Board Meeting 9 8 21 Part 2

001all right welcome everyone all right Bienvenidos and welcome to the governing board meeting of the Mount Diablo Unified School District September 8th 2021 we call this meeting to order at 605. we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance and roll call principles all right thank you very much so we'll go to roll call vice president Mason here is your microphone working okay very good thank you I just want to make sure it was working okay trust email here trustee McCarron here trustee and Zoe here uh and our and I'm also present our student board member uh Kalina Fowler is not able to attend this evening all right um so next we have 6.2 review and potential approval of the agenda does anyone have anything to reorder or to the end okay we have a suggestion to

002move the board board member reports to the end of the meeting so there are board members okay with that I would make a motion if we approve the agenda with the change of the board member reports being at the end okay thank you all right so we have a motion by vice president Mason second by trustee Mayo to approve the agenda uh with the change of the board member board reports being moved to the end all right we'll take that to a vote uh trustee Mayo yes trustee Mason yes trustee McFerrin yes trustee and zabi yes I also vote Yes motion passes five zero all right so we'll move on with our agenda uh so a report out of closed session 7.1 negotiations the board may discuss negotiations or provide direction to its Representatives regarding

003represented employees pursuant to government code section 549-57.6 we received information and provided Direction item 7.2 discipline dismissal release or reassignment of Public Employee government code section 54957b1 we received information and item 7.3 public employee performance evaluation superintendent pursuant to government code 54957 we also received informations and that brings us to public comment item 8.1 the public May address the board regarding any item within the jurisdiction of the Board of Education of the Mount Diablo Unified School District that is not on the agenda these presentations are limited to three minutes each or a total of 30 minutes for all speakers or the three-minute limit may be shortened if there are multiple speakers on any one subject the public comment period may be moved to the end of the meeting speakers are not allowed to yield their

004time um so for anyone who might be new to this process we on the board are not allowed to engage in discussion with a public comment because the rest of the public was not notified of that topic ahead of time as an agenda item so please understand we do carefully listen to your comment but will generally not respond other than to ask a clarifying question staff may follow up and the topic may be added to a future board agenda if needed so how many uh public comments do we have all right uh is this during nope not 9.1 no no we want eight are those all nine okay all right so we have one public comment under 8.1 Rosie Reed um good evening Dr Clark and members of the board my name is Rosie Reed

005and I'm a teacher at Ignacio Valley high school thank you for working with our Union to bring us back to school full-time in person this fall this last month has recharged my soul and my love of the profession I'm also a parent of students at Holbrook Language Academy Sun Terrace Elementary and Robert Shearer preschool I'm here today as both a teacher and a parent to ask the school board to mandate vaccines for all eligible students in mdusd schools at the high school level where I work it would be entirely possible to have fully vaccinated spaces on many mdusd campuses we have it within our power to make our schools safer for our students their families and the Educators who serve them as a parent I'm also asking you to require coveted vaccinations for students My

006Children's Schools send out notices of positive coveted cases nearly daily this is incredibly stressful not just because my husband who is also an mdusd teacher and I fear for the safety of all of our children but because when our own kids have to take time off of school to quarantine one of us has to stay out of the classroom so we can be at school with them this means our students are left in the hands of subs and as you well know and the best of times some days can get a little bit Lord of the Flies these days in our acute sub shortage Little Learning if any is happening when the teacher is out well it is true that students Under 12 are not yet eligible for covid-19 vaccination this is expected to change

007in October or November of this year to include students ages 5 through 11. in short politics should not get in the way of science let's vaccinate our kids so we can continue to learn in person together thank you thank you very much so okay that I believe is all of the cards under public comment I just want to make sure our cards are in the right place how many cards so next we have District organizations at regular board meetings this is 9.1 a single spokesperson of each recognized District organization may make a brief presentation items are limited to those which are informal informational um okay oh I see the other cards are a different item all right okay so we have Carmen taronis and then Anita Johnson good evening four members superintendent on um Mount

008Diablo community my name is Carmen terrones I'm local one CST unit press event and I'm here tonight to address some serious uh concerns that uh my unit has been trying to resolve for quite some time now without success there are many issues that are brought to HR and they take forever to be resolved they don't respond to it to our emails I printed and I forgot them I had a stack of constant emails to HR with some issues that kept on rolling over from every ER meeting that we have because um Dr Chris Cordero cannot make decisions without checking with his boss Dr Rubio to make a decision so sometimes I'm wondering why am I meeting with Dr escudero if he can take any decisions he has to go back to Dr Rubio so regardless

009these are issues that councils continue to go back and there are some that have started last year last October with uh um out of class pay um actually I'm gonna go in order so otherwise I go in circles um I'm starting to feel discriminated uh because HR never responds to my emails and this has been going on since I have Lisa Davis a female also a unit uh rep she never got responsible which is delayed every time my best my new business agent uh Dan Harper emails HR boom right away so I don't know what it is maybe my accent they don't like my accent God knows but anyway I wish that I'd at least get a response saying hey I got your email let me work on it I'll get back to you but

010it's not happening the other class pay issues have started last October when rivences uh went I started early this year and still unresolved the attorney that was hired by Mount Diablo District continued to report that she's waiting on mandialo to provide the necessary information she had requested numerous time our contract is not being in honor as written I have many members that are working two or three deaths due to vacant positions and shortage of Subs my members are being asked to submit an itemized timesheet all the time this is ridiculous and disrespectful to my members for Dr Rubio you can do two deaths at a time believe me it can be done we're women we can do it and we have been doing it for years but we have been compensated properly it's not happening

011now um members are just an example a member that um averaged 17.99 an hour working seven hours a day at the elementary they make a minimum uh 125 a day if you or she requests five percent out of class for that day it will be about six dollars and 30 cents a week it will be 31.48 but HR is demanding an itemized time sheet meaning I work eight o'clock to 8 20 in the morning doing attendance duties then I go back to my desk and then I come back at 12 and I work for another 45 minutes that's what they're asking that has never been done past practice I've been here 24 years and that item in my contract has never been changed has never been questioned until recently anyway I have five grievances waiting

012and waiting one of my members had filed the grievance there's now a dma confidential person this is how long it's taken I think that women probably have forgotten that she filed this ribbons and regardless layoff procedure CST contract article 36 page 47 Section 105 reads a written notice of layoffs shall be given to affect their employees not less than 60 days prior to effective date of the layoff the addiction shot notify local one prior to its given layoff notices to affected employees one of my members was called by its administrator and told I am releasing you because we don't need you right now releasing you pollution to what apparently this is in Food Services apparently because of the free breakfast and lunches she doesn't they don't need her for about what a year a year

013and a half I don't know but in the meantime since last week that this meeting took place she's been working in The Print Shop she's been used to work the covid-19 um handling uh providing forms and so on I didn't know until I saw the agenda today that's not acceptable they're violating the contract right there or a contract for 2018-2021 that took almost two and a half years to um to be in place expired on 6 30 21. so right now again we are with our contract we have met two or three times but stating that they can't present any economic proposals until mid October due to waiting for an approved budget from Facebook I thought the budget was already approved in June but anyway I don't know who's lying because the BAC said that

014they all have an approved budget maybe in November but negotiation is telling us mid-october so which one is lying and then we have two more meetings coming up uh next Monday and the 27th so if they're not ready to propose any budget monetary money then why why are we wasting our time I am taking time away from my desk putting my my other co-workers there to be exposed to work out of class without compensation the CST calendar my members are still waiting for it I have members that they don't know if they're going to work their brakes and they have child care issues last year two of them ended up having to take vacation or something like that to stay home with their kids because they didn't know whether or not they were working on

015time because you know Child Care nowadays you need to let them know ahead of time up to now we have assisted HR to finalize the CST calendar which is not our Duty or responsibility but we had just to make sure that it was done on time it hasn't happened members went on vacation came back kept on asking I had a meeting today Stills has not been going out I asked at the last ER I think it was last Monday I asked Dan esparillo where are we with this he doesn't know he was going to chip with Dr Rubio okay this type of disrespect is affecting also the morale of my members you know because respect goes both ways it's not something that is earned just because you are who you are you respect me I

016respect you right now I am starting to lose respect again from this District because I'm not getting responsive my members have been disrespected my members are being asked to work out of class without compensation I continue I continue to hear about Mount Diablo being a defining enrollment for the fake my report recommendations we should have declined the employees as well that hasn't happened but we have an addition HR HR director and I understand that there was a mistake or an error on the board agenda because I saw that the associate general counsel was being promoted to general counsel and I think that was removed and no disrespect to Caesar I know you do a wonderful job but if there's no money for us the little people How can there be more money for administrators okay

017I can go on and on but I think I just gave you an idea of what's going on with my unit we have been here we have been called essential employees Peter says that pay us respect us respond to emails that's what I have for tonight thank you thank you very much Mr Ernest next we have Anita Johnson and then Sylvia venturino good evening can you hear me wonderful I'm Anita Johnson president of Mount Diablo Education Association my pronouns are she and her Medea is a United group of Educators standing together for the benefit of students of the Mount Diablo Unified School District students need a qualified teacher in every classroom and a qualified staff member in every position the work of education is about relationships students need to be supported by caring talented individuals

018and one of the most important responsibilities of the school district is to ensure the best possible people are available to meet our students needs the ability to attract and retain qualified staff is a critical component of our District's ability to provide a great education to all students that ability is in serious Jeopardy because we have not had a salary increase since 2017. your employees deserve a salary increase we have gone four years without a salary increase in the last round of negotiations the district agreed on 5.5 percent salary increase after 15 months of negotiations after the pandemic began the salary increase was rejected due to the concerns about the financial impact of the pandemic thanks to extra funding from the state and federal governments the district has experienced no ongoing financial distress due to the

019pandemic and is actually in a much better position financially today the unaudited actuals that you will review this evening show that The District's ending balance has increased by 41 million dollars and now stands at 89 million dollars this is positive and encouraging news we share the board's desire to maintain the district's Financial Health the positive ending balance in the unaudited actuals leads us to believe more than ever that the district will be able to improve the salary schedule while we are more optimistic than ever about the district's ability to fund the salary increase we realize the district's financial situation is still a cause for concern and careful action we may need more information to determine and assess the situation and are appreciative that Dr Clark is committed to financial transparency as we project the financial

020situation into the future year declining enrollment is the cause for concern but declining enrollment should not impact it should impact employment but not salaries projected enrollment declines will impact the number of teachers needed by the district but should not impact the salary schedule the salary schedule should be increased each year to ensure that the district can continue to attract and retain highly qualified teachers and staff mdusd salaries are the lowest in seven nearby school districts to bring our salaries to the average for those districts would take an increase of 10.6 percent most of the schedules in the other districts will increase again several times over the next three years furthermore your employees need a salary increase salaries are not keeping up with inflation employees in our district are losing buying power every year we go

021without a salary increase prices increased by 2.4 percent in 2018 by 1.8 percent in 2019 by 2.3 percent in 2020 and are projected to increase by 2.2 percent this year compounded prices have increased by almost nine percent in the last four years these estimates of inflation do not even include the rapidly escalating costs of purchasing a home which is beyond reach for too many District employees uncompetitive salaries are causing our districts to become a training ground for other districts students deserve to have teachers who remain in the district and who have extensive teaching experience too many of our teachers are leaving for other school districts for higher pay this cannot be permitted to continue your employees expect a salary increase Medea is a United group of Educators standing together for the benefit of the students

022of the Mount Diablo Unified School District students need a qualified teacher in every classroom and a qualified staff member in every position thank you very much next we have Sylvia venturino foreign vertically challenged can you hear me yeah thanks yes good evening superintendent Clark and members of the board my name is Sylvia venturino I'm a district-wide bilingual school psychologist and the co-president of the Mount Diablo school psychologist Association representing School psychologists and Behavioral Health Specialists I wish to inform you of the difficulties faced by our unit due to the district's unwillingness to bargain fairly our department has been decimated we have lost more than a quarter of our staff to other districts and roles all of which pay their employees substantially more than Mount Diablo Unified we have lost highly qualified School psychologists and Behavioral

023Health Specialists with many years of experience extraordinary skills professional licenses and devoted connections to students and Families we began this year's short staffed with numerous vacancies despite active recruitment since early last spring our school psychologists and Behavioral Health Specialists meet the mental health needs of our most vulnerable students conduct hundreds of psycho-educational Assessments yearly and provide services to support students individualized education programs IEPs there are more than 4 000 students in Mount Diablo Unified who have IEPs and we have had a role in most of their plans including comprehensive initial psycho-educational evaluations triennial assessments firms assessments and the provision of related services such as counseling therapy and other supports many of our positions are cost neutral because of our ability to Bill Medi-Cal a fact that the HR department conveniently seems to forget during bargaining

024when the covid pandemic removes dust all from school sites our group never stopped working we never stop providing services to our students we crafted strategies to continue serving students responsibly and safely during the pandemic we continue to conduct psycho-educational evaluations and we continue to provide much needed mental health services to our students while serving kids our members kept the district in compliance with state and federal regulations which allowed the district to avoid expensive litigation our 2018-19 tentative agreement is on tonight's agenda with the recommendation for the board to reject it we are disheartened by this we have always come to the bargaining table in good faith yet we like all other bargaining groups and nduc are still working under an expired contract our contract expired in 2019. we are stuck in the past and we

025do not want to be in the past we want to move forward we have filed impasse due to stalled negotiations for a limited 2018-19 contract and that was State mediators on January 23 2020. we signed a modest tentative agreement with the district on that date more than a year and a half ago then the covid pandem the kit and our focus turn to developing plans to enable us to work safely during a worldwide pandemic we work very hard to craft four different side letters mousse during covid which allowed us to safely provide services to students during distance learning and hybrid learning then once the distance learning and hybrid learning were coming to an end and coveted mous were all done the district decided to renege on our 2018-19 agreement this agreement was perfectly fine when

026we all signed it in front of the per mediators on January 23 2020 when we all shook hands in agreement and we were all happy to move forward but it suddenly became a problem once distance learning and hybrid learning were ending the mediators were gone and HR had a new team suddenly all prior bargaining agreements just dissolved according to HR they are not making changes to past years and they just want to close past years and just go forward is this bargaining in good faith we signed this tentative agreement with the district more than a year and a half ago yet it is on the agenda today in June the district team told us three times that the board did not approve RTA then stated that the board rejected our TA we continually asked for

027documentation and there was none clearly our tentative agreement was not rejected by the board because it is on the agenda for today's board meeting is this bargaining in good faith the district has a chief of HR a director of HR and now another new director of HR yet we are still stuck in 2019 and no bargaining units have current contracts email sent to HR seemed to get lost in the ether as replies are rare and replies with accurate information are even more rare we keep losing colleagues yet the district keeps gaining directors employee groups are shoved to the side and kids are losing services our students have returned to school to begin the 2021-2022 school year a year during which the demands for Psychological Services is expected to reach extraordinary levels students Stress and Anxiety

