from any problems or uh stresses he may have had >> emotionally was more, you know, being us us three cuz he was my brother and my my mom us three, you know, staying solid and staying together. Anytime you get a kid who has to experience things that really no kid should experience and that's, you know, a bout of of of homelessness, financial insecurity, that's tough on on anyone, especially a kid. Just seeing what he went through, you know, I I felt for him, but I also saw how tough he was trying to be and and try to get through all this. So, that was very admirable. I was always kind of quiet, always quiet, and I wouldn't talk about,
061you know, my problems or anything like that. But, you know, it's my mom that told me, "Hey, go to go tell that to your counselor. Go tell that to your coach. Maybe they can help." So, that kind of saved us because if I didn't do that, then I don't think I wouldn't be here right now. >> He's one of those guys that he goes out there, he bustes his butt, he does what he's supposed to on the court. I would say out of everyone on the team, I coach him probably the hardest. I have high expectations of him. I think holding him to a high standard and given high expectations, he was able to, you know, raise his game and um he was voted by his his peers, his teammates to be one of the
062the captains this year. >> Oh, he's a shining light. He uh came over here. he's uh transferred through some uh situations and is able to come through on the other side. And I think that's a story not only for sports wise, but for a story that's going to be able to be shared with a lot of students. um as part of the recognition for this award. Oh my not okay. I'm just saying that. So there you are. Congratulations. Um, >> hi everyone. I'm Matise. Um, I just want to thank everyone, you know, uh, the sore team, the school district, Jenna next to me, um, Christina that did this beautiful, um, project on what I went through with my family and everyone that helped me. And obviously the metra um she helped me since the beginning
063since the first time I got into her office I knew I could uh trust her and uh and that she will help me through everything and uh yeah that's it. Timber. Okay. 11.2. Review and potential approval of resolution 25/26-38 in recognition of January as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Month. Dr. Clark. in recognition of January as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. Whereas in 20 in 2010, President Barack Obama issued a presidential pro proclamation um designating each January to be National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. Whereas slavery has not ceased to exist, but instead has been rebranded and is growing at an alarming rate at alarming rate with victims forced into modern slavery and subjected to commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, involuntary domestic servitude, forced marriage, and debt bondage. I'm not going to
064read this whole thing, but I will just say um now therefore be it resolved that the Mount Ela Unified School District does hereby proclaim January 2025 as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month and urges all residents to participate in the efforts to raise awareness of and end all forms of human trafficking in our communities and encourages schools and law enforcement to continue partnership ship that support Contraosta County's youth impacted by human trafficking. And I just want to say over the last couple years, the administration of the Mount Deb Unified School District has visited classrooms, almost all the classrooms in the district to educate our students on the dangers and signs and ways to prevent human trafficking. So with that, I leave this resolution in the hands of the board. >> Thank you. >> I
065will entertain a motion. Madame President, I move the board approve resolution 25/26-38 in recognition of National Slavery and Human Trafficking. >> Second that. >> We have a motion and a second. Trustee Barera Oriana, how do you vote? >> Yes. >> Trusty Lawrence, >> yes. >> Trusty Mayo, >> yes. >> Trusty Zwi, >> yes. >> Trusty McDougall, >> yes. And Trusty Mason votes yes as well with a motion by Lawrence and second by >> May. Okay. >> Madam President, may I speak to it briefly? >> Absolutely. So, um I had the opportunity this weekend. I spent time with a um member of the district attorney's office down in in Southern California and she uh handles these type of cases and uh they are horrific and they are actually growing that more and more especially uh teenage
066girls are being targeted. Um, and it it is just something for and so I'm so appreciative of the efforts of uh MDUSD to raise awareness and and to help with prevention of this. So, thank you. >> Okay. 11.3 review and potential approval of resolution 2526-39 recognizing January 23rd, 2026 as Ed Roberts Day. Dr. Clark. >> Yes. Another very important resolution. So whereas Edward Burn Roberts was born on January 23rd, 1939 as and as an adolescent in 1953, he acquired polio and spent ex extensive periods of time in an iron lung. And whereas Robert's career as an advocate began when a high school administrator threatened to deny him a diploma because he had not completed driver's education and physical education. Whereas in 1963, Roberts was admitted to the University of California, Berkeley, where he became the
067first student with severe physical with a severe physical disability to attend UC Berkeley. So now, therefore, be it resolved that the Mount Alba Unified uh Board of Education supports the designation of Ed Roberts Day and acknowledges the accomplishments of Ed Roberts in helping reduce barriers, increase access, and improve the lives of all persons with disabilities. Madame President, I leave this resolution in the hands of the board. >> Thank you. I will entertain a motion for discussion. Madam President, I move the board approve uh resolution 2526-39 recognizing Ed Roberts Day. >> I'll second. >> So, uh, Trustee Barrera Orianna, >> yes. >> Trusty Lawrence, >> yes. >> Trusty Mayo, >> yes. >> Trusty McDougall, >> yes. >> Trusty Zwi, >> yes. >> And trustee Mason votes yes as well. So that passes 50 with approval from
068our student rep. Okay. 11.6 review and potential approval resolution 25/26-31 January as attendance intervention month. Dr. Clark. >> Yes. Our students can learn if they are not in school. So resolution 25-26-41. Um whereas in September, the Mount Ela Unified School District launched its district-wide here today ready for tomorrow attendance awareness month campaign recognizing the importance of consistent attendance for student learning engagement and overall success. And whereas January January provides an opportunity for renewal, a chance to build on the momentum from September, re-engage students and families, and reinforce strong attendance habits for the remainder of the school year. So, Madame President, I now leave this resolution in the hands of the board. >> Thank you. >> Motion to approve resolution 2526-41, January, as attendance intervention month. Second that. >> Okay, we have a motion and a
069second. Trusty Barrera Oriana, >> yes. >> Trusty Lawrence, >> yes. >> Trusty Mayo, >> yes. >> Trusty Zwi, >> yes. >> Trusty McDougall, >> yes. >> And trusty Mason votes yeses. Okay. Reports and information 12.1. Is it idea >> or IDA 50th anniversary? Yeah, just um you know I just need to take a moment and just recognize the the work of so many people who make our students who learn differently and who have IEPs um part of of the regular student body. I've said this before in this in this body is that um unfortunately in public education students with disabilities are often thought of less than lower expectations and and um are looked at sometimes as a burden in the classroom. I do not feel that way. Um any student that learns differently has every
070right within our schools and within our classrooms to get the best possible education that we can provide. And so as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of IDA, I couldn't be more proud of our special education department. So I'm with that I'm going to introduce Dr. Wendy Agily and guest. Is that Amy Sadril? No, not Amy. No. Okay. No. Okay. You can have the presentation or I don't know. >> I know Dorothy turned in a speaker card, but I'm assuming you're going to be part of the presentation, aren't you? I didn't put my card in in time for communication. Sorry. And I was in the back. So, first I want to say if if you let me uh I want to say thank you to everybody from last night for the event that we held um
071for our special education community at Mount Diablo Unified School District. Everybody came together. our new uh CAC board knocked it out the park and I just want to say thank you to Nikki, Jacqueline, um Veronica, Lisa for helping and for Wendy and her team for doing an amazing job. Um I would say this was probably one of our best events and without a lot of hitches. So I just want to give a shout out to everybody that was a part of it um including Linda and Deborah. Thank you for your volunteering and your time last night. Thank you. Okay, so yay, we're celebrating IDA. So, I wanted to just say something um as the co-chair of um the community advisory committee for the district. I just want to say that I am honored that we're
072celebrating the 50th anniversary of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. IDEIDA is a significant milestone that celebrates five decades of progress in ensuring that children with disabilities receive free and appropriate education. Enacted in 1975, IDA was transformed that has transformed the educational landscape by mandating services and support tailored to the unique needs of students with disabilities. This anniversary not only highlights the achievements in the inclusivity and accessibility within the schools but also serves as a reminder of the ongoing challenges and the importance of advocacy. As we reflect on the on 50 years of IDA, it is crucial to recognize the vital role of educators, families, and advocates who have worked every child. I want to thank Mount Diablo um unified for being a partner with the parents that since I've been a part of the community
073advisory committee and the ongoing even in this um day of um not as much diversity and inclusion um in certain areas of the country, but here we stand tall and we stand with our students of all abilities. And I just want to remind everybody that our kids with disabilities that have an IEP are general education students first. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I think we'll probably go over that. All right. And so if we can go ahead and we'll click on to our first slide. So obviously um special education part of the general education program and I can go through each one of those goals and tells you how special education fits into it. But I think we can all um assume that from where we're going. IDEIDA is the Individual with Disabilities
074Education Act. It's what we call it today. However, it's not just one act. There were actually three revisions to that act. Um all of them added additional components. All of them um changed things slightly and all of them had um really profound impacts as you can see by some of the data I'll be sharing. All right. Um we always talk about um IEPs, individual programs. However, to me, the most important part of any IEP is the ITP, which is the transition plan, which is where you're going. Because in my opinion, if you're running to something, you will get there. if you're just wandering around aimlessly, who knows if you'll get there. So really sort of this defining where are we leading this kid is the most important part and that came into play in 1990.
