001noches [Music] all right thank you so much all right we'll start in just a minute here are we okay are we ready okay we're live okay all right here we go welcome everyone this evening to the Mount Diablo Unified School District governing board meeting October 13th while I pull out my agenda oh my goodness there we go all right excuse me okay so we will begin with our Pledge of Allegiance and roll call morani thank you so much we'll go to roll call vice president Mason here trustee Mayo trustee Felder here trustee McFerrin here trustee and Zoe here I'm also present we are all here all right um so I would like to uh briefly open this meeting with the land acknowledgment to honor the native people whose Land We Now inhabit it's important for
002us to acknowledge the long history of disruption dislocation and displacement which had to occur for us to live here we recognize we are on Stolen land that originally belonged to the aloni and chipkan and saklan tribes of the bay Miwok people indigenous people are still here today working to keep alive their culture traditions and languages our school board officially recognized indigenous people's day passed a resolution on inclusive school names and imagery and at our next meeting we'll have a resolution in honor of November as Native American heritage month if you're interested in learning more about land acknowledgments and Indigenous people one excellent resource is morningsidecenter.org all right and with that we'll move to review and potential approval of the agenda are there any changes to the agenda at this time president count do you want
003to do anything with item 13.0 board member reports I think as usual we can move our boardroom member reports to the end of the meeting if that's okay with our board yes all right any other changes to the agenda or do we have a motion I would make a motion we approve the agenda with the change of 13.0 being moved to the end second all right thank you uh motion by trustee Mason second by trustee McFerrin all in favor oh wait can we do the are we doing the vote electronically we're doing the soda electronically one moment everyone we're still getting used to this system but once we're signed in it should be faster and I know on my part it's making me long again again so one moment please foreign okay I see the
004motion on the screen do you all see where to vote okay so there is not a place for us to vote on the screen at this time okay [Music] okay so with our system right now we do not have our student board member in the electronic system so I think what we'll do uh trustee Fowler is to have you give your advisory vote verbally um with each of the votes and then the rest of us will vote electronically does that make sense okay so how do you vote yes all right thank you so much and we'll have you go first on the next one okay all right I think we have our system down now thank you you got a little while to come up so all right so our next is the report out
005taken in closed session so 7.1 negotiations the board may discuss negotiations or provide direction to its Representatives regarding represented employees pursuant to government code section 549-57.6 the board received information and provided Direction item 7.2 uh there was no item needed for that item item 7.3 existing litigation conference with legal counsel pursuant to government code section 549-56.9 D two cases the board received information item 7.4 existing litigation conference with legal counsel paragraph one of subdivision D of government code section 54956.9 Mount Diablo Unified School District V Clayton Valley Charter High School uh Contra Costa Superior Court case number MSC 15-00574 first appellate District case number a15895 and one moment please for that report in closed session the board voted 5-0 to seek a petition for re-hearing and petition for review of the court of appeals order
006in the lawsuit against Clayton Valley Charter High School item 7.5 public employee performance evaluation superintendent pursuant to government code 54957 a motion to approve the superintendent and board goals was approved 5-0 item 7.6 Public Employee appointment uh employment government code section 54957 title superintendent this item will be addressed uh this evening in Open session in item 18.11. so with that it brings us to public comment 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 this 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
007moved to the end of the meeting speakers are not allowed to yield their time so for anyone who might be new to public comments uh we on the board cannot engage in a discussion with a public comment since the rest of the public was not notified of that topic ahead of time as an agenda item according to the brown act so please understand that though we carefully listen to your comment we generally will not respond other than to perhaps ask a clarifying question staff may follow up and the topic can be added to a future board agenda if needed so how many public comments do we have we have 26 okay uh so in order to make sure that each person gets a chance to speak in the beginning of the meeting I would suggest
008that we limit our public comment to one minute does that work for the board yes okay all right so we will begin public comment here please limit your time to one minute if you can we have Debbie hickey followed by Jane kwikowski Debbie good evening board members superintendent Council and audience transparency is an operating in which um a way in which is easy for others to see and what actions are performed transparency implies openness communication and accountability and that's straight out of the dictionary here's the district's definition of transparency we are broke due to lack of ADA enrollment however there's no deficit in the district 2021 ending balance of 89 million dollars there is a continual hiring of directors or assistant directors proof of that can be seen on the agenda for tonight four new
009cars for the district top who knows who's driving them do you and why I can't afford to get a new car because I can't get a raise if my car breaks down I hope I can afford the bus because I can't get a raise I forgot the district's broke Social Security came out today with the cost of living adjustment for their retired Disabled Vets at 5.65 percent there's more but you don't want to hear it so thank you thank you and people can feel free to also email the board at any time with lengthy or your comments of course Jane kwatkowski followed by Chloe Park hello I'm Chloe Park I'm a proud CST Union member and bargaining team member but I'm even more proud to be the office manager at Bel Air Elementary a title
010one school that often goes neglected and underserved in this District tonight I want to talk to you about numbers five years CST has been without a raise 15 weeks we've been without an acceptable contract a two percent offer with California cost of inflation being at 18.6 percent from 2015 to 2020 and that's from the association of Bay Area government's Consumer Price Index 31 elementary schools nine middle schools five high schools 16 alternative schools and programs two adult education centers and one district office there are five bargaining unions CST Medea Teamsters C SCA and Med Spa but only one Board of Education we are meeting we are sharing and we are organizing numbers don't lie there are more of us than there are of you the district cannot function without us and remember that when coming
011to the bargaining table thank you Dan Harper followed by Nicole Hurley hello board members my name is Dan Harper I'm the staff union representative and negotiator for CST askme local one um we're back here again we were here on the 22nd um so things haven't changed much in bargaining I know only have a 44 seconds left but I wanted to talk a little bit more about how our members have been affected um because they haven't had a raise in the last five years um a lot of our members are having to move back in with their parents um people are having to move further away child care costs upwards of eighteen hundred dollars or more per month rent in the district is over two thousand dollars a month um with with that said for a
012lot of our members I mean there's almost no money left once they get their their last paycheck so uh you know a raise is a fair raise is is granted we know it's it's been budgeted by the state you've already heard um but we stand in solidarity with all the unions in mdusd and we will fight until we get a fair contract thank you thank you and in terms of District organizations item 9.1 is also a time where each Union does have the opportunity to speak okay so we have Nicole Hurley um I'm seeing Chloe Park twice thank you I know good evening superintendent members of the board and members at large I'm going to shorten what I wrote so just bear with me I'm going to start by giving you a sample of my
013day as an sca4 I'm currently working in an Autism classroom with a behavior student the other students are unable to keep themselves safe when necessary and require all staff to step in the student begins to throw desk chairs laptops and everything in his reach at them as things escalate he begins to take off his clothes and pee on people he continues this for about five out of the six hours a day in our classroom our principal has tried everything in her power to help us and has been unsuccessful I personally hand delivered data on this Behavior to the district level and was told it would be looked at and considered I have heard nothing in return nothing changes this is every day I was told that payroll had a shortage and that's why I didn't
014get a check in the mail we have a shortage too and it is affecting every child's education every single day thank you thank you Clifford Simmons followed by Maria sajad hello thank you my name is Clifford Simmons I'm a teacher at Valhalla Elementary I'm also the parent of a first grader at Hidden Valley Elementary um and I wanted to talk to the board about retention is extremely important that we retain good teachers and with a current contract offer we can't do that I've been teaching in mdusd for two years this is my second year but I have nine years of teaching special education and I cannot find a single District where I would make less money doing it than I do here I would make more money on the creek I make more money in
015Pittsburgh I make more money West Contra Costa I made more money when I work in Oakland and that's not even talking about Berkeley Fremont Hayward Union City all make more than we do here and this boy I don't know how this board expects to attract and retain good talent when we're when the pay is so little um teachers need to pay rent too we need to pay mortgages we have car payments to make and we can't expect people to stay here when they could look just next door and make thousands more thank you thank you followed by Nancy Coffey can you hear me because I want to be heard tonight okay yes um it's Maria sajad Bancroft Elementary second grade teacher so you've already heard it all so I'm not going to stick to talking
016points or beg you for anything I know I'm not getting a raise this year I know my four-year-old and I will be surviving on 4 700 a month with two grand going to rent after 11 years of dedicated service all I'm here to do is finally speak my truth I have been conditioned from childhood to put up with emotional and financial abuse I'm used to adults hiding stealing controlling my finances and this cycle continued in my marriage in which my income was viewed as passive checkbooks accounts and savings were hidden from me from someone I trusted imagine my surprise that when I left my toxic marriage I realized I wasn't actually free from the abuse because here it is in my career one which I love cherished and gave my all to just like a
017toxic relationship I was giving and not receiving I'm evolving but you are not you are not ready to change I'm doing the work doing my best jumping hoops and getting blamed for all the failures you're not giving Financial transparency a livable wage you are I'm being preyed upon by a group of people who take advantage of the collective psyches of Educators the helpers givers lovers empaths Heroes and hey after 11 years I'm ready to look out for me too my immigrant mother always said education is the best weapon you cannot silence those of us who are educated you can't view us all that sheep that need hurting we are not all non-sea best nonset taking people it would be your I'm a powerful educated Innovative asset to this district and I'm ready to leave because
018I finally know it would be your absolute loss you know what works against an abusive system exposing it for what it is there's a difference between a person who hurts you by making a mistake in a person who hurts you by continuing a pattern mistakes should be forgiven patterns should be broken lastly if this was a male dominated profession and a man was standing up here you would empathize with his plight because he needs to provide for his family because we're not all untainted by the patriarchy right I want you to look at the new face of the Soul Provider right here it is 2021 the world is progressing the cost of living is increasing single incomes are on the rise and yet you all aren't ready to receive the message so you want to
019attract progressives you don't practice what you preach this is it this is for the young UCLA grad who wanted to kick a dent in the system if even one out of the eight of you lay your head tonight inside to stop counting us as sheep and start Awakening to the financial and emotional abuse you are promoting then I have honored the reason I came into this profession in the first place thank you [Applause] thank you Nancy coffee followed by Lord and Tyrell my name is Nancy Coffey I've been a school a teacher in this District since 2003. I'm a teacher advisor currently at Horizons I chose to take someone else's words tonight anonymously so that they could be heard I can't tell you my name because I'm afraid I have to work two jobs just
020to be able to buy the things my own kids need this is exhausting it is not sustainable I feel completely devalued and unappreciated please approve a raise that will allow us to live a decent life and get some rest we deserve it and I'd like to thank the person who gave me these words to speak tonight thank you Lorna Tyrell followed by Trisha Collins good evening my name is Lorna Tyrell I'm a fourth grade teacher at Silverwood I'm also a parent of two children at Silverwood we've said it all before we need your help to get this settled we need a livable wage I need to be able to support my family two percent is deplorable it's an insult it hurts my heart to hear that please use your power as the board to help
021push negotiations forward to something we can live with I know it can be done I have faith in it thank you thank you Trisha Collins followed by Casey clont good evening board and Dr Clark my name is Tricia Collins and I'm a second grade teacher at Silverwood Elementary teaching is hard really hard right now and it has been since the pandemic started but teaching is even harder in our district we lost our manageable class sizes to where we are now bursting at the seams at a time when our students are the lowest they've ever been and we are working harder than ever I take homework every night and spend a fair amount of my Sundays working I'm so exhausted and desperately need a day off for some r r but I can't because my already
022overwhelmed colleagues will have to divide up my class of 30 students and I simply can't do that to them but most stressful of all is our financial situation we haven't had a raise since 2017 we have 21 million dollars missing and we are being offered two percent over a time period where Cola has increased by 19 as I said last month we need to feel that we matter her that you care that you understand what this is like for us please stop making it harder we're bleeding here thank you JC clontz Caesar good evening um I'm here to express that housing has gone up gas prices have gone up groceries have gone up child care has gone up medical insurance has gone up but what hasn't gone up is my paycheck I cannot afford to
023work here anymore because everything is so expensive and I I've worked here for a long time no raise in five years that's ridiculous I am at the low income level if you read the chart I'm right there that's embarrassing when people ask me where do I work thank you [Applause] thank you Claire key followed by Jennifer zuneca good evening school board members Dr Clark cabinet my name is Claire key I'm a third grade teacher here at Monty Gardens I am back to remind you of our message our students deserve the best at the last board meeting I asked you to consider how the Mount Diablo School District plans on recruiting and retaining a high quality Workforce especially when you're offering such a poor set of contract proposals also at a time when employee morale is
024at such an all-time low in my opinion tonight I want to comment on the news that you as board members are planning to better educate yourself on school finances with the help of school services I want to be optimistic and hope that this is encouraging news for too many years Mount Diablo has grossly overestimated its expenses and has had to make major Cuts as a result you've offered little to nothing to your employees find out when the unauded actuals come out that you are vastly off the mark this has happened so frequently one might think it's possibly intentional one has to wonder with exactly what you tasked your finance department do you expect such poor estimation skills we understand being fiscally conservative with a budget is prudent but how can you be so incredibly off
025for so many years and you can't simply blame covet this has been part of the district culture for far too long something isn't right is it intentional does it speak to the stewardship our students deserve better they need better Financial oversight by the board and I hope you will become better educated and ask more of the financial department maybe you will be the board that helps change the culture that is not Diablo and put it in a more positive direction students are counting on you our students deserve the best thank you [Applause] we can please try to keep our comments to the one minute that's what the beep means Jennifer's junaga followed by Kip penovich thank you good evening board superintendent I don't often speak in at to the at the board but I need