028levels are very high as they try to navigate school after being away for so long the highly contagious Delta variant has made students and families even more anxious we do not have enough staff to be able to provide the extra mental health support students need the school year let alone the mandated services that we always provide our Counseling Clinic is full at the start of the year due to shortages in our staff we do not have enough Clinic psychologists to serve students and families students who normally would have been provided counseling services and rap services are now unable to receive them we truly are concerned with the ability to provide services to our 4 000 plus students in special education As We are continuing to receive assessment requests as well as requests for therapy services

029that we will soon not be able to accommodate in a timely manner according to state and federal timelines requests for assessments and services do not diminish the related mandated timeline timelines do not cease but we do not have a staff able to complete our jobs our students will not be able to receive Services due to the numerous vacancies in our department this is very alarming and could have been avoided if the district had only bargained fairly like all other districts Mount Diablo received Hefty funding from the state this past year other districts compensated their employees fairly yet in Mount Diablo funds are shuffled around in an apparent shell game and the district price broke a fleet of new vehicles can be purchased various director positions can be created but the district somehow cannot compensate the

030employees that directly work with kids the district recommends that the board reject the mediated tentative agreement between mdusd and the Mount Diablo school psychologist Association because they say that the fiscal impact will be 8.5 million dollars this amount is absolutely ridiculous and based on false information and incorrect interpretations of contract language if the district were to compensate unpaid wages back pay for the mutzba members who worked in 2018-19 and are actually still here it would cost the district about the same as a new HR director this is nowhere near the 8.5 million dollar Mark that they mentioned we expect the district to come to the table and negotiate according to Fair Labor practices Mount Diablo students deserve Mental Health Services they deserve appropriate assessments and supports Mount Diablo Unified School District employees deserved Fair contracts

031all of the employee bargaining groups do please we asked the district do not attempt to pit One Union group against another as a way of weakening the units the union groups have no desire to oppose each other we are all here to serve the students and families of the district Mount Diablo we ask you please work to build trust with the different employee groups please bargain in good faith board members you hear from the district during closed session we ask you to please consider our information as well so that it will assist you in making a moral Equitable and responsible decision when it comes to voting on agenda item 17.7 thank you for the opportunity to speak thank you very much okay that takes us to item 10.0 recognitions and resolutions 10.1 is review and

032potential approval of board resolution 2122-6 for personnel with variable term waivers Dr Clark good evening board members uh before you we request your approval for a variable term waiver for eight applicants who uh requesting additional time to complete certain requirements for their credentials thank you very much do I hear a motion I'll make a motion that we approve board resolution 21-22-6 for the personnel with variable term waivers the governing board approve the resolution 20-21 .6 for personnel with it's repetitive so I make a motion we approve the resolution second all right thank you very much so motion is to approve board resolution 2122-6 thank you very much uh the motion by trustee Mason and second by trustee Mayo any discussion we'll take that to a vote trustee Mason yes trustee Mayo yes trustee McFerrin yes

033Justine Zoe yes I also vote Yes motion passes 5-0 I want to say with concurrence but our student board member is not here okay all right item 10.2 review and a potential approval of resolution 2128-8 proclaiming September 15 2021 to October 15 2021 as Hispanic Heritage Month you have President count I'd like to um present this resolution for consideration for the uh to the board so it's Hispanic Heritage Month um in September 15 to October 15th whereas the month of September 15th to October 15th it designated as Hispanic Heritage Month by the United States Congress in 1988 and whereas the huge and significant impact of Hispanic and Latino cultures and their in their centuries-old Traditions are manifested in achievements customs and laws of this date and nation of this state and Nation and now therefore

034be it resolved that the Mount Diablo Unified School District governing board hereby recognizes honors and celebrates the many contributions Heritage and history of Hispanics Latinos Latinas and latinx people during our annual commemoration and pro and proclamation of Hispanic Heritage Month in a in a manner appropriate with covid-19 regulations and be it further resolved that this executed executed resolution be distributed to all schools within the Mount Diablo Unified School District and so with that I would just like to say that we have a large population of Latino and latinx students within our district and each School each educator should take time to recognize the accomplishments and achievements of of the Latinos before us from the past and current and so with that I will now put this resolution in the hands of the board all right

035thank you very much Dr Clark do I hear a motion on this item move that we approve resolution 2022-8 proclaiming September 15th to October 15 2021 as Hispanic heritage second thank you motion by trustee and Zoe and second by trustee McFerrin any discussion on this item I believe we have one speaker on this or do you want to introduce the speaker okay okay um so I tend to crowdsource crowdsource um when I'm in not charge isn't the right word but um when I'm when I lead the effort to get a resolution on the agenda and so um I had two folks work on them um Sarah and Amy but Sylvia is here to talk about it so true I had two mbusd staff helped help help um craft this um want a librarian one part

036of MedSpa and um but neither could be here today but you're gonna read um Sarah's words yeah yes thank you hello I'm Sylvia venturino bilingual school psychologist at Mount Diablo Unified um and I am going to present the information created by my colleague co-president and good friend Sarah cabezas Sarah had the honor to work on this Proclamation with Amy unfortunately sir cannot be here this evening so she asked me to read this statement Sarah and I are both Daughters of immigrants Sarah's father came from Ecuador my parents came from Argentina so we're both first generation and have many commonalities and we both use our culture and our language daily in our roles in Mount Diablo Sarah as a behavioral health specialist and myself as a school psychologist so I'm reading this on behalf of Sarah

037I am honored and humbled to be able to co-present the proclamation for Hispanic Heritage Month this school year our Hispanic Latino and latinx communities are rich with love and support and continue to overcome obstacles and display resiliency during this past year I heard how our Hispanic Community came together to support each other in ways that make me proud to be Latina from taking care of neighbors to supporting other students with academic tutoring the Hispanic Community showed up for each other it was not known before if it was not known before let it be made clear now that family community and culture rank high in our lives this month we invite and encourage all of the schools to spread knowledge of various Hispanic and Latino cultures and history by sharing daily historical and cultural facts in

038their morning announcements this simple gesture offers acknowledgment and respect over Hispanic and Latino populations culture and history we hope that this act will be a start to including Hispanic and Latino Heritage and curriculum not just during Hispanic Heritage Month but throughout the year thank you questions thank you very much for that presentation and for all of your everyone's work on this resolution much appreciated any other discussion on this item before we take it to a vote I have call me Sophia from The Golden Girls who has a story for everything so um as Dr Clark alluded to um as of last year 43 last school year that we just ended 43 of our students in our district are Hispanic or Latino and that's by far the largest represented ethnicity in our district yet when I

039was running for school board and learning from community members um who live in area three and went to school in area three it was disheartening to hear from young adult former students and parents of current students how disenfranchised they felt in this District rarely seeing themselves in their lessons or experiencing straight up racism from administrators and staff however what is encouraging by the passage of yet another resolution honoring another Rich Heritage that this board really enjoys passing um even though for to some it may seem um just like a waste of time but what it does not by itself but what it starts is allow us to create a culture in our district that begins to dismantle told the racist culture that has that historically permeated our district Brick by Brick it's slow and it's

040painful but the idea that any student in America but especially in California doesn't have a good foundation of the history of Latinos and Hispanics in California and throughout our country I think it's criminal and immoral so to um Sarah's suggestion um of of everyone providing a fact in their Pub in their announce daily announcements I found a resource online cut out by the California office of historic preservation it's called Latinos in 20th century California and though it's only about 200 pages long it would be a great resource for our Educators to reference when teaching about Latinos in California from how this state was built to politics to immigration to music and arts it can easily be found by Googling California office of historic preservation Latinos in 20th century California and I look forward to passing

041this resolution thank you trustee and Zoe any further further discussion on the site yes say something I appreciate uh the addition of the language between our last meeting and this meeting I think it is very important and profound I also appreciate uh trustee and zaily's reference to the uh support materials that individuals can use in the um implementation of um events to happen at our schools but there's a part of the one of the resolves that was in the previous uh a version that I think is important and I would like to make a motion to add that information and perhaps we can go from there I move in resolved number one to insert the following words after the word month and encourages all schools and classrooms to commemorate this occasion with appropriate instructional materials

042it would then read now therefore be resolved that the Mount Diablo Unified School District governing board hereby recognizes honors and celebrates the many contributions of Heritage and history of Hispanics Latinos Latinas and latinx people during our annual commemoration and proclamation of Hispanic Heritage Month and encourages all schools and classrooms to commemorate this occasion with appropriate instructional materials in a manner appropriate with covid-19 regulations and and I'd like to speak to my motion all right go ahead um do we have a second for the motion I'll second thank you motion by trustee Mayo second by trustee and Zary and Trust email I know that um those of us who work in our schools understand that we do have this curriculum and that it is a use in our classrooms however our public doesn't understand that uh

043we are putting a special emphasis on the curriculum during this particular month and I believe that by adding the language that it shows our public that we really want uh the instructional materials to be used and yes I do agree and did not take the time to make uh add-in that the observances should occur year round not just during the one month so thank you thank you very much trustee mail any discussion on the proposed Edition okay so first we'll vote on the Edition and then on the motion as a whole so we'll put that to a vote just emails uh motion so uh trustee Mayo how do you vote yes trustee Mason yes trustee McFerrin yes Justine yes I also vote Yes the additional additional motion passes five zero so now we have a

044complete motion with the motion by trustee inzawi including the Edition from trustee mayo and we'll take that to a vote yes trustee McLaren yes trustee Mayo trustee Mason yes I also vote Yes motion passes five zero thank you all very much for your thoughtfulness and Care on this very important issue all right okay that takes us to item 10.3 review and potential approval of board resolution 2122-12 for personnel with provisional internship permits this is also going to be Dr Rubio good evening again as the board knows the California Commission on teaching uh credentialing no longer issues emergency permits but doesn't issue a provisional internship permits so we have one candidate for you for your review and approval this evening thank you very much do I hear a motion I'll make a motion we approve resolution

04521-22-14 in recognition of oh excuse me 22-12 for personnel with provisional internship permits second thank you very much motion by trustee Mason second by trustee Mayo any discussion okay we'll take it to a vote trustee Mason yes trustee Mayo yes trustee McFerrin yes trustee and Zoe yes I also vote Yes motion passes five zero thank you very much all right that takes us to item 10.4 review and potential approval of resolution 2122-14 in recognition of Suicide Prevention month after Tech yes it um it it it it pains me to have to um bring a resolution like this forward um but I think that it's absolutely necessary and um so resolution number 21 slash 22-14 Suicide Prevention month September 2021 so whereas suicide is the fourth leading cause of death among youth between 10 and 14

046years of age however suicide is preventable and whereas the Mount Diablo Unified School District is committed to helping schools develop systems of support and interventions that focus on meeting the academic social and emotional needs of students and therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education of the Mount Diablo Unified School District declares September that September prevention Awareness Month be it further resolved that the Board of Education encourages parents Guardians in the community to support the work of staff to help prevent suicides president count this resolution is now in the hands of the board thank you Dr Clark do I hear a motion on this item I'll move to approve resolution 21-22-14 declaring September 2021 Suicide Prevention month in Mount Diablo Unified School District a second thank you motion by trustee McFerrin and second by

047trustee and zaywe any discussion on this item trustee and Theory so my mom lives with chronic depression and it's extremely hard to see someone you love suffer so deeply and there's been times in my life in my adult life that it like the commercials for depression pills don't even touch the surface of how How Deeply someone can suffer when they're when when they are struck with depression um I've lived through two times in my life when my mom consistently thought about ending her life but luckily she never made an attempt that's because she had the proper care around her that allowed her to feel safe sharing those thoughts so that she could be kept safe until she was better she told her doctors her therapists and me what I've learned from my experience is that

048depression lies and it takes a yeoman's effort to convince someone suffering so greatly that it's all a lie I appreciate that this resolution lays out steps our district will take to develop a crisis plan but the resolution cites of study um Dr Clark didn't read this part but it's cites a study that of 20 000 students in grades 7 to 12 found that that found that school connectedness was the only School related factor that consistently protected students from engaging in unhealthy behaviors I just want us all to be clear that depression and suicide is not an unhealthy Behavior it's an illness and should be treated as such um so I want to thank ironically our school psychologists Behavioral Health Specialists counselors and other staff who do everything they can to keep our students healthy and

049safe and I look forward to passing this thank you trustee I'm very any further discussion on this item okay um I had a few just resources I wanted to mention related to this um that are they're timely one is tomorrow uh September 9th there is a forum Suicide Prevention Forum uh led by Contra Costa Health Services it's a virtual conversation on Youth and suicide from 4 to 7 pm and anyone can join it's free learn how to support yourself or a loved one and you can register online for it at cchealth.org um and then the usual um number to always keep in everyone's phone is if you or someone you know is experiencing an emotional crisis or having thoughts of suicide call 2-1-1 or 1-800-833-2900 or text Hope to 20121 so that's an important resource

050to keep in mind um also the um starting next week the National Alliance on Mental Illness Nami California and the California Department of Education will be hosting several virtual trainings for Nami on Campus High School um so that's an opportunity for high school students to really take some leadership on this and that's at NAMI california.org so n-a-m-i-c-a.org and lastly I wanted to mention there's an excellent resource right now um that many of our Educators have shared at learning for justice and it's called um toolkit for demystifying the mind and has a lot of great information about how to incorporate these things into the classroom or the home um and lastly I would like to say this is a a good time for us as a board to look at updating our board policy and AR

0515141.52 on suicide prevention to make sure that it includes the latest best practices which includes increasing staff awareness of the higher rates of suicide among certain groups uh these groups include students bereaved by Suicide students with disabilities mental illness or substance use disorders students experiencing homelessness or out of home settings such as foster care and students who are lesbian gay bisexual transgender or questioning youth it's crucial that we provide key professional development in these areas and ensure that all of our Protocols are as clear and strong as they can be with that we'll take this to a vote if there's no further discussion all right trustee in zawi yes trustee McFerrin yes trustee Mason yes trustee Mayo yes I also vote Yes motion passes 5-0 thank you all very very much okay that takes us

052to item 10.5 review and potential approval of resolution 2122-15 in recognition of deaf Awareness Month International week of deaf people September 20th to 26 2021 an international day of sign languages September 23rd of 2021. Dr Clark president count I would like to present to you tonight resolution 21 22-15 deaf Awareness Month International week of deaf people an international day of sign languages whereas the deaf population includes a wide range of individuals from those who were born profoundly deaf and use American Sign Language ASL as a primary means of communication to those with the degree of hearing loss who use hearing aids or other forms of amplification and communication modes and now therefore the governing board of the Mount Diablo Unified School District hereby proclaims the month of September as deaf Awareness Month the week beginning

053September 20th through 26th as International week of deaf people of deaf people and September 23rd 2021 as International Day of sign language and be it further resolved that this resolution be distributed to all schools within the district by the didn't count this resolution is now in the hands of the board thank you very much Dr Clark do I hear a motion Madam president I would move that the board approved resolution 21 22-15 deaf Awareness Month International week of deaf people and in the national day of sign languages a second thank you a motion by trustee Mayo second by trustee inzawi any further discussion on this item so I'll bet that most of us didn't know that there was such a thing as Deaf culture and that there's this whole beautiful culture surrounding deafness it's not