075Here's a photo of Gerald Ford signing the first I am public law 94142 which was the education for all handicapped children act. And I point out that term because it really was the start of what the laws were um intended to do. However, as the um system has changed, many things have changed since 1975. For example, gas was 85 cents in those days. And um people had bars and landline phones in their homes. Many things have been updated since then. And the two most recent changes were the changes to 504 regulations regarding eligibility. they took out the old Rword um from those regulations. And also just this week from 2001, we have an updated definition of dyslexia. So we like to think these things are static. They are not. They change constantly and we're happy
076to be a part of those changes. Along came 1990 and a couple of parts were added to that. We started seeing an increase for kids with autism. We also saw at that same time a corresponding decrease for students with at the time the rword however intellectual disability. So it really did shift how we started to see the capabilities of kids with disabilities even more so. As I already mentioned um our district um you know we follow all of the federal and state laws regarding special education and yes we know that these programs are expensive. We also know that education buys you two things. It does not buy you a guaranteed success. It buys you opportunities and it buys you hope. Those things matter. And it matters to every single kid here, no matter who they
077are, the body and brains that they come in. We're just going to serve them all. But right now, we have 4,698 students with disabilities. And you can see the breakdown right there. There's 13 eligibility categories but most of them are eligible for speech and language impairment simply um either processing with articulation or language. You see autism is about 25% of our population intellectual disability is a very small amount. We often hear about kids um with emotional disabilities and all of those things but you can see that's a very small percentage of our population. You can also see that Mount Diablo does a really good job of educating kids in our district programs. You see the very small slice there of our kids, the gray slice there. In our nonpublic schools, we are able to serve
078over 90% of our kids and we do so with great pride. Um, we are not a district that sends all of our kids out. As a matter of fact, if you exclude our non-public schools and you count in only our district programs, we actually take more kids in than we send to our district programs by about five or six kids. We have 12 inount programs right now. And um that's down by about half from about 10 years ago. So again, we're very conscientious of costs, but we're also conscientious of serving kids where they need to be. I want to talk about our dedicated staff. We have a lot of them here today. We have our special ed director, Amy Sadrilla. >> Hi, Amy. Amy loves attention. We We have our two assistant directors, Jessica Pos
079and Ivana Husman. And we have one of our program specialists, Kim Huntley, is here today. But we also have I'm just going to give you about round numbers about 250 teachers about 500 assistants about 50 speech therapists, occupational therapists, about 50 psychologists, physical therapists, assistive technology, AAC which is communication devices. We certainly could not fit all of those people in this room and now would you want us to, but I promise you we offer robust programs for our kids. Also being very clear that we do maintain kids in least restrictive environments and gened as much as possible. We also have our parents and I want to wave them today. You just met Dorothy. You know Dorothy but also Nikki is here. Nikki Mora is our co-chair. Hi Nikki. And then we also have our vice
080chair here Veronica who is back there. And um they are a lovely team and um I cannot get them to stop volunteering enough. I told them, "No, no, no. You do not have to do this." And they said, "Yes, they do." And I said, "Okay, do it." And they were amazing. So absolutely lovely. Our board members also participated in our event. So, thank you very much. Um, and there's a lovely photo of board member Mayo and Dorothy at our legislative day in Sacramento. We probably walked five miles that day if I remember right. And um, and another one of our celebration events right there in the photo of Nikki and her family. So, academic outcomes, we know that IDA before um the law was passed, 20% of kids were educated. For those of you who
081are parents, I want you to ask yourself, how would you feel if somebody said your kids not good enough to come to school? And that was the reality for a lot of our kids. They were just told, "Keep them home. They're not welcome here." And that was legal. IDA changed that and said, "No, it's fine." And you can see the graduation rate was negligible in 1975 for students with disabilities. By 1995, 5 years after that transition plan, we were up to 30%. 2022, we were up to 74%. Last year, two years ago, we were at 77% and I was just told today we increased four more% to 81%. So, you can be a glass half full or a glass half empty type of person, but I'm going to go with a glass half full because
082we're making progress. And you want to talk about closing an achievement gap. There was an achievement gap of 84 points. Now, we have an achievement gap of 10. So, I'll take it. Add into that, we're going to have the alternate diploma which will count next year even though we have had kids on the alternate diploma pathway now for three years but it hasn't hit the dashboard yet and we will see even greater increases. So work that I'm really really proud of again to increase those opportunities for our kids. Post-secondary outcomes when IDA went into um play 2.3% of kids entering college were identified as having a disability. Now it's 22% which aligns with the general population. So the fact that we've sent the message that people with disabilities, yeah, welcome. You're one of us. Job
083accomplished. Makes me happy. And again, if we're not giving kids diplomas, we're not sending them to college. So one had to come before the other, and I'm quite proud of that. Um this is a short video that was part of our um presentation to the state sula. These videos were um sent districtwide and it was created by Kim Huntley, our program specialist, and features our bridge um students. And so please um that it's available for you. You can watch it at your leisure. And um and I will close out today by sharing these two things with you. Um this is a picture up in the top right hand corner of Jonathan Wlin. He's a long-term um employee of our district. And next to him is his friend Morin Dono. She's a pioneer from Berkeley. Um
084she was part of that civil rights movement that we just heard about that Ed Roberts group. Um it's very rare for females to be um identified with musculardrophe and she's a person who has lived with musculardrophe her whole life. That picture was taken in Berkeley about two years ago. So we actually have um pioneers now and will continue to fight. And Jonathan's watching at home. He's sick today. So, if you could just say hi, Jonathan, that'd be great. Um, he's texting me now like, "Don't forget I'm here." And then the bottom picture down there is a picture that, um, I took last week. There's two people in that video. They're both conquered residents. One of them was a female named Vanessa. I went to high school with her. Um, we went to the same high
085school. Um, she went on to Cal, unlike me. I did not. Um, she graduated from there. She's an artist. The, um, mural at the Oakland airport. That's the life-size mural, 40 ft. Vanessa is the artist of that mural. She is that one. She does have a degree from Cal. She also um is a published author and she also obviously is a painter and an advocate and an ally and a playwright and all of these things. Um she also had her 52nd birthday on the day this picture was taken last Thursday. And all I can think about again as a parent, you've got a kid who's got profound disabilities and the kid she had grit. She has grit now. You can't imagine. And then finally somebody said, "Yeah, there's a place for your kids. You can
086bring them." Very cool, right? That's a great story. So that's Vanessa. She lives right here in town and she's great. She does not use her voice to speak. She's a um person who uses the voice communication device. Next to her is her husband. They live independently in town. They own a home. He's a photographer. He's also a poet and he is her paid full-time attendant. Um he is their full-time caretaker. You'll note he's also a wheelchair user. Um but the point is he is the person who takes care of her. That's not the interesting part to this story. What is the interesting part is Steve her husband is um the 14th child born in the family and he was born 3 weeks after his 13th sibling that you know number 13 in the family and
087that sibling also had cerebral palsy and that sibling was institutionalized for his whole life and that's the difference IDA makes that's the difference three years make so I just want to point that out um IDA is not a law on paper it's a law that changes lives and on On a personal note, I want to thank you for allowing me to be here and work here and be somebody who also can contribute to that. So, thank you very much and thank you for observing IDA with us. >> Thank you. What a wonderful reason to celebrate and uh our lives are blessed uh by knowing um students in the special education department. So thank you. >> All right. Next will be 12.2 2025 California accountab accountability dashboard review. Dr. Clark. >> Yes. So um so we're
088very excited to um share outcomes of our students. Um you know I always sometimes these meetings are packed with people who are advocating for children. So I would imagine that it'd be packed tonight of folks who were interested on how our students actually did. Um the dashboard came out uh several years back. Schools used to schools and districts were just um ranked by one number. And so with the dashboard, it takes more of a holistic view of a school and gives it basically and and Miss Thomas is going to explain this, but basically gives them measurements of how they're doing. And um and so the dashboard is meant to be a more um um in in uh accessible document for folks instead of just looking at a number. So um we're always extremely proud of
089our Mount Diablo um students. We're always extremely proud of the efforts that go into supporting them. And so tonight, we're going to hear about our data and our progress. And so I have Samantha Allen and Martha Thomas who are going to present this item and Christina Filios. >> Good evening. Can you hear me? Is it on? Push button. It's right. There you go. Better. Thank you. Good evening, uh, Madame President. Welcome, uh, Dr. Clark, board of trustees. Um, tonight I am here with my colleagues, uh, Christina Felios, and Martha Thomas um to share with you our 2025 Mount Diablo Unified School District uh, school dashboard. So, we're going to ask you tonight if you can hang on to your questions till the end of the presentation, but we will stay up here to any questions
090you may have. So, um, we've already seen the LCAP this evening. These are our LCAP goals. These are sort of the center of our work. This is all of our work stems from our LCAP and our superintendent goals. Okay. So, this is a slide I wanted to share with you before we got started tonight. It's it's a it's a new slide for you, most of you. I think some of you who have been at PAC may have seen this before, but this is a visual representation of our assessment cycles and how we do the work that we do in this district to serve our students and their needs. If you look at the top green arrow on this slide, what you see is our external facing uh indicators which means like those l that lagging
091data that one-time test at the end of the year, our CASP data is that our grad rate and our dashboard that you're here tonight that is uh this external facing indicator as well as like the ELPAC that's held once a year. So the middle the middle arrow there is our um internal indicators. These are our benchmark assessments that as you can see we hold three times a year and uh this is like MClass STAR uh SEAL and these are indicators that we use on a regular basis to address our needs in the classroom and to to think about are we progressing in the way we want to towards standards for our students. What's exciting is this year the blue the blue arrow is what we've really been working on which are those smaller assessment cycles
092that happen in the classroom by grade level by subject and these are anywhere from two to six week cycles where teachers come together and talk about student progress and build strategies together to improve student progress towards standard. And so this is all the work we've been doing this year that you all have seen um thus far. Okay. Okay. And this is a really simple slide, but I'm really proud to say that our district has worked really hard in alignment. And this alignment has what you'll see tonight, we are moving in the right direction. And part of this is due to the fact that we are truly aligned all the way from the superintendent down to the classroom. And so, um, when you think about the LCAP, and there's a slide that I share with our
093staff often that has the superintendent goals right under the LCAP goals so that you can see how they align specifically to the goals and resources that we're providing as a district. What's really exciting is if you look at your school SIPs, which I would love the community to do, um, you'll see that those are aligned directly to our LCAP goals and our superintendent go schools, but they're specified to the site, the specific needs at the site. And then on top of that, our grade levels and our subject areas have their own goals. These goals are to get really microscopic around what are the needs that will eventually progress. And the idea is at the end of the year, that green line, we'll see improvement based on following all these cycles of assessment. So I'm now
094going to ask Christina to come up and talk to you a little bit more about continuous improvement. So this graphic is uh represents our three-year cycle of improvement specifically for our LCAP. So just as a reminder, the LCAP is a three-year plan. We are currently implementing year two and we follow the plan do study act uh cycle of improvement. Um Martha is going to be presenting on the California dashboard and as Sam shared most of the dashboard data is considered lagging indicators. So, for example, we did not receive this dashboard information prior to planning for year two of the LCAP. So, one of the things that's important, that's part of why we call it lagging. Um, and part of what's important is um that middle line of data that Sam shared, it's really important for
095us to have real time local data so that we can be monitoring our progress in addition to waiting for the lagging indicators from the state. So, this is just a reminder that uh our LCAP in our LCAP for our dashboard indicators, we also have three-year outcome goals. So, we're working on those improvements over the full three years of the plan. So, the dashboard is California's public reporting tool. It gives communities a clear picture of how schools and districts are performing across multiple measures and not just as scores. It highlights areas of strength, areas needing support and equity gra gaps across our student groups. And it's really designed to drive continuous improvement and transparency across the system with our whole community. The dashboard includes both state indicators like ELA, math, graduation, chronic absenteeism, and local indicators
096that we as a district have to report on. The state indicators let us compare performance across schools and districts. And the local indicators such as implementation of academic standards or school climate tell us how well we're doing at supporting the conditions of learning. The dashboard also reports for all major student groups so we can identify equity gaps. So these are the required local measures and for 2025 uh Mount Diablo met all standards. These measures speak to foundational pieces of the system, implementing standards, providing a broad course of study, ensuring basic services, engaging families, and collecting local climate data. Uh these don't come with performance level colors like our other indicators, but they do reflect reflect important systems work that supports our student learning. The dashboard itself uses five performance levels uh from red to blue.
097A school or district receives one color measure uh color per each measure and that color comes from combining two pieces of data status and change. The status indicates the current year's performance and change is whether that performance improved, declined or stayed about the same from last year and together these determine the performance level color. This graphic here uh we call it the 5x5 shows you exactly how the status and change interact. So each measure has a different set of cut points that determine whether status is very high, high, medium, low or very low. And then we look at the change from last year um and where those across the top sorry and where those two lines meet is um is where we assign the performance level color. So in this example, the school performed at
098a high level for status on the vertical column and in the increased range for change on the horizontal row. And this results in a performance level of green where the two scores meet on the grid. And this type of measurement ensures that both current performance and improvement are represented in our data. This slide shows the district-wide results across all eight state indicators. You'll notice mixed results, some upward movement, and some areas that maintained or declined. We'll dig deeper into each indicator shortly, but this gives you a quick snapshot of where we stand as a district. Uh, I do want to point out this is the first year that science has had a performance level color, and we're proud to see that Mount Diablo achieved a performance level of green in this area. All right. For
099language arts and math, the dashboard uses a measurement called distance from standard. It is not a proficiency rate. Distance from standard shows how far above or how far below from standard the average student scored. Change in the distance from standard tells us whether we're closing or widening the gap. One important note, participation matters for this indicator. If participation falls below 95%, the dashboard automatically adjusts our scores downward. Here we're seeing our district-wide performance for language arts. Note the performance level color has moved up to yellow and the average distance from standard has moved very close to standard and is only slightly below the state average. Also indicated is the performance level for each of our student groups. Our American Indian student group, you'll notice, does not have a performance color and that's due to the
100small size of the student group. I have indicated with red boxes um any of our student groups where participation was below 95% which means their results were moved downward. Here we're seeing our district-wide performance in math. Our performance level in this area has also moved up to yellow and the average DFS has also moved closer to standard. Mount Diablo actually outperformed the state in this indicator. Again, except for American Indians, performance level for each student group is indicated and also a red box for participation rate. All right, moving on to science and this is again our first year with science performance. So for science, instead of using a distance from standard measurement like we saw with language arts and math, they use a fancy term, science points. Although each grade level has its own unique
101scale scores, all have the same 100 point range, which makes it a lot easier for us to compare results across grade levels. The change in the science points tells us whether we're closing or widening that gap. Again, like with language arts and math, there could be a participation rate reduction for under 95%. Okay, so here is our scores for science. You may notice the number of students is very different from language arts and math. And that's because science is only tested in grades five, 8, and then once in high school. For us, typically that's in 11th grade. Okay. Levels have been assigned both at the district and student group level. And like language arts and math, we did have some groups that were impacted by lower per participation rates. One not additional note, Mount Diablo
102is less than one point from the state average in science. Okay, moving on to our LP. The LP is the English learner progress indicator and it measures how many of our English learners made progress from one LPAC level to the next or remained at the highest level of level four. Like the other indicators, it also includes status and change. Only students in grades 1 through 12 are included in the LP scores because students have to have two years in a row of assessment on the ELPAC to be included in this measure. In 2025, both our English learners and our long-term English learners received an orange rating. So, this does continue to remain a very important area of focus for Mount Diablo, particularly with our long-term English learners. Moving out of academics into other areas, we
103have the college and career readiness rates. They are determined by a percentage of our graduates who meet prepared criteria. Some examples of the prepared criteria include our CTE pathways meeting UC and CSU requirements, work-based learning experiences, and the state seal of biiteracy among others. The rate is tied directly to the graduating cohort and results do fall into five performance levels. Our district's overall CCR rating is green with 44.7% of graduates meeting their prepared level. Student group performance varies and we do see some gaps for student groups. This year we were proud to see increases in performance level for our English learners, our homeless students, our Asian and our African-American student groups. Chronic absenteeism is one of our other indicators and it is defined as missing 10% or more of school for any reason. The state
104only includes grades K through eight for this indicator. In this area, lower percentage points represent stronger performance. So, and students must be enrolled at least 31 instructional days to count and suspensions do count as absence. In 2025, our district remained in the orange range with 18.4% of students chronically absent. Although our absenteeism level is higher than we would like, we did not see a sign s statistically significant increase in our levels of chronic absenteeism last year. Graduation rate, very proud of this one. The graduation rate indicator includes students who graduate in four years and students from the prior cohort who graduate during their fifth year. Um at this time only regular diplomas are included in this indicator. So our students earning equivalency certificates or non-standard diplomas are included in our number of students but they
105are not counted as graduates. Uh oh. Okay, sorry. Our four and fiveyear combined graduation rate is 89.9% earning a green rating and an overall improvement of 3.5% from last year and outperforming the state average by 2.1%. And we are very excited that we no longer have any student groups in the red or orange performance level for this indicator. Our last indicator is the suspension rate. So the suspension rate indicator reports the percentage of students who were suspended at least once during the school year. Students are only counted once regardless of how many suspension incidents occurred for this measurement. Again, lower is better. In 2025, we earned a green rating, which is an increase of two performance levels, and we declined a full percentage point more than the state average. Except for our Filipino student group
106who maintained a high per uh level in green, all of our students group student groups moved up in performance by one or two levels. And we're very proud that we no longer have any students in the red area for this indicator. Thank you for >> Does anyone have any questions before we leave the podium? I it's um you there are obviously still areas for improvement but the progress and especially the um the the graduation part was extra exciting and um you know when I was previously on the board we had increased graduation requirements um and so still seeing graduation rates go up in combination with that is is just a testament to the work being done. So thank you. I don't know how to say this intelligently, but I am impressed with the science performance.