026to show you who I am I am an mdusd teacher for 26 years I have a bachelor's in early childhood education a master's in special ed two credentials and multiple certifications and as of yesterday I can add I'm an Amazon employee I have had to take on a second job because in January I feel I will not be able to make ends meet I am the sole income in my family and I am 59 years old and I am delivering Amazon packages Amazon packages this is not right I used to take pride in being a teacher and now I deliver Amazon packages to make ends meet this is not right please please fight for us okay followed by Tom turbridge I went back uh a year and looked at the justifications for not giving us
027our last race that we had all agreed upon declining GNP stock market drop slump in housing prices and zero colas for three years I think people got it wrong and we deserve what was on there prior we basically got screwed out of that one because of bad forecasting and we we deserve that you've listened to people talk about how hard it is for them to stay in this District because of the financial situation that they have talked about high turnover I guess I'll sum it up by saying this doesn't feel like a career much anymore it's just a job and you can change that on Trowbridge followed by Craig yen good evening board Dr Clark um before I uh let's see I had a prayer down to a minute now it's going by um I
028came before you a few years ago and you approved the sale of a tiny house from Concord High School thank you I'll be back this year A couple of years ago we brought before you energized and fully engaged students and their robots they were mentored by energized and fully engaged teachers and a couple of you and Dr Clark you saw the power this summer of what energized and fully engaging teachers can do in this District I feel fully supported and I'm home I love the wealth of diversity this is our district I love working with a dedicated energetic and forward-thinking administrators and staff at Concord High School and those that have been have had the great pleasure to work with across our district my request to the board is that you do everything in your
029power to provide not only the contract we observe but a contract that will attract and retain the quality of teachers and staff that our students deserve everyone deserves an mdsd that is a destination and not a weigh station you can finish your sentence thank you Tom all right Craig Yen followed by Valerie Gallardo hi Dr Clark board members mdusd staff my name is Craig young and I'm a fourth grade teacher I'm also a cal graduate with degrees in economics and statistics worked in this district for 19 years looking over these numbers I don't understand them but fortunately that is not my job that is your responsibility to go ahead and figure out how it is that you are going to run our district whether you're going to value your number one asset yep that'd be
030us your employees you took away 5.5 reneging after 700 days of negotiations that that's what you put us through we're currently at 105 days is this right zero percent two percent zero percent we stand with our other bargaining units work with us October 20th your thing 7.1 when you directed your negotiation team what'd you say to them thank you Valerie Gallardo followed by Nancy wolf hello my name is Valerie Gallardo and I'm a first grade teacher at Bel Air Elementary School I grew up in this area and I was excited to teach here I'm a newer teacher I just start just starting off but if I was not married I would not be able to afford to live within our district sadly even if I was single I would not be able to afford a
031studio apartment within our district because I do not make two and a half times the rent currently I have three children the rent from starting for a two-bedroom apartment around here is roughly two thousand four hundred dollars or more I barely take home three thousand dollars a month cost of living in this area has gone up so much and our pay has not changed I worked hard after my first year as a teacher to move up the pay scale over the summer but I did not see much change in my pay because the medical costs increase saving money is hard because most of my check goes to rent out on daycare it's not cheap either not everyone has a second income or a mother-in-law to help take care of their baby we're a paycheck to
032paycheck and cannot save to buy a home I'm not asking to live in luxury but I'm asking for pay to allow me to feel comfortable and safe to be able to contribute to my family and be able to come to work not feeling stressed about paying my bills as I said my credential just cleared I've learned so much from these brilliant teachers and built relationships with my students but unfortunately if they does not improve myself and many other new teachers are going to take our valuable experience and leave Nancy wolf followed by Dan Reynolds I'm going to change the topic a little I've come to talk to you about our precious children I'm concerned about the Mandate for 5 to 12 year olds as you know that uh they have an amazing immune system as
033it is and just as fauci said one year ago their choice of of uh dying of the virus is .0002 um as we um I just don't want my kids to be Lab Rats grandkids I don't want them to be tested you know that it's a it's an early testing you know that we don't have what is supposed to happen in the future you know that so like the one thing that I wanted to say was that I came for the children who might ask us parents why did you let me get a vaccine that didn't have testing now I have to live with the consequences of your decision we need to look at it from their perspective thank you thank you Dan Reynolds followed by Jennifer Cruz good evening I'm Dan Reynolds I'm the
034executive director of the Mount Diablo Education Association also I'm a product of Mount Diablo schools Sun Terrace Glenbrook Mount Bible high school and currently the parent of two mdusd students our students deserve the best they deserve the best Educators teachers nurses counselors Librarians speech pathologists bus drivers campus supervisors cafeteria employees Carpenters custodians painters plumbers electricians School psychologists ground Keepers Career College counselors special education assistants instructional assistants school secretaries and office managers attendance secretaries the district has the funding in hand and ongoing funding necessary to provide reasonable salary increases for employees the district does not have a structural deficit the district spent less money last year during the pandemic than the year before there has been cut of more than 20 million dollars there have been new ongoing funds of more than 10 million dollars the
035district has the money to purchase textbooks and new tech you have the money to provide reasonable salary increases our students deserve the best and in order to attract and retain the best you must improve wages benefits and working conditions thank you foreign [Music] hello I'm Jennifer Cruz I am legal guardian to one of your students um who is currently in between schools um this is because the district decided to end the contract they had with the non-public school um Seneca Oliveira um we were apprehensive but we gave the district a chance to prove that they could take this program program in-house we had a lot of concerns we've met with the director of special education and she assured us that it would remain the same Staffing levels at that school the same amount of support
036at that school and despite our apprehension we gave the school a chance um this we were notified 16 months ago that this was going to change and to this day none of those promises have been fulfilled I had to pull my child out of school because it was physically too dangerous for her to be there she was threatened and cussed at Daily but it wasn't until things started being thrown at her and her being physically assaulted on campus that I had to pull her out of school the district is refusing to allow her to attend the Seneca school that is moved just to Brentwood and decided it might be better off for her to go all the way to Alameda to be in school it's ridiculous she has regressed so much emotionally and academically they
037are not meeting her IEP goals they're not even attempting to anymore it's ridiculous and change needs to happen this is our most vulnerable population students who have suffered severe traumas that affect their their education they're not getting the support they need thank you when they have friends followed by Daniel Chavez they changed my school in fifth grade I then I had to go to a new school in sixth grade because I was transitioning to Middle School in seven in seventh grade they sent me back to school I originally attended in fifth grade then they sent me to Seneca Oliver in eighth grade which is where I finally felt safe I was able to build positive bonds with staff and students I was making a lot of progress socially and academically as an example um is
038me being on the honor roll every quarter I finally felt said I finally settled and my plan was to finish high school at Seneca Oliveira I started to I started to love being at school and I developed a self-confidence that I never had because of good because of good grades and I was getting a positive getting positive interactions with teachers this also this has been affecting many other students at that school as well thank you Daniel Chavez followed by Christy Merrick pretty much this is how my school day looks I walk into school and I feel like a fool and I see it I walk in I turn around the corner I see a girl laying on the floor no staff around her no no one there to help her her just laying there it's
039like if you're in that type of mental like feeling that type of way or it can't even like be at school why are you there and you're not getting credits like I've been going to school I've been going to Glenbrook for a year and a half I have seven credits I've been going every day where are my credits I'd help the same girl no staff or nothing around she just ran out in the street want to get hit by a car I I just staff would just stand there and watch I try to I went didn't go on the road I just tried talking to her tried helping her like it's not a school feels like I'm that many shut up this shit's pissing me off I I don't know what to do anymore I
040don't know what I need to do just so I can graduate and do what I need to do as a human being to succeed in life and better just live like it pisses me off like I I don't know what to do that's what y'all are here for and I don't see no hope my whole school the staff are putting in their own what you're supposed to be giving them their own money just to get stuff for our school I don't call it a school that just pisses me off thank you [Applause] I'd like to ask staff to follow up on the Seneca issues with the people who've spoken tonight please foreign followed by Marianne Johnson [Music] take your time hi my name is Christina this is my 11th year in the district as a
041credentialed school nurse um still advocating for better better medical insurance coverage exhibit a day um would be really amazing um because it's otherwise essentially a pay cut with increased costs of Insurance I'm still advocating for an increase in salary um additionally last time I was here three weeks ago the School nurses of roughly there's about 14 FTE of us had covered over 100 out of job classifications whether an sea or LVN now since the beginning of the year we've covered over 170 of those um and we are yet to be paid for anything over three hours out of that job classification like we used to board members Dr Clark um you can help us um it would be fantastic if you could please talk to the district to pay us for the work that we
042used to get paid for like how teachers get paid for covering a class during prep it's kind of like that but it's not just covering one hour or two or three or four it's covering one school two schools three schools six hours as an sea please pay us for what we've been doing and what we've been getting we were previously getting paid because also that's another pay cut thank you [Applause] Marianne Johnson followed by Kathleen Garcia hello superintendent Clark and members of the board I'm Marianne Johnson one of the credential School nurses for the district and I want to tell you that we need more people specifically more District seas albeits and School nurses every day we're playing musical personnel as we struggle to cover students and procedures that need to be done because there
043are not enough of us to go around we School nurses are all doing someone else's job for part of the school day I personally go to one of my Forest science schools every single day to perform a procedure that should be done by an sea but there isn't one the procedure takes a minimum of one hour 15 minutes to perform not including traveling to and from one school to the school where the procedure is done this adds up to more than 30 hours a month that I'm doing someone else's job instead of the one I'm supposed to be doing I hated that the district is benefiting financially by making fewer staff cover student needs we're being told to ask parents to chaperone on field trips parents with special ed kids because we do not have
044the Personnel to accompany them it has been reported that the district bargaining team has refused to lower school nurse caseloads nor increase the school nurse leads full-time equivalent as MD as Medea has proposed I would argue that the number one job of our district is to keep students safe at school number two is to equip them to be able to attend school and to learn number three is to give them an education I'm tired of hearing that there's no money for this what we can afford is a matter of priorities and this should be your and our first priority thank you thank you and the last speaker in this section of the agenda is Kathleen Garcia foreign Garcia my son uh Daniel Chavez was just up here speaking a moment ago I'm sorry for his
045language but he's very passionate and very driven for his education he's been through a lot what he was receiving with the Seneca program was everything the structure the whole setup of the program was exactly what he needed and what it was designed for where he attends now at Olive or at Glenbrook he's not receiving any of that I feel like I'm sending my child to a Romper Room every day there's no structure he's not learning he's not gaining any credits we're very upset we're just um there's there's a lot and there's a lot of history that I'm there's no way I'm going to be able to get through in a minute so I will be going ahead and addressing in an email or whatever I need to do further but I just want it to
046be known that uh we have parents that are very upset and not happy with how our children are being treated because they are not gaining what they need and that's that's all I have to say right now thank you very much people all right that concludes our public comment thank you all for your respectful participation in this meeting you did put in a card I'm sorry come on up if we missed it oh Rachel yes go ahead good evening um I'm speaking tonight as a parent to a six-year-old and a nine-year-old who previously were students in this District who I'm homeschooling this year until they're vaccinated um and I just wanted to reflect on some of the reasons why I have serious concerns about sending my kids back to school in this District um and
047it's probably not for the reasons you're thinking I I'm hearing all these comments tonight and honestly these people are the village helping me raise my kids and you guys all recognize that by adding this whole other layer of Education called socioeconomic uh associ I'm sorry social emotional learning um which are behavioral things that really should be handled at home historically that is I'm a social worker that's historically where these things have been taught and asking that putting that on their plates without giving them additional resources and additional pay is giving them additional stress and to me that's not a healthy environment for me to send my child into I understand the need for the social emotional learning but this isn't really the right atmosphere for it the classes are too big egg um like I
048said I'm a social worker I'm a mental health professional and the thought of this being administered incorrectly is really scary to me because it could be quite damaging to these kids so I I know that you all care I don't question your motives for being on this board but I'm hoping that you'll take a step back and really look at the big picture of what this institution is supposed to be and why we as parents should feel comfortable sending our kids here because right now I really don't and it's not because of their efforts it's because of the strain that we've put on them as a society to be infection control people they're supposed to make sure that kids aren't being abused make sure they're being fed make sure that they're learning academically and now
049have to teach them how to behave in public that to me is too much and and it's a safety issue to me to put them in charge of 35 kids in a small confined space without additional resources so please take a step back and really look at the big picture they need more money and they need more resources thank you [Applause] okay thank you so I believe that concludes our public comment for this evening and next we have communications from our district organizations item 9.1 at regular board meetings a single spokesperson of each recognized District organization may make a brief presentation items are limited to those which are informational uh so we'll begin with Annie Nolan from CSE superintendent board audience I'm here to speak on a lot of issues actually I need to speak