054just a language well I wouldn't know either except it a long time ago at a Girl Scout camp not that far away did anybody go to camp with me in the 80s nobody oh man best Girl Scout camp um I got to go to a session that was for both girls who were deaf and girls who were not deaf and we all came together and that's what I learned it's so much more than just being able to hear and using sign language to communicate that deafness is so much more than that but get this did you know that just like variations in American English or British English American Sign Language has dialects so this I only learned during covid um but there's a black just like there's black English or African-American vernacular English there's black

055American Sign Language and it which also includes its own culture and there's also just like spoken word there's even Regional dialects um and Accents in Sign Language so if you use Duolingo then I also encourage you to download the app Science school because it'll give you a new sign every day so that you can learn um learn very slowly American sign language as well I was busy writing that down thank you very much a really great great information and resources any further discussion on this item all right we'll take this to a vote trust email yes Christine zabi yes trustee mcnairan yes trustee Mason yes I also vote Yes motion passes five zero thank you all very much okay all right so that brings us to uh our reports and information section of our agenda

056item 11.1 is the staff presentation of growing healthy kids Garden education programs I'm on now okay awesome good evening to Board of Trustees president count Dr Adam Clark I'd like to introduce a couple co-presenters um Laney Klein King and Tamara Helfer who are actually the program coordinators as well as Dominic Machi and principal Aaron McFerrin that will be presenting this brief overview of our program so if you take a look at this picture on Bancroft Elementary Garden this is actually a picture that Dr Clark uses quite often and we has never been able to share where this picture actually came from and it came from one of our garden programs we're in the process of rebranding the program um we believe that it's morphed away from ngss in the garden into something quite large it's

057the idea of using outdoor spaces School meals and academics to Advanced District goals around academics physical and mental health and Community Building this is not only an initiative that has been taking notice in Mount Diablo but actually Nick anikshit from Farm to school program lead from cdfa which is the California Department of food and agriculture office Farm to Fork has actually made some comments about our program and since its Inception which actually very much started 20 or more years ago with after school program Gardens it is something that has grown to be recognized as something that's more just in the garden but is expanded into our classrooms during the instructional day so as I mentioned this is not new 20 or more years ago and trustee Mason has the uh the historical perspective it started

058with our cares after school program and I just really want to recognize Eric Rico and all of this staff in our after school program because they have built something that actually this program and this initiative has actually you know it's bloomed out of haha um we're talking about the garden um so this is something where it was originally just at a few Title One schools and as we saw the power of it and the engagement of it and especially with the look of ngss in the garden as an idea and using phenomena based education as a way to engage students in stem we found that that was something that was just so incredibly engaging that we wanted to see is there a way to open it up is there a way to make it more

059connected so it can be at multi-schools and not just identified as a program at Title One sites so we do really want to recognize all the work at our ASP programs and our Care staff the work that's been done and as it's morphed is actually something that does support um our our instructional initiatives and if you can kind of see in the very teeny tiny writing on the high quality and Community engagement high quality instructional practices as well as College and Career Readiness um what's kind of interesting about this is that it's very similar to the initiatives around procuring local food and then taking a look at making sure that we have food and nutrition education for our students to make sure that they are it's a holistic Wellness approach as well as really utilizing

060again outdoor spaces and school Gardens as a way to educate students and engage them in a larger Community conversation about Wellness I'd like to introduce Dominic Machi and good evening um the uh the slide that you see here is the integration collaboration across mdusd and that is in three sections of the district which is Ed services including nutrition services and enforce maintenance and operations it takes really all those three departments from those three groups to bring these school garden programs really together and to move them forward into the future as you can see at the top column in 2014 and 2021 some of the work that was done uh and I'll start with education educational services so the next general generation science standards in the garden in elementary schools serving 5 000 students from the

061earth uh teacher professional development on external education uh in these years especially as you know in 2020 the food nutrition services department received an e-roll certification so we set a standard now of quality that we want to serve for our students that supports this as well as the warehouse overall which we are experiencing right now as we speak uh so we're doing wonderful there local procurement and local procurement is is very special because for us to be able to support our regional economy and our manufacturers especially really in the middle of a pandemic time that we're having right now with Prince Sherman there are many school districts many of us are going through challenges because there are breaks in the supply chain and it's something we have never seen before and so local procurement especially

062right now is going to be very very uh important a sustainable food sourcing which is something we are working on will come out probably in the next month or two scratch cooking we'll try to continue to do and of course we remove 10 pounds of sugar from basically our school meals just by reducing uh flavored milk and fruit juices from our program um now when you go into maintenance and operations the school Gardens as they're supporting that and maintenance Outdoor Learning space is a 3D curriculum and then shade structures and irrigation can help support that whole infrastruct physical infrastructure of the gardens themselves now moving into this year in 2122 the goals are of course is to continue so some field trip programs uh fourth grade field trip to the cafeteria which is important so

063they can see where their food is being prepared and experience that connection Middle School Garden education and then Youth Farm Stand which is something and I experienced when I was up at Davis joint Union five which really engages the kids as far as the growing and then also the economics of it as well um and then Community plant exchanges for us in food nutrition services obviously California's you know School meals for all we're going to continue in the next June three and maybe ongoing is going to be huge and we're seeing that right now as we speak uh fourth day field trip to the cafeteria which would be completely welcome I always say to my staff we are Educators as well everybody is an educator table in the school district all of our employees our

064equal partnership will continue as they also receive a grant from the California Department of Agriculture we continue to do the work with us and sourcing from really minority smaller Farmers we're going to continue to do that as we work through especially over these next couple months and then just new educational signage which is basically the smarter lunchroom principle showing Foods where the food comes from hopefully we can get salad bars back into our cafeterias I hope that is where we want to be we may not get there the next three or four months but hopefully we can get there by sometime next year just depends on human nature so um and then lastly in the maintenance and operations is Major infrastructure improvements to Gardens especially at Riverview I was out there today it is unbelievable

065I know it's a lot of work going but they're making Pathways and they're starting to really clear out and they have a plan so just so proud of me to stop out there and they're so energized which is great the same at Oak Grove Middle School and Wren Elementary useful and then shade structures are very important you're going to have that Outdoor Learning space those outdoor classrooms you need to have shade structures for students especially that when they're out there in the sun sometime and then to continue just improvements and facilities for Outdoor Learning because we know that it's important and we see the benefits of that of the children so I'll bring out the camera to speak about collaboration this is as well and other entities good evening everybody um I think uh Farm

066to school programs in schools in California and across the country often come from either Food Services or Educational Services or individual efforts by teachers or principals or parents I think what's incredibly remarkable about the program at Mount Diablo is that we have Jennifer sex up here from Educational Services Dominic Machi from Food Services we have Melanie Casa from maintenance and operations all working together to further this so there's there's really good collaboration across departments which is something that Nick Anna such from the cdfa pointed out and also with Partners from mdusd like Jennifer Sachs mentioned cares ASP has been just a key partner since before the program started 20 years or more and they're they're integrated part of both Food Service getting getting food out to the neediest in our community as well as their

067after-school programs it's using Gardens the contractors who have been involved since formal activities started in 2014 at the district level there have been a lot of us as independent contractors and I just kind of wanted to highlight those because a lot of them have never made it up to the board to be presented and so they're they're um Kathy Davis is shown on the left with that she's the Karis Garden educator overseeing all the cares Gardens not just at Riverview but at all the care sites and uh the contractors independent contractors are the 11 people on on the right um and we've had eight others in the past seven years who have also helped build the program so this is really a community and District collaboration across the park departments and and with um our

068partners so um as I mentioned there are a lot of really Innovative programs and and lessons being taught at individual classrooms across the district including the impressive program at Mount and um programs and lessons led by individual elementary middle and high school teachers and in the ASP but in 2014 we started formal Farm to school education during the daytime during the the school day school-wide where every student at a school was brought into the garden multiple times throughout the school year to see the progression throughout the school year at that same time Food Service started formal Farm to school activities with local procurement tracking local procurement and building up to where these impressive changes that Dominic has spoken to um right now we're offering lessons in nine elementaries and two middle schools to every student

069in those schools throughout the school year there's on an average of about 12 lessons per student throughout the school year both in Garden Science Education and GSS in the garden as well as health and wellness cooking nutrition education we've done a lot of Capital Improvements to different School Gardens both in collaboration with with ASP and separately there have been major improvements like doubling the school size at Fair Oaks installed a new Garden at Bel Air rebuilding the garden of Rio Vista there have been major Capital Improvements to Gardens at Bancroft El Monte Gregory Gardens Pleasant Hill Elementary Sequoia Elementary and Sun Terrace [Music] um this next year this current year 2021 2022 will be a year of significant program expansion we have support uh from Grants from the USDA and from the cdfa the California

070Department of food and egg and um we are starting Elementary full field trips to the Riverview Middle School Garden so those will be Opera you know really experiential Hands-On learning opportunities from elementary students to go out to River Riverview and see this very impressive two-acre Garden um it's going to include culturally relevant curriculum where we're highlighting contributions from Farmers and scientists of color um it's including a community outreach piece with plant exchanges we're doing a fourth grade field trip to the cafeteria like Dominic mentioned so it's an in-school field trip no Transportation required um really engaging and we're also supporting a new Horticulture elective at Riverview Middle School which is being offered for the very first time and we're supporting uh there's a garden educator working with all the science teachers and core teachers at

071Oak Grove Middle School on their integrating Garden education with their IB curriculum and again that that'll serve every student at Oak Grove I want to turn it over to Laney to talk a little bit about why why take kids outside why not to take kids outside really so I mean if you look at this picture right here this is one of our outdoor Garden classrooms and you know there's an abundance of fresh air and it's beautiful but there's so many reasons to take kids outside so among those reasons are kind of the foundation of our daytime Garden education program which is to teach ngss and Common Core academic standards in the garden because they emphasize real world phenomena driven learning I remember one of my first times actually out in the garden the children were

072exploring the sunflower leaves and turned one over and found the entire life cycle of a ladybug underneath that sunflower leaf so while they may have learned about life cycles in the classroom it integrated that experience you know through all their five senses so um just you can't you can't beat it and as far as um mental and physical well-being which we've been discussing a lot tonight and teachers and students are constantly telling us about the social emotional benefits of being outside how calming it is to be in the school Gardens and while we know this intuitively you know there's documented physiological response to being outdoors so our cortisol levels go down our endorphins increase and the students are more calm and relaxed and able to focus in the classroom environmental literacy is another core part

073of our program so I'm teaching students about their impact on the world and what it means to be sustainable citizens students learn everything from climate change to the benefit of growing food locally and organically and restoring native habitats all of that is covered through Outdoor Learning safe access to the outdoors is also an equity issue so for many children even before covid school is and was their safe space and our aim is to ensure that all of our students have access to Nature knowing that not all of them have access to Nature at home or even in their neighborhoods or mdusd student wellness policy actually states that nutrition education is an integrated component in our school garden programs so children do taste each time they come into the garden they taste something growing and if

074it's not available because things have just been planted they will taste something that's seasonal and local so what better way to emphasize nutrition than growing and trying new fruits and vegetables School community building so uh there's a saying that nothing brings people together better than a garden and trustee Mason knows this better than anyone but most of our Outdoor Learning spaces were built together with students and teachers administrators community members and it really takes the village to build and sustain a garden and that creates a sense of stewardship ownership and pride in you know the child's space and it does for the child but also for everybody involved in putting that space together um finally you just simply can't beat the student engagement which the kids carry straight back into the classroom and into the

075rest of their day so this is an infographic from the children and nature Network it documents the findings of 1160 peer-reviewed studies these studies speak to the benefits of children learning in with and through nature so something that I had learned which was actually interesting is that children benefit also from learning about nature but it's actually these studies show that it's learning in and around nature that makes the difference it doesn't necessarily have to be about nature so um some of the major findings that these Studies have shown are that learning outside increases academic success in multiple subjects in fact Studies have been done with middle schoolers showing that if they see green outside a field it doesn't have the same impact on their academics as if they see tree canopy and Greenery outside of

076their windows so seeing that those trees make a huge impact on their math and science course and as noted earlier multiple studies point to the mental health benefits the most prominent being enhanced attention and higher impulse control when students are home and engaged they are motivated to learn and they carry this motivation with them throughout this whole day so our growing Healthy Kids program has adopted these evidence-based practices and we use them to promote optimal learning for students thank you so we're basing our program on not only that research but our own internal research and so we've been collecting information from our teachers with regards to what they're seeing in their classrooms when they're talking to kids when they're carrying them engaged in and outside whether or not they're in the garden or bringing the

077garden experience into the room and so you know the data is pretty profound that they are seeing that it's improving students connection to the Natural World their enthusiasm for learning um so what's important also to note is that we're currently waiting on cast scores because that was another metric we were going to be utilizing in order to take a look at how our students in certain Garden programs when compared to students without Garden programs whether or not their engagement in the cast score or assessment which is the California science test whether or not there's any differences with that we're also pulling attendance data so this really focuses on the academic achievement and then this data here is speaking to the social emotional learning wellness and their sense of school community so as we're really needing

078to take a look at return on investment and as these programs are being reviewed and the parent groups that are currently contributing to the programs we want to make sure that we're building in metrics in order to be able to show the impact on our most important stakeholders which are our students principal Aaron demartini hello um thank you for the opportunity to be able to talk from the site level about this program you can see the quotes up there for your yourself Katie Koontz and Aurelia bashemi are not Title One principles and you can see they are speaking to the importance of this program for their students their social emotional well-being their learning I am a principal at a title one psych so I can only speak to my experience firsthand but the quote that

079says this program literally saves lives fresh and healthy foods at a grocery store are much more expensive than packaged Foods a lot of our kids their time in the garden is the first time the first aha for them that food doesn't come from a package it comes from the earth you see a lot of our families our Gardens have signs both in English and Spanish I'm ripe pick me or I'm not right please leave me you'll see families together after school with the kids leading them with a bag picking things to take home I asked my staff today at the staff meeting what they would like me to share what's already been mentioned the lessons are all tied to ngss standards there's cross-curricular overlap during distance learning our garden teacher taught about the people on

080the land before us in social studies how they use the land how they cultivated it the tools they derive from it um the social emotional benefits you can't beat learning in the garden and like Tamara mentioned a teacher told a funny story today that the garden educator teaches them about the bugs that they find as their gardening as they're harvesting the food and that her kids will now say to her is this a good bug for the Garden or is this a bad bug for the garden we need to ask Miss Woodard so like a praying mantis today even um was a part of their conversation it wasn't a garden day um this is the most awesome thing to see it's fun to see them in the garden our garden teacher howls to get them

081back so you hear little howls all day as they're learning but it is amazing to go to one of the lessons where these little kiddos from TK to fifth grade are grinding their own pesto with the things that they've harvested they're helping to turn out zucchini noodles and they're eating these zoodles with the fresh pesto to watch them vote in the like it love it it's not for me with things that they hadn't heard of before they had these lessons um a lot of them will state and families will state my child will come home and say I like this can we find it can we eat it for dinner um those Partnerships with our parents are so important as well this program is really important to our PTA and our parents one of our