107Um, and knowing that there is math and ELA and science, I want to see everything rise up across the board. So, do I know we're probably analyzing it, but uh, is it the interest in the subject area? Is it the com, you know, complexity? any ideas why we would do so well in science? >> I I think you probably hit the nail on the head. It it is a it's an interest level. Um and it's also when we have just the smaller groupings as well, it's a much more targeted um assessment that occurs. >> Okay. >> So, that could also be part of that indicator. >> Okay. I I apologize for the wild card question. And it's just intriguing to me to see that uh bright star there. Thank you. >> Thank you so much
108presentation. >> Thank you. All righty. Next. Food and nutrition services program update and wellness policy assessment. Dr. Clark. >> Yes. Um, we've we've had um we've had Alex um we've had Alex here before to present, but we had a request to to bring her back and I just want to thank her. We got her out at this late hour and you know our cafeterias have to be open first thing in the morning to serve all those kids and things like that, but I know Alex has some exciting news and I hope those students who were here earlier aren't uh are stealing your thunder a little bit there with our wellness policy. So again, Alex, uh, Alex EMTT, >> thank you so much for inviting me this evening. And I know Angie and I were talking
109about perfect timing that we had the students referencing the wellness policy this evening. Um, so good evening, Dr. Clark, board of trustees. Again, I'm Alex at the director of food nutrition services here at the district. Um, I'm joined by my colleague Angie Vicroy. She's our program manager and she's going to talk you through the wellness policy trienal evaluation that we recently conducted. Um, and I'm just going to go over an overview of our program, some highlights, some of the things that we're working on. So, let's start with an overview of food and nutrition services at Mount Diablo. Uh, we serve almost 27,000 meals every day. Uh this work is carried out by 189 food service employees across 55 schools and programs across the district. Last year we served over 4.5 million meals. I was crunching
110the numbers. This is actually a 23% increase since the 22 23 school year. So this is a million more meals per year that we're serving. Primarily we serve breakfast and lunch under the national school breakfast and national school lunch program. We also partner with CARES and we offer snack and suppers at select schools. Right now we offer snack and supper in 24 schools. We've launched six additional programs in the last two years and in February we're launching one more school. Um suppers are served under the child and adult care food program. So it's a different a different program. So clearly, you know, you can see that there's a huge student demand for nourishing school meals here in Mount Diablo and across the nation. During the 2324 school year, we work together as a team to
111develop a clear mission and vision for our department to guide our work and our priorities. Our mission, you can see, is easy. You know, this is what we do every day. This is our reason for existing. We exist to nourish students for academic success. Our vision is our north star. So this is where we want to move to as a department in the next 10 to 15 years. Um simply put, it's what we're working towards. And I'll warn you, it's a bit of a mouthful, but we're, you know, we're a team that has a big vision. So our vision is food and nutrition services is an industry leader with a thriving and positive team that serves our students delicious, diverse, scratch-cooked, locally sourced meals in modern and efficient facilities while embodying the values of equity,
112sustainability, collaboration, and innovation. To support our vision, our team has five goals. Um our goals are one to transform facilities at schools in the central kitchen mainly to uh further enable scratch cooking. Two to increase scratch cooking both by investing in facilities and staff. Three to invest in our team uh through hiring and also increasing fully benefited positions and then also creating staff training programs and creating career growth opportunities for our employees. Our fourth goal is to invest in the local economy. We want to double our procurement of foods from local bipokowned and small medium family businesses and farms. And our fifth goal is to reduce waste um and improve the student experience by implementing compostable packaging and also reducing packaging and waste wherever possible. You'll hear a bit more about these the progress towards
113these goals later in my presentation, but we're already making significant progress. Um just a few examples of the moves that we've already made. Almost 80% of our produce is local and over 40% is organic. In the past two years, we've actually added 20 new fully benefited positions and the vast majority of those are out at our school sites team positions. We've also already moved 100% of our packaging to compostable products. So, how is all of this work funded? Um, California became the first state in the nation to adopt the universal meals program in the 2223 school year. This followed the national universal meals program that happened during the pandemic and luckily the program has continued to be funded in each subsequent year. The way this works is the state of California supplements the funding from
114USDA. Um our department we receive about $20 million of funding on an annual basis and this comes in the form of individual meal reimbursements. So it's not like a $20 million grant. This is every breakfast, every lunch that we serve, we receive funding for that meal. Uh we're approximately 50% federally funded and 50% state funded. Um we we the royal we actually Angie um applied for district-wide community eligibility provision, which is C uh last school year. Um this has been a great program. It streamlines paperwork for families. It also streamlines paperwork for our department and it eliminated the need for meal applications at all of our schools. So now all schools can use the household income form um for LCFF purposes. Now a bit about our menus. We offer meat and vegetarian menu options daily
115at all schools. Um, all meals come with fresh fruit and vegetable options and then optional milk. Menus are available on our website and then there's a comprehensive nutritional information and allergen information available on link. It's also linked onto our website. We're always happy to accommodate students with allergies or other disabilities. Parents can complete us and submit the medical form which is also on our website. So, how do we decide what to serve? Well, um, if you've never worked in school nutrition, it's really complicated. Uh, USDA sets forth the rules for the program and they vary by grade level. And our program's funding is tied to compliance. Uh, we have to offer five different food groups, proteins, grains, fruits, vegetables, and milks. It gets a little more complicated with the veggies, and there's five different subgroups.
116Um, since 2012, the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, students have been required to take a fruit or a vegetable with breakfast and lunch. There's also calorie, sodium, and saturated fat minimums and maximums. Those vary depending on the menu and the grade level. The way this works for our district is our team develops and tests recipes out at schools. Then we use a software system to track inventory and the nutritionals. Um, there's various facilities across the district, too, that impact what we can serve. You know, we're really fortunate here that most of our our kitchens have cooking facilities um to some extent here. The secondary schools, they just have more robust facilities. And so, we're able to do a little bit more of our scratch cooking program at the secondary schools. Though, we've made a lot of
117progress at our elementary schools as well. The secondary schools, they scratch cook things like bread doughs. They make like the homemade zombies, that kind of thing. We handle raw proteins at the secondary schools. All right. So, there's a lot of rules and regulations, but we still get to be creative and makes uh make food that students love. Um, my approach to school food has always been sort of a both and where I think the best thing to do is offer uh students familiar favorites and also expose them to new flavors, new things that they might not have the opportunity to try before, especially produce. We prioritize scratch cooking and uh fresh ingredients. We also strive to make our menus represent our our district's cultural diversity. Last year we introduced new halal items. So including chicken,
118deli turkey, and actually hot dogs. And actually some uh students at Foothill just emailed me today. They featured some of the halal items in their school newspaper. So that was really cool to see. Um, some of our most popular menu items, you know, besides pizza, uh, we offer tri tip sandwiches, sweet chili teriyaki wings and hot honey, hot honey wings. Those are pictured there. Boni sandwiches, smoothie bowls. We even did like an acai bowl last year. Lots of pasta. We have on the menu right now. Uh, birya tacos and birya quesadillas. Those are a personal favorite of mine. Um, and then we just newly introduced last month whole grain crepes with fresh fruit, which have been really popular. All right. So, you heard earlier that one of our department's five goals is to invest in
119the local economy. And one of the key ways that we do this is through our farm-to-school program. The photo in on this slide is a huge pallet of Mimi's organic strawberries. Mimi's is a farm. It's a minority owned farm down in Selenus, California, and we buy all of our strawberries from there in the spring and summer, and that's in our web, our our warehouse. Um, over 40% of our produce is organic, and we're working to increase this. And we have a kind of complex but amazing procurement system. We actually work with over 30 food vendors. And so whereas many districts work with one or two or three large distributors, our warehouse really allows us to buy directly from local farms and vendors. Everything from produce to yogurt to even like local whole wheat flour. Um
120to increase accountability and transparency and also just ensure that we're meeting our goals, we're working with the Center for Good Food Purchasing, which is a nonprofit. We're doing a deep procurement analysis to identify opportunities to improve our local and sustainable purchasing practices. Our team partners closely with the CARES program and newly with Growing Healthy Kids on our harvest of the month program. Every month we feature a unique local crop and we work with CARES and growing healthy kids to offer taste tests to students either in after school or as part of their garden education. Here are some of our recent harvest of the month features. This month we have pomegranates from Loi. They're really delicious. Next month we have bok choy from Selenus and it's going to be served in ramen bowls for secondary and
121then with the general chow chicken and rice bowls in elementary schools. Another department goal you heard about at the beginning of this presentation was waste reduction. We're making big strides in this area thanks to our partnership with the maintenance and operations team. Um, with M, we implemented waste sorting at all elementary schools this year and we're expanding to secondary schools next year. So, this is part of the requirements of SP 1383, which is a state law, but of course, it's also the right thing to do for our students future and for the environment. Um, our DE department also transitioned in 2024 to 100% compostable packaging and we have share tables in all of our schools. We've eliminated plastic sporks, the little plastic wrapped spork fork spoon things. And we've implemented compostable utensils this year. This
122was quite a complicated project. You have no idea. Mount Diablo with seven cities. There's two different uh trash haulers and one of them has different roles depending on which part of the county you're in. and I've learned a lot. Uh we've also eliminated individually wrapped cereal and replaced it with bulk organic cereal. And then finally, we're piloting bulk milk to further reduce food and plastic waste. Uh we like all districts in California have been extremely uh fortunate to receive additional state grant funds to support infrastructure recently as part of the roll out of California universal meals. And we've been busy investing this money to improve the student experience and our kitchens. Uh 12 schools have or are scheduled to get new serving lines to properly hold food hot and cold and also improve the student
123experience. Uh this year we're planning to eliminate the kind of roll up window service at three schools which I'm really excited about. We're also working with M to redesign the serving areas at and or the the mus at seven schools. Uh this year we're investing in our central kitchen. We're getting blast chillers and vacuum sealers and replacing their walk-ins. This is going to help us move towards more scratch cooking at our elementary sites. Um, last, we've purchased a new refrigerated truck and a van to support our growing participation. And then we've purchased 150 uh new small pieces of equipment to support our kitchens and our staff. With that, I will turn it over to my colleague Angie who will discuss the recent results of Mount Diablo's wellness policy trienal assessment. And we can take questions
124at the end of Angie's presentation on what I've shared in her slides. Thank you, Alex. Good evening, board community. Thank you. Um here. All right. I'm just going to dive right in. Um the wellness policy, the trienal assessment overview, uh it's a federal requirement that districts have to complete. Um it evaluates both policy quality as well as real world implementation. So uh we use Welssat, of course, we love our acronyms. It just stands for wellness school uh assessment tool. um that was designed by Yukon Red Center for food policy and health with their um uh uh department of ed. Um so what that does is it compares a na a lo our local policy to uh national best practices. The overall scoring um measures comprehensiveness. So how many of the topics um from the assessment
125are addressed? Um there are well I'll get into the topics here in a minute and then the overall strength so how strongly they are written into policy. Uh the six sections touch on federal requirements nutrition environment and services nutrition education physical education phys and physical activity employee wellness integration and coordination. So this cycle um the district-wide review was conducted by a multistakeholder wellness committee in June uh that consisted of district administration um President Mason, thank you uh for always being such a staple there. Uh nurses, parents, community members, teachers, food service custodial among others. Um so it's done in three steps. The first step is you score the policy, right? how it's written. The second step is you score the practices, so how it's actually being practiced out in the schools. And then the third
126is to summarize and share, which we're doing now. All right, there's a lot of work to be done. Um, so key findings, total comprehensiveness, comprehensiveness score is 50%. And to remind you that is how many topics of the out of the six different sections were were addressed. And then the strength score at 13% um again those that's how strongly they're written into the policy. So key strengths include nutrition services, physical education practices as well as skills-based interactive nutrition education like growing healthy kids. These results show that while many topics are mentioned in policy, the language is often general and and stronger, clearer requirements are needed. Uh so the difference between must refrain versus encouraged to avoid. Practices across schools vary and in several areas strong work is happening but is not formally captured in policy.