050on that other issue over there Glenbrook Academy that we started and you will hear it in here we are not trained and we are not qualified to do some of that work and they know that you know I know the district knows that because they want to make me another classification to train to help these children that hasn't happened so I do understand what they're saying back there anyway I didn't plan on saying that but after listening to that um you have employees that have worked here for 20 years 30 years and more you need to respect that with decent wages at the beginning of the year I had a hundred or more job openings I realized for the audience these are your Seas these are your campus supervisors these are the people that take
051care of your children I had 100 job openings I realized that we have hired some we have hired not hired enough special Edge assistants my members are getting hurt they're exhausted because of not having enough help to take care of the students and unfortunately we have students this year that we are not equipped we are not trained to handle some of the students some of my members are put in very dis dangerous situations the district wanting to hire more supervision because of some of the Tick-Tock issues and slap a teacher and tear up bathrooms so they decided to add security well here's what you're going to get for security they are hiring people to work 45 minutes a day for a year I wouldn't get dressed for 45 minutes that's just me of I had
052a better solution but they didn't want to hear it would probably actually save them money um we are in dire need of help my members are going out on workers comp they're leaving they can't keep this pace up if you plan on hiring or keeping your employees you need to come up with better wages you should be thanking your employees every day for those that have hung in here instead of complaining or not wanting to pay them a little extra working longer hours to help the students shame on you for not wanting to pay your employees for work when we are so short-handed people do not want to work where employees are not treated well and there's a lot of jobs out there thank you next we have Mark Jones good evening board members Dr
053Clark what has happened to this District I hear this often when I'm out amongst our members along with I don't even I don't ever remember it being this bad or it never used to be this way as illustrated by the show of solidarity between all the unions this is not a sentiment shared exclusively by Teamster members but it's a systemic problem that's going on across the district after over three years at the table we are still miles apart from where we need to be for the entirety of the last school year the only offer we ever saw from the district was Zero I've explained to the board before that I can understand the need to tighten their belt when times are tough but let's look at last year were times really that tough in the
054last year and while the district's offer was still zero we saw management reclassifications that brought along with them have to be raises and while the district offer was still zero our members were forced to use up their vacation time during coveted shutdowns to the detriment of the operations they were being asked to leave it was an unprecedented move to save the on the bottom line all the while the district's offer was Zero within the last year the district is brought in excuse me within the last year the district has brought has bought a new White Fleet hot spots and new computers in Tech all good things but while the district offer about all the while the district the districts offered their dedicated employees that have not received the cost of living increases since 2017 has
055been zero right now the district is standing at a precipice if the district continues down this path and chooses to treat their employees in this manner it will ultimately be the students that suffer there has recently been a great effort put forth to recruit by offering stipends and higher steps in the seller's schedule for income employees again good thanks however there has been no effort in retaining your current long-time and dedicated employees what are you waiting for after over three years at the table the time is now I want the board to be response I want the board to be responsible stewards with the district funds but I have great news for you there is no budget deficit there is a budget surplus you can't afford to provide all District employees the Races they deserve
056that is why Teamsters 856 will be standing with in solidarity with CSEA Medea CST and mudspa until we reach till we reach a fair offer from the district thank you [Applause] okay next we have Carmen Tyrannosaurus good evening board members Dr Clark Mount Diablo Unified School District Community my name is Carmen taronis Torres asked me local one CST unit president shop Stewart my CST unit negotiated I've been unemployed for the district for 24 years I started in special ed and now in student services as you are all aware we have been in bargaining since late June 2021. we met with your team six times the last one was last Friday October 8th our next negotiating meeting is Monday October 18th the most recent round of negotiations the district team told us we must prioritize races
057which we are glad they got part of the message right but then they went ahead to use that against uh as an excuse to reject economic proposals and continue to try and chip away at other key components of our contract such as the grievance procedure that CST employees have had for as long as I can remember they also propose making it harder to get the out of class pay which so many of our members do on a regular basis we currently have nine secretary positions vacant district-wide mainly at the um at the sites I've lost my track okay which means my current members are working out of class and most of them don't even bother putting a timesheet why because it's so ridiculous they're being their integrity is being questioned here how can you do
058two jobs how to save time you need to put minute by minute that you're actually working the other job it has taken us grievances to finally get nine people paid services that came from last year who finally got that settled so thank you if you were involved with that thank you very much my 907 members got paid or will be paid next month let me tell you very soon you will have no CST members working out of class I am making the time to teach my members to to stick to their desk and forget the rest if the district doesn't value the extra work we do then maybe one of this highly pay administrators should actually go over there and do the job the district proposal proposed was a meager wage increase which is the
059first race our members and I think mostly all District employees will get in almost five years two percent of schedule one time that doesn't count to Calpers two percent for 22 23 on schedule um race and then going back to the table for the 23 24. we know what that means we've been in that position in the past we get nothing when we go back to the table so we don't believe that anymore the district wants to update the need to agreement in our contract why there's no need but they want to do that this is a a poison pln divisive we understand as well as you that we need to maintain the district Financial Health the latest fake mic report warned that the financial information that you are receiving from the fiscal department is
060not always accurate and let me tell you I agree with them we believe that the Board needs accurate financial data based on the unaudited actual for the 2021 the estimated expensive per hour fiscal Department would be 11.3 million more than the revenue that unaudited access show the revenue was 14.2 million more than the expenses the fiscal Department estimates were off by 52.5 million dollars meaning there's money there's money to get Fair wages for everyone everyone the compounded caller the district received for 2018 to 2024 is 18.8 percent we haven't gotten anything in the last five years gas is almost five dollars a gallon utilities have increased child care has increased I have members moving back with their parents members having roommates I haven't heard that since my kids were in college the CST salary proposal
061actually it's six percent for 21.22 six percent for twenty two twenty three six percent for 23.24 the CST unit believes there is no structural deficit and has not been a deficit in any you're going back to 2023 2013 yeah which between 23 I'll be out of here uh the savings from the Korean cat from 2019 have not been spent the unrealistic projected badges from the CBO are making it difficult for you to support our economic proposals the district has indicated that it doesn't want to be in bargaining for years this round of negotiations with us believe me we don't want to be there either you the board have the power to change the tone of these negotiations and we ask that you do everything in your power to move that message to give that message
062to your negotiators the district can afford what we're asking for we stand in solidarity with Medea CSEA Teamsters as well as the maspa and we will not pity against each other and we'll be organizing together for just contracts that benefit our members families and our students our students to shop the best and to give that to them we need a fair salary raise now something just very personal I'm gonna add here because I just got the call I need a new pair of hearing aids that you probably already know I'm hard of hearing so right now I don't have my hearing aids so if people are talking about me I can't hear it but they cost seven thousand dollars for my two assets the insurance only covers five hundred dollars so that knows where I'm
063gonna get the money to be able to um do my job that because I am a secretary so I answer phone calls I talk to parents daily so how am I going to get what I need to do my job with this miserable salary that I have for the last five years thank you [Applause] thank you Anita Johnson good evening I'm Anita Johnson president of Mount Diablo Education Association my pronouns are she and her Medea is a United group of Educators working together for the benefit of the students of the Mount Diablo Unified School District our students deserve the best we've been hearing a lot about the importance of having high expectations of students even when they are experiencing challenging circumstances I agree that high expectations are good and high high expectations of this board
064and your managers even though we are all experiencing challenging circumstances we deserve a raise your employees in all bargaining units and all job categories have worked hard to continue to meet student needs despite the pandemic and despite the complications of returning to in-person schooling we need a raise it was just announced today that the Consumer Price Index has increased by more than five percent this year we have bills to pay and those bills are going up too many of us are having to work two and three jobs and move back in with our parents some of us will not be able to stay in this district there is funding for a reasonable raise there is no structural deficit most of your employees have been in this district for dozens of years as have most of
065you we have seen administrators come and go we are committed to the students of this District we can see the failure to resolve negotiations will have terrible impacts on our students you are in charge the fate of our students is in your hands we have high expectations of you we believe that students deserve the best what do you believe we stand in solidarity with Teamsters CSEA CST and Mitzvah and we will fight to get what is fair foreign good evening members of the board Dr Clark and members of the cabinet before I begin I just want to start out by saying thank you to miss Heffron and Mr Chavez for coming up here and speaking I know how hard it can be to comp and advocate for yourself and a room with strangers and so
066I just want to shout out to them thank you guys for speaking and advocating for yourself and your needs I think that's amazing um I stand Here honored and proud to be representing the Mount Diablo school psychologist Association while I hold this honor I must acknowledge the difficulties our union members have been faced with so far this school year we've lost over 25 percent of our members this past year and are concern that this number will only increase our members continue to provide support to our most high-need student population despite working with less support sites are impacted assessment requests are piling up our Counseling Clinic is currently having to waitlist students and it is only October our members are spread thin thinner than usual this is not okay we understand that shortage store shortages exist
067everywhere however has anyone considered asking the question why now I know the board and Dr Clark as well as other cabinet members continue to hear reasons related to lack of adequate pay as a big reason why this is happening and some may even acknowledge this as truth as I have said before investing in your employees is investing in your students we believe our students matter and as such we believe their services are worth investing in in looking through our budget it's clear that there's a lot of creativity that has gone in to creating these spreadsheets such as leaving out the five percent cost of living that was allocated to all schools by the state of California and while there are one-time covid funds why have those numbers been left out the unions and District May
068disagree on things but they're comes along with being a human being we ask that the district operate with stability when it feels as though money is being moved and left out of the budget in order to not provide adequate salary increases it feels disrespectful and employees get upset lose trust and end up leaving to find employment in other places where they will feel valued and respected at the end of the day the ones who truly end up suffering are our students please help us continue to provide our students with necessary and quality services that they deserve and need please invest in us and in them lastly I want to acknowledge my other colleagues in the room now while they may not be in my unit they still remain my colleagues the Seas and teachers that
069work with me to support my students the registrars that help my students register for school and give them their final official transcript when they graduate the custodians that clean up our campus and help keep it safe and sanitary the office managers and attendance clerks who are always on our front lines helping not only our students but us when we need to find our office spaces or need to know if a student went home early thank you all lastly I want to acknowledge that the Mount Diablo school psychologist Association stands United with CST csca Medea and Teamsters thank you [Applause] thank you very much that concludes item 9.1 all right thank you all for speaking this evening now we'll move on to item 10.0 recognitions and resolutions item 10.1 review and potential approval of resolution 2122-13
070proclaiming October 23rd to October 31st 2021 as Red Ribbon Week after click and I realize we have a number of resolutions on the agenda tonight um each one of these is ones you know something that has come from a staff member or a teacher who values this work so will be patient with the long list there's a lot of important items thank you president count so before the board we would like to bring forward resolution for Red Ribbon Week 2021 resolution 21 slash 22-13 whereas Alcohol and Other Drug abuse in this nation has reached epidemic stages and whereas substance abuse is particularly damaging to one of our most valuable resources our children so be it further resolve that the governing board of Mount Diablo Unified School District urges its students parents Guardians teachers administrators and
071employees to take the pledge ongoing support of the 2021 Red Ribbon Week theme that drug that drug free looks like me with that I leave this resolution in the hands of the board thank you Dr Clark do I hear a motion on this item Madam president I move that the board approved resolution 21 22 number 13 proclaiming October 23rd through October 31st 2021 as Red Ribbon Week I'll second that thank you motion by trustee Mayo second by trustee Mason any discussion on this item yes trusty and Xavier Dr Clark said this is a long agenda you don't have to speak on everything do you that's what he told me today and I said why yes I do but almost everything is only like two sentences long so I just want to say that some really
072other effective ways to keep folks from turning to drugs to cope is to make sure people have the food they need housing family sustaining wages strong connections to other people health care including mental health care I want to thank all the mdusd community who work towards making these things happen for our students and community all right thank you okay shall we take this item to a vote trustee Fowler we'll do student vote by voice yes all right thank you trustee Fowler and the rest of us can click our buttons to be able to electronically vote motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member thank you very much next item 10.2 review and potential approval of resolution 2122-19 in recognition of Dyslexia Awareness Month um we do have a public comment on this item
073Rachel Del Carlo Levy well we gotta turn on the mic Rachel you got to turn it on you can turn it on on the top there no no the microphone sorry about that all right that's okay okay so hi there I'm Rachel I'm a regional leader with decoding dyslexia California a Grassroots movement of California parents teachers and professionals concerned with the limited access to educational interventions for dyslexia and other language-based learning disabilities in our Public Schools our goal is to raise dyslexia awareness Empower families to support their children and in foreign policy makers on best practices to identify remediate and support students with dyslexia in public schools I'm also a graduate of Mount Diablo Unified Schools I'm dyslexic and I'm a parent of a dyslexic student in our district my personal Journey with dyslexia as