082biggest community building events every year is a PTA sponsored Garden day so parents and kids come out together um they help with whatever our garden educator needs done whether it's rebuilding the beds harvesting certain things working on the drip line but it's amazing to hear the kids talking to their parents about composting about what's seasonal and just watch these families spending quality time together in the garden so from a site perspective this program is vital the garden educator is a huge heartbeat of our community the kids adore her the parents adore her um so we invite you anytime come out and see our garden see our program um I think they'll be blown away thank you Laney did you want to share a little bit about this slide so so recently we have been making

083a huge effort to create more Community Partnerships and um one of the ways that we're doing that that is built into a recent grant that we've received is to create Community plant exchanges we are partnering with um actually the Contra Costa Public Library approached us and so they are willing to host our plant exchanges outside and on our field trips the children will be planting seeds which then will be given away at these plant stands to engage the community in plant swaps where they the kids can see that what they grew is actually being dispersed throughout their communities so we're hoping to create multiple plant exchanges and we are also starting an initiative Dominic had mentioned this to um to Source produce from bypoc and also a local farm that that works with transitional Foster

084use and most of those are located in Pittsburgh that we're immediately partnering with with and we're really trying to reach out to um to those Partners to both give them a distribution Channel through our cafeteria but also to just strengthen the community ties and um like Tamara had mentioned the um the new curriculum for the Riverview field trips are going to highlight um scientists farmers and Engineers of color so children will be able to see themselves in these farmer scientists and engineers and also learn how they're connected to the food that we eat and where it comes from and that's that all on that I'll comment that the transitional youth firm um Foster youth firm is serves a lot of Mount Diablo transitional Foster youth so it's a that's a cool connection um in 2018

085through 2020 we had a real food in schools uh collaborative and mou that the Board of Education of Education um approved and uh one of our key Partners in that was life web who is a this is a 40 year old International leader in garden-based education based in Santa Cruz and uh they really liked partnering with us and I'm delighted to say that they are partnering with us once again um this is unusual they don't go around looking for school districts to partner with but they have agreed to a unique partnership with Mount Diablo because they really feel a connection with our academic and wellness concentrations in in the growing Healthy Kids program um and because of the quality of the program so we have been working with them to ask them to serve as

086a fiscal sponsor for us for that part of the program that is not housed within Mount Diablo already and and they are willing to do this so we will be exploring as a as the months go on what that looks like and be bringing that to you as as we gain some clarity on that but we're really delighted there curriculum connections they're developing more and more ngss in the garden curriculum that we will have access to just as they've already shared their K-2 ngss in the garden curriculum with us already so the good good things happening in the future with that connection so just to to close we just want to say that this is certainly a very collaborative effort and so you're going to see a lot of our partners um on the screen

087as well as we mentioned our asbn cares program our our patas our pfcs that contribute money um in order to make sure this is supported our Mount Diablo Education Foundation so again we just wanted to give you a little bit of information about this as contracts come forward to provide some context and also to kind of share with you how excited we are to kind of you know Turn the Page a little bit from the NGS in the garden which is very very targeted very specific to something more Global which is just growing healthy kids so again thank you to the presenters and thank you for listening and thank you so much for the chair I just have a quick question trustee Mason since you're working with lifelab I'm assuming or I would hope they

088have some experience with data collection and results because I mean if it's Grant funded and no grants are asking you for any documentation more power to you I have the document everything but if when you start getting into CSI funds and supplemental funds I've broken record and I know people don't like hearing it and I was a garden educator and trained people but that's not my role here my role here is to make sure money we get is spent how it's supposed to be spent we have results I know you can teach anything in the garden and it'll be successful but you have to be able to make that connection when you're tying it to funds that you have to meet certain populations so I'm hoping that maybe lifelab had some experience after school program

089used to do that when I was there we actually had assessments we did that we could show and we would get phone calls from the state that said what are you doing because your numbers are like over the top I'm just going to keep it hitting that drum I think it's doable and we need to do it so this becomes sustainable I 100 agree and as you've seen over time we've been able to share more about what data we're collecting doing some of the anecdotal the qualitative as well as the quantitative so we've got some quantitative bits and pieces that are coming forward but to your specific question about life lab the answer is absolutely yes they actually just recently came into contract with prahara school district and actually it's a multi-million dollar contract they're

090having this program at every single School site and that's certainly part of what the return on investment conversation looks like is these are metrics we're utilizing in order to ensure that these dollars are well invested all right thank you very much any other comments questions okay great well thank you so much for that comprehensive presentation um really exciting things going on and like you said I think the integration across departments is something that is not always seen everywhere um as well as the focus that you have on equity and partnering with our bipoc Farmers um and really making sure that uh we have access for all of our students to these safe spaces um very very good job um I did see uh thank you for inviting all of us to the Riverview Garden day

091that happened just recently I was unable to attend but I'm hoping to be able to come out to another event at the Garden sometime soon all right thank you very much okay so moving on to item 11.2 annual report by the 2010 measure citizens Bond oversight committee great um um Sam if we have a representative from the um measure C I see Mr Ferrante welcome John I think they are bringing up the measure C reports we just lost our screen for a minute yeah it's much more comfortable sitting at home in my nice soft chair there we go but this way we get to see you in person that's the value oh aren't you so lucky so good evening board members Dr Clark we have not met uh we need to at some point sounds

092good um being the chair of the major citizens Bond oversight committee I get to do the presentation I also got to do this report next slide oh I've got the button which button do I push so according to edcoat and according to Prop 13 we all know because measure C was a prop 39 type Bond we need a Citizens Bond oversight committee it was formed in 2010 oh I've been on it ever since um there are certain mandated peoples that need to be represented senior citizens taxpayers what have you all those have been met we meet one supporter um we have our reports notes minutes what have you posted on the website um thanks to Melanie we have our quarterly reports solar production is still putting out like we had hoped we get a project

093status and the most important part is we get updates on financials which is what this is all about um this is the latest fiscal year so it's not anything to do with 2021. it ended in 2020. the Auditors gave us a clean report we use the same Auditors that the district itself uses and um we get our reports from them after you guys get your reports from them so we're late um our modernization projects are still going on uh nothing has changed there uh revenues there's the important part the bond was for 350 million we've gotten uh 5.3 million in interest which I could get 5.3 million uh PG e because of the Solar projects we got decent rebates that was a one-time funding only that occurred early on in the solar project so it

094all added up to 356 million and change the expenditures as of June 30 2020. you can see them up there it says the remaining unallocated is 80 259 dollars those of us on the committee were very happy with that we could see the light at the end of the tunnel and it wasn't a train coming for us that 80 000 is wrong as of June 30 that 80 000 was spot on we have had the fortunate circumstance of a number of projects coming in under bid so we'll find out what the final number is at our next meeting I hope but right now it looks like that 80 000 may be closer to two or three million so the life of the committee goes on [Music] um these are all projects that have been completed

095HVAC modernization technology technology is always an update I mean even though we've completed the projects there's always something at it on after the fact you can't keep up with technology if you think you can move on you just you buy that laptop today and yesterday it was out of date uh middle schools we've taken care of those oh the irrigation program has been on hold from the second year of the project simply because way too expensive and now that we have all artificial turf on all the football fields and we're going to more water friendly Landscaping we don't need the Water Project which is it's a good thing I'd say it just 1.3 million dollars security is ongoing in fact security is overlapping into measure J um our general program just ongoing costs one thing

096I will mention is that because most of the project management was done in-house the cost of doing the project management was significantly reduced under major a we had an outside firm come in to do the project management it cost us almost 14 of the bond 14 of 90 million dollars is a big chunk of change under the 2010 measure scene where somewhere's in the neighborhood of four percent that's a huge savings for the district that's a huge savings for the kids allowing us to get more projects done with the same amount of money that's the last one that's the last one cool so what we have to look forward to is final numbers on outstanding funds and then that may or may not come back in the next annual report depending upon what fiscal year

097those funds get expended in and I hope it gets expended in this this the year so we've interactive thank you thank you very much Mr Ferrante are there any questions from the board all right thank you uh thank you very much for all of your volunteer work on that oversight committee and your leadership um we can see that the school district and our students have benefited greatly in so many ways from our measure C funds and from the volunteer work of our committee overseeing it all all right so that takes us to our next Report with which I believe is also Mr Ferrante item 11.3 annual report by the 2018 measure J citizens Bond oversight committee I don't understand how this working volt comes up I keep saying no you shared yet here I am

098so um I've been on bond committees since the late 90s now this is the first time we've had a subcommittee that wanted to put together the annual report I did not author this report there was a lot of controversy upon among committee members about this report so we'll just move forward here obviously not a lot has been done with sorry the slides that are showing are the previous year report there were two attachments to this item would you like to just move forward to the current year the current current report so it'll be the second slide presentation that's attached to that agenda item is the 2018 measure J annual report for 1920. yeah it won't look like slides more like a Word document so as Mr Ferrante said this is very different we don't usually

099see the annual report in this format or it's not normally by a subcommittee while they're pulling it up Mr frantic can you explain so it was written by a subcommittee and then was it was it voted on by the whole committee kind of sorted yeah it was there was lots of it kind of back and forth back and forth and find everybody's they said forget it just move forward so was it on the agenda of the committee to approve this report after it was written no no it was done um with everybody participating in an email type committee meeting which was uh from what we were told that is allowed that's not a violation of the brown act okay so there was no formal vote by the committee uh to try the committee as a

100whole okay thank you so I can't read that but I can read this um the summary states that the district is not completed it needs assessment of a facility shortcomings and modernization opportunities the district have not approve specific project list and the district has not published a priority list to guide funding while all of these statements are true they are horribly misleading horribly misleading I was involved with the LTA project for over a year there was Major effort put in by LPA and by Mount Diablo Unified projects were identified we team up with 1.5 billion dollars in projects to be done these three statements are horribly misleading they make no reference to that none whatsoever there's a lot of work to be done to get those prioritized there's a lot of work to be done

101to get what was presented to be verified that process is ongoing on top of that there were issues at mno with people being gone for medical reasons and of course we have this wonderful pandemic which really kind of sort of messed things up so faulting the district that moved really and truly bad news um again we're under the same constructs with prop 39 that measure C is and that we have to have the same type of representations we still meet quarterly we have District representation meeting with us thank you Melanie um the district has sold 20 million dollars in bonds the the funds expended were primarily to cover the cost of the bond issuance if we go back to 2002 as you see there was a lot of argument about that being a valid expenditure

102we got Bond counsel to come and give a presentation and say yes that is a valid expense the district does not have to put money out of pocket to sell bonds we have continued with that otherwise we're not doing any bonds it's just nothing to happen um going on to the findings the committee has never been given a list of specific projects on which Bond money will be spent while that is true again it is misleading because again the district is still trying to put together a comprehensive list of what is to be done finding faults with that is misleading in the statement that we haven't done anything which is what this strongly implies I know Melanie and Richard put in the Christian effort LPA put in a lot of work uh some of us

103who are not employees of the district put in a lot of work and we're hoping that by next quarterly meeting we may actually start moving forward and get projects that measure J can indeed work on the primary focus uh given to the to the voters was that we would be focusing on security in other words fencing in a lot of our campuses to make them safe and secure and uh boosting our telecommunications capability technology lots and lots of Technology um as it says should be noted the district has undergoing major Personnel changes of high level and the pandemic presents serious challenges not to the district's ability to meet its educational facilities management Mission but it just presents challenges period so that is our report with my commentary which I'm sure will not be appreciated when

104it's found out but since they voted me chair they get to put up with it any questions thank you very much Mr Ferrante uh are there any questions from the board I would just like to thank you for clarifying because I thought we had started prioritizing exactly what you said security fences technology and then the next step was build um more effective drop-offs for parents I think the parents had wanted and all the meetings we had at all the school sites so I'm new to your committee I'm not I don't know every red from 39 but I didn't know if are we supposed to try towards prioritize every year but I thought well in November 2018 we had priority and LPA came through and did their thing and everything got changed and it got changed

105to such an extent that we went from a few 1.5 billion and that is mind-boggling the amount of effort you have to put in to go through that much and that many projects is not a simple task and we've got good people on board to do that but time is not what we need it to be I'm a short I keep telling Melanie what's the problem you got 24 hours of the day thank you Mr Ferrante uh when I looked at the recent reports from both measure C and measure J from from the various meetings um I did see that on measure C reports there there we have finished projects at school sites over the last year and two years um fencing security fencing many of the things that you mentioned are priorities for measure

106J my understanding all along was that uh because we ended up with additional funding in measure J because projects were uh were coming in under thank you um looking for the words for that um projects costed less than we expected uh et cetera um after measure day passed we didn't need to start spending that money right away because we first wanted to spend down all of measure C so we're actually being more responsible with taxpayer dollars not less so that's where I question the the uh the wording here the concern is that it's the money's not being spent but then there's words in here about not managing the bond responsibly yeah and I think that that does imply it is misleading so put it nicely yes okay you're right not into public Bar when there

107would be other adjectives going in um this is the first time since when did I join measure eight 90 or 90. this is the first time that I have seen projects come in this much under budget I think is great because now we've got these Sons coming back that we thought were committed we can now move forward and do more things and yes we need to get the measure C program to a point toward there is only eighty thousand dollars left and then we can move on with the measure GX managers great thank you very much it's very good news for for all of us that these projects are being completed under budget and they're being done um with our measure C funds and eventually we'll get to the measure J funds as well it

108just gives us more funds to accomplish the many projects that we want to do there's more things we can do with major J because major C was able to expand exactly no thank you that's the good part thank you any other comments or questions thank you thank you very much Mr Bronte all right that takes us to 13.0 the superintendent's report Dr Clark over to you right thank you so much president count I have a um I have a brief report tonight but I'm also going to at the end of it uh address the uh give a covet update um so first of all I just want to um again acknowledge our our lcap goals that you know all students will receive a high quality education and a safe and welcoming environment with Equitable high

109expectations and goal two high quality and culturally proficient and responsive staff will provide engaging instruction respectful of all students background to ensure that they are College and Career ready and goal three parents and family parents family and Community will be informed engaged and empowered as partnership mbusd to support student learning so again I I want to start every meeting with acknowledging our lcap goals and then also the goals from our server report that we will look at learning acceleration educational equity and social emotional learning and so I know at the last meeting when when this was presented there were questions for specifics and how are we going to implement those sub report goals of a couple of brief brief um foreign first of all students individual cast results that they took last year are standardized

110testing uh third third through 11th grade those results are now available on Homelink and so families can start accessing those and I will be bringing a report to share with this board of what our um scores looked like last year also the science materials adoptions for tk-12 that adoption process that adoption is in process and and we are making steady progress there um there is a draft of the state seal of Civic engagement the criteria has been has been developed and that draft is ready to come forward and so there's there's work that I know our student custody a lot started last year and she was hoping to to see that before she left but in in her um in her honor We are continuing to work on that emerging bilingual students are currently being

111assessed for reclassification and so um that is work that is taking place um Elementary instrumental music classes have begun and I'm also happy to report that on tsats are being offered at all high schools and so that is going to be taking place however I want to take a step back and and just give an update on on assessments and so again we we talk about learning acceleration where we can't accelerate learning until we know where our students are and so um throughout our organizations um assessments are beginning to take place Diagnostic and formative assessment the windows are open for that and so real briefly I want to talk about the different assessments that we're giving so um we have the um esgi assessment window and um and so esdi that is a a an