127Again like our growing healthy kids Um key growth opportunities. This is both uh both in policy and or in practice. Uh clarify responsibilities for school level implementation. There's no site wellness committee committees that currently exist. Right? It takes a village guys. uh strength strengthen oversight of fundraisers, school stores, celebrations, and other competitive food sales. So, what this means is get creative like how we've implemented the pizza parties that are the reimburseable, the free meal at school, uh pizza parties or barbecues to celebrate. Uh improve consistency of seated meal times, which are not currently met all of the time, uh sorry, that are currently met only part of the time at some schools. expand family and community physical activity opportunities um and opportunities and before and after school offerings. So, I've seen things for like bike
128to school and the color color runs, fun runs. Um increased staff training on smart snacks. I'm sure uh there's a few of us that could define what a smart snack is. um PE instruction and wellness implementation, improve documentation and examples of employee wellness efforts. So next steps, the district wellness committee will need to reconvene to prioritize improvement um areas across policy and practice. Some areas that show strong practice but are not supported within policy. uh again growing healthy kids whereas some areas have strong policy with um with little and and inconsistent implementation. We need to com we need to develop clear implementation plans with assigned responsibilities, timelines and monitoring strategies and update policy language to accurately reflect strong existing practices and strengthen areas where practice is inconsistent. And I can tell you what I heard
129tonight is we want to add sustainability to that. So I I uh invite those uh Northgate uh and college now students to join our wellness committee. That would be exciting. Uh so overall the policy assess the policy and the assessment are required for our food program and there has to be buyin from the entire community. The biggest message here is that success happens when we collaborate and we are stronger together. Thank you. >> We're open for any questions, comments. >> I have one question. Um, how much, if any, produce, fresh produce, are you getting from all of these gardens that we have right in our district? >> The answer is not much, but occasionally we do. Rio Vista does quite a a lot from their their farm and garden space. That's probably the one that
130does the most. Mostly it's most of the gardens are for education purposes, right? Because the the quantity that they're growing isn't really enough. But where we can, it's really exciting. You know, even if you can just feature a little bit on the salad bar. Um, and actually with growing healthy kids, we we just drafted a an SOP that we're going to bring to Contraosta, a Department of Public Health around just setting forth all the the right u policies and practices around harvesting school garden produce. Yeah. >> Because when we started that twoacre garden many years ago, Riverview, that was our plan was that that produce would go to our food services and feed our kids. So, >> yeah. Yeah, I mean I definitely I definitely think it can supplement produce for the school meal program.
131In my experience, it's not usually enough to really supply the salad bar for a week, that kind of thing. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Uh could you uh share what the share tables uh entail? >> Sure. Um, so after Healthy Hunger-Free Kids in 2012, Share Tables kind of became a a thing um because there's this rule that the students have to take a fruit or a vegetable in order for us to count the meal as reimburseable. And so the share table is a place where if they don't want that or if they don't want a component, it's only for wrapped items or whole fruit or that kind of thing, they can put it on the share table. We've recently purchased new ones that have like an ice bin basically, so it holds the
132food at temperature and we have an SOP for how to deal with this, but it's essentially to control food waste. >> Thank you. And then a couple comments. So, one, huge mistake not having dinner before this meeting and then seeing like the the the the pictures of all the delicious food. Um, I had actually planned on pulling item 15.25 from the consent agenda. um simply because I want to highlight how fantastic I think it is the whole grain creps and the fact that students are embracing them. Um and it it does seem like um that you know there's some administrative stuff to to work on. But I think that just pales in comparison to the change that I think we've seen over these last 10 plus years. Um and it's just a testament to the
133work being done and seeing um you know things that the the choices of you know you either have to do um low quality in order to be low cost and be cost-effective versus cooking from scratch and showing that these things can be done. Um delivering high quality healthy less processed food. And so I'm I'm just so proud to to see the the steps and the continuing efforts and and want to commend you and thank you for that and and to everyone uh in the department. So thank you. >> Thank you so much. Yeah. You know, I think huge part of it is honestly universal meals, right? Like not having to differentiate students eligibility based on income and um just all the administrative burden that goes along with that. And so it it makes the funding
134make a lot more sense. and and you can see here and I think in lots of districts across California just the the transformation. Thank you. >> Uh just a quick comment. I mean I've been I think my main lunch is going to cafeteria and getting food. I think over the years it's certainly gotten a lot better the quality and like the food and the choices. I know today I had this rice bowl with like some ground beef on top and it just feels delicious and I just want to thank you for the continuation of your work. >> Oh my gosh, that's so meaningful. Thank you so much. >> I just call it rice bowl with ground beef on top. What is the fancy what is the >> I mean that's what our kids may say,
135but what's the fancy name for it? Because I know you know what it is. >> That's the It's a picado bowl. So it's a it's a um it's a Cuban picado bowl and actually we today we were so it comes with plantains and we've never this is the first time we've ever done plantains right and so in some schools they're really popular and kids are like super into them and then in other schools you know kids are like oh my gosh so today we were actually trying to in one of our schools actually in Monty Gardens right Deanna I was there um you know trying to taste test and sell the plantains a little bit so >> and and I also want Thank you for the for the wellness for the wellness policy work. I
136know that that's difficult and trying to um change practices with fundraising and uh giving people rewards, giving students rewards with foods and doing sales and things like that that that is an uphill battle and I just appreciate you bringing data so that we can use that data to work with with our staffs and really curbing that. So, thank you. Yeah. Okay. Board member reports, do you want to start us off? Student. >> Yes. >> Representative. >> Uh, so last week it was, I think, really great week from attending the CSB conference. I just got ideas on how to connect with students and issues to support students. I think the first thing I plan to do after hearing all the other student board members and hearing other ideas is to reach out more to the student
137councils and to offer to come to meetings and just bring their ideas and concerns to the board. Uh I also plan on having members from the student advisory committee to come I believe to the next board meeting to just share about their experiences and any support they need. Um and then another big part from the conference was talking about how AI is going to be used at schools. I did some research about our own AI task force and I realized that we don't have student representation right now. I know the task force is new, but I believe that if we're going to move forward with AI that we should include students in this conversation. That's it. >> Thank you for all telling me that I'm next. Um so also uh was at CSBA. Um thank
138you to uh Miss Jire for uh just doing a fantastic job of organizing and setting things up. Um there was a minor glitch with Marriott, which was not at all her fault, but um thank you for Trustee McDougall for I almost ended up sleeping on his floor, but it all worked out. Um, and you know, um, I I think we we'll be looking at some more of these, uh, CSBA, um, resolutions and cleanup of board policy, and, uh, President Mason and I attended a session on on that and some of the, uh, reasoning behind it. Uh, but just a great opportunity there. Um, this I I have to say this has been one of the most inspiring board meetings I've ever attended. I think the reflection of so many of the great things that are
139happening across this district to hear um you know the the the student uh the graduate uh with the support of the soore program um hearing from our college now students and then you know in particular I I just want to take a moment to me the epitome of the American dream is these immigrants who've come here and now they are taking advantage of our adult education programs. They are immersing themselves in our language. They're uh continuing to uh improve themselves and pursue the dream. And it's not just for them, but it's for their entire family. And I think it it is just such an honor to be part of that mission and and to support these folks who again I think this is what America is all about. And so I'm just so proud of
140the work that that's being done there. And um I had the opportunity I I went to Northgate uh to check out the um mock congress and I they had it in multiple locations across the school. I very specifically asked uh which room my daughter was going to be in and avoided that at all costs. Um and it was just so great to see how they they conduct the mock congress, the level of preparation from the students, the intense debates. Um and you know the the teachers are mostly hands-off. It is the students who are running this and you know frankly you compare that to C-SPAN and and there's a lot that um you know our our national government can learn from how our students conduct the mock congress. So that was a fantastic one. Um
141and then uh I'll make a mention. I did go to a basketball game, girls basketball game at at Conquered High and I I just Conquered High right now um I don't think they have a JV team this year. They only have a varsity team. Um they've had some injuries and it was really cool to see there is a group of like 10 or 15 boys who were there cheering very loudly for the conquered girls and and just uh bringing a lot of spirit to it and it was a great uh great thing to see and I think um you know wins and losses aside there's just so much to be gained for our students from uh participating in athletics and I will wrap up my report there. So thank you. Thank you. I was trying
142to remember something I want to add. >> Want me to come back to you? >> No, I could do it. Um, first I want to uh congratulate and thank uh our Mount Diabo uh special education community advisory committee and the special education staff for providing a warm and welcoming holiday event for special education students and families last night. Crafts supported fine motor muscle skills with these small children and also encouraged creativity and the grains uh required physical education skills and reasoning skills uh and these were also offered. Santa and Mrs. Claus were present to hear children's dream lists and the room was filled with joyful voices and thankful guardians during the two-hour event. there were families that really had to be pushed out the door at 8:00 in the evening. Uh it was an amazing
143event and it's very heartwarming and it's um presented in an environment that is conducive for our special education students who sometimes lead need um less noise and fewer people. Um on num November 18th I attended the special ed CAC meeting uh and the presentation was entitled beyond the noise supporting your student in social places. This would also apply to some of our husbands. So you might take a look at that presentation on the special education website. On November 20th, uh there was the Measure J regular meeting and uh Melanie Coslo, the director of M presented uh the regular status of points of reports for the quarter. On December 6th, the Mount Diablo Adult Education Program had a uh had a program and craft fair event at Pleasant Hill Middle School. I was able to attend.