074well as advocating for a child with dyslexia and our district has been very insightful and frustrating but it has led me to the path of advocacy I have seen the students that have received the resources needed to become successful and I have seen the students that have been left behind I want to thank the board Dr Clark Dr Wendy aguily for acknowledging dyslexia awareness month and also for allowing our dyslexia subcommittee through the CAC the opportunity to help update the resolution to be more aligned with the California dyslexia guidelines I want to give an extra special thank you to Dr Kathy fetterman our very own dyslexia specialist who through her expertise has been helping lead our district to make necessary changes to make it a better place for dyslexic students to learn I would like
075to encourage all of our Educators administrators and parents to work together to continue the work towards supporting early screening for risk of dyslexia multi-sensory evidence-based remediation programs for General Ed and special education students who show signs of dyslexia teacher support teacher training on dyslexia it's warning signs and accommodation strategies that can help students with dyslexia dyslexics also need access and training to assistive technology tools for students with dyslexia thank you so much thank you very much Miss Levy and thank you also to the CAC uh subcommittee on dyslexia for your assistance with this resolution so with that Dr Clark yes so we bring to the board a resolution for dyslexia awareness month and so whereas does Lexia is defined as a specific learning disability that is a neurobiological in origin and is characterized by difficulties
076with accuracy and or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities that are often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction now therefore be it resolved at the governing board of the Mount Diablo Unified School District recognizes that dyslexia has significant educational implications that must be addressed and designate October 2021 as dyslexia awareness month this item is now in the hands of the board thank you very much Dr Clark do we have a motion on this item I'll move to approve resolution 21-22-19 dyslexia Awareness Month second thank you motion by trustee McFerrin second by trustee Felder any discussion on this item s this item does close uh pay close to my heart just because my brother does struggle with dyslexia and I've watched him he was
077a Monte elbow student as well he just graduated last year but I watched him struggle and I know I don't personally know how hard it is but I am just so proud of the students who get through their obstacles with learning and I wanted to put that out there that just keep trying my brother did it and I know you can too so that's that's all I had to say about it thank you trustee Fowler trustee and zerry literally literacy is a civil right yet black children across the country are not diagnosed appropriately including misdiagnosis leading to their intense struggles with reading disengaging from school over discipline and combined with bias and racism contributing to the school of prison pipeline I just want to thank so much to the folks within our own District who
078I know raise this issue and are fighting in every way possible to make sure children are diagnosed and receive the support they need to become strong readers thank you very much shall we take this to a vote all right trustee Feller yes all right and the rest of us can click on the electronics motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member thank you so much all right so that takes us to item 10.3 review and potential approval of resolution 2122-20 in recognition of disability month Dr Clark yes president count um we bring before the board resolution 21-22-20 disability awareness month for October 2021 whereas a significant number of people with disabilities throughout history have been recognized nationally and internationally as positive role models for their significant contributions in many fields so be it
079therefore resolved that the Board of Education of the Mount Diablo Unified School District at all schools in this District be strongly encouraged to teach about and celebrate disability awareness during October 21 and throughout the year president count this item is now in the hands of the board thank you do I hear a motion on this item Madam president I move that the board approved October uh approved resolution 20 21 number 19 uh declaring disability awareness month for the month of October I'll second that even though I thought it was March was disability month but we're going to do in October okay see you every month motion my trustee man second by trustee Mason any discussion on this item disabilities can be visible and invisible so to all the people who navigate this world that most
080often is not designed with you in mind and especially to our mdusd parents teachers and staff who are stretched so thin but never waver in their advocacy for our students with disabilities thank you thank you very much trustee and Zoe also I wanted to mention on the previous item although these two are related that item 18.5 later on in our agenda will be a report on the dyslexia screener pilot study for so for so for those of you who are interested in that issue right any other discussion on the disability month resolution we'll take it to a vote trustee Fowler yes thank you we are clicking motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member thank you very much next we have 10.4 review and potential approval of resolution 2122-21 in recognition of anti-bullying
081Awareness Month Dr Clark great I bring to you tonight resolution 21-22-21 anti-bullying awareness month for October 2021 whereas the Mount Diablo Unified School District local control accountability plan goals indicates in quotes all students will receive a high quality education in a safe and welcoming environment now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education of the Mount Diablo Unified School District declares October as anti-bullying awareness month and the superintendent and other appropriate staff will initiate anti-bullying activities at all schools among all students to be planned coordinated and implemented by the individual school students and staff be it further resolved that the Board of Education encourages parents Guardians and the community to support the work of the students and staff I now put this item in the hands of the board thank you very much and
082I hear a motion on this item I move that we approve resolution 21 22-21 in recognition of anti-bullying Awareness Month I'll second thank you motion by trustee and Zoe second by trustee Fowler any discussion on this item interesting Siri although this month is focused on bullying among children I hope the adults in the room all in the world stop and Ponder how we may be bullying children as my youngest cousin experienced or bullying other adults in person or online it's easy to be mean and disrespectful through a keyboard and it's just as harmful to the person on the receiving end I might be stealing your thunder but there's a website full of resources it's a government website stopbowling.gov that covers all types of bullying in-person cyber all of it for students thank you trustee and
083zerry no thunderstorming appreciate that thank you no but I think you're right there are a lot of good resources out there um but point taken I think um that are the other piece of this is that uh the youth are watching the adults and how they interact and learning from us and so our behavior is very important in all of this and I would encourage if you really are against bullying that you get off of Facebook Snapchat Twitter Instagram that is where the bullying's happening that happening that they just had a congressional hearing about the damage that Instagram does to people and the more you join in the Facebook you support the people that aren't willing to step up and do what they need to do to cut out the bullying that happens online because
084it's a lot easier to be a jerk to someone online than do it to their face foreign any further discussion on this item okay we'll take it to a vote trustee Fowler yes thank you motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member thank you very much all right this takes us to item 10.5 review and potential approval of resolution 2122-26 for the state seal of Civic engagement Dr Clark yes and I um I only wish that our um our um past um student trustee alas was here to um to help us in this process but I do want to recognize Jen sacks and Samantha Allen and their teams um for for really seeing this through and so um so I will go ahead and turn it over for a brief presentation and then
085I'll read the rest I'll read the first and last paragraph of the resolution absolutely well thank you very much for allowing us to do a very brief presentation on the state seal of Civic engagement so the State Board of Education actually adopted criteria as well as guidelines in September of 2020 in our prior trustee Michelle alas was somebody that actually brought this to our attention as you did President count as so we're very excited to have had one of our district coaches Jeannie Johnson work with our history and social studies Department chairs in order to kind of move this initiative forward as I said this is a seal that was approved by the state and it really encourages students to become civically engaged in a Democratic Society and not only at the local level but
086the state and National levels as well so that being said I'm going to hand over the presentation to Genie good evening president members of the board Dr Clark and the Mount Diablo Unified Community I'm representing the Mount Diablo Civic engagement committee which includes teachers students administrators Community stakeholders and the district social science department in general this evening I am bringing before you a resolution to adopt the criteria for earning the state seal of Civic engagement um let me just right there um in um in 2017 the assembly Bill 24 instructed the California Department of Education to come up with with the criteria for awarding this um this this seal in September 2020 the CDE released five criteria and um as far as eligibility all California 11th and 12th graders are eligible to earn this award
087the Hallmark of the state seal is accessibility to all students regardless of their backgrounds communities and experiences therefore the seal may be placed and high school diplomas GED certificates certificates of completion and or transcripts the state seal criteria are listed here these are the ones that the California Department of Education came up with and so we formed a Civic engagement Committee in 2020 and our goals were um through there were three goals one is to interpret the CDE criteria the second one was to create tk-12 Pathways that encouraged and awarded students who are civically engaged and three to develop instructional support for teachers to Foster Civic engagement from an early age here are the five criteria that our team came up with we put them out to stakeholders for feedback and comments and then finalized
088them last spring uh here is uh our ed services website these are collapsible and they give more information for um staff and then finally here is um a student toolkit so they can see their um state seal completion all the way through submission thank you very much thank you so again I just want to thank the committee at large it was absolutely a collaborative effort and actually our work was being highlighted across the county at one of the County Office of Education meetings when they heard about Jeannie and the rest of the team and and what they've been able to pull together um and so again we appreciate you listening and hopefully approving the resolution thank you thank you so much I hear a motion on this item well I should probably read it excuse
089me let me let you read it yeah but I do I want to thank um Genie Genie Johnson it was it yes so when um when trustee Aloft brought this to me she thought it could be done in like a week and so I really appreciate the the work that went into this because there was a committee form that they did put a lot into this so um so anyway not to put any pressure on a trusty Fowler over there she's already working on many many things I know but um but anyway this is this uh celebratory time so state seal of Engagement whereas in October 2017 Governor Jerry Brown signed assembly Bill 24 into law requiring the superintendent of Public Instruction on or before January 1 2020 to recommend to the State Board of
090Education criteria for awarding a state seal of Civic engagement to pupils who have demonstrated excellence in Civics education and participation in an understanding of the United States Constitution the California Constitution and the democratic system of government now therefore be it resolved at the Mount Diablo Unified School District hereby supports the schools in their effort to provide opportunities for all students to earn the Seal of Civic engagement by providing Civic learning instructional resources and technical assistance to schools and calls on education communities to provide local schools in district with appropriate resources support and opportunities to strengthen students Civic learning capacities to appropriately address real world problems in our Democratic Society and with that I put it now in the hands of the board thank you very much who would like to make a motion on this
091item I moved to approve resolution 21 22-26 for the state seal of Civic engagement ssce second that thank you motion by trustee Fowler second by trustee Mason any discussion on this item interesting Theory so I've been super passionate about Civic engagement for as long as I can remember it was even the basis of the project I worked on as a Vista volunteer series it's been 26 years since the eurovista and she would I and coincidentally were Vistas at the same time in the same city um but also a facilitating Community Civic engagement in our community has been a Hallmark of my career ever since I just have a quick well a quote from MLK he said um one of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through
092great periods of social change every society has its Protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake to adjust to new ideas to remain Vigilant and to face the challenge of change and I think that with the Civic um seal of Engagement and especially the fact that it applies to everything a student can earn through our district we will ensure that we have students who meet that final part of of this quote is students who are who have an ability to adjust to new ideas and remain diligent thank you so much trustee and Zoe any other discussion on the set of trustee Mason I would just say it comes at a very timely manner in our
093country when we have elected officials that don't understand what the Constitution means don't understand what democracy is so I think the more that we can educate our youth so someday trustee Fowler can be up there showing them how to do things positively and what it means to defend the Constitution I think it's a good reminder to all of us that and I think as always Dr King was way ahead of his time in telling us not to Take Your Eye Off the Ball thank you trustee Mason trustee Fowler wow you guys just really took everything I was just about to say um but one of my goals as being student board members to educate students about this and about the award and the state seal of Civic engagement and it is something I will definitely
094include on my social media and within regarding the student advisory committee I'll definitely get the word out there and educate and have a separate meeting just for this amazing opportunity foreign thank you trustee Fowler I think trustee alas would be very very proud yeah and I I think the other key to this is for students to realize that they don't need to wait to be civically engaged it's not something that only adults do um and we we've always had students who have been very civically engaged I know trustee Fowler was down at the state capitol not too long ago speaking at the state legislature as well we have many many students that are civically engaged and and to recognize that with this seal I think shows the value that we have on a student's voice
095and students ability to really lead now and not have to wait you know until after graduation to begin to be active uh voices and leaders in the community so I'm really excited about this opportunity and yes I think experience as a as an Americorps Vista volunteer uh leads to a lifetime of Civic engagement it's just what happens all right uh so any more discussion on this items we'll take it to a vote trustee Fowler yes thank you motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member thank you all so much and thank you again to staff for all the work and the committee that had to come together to make this possible I think that's absolutely true Dr Clark that that happens uh you know even at the state level I think when something
096like this is created it's it's assumed you know that it could just easily be implemented but really it takes people at every level um to engage with it to uh to to make it feasible and accessible to every student at every school so thank you very very much okay with that that takes us to item 10.6 review and potential approval of resolution 2122-27 recognizing October as Filipino American History Month Dr Clark whereas it is necessary to instill in our youth the importance of Education history and self-determination in creating imminent role models and establishing a proud cultural identity and producing exceptional citizens of this nation whereas efforts should continue to promote the Filipino American history and culture because the roles of Filipino Americans and other people of color have been overlooked in the writing teaching and