112assessment that is that is for our Pre-K TK kindergarten students and it's a one-on-one assessment that the teacher does with the student um also as we're moving up in grade levels we have our I ready diagnostic window that is open now and so again um I ready is a diagnostic isn't a is an Adaptive assessment designed to provide teachers with actionable insight into student needs and so again the student takes the assessment and the teacher is able to access a report that shows exactly where the student strengths and weaknesses are in comparison to a particular standard and so those are loaded and ready to go and then as we move up to our fourth and fifth graders we have our iabs and our fiabs so you may be asking what um what iavs are and

113simple our ID our interim assessment blocks and um and so again that's an interim assessment and then the f i f i f i a b are our Focus assessments and again these These are um there are no more than three assessment targets to provide Educators with a more detailed understanding of student learning so there are typically 10 to 15 items on these focused IEDs and so it's not a long laborious test it's just a quick test where teachers can then access a very accurate report and share that with parents and can really use that to start to guide their instruction um and then in grades six through eight they will be using the iabs and fiab and so so again I I fully understand that you know our Educators have been really focusing on

114re reintroducing our students to to you know in school instruction really going over procedures and processes however you know we still have work to do in the in the areas of of academic teaching and learning and um and so with these Baseline assessments they're going to give us a good understanding of where our students are and then what work needs to take place going forward these are not optional assessments these are all assessments that that students need to take and so our principals will be working with with teachers to make sure that they have the support and the technology needed in order to in order to give these assessments and and to continue to use this data to guide instruction going forward and so um again when in my next superintendent report I will bring

115back even more specifics I just wanted to give a general idea that these aren't just words on paper is our actions we do have teams who are who are working on on these things to ensure that learning is taking place in each and every one of our classrooms um we can't talk about the beginning of school without without talking about covet and so that's really part of part of what's what's going on here and so um I was encouraged by by some data that that was produced by the county and so as of today the the county has a dashboard where they're um they're keeping track of cases and vaccination rates and things of that nature and so as of today there are active covert cases in Contra Costa County um that that may seem

116like a lot but for a county as um as expansive as Contra Costa County and really reaching the Far East County out all the way out to West County so everywhere from Discovery Bay all the way out to Richmond that um that encompasses accounting so again 2 900 cases are active there's 186 individuals who are hospitalized right now for covid um that that's that 29 10 that 2910 cases that's down over the last two weeks by 36.8 percent so I think that's encouraging and those hospitals on those individuals that are hospitalized that number is down 11 so again I mean any any cases is concerning but but I did want to um you know let the board know of what the county is producing on that on that same page the Contra Costa County vaccination

117rate of not in these aren't individuals who are fully vaccinated but these are individuals who who are fully vaccinated and have been had at least one shot that number is that um is at 84 and so um so so I think that's something to you know to be encouraged by um I've shared before that our staff rate is right around 94 but with all employee groups and so so again as we get closer to and closer to um to when we have to mandate all that employees be vaccinated or submit the weekly testing I think working from that 94 number is a good place to start and we are pleased with those numbers um we we are um producing our our Active cases both with both students and staff we are posting that information on

118our website and I know that some folks are confused with um with with what what we post and why we post what we post so again and this is this is located um on our website along with the um spreadsheet but in active case indicates that a student or staff member participating participating in on-campus instruction has tested positive for covid-19 infection once the case is clear to return after um after an individual 10-day quarantine it is removed from the dashboard count so so that's why you don't see a cumulative number you just need an active number and if someone um contracts covid and tests positive for it but they haven't been on the school side then they are not going to show up in our numbers so whether that's a staff member or student it's

119just it just helps to kind of share that information out there and as of today our dashboard listed three staff members who are active with covid and 26 students who are who are active with with covid so again when you look at our numbers approximately 28 000 or so students and um you know close to 4 000 staff members to have a combined um 31 cases I think it's pretty remarkable what that what that tells me is that our mitigation efforts are being effective wearing the mask distancing when possible um you know ventilation hand sanitary sanitizing testing um quarantining I know that I'm quarantine you know causes a lot of you know Stress and Anxiety for people and and I know there was an article in the paper over the weekend about you know Bay

120Area families being upset because they feel their kids are being you know sent home from school um there's there's a reason for that and and I get it I I empathize you know for those families who are who are further impacted by this but to quarantine along with all the other measures is working from what our data is telling us so so again um you know we are very encouraged by that of course we don't want anyone to have any active you know any positive cases but in reality uh it is it is something that that is that is clearly happened last um last Thursday Friday we had expert uh extracurricular activities guidance was finally released from the um from the state of California and um I have a I have a statement here that

121I could read but I'm gonna I'm gonna spare everyone but essentially what it says is basically all indoor participants need to wear masks um and and unless there's a danger of them choking so like for example our our musical um students they have special math that they need to wear that allows them to breathe but uh clearly you know sports like wrestling swimming um competitive cheerleading gymnastics we don't have gymnastics but competitive cheerleading is the next closest thing they are not required to wear a mask because there's a danger there of of choking and and probably the most um you know the the biggest part of that guidance is that all athletes need to participate in the testing program again what makes what makes all of this confusing is hours after the cdph um guidance

122was released our own County release similar guidance for extracurricular activity and and the differences in their guidance they're recommending that vaccinated individuals don't have to participate in the in the recent testing so again I think that's something that we're going to have to we're going to have to work through and um and um it's it's again it's just a it's just a challenge I want to talk about our testing um we're we're um as of this week we're still currently operating 14 testing sites so we're providing testing every day of the week we have them at elementary schools middle schools and high schools we try to have them geographically located throughout the district um and and we are doing the the um the high quality testing we're not doing the rapid testing we're doing the

123ones where there's a oral swab or nasal swab and it's sent off to the labs to get diagnosed um not that not that rapid testing isn't effective and isn't useful in certain situations but as of now those tests are unavailable um you know the the supply level just just was not there for the amount of testing that that we need to do last week we helped several listening sessions with our administrators to um to to again to get feedback on how the testing programs are going although we we contract with a group who comes out and and does our testing um you know we have nurses and we have someone there to kind of check people in we're still Staffing those those um you know those those testing events and and it does um take

124staff you know full staff considerably away from from what they're doing all of our principals are staying after school um supervising this we have other employees who are on time sheets who are um being paid there but there's concerns there's concerns if sick individuals show up um to be tested our testing tends to be more under the quicker turnaround and it's more available than the than the county and State Testing and also from many individuals own primary care physicians and so therefore we've had tremendous turnout from our from our you know from our at our testing sites and so of course there have been individuals who've been frustrated with having to wait you know an hour to be tested or away you know two days or so for their results I've gone through on the

125testing um two or three times myself to test it out I've had a very smooth time every time I I tend to touch my IV badge and my shirt so they don't know that I'm the superintendent I want to just kind of blend in with the crowd sometimes that's hard to do but um I don't think the lab really knows who I am and so I'm getting my test results back you know and approximately 30 hours which I think is pretty great however with um with the high demand I also have to say that um you know who we have sort of running this program is not in their job description it's not in their responsibilities and so we have one of our offices is taking over the organization of this and it's taking a

126considerable amount of time and so you know I want to acknowledge that that in times of you know in these tough times you know we have individuals throughout the district who are willing to step up and who are stepping up and so I want to acknowledge that but during our um during our listening sessions we just heard uh Time After Time where where you know we have individuals wandering on the campus while students are still there we have individuals showing up to get in line early we have individuals who are showing up sick and you know and so it's causing some disruption so starting the week of the 13th we are going to test only at the at high school Riverview middle school and Willow Creek but also we are going to be opening up

127Saturday testing so so that way we don't have to disrupt School parents can bring their bring their kids you know they don't have to rest there right after work to try to get to a place before it closes so we're going to offer Saturday testing um and included in the Saturday testing we'll have drive-through testing where individuals can sit in their car so we we confirmed our contract today and so we will be starting that um starting next week so so again with the um you know with the contact tracing with the mask wearing with um you know the hand sanitizing the the testing that we're doing you know we're doing the best we can to keep everyone you know safe and to keep you know to keep in-person instruction happening in the Mount Diablo

128Unified School District so I know that was a an earful but um but I will I will submit these um this written report to um to to my assistant and it will be posted so individuals can look at them and say if they've missed something but um that's my report and I have any questions from the board I'll be willing to understand thank you very much Dr Clark two questions um back to the dashboard can you explain better so that parents can understand including myself um how I I understand and it seems like most people understand it's not a running total like Active cases at this time but how are schools reporting it or how often are they reporting it because in many cases based on um the email notifications people get in not over

12910 days but in a short amount of time it's not reflected in the dashboard so so again these are these are Active cases and these are folks who who are active while on site we when we do our contact tracing all of our contact tracing goes to County Health and remember um I believe at the last meeting I informed the board that we were expanding our communication so we were doing much more communication than than need be so if you're a parent you're going to not only receive communication that that there was a um that there was a possible exposure in the school or or in the in the area that their student is but also if there's a there's a class um that's had an exposure in that entire class not just the close

130contacts are going to get notified that the entire class is going to get notified so then if you your daughter's in middle school so then if you have someone who's attending six different classes there's going to be six different reports that go out to all those classes so um so again all of our Active cases are run through um County Public Health they can see the actual cases from the testing we do rely on parents you know to to share with us whether or not their kids are are positive um at certain times if they're giving tests or getting tested um getting tests outside of of our area but that that cross-checking and referencing is taking place between our District staff and also Contra Costa County Health Services so um I don't know if I

131answered your question but we do a whole we over communicate so so we we should only really be communicating with with people who are close contacts but we heard parents who said that they they wanted more we have staff who want it more so we're over communicating every time there's an active case on cancer and I think that everyone appreciates that like that the Department of Public Health the county department of health the State Department of Public Health PDC gives us like a Baseline and there's nothing that says we can't do more and so I as a parent appreciate that at least in this case doing more that's never the wrong choice but it does cause anxiety it does but like it's also Empower and power empowering um and so because I did because I'm

132like I've gotten four in two days but at least I know but there is to know um and we can behave accordingly that's I think we keep everyone safe and as you mentioned earlier the conflicting guidance between between California Department of Public Health that's going to be confusing to everybody um and who do we go by to Vista County or or the state I don't know did we go by the most description whatever so we can do more and I think more I think the majority of our community appreciate Going the Distance as opposed to the leniency and so it's okay let's keep doing that do the most that we can our kids deserve the most and I mean I just need to say like this is a this is a challenging time there's no

133there's no Playbook to kind of refer to when dealing with this um you know we have a lot of people doing things that that they're not used to doing right I mean you know I'm looking at I'm looking at numbers and health guidance and things like that that's not what I was necessarily trying to do but you know but I'm doing it yeah you know our our human resources department is working on contact tracing every day I mean that's that's what they're doing our numbers are management and Human Resources they're con they're in communication with with uh County Health every day and it's just it's just a challenging difficult situation but we heard loud and clear that our students were spaces while at school and so we want to continue to be able to provide

134that continue to provide that opportunity for our students to come onto our campuses and be educated I meant to start with thank you to all the staff because this was not in anybody's job description they did not no one's here grew up to dream of being a contact racer otherwise they would have been working at the CDC so thank you to everybody who has to do all of this that has to do with Kobe thank you very much uh any other comments or questions [Music] going even further back to the testing that not so big to the um testing that's now available on scary which I've looked at for my own how much do parents care about this how much should that yeah from a test from up over the year yeah they should care

135about it I mean it's a snapshot of how they're of how the students did I mean if you ask if you ask any teacher they work extra hard last year providing the instruction to all of their students and um and so um you know it was a covert year but if you if you're someone who who is concerned with standardized testing um it's one measurement right so so I don't think that you need to you know throw a party for your kid if they did greater I don't think you need to ship them off if they didn't do great right I mean I think it's all in perspective and um but it is it is an accurate snapshot of how they did last year and I know that words such as learning loss are thrown

136around pretty easily but do we do we honestly know that um and and how do we measure that is it just through a standardized test is it through engagement what what exactly is your level of um you know as a parent what is it that you value in that educational experience because there is not just one thing whether it's grades scores on a test um you know happiness connectedness in the classroom you know the amount of friends you have the extractor activities you participate in all of those sort of play into that student experience and which ones do families really value over the others but I would I would want to look at those those um you know those test scores and see where my students you know scored and see if there's something I

137should be concerned about or or very proud about yeah um so just uh on my for myself um I'm really excited to hear about the science curriculum adoption that that's moving forward really looking forward to seeing how that comes forward to the board um also very exciting for the um state seal of Civic engagement because I know that um that is something as you said that trustee alas was all about and I know a number of our students are as well there's also coming up high school voter uh education week um September 13th I believe I'll find it I'll say my board report later but um so this I think that's a crucial piece of education for our students is how they can be civically engaged in be our Future Leaders so really excited to

138hear about that as well as the PSATs I know um you know testing can be frustrating but I also know that when PSATs are available to all students to take that oftentimes students who didn't even think about college suddenly realized that that is a path that is open to them and that there are scholarships available to them because of the their scores on the PSATs and taking the psap also generally leads to higher scores on the SAT so um I'm glad that we're that we're providing that to all kids so thank you for that um and then just on Sports um it has been really exciting to be able to go out to football games at our high schools and and cheer in the stands and it feels almost like a normal school year almost

139so so to be able to keep people safe that you mentioned the difference between cdph where all students need to get tested versus cchs the county the vaccinated athletes would not need to get tested um so that sounds to me like we now need to make that decision at a local level because in both cases they're just guidance there's not an actual mandate coming from either level but I like the idea of um in a way of vaccinated students not being required to test because that could be an incentive for students to go ahead and get vaccinated now I mean there's already an incentive that if you're vaccinated you're less likely to have to quarantine and miss your next game um but the lack of needing to test could be an additional incentive there yeah

140yeah so so again I mean um you know you just um shared this when our athletic directors had this information you know very recently we were able to kind of start talking about it yesterday but we're really going to you know um collaborate with them to you know to find out like what is the best thing I mean our athletes have been um they have gained you know on campus they've been you know practicing and competing you know for the last 18 months they never they never stopped throughout covet so so they're they're a pretty compliant group when it comes to following the protocols and procedures that are out there so so again we're going to continue to talk about this I do have a meeting tomorrow with all the superintendents in the county and

141this will be one of our topics of discussions fantastic thank you very much all right I think that's it then for our superintendents report it is just um one thing I wanted to just say about the agenda yes I think we have the same idea shall we reorder the agenda for the people who've been sitting here for a very long time waiting for item 17.7 yes all right camping out till 11 o'clock but you know all right so um I'm hearing a call for moving item 17.7 to next on the agenda and UIC agreement from the board yes I do okay all right great so we are going to move straight over to item 17.7 determination to adopt or reject the mediated tentative agreement between Mount Diablo Unified School District and the Mount Diablo school