144It was very well attended. And if you wanted to do some shopping, there were amazing uh wood products, floral arrangements, sewing items, and uh jewelry for sale. And plus, there was the uh one of my favorites is always the quilt display. Uh there was also acrylic and oil paintings as well. Uh on December 8th, um I went to or I'm involved with the Mount Diablo Education Foundation and thanks to a generous community, we had a very successful Giving Tuesday event and more than $12,800 was raised. The first 2,000 is dedicated to the Conquered High School Wellness Settle Center to help them get off to a a greater start. uh STEM programs like Mosamac, Gizmos and mystery science and then uh cultural arts experiences will also you know each time we achieved another level it moved
145us to a new category for funding. The foundation of board approved the submitt of several grants to provide cultural arts and science experiences for our Mount Diablo students. So keep your fingers crossed we'll know about those in January and February. Um on December 16th, there was also a parent advisory committee meeting at uh Willow Creek Center. I attended the CSBA conference and attended what I think there were eight sessions. So, I won't bore you with all of the names of those sessions, but um some of my favorites were the latest in uh Title Nine and uh five to the front front, five pressure points for California boards. Um and then the last one I attended was on uh special education and the school board. On the advocacy front, I want to call out something that
146just happened yesterday. I don't know if you happen to see it in the news and if you took time to contact our congressional members. It took nearly three years and a lapse in funding for the Secure Rural Schools Act to be revived, at least temporarily. Yesterday, the United States, the US House overwhelmingly voted to extend the program through 2027 to provide retroactive payments back to 2023 to districts that lost funding while this act was lapsed what it was last lapsed. Uh the vote was 399 to5. The bill was approved unanimously in the Senate in June and it now awaits the president's signature. Despite broad bipartisan support, the Secure Rules Schools Act, which is run by the US Forest Service, expired in the fall of 2023 with the final payouts made in 2024. So, school districts
147in these areas have done without federal funding based on this act. This year, the program uh that year in 2024, the program distributed more than 232 million to more than 700 counties across the United States and Puerto Rico with nearly $34 million going to California schools. While public school budgets are largely supported by local property taxes, districts surrounded by untaxed federal forest land, which we all love, have depended upon modest payments from the US Forest Service to stay afloat. And the example provided was in Trinity County, the federal government owns more than 75% of the land, limit limiting the tax base and ability to pass local bonds for things like campus maintenance. Advocacy is important for public education and I want to thank anyone who reached out to their congressional representatives and encouraged a yes
148vote on this important bill. Yes, it doesn't affect us, but it will affect families that may move to our area or students that may come to our schools or colleges and universities. And it's all important. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> That's all. 19th November, >> I took an online course on uh from the leadership institute on Robert's rules of order, which uh brought me up to speed with all the correct ways we should be conducting our meetings. We do it pretty well. So, I have to say that u was enlightening. On the 20th of November, um I went to the um Citizens Bond Oversight Committee with uh our former president here and I was only able to stay a short period of time, but they did a good review of how they've been spending
149Measure J money. Uh on the 2nd of December, just before the CSBA conference, I attended the Pacific Research Institute all day seminar. um a conference where they had a think tank providing interesting perspective on schoolboard issues. Uh and uh it was very uh interesting to hear how other people from outside the industry were looking at how we are performing. That evening I made the mistake of scheduling a town hall back here in conquered. So I came from Sacramento back to conquer, did the town hall that night and then drove back for the rest of the CSBA conference the next morning. So was quite active on the roads. Um but uh we did have a good turnout about 12 people uh at our town hall had good discussion and good reporting and questions and observations which
150I'll write up in a report to the superintendent. Then they attended the CSBA conference which everybody's mentioned here. But I uh want to highlight the good candidate forums that we heard from governor candidates and for candidates for the uh school um SSPI is school state superintendent of public instruction is the correct title. And so we had good forums of candidates, not all of them, but uh the ones who are uh probably the most uh uh possible to be elected uh showed up for these candidate forums. I found that there were several good breakouts, excellent breakouts that I attended. And one was on the Mahammude uh decision this last summer about opting out, parents opting their kids out. And it it's interesting how complicated the issue becomes uh because uh one question that intrigued me was
151that can atheists opt out for religious reasons and they have to consider this and yet I don't think u I'm not sure the atheists want to be known as considered a religion um but they can opt out for religious reasons apparently. I also went to a session on beyond the ban on how we uh handle controversial books uh are handled in our districts and one other session which was very informative on the last morning a session on one section uh excuse me section 115 trust funds which u explained how they can put away money for future district obligations like pensions and I brought this idea to superintendent and to uh Mr. Vargas to see if might we might be able to pursue that with ourselves, our district, because this would be a good way to
152protect money in a u uh trust fund uh that would protect it for our obligations coming up in the future. So, I found that to be very interesting. Thank you. >> Hi, good evening. I'll scare you all. I just want to wish um for our students, we've only got seven more school days left until the winter break. And I hope that especially our middle and high school students have successful finals, that our teachers make it through to the end with all of their sanity in place and all the families enjoy their children at home uh for the two weeks towards the end of the school year. and I can't wait to see you all in 2026. >> Late back there. Good night. >> Yes. >> Okay. Um, this is always my longest report of the
153year because I go to the conference and sorry for you guys. My husband travels with me because I'm a sleepwalker so he can keep me out of trouble but I make him then go to workshops that I can't go to. So quickly and before I start that, I have to thank uh Supervisor um Chanel Preston's office for helping with our turkey operation turkey in Bay Point right before Thanksgiving and Golden State Waters, which is our local water company that gives enough money for each of the elementary schools and the middle school in Baypoint to get 15 turkeys to give out to their families. And we were very successful. Got all the turkeys delivered this year. And then also thank you to the um CAC committee because I went home covered in glitter from having a
154wonderful time doing arts and crafts with our students. Okay. So I went to local resources and shared responsibilities which talks about fundings for schools and the effects of first Proposition 13 which had an effect on schools and then Prop 98 which had an effect on schools. And the bottom line is you can literally have schools pe people on two different sides of the street have a $16,000 difference on what they're getting per student because of the more affluent areas versus the non-affluent areas. And the whole point of that is we need to advocate for change. And the one of the starts of that change would be that we be funded by our attendant not attendance but enrollment the kids that are here. The other one is the state's turn which closing the achievement gra gap
155which talked about um the many e needs that our special ed students faced and all the pitfalls that we have with costly lawsuits and increase in the student absences since co and that's something parents can help us with by sending their kids to school on a regular basis. um governing what matters alt ed reform was looking at 7th through 12th graders and how to rethink how we discipline kids by simply sending them home. We're not doing them any favor by sending them home. So to keep them in school and use more real life examples in education that they can relate to so they stay in school and want to be there. The dos, don'ts, and how-tos of how board members should be act um acting at meetings. They should not be posting their views on
156social media anywhere. They it gives the they should not be on their phones during meetings or looking at their phones because it gives a perception that there's input from someone other than the public. Uh once a vote is taken by the board, the board owns it as a whole. Even if you voted no for it, it's the vote of the board and you move forward. And remember most importantly that the public and our students are watching how we behave. Hiding in plain sight was funding opportunities for students look at equity gaps and intervene early and get to them get them on the right track to graduate. So we're doing a very good job at that. We're trying to keep track of the kids and getting them up to um their grade point averages and what
157they need before they go to graduation. Show me the money. California's fiscal outlook. Our um bookkeeper will love this because we got the uh it was a legislative analyst that says we already are $2.4 billion ahead of where we expected to be, but that only part pays down a part of the deficit that we're facing. So basically, we're not ahead of the game at all. They're saying predicting the cola will be in next year 2.5, the year after that 3.77. and then they turn around and say, "But there's many things that can happen between then and now, including federal losses that we don't really know what we're going to get." Five to the front, five pressure points for California boards and what to do about them. Talking about school closures due to declining enrollment. Again,
158we're doing a good job there. We have not had to do that yet. Um, and make sure your policies are up to date regarding all of the issues that are have become a hot topic. And that's why when you see our agenda with a gazillion board policies every meeting, that's because we're doing our job and keeping them all up to date and then making sure they're relevant to the work that we do here. Fast and Furious, keeping up with federal action on education and what it means. Um, US Department of Ed wants to um, no, state law can provide some protection for everything that the US Department of Ed wants to take back and not give us anymore. Um it's very it's going to be very confusing for a while, but they say don't overreact.
159We'll see what happens with that. And current legal issues facing districts are um negotiations, which we've done well with that. Immigration issues. Um all students have the right to attend school whether they're documented or not, and the school should have a plan. We have a plan for that. Opting out is a big issue, but my experience from the time I was a student to when I worked in the schools to when my kids went in the school, we've always been able to opt out in Mount Dav Unified School District if you check with your school and talk about what your issue might be. And attendance recovery was very interesting. They talked about using possibly using ELOP funds to um recover attendance loss by having afterchool programs that kids can attend attend and self cell phone
160usage was a big issue. Again, we've we've taken care of that a lot with our yonder bags. And the last one again they stressed on which was the one um Mr. Lawrence, Trusty Lawrence and I were at about how important it is that we have the policies, but that we know what they are and we actually follow them. So, with that, I'll pass it to you, Dr. >> Wow. Lots lots going on there. So, um so I just have a couple things. So, so bear with me for a minute. So, first of all, um I agree with I somewhat agree with uh Trustee Lawrence about this being an inspiring board meeting. This is just this is it is all of our board meetings are inspiring. Everything we do in this work is in is inspiring.
161But in this you know I was just sitting here taking some notes here and if you turn on the news and watch what's going on um you know in our country or in our state or in our city, it really plays itself out in our schools. And so so like our students are under a lot of pressure around what's going on in our world, in our cities, and our communities. Um I was inspired to hear those young people come and talk about the environment and basically um you know demand that we do something and saying that that is something that will attract people to our district and that's something that young people and parents want. Um, but unfortunately like our environment is not a priority and so that's something that our students hopefully are going
162to are are going to fight for and as the next generation takes over that they will continue to fight for the environment. Um, I was inspired by listening to the the ESL students, our recent immigrants, but I couldn't help to um to worry about their safety, each and every one of them, about the profiling, which is basically um any one of those people who were here tonight could be picked up and could have no rights, no due process, nothing, and just be gone. And so, when the gentleman mentioned his wife and his kids, I was just thinking about thinking about that and thinking about what our kids go through. um because he said he had students that went to our school and um and so that's that's discerning. Um we did a resolution on human
163trafficking. Um we've had students in this district who've been trafficked. Um unfortunately if you Google child trafficking it'll come up on national news and and that shouldn't happen. But that's another topic. Um, when it comes to special education, I spoke before and said, you know, that um, unfortunately a lot of our students who learn differently and and have unique needs are looked at with a um, you know, with a deficit mindset and then to have like the funding and protection and all that up in the air. So, we don't know what's going to happen. That ought to be the priority. And it's sick that it's not. So, um, so anyway, that's that's just, you know, that's my rant. I'm going to move on to other stuff. Um, so each and every day in the Mount
164Diablo Unified School District, we really do put students at our at our at our forefront. And as we go into the holidays, there is um a lot of families that are out there that are in need and are going through different things. I want to highlight what we do around Soore. um you know within our sore program they're there for obviously our our unhoused families and things like that but their doors are open to everybody and as I was talking with Dr. Reed today she was mentioning that she rented a U-Haul to go pick up bikes for our students and then because she came with this U-Haul and because she took such good care of it they actually said if you come back we'll fill the U-Haul up again. So, two U-Hauls full of bikes.
165We got an email from um from Big Old Tires that they had collected hundreds of jackets for a community organization and that community organization didn't show up and we connected them with Dr. Reid and her team and she went and got those jackets. now she has hundreds of jackets that she's given out especially in this in this weather and you know and so that's just a a a just a sliver of the work that we do and then just to know like we have people who have this deficit mindset towards the work that we're doing so myself I was not inspired by the governor by the uh governor's um presentations all the governor all the all the potential governors up there just spoke about how bad education was and how they're going to do this
166and that, not having a clue, any of them. And Tony Thurman, I respect him, but at least he's been a board member. But to have people not have a clue about the work that goes on or how you're going to educate 29,000 students, let alone the millions of students in the state of California. So I was actually um kind of taken aback and depressed after leaving that government forum um and I didn't even I didn't even attend the um state superintendent um forum because none of those people have educational backgrounds. There is one guy who who was a board member so he at least knows something but just very disappointed in that. Very proud of the work that we do here. We have a lot of people who just have really negative things to say
167about our district or who just sit in their basement and send emails and send complaints and things like that. And and and I don't understand it because each and every day I am so inspired by what I see by seeing the work that our stu that our students are doing, work that our teachers are doing, work that our cafeteria folks are doing, custodians, everyone. We're all coming together to support this community. And that is inspiring. And if you can't see that, then I don't know what you are looking at. But um but if you would have taken time to read our Friday um to to read our Friday newsletter, you would have read about um folks in our in our business office being recognized um in the region for the great work that they're doing.