097learning of the United States history and therefore be it resolved that the governing board of the Mount Diablo Unified School District proclaims October as Filipino American History Month and that all educational sites are encouraged to commemorate this occasion accordingly with appropriate instructional materials discussions presentations and projects and with that I leave this item in the hands of the board thank you very much Dr Greg do we have a motion on this item Madam president I moved the board approved resolution 21 uh Slash 20-20 um proclaiming October as Filipino American History Month oh second thank you motion by trustee Mayo second by trustee and zayway any discussion on this item Madam president that should read 21-22-27. in the motion yes oh okay 21-22-27 thank you for that correction all right any discussion on this item Justin
098um it wasn't until a few well several years ago when then assemblyman Rob bonta introduced a successful bill in 2013 that now requires the role of Filipino Americans in the farm worker movement to be included in California's curriculum that I had even an inkling of how without them there may not have been that great movement I always focus on farmworker stuff because I'm from the Central Valley it all happened where I grew up so California is such an integral part of Filipino American history that the national Filipino American National Historical Society museum is right here in Stockton um the society has a page on Facebook and that page is called Filipino American History Month where I checked it out today they're sharing um resources um they're posting like not daily but over the month um
099and knowledge that we can all use so I encourage you to visit it if you're on the Facebook just for that not for bullying reasons thank you very much trustee and saying any other comments on this I don't trustee uh I am happy we're honoring October as Filipino American History Month I think this is one step closer to Unity and representing all students of color which is very important at this time uh this month honors the history Pursuits and accomplishments and Legacies of Filipinos in the United States thank you and I would like to especially thank Miss Leslie Amor Harris thanks for Riverview who presented this res the draft of this resolution to us to make it possible that they've made it to the board meeting this evening and I believe that this perhaps is
100the first time that this board has passed a resolution on Filipino American history month at least as long as I've been on the board so I really appreciate that so should we take it to a vote trusty Fowler yes thank you motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member and with that I would like to invite Miss Harris up to speak to this thank you sorry thank you hoping my phone doesn't die while I'm talking um my name is Aussie Moore Harris I'm a counselor at Riverview Middle School I am so appreciative of the trustee superintendent Clark and president count for recognizing October 2021 as Filipino American History Month as someone who is a filipino-american this is especially important to me since majority of our history along with countless other bypoc history has
101been overlooked and not shared in our history classes the resolution quickly mentions some of the contributions including Lara italong's advocacy with Farm Workers veterans in our armed forces in multiple Wars and just in these almost two years of the pandemic Filipino doctors nurses and health care workers who have placed their lives on the line to take care of coveted patients there are so many other ways Filipinos and Filipino Americans have contributed to our history especially in the Bay Area that many of us including me don't know about Contra Costa County Office of Education has provided resources to discuss filipino-american history about this month which schools like Riverview and Ignacio Valley High have shared at Riverview I'm excited to work with my fellow filipino-american colleague and special education teacher Marius Cebu on a lesson about our
102heritage specifically about paroles and ornamental Lantern usually put up during the holiday season I see this as a starting point for mdusd to recognize and teach our Filipino American history and all other histories that have since been left out I look forward to hearing more stories about how others are celebrating this month thank you so much Mr Moore Harris much appreciated and thank you for all of your efforts 10.7 review and potential approval of board resolution 2122-28 for personnel with professional internship permits I'm going to turn that over to Dr Rubio good evening board members I have before you for your consideration of resolution to review and potentially approve um 21 sports 22-28 for personnel with provisional internship permits as you know this permit provides applicants with additional time to complete their subject matter requirements
103and we have it for you this evening two teachers for which we are seeking approval thank you very much do I hear a motion on this item I would make emotions that we approved or resolution 21-22-28 for personnel with provisional internship permits second thank you motion by trustee Mason second by trustee Mayo any discussion on this item we'll take it to a vote trustee Fowler yes thank you I'm just waiting for the last click did you just go in oh if you if you click syncs does that help [Music] we're having a technology shoe over here foreign okay okay there we go thank you very much uh motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member thank you all right item 10.8 review and potential approval of board resolution 2122-29 to authorize local assignment
104options this is going to be Dr Rubio again thank you again board members this is before you for your approval as the Education Code does allow us to have teachers with their consent who have enough semester units or graduate units teach in any subject between grades five and eight and we have before you request for one teacher to do math at Oak Grove Middle School they keep doing your emotion all moves at the board approved word authorization 21-22-29 localist um assignment option EC 44 258.2 I'll second that thank you motion by trustee McFerrin second by trustee Mason all right any discussion on this item we'll take it to a vote trustee Fowler yes thank you motion passes five zero with concurrence from our student board member thank you very much all right that takes us
105to our next section 11.0 Public Employee appointments yeah so um I'm going to introduce uh Mr shahy she's going to introduce our our next um our next five items and I and I just want to um depending on how the vote goes here but I want to officially welcome these five individuals to our team and um you know this is a this is a time in education that we that we um you know need new new blood in the profession and so we're very um very thrilled to be bringing forward um five potential employees so with that Mr shahe you can go right ahead alrighty Matthew Unified School District is pleased to bring for your review and potential approval Lisa Tom is the new vice principal at Pine Hollow Middle School Lisa was a special
106education special day class teacher prior to working as a special education administrator for the past three years at Mount Diablo Unified at least lives in Martinez with her wife Tara Lynn their son their three-year-old son Hudson and their two dogs I leave this appointment in the hands of the board thank you very much do I hear emotions we'll make a motion that we approve the appointment of Lisa Tom as Pine Hollow Middle School vice principal thank you motion by trustee Mason second by trustee Mayo we'll take it to a vote trustee Fowler yes thank you motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member come on up [Music] you'd like to introduce yourself and anyone here oh thank you so much all right um board members Dr Clark executive cabinet uh thank you so
107much for this opportunity to learn and grow in this new position I'm just really excited to work with the students families and the staff at Pine Hollow Middle so thank you very much all right congratulations Mount Diablo Unified School District is pleased to bring for your review and potential approval Mark Estrada Dennis as the new vice principal at Meadow homes Elementary School Mark is a graduate of San Francisco State and is joining mdusd with 20 years experience in education during the course of his time he's taught grades levels one through six and has three years experience the vice presidential vice principal in a middle school study Mark is the proud husband of Angela and together they have two strong-minded children who attend school in Mount Diablo I leave this appointment in the hands of the
108board thank you very much Madam president I moved with the board approved Mark Estrada Dennis as a vice principal at Meadow Hills Elementary School second thank you motion by trustee Mayo second by trustee McFerrin we'll take that to a vote trustee falvin yes thank you motion passes five zero with concurrence from our student board member welcome Mr Estrada Dennis I don't believe he could be here tonight okay all right Matt Diablo Unified School District is pleased to bring for your review and potential approval Amy Nichols as the new assistant director special education and a special education department a graduate from Chico Amy is taught as a special education specialist in Lafayette school district and Martinez Unified School District in both the elementary and middle school levels before becoming an administrator Amy served as a vice
109principal at Pleasant Hill Middle School and his principal at Morello Park Elementary School in Martinez Unified School District Amy is married and has two children and enjoys spending time with her family and watching her children play sports I leave this appointment in the hands of the board thank you very much Madam president I move that the board approved the appointment of Amelia Nichols as assistant director special education we'll second that motion by trustee Mayo second by trustee Mason we'll take it to a vote trustee Fowler yes thank you motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member um why not the trustees superintendent Clerk and executive cabinet I want to thank you for this opportunity to serve the students families and Mount Diablo staff and the special education department I look forward to advocating
110for our students and our staff to make sure we have positive outcomes for our students with special needs thank you for the opportunity congratulations thank you so much Mount Diablo Unified School District is pleased to bring for your review and potential approval David Lewis as the new program specialist special education for Glenbrook Academy and workability David began his career in education in 1998 as an education specialist with Craig Mart Academy which later became options in education which he assisted in starting and worked as a Lead Teacher David also co-founded and was the director of the Stockton Educational Center David returned to public education as a moderate severe teacher in 2019. David has been married for 23 years and has four beautiful children I leave this appointment in the hands of the board thank you very
111much I move that we approved the appointment of David Lewis as program specialist special education at Glenbrook Academy and workability program oh second thank you motion by trustee and Zoe second by trustee Fowler we'll take that to a vote trustee Felder yes thank you motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member able to be here tonight Mount Diablo Unified School District is pleased to bring for your review and potential approval Shakira Durham as the new district-wide program specialist special education Dr Shakir Durham has 17 years of experience working in education particularly special education she has worked as a school counselor school psychologist program specialist and assistant director of special education Dr Durham enjoy spending time with her family reading music and fitness I leave this appointment in the hands of the board thank
112you do I hear a motion I move um to approve the appointment of Dr Shakira Durham as program specialist to the special for special education district-wide second thank you motion by trustee and Theory second by trustee Mayo I'll take that to a vote trustee Fowler yes motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member congratulations Miss Durham and I think that she's also not in attendance tonight all right I know these new appointees are ready to get to work that's good to see all right thank you so much congratulations it's good to see some new leadership coming in all right that moves us to 12.0 reports and information beginning with 12.1 Bond refinancing update okay test test okay good evening board uh superintendent and the rest of the executive cabinet um I'm Lisa Gonzalez
113and I want to introduce Greg Isom so Greg and John are the Eisen brothers from Isom advisors and what they've been working on is the entire refinancing of our bonds and we wanted to make sure as soon as we were done that Greg was able to come back and join us since his brother was here last time and so he's going to give us an update now that everything has been finished ready to go and just pretty basic Ally great good evening School Board Greg Isom hopefully my older brother did embarrass the family name last week or last month um so I am here to just give you an update um on the bond refinancing that we did for the school district uh the first couple bullet points here uh was what was shown last
114time it just shows the bonds that we actually refinanced going back to 2011. and 2012 um and as my brother explained that we are kind of in a near historic low interest rate environment which provides a fantastic opportunity for municipalities to refinance their debt um I kind of thought about putting the last bullet point at the end of the presentation but I thought you guys would just want to see right there okay so uh 48 million dollars was saved uh for the mount dabble Unified School District taxpayers foreign shouldn't be clapping right now because that's incredible it really is uh as I told your finance committee uh and I've done more probably refinancings than anyone in the state of California in the last 10 15 years and this is the second highest amount of savings
115that I've ever seen uh for a school district so pretty pretty incredible on this page right here um just to show you how volatile the interest rate environment has been uh at the right hand side you can see where it says the high uh in the last 20 years or so was a 6.01 which was October of 2008 uh right around when you know the stock market crash demon brothers and all that the low was a 2.02 in August of 2020 and we were able to lock in rates when rates were out of 2.15 percent I mean truly remarkable since that time um I had my analyst actually you know tell me well where have rates gone since it actually sold bonds they've actually gone up 13 basis points which doesn't sound like a whole
116lot until you hear that 13 basis points translates to three million dollars so how do we locked in rates this week it would have been 45 million dollars not 48 so you guys couldn't have timed it any better on page for the presentation uh this just kind of explains you know in true details the election when it was sold the Paramount the outstanding par refunded uh more just details there's nothing really that stands out from last time and to me what's truly important is the next page so on page five this is the actual um details from July when something's proposed to you guys which was hey maybe we just do this little teeny piece to August uh when the presentation showed hey we can save 40.9 million dollars and I think everyone was excited
117at 40.9 and then as he said sold the bonds September 48.7 million dollars now what's important to note you can see there's that that circle around the 22.03 typically when a school district um does a refinancing it's like a three to four percent is supposed to be like if it hits three to four percent financially pencils out 22 percent Net Present Value savings is is so high in this Bond um in the bond world that we live in what's important to note is that this money does not go to the district okay this this is savings to the taxpayers okay and what it means are the taxpayers for the average homeowner in the district over the span of these bonds it's going to save them about 500 bucks which is which is pretty cool you
118know most of these refundings Save Somebody Like a quarter you know or like a buck but 5 hundred dollars spread out over 16 years is that's real money that we're talking about so that's the average own homeowner you know think of some of your big businesses some of the largest taxpayers this is going to save them thousands upon thousands of dollars and unnecessary interest payments so that is the quick presentation for you guys I can answer any questions that you have questions thank you great thank you very much thank you have a good night really appreciate it and I and I just wanted I want to recognize Dr Gonzalez for her leadership in this matter um you know this is something that you know she really took the lead on and um and our taxpayers
119um you know are going to really benefit from this action so again thank you Dr Gonzalez really appreciate it thank you that takes us to item 12.2 the enrollment update and Dr Gonzalez is going to present this information and I'm going to have assistance with uh by Dr Gilly uh so let me we also do have a public comment on this item would you like to present first and then have the comment or would you like the comment first we have the presentation first all right so our outcome times the points that we're going to cover this evening include taking a look at the Statewide enrollment give you a snapshot of the last seven years in Mount Diablo Unified where we're actually jumping down into the grade ranges the impact of the end of hold