142psychologist Association dated January 23rd 2020. and we do have speakers on this topic Dr Clark did you want to present Dr would you like to present first we'd like to yeah let's have uh druder will present and then we'll hear the speakers and then we'll put in the hands of the board all right sounds good is that mic off ah let me try one last time the staff recommends the board reject the mediated tentative agreement between mbusd and the Mount Diablo school psychologist Association dated January 23 2020. that's it unless you have any questions for me I know you can have a lot of songs all right any questions at this time not yet all right thank you very much okay so we have a number of comment cards let's start with Carrie buchek and

143then Marissa Engelman good evening board members Dr Clark my name is Cara buchek and I'm speaking on behalf of matzah representing School psychologists Behavioral Health Specialists and our Sikh leaders from the social emotional educational collaboratives these are our District's mental health providers I have been serving students here since 2005. and I was formerly a solicitologist I'm currently behavioral health specialist and this is the first time that I am facing you speaking to the board with my very real concerns for the effect of the lack of services for our students that is directly related to how our mudster unit is being currently treated through the bargaining process and I am very concerned by the for the impact of our students welfare and safety due to the shortage of school psychologists and Behavioral Health Specialists we have

144many impacted mental health programs at our seek programs my experiences every year of BHS leaves and is not replaced we do not have enough DHS to match the teacher Facebook this means that students cannot be referred and placed at seek programs and there is a wait list for placements based on what their assessors are saying they need to be served appropriately this shortage also means that the school psychologist Counseling Clinic has started the year full for the first time ever and they are not taking referrals leaving our school sites without options for counseling the school sites are also without options to refer because all of the local community clinics including Children's Mental Health are impacted and have very long wait lists and are in fact calling us to refer the students back to the schools

145this shortage also means that the sites like Riverview middle school and Olympic High School already have long wait lists to assess and provide critical therapeutic services to the general education students coming out of this distance learning year where we are seeing large number of students reporting increased depression and suicidal behaviors this shortage also means students and their teachers currently in our sleep programs cannot access the VHS when they need one even though their IEPs if they should have access throughout their school days this shortage also means that there are no psychologists assigned to schools some of our most vulnerable sites to be able to support the development of behavior plans and help with student safety understanding not only puts our students at Great risk of harm when we cannot adequately address their mental health needs

146under Staffing also burns out our monthly members and our teachers and our fbas with the daily and constant exposure to secondary trauma and crisis situations my last attendance office okay I think we got it turned off thank you when we are more reactive than proactive we are stretched too thin to cover all of the shortages within the district I want to just give you a quick number when I was hired in 2009 with the original group of Behavioral Health Specialists when the job was originally created in the district there were 23 of us for two programs now there are about 29 for seven programs and we build medical every minute of our day to recruit money for the district to pay for ourselves the this month this doesn't add up we are down to bare

147bone Staffing and when we burn out we place our students at greater risk of not being able to make the wisest decisions because fatigue really hurts us in the moment and as we take more absences to take care of ourselves so do our teachers and then students again are faced with no Staffing at their site we ask because of this that priority be given to staff attention VHS are difficult to recruit and hire because we have dual licenses and credentials it's con if contract issues cannot be resolved we predict we will continue to lose highly qualified staff and services to students will continue to compensate and become utterly and adequate please do not wait until there are unspeakable consequences to our student safety and mental health Lisa act now thank you stop okay so uh

148just to clarify we do have a time limit on our speakers so it's a three-minute timer that will go on with the lights right there so when it gets to Red your time is up okay so this is Marissa Engelman followed by Walker good evening members of the board my name is Marissa woman I'm and I am a licensed clinical social worker and a behavioral health specialist I would like to speak on behalf of meds members School psychologists computer Health Specialists and state leaders as a BHS having worked in the districts for four years I want to express my deep concern for the law for support that our students in special education are receiving as a result of our unit United States since last spring you've lost over 25 percent of our members causing a

149ripple effects across social education there are not enough VHS to staff receive programs or seek leaders are being served in and are unable to keep up with the supporting demands of our most needing needed sites some school sites without School psychologists and our Counseling Clinic is already at capacity and unable to accept more students as previously mentioned Contra Costa County Children's Mental Health is also at capacity and referring students back to us at a time when we were seeing increased symptoms of depression suicidal ideation and increased aggression and acting atmospheres in our students it is necessary now more than ever to adequately staff our programs without proper stacking students will go unseen and unsupported as this board made clear earlier in this evening's meeting in its adoption um of Suicide Prevention awareness month I ask

150that the district recognize the work of the trained mental health professionals of the midst of bargaining units we are the folks who have done the work every single day to keep our most about vulnerable students safe schools have the potential to function as a hub of the community showing your support and standing in solidarity with the medicine members will let our community know that mdusd is invested in the mental health and well-being of our most vulnerable students and Families thank you followed by Kimberly Keith psychologist um it's my fifth year in the school district I work at Oak Grove Middle School I love my school I love my job really hard job we do evening and weekend work like y'all but we do level our roles these are tough times for everyone I listen to

151your last board meeting which I think went to past 10 o'clock and I didn't have to participate in the two flow sessions so I realized that this is a very challenging time for the board and for staff as well and we are staff too so I feel like we're in this together and we should work towards a solution where each side gets something um I'll make it sort of sweet I respectfully request that a school board member or several of the support members pull item 17.7 and carried over to a future board agenda and request staff to double check and represent their financial math regarding the estimated cost of a 1.5 percent raise retroactive to 2018. for about 40 psychologists when we're fully staffed between psychologists and Behavioral Health Specialists about 70 to 74 staff

152I'm the secretary of our bargaining unit um so that's the numbers we're talking about um so about 40 people would qualify for the Electoral active portion of the slaves of course there would be ongoing impacts you know 1.5 grades so that other members who have joined our staff since 2018. uh the Mount Diablo communicates the district managers to estimated and formally submit it to the school board and the public that are after active 1.5 percent raise for the 2018-21 school year for about 40 psychologists and behavior is the cost is just 8.5 million dollars they also serve on the district's budget advisor committee so I fell out of my chair and I read your board agenda because I know that numbers play off and I've checked with the senior leadership who worked with districts for

153many years you know all of our members um so from our knowledge of our own membership and salary schedules we believe that your staff cost estimate overstate the true cost of implementing depends we estimate that one-time costs the district for a 1.5 race or about 40 members who would be eligible for the retroactive plus the ongoing numbers he joined since 2019 will cost about 170 000 total I think that my time is coming up I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to address the board um I know that we all make mistakes errors happen you're working the notes a clerical mistake and not bringing this contract that we were used last year so I just ask that we own our mistakes but we make amends and we will treat the problem solution thank you

154very much Kimberly cheese followed by Allison page I'm not here all right so we have Allison page good evening I am good evening Dr Park members of the board staff doctors I know that I can't speak on all of our we have fun thanking me for meeting this agenda item I appreciate it very much um Dr Clark usually it is my job to burn up uncomfortable and very sensitive things that no one else wants to talk about I appreciate that you did that tonight I would like you all of you to consider what it would be like to have a suicidal student on campus without a school psychologist that way I owe that that you would wish that we were there usually it comes up to an preschool English essay and they come studying and

155looking for it but I'm here today um to talk to you a little bit about the preschool Assessment Center we see uh lots of three-year-olds who don't talk or don't talk much how many how many in our community of um three-year-olds are not developing normally we write about 350 individual education plans per year and of those 350 plans almost 200 of them have full psychological evaluation I like to be part of a community that shows care and consideration and protection for our vulnerable members in previous board meetings I have heard you express similar sentiments so I am next you are now leading a community that is hemorrhaging mental health staff during a mental health crisis foreign staff in part because we're one of the most really compensated groups in the area and because we don't

156have a contract and it's not a secret that we don't your staff with your consultation following the protocol for fair bargaining signed a modest tentative agreement almost two years ago the financial reason for by rejecting the TA is fiction it will cost more to hire psychologists from the private sector and to fund the legal challenges for unfulfilled IEP services and incompleted assessments than it will to approve our TA so please come to the preschool Assessment Center sometime we're very proud of it we'd love to show it to you and we urge you to vote to approve our candidate agreement thank you foreign thank you very much for coming out today and for giving your public comment that concludes the public comment for this item I will now open it to board discussion I appreciate the

157comment that was made about we all make mistakes and we have to own them and I guess a mistake we unwittingly made is when we had to deny the tentative agreement with Medea because the county had pretty much told us they weren't going to prove our budget if we approved that we assume that everybody would know that I mean we were not going to approve any tentative agreements for that year and we haven't and I think I could speak for the whole board when I say we value all of our staff we would like all of our staff to be compensated well but we try to cheat all of our bargaining units the same and for me personally to approve this ta when we would recruit we approved no other one I can't do that

158but I can say we're currently in the place of negotiating and bargaining going forward and any concerns that you have that weren't addressed you can address that in the further negotiations thank you vice president Mason other comments because I came back to scadero come back Dr escudero there are some questions it's one you would expect can you explain the numbers sure the 8.5 million uh-huh versus that right and that is the number we got from the business office for the one and a half percent uh for the three years um 2018 to 2021. um not just for Muslim but also for those units who uh that need to be able to cover that that period of time it also came into play looking at the production of 200 days 290 what that was in terms

159of percentage raise uh in terms of the daily rate and then map out the business office suppose that that total was eight and a half minutes or comments I'm not here anymore but I don't know I'm like I have to get my comments in my head go ahead it's not a question don't worry yeah um I was about to say a cuss word but I guess we shouldn't because my mom would be embarrassed there's a really crappy situation like it's so I said crappy instead of the other um it's very messy it's very painful and I think it's very painful for us up here um I assume it's painful for the staff um and I know absolutely it thankful for you and it's painful for our students and so what our struggle is um at

160the in the during the organizational your remarks you mentioned like the more do the moral thing or the right thing and that is what I'm that's what I've struggled with over these last couple of weeks and we know this this would be brought to work to us and what is the moral thing to you or what is the responsible thing to do and to to um trustee Mason's point um I'm weighing the morality of of not that this board didn't approve the TA of Medea and it should have at the same time not like officially not accuse anybody that that's how it was going to be and it didn't and so um and the Equitable thing in my mind is that we can't approve that ta um but the moral part of my mind says

161like we have um we have this whole party that is just like every other that is so essential to the well-being of our whole entire Community not just our students and not speaking in hyperbole but what if Uber said um a student was lost that would impact our whole Community not just our school Community um and so that's that's the difficulty of the situation um it wasn't that eloquent which I always do that's why I write my words I didn't because there was so much for us to learn today as well and to learn from all of you um so yeah this is a really crappy situation to the numbers so um or to the entire the 8.5 versus in 80 So like um so 8.5 includes the 1.5 the 1.5 percent increase and I

162believe that the 180 is just is the 10 days back pay of 18 19. um so so far but just to be so just to be clear if it was if we were just working with much just then it would it would be 170 180 numbers somewhere around there however because we have the metoo agreements with all of our other units the 8.5 million is what it would cost to give the entire District um all of our bargaining members a 1.5 raise retroactively back to when this agreement was signed and the equivalent of a 10-day reduced work year so so again I I I 100 trust trust the numbers of the 170 to 180. I understand that if we were only working with much stuff then that would be that would be one thing however

163when we look at our district liability we have to take into account the metoo causes that would kick in If This Were If This Were approved so so that's where the number come came from so nobody lied nobody made up these numbers or anything it's just again painting the whole big picture it's unfortunate well we understand it and I don't know I don't know what else to say say about that but that that is where that number comes from thank you Dr Clark um so I'm sorry public comment period is over this is the time for us to debate about our decision that's just how the meeting Works um so in my mind there are two pieces one is what I'm hearing and what I'm I'm just aware of of course as a parent in

164this district is that there is urgency right now um to fill the vacancies that we have in these crucial positions in our district to make sure to serve our students and their crucial mental health needs in the middle of a mental health crisis I think we all agree on that the question is how to get there this tentative agreement from 2020 has uh trustee Mason uh described we had all assumed was officially voted um down at the same time as Medea and all of the others under the circumstances that existed at that time um and to to go back and change it now is the difficulty so what I would recommend is in order to move forward that we do deny this particular piece of paper in front of us tonight but we provide direction

165to the staff that we feel the urgency to resolve these matters and that we expect that the negotiation process needs to move forward and needs to move forward effectively to uh to meet the needs of our students as soon as possible any agreement or disagreement responses Unified School District and the Mount Diablo school psychologist Association that was dated January 23 2020. foreign so there's a motion on the table is there a second okay motion by vice president Mason second by trustee mail any further discussion questions include your um the direction that we give the caveat or do you know what I'm trying to say um also can you clarify or give greater explanation as to what that means like giving direction I know what we've heard is um this unit doesn't really trust the district

166and doesn't trust I don't know that they trust or can trust the board but we can just do our best and you can only go off of what we say or what you hear as publicly direct but I just um I think I wonder how can we make it more strong so that's a good question normally our Direction on negotiations occurs in closed sessions so I would need to refer to our legal counsel as to what level of specificity we could direct at this time so there is a there's been a motion and this is the second bit uh we'll also understand staff we understand that we have been directed to negotiate is to try to reach a economical resolution to this issue with with all of our bargaining members but it must find specifically

167in the business so I believe a staff we have we understand that we will follow your directive and uh there is no need to specify as to what exactly will be negotiated or what will not be negotiated but it's part of daily relationship positive uh so uh at this point I think we have more than enough instructions on the board as to how to proceed we will do our best to do so thank you very much Mr Roberto all right any further discussion on this before we take it to a vote I know it's the stuff all right well I will take you to a vote in that case trustee Mason yes trustee Mayo reluctantly yes trustee McMahon yes Justine Xavier Emily I'm going to say yes but only because I trust my board members

168um which I know that you all have no reason to trust us yet um but for that reason because I trust us um I'd say yes all right and I also vote Yes motion passes 5-0 thank you very much all right so that takes us to the consent agenda item 14.0 my ego is just a minute moving on to the consent agenda items listed under the consent agenda are considered routine and will be approved adopted by a single motion there will be no separate discussion of these items however any item may be removed from the consent agenda upon the request of any member of the board and acted upon separately do we have any items requested to be pulled at this time I would like to pull 14 16. I'd like to pull 14.33 okay

169so uh do I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda uh except for items 14 16 and 1433. I would make the motion that we approved the consent item with the removal of 1416 and 1433 second right motion by trustee Mason second by trustee Mayo your names are so similar I mixed them up a lot all right uh we'll take that to a vote trustee Mason yes trust email yes trustee McFerrin yes trustee and zerry yes I also vote Yes motion passes five zero okay so that takes us to the two pulled items so item be pulled it's going to be 15.16 . I just wanted to make a comment because I noticed me looking at this we're hiring a lot of Special Ed I consider them special people and a whole nother realm

170that they do this work it's amazing um but I noticed that there was a couple people that we hired and then they left so I just am hoping that we're being very uh upfront and honest with them about what the job entails and that it's a hard job maybe they just got better off or somewhere else but I just want to make sure that number one we're really explaining to them the Magnificent work they're doing and how it impacts people in a very positive way and that we're providing sensors a large number that we're hiring that we're doing a lot of training as we can under these circumstances so I have no problem with the list in general I just wanted to make sure that um we're letting these people know what the job is