168You would have recognized the work that is going on in our in our elementary schools around art. you would have seen the excellence of of of athletes that we have, girls and boys cross country um teams setting school records at state meets. You would have heard of um high school students and their counselors doing what they can to help students who are in need. Um you know, you would have seen um about a college park student, you know, who's performing in a vocalist in in the movie Wicked. Um just it it goes on and on. Um you know I could go on about the work that Kelly Perkins has done around fentanol in our communities and she was highlighted and again also our adult education the open house that they just had with the with
169the craft sales um you know and then the empathetic part with the walnut acres teacher um Heather Garcia Roy B and her battle with cancer. So, how can you like read all this and see all this and then like just not be inspired and not be excited about the work happening? So, as as we close out 2025, which um you know, everyone could say it's been a difficult year, but you know what? Every year is difficult. It's what you make of it. And what I do as the superintendent of this district, I keep my focus on the students. on the students. Unfortunately, it's adults that I have to deal with lots of times, but if I could just hang out with students, I was so inspired. Um, uh, Trustee Allen, Trusty Allen came to a
170a presentation that I was doing at CSBA and he brought his colleagues, these other young board members, and just watching them and watching how attentive they were and what they were listening to and and then seeing them carry themselves around adults, board members, and here you have these students who who were, you know, out learning about governance and learning about how they can make their communities better. And I knew this was going to happen after Allan went to that meeting. He wants more meetings with me. He wants this that. He's always learned all this stuff. I told him, I said, "Don't listen to what those other people are telling you." Like, but like like that's where I get my motivation from. So, as we go into this holiday season, um just super inspired by the
171work. Um you know, looking at our dashboard again, hey, we say we care about students. We say we're we're here for students and stuff like that. And here we are sharing the data of how our students are doing. And I would expect a packed house. I would expect people are asking questions. I would expect people are making comments. People want to know more. People want to know how they can get involved, how they can help. But um but we got to start somewhere and and I'm motivated. I'm not discouraged by that. And um we're going to keep on going forward. So, just like trustee um in Ze said, I want to wish everyone a a a happy and joyful holiday season. I want everyone to be safe. I want everyone to return um because we
172still have lots of work to do. We have half the year still in front of us. Um and um and so with that, I conclude my report and I'm open to questions. Any board members? >> All righty. Takes us to our consent agenda. Is there anything anybody wants to pull from the consent agenda? If not, I will entertain a motion after we get >> Okay, good evening again. First of all, I want to thank you trustees and Dr. Clark and the voice out there. Um, and um, just for your acknowledging the work our teachers, our educators are doing every day. And I wish they were here, but however, they are probably home preparing their lesson plans, grading papers, and you know, there's that long stretch before school is out. So, I know they would want
173to be here, but they are also doing the work to do um to prepare themselves for their classes for tomorrow. So the item that I had pulled is um six 15.6 and I do my due diligence and read through the agenda and I would like to address this item because I'm confused as why this one position position again requires almost an $8,000 increase even after receiving a 2.3% salary increase that all employees receive from Armadilla settlement. It seems that there is a double standard when it comes to getting salary increases in this district. Media members have to go through months and months of negotiations to receive increases, but district administrators continue to receive increases when their job descriptions are updated. I just want to remind the trustees that when looking at the budget, please remember
174who is working directly with our students and who are far removed from them. Thank you. >> Thank you. So board member, >> so uh I would like to pull um items 15.6 and 15.23. Um I'm not pulling 15.27, 27. But I just wanted to make a special note of the fact that I really appreciate that we are investing in both uh the baseball fields but also the softball fields because I think um many of our female athletes have felt that um not not adequately represented. I just want to acknowledge that um I I really appreciate that we're investing in both softball and baseball fields, but I'd like to pull 15.6 and 15.23. >> A motion. Madame President, I move the consent agenda be approved as presented with the exception of 15.6 and 15.23 which will
175be considered separately. >> Thank you. Trustee Barrera Oriela. >> Oh, I'll second and I'll say yes. >> Did you have one? Okay. Trusty Lawrence. >> Yes. >> Trusty Mayor. >> Yes. >> Trusty. >> Yes. >> Trusty Mason votes yes. Okay. Working on it. Okay. Was the second correct? Oh, it's Kaiisha still. Okay. Oh, good. Okay. So, 15.6 I guess becomes 17.1. >> Madame President, I'd move the board uh approve 17.1 but would like to have discussion. >> Okay. So, you made the motion. >> I made the motion >> to approve it. >> Yes. >> Second. Um, and so I just it was uh raised by a member of the community. So I wanted to give the superintendent and staff just an opportunity to address the concern that was expressed on. >> Well, she is the
176union president. I don't see that as the member of the community, the Mount Diablo community, but she's an employee. So yes. So, um, so I'm going to call Ryan, um, sheh he up to to address this new job description and and we did just negotiate for a whole year with with media and I'd like to move on from that. So, um, I'm not going to get back into negotiations. You bring 277 items to negotiate. If we would have just talked salary and benefits, we probably could have got moving further and got your members money a lot earlier than waiting a whole year. So this this uh job description is to take an employee who was uh mclassified as previously as a small necessary high school administrator who is now running our attendance and SAR programs
177which are huge revenue sources for the district and so this job description aligns with that work. >> Thank you. >> Okay, any other questions? Trusty Ariana. Yes. >> Trusty Lawrence. >> Yes. >> Trusty. >> Yes. >> Trusty McDougall. >> Yes. >> Trusty Masons. Yes. >> Oh, sorry. >> Okay. And then that takes us to 17.2, which would be review and potential approval of independent contract agreement, ICA with team CVX, etc. Yep. Okay. Um, well, so I'll I'll move. >> Was that the one you pulled? >> Oh, >> did you get We're good, right? >> Okay. Thank you, sir. >> Go ahead. >> Yes. And so I would uh move for approval item 16.2. We have a motion to approve. Do we have a second? Second. All right. >> And um you know, I just wanted
178to pull it briefly and and state, you know, I think as as I visit sites across the district. Um you know, I'm very proud of the work we've done with Measure C and Measure J. But I think that if you ask any employee, any student, anyone who who visits our sites, I think that they see there's still a lot of work to be done, a lot of investment in the facilities. I think um really excited about especially the the three schools that received the the the refresh most recently. Um, and so I'm eager to to see what the feasibility is of a further investment in a bond measure. And so I just wanted to call that out. >> Any other questions or comments? Okay. Trusty Oriana. >> Yes. >> Lawrence, >> Yes. Trusty and Zwee.
179>> Yes. And >> Trusty McRuit. >> Yes. I vote yes as well. Okay. Finally, business of action 181 re review and potential approval of Mount Davl Unified School District Sunshine's proposal for 2026 29 successors contract with Teamsters Local 856 and acceptance of the Teamsters Local 856 Sunshine proposal to Mount Dav Unified School District. >> We have Mr. Sheath. >> You need to vote again. Thank you. >> We have Mr. Shehy who's going to present this next item. >> Yes. So, tonight we have before you for the board's approval. Is it something I said? >> Sorry. I I have that effect on people sometimes. So tonight we have for the board's uh review and potential approval the u and acceptance of the district sunshine proposals to teamsters local 856 and teamsters local 856 sunshine proposal to
180the district. We look forward to sitting down with our teamsters to ne negotiate um the 2026 2029 successor uh contract agreement. >> Thank you. Okay, questions? If not, I'll entertain a motion. >> Madame President, I move the board of education approve the Mount Diablo Unified School District Sunshine proposal for the 2629 successor contract with Team Teamsters Local 856 and accept the Teamsters Local 856 Sunshine proposal to Mount Diablo School District. >> Second. >> I I'll defer. Okay. Motion and second by McDougall and no questions. We'll go ahead and take the vote. Trustee Borilla. Um, Oriana, >> yes. >> Lawrence, >> yes. >> Trustee Mayo, >> yes. >> Trusty Enzwe, >> yes. >> Trustee McDougall, >> yes. >> Trusty Mason is a yes. 18.2 2, review and potential approval of Mount Dav Unified School District's first
181interim report. >> Yes. And we have our um we have our fiscal team that's going to present this next item. Again, um I know they're going to explain this, but I just always like to tee this up. You know, we we set our budget in June and then this is kind of the first check-in, see where we are. One of the very challenging things about a school district is that we have to have a balanced budget for three years. And that year starts, those three years start from today going forward. So, um, we'll come back in a few months with our second interim and then we'll finish out with the budget again in June. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Vargas and his team. >> All right. Thank you, Dr.
182Clark. Um, so with me tonight I have Gustavo Aguilera who's our executive director of fiscal as well as Brenda Barbara uh who's our director of budget and accounting and fiscal compliance. So um moving off that the the only correction I would make is that we are in our multi-year want to show that we can meet the reserve for economic uncertainty at 3%. So, I get a little uh technical when you say balanced because I would that's not what I'm going to show you tonight. Uh is because is we are deficit spending. Um but moving on. Um as Dr. Clark said, this is our first look after the budget was adopted at where we are and these are um this is the first of two reports. Um and that's why it's called the first interim and
183that's as of October 31st. We look at the financials. will come back in March and we'll do the second interim and that date is as of January 31st and both those reports include projections through June 30th and in this particular case 2026. Um again this is a snapshot and then we will include the multi-year projections for the next two fiscal years. This is based on the current school services of California dart board. Um, one addition to that is that we do get information from school services of California. So, within the multi-year assumptions, we do have updated CalPER rates um, which are much slightly different than what we had at the adopted budget. Um, and again, this requires approval and certification from the board. Uh, so just as a reminder, there are three certifications. Uh the
184first one is a positive certification so the district can meet its financial obligations for the current year and two subsequent years. Um a qualified certification is that the district may not so I stress may not meet financial obligations for the current and two subsequent years. And then the last certification is the negative certification which is a district will not uh meet financial obligations in the current year or two subsequent years um or any of the the years in the two subsequent years. So um if you are in a negative certification that usually means you're showing a negative fund balance or that you cannot uh meet the reserve in a third year out of a multi-year projection. And so for Mount Diablo, our based off our 88, we are at 3%. Um, so with that, um,
185it's a little different tonight. So Brenda will be presenting probably a little bit more information than she has previously and and Gustavo will be going through the multi-year assumptions, which is I I think in our discussions was a little bit different for him. And then I will come back to wrap it up. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Brenda. Good evening. Thank you for having us. Thank you Adrian. Um first thing to note and talk about are the changes from the adopted budget to the first interim. Um so adopted budget again as mentioned in what's happened in June and these are financials through October 31st. Uh one one important thing to note is the restricted revenue increases mainly due to the LCFF as well as the inclusion of carryover. So once
186we adopt the budget in September, we begin on um closing the books in terms of what was the true carryover after an audited actuals as well as the representation of what were the fund balances for each program. Um, and this is carryover such as title one funding, UPK, CSI. Um, another thing that's important to note is that the overall budget increases um in salary and benefits of about 7.1 million are due to u mainly negotiated salary increases as well as increases in um some of the um benefits. So um one bullet that I think is important to to note is the unrestricted supplies contracted services and operating expenditures that did decrease by about 3.3 million due to the realignment of services um given the increases that we've had in salaries and benefits. So we have
187a realignment of services due to that um shift in budget and then um contracted services is um one area that people always wonder well what is in there right so it's again insurance uh sub agreement for services rentals leases repairs communication garbage water all the things that make us um ensure that we are providing um what we need for the facility ities as well as the students and to make sure we're providing services for their needs. Um the overall expenditures for the budget increase by about 27.3 million um mainly carryover fund balances come back and that's something that we get captured um as we close the books. So that happens in about October. um considerations moving forward. Um as you see this increase of 27.3 million, we will be looking at the needs, right? What
188are the immediate needs? Um and the budgets will be adjusted based on those needs and right sizing what the budgets look like in terms of services being provided to students. Next um slide is in reference to revenues and this is just the overall both combination of unrestricted and restricted. Um the unrestricted revenue is mainly uh for the state piece the 3% is comprised u mainly of lottery as well as mandated cost reimbursement. The LCFF is our largest pot of money and this is ADA um generated as well as parts our property taxes. In terms of restricted, we have the local stay in revenue as well. Um with the biggest being state, which is our sped programs, ELOP, ASUS, our CTE programs, our learning recovery programs. And then federal is the title one funding with a