120harmless we're going to do a little bit of attendance Trends in those grade levels and some recommendations for districts that are facing declining enrollment so to start with I wanted to give you just a little bit of a snapshot into some of the Statewide Trends right now we're seeing declining enrollment pervasively across the state of California as a matter of fact in Fall of a year ago 160 000 students did not come back to school so October seabed's date which was last Wednesday October seabed's date is really the date that everybody in the state takes a look at and so what we're doing this evening is we're bringing you information not only historically but from what is in our school district calpads and what was reported to the state of course they go in and
121they verify everything but that's really what we're presenting tonight and so um we've always we've also made sure that on all of our slides we are sharing what the source is down on the bottom a year ago we saw that kindergarten dropped most significantly and unfortunately it's what we're continuing to see right now um and the reason that kindergarten is important is because most school districts use cohort survival we'll explain that a little later but what you do is you take your kindergartners and you look at the trend there and what we're seeing is that the birth rates in our County have been declining just like the rest of the state so what we've seen so far Statewide is that the three-year enrollment Trends there's really only one county in the state that has any
122growth whatsoever that is notable that did not see declining enrollment and that was Trinity County uh here's a real quick uh visual as to the enrollment Trends and again this goes uh this goes through uh the last report here which is uh end of September again this comes from the California Department of Education and school Services report and what they're showing is that Contra Costa County on the whole is down approximately three percent and then what we did was we also for the sake of of argument here wanted to pull some of our local counties as well so you see Solano Santa Clara and San Mateo are all down approximately five percent along with Marin County and then you see uh Alameda County and San Francisco down only two percent but what we're seeing here
123in the Bay Area is what we're hearing about Statewide we're really seeing some notable drops um one of the interesting pieces of data that we did pull up from the public policy Institute this came out in the spring is that what we're seeing is the enrollment of low-income students is dropping even more substantially and the reason that this is important especially in some of the grades that we're looking at here is because there are certain funds either supplemental or concentration that often come with students that are coming from different low-income groups and that is intended by the state and sometimes by the federal government to mitigate the impacts of poverty that we see so as we have declining enrollment and as we're seeing more students that are low income that are not coming back that
124does affect budgets uh this is another slide uh this slide is from the public policy Institute this comes from May of this last year and what you're able to see is you're able to see the enrollment decline pretty notable in some specific grade levels and again this is Statewide so you see kindergarten first second third all took notable drops as well as ninth grade a couple of updates from the Department of Education excuse me Department of Finance first of all what they take a look at is they take a look at Trends across the state because they're really making sure that the state is monitoring this but school districts are as well and again this comes from school Services just a couple of weeks ago and they're projecting through the 20 30 2031 school year
125so about the next nine years and they're projecting over the next nine years that half a million students will be leaving the state of California um they will no longer either be enrolling in public education or they will be going elsewhere and quite honestly if we talk to some of the folks that are in States like Idaho and Colorado uh and and Utah there's there's a mass Exodus here in California for a number of reasons but on top of all of that the birth rates are really impacting a lot of what it is that we're seeing so certainly we're in a really tumultuous time because we're not entirely sure what's going to happen from the pandemic as a matter of fact we've been talking to uh Davis demographics because certainly they came out with some
126demographic information and all of the demographers in the state of California were entirely off this year and that's because we all made some assumptions based on not only birth rates but what they were monitoring with with housing prices and movements there were some notable expectations that students were going to come back this year and that did not happen and not only did it not happen but even more students departed from the public school system and so that's a little bit about what uh what Dr agili is going to share next hello so as Lisa already spoke about um you know we're seeing these Trends in California and we're seeing similar Trends in our district we can see some of the numbers here I know they're very small um what we were kind of thinking I
127was looking at is okay are some of these kids going to online Charter Schools how many of these kids are going to private schools how many of them are being a home school Through The Homeschool affidavit process and we um yes probably all those things are happening but the truth of the matter is as a state as a whole they're low and so um just so um how we get this member we pull it out of our seabed census day that's always the first Wednesday in October and that's the number that we use to um fund the district and obviously there's a multiplier that's multiplied by attendance two points later in the year in the spring and that's how we're funded so this number right here was pulled on Wednesday it happens to match perfectly
128our Airy system so that was a good thing we verified it and double checked it went back and checked the last year's numbers and the year before and the year before so these numbers are actually the ones that were reported to the state and that was why there were so many updates in there um and yes and Lisa's reminding me to remind you that Andrew Ramirez in our calpads department has been nothing but um Angelic in this whole process and very patient with us so the number that we have right now is 841 students this does not include our preschool students because they do not count in Ada if you remember we had that conversation before when we talked about special ed funding years ago but um I Bridge students all the way through 22
129to qualify through here um and all of our general education schools an alternative education programs the whole district is in here so this is our seabeds number and as you can see it has declined over the years but I'll talk more about where it's declined in a few future slides but as we project this out as you can see here in this 20 um 22 number which is the end of the school year you see repeated again not 28 841 but if this projects through to the 2022 school year so four more school years from now 25 535 is the number and again that's based on the demographer's best guess right we don't know maybe all of a sudden they'll have a you know child tax credit and all the buddy it's all raised quickly
130but right now that is the number that we are projected we also know that we'll right size the district at that time but as of now we have to base our projections based on that going forward when I say right size I mean we'll right size our staff accordingly in our teaching staff Etc et cetera and put them at the right schools but we'll still be having to base our budget around that projected enrollment number the next slide is about our elementary schools and you can see they took a hit of almost 2 000 students that was our biggest Gap that's a very large number and we don't really have any solid information we haven't surveyed the community but what we do know is that kindergarten is down significantly that could be in part because
131of the low birth rates but it could also be the fact that people don't trust that public schools are going to stay open all year and remember kindergarten is an optional year and a lot of parents we know elected to sort of um Redshirt their kids for lack of a better term right hold them out and um keep them in their private Day Care programs Etc rather than risk having them do that but that was only explained to last year we have been seeing that kindergarten trend for several years in a row so we can't not attribute it all to the pandemic and we cannot assume all of those children will come back the same is also true in our TK program that's Bound by about the same percentage but overall what you'll see is
132that um we're down 13 over the past eight years in our elementary school programs and just for reference sake the biggest gaps that in the projections that we saw this year were Bel Air Holbrook Delta view Shore and ran from our projections but we also know that while those programs were under enrolled a lot of those kids did transfer over to Horizon so they did stay within the district okay and then when we get to the middle school we say our numbers went down from about 7 500 to 6600 so that is about 900 students or about 12 percent so we went from a gap of 13 to 12 at the middle school um there's really no explanation for that um a lot of times kids actually come into the district at middle school after
133they leave Private Elementary School but that's the number there and you can see the grade levels are about evenly distributed and at the high schools we actually have some interesting statistics that's only about a four percent drop at the high schools so what we're thinking is that when kids are in public school they're staying in public school and also as housing prices become more expensive in the area they tend to be second homes not starter homes so children with young families are not necessarily moving in so that's our data there and now I'm going to turn it back over to Lisa with the next steps so cohort survival is the method that we use and what we expect is that you know we we take a look at the three year running average of the
134percentage of students that leave every year we take a look at that across grade levels but we take a look at cohort survival so if for example the marker is two percent or three percent we assume that all the students that are in kindergarten move on to first grade except we deduct the percentage and then they go forward and so you can see nice nice diagonals if you will that shows exactly how certain groups are declining over time because typically what they're doing is they start in kindergarten or first grade and then they continue to decline all the way through that's what we typically see with numbers so I wanted to make sure that we explain cohort survival this is the approach that when fickman wrote its report and made its recommendations that they were
135advising us to make sure that we use it's actually something that we have always used until this year and the reason we didn't this year is because we were really taking a look at all the indicators to really determine what was going to happen as a result of the pandemic there's a hold harmless or a cliff that we have heard about I know the csva and school services and pretty much the entire alphabet group of public education has been talking about what was going to happen and and this is just really an example and and what it shows is that typically a district that is declining which is the red uh red dotted line there if you will each year we would have declines and the funding would decrease every year there's something that's called
136hold harmless which means that the state agrees to hold us harmless that means that if last year let's assume non-pandemic year last year our enrollment was a thousand let's say and then the next year we you know this year we dropped to 950 they're going to fund us on a thousand and they're going to give us a year to make sure that we're making the proper adjustments however if we jump from a thousand to 1500 they would fund us on the 1500. so they basically Hold Us harmless for one year what they did in the pandemic was they held us harmless for the 2122 school year but what's happening is we take an even further jump the following year which is exactly what we see I'm actually gonna I'll show that in just a second
137um what we also wanted to show real quickly is that Statewide we're seeing some pretty notable Trends there's information that's coming out across the state almost on a daily basis this information comes straight from Ed Source from a report approximately two and a half weeks ago and Long Beach Unified typically had about four percent of the students not coming to school on a on a daily basis they're up to nine percent uh Oakland Unified was at 14 there up to 33. stocked in at 18 up to 39 and so you you kind of see this uh panning out as um I checked with West Contra Costa yesterday they were typically at 6.2 percent uh prior to the pandemic and now they're up to 10 which is pretty consistent with with what we're seeing as well
138um right now we've been averaging approximately nine percent of the students absent on a daily basis instead of approximately 5.5 percent that's been uh that's been the trend that we were seeing prior to that so our numbers are about um about four point excuse me about 3.5 percent off there um our drop seems to be a tad bit lower and we're certainly monitoring that I think our biggest concern right now is you know we've got students that are going home on quarantine we don't have vaccinations for everyone um and and we have not hit cold and flu season yet and we know that with cold and flu season we know that our attendance always drop so it's going to be really important for us to focus on independent study and some of the other options
139that we have but right now we are using 91 we're a little uncomfortable with that but we decided we weren't going to change all of the markers and all of the assumptions we were going to try to keep some a little more consistent and again this data is coming straight from what we submitted in our own cow pads up to the state and that's after it uploads into our Aries attendance so teachers take attendance it gets verified by the office and then whatever happens with that gets reported and that those are the the numbers we've been monitoring along with what's often called the warm body count and so we did about a month of that when the school year started to watch the Trends on a daily basis and that's where we were seeing that
140approximately 91 or nine percent of the students not at school so one of the things that we do want to be aware of is the financial impact of the declining enrollment and so what is in this slide is the fact that we are held harmless this year that means that we are funded on the enrollment that we had from two years ago um so that number was 30 724 were held harmless this year which means next year we would be funded on 28 841 which is almost 2 000 students less so if you look at it you know at approximately ten thousand dollars a student you can see what that drop is however we can't just change that one number based on what the data is showing us we also have to take a look
141at the Ada rate that's the number that we were just sharing and so we've got approximately nine percent of the students not in school every day so you can see that the adjustment goes from 94.7 down to 91 and then the UDP this is actually something that we can really make a difference on the UDP is the unduplicated pupil count and one of the challenges that we've had during the pandemic is that we um we have not been uh parents haven't had to fill out free and reduced meal forms right we've got Universal feeding and everyone is able to eat so one of the things that we are going to be starting this week is another real strong push so I'm giving parents a heads up ahead of time as well as the staff at
142all the schools we're going to be really working with getting parents into areas to update their household information forms because what that does is it allows us to find out if there are other students who would qualify as unduplicated pupils so that's going to be really important for us because it's one of the few indicators here that we can really that we can really address but right now with approximately 2 000 fewer students with our Ada or our average daily attendance rate dropping and with our unduplicated pupil count dropping which of course is uh calculated on a three-year average um we would be down in funding for the upcoming school year of approximately 28 million dollars so what we do to mitigate that is there are some natural things that we see when we start
143running multi-year projections the first one is that it we're able to mitigate some of that with things like increased Cola we also know that our Lottery funds are going up a tad bit we also know that the funding for special education was just increased and so it helps us not see a huge hit of 28 million dollars but it's not going to be that far off of that one there are some recommendations for districts that are declining enrollment and of course we are all tuning into this this year because everybody's pretty much in the state of declining enrollment and these are really best practices I know that Mika arbo bider director of fiscal Services attended a training with me last year at school Services it's the same exact training that they're running this year with
144some updates but for the most part here are the recommendations they really include making sure that we are addressing in our myp the decrease in students and impact of average daily attendance that we're monitoring as much as possible our enrollment and our projections and believe me we run those numbers through a lot of individuals and a lot of scenarios to try to arrive at those we make sure that we have an effective position control system one of the things that fixmet did was when they came out they had some questions about our our position control system and we're pleased to to report that we went back and we spent about another two hours explaining exactly what we do with the checks and balances and the process from beginning to end and although we don't have