171so they don't start and then leave so having said that I would go ahead and make a motion to approve um the approval of the classified personnel second all right thank you very much trustee Mason second of motion by trustee Mason second by trustee Mayo any further discussion on this item all right I really appreciate all of your comments I think we're all in agreement on everything that you just said uh okay so I'll take that to a vote to trustee Mason yes trustee Mayo yes trustee McFerrin yes Justine Zooey yes I also vote Yes motion passes five zero that moves us to item 15.33 which must be emails nothing yeah when it's pulled then it goes to 15 so okay so I pulled this item because um I'm advising everyone that I'm voting no

172uh on this particular item I would recommend and uh staff has received the communication from me regarding some of the my concerns about the contract and the requirements uh I trust that staff will follow through as they're dealing with this contractor and that um the process you'll go through appropriately but I still um need to abide by my concern and vote no at this particular time I would encourage the rest of you to make your considerations based on your previous opinions and evaluations of the conducted as presented basically the contract is too far down the road it'll cause too many legal problems to pull it probably at this point in time and then there are some matters in the contract itself so I don't think we need to go into the detail unless people have

173a good question it looks like we have staff prepared to answer questions if there are any that you would like to ask in public considering the interesting compliance and the vagueness of them I'm going to go ahead and make a motion we approve the award for uh the installation of hvp just smoke detector sensors at Northgate High School do you have a second a second okay there's a motion by trustee Mason second by trustee you can say we any further discussion foreign [Applause] yes trustee McFerrin yes trustee mail no all right I also vote Yes motion passes four one thank you very much I apologize okay there we go all right so that is all of our consent items and this moves us to our business items of the evening item 17.1 review revisions to

174Title One board policy and administrative regulations 60 20. okay if you have any questions uh Miss Sachs is here to answer any of your questions if you have questions foreign do you have any questions on this item um just for the public to understand um that this has to do with uh parent involvement it does and say a few words about how you're getting input absolutely I appreciate the opportunity so um as I reviewed the board policy and administrative regulations um it became apparent that we needed a couple different sets of eyes on it so we're bringing it Forward here for information as well as sharing it with a different Advisory Group so it was shared last night with our CAC Group which is our community advisory committee we're going to be presenting and talking

175about a parent advisory committee and then also our district English learn advisory committee and really what this is is we just want to make sure that we have some feedback on whether or not there's anything we've missed on it this is again one of those boilerplate language board policies and ARS from the California school boards Association but it is important that we go out and we get folks feedback and I just want to recognize that Don Edwards has created a survey by which folks can either send information to us or it can be collected that way in the event that they'd like to time to process the documents fantastic thank you so much and I did appreciate that it that in the new version there's a lot of discussion about really us taking a look

176at the data of what parents are involved and what kind of groups are we doing enough Outreach in different languages and in all the different communities to make sure that all parents really have a voice in The District so I really appreciate that yeah and I just wanted to emphasize the sort of making sure that we're training the parents sometimes I don't think the parents here like the power they have if they're there at the table helping form the decision so I think the training is a big piece of that but it is as I recall mentioned in this yes for sure I think making sure that there's a diverse group of voices at the decision-making tables uh at the various uh committees and and opportunities site councils throughout our district is going to ensure

177that we make the best decisions we can in the district so much appreciated thank you okay so that was an information item only no motion necessary item 17.2 review and of revisions to board policy and administrative regulations 6174 addressing the education of emerging bilingual students English Learners yes uh similarly this board policy and administrative regulation has been revised in order to address changes in state and federal law it is something that we are utilizing as an artifact for our federal program monitoring review that is happening and I just want to recognize the work of Carmen Garces and her team in making the updates to the documents 50s any questions or comments this is information on me as well really appreciate your time and efforts on this one as well as obviously this is a very

178key part of our community and we want to make sure that all of our English Learners are successful and that we're really putting the policies into place to make that happen thank you all right item 17.3 review and potential approval of certification of the district's 2020 2021 unaudited actuals financial report Dr Clark yeah so um so so again you know we we've been through this process before you know we start the year off with the budget and then life happens and then uh you know we check our bank account at the end and either things look you know things look better if things look worse and um there's a lot of factors that played into these another actuals and so we have staff here who are going to do a presentation and hopefully answer any

179questions that you have um and in this process so I'm going to have Dr Gonzalez and Mika are why do I get it wrong Barbara Bond um I just I just want to acknowledge the the amount of time and work that that went on um with um with Mika and her team um you know we're talking um you know weekends last couple of weekends we're talking late into the evenings you know a lot of work went into this and it's not necessarily worth um she is dependent on other people in order to get her work done and um and when some of those don't happen it really delays the process but um but again Nick and her team we were very professional throughout and um and we are a great deal of gratitude for for

180you know for getting this done on time and that correctly so so again Mika thank you for that so thank you very much board members uh we're going to tag team this presentation this evening so really the unaudited actual are about two things first of all it tells us what we got and what we do and that's really what the on audited actions are focused on our plan what we thought and what ended up uh so the first thing that we want to just give a tad bit of background and this has to do with the unaudited actual uh in general it's required by the Department of Education it is when we have entirely close our books which means that once a little more once we've closed our books so the fiscal year ends on

181June 30th and it takes us a good two months or so to make sure that everything has been counted it has been properly adjusted and so what it is is it's a snapshot in time of everything that took place as of June 30th so we account for all expenses we account for all revenue and then we took a look at all of the reports that are combined together uh so the the slide that's up here right now that this takes a look at where we are with general fund revenue and quite honestly we did very well this last year um we reclassified many many expenses into our unrestricted general fund and we were able to do this as a result of the one-time federal and state funds that we received from covet so we've been

182trying to update the board and the public along the way with the expenditures we will do that again later this week uh with some idea is to the new funding and and so far what it is that we're covering but basically really want to let you know that in in all in all accounts we certainly did better this year by being able to have that one-time money to make some shifts so um like Dr gongaro said uh we reclassified many expenses from a restricted side to one-time funds so that we have a good amount of ending Sun balance in a metric side which will help the future uh decorate spending uh we have like 12 million to um about 13 medium business spending in next three years so this uh anytime balance will help mitigate

183the um the next slide that we're showing here talks about our contributions to restricted programs and and for the sake of clarity with the public I just want to remind everyone that there are two different types of funds that we get we get restricted funds and they all have strings attached to them whether they come from the state or they come from a grant or they come from federal programs they're very very very specific role and the rule that we always know is you spend your restricted money before you spend your unrestricted money because the unrestricted money is the money where you have the flexibility you don't have the flexibility with restricted so we all try as much as we possibly can to make sure we use our unrestricted first so what this slide here

184shows is it shows the contributions that we made to restricted programs and you can see that um there was a decrease in special education uh some of that came from the impacts of covet as we certainly know we had less Transportation because we did not have the movement of students we had many unfilled aides and we had vacancies in a number of positions that quite honestly we frosted for the year for example we had Transportation roles or Transportation AIDS and because we knew we weren't going to be transporting students but we were ready in case we needed to come back to school um we basically frosted those positions and said look we're going to keep the positions we're just not going to fill them right now until we have uh the need for that work

185we had a great deal of Staff extra time and hourly savings that we had because we simply didn't have students on our campuses and again we were able to move some of our staff over to one-time funds while trying to be mindful as much as possible of our maintenance of effort with special education now the other thing that you see here is a decrease in athletics and this is one of the budget reduction really hard decisions that the board had to make the year before partially with middle school but also we know that there was a coveted impact on Athletics as well so there weren't as many games as we were used to certainly the transportation and the referee costs that would have come along with Athletics the next slide here again we just want

186to reiterate when it comes to the fund summaries the one-time funds certainly were very helpful and we always wanted to make sure that when we were presenting budgets to you that we were presenting with one time and without one time and so there were notable increases in our ending fund balance again because of some of the reclassifications that we did and so that was um final one and the whole other funds uh building funds facility funds uh it's just the nature of it uh decreased ending time balance however um all the other most of the other funds like the Eagle Peak uh Charter School adults and Food Services biblical seasons all of those so a little increase to the ending Sun balance so this right here and I think we might need to move it

187over just a tad thanks just so that we can perfect thank you um so this one is showing the components of endings when you look at the bottom of the chart that is um on the right side is dividing and restricted and restricted side but on the bottom it shows the ending from the bottom 66 million and a 23 million and it's uh above that is showing what from this job so you start with the support uh revolving cash and inventory and then we have a different assignments on the unrestricted side and in the middle is the restricted that is um some prepaid expense we we paid in 2021 to take advantage of uh discount that we received by paying the number but it is for 21 23 Adventure and the other among 23 million

188is uh um the total of total one two three and all the other um so I know that one of the numbers that you keep hearing is that we've got a healthy fund balance of 89 million what we really need to focus on those we need to focus on the 66 because that 23 is still restricted and because it's restricted it still has those strings attached so we we need to be mindful that when we're using numbers we're looking at the 66. um and when you take a look at the assignments that are there three of the assignments were in the proposed the adopted and the 45-day budget revisions and and these are the unaudited actions which means these are the amounts that we were carrying over into this year there are three more obligations

189there that are notable that we want to be able to call out um and the reason we want to call that out is because as Dr Clark mentioned before and as some of you have also alluded to we are trying to be as transparent as humanly possible with the board with staff and with the community and the three other uh assignments that are there are items that we are paying out but we want to make sure that we provide attention to so for example the 403b supplemental retirement plan this is the last three years last three years like four years three more years so these are the three years that we have left with the pars uh retirement that we had in June of 2020 and so we wanted to call that out I know

190there's a question about whether this was identified an Opeth they are two entirely different scenarios and they really have nothing to do with one another so I hope that answers that piece if the lcff supplemental um there's new legislation that came down that says that if there is carry over in lcff supplemental it carries over as lcff supplement it can't be carried over as anything else and it can only be spent per our plan on things that qualify for lcff supplemental dollars and so we want to call that out because it's not available for anything else the last thing there that is notable and different is a vacation payout we want to be mindful that we're sharing what the vacation payout is because these are funds that may not otherwise be used for other expenses

191because we have staff that are not fully utilizing uh vacation time on an annual basis and so all of our bargained agreements specifically state that by a certain time um everybody needs to be paid out for those days so we're being very mindful with with all of our leaders that we need to make sure that people are properly taking those but in the meantime we need to call that number out to be truthful and transparent that this is about what it's costing us on an annual basis and we certainly know last year there were an awful lot of departments and individuals where it was impossible for them to take any time and you know I'm looking at one right here next to me because I know that Mika's been working seven days a week and

192into you know two and three o'clock in the morning and falling asleep on the computer and there are an awful lot of staff that have to do that so I just wanted to point that piece out um next slide that we have [Music] um so when you look at the dental fund on this listed expenditure we um we had a 12 million less than uh estimated action and this is mainly uh like one-time fund we've budgeted but we are rather using it in 2122 so we ended up not using this and we have um about five medium in local funds which is uh which belongs to school time they receive different kind of local funds and the substantial amount is was not expensive but we have been budgetable because they need to know how much

193they have so it ended up not spending here um so I think it's important to note there that we we do have a practice to allow our school sites in many specific budgets at their site we allow them to carry those funds over if it's something that's for a garden project or it's for field trips or it's Department funds um in our mind those were identified by the school sites they've been fundraised they've been whatever it is that they've had over the years and those funds belong to them so we make sure that we maintain those uh the next slide you see there is uh this is the key difference that we saw from our estimated actual uh back in April and this has to do with restricted funds so the first thing you see

194there is the books and supplies came in approximately 14 million lower than we had estimated and this is because for the last month or so we have tried as much as possible working with our auditor working with other creative cbo's and and others around the area to try to move as much as we could that was allowable to 110 expenses because it would free up one-time money for one time so some examples I know Mika mentioned this before but your title programs routine restricted maintenance and unfortunately those are restricted resources which means we can't use those debate for paper-based programs for salaries um so while we wish we had that flexibility um we unit uh the other part of the services came in approximately nine million dollars lower when we really took a deeper dive

195into this it had to be with a lot of the contracts that had we had students on campus this past year we would have used those services and some of that was routine restricted maintenance as well and then the last piece here and this is an important one and this is one of the frustrations that we certainly have is that we received for excuse me we received three components of one-time funds we received half of sr2 we received half of the 8086 expanded learning opportunities Grant and half of the ab-86 in-person grant we didn't get that money until May and June so we get it in May and June we have to account to the fact that we didn't spend it because we just got it and then it carries over so that's part of

196what you see on the slide um wrapping up here I think it's it's important to just keep in mind some of the budget concerns that we do have moving forward because these are things that either we know are going to happen and are going to be increasing or they're just concerns in general first of all economic recovery right we thought three to four months ago we were on the road to everybody's going to be back and hey we took masks off for three or four weeks and now we've got Delta and we don't know if Delta is going to invite its friends later and you know morph into something else and so the economic recovery is something that we all need to watch because it continues to be very uncertain the enrollment and average daily

197attendance certainly our eyes are on the October Stevens date when we will have some pretty solid numbers uh to really know where we're going and so we're being very mindful of watching for that uh cost of living adjustment and cola rates in future years we know that those numbers continue to be fairly low um so we're watching to see what happens with that because that becomes a moving Target during the year increasing health benefits we know that they're going up every year the question is how much will they go up and so we continue to be watching that our insurance policies we certainly saw many of our insurance components jump considerably this year increasing cost of service and Furs I know that we've been presenting that on a regular basis uh those rates we've not

198heard about any more buy Downs so we know that those will continue to increase and then within about two to three years they they should flatten out uh the ongoing deficit spending we do need to address that and this makeup pointed out earlier you know it's really somewhere between about 10 and 12 million dollars that we continue to spend more than we bring in every year and then finally you know the July stickmat report that we presented at the August board meeting pointed out the fact that we have 94 of last year's budget in unrestricted spending goes to salary and benefits and so that's something that we do need to really take a look at it for the course of this year so with that said we have our very last slide here and it's

199just a reminder to the board and the public so the budget calendar depending on when you want to start that year we'll go ahead and start it back in June so in June we had our proposed budget our adopted budget that came forward today is September 8th we've got our unaudited actuals and the things that you can expect will be coming forward in the future for interim Falls middle of December uh second interim March of next year if we need a third interim that would come right at the end of May in early June we take a look at our our public budget hearings and our lcap process and then in late June we would have our budget and our lcap approved and those two always go hand in hand uh so with that again

200a huge thank you to Mika and really all the staff members who have been assisting so much over not only in fiscal services but our our teammates from the educational services department and and most certainly special education because this last week they really had their work cut out for them with with trying to assist us as much possible with the budget and so with that happy to open it up to more questions people there I'd like to say thank you to my staff um Matt Fielder uh Jonah Hayden from Monahan Deedee blancois and videndra and uh Sandra in a way Sandra you know where Wendy's team and um thank you um I I really appreciate their Todd working and our team for mayor who jumped in and was running rewards when we needed them it

201was it was a full court press all weekend it was about 18 hour days all weekend foreign I have frustrations um how we walk this fine line of being transparent and having the public say you have lots of money what is the problem I don't understand why you're not uh giving raises to everybody so I think we just have to keep sharing and the board has to keep letting people know I mean the quickest way for us to go under is start spending one-time funding on raisins for people and then we will be off the side of the cliff in a hurry so I I'm just it's very frustrating and I guess I'm just saying for the public for us for the staff for everybody for you guys to try to balance a budget with