189small piece of sped IDA mental health programs. And then local, the 13% is comprised of athletics, donations, reimbursements from outside agencies. For the next piece, still um we're now we're talking about the expenditure pieces. So this slide and the following slide are going to touch on the overall expenditure amounts both amount and percentage for each expenditure area. So for first interim one thing to to know is the bottom line total combined is 542.3 million and that adopted budget we had 515 that is an increase of of about 5.3% and those are again in consideration of raises as well as some service increases. Um, and here's that second slide that is specific to particular um, percentages within the areas and how much each is comprised of. One thing to always um, make sure we make a
190note of is is that increase or what we're at with salary and benefits and um, our staffing cost is at about 93% for our unrestricted um, expenditure budget. um contributions the fluctuation in the variance between adopted and first interim. We had a reduction of about 564,000 and this is project projected decreases as we again realign programs in consideration of the ongoing increases in salary and benefits um while still ma making sure we're maintaining our contribution obligation limits for like routine maintenance which is 3% of the expenditure budget. So here is the highle view of our components of ending fund balance. That is that bottom piece of the puzzle that tells us okay what's what's left over what are our assignments what are our uh commitments as a district. Um so we are showing um our
191deficit spending which is something that we've been talking about as a district that we are working on as well as um a little bit more specific. So the first graph to the left is just a overall high-level view and then to the left you see specifics in terms of what uh our restricted categorical balances are. Um what those are that pretty much have rules regulations very specific to the types of services we can spend on and the types of expenditures that we are allowed to do based on state and federal guidelines. And then the assignments are those projected deficit spending plans that we have in place as well as that negotiated salary and benefit um projections that we have for the outy years. And um as Adrienne had um mentioned we have that 3% economic
192and reserve for economic uncertainty uh reservation that we must meet as a district. And to summarize um after speaking just on the general fund, this slide speaks to all of the other funds that we have outside of our general fund and it shows um that we have a positive ending fund balance in each of those um program and funds. So with that um I'll make um we go to Gustavo's slides where he'll um talk more about multi-years. Thank you, Brenda. So, this slide summarizes AB 2756, which increases fiscal oversight in school districts. First, um it increased fiscal transparency as districts must submit multi-year projections and disclose um deficit spending, reserves, and cash flow uh components. Second, it expands the authority of the county office of education. County offices can review and reject budgets um and
193step in when when districts show signs of distress. Uh third, it strengthens interim reporting. Uh the state is currently using first and second interim as their warning system. um with red flag indicators tied to multi-year solveny. And finally, the districts that become at risk. Um AB2756 allows stronger interventions such as fiscal uh recovery plans, assigned advisors, and uh restrictions uh from the county office of ed or California Department of Education. Uh multi-year projections are reasoned um estimates of revenue, expenditures, and ending fund balances over the three-year window. Uh they are not guaranteed. They're best they are the best available forecast um given today with today's information and because of funding enrollment um staffing or cost changes uh mps must be updated um at every reporting period. Um even though pro uh projections can't be perfect
194they are essentials for identifying uh risk early before budget crisis. Uh now I'll I'll walk through the the key revenue assumptions for that drive our multi-year outlook in 2627 and 2728. For enrollment in ADA, we are projecting flat enrollment at 29,378 students and a 93% ADA for the next two years. That's slightly lower uh than the adopted um the the number we use at adoption uh at about 1188 less. For LCFF revenue, we are assuming COLA increases of about 3.02% and 3.42% in the two out years. Um, plus a higher up um at 55.9%. And again, those numbers will change once we we get information at the governor's budget um in January. um that increase to the LCFF revenue um is by 14 14.4 million in 2627 and 12.6 million in 2728 which includes TK
195add-on and enrollment adjustments for federal, state and local sources. uh we are projecting them to remain relatively flat um after one-time revenue falls off. We're also assumed lower interest rate earnings uh which hits unrestricted revenue in 2627 for special for the special education contribution. We are budgeting on an ongoing uh contribution of 3.3 3 million in 2627 and 3.1 million in 2728 which is due to salary benefits and and services. This slide um is is the expenditure assumptions for the years. Salary adjustments include a 1.56% um step and column increase for certificated and classified staff. On the unrestricted side, we uh we've included a 20 FTE reduction to align to contract um class ratios for base staffing. You'll see the ongoing salary increases beyond the the stepping column um are they're not built in the
196expenditure line. Uh instead those are set aside in the components of ending fund balance. Uh restricted uh certificated salaries rise due to the special education staffing growth but the increase is offset as one-time funds expire. Um for benefits um stirs is is steady at 19.1%. Uh PERS are projected at 26.4% in 2627 and 26.9% in 2728. Overall benefits costs uh rise by 1.9 million in 2627 and 4.3 in 2728. And that's driven mostly by medical rates growing. Um though some of that offset um that will offset when one-time funds uh restricted expenses fall off uh in 2627 for books and supplies. um unrestricted costs drop in 2627 because LCAP carryover and onetime funds roll off about um 1.42 million. Uh that decreases offset by 1.1 million in costs as um some restricted grants expire and
197and shipped off. restricted books and supplies declined by um 9.3 million because major one-time spending ends in 2627. Constru um constructed services contracted services and op and operating expenditures um unrestricted costs rise by about 1.5 million in 2627. Uh that increases mainly from removing one one-time LCAP expenses then adding it back. Um expected insurance and liability assessments at 1.25 million and another 1.1 million tied to um expiring restricted grants. Uh restricted contracted services are expected to decrease significantly with the removal of of about 21.9 million in one-time cost in 2627 and a smaller reduction in 2728. Uh some of that savings is is offset by the increase in special education program needs. Um and now I'll turn it over to Adrian for the rest of the presentation. Thank you, Gustavo. So, um, you just got
198you just received a lot of detailed information and we got a lot of budgets moving up and down. Um, so I'm glad that I can come in and just show you the bigger picture, but ultimately, um, what you heard is, and I'll try to summarize this before I go through the multi-year and, um, talk about, you know, the deficit spending and how we're spending down fund balance, but really the challenge for first interim was managing the ongoing salary increase that was retro to July 1st of the 2.3% um, And really what we're doing with our multi-year is we're utilizing one-time funds to cover expenditures within books and supplies or supplies and materials and contracted services. Um, also things to think about is that we even at adopted budget I talked about LCFF or LCAP supplemental
199dollars. We we have a large carryover of LCAP supplemental dollars. it's just built up over time because we've not spent the allocation that we've been um allotted during you know prior fiscal years. So um those carryover funds do go away this year or at least at this point at first interim right now that number is about 1.6 million that will drop out of the unrestricted budget. So that can take many forms. um you know when we talk about layoffs or reduction notices or um that could be just because one-time funds are going away or donations are going away. So there there may be an impact that you may see as we go through the budget development cycle. Um and we started that work, you know, about a month ago. And now we get heavy into
200the budget development prep now. And then we meet with school sites um in the middle of January and we start going through the updated allocations. Uh by that time we will know the January governor's proposal. We'll know about what exactly is it. Is it 2.54 like I heard at the CBO symposium or is it 2.5? did not hear 3.77 in the outyear. Um but we will get that information. Um and as we know um our agreement with media um in the outy years was the funded cola minus and this number's gone back and forth 66 or 67 but ultimately it's 2/ird of a percent less of the funded cola. So that is why the um projected outyear cost of salary and benefits is sitting in the components of ending fund balance at this point. Like
201I know what the impact could be but if it's a 2.5 or 2.54 that number is going to change at second inter. So we will go back and recalculate that based off what the colas we receive in January and then I will adjust that in the components of ending fund balance. So I just want to point that out because it is not flowing in what I say the top part of the multi-year. Um again if I had to summarize our first interim it is about utilizing our one-time funds. Um, and you do see the large carryover, uh, you know, Brenda talked about it. Our expenditures increased by $27 million. Most of that was restricted funds or restricted carryover funds. We do that one because we are getting better at budgeting and we still have to
202build capacity in our department as well as do the education with our school sites. But as you go through budget development, they're used to they want to see like they are, you know, and I would be too at a site, I want to know what my donations are. Like they want to see all that stuff. So we load all of those things and that's a common practice, but you have to build capacity to do that communication. So my guess is that second interim just like last year we we will go through what is needed and we will make the adjustments accordingly so we can tie it out as best we can to unodudited actuals or estimated actuals. So we will do that work and as I said in September when I showed the graph when
203I went from adopted budget and it was pointed out that I didn't include first interim and there's a reason why I didn't because and I could explain it is because we load carryover at first interim and then we readjust at second interim and then you saw that go through the series and so we will do that again and I guarantee you the variance will be large at second interim just because we've loaded all that carryover for sites to see what they have available. Um, and then we do try to, you know, make that spending plan through June 30th. But again, it helps you during the budget development process to know what you might have if you want to do something in 2627. So, I frontload you with all that. Um just because again this is
204the first snapshot and with the first snapshot this if you can see it you probably could see it better on your screen but this outlines our multi-year projections. We are deficit spending of $56 million in totality but 30 almost 33 million of that is restricted. So when you look at the unrestricted it is roughly 23 and a half million. We I believe we were around 21 million at the adopted budget. Some of that is related to one-time expenditures that were added to the budget, but a lot of that is related to the 2.3 being added, but also just taking vacancy savings from positions that we didn't fill um since June or since the start of school in August. Moving on, you can see that the unrestricted projected um deficit is 19 million. But again, this
205does not include the the the agreement that we made in terms of ongoing salaries that will hit July 1st, 2026. So that number will go up. It just depends on what the funded cola is. Of course, that's going to have an impact on revenue. So, I don't know what that looks like, especially knowing that we are hearing 2.5 something. Um, and then we do uh still are spending down our uh one-time block grants in the restricted side of the budget. Most notable is the new block grant because I think it's called the professional development and support block grant, but you can use that for discretionary use, which that's what we are doing here at Mount Diablo. So we are spending that roughly about $3 million every year. So um that is part of that $6.7
206million as as well as the learning recovery block grant that we are spending down and then just any other carryover in some of the restricted programs. Um then moving on to the third year, it's roughly $19 million deficit. Again, this does not include the ongoing salary that will hit July 1st, 2026. And just remember that that is a two-year hit. So that only it hits in that second year. And then it's an ongoing expense. So it's going to hit in the third year. And then we have one extra year that will hit July 1st, 2027. So again, those are those two years are dependent on the funded cola. And as of this moment, it's roughly $23 million is the hit in the next two years. And really again, I pointing out that it accounts for
207two years worth of expenditures hit July 1st, 2026 and then one year hitting July 1st, 2027. And then again in the in the third year out, we're just spending down mostly that one-time block grant that we received um in this current year 2526. And then moving on to the next slide is just the highle summary showing the combined um budget. So that's unrestricted restricted. I talked about the 56 million in the current year. Uh next year it's combined at 25.8 8 and then 19.3 in the third year out. And then those are the projected fund balances and again uh part of the assignments are the projected deficits but also just accounting for the ongoing salaries and we do have some small assignments that are really related to the ERP conversion um which is about one
2081.45 45 million. Um, and so as we work through that process, a lot of that is just more of the implementation cost that will be associated when we move to the new software system. And then just, you know, things to think about, um, you know, they haven't changed since the adopted budget. Trustee, uh, President Mason talked about it. So the federal policy changes and I would agree in terms of what was you know just hold still until something happens and so we will move forward as best we can because if there are things that impact the title programs it's not going to be a Mount Diablo problem. It's going to be a school district problem. It's going to be throughout California. And at at this moment we don't have any information on what that looks
209like. And then um you know once we do get information then we will pivot off that. You know I I feel in terms of looking at the multi-year that we we have this year we we will make it through this year and more than likely we will make it through next year even with even with any federal policy changes. We just may need to spend our one-time money one year sooner. Like that may happen. Um and again you just don't know what the state is doing. you talked about the state receipts. I'm following those emails too um in terms of their exceeding projections. So there's a lot that goes on and so as Gustavo pointed out the multi-year is not a crystal ball and it's based off the information we have right at this moment.