145exactly what other districts have which is an individual indicator for each staff member an individual unique code we have everything else that would qualify us as having strong position control and so that's a positive off this list we also need to explore cost savings Staffing practices formulas declining enrollment Staffing Master schedules combination classes collapsing classes these are all best practices as recommended from school Services taking a look and making sure that we're following any of the timelines for anything that we might want to do with staff so that's always important making sure that we're taking a look at hiring right now and are there positions that we don't necessarily need to fill so that will be another discussion certainly looking at overtime vacation time and making sure that everybody takes that because otherwise we end
146up paying that out and that's something that you know we've we we've had as an assignment on our budget and we certainly want to reduce that number and then finally we've done this once taking a look at early retirement incentives not that we want to go that direction again but these are the recommendations that come from school services in that regard so with that said Dr Gilly and I are happy to answer any questions that you might have and if we're not able to do that this evening we are certainly happy to follow up with you as soon as we can all right thank you very much trustees if you have any questions should we go to public comment all right thank you uh so the comment is uh Dan Reynolds good evening again [Music]
147in looking at enrollment it is important for you all to talk about how you will mitigate budget impacts sure but please also discuss and direct your staff to do something about the issue here in mdusd how are you directing staff to recruit students especially how are you communicating to those kindergarten students families that didn't enroll simply saying they aren't here doesn't do anything to try and bring them here what are you doing to try and bring them here discuss please and direct your staff to consider the year-over-year decline numbers pay attention to what was happening before the pandemic and during the pandemic and as we emerge after the pandemic your staff talked about cohort survival students who start here and what happens to them as they move through slide eight and the PowerPoint really lets
148you look at this if you look at that slide 2015 and the fourth graders you lost 100 of those that cohort between fifth and sixth grade what are you directing staff to do to ensure that our elementary students attend our middle schools that same cohort lost 430 students between 8th and 9th grade what are you doing to direct staff to ensure that our middle school students become our high school students direct your staff and please you personally Lobby the state legislature to pursue a continued hold harmless for enrollment and its impact on the district's funding Ada averaged daily attendance the pre-pandemic system for calculating school funding is by designed classist and racist it withholds education dollars from districts with higher percentages of bypoc students and higher percentages of students in poverty and further privileges richer
149wider districts for the aspects of this that are a problem everywhere what are you doing to join with everyone everywhere through the California school boards Association or others to push the state to respond for the aspects that are a localized problem what are you doing to direct staff to respond here in our district responding will mean mitigation mitigating budget impacts but it also should mean doing what we can to slow or stop the decline and to potentially increase enrollment your job doesn't have to be about listening to dire Doom and Gloom projections and making cuts it can also be about building things and what better to build than the enrollment and bring students into our schools and give them a wonderful education thank you all right thank you very much so that was our only
150public comment on the issue uh so from here trustees any uh questions or discussion I had a question for Dr geely which you may or may not have the answer to I was just curious when you talked about the lack of kindergarten students and they might be staying in their preschool do we have any preschool numbers to indicate that they're higher than expected and that maybe that is where they are and hopefully they'll come back next year so we don't collect numbers from Community preschools and daycares there's no tracking system for that or numbers in our special education preschools are remaining consistent like they always have but that doesn't give us an indication of our general education enrollment or future enrollment our TK enrollment is down um by about the same percentage slightly less about
15110 percent in rtk this year okay thank you you're welcome and I just comment with um to hopefully as far as the flu season last year because of everybody wearing masks flu season was way better so hopefully that'll help us this year and then just to address one of the concerns that um Mr Reynolds raised is the responsibility that we all have what are we doing to attract people to our schools it's disheartening to hear a parent come up here tonight after listening to public comment and says I don't want to send my kids to your school anymore because it sounds like it's all gloom and doom so I think that's something we all share as a team is we'll work through negotiations like we always do but if we don't hold steady as a
152team that support each other people aren't going to want to send their kids here thank you trustee Mason their comments or questions just email well I'm not an expert on any of this but I do know that um I have a grandson that's in kindergarten this year and many of my daughters friends who have children of the same age because they are either working from home or they lost their jobs during the pandemic they are part of the group that are keeping their children um out of kindergarten this year because and with when their students become ill or their children become ill it's easier for them to keep them at home rather than send them back to school early when they're on the tail end of the cold which contributes to our attendance problem yes
153we don't want um a lot of mucus nosed children uh coming to school but we all know that past experiences uh that did occur in our classrooms and um so I do agree that there has uh there are a lot of mitigating factors I think one of the biggest factors is the cost of housing in our particular community and um I've been in this district for uh over 40 years now and I have seen that cost of housing continue to climb and until uh you know if it requires a family to have two Wagers wage earners to have a home whether it's an apartment or a a house in this community because of the pandemic many people have been forced to move away so yes we do need to work on the pr piece and
154encourage people to come to Mount Diablo and encourage young people to have children again but following the pandemic I don't blame folks for waiting a little bit because they need to build their Financial Security for themselves whether they have one child or no children they need to plan a little bit and build that Nest state so I'm not coming up with any solutions I just know that we all need to support families and encourage them to be involved in our schools and to consider Mount Diablo when they're making their choice around where they want to send their children to school the biggest factor that will help get parents to enroll their children in our schools is by visiting our schools because no matter what the rumor is once you're on a campus you have a
155much different view of the school so we just need to encourage people to visit our schools it's one of my highest recommendations thank you trustee Mayo on that point I think um now is a key time for that because our transfer window is about to open for grades 6 through 12 and so as students are looking at where to attend middle or high school and if they want to consider something other than their neighborhood school now would be the time to visit before the paperwork is due November 15th I believe so uh time is ticking it's mid-november uh normally is when uh those are due um and so I think it's a huge opportunity actually for all of our high schools particularly those with specialized academies uh or programs like International Baccalaureate to be doing
156those information sessions from high school to to present to the ptas at the middle schools and to the 8th graders to be able to know what their choices are and how to navigate that system sometimes that's part of the block is the transfer system is can be difficult to go through as well so I think that's that's something to look at I know with the transfers another um piece of this is that our transfer system has been set up um assuming that people all want to go to the same schools that are already overcrowded and putting them on waiting lists and not letting them know until much later in the year whether they got it or not but I think there are people who also want to transfer to some of the uh less impacted
157schools that do have room and if we can create a system to be able to streamline that let's go ahead and let them into that school with the with open arms and with a welcoming um more streamlined approach then they're more likely to actually complete that transfer and stay within our school district so I think those are all things to consider I did have a question on um the enrollment you talked about how preschool is not included right um but then what where does TK fall in this that gets rolled up into kindergarten they get reported together okay so it is under K thank you all right and then you talked about schools that were the biggest drop um uh and that many of them had moved to the horizons program I'm curious if you
158happen to know tonight if you don't that's okay but um were there some schools that actually did have an increase um I could pull it up for you but I don't have it in front of me I can probably pull it on my computer okay well no rush it doesn't need to be tonight but um but I would be curious about that because I think in some of some areas of our district um young families are moving in um and yeah and buying homes that uh some some of our uh lovely seniors have moved out of um and so understanding you know how that's working for our schools would be would be key piece as well and and what I'm thinking what I want to clarify about when I'm talking about dropping is when we
159do our projections based on this year's numbers and how many left and what's our um drop rate and how many are coming back after the past like the all these calculations that go into it we do an estimate in January for what we think enrollment will be and um the ones that I mentioned were came in lower than that the ones that came in higher Ayers came in higher Gregory Gardens Fair Oaks um Rio Vista um we have one that was exactly on the mark which is a miracle so yes I just looked at the chart okay appreciate that thank you um any other questions on this item trustean's area it's not a question I just want to um jump off of your point of transfers and whatnot and marketing our schools um I think
160that our goal should actually be that everyone's neighborhood school is the school that they want to go to um except for specialized programs that are at specific schools because otherwise we feed into the segregation of our schools as families think that their like who how many kids that border Oak Gross Middle School actually go to Oak Grove Middle School I'm sure it's zero I have no idea but I I don't bet it's okay I'm not gonna bet but it's between let's say zero and one percent um and that's because of the perception and because they've never stood on that campus and visited and the assumptions that people make based on where our school is or what the demographics are currently um so while um families should should be able to have their students in schools
161that best fit their their students needs I think that we our overall goal should be that every school in our district is able to meet every student's needs so that everyone can go to their home school um okay and then um slide nine I just had a brief question on that one um the last seven years of mdusd enrollment cohort survival method it says no consideration for developments in the district um so two things I'm wondering about the developments in the district because I feel like our demographer last year did take that into account um and we do have some new developments coming in and then um as we're projecting out are we doing that based on kindergarten this year when we know there are some special circumstances that might change once the vaccine comes
162into play and hopefully the the pandemic gets slightly more under control so the first question has to do with uh Davis demographics and uh they're waiting for all the calpads numbers to be reported out of seabeds that has not happened so what we've done internally is we've pulled our own numbers uh they will go ahead and they will take a look at that as a matter of fact they were just here in the district about a week and a half ago um you know taking a look at some sites and trying to figure out you know what they're seeing with developments and so that's the one piece that is not factored in here and so we will most definitely go back with them it's just a little premature for them to have anything ready we're
163guessing it'll probably be like that late December early January time frame and the second question yeah so the second question is more because it feels to be like kindergarten right now is so up in the air people may you know be staying home for some of the reasons trustee Mayo mentioned um and so if we're basing our out year projections on that that's a little bit concerning but I don't I don't know the answer to that how how many of those you assume necessarily would come back right I think that's one of those big unknowns but what um when we were working through this with forecast five they're able to pull the same exact uh demographic information about birth rates and zip codes the same exact way that Davis demographics does so I would expect
164that Davis would probably be pretty close to what we're coming up with here but we certainly want to disclose that everything is just an estimate at this point we've used the best data that we can and you know we we'd like to be off by a couple hundred students the other direction thank you very much this is really a lot of work and some important information and I think the key is the key piece is we do know what numbers um will be used for next year's uh funding from the state at this point in time and that is concerning so thank you and again just in closing I just want to point out that we are being 100 transparent and bringing this information forward in a public meeting sharing it with the board posting
165it on our agenda so it's accessible to all and decline in enrollment has been a um you know has been an issue in this district for a number of years and I just want to caution this board that as we look at um you know attracting parents to our district that we have multiple programs throughout the district right we have dual immersion programs we have stem schools we have wall-to-wall academies we have CTE Pathways we have I could just go on and on and so what that does is all of those take resources and so as we are firmly committed to um to to working with our labor Partners to ensure that that we can um increase salaries we have to be mindful of of spreading ourselves too thin in trying to chase enrollments and
166so um so again it's just real important that this board get factual information because we live in a in a misinformation world right now and so this report is an effort to to be very transparent with our enrollment numbers which is vital to our to our to our district and so I appreciate the team for putting this report together and for making it public and for presenting it to the board so that you have all the information you need to make sound decisions so thank you staff thank you very much Dr Clark absolutely all right that takes us to item 12.3 presentation by Contra Costa Water District fire service improvements good evening Dr Clark and members of the board and and our community I just wanted to introduce Anna Chung who's an associate engineer with
167Contra Costa Water District as well as Oliver Simons is a Public Information Specialist um they are going to give a brief presentation which I don't want to take their Thunder I'm about an upcoming project that we're we are working with um with Contra Costa Water I just really wanted to extend appreciation to both Anna and Oliver for their collaboration that they've done not only with um Dr scripter out at strandwood elementary school but also with Paul Lund home our maintenance manager over at the m o yard and they've really met they've sort of gone over the project and we're bringing it forward to you for information there is an easement that has been submitted to our general counsel Department I just wanted to just do a little caveat we did have a draft easement originally
168posted on the docket that was in my error that was just an example of what the the easement would look like we have since removed it when we added the PowerPoint and yet the correct blank easement has been submitted to The General Counsel for approval um so while we don't necessarily need board approval for the easement we do this with our Utility Partners we do want to go ahead and let both Anna and Oliver give an explanation of this project and we just look forward to continuing you know better working relationship with all of our agencies that we work with so thank you good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak to the board today on behalf of Contra Costa Water District my name is Anna Chen I'm the project engineer for Gladys Drive