202numbers that change every day numbers that have restrictions on them and students and staff with a lot of needs that we're trying to meet every day so thank you for the report it is what it is and I appreciate all the time because if it's driving me crazy I can't even imagine how you guys sleep at night so thank you okay thank you trustee Mason other comments or questions okay I think there was uh one question that um just for the public might help understand how to read this when you read the unaudited actuals report there's two columns right there's the 2020 2021 unaudited actuals and then there's the 2021-22 budget um so the question that I received was when the board votes to approve this unaudited actuals are we in essence changing the budget

203or is the budget still the right hand column the budget to own if I can report on 20 25 budget yeah and I understand we did for 45 days budget religion however the the stock software doesn't recognize 45 days so there's no way for me to put the data in the sub software so um adopted budget is the only one that can um so I think the question was going forward when we see our next reports and we see the budget going forward is it going to be the column that is currently estimated actuals or is it going to be the column that it's fun on this one adopted budget so I think we're going to try and remember we're going to see adopted budget and then um revised budget cocktail comes in one of

204the codons uh we buy the budget and both approved budget and this is something I um I'm thinking about talking to the popular company our school is it right now when I saw the report for the data from the financial system he automatically told the adopted budget and the device budget which will be used for the approved budget but it will have four corners that so these two at this point are showing the same numbers okay so ongoing software questions okay thank you thank you very much okay uh any other uh comments or questions for it or is there a motion I would make motion to reapprove the uh un actual audited report as presented uh [Music] any further discussion we'll take that to a vote trustee Nathan yes trustee Mayo yes Rusty McFerrin yeah

205I also vote Yes motion passes 5-0 minutes for your report all right item 17.4 review and potential approval of adoption of the district's 2020-2021 Appropriations limit calculation the Gan limit resolution 2021 22-10 is there any questions about about the Gan limit because these are there any questions about the game limit I know this is a very straightforward piece as long as our new board members we're all set thank you very much uh any um we need a motion on this item I'll move to approved resolution number um 21-22-10 the district's 2021-22 Appropriations Clinic population thank you motion by trustee McFerrin second trustee Mayo we'll take that to the vote trustee mcbaron yes just email yes Misty Mason yes Christine David yes I also vote Yes motion passes five zero thank you all right moving on

206to 17.5 review and potential approval of the contract amendment number four to contract between mbusd and Robert Half International Dr Clark are there any questions on this it's just been anticipated one-time thing or is this going to be something we see coming back every year until we can fill those positions we've got all that all that Dr Gonzalez and misses Appleby purple bud we're getting closer um right now what we're doing um most specifically with technology is we have to inventory in every hot spot so there's about 1500 of those we've got to identify every Chromebook that was taking off middle and high school campuses making sure we understand the funding source because if there's title one they can only stay in certain locations and then redistributing those to all of our elementary school so

207it's one example of where we see that we're probably going to need temporary assistance for two to two and a half months and then the work goes away so part of it for us is that we have we have a shortage right now in the benefits department and so we need to to plug that hole as quickly as we can um I know that we continue to have um staff shortages in the in the fiscal Department as a matter of fact since I've arrived we've never been fully staffed and and some of those are just harder to fill positions so if we we've really exhausted some creative ways to get positions filled uh when possible we go to overtime that sometimes if we need another body there during the work day for you know eight

208to ten hours um it's it's really hard to do that with current staff so while I would like to say that it's only one time there is a chance that we're going to have to bring this back and increase this amount even more to try to make ends meet especially with the covid and testing and everything else that we've got going on right now okay so there's two issues if we looked at the tech plan they brought us I don't see how that's going to be a one-time thing that we're going to have to do all this with Fox and Chromebooks if we're moving towards one to one that seems like it's going to be something you just live with in the future and number two it seems like a systemic issue that we need

209to get to the bottom of figuring out why we can't get people in their job why we can't hold the people in those jobs so we can solve it and I don't know if we do exit interviews when people leave but I think it's important to find out what's going on because prior to this for years and years and years those positions were filled so I think we need to find out what's going on and if it means I mean we're spending a lot on this contract maybe I don't just we need to get to the bottom of what's going on over there if I could speak to the text plan real quickly what we're doing right now is we're putting devices into the hands of every middle in high school and the entire School

210District those devices will go out one time and with the exception of you know so-and-so drops one and breaks it once we get all those distributed they're distributed and once we redistribute what's coming into those middle schools and high schools that workload will be reduced significantly but our biggest push right now is to make sure that we get all those devices into the hands of students and it's taken somewhere between two and three days per high school or per Middle School uh to try to get all those distributed so I I want to provide more explanation of what the context is for the situation because we can't take everybody on our entire technology team and have them out at um you know out at school sites try to distribute those when we have the day

211in and day out so repairs that need to happen across the district for our staff okay do we hear a motion on this item Madam president I moved that the board approved the Fourth Amendment to the multi-year contract between the elbow school district and Robert Half International Incorporated for additional one hundred thousand dollars for the fiscal year 2122. second thank you motion by trustee Mayo second by trustee McFerrin any further discussion I think uh trustee Mason that you make some very important points um that you know exit interviews do something that sounds like it would make a lot of sense that we find out why people are leaving if they're in the particular ongoing roles where there are vacancies that we're trying to fill as opposed to the situations that we know are already temporary

212all right uh let's take that to a vote trustee mail yes trustee McFerrin yes trustee and Jerry yes trustee Mason yes also vote Yes motion passes 5-0 thank you very much okay item 17.6 review and potential approval of the initial successor agreement proposal for mdusd to Teamsters going to present this item so at the last board meeting we brought this item for information purposes this time we're asking you to move to approve the successor agreement proposal from Mount Diablo Unified School District thank you very much any questions all right do we hear a motion board approve the successor agreement proposal from Mount Diablo Unified School District for uh bargaining with the teamsters you know we'll stick with that motioned by trustee mail second by trustee Mason any further discussion all right we'll take that to

213a vote just email yes trustee Mason yes trustee McFerrin yeah trustee and zerry yes I also vote Yes motion passes five zero thank you all right and we already handled 17.7 so that takes us to 17.8 review and potential approval of resolution 21 22-11 reducing your discontinuing number of classified employees based on a reduction of discontinuance of a particular kind of service for the 2021-22 school year which seems such an awkward thing to bring up after that last discussion um so this PKS on it uh is the success of the Food Service program in that all students in the district now uh can get lunch uh which means that food service does not need a career to go and pick up funds from all the different sites because there are no exchange of funds students

214pick up two Olympics um that's one of the the items on the PKS the other one is cleanup from last spring we asked if you move to approve resolution 2122-11 to reduce the number of classified employees based on a reduction of a particular kind of service thank you very much any questions on this item do they hear a motion I'll make a motion to the approved resolution 21-22-11 reducing or discontinuing the number of classified employees based on a reduction of discontinuance of a particular kind of service for the 2021-22 school year second thank you motion by trustee Mason second by trustee McFerrin we'll take that to a vote trustee Nathan yes trustee mcbaron yes trustee and Larry yes trustee mail yes I also vote Yes motion passes 5-0 and that is all of our business

215items this evening all right uh so what we have left on the agenda we had moved board reports to the end and then we also have future agenda items so let's go ahead with our board reports and then we'll be teacher agenda items before we adjourn okay so I would like to start on board reports Jesse McFerrin all right um good evening everyone um like everyone else on the board I participated in a second study session led by Nicole Anderson on August 26th and the series is titled effective governance with an equity lens um and um as a result of these study sessions um we may update our Equity policy um this is really important work and I'm very glad to be a part of it um in the last couple of weeks that budget

216advisory committee and the um Community advisory committee had their first meetings of the new school year um the BAC met last Wednesday on Zoom topics for presentation and discussion included the thick fat fiscal health and risk analysis and the refinancing of bonds our next BAC meeting will be on September 29th at five o'clock on Zoom um I do want everyone to know that these meetings are open to the public and all information about the agenda and how to attend is posted on our District's website um the CAC met last night also on Zoom um Melody Royal our new current liaison introduced herself to the group and we also received a report from Dr aguili about Transportation additionally we've heard about efforts from the dyslexia task force on finding out and supporting legislation to support students

217with dyslexia um we heard a very encouraging update about bridge program I was especially glad to hear about how the administration and staff is supporting um social emotional learning in the program um the next CAC meeting will be on October 5th we do want to give a word of thanks and appreciation to the CAC officers Dorothy Natalie Janine and Lisa they provide an incredibly welcoming space for parents and our um extremely supportive of an invested in Access and success for our students in special education um it's a really excellent group and I appreciate being um a part of it um I also want everyone to know that the Ninth Annual mdusd college fair will be on Tuesday September 21st it will be a virtual event and registration for for sessions open up on September 3rd

218so they should still be open now um I want to thank all of the parent volunteers who are working on this event in past years have had students attend and tell me how much they enjoyed it and so I'm very much looking forward to this event this year um and that's all I have thank you trustee McFerrin Justine Mason uh obviously I actually went to the board study session I went to the measure J and C committee meetings I was on the csda meeting last night that President pound oversaw I guess you're president there too um I don't have to I guess I'll say that um for gensax benefit I finished my uh Garden program this summer and I can report that 95 of the students increase their knowledge of nutrition 100 of the students

219increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables and 95 of the students have improved their self-efficacy so it can be done and that's where I get this lovely tan and I will be starting my garden program tomorrow morning at 8 30 at St Peter Martyr in the city of Pittsburgh thank you very much let's see trusty and David I just want to share that the CDC just published a paper on Friday um that looks at covid hospitalizations among children from March to August of this year hospitalizations are highest among children 0 to 4 and 12 to 17. hospitalizations were five times higher in August than in June hospitalization rate among unvaccinated children age 12 to 17 was 10 times higher in August compared to June but the good news is that before Delta and after Delta

220there's not much different in the percentage of children in ICU or who have to be ventilated or who have died so Delta isn't harming children any worse than before the increase in hospitalization is likely due to the increase of community spread because Delta is so easily transmitted the good news also shows that in states with higher vaccination rates there are fewer hospitalized covet patients so if we have higher vaccination rates we will likely have fewer kids who can't be vaccinated Contracting covid and spreading it to other unvaccinated people who I'll remind you among children at age 12 to 17 who are eligible to be vaccinated were 10 times more likely to be hospitalized compared to June like most parents I don't want my child to get covered no matter that they may handle it better

221I beg you to wear your mask correctly and if you or your children are eligible to be vaccinated do it so we can all get out of this mess alive and well and join me for another walk and talk next week whether and smoke permitting if it's hot like it was today I will not be walking probably on Wednesday in the evening check my social media to confirm the time and location and I'd love to meet everyone there people do come for real so you should come all right thank you very much Justine there we trust email thank you very much I will be very brief um I attended the board governance workshop and um trustee McFerrin gave an excellent report at CAC meeting last night and um just like she did an excellent report

222right now so you know can't suppress that I want to thank Dr Clark for attending the Mount Diablo Council of pta's meeting on uh September 1st and um the attendees were very interested in his remarks and were amazed that he could speak so quickly but he uh definitely gave them uh information that they were eager to hear and so we thank you very much Dr Clark um and um of course there was the meeting for CCC SBA that was last night um we had a very large number of people attending it from uh three different counties maybe even four counties and I think folks went away with information that will be beneficial for them to hold meetings where everyone uh remains civil thank you thank you very much trustee Mayo all right I'll be brief

223as well um so I attended many of the same meetings um I want to thank trustee Mayo for her leadership in the Mount Diablo Council of ptas um I know you volunteer so much of your time to support our amazing School PTA leaders and right now our parents are working harder than ever to try to build back their communities as people return to school amidst covid and all of the stress and Chaos that that involves so much appreciation um and uh yes I was pleased about the Contra Costa County School of Association workshop on how to maintain decorum at school board meetings luckily I do want to thank all of our Mount Diablo Community everyone who's come to our meetings is always very civil and we are able to get our business done and we

224are so so appreciative of that one thing that um that we have seen though is even even at some nearby school districts in this area we have seen um disruptions to the meetings and disruption to uh the school boards being able to complete the business at hand um so we will definitely make sure that we're prepared to handle anything that might come our way to make sure that we continue to to get things done for our students and for our employees so we'll be ready for that um and and then just uh oh I did want to share the high school voter education week September 13th to 24th um the California Department of Education encourages schools to participate to put students on the path to a lifetime of Civic engagement and voting everybody can share

225the news that 16 and 17 year olds can pre-register to vote at register to vote.ca.gov and the California Secretary of State's high school and youth initiatives portal on their website has a lot of great resources for schools teachers and students to be able to promote difficulty engagement so that's an exciting thing that's coming up um and then overall I just want to say you know this has been it's been a really tough uh thing to navigate through the ever-changing health guidance employee shortages Financial strain um to keep our schools open for our students um we're going to continue to do everything we can to support our students and our employees um I know it didn't look like that so much tonight um but we are going to move forward and do everything that we can

226to provide competitive pay and benefits and professional development and safe environments for all of our staff um and I think to the to the public in general when you run into a frustrating situation at a school site just please remember to take a minute to express your gratitude to the people that you're that are dealing with your situation and because those people are as was mentioned earlier tonight everybody is working so far above and beyond uh their their job description and their regular hours um to make sure that that we continue serving our students um because of the vacancies that someone may have around them they may be doing something completely different than what is their normal job description um so let's all just keep that in mind um and uh keep moving forward it's

227it's got to get better we'll all get vaccinated and then hopefully we'll get better sooner than later but let's just give each other as much patience and Grace as we can every day feel much appreciated all right so with that um let's move to uh future agenda items did anyone have a future agenda item they wanted to mention I had two that gave from earlier um so one is uh well actually it's two board uh policies that I would like for us to to look at um in the near future um one is in looking at Suicide Prevention month we should look at updating our 5141.52 board policy and um AR as well and then um the other suggestion is a there's a csba sample board policy 1313 called civility um that is highly recommended

228put into place um while your meetings are still civil and before any kind of unruliness occurs we do of course already have board policy in place that covers um how to run our meetings um those would just be an additional an additional board policy to consider so those would be would you just a number on them the 1313 yeah that is something to look into as well because our board policies we already have aboard the 1313 um that is not on this topic so that's something to research as well um but in the meantime we'll continue to use our existing board policy um which we do have just so everybody knows um Ford bylaw 9323 has to do with how we manage our meetings um and that uh helps us to to handle any kind

229of disruptions that may occur to be able to call people out of order uh terminate their privileges of addressing the board if needed and we do have the right to clear the room to recess or to even adjourn the meeting so that's all already in our board policies and hopefully we will not need to implement those but we'll be ready if the situation may occur okay so lastly were there any other future agenda items okay um so lastly if board members would please stay to sign the resolutions I know we've been doing this electronically until now uh but we actually have pieces of paper for you all to sign so everyone don't forget to stay for that all right and with that the meeting is adjourned here at 9 39 pm