210Um the other thing to think about which I talked about was expiring and spending down of one-time funds i.e. deficit spending. We're still deal you know dealing with health benefit increases. We do have roughly about a 15% increase built into the multi-year which equates to, you know, about a little over three million in each of the next two years. And then the other piece is the enrollment and student absent rates. I would love to be funded off enrollment, too. Um, but we are currently funded off ADA, which means the amount of days that act students actually come to school. So with all that said, um we are submitting our or we have or we will submit to the C contraosta County Office of Ed a first interim a certification of positive and that is all
211based that we can meet our 3% reserve um in the third year out. And in in terms of cash flow, we have a positive cash flow for the required one year that we are to submit. You know, we do monitor that especially with what has happened at the federal level in terms of this grant's going away, goes to court, then it's comes back, this grant's coming back. Ultimately, all that give and take. Yeah, we may get the budget, but it's all about cash. And so, if you are in the midst of receiverhip, that problem is all about cash. Can you pay your bills? Can you pay payroll? and can you pay your vendors? And so we are monitoring that we have positive cash flow. Um but as we spend down our fund balances that cash
212flow will diminish and so just you know the scrutiny on that just gets more and more and more. So moving on here's the budget calendar timeline. I kind of talked about uh this at the last at the unaudited actuals presentation and even at the budget update that we did in October. Um we're doing the first interim report. Um there may be an audit delay just because of the federal shutdown. There was a circular that the um auditors have to abide by and so that needs to be approved. We did do um an audit extension request with Contraosta. They have turned that into the state controllers's office and there was an updated one just sent today. So we should know something. So the audit report may be presented in February, but if we don't get it
213approved, we are on track to turn that in on Monday and uh we'll be looking at a January presentation. In January, we have the governor's proposal roughly about January 10th. We'll know what he's thinking about for 2627. Uh we get into the heart of budget development. We continue that work in February. Um again that's when I project that we will do the audit report. We'll come back in March with the second interim report and then if needed we will have HR will be coming with the reduction in force notices. So with that that concludes the presentation. Um one other note just going back that I just want to point out. So, the one thing that is not showing on this three-year multi-year is the fourth year. So, I I just remember this, but I want
214to just bring it up because more than likely I will show the fourth year and what it may look like at second interim just like I did back in March of this year. um as we get new information for the new uh for the 2627 just because of how we're spending and our deficit spending and Trusty McDougall you brought this up at the adopted budget. More than likely we will have some type of reduction that will be needed to meet the 3% requirement in a multi-year uh projection when we do the adopted budget in June of next year. So, I just want to point that out now just so it's out there. Um, but that's what I and and again, these things change. Um, I heard in the last month, not only the 2.5, the
215cash receipts are exceeding Governor Nuome's projections and more than likely, you know, there are still 1.8 1.9 billion of unallocated Prop 98. And if they come to fruition and the the governor needs to chew up, then most likely that's going to come in the form of one-time money. So, I'll take any questions. I I would just a couple comments. Um, you know, of the things that stood out is that obviously a a 56 million deficit is not sustainable year-over-year. um to I I think to you know continue to keep an eye on the rising cost of of benefits and retirement and th those um continued costs. And then just the third thing that that makes me um wary is that the California um revenue, state revenue is so dependent upon right now on tech on
216income tax from that and it's you know Nvidia, Google stock employees and things like that and that um that that is a very delicate thing and if that goes goes away and and has a contraction then the entire state uh budget uh becomes a lot more perilous and so I think that we just need to be be mindful of these things and so just appreciate the the approach from uh fiscal services so thank you >> I've got a question for you I noticed in the the the budget for this year all the deficit of 56 million came from the unrestricted funds shortage. There wasn't any in the restrict uh unrestricted funds. >> If you go back to one of the first slides, >> the first slides, >> well, was it it was on the left
217of the screen >> and it uh there it showed that in the middle column of that small chart that the deficit The excess deficiency is 123 million and it's in the unrestricted funds. Excuse me. It's in the restricted funds. It's not in the unrestricted funds. Is that something that we can expect in future years that it comes out of we the deficit comes from the restricted funds rather than the unrestricted funds? So the so what you're looking at in terms of the $123 million deficit. So that's before contributions are made. Um so in terms of restricted you're seeing the revenues and then the expenditures and then that's the net difference >> before the contributions which is that piece right there. So when you flow in the contributions related to those three programs then um you
218get a deficit of 32.9 million. >> 32.9. Okay. So you to answer your question, you would normally see that because special ed revenue and expenditures sit on the restricted side of the budget. >> And the RMA or the routine repair maintenance account, as you can see, that makes up a good majority of the 90 million that we're contributing. I see that. Okay. And I want to piggyback on what Brian had said as well. This deficit spending of 56 million still scares the pants off of me. U although I see it shrinking. I think in the next year it's 25.8 million and the third year it's 19.2. But those are always subject to all the variations that you're talking about. But at least we're going in the right direction. And uh to see 56 million and
21925 million and 19 million, it means we go from a fund balance of 168 million this year. There it is, beginning fund balance 168 million, but by the end of 27, excuse me, 28 fiscal year, we're down to 67 million. or we're spending in deficit spending $101 million over the three years that we project. >> So I I wish I could agree with you on that but the part as I mentioned before what is not in the second year 2627 and not in the 2728 year is the ongoing salary commitment that we made with the recent uh agreement that we signed. So if we go off the numbers that you just shared, I would tell you that it's not 67 million. It's actually 67 million minus 24 million. So it is roughly about 43 million
220when those raises kick in. Whatever that looks like, >> you're looking at the 67 million is the third year. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So what you're not seeing is in the assignments the 24.39 million most of that is the salaries and benefits related to the ongoing salary increase that has not hit in Jan on July 1st 2026 >> or July 1st 2027. So um it's not something I want to correct you on but that that's what >> makes it worse. >> Yeah. Okay. Um, but at least we're going in the right direction here and hopefully we'll get to a point maybe in that fourth year you're talking about where we can drop it down to a we we spend as much as we take in, >> right? >> And uh that's maybe wishful thinking. >>
221I was going to say people that have been in education been waiting for that fourth year for a long time, right? >> It never seems to come. Well, I'll have to say I have more confidence if this is now I've been in this seat for a year and it scared the pants off me the first time I looked at this first interim from last March, but I I have confidence and I lay it at your feet because you guys are very good at taking those one-time expenditures and moving them to the best possible use of it. And and that's what I appreciate is the skills that you guys have in doing that. It's no easy task and I compliment you on that. Well, I I would extend the compliment to our ED services people um
222our ED services staff because we do that in coordination uh with them. I mean, the name that comes off my mind is Christina Filios who does a lot of work on our title programs. Um and she does a lot of work uh with our LC our LCAP supplemental. I mean, we and >> there she is. >> And she would she would, you know, she's there, you know, doing that work with the fiscal team. Um, you know, and I I'm not trying to discount other pro ed services staff. It's just Christina is seems to be in my office the most. Um, >> and we'll extend the thanks to all those. >> This is an action item, folks. Madame President, I move that the board uh approve the first interim report 2526 as presented. >> I'll second
223it. >> Motion and a second. Trustee Oriana. >> Yes. >> Lawrence, >> yes. Mayor, >> yes. >> McD, >> yes. >> Mason, yes. Yes, >> Ze. I keep How can she still be awake? >> Out of sight, out of mind. >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you. >> You very much. Very good. Okay. >> It'll be good. >> Okay. 18.3 Review and potential approval of title one schoolwide program for conquered high schools. >> Thank you. Um so based on 2425 uh free and reduced meal percentage ranking, Conquered High School is eligible for title one schoolwide program. Um, and in order to enact a schoolwide program of spending for title one, one of the requirements is to create a schoolwide plan, um, which is our school plan for student achievement. So, tonight I'm bringing forward Conquered
224High School's uh, school plan for student achievement that has been, uh, developed and approved by their school site council uh, for board approval as the schoolwide plan for Title One for Conquered High School. Madam >> Madame President, I move the board approve the title one schoolwide program for a conquered high school. >> I'll second. >> Second. >> All right. >> Can I ask a question before you uh >> Absolutely. >> So, we get a bucket of title one money and because now that conquered high school is being designated, is that are the other schools going to lose out? Um so we do determine ranking and um funding each year based on most current CalPADS um numbers. So yes, a school could shift in or out of funding um each year. Um we actually did have
225a school in funding last year and then out of funding this year. And so we do uh we do look at those uh ranked percentages each year so that we can ensure that title one funds are targeted to to our most uh needy schools to support. Um the other piece is that um the per pupil allotment for each school is determined by the total number of students we're serving in the district plus any nonprofit private schools uh students that are eligible. So the amount the total that total pot Dr. Clark minus whatever our district title allocations are to fund uh dis at district level that's divided by the total number of students that we're serving. So the more students the more schools that we fund the more eligible students the smaller that per pupil aotment
226gets. So, we're always making a decision about what amount per pupil makes sense to be able um to support the schools in making some significant supplemental um actions or taking some significant supplemental actions to support students. >> You're welcome. >> Questions are >> yes. >> Mayo. >> Yes. Trusty and Zei. >> Yes. >> Trusty Vugo. >> Yes. >> And I vote yes. >> Okay. 184 review and potential approval of school plan for student achievement for Olympic High School and Riverview Middle School. So, the plan is to bring the other school plans for student achievement in January, but I am bringing Olympic High School and Riverview High School school plans for student achievement to this meeting. Both um Riverview and Olympic uh currently qualify under comprehensive support and improvement. Um, Olympic High School qualifies under grad
227rate. Although I do want to highlight their incredible jump in grad rate, their increase to 72.5%. Um, but in order to um not qualify for comprehensive support and improvement, they will need to get to 68% three-year average. So, we're we're we're very close. I've calculated it. Um so uh in comprehensive and also sorry riverview is um qualifies under low performing which is based on dashboard data from the year before. So for these two sites one of the requirements under comprehensive support and improvement is of course to have a school plan that indicates how these monies will be spent toward improved student outcomes um and improving the indicator that qualifies for CSI. And so I'm bringing these two plans forward for approval. uh so that schools can enact these strategies with these monies questions. I move
228to approve the 2526 Olympic High School school plan for student achievement and the 2526 Riverview Middle School school plan for uh student achievement as presented. My screen flipped. I apologize. >> Second. >> Okay, we have a motion in a second. >> Trusty Ver Ariana. >> Yes. >> Trusty Lawrence. >> Yes. >> Trusty Mayo. >> Yes. Yes. >> Trusty Mason. >> Thank you. >> All righty. Uh 18.5 review and consideration of challenge to supplemental instructional materials pursuant to the board policy administrative registration regulation 1312.2 trustees. Dr. Clarkwick. >> Hi. Um, >> so tonight we have for review and consideration a challenge of supplemental instructional materials. And in this case, it's a book, The Four Agreements, which was approved back in April of 2024 as a supplemental 9th grade text representing multicultural and diverse authors. Uh, in
229September of 2025, a complaint sought its removal on constitutional grounds. We reviewed the claim uh and found the book met all policy and education code requirements. The decision was then appealed and so we ask now that the board vote on whether the book should remain on the supplemental reading list and I'm obviously here for questions. >> We have a couple of public speakers >> so I don't know if you want to ask questions. I I just as a quick point of order, I just wanted to ask uh not to cast dispersions on you in your first meeting, but it seemed possible we may need a meeting extension. >> And would you like to do that just so we're not rushed? I didn't know if you would Okay. Um so I I would I thought it
230was at 10. Is it now 10? My extension was going to be to 10:30. If we're already good till 10:30, then >> that's >> okay. I'll I'll hold off. I I thought it was >> I didn't think so, but uh >> we'll make sure. >> Okay. So, we'll go ahead and hear from the public speakers and then if there's any question >> Oh, they're not here. >> I think they you can call them just to make sure. >> Okay. So, Linda Pal is not here. Okay. >> Laura. >> Okay. Then if there's no questions, I'll entertain a motion. I move the four agreements remain on the supplemental reading materials list in category 3. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. And then we will go with trustee Ariana. Yes. >> Trusty Lawrence.
231>> Yes. >> Trusty Mayo. >> Yes. >> Trusty. >> Yes. >> Trusty McDougall. >> No. >> Trusty Mason is a yes. Pat >> review and proposed changes to administrative regulation AR 1312.1 complaints concerning district employees. This is the one that we have. >> Vote online. >> Uh, no. Deborah. >> Okay. Well, good evening again. I would like to address this item 18.6 as it was brought up during our negotiations. There are sections in this new board policy that concerns me and I would like for this item to be pulled so that media leadership can work with the district to come up with a better process as this minimizes an employes complaint and verbal complaint. I ask respectfully for you to pull this item for further clarification. Thank you. I just want to inform the board
232that this is up for a first read. So, we're not taking any action tonight. So, there's time to do >> action. You prefer we wait. >> Yes. >> Go ahead and wait, please. >> That's easy enough. >> All right. review and potential approval of revisions to board policy BP 6146.1 graduation requirements that action I'll second. >> Yes. >> Lawrence, >> yes. >> Mayo, >> yes. >> Daily. >> Trusty McDougall. >> Yes. >> Mason. >> Yes. That passes. Okay. Review and potential approval of changes to board policies and administrative regulations for California School Board Association recommendations September 24th quarterly update. That is for info. So come to the next meeting prepared with any changes you'd like to see. The next one is review and potential approval of changes to board policies administrative regulations per California School
233Board Association recommendations December 20 24 quarterly update. No questions there. And review and potential approval of changes to board policies and administrative regulations for California School Board Association recommendations for March 2025 quarterly update. That's that. Okay. No meeting extension needed. >> I never doubted you for a moment, >> but my husband's going to be disappointed in me. Okay. So, close session, no carryover, no reconvene. Future agenda items? Nope. Merry Christmas.