169main replacement project ccwd is planning to replace 2.6 miles of old high risk of failure pipelines water pipelines in Gregory Garden area next to the stranwood elementary school as part of the project we'll be installing 13 new additional hydrants in the neighborhood as well as installing a new hydrant on the LOE Side Avenue on North side of strandwood elementary school um as part of the project we'll also be improving existing fire service to the strandwood elementary school on the Gladys Drive side on the east side of the stranwood elementary and the project construction affecting the school will be timed so that it's not during um the school is in session this is the aerial view of the strandwood elementary school the first project of um of installing the new hygiene on Ellis Avenue is marked
170in red circle as you can see we will be installing a brand new hydrant on the school side as as well as relocating a dual meter that is currently located on the driveway off to the side away from vehicular traffic this is a quick mock-up of what it would look like we'll be placing a new hydrant and relocating the meter away from the driveway the relocation of fire service that is currently underground in a volt is located on the stranwood elementary school west side east side entrance excuse me on the Gladys Drive marked on red circle we will be relocating an existing hydrant that is on the concrete sidewalk where the foot traffic for pickup and drop-off zone is high we'll be relocating it off to the side which will enhance the uh access as
171well as relocating the fire service bringing it above ground for easy access and future maintenance this is a mock-up of how it would look like with a new hydrant as well as the fire service off to the side foreign hygiene will increase fire coverage for the school as well as an adjacent neighborhood in the Gregory Garden area and relocating the fire service will reduce impact to the school foot traffic and pickup and drop of Zone and improve ccwd's future maintenance access to implement these improvements ccwd is seeking approval of the easement as well as a relocation from the Mount Diablo Unified School District and lastly I'll end with the project schedule we will be completing the design and advertising for bid Construction in November 2021 this year the contract will be awarded in February 2022
172next year and the construction will be divided into eight phases and are expected to take about 15 to 24 months and again this uh the portion of the construction that will impact strandwood elementary school will be timed so that it will take place when school is not in session and that brings me to the end of my presentation thank you again for the opportunity to work together with the school board to improve the fire service and the coverage in this area thank you so much trustees do you have any questions trustee Feller I just have a comment um I actually live in the Gregory Gardens area so I did see my street on your presentation and I do appreciate the fire coverage increasing thank you very much okay that takes us uh so item 13.0
173board member reports has been moved to the end of the meeting so that takes us to 14.0 the superintendents report Dr Clark great and we have um we have two power points tonight first I I have a quick one that I will go through and then I'm going to invite the team up to provide us some additional information [Music] foreign again just just bring attention to our to our lcap goals um about all students receiving high quality education safe and welcoming environment and high quality culturally proficient and responsive staff will provide ongoing instruction respectful of all students backgrounds to ensure that their College and Career ready and goal three parents and family and Community will be informed engaged and empowered as as partners with the Mount Diablo Unified School District to support student learning and
174I just want to again also just bring attention to our um to our sort of um CCE sir um um triangle here around learning acceleration around social emotional learning and educational equity and as we continue to work on these goals um that really is informing our practices and our and our work I oh well I don't know how I'm going to read this so I'm sharing um every thank you every every month I'm going to be sharing suspension data with um with the board and so this was the data that I um that I shared at the last meeting and again you can you can see the suspensions where they are throughout the district um I want to thank the student services staff for breaking it down into this um into this readable um table
175but my my purpose of of showing this and bringing attention to this is not to um is not to discourage suspensions or say that we shouldn't suspend but it's to be proactive and it's to really set the expectation that suspension's our last resort and there are there are situations that that require and mandate that a suspension takes place however when we have caring adults on our campuses who are present who are forming relationships with students who have high expectations with their students who respond to um who who respond to challenges that our students face and professional in a professional way then if we do that work then we will see the benefits of that work in our suspension numbers and so these were our suspensions from our first month of school I believe um I
176can't see that total number I believe it's one who can 102. so so let me fast forward to this month to and in this month at the top this is um up until I believe yesterday when we when we finalized this but um but you can see some spikes um you know again when when we look at these numbers I think that's still the previous slide there we go there we go um so you know so so again I mean if I go back and and we look you know at some of our some of our high numbers there and then click on to the to the new some of those are are are continuing you know we want to bring attention to these just so that at this at the school sites that um
177you know that they're they're putting they're putting efforts in place to reach out to these kids to you know see what's going on with them to establish relationships with them and their families again these are our students we're committed to these students and um and as as we've gone through you know a a year of of business learning or or hybrid um we knew that when our students returned that um there would be an adjustment period there would be a period of of um you know learning how to get along learning how to be frustrated learning how to recommunicate learning how to you know how to how to be successful or how to fail these things need to happen and so um so again as as we look at these numbers you know we want
178to um just strictly bring attention to it and and at the school sites hopefully they're discussing this and and again trying to prevent suspensions from happening so we were at 102 last month we're at 119 this month and we'll continue to monitor these and and and discuss these and again this isn't a gotcha this isn't a a a a punitive measure that we are are that we're you know going in this direction is again just bringing attention to the board and to the public of what's going on at our school sites so we've we've talked a lot this year about social emotional learning and so my next few slides are just um are basically just examples of that taken off of our social media accounts so um so as we look at um Bancroft Elementary
179and we look at um you know self-portraits that our students put together and that's posted this is social emotional learning this is this is sel right here this is students self-image of themselves this is the school recognizing this and and promoting this um as we look at Gregory Gardens this is their um head custodian playing basketball with with students this is what we are talking about about making our schools safe places for for all students finding those connections with the adults and students on our campuses regardless of who those adults are all the way from the principal to to folks who work in the cafeteria to our psychologists behavioralists of course teachers staff but but here it is in action this is sel um you know here is unacio Valley Elementary School this is um
180teachers having their kids out doing PE again fresh air out being active working with one another exercising social emotional learning you know I um this isn't difficult stuff right you don't you don't need a a special training to do something like this right this is relationships working with kids and building students confidence um yunacio Valley High School this is this is taken from Monday this is this is that staff looking at their SEL data and and you see in this picture um engaged professionals talking about data talking about their students talking about their strategies ways that they can continue to support support students um the same day this is Olympic High School again this is sel at work and it's collaboration it's giving people time giving people data sets to be able to discuss all
181in the hopes of supporting our students um Sequoia Elementary School like I mean again like I'm just going to continue to continue to harp on this this is sel this is a a running activity right look at those kids look at their faces they're they're engaged they're being supported they they have relationships next picture is their teachers cheering form supporting them this doesn't take funding this doesn't take any special training this doesn't take extra extra time this is this is what this is what we expect so when we talk about social emotional learning these pictures are it in action in our district um homecoming at Mount Diablo High School right if you can look at this picture closely you see kids in the in the in the stands there sharing their class doing their class
182cheers showing that school spirit um you know we've got some patriotic uh representation there with our with our ROTC programs you know again I'm gonna harp on it social emotional learning and I just you know I love this picture where you just have students with their cheerleaders celebrating the homecoming I fully 100 percent understand that these are difficult times for every single person in our societies especially in school districts every teacher employee administrator secretary cafeteria worker custodian everyone is stretched to the max but this is why we do what we do we do it for these students and and for providing these opportunities for our students in in this picture really does depict it I can't bring up one high school without bringing up another so um so this is homecoming Northgate this is their
183band they they you know they participated in a in a in a homecoming um you know contest there's a trophy that goes along with this picture but again this is this is sel at work so I don't want um you know I I don't want it to come across like oh the district's requiring us to do to do scl this is it right relationships with kids getting them Outdoors supporting their activities giving them opportunities to um to succeed um you know guiding our students that's that's why we're in this profession and so I just during these during these times of challenges I think it's always good to bring us back and to remind us why we're here why we do what we do and um you know and and again um um Laura will will
184post this this presentation on my on our on our board page so you can look at these pictures closely but they are on our social media and we have you know so many so many social media pictures going up so many schools are sharing what they're doing and again I just pulled off a few just to really demonstrate and try to refocus us on the importance of of why we come to work every day and and what our product is our product is students and and their social emotional um levels are our primary concern at this point and and I think this is good work to be engaged in so with that I I just want to reiterate um the the importance of the household information forms um you know we're really going to push
185that hard and and try to engage with our with our families and get that information so that we can continue to provide the supports that that so many of our students need so um I had some requests from several board members to provide some information and so I'm going to ask um I'm going to ask Mr Sheehy and Miss sacks to to come up and join me and they're going to present the next um part of the superintendent's report on um on a plethora of topics yeah so one of the things that was asked to be provided is some information about Librarians in our district and just looking at the FTE allotted to Librarians at the elementary the middle and the high school level um so you know we do at our elementary we are
186only vacant 0.1 FTE um you know at the elementary level that is a prep provider for our teachers so it that is something important to note at the middle school um you know we are short 1.8 FTE we're constantly looking for librarians to fill um and then our high school we have 0.4 per site that 2.0 should actually be a 1.6 we do have a 0.4 filled over at Ignacio Valley and I'm happy to say that in the last day we're filling another 1.0 so we're going to be down to a 0.6 uh vacancy at the high school level for Teacher Librarians which is really positive and as I was looking at Librarians I wanted to bring in Imus as well instructional media assistance just to show you the different FTE there's a lot of
187there as well obviously very different roles but ultimately supporting our library queries and Literacy for kids so providing that those numbers to you and then getting onto substitutes um I I you know taking a look at this and looking at seeing and we we've heard it and we continue to hear it um through public comment through you know just being out in the community you know that everybody's stressed stressed right everybody's stretched thin and so we're taking a look at that we constantly hear about classroom coverage and about substitutes so you can take a look you know over the years the last four years um we're doing well this year and hiring substitutes you know we've hired 102 substitutes this year and looking at vacancies how many absences how many unfilled vacancies do we have
188each and every day the middle column those are filled and unfilled and those are vacancies and they're measured vacancies are measured in half day or full day and so they're not delineated though there but just know that those aren't per period it's either half or full thing to be included in those numbers and then you get to the last column and the last column is what gives me the most worry it gives me the most worry because we have 42 classrooms each and every day that are on that are not picked up by a substitute and what that means is that our teachers our support staff our site administrators are covering those classes at the elementary level we've had 91 classes covered by principals and that's something that I really want to point out and
189I want to give them kudos for that I want to give kudos to every staff member every teacher every support staff that has helped in doing that and covering the classes to ensure that our students maintain their education each and every day we're currently we're currently filling about 70 jobs per day with substitutes so we are having substitutes pick up positions we do have 459 substitutes in the system 21 out of those 459 are student teachers so they're available whenever they're whenever their Mentor teacher is out they can substitute that class so we do have substitutes in the system I've taken a look at over the years like how many Subs have we had in the system each and every year we haven't done a fantastic job in cleaning that database up so it's a
190little bit of dirty data so that's why I'm not presenting it tonight but we are doing it we're going through our subs right now making sure that hey are you going to continue subbing in our district do you want to come out because I really want to make sure that with 459 substitutes I would hope that we're going to be able to fill 110 120 jobs per day and that is the key to make sure that each one and every one of our classrooms are filled we do have a job fair coming up October 21st that we are met we're continuing to advertise for substitutes it is something thing that we we are focusing in HR because I do feel that um and it's not only it's not only teachers I want to stress that
191as well our classified staff we're hurting for substitutes across the board it is not a Mount Diablo issue it's an educational issue if you talked I talk to colleagues across the country and they're facing the same things but it is important to drill down and look at our information here in Mount Diablo and that's what we've done here tonight I'm gonna pass it over to Jim does anybody have any questions on those two slides before we move on any questions I just had one on the substitutes I know we raised the level of pace yeah for our substitutes 100 for this reason yeah um but I I know also other districts are doing that as well we are do you foresee that we're just gonna sort of continue yes um yeah so we did we
192did raise the rates from 120 to 170 uh dollars and that went in effective July 1st um I've done an analysis of the surrounding districts um and surrounding districts have increased we are not the lowest paying in Contra Costa County but we are on the lower tier of paying for Contra Costa County um I know that you know we have surrounding districts that have gone up to 250 a day and then uh if you're in a job position for 20 or more days you go to 300 a day so you know you look at those and those are something that we're competing against those those school districts um you know it's one of those things is is one of the things that keeps you up at night is if we raise substitute pay is that
193really going to change the amount of substances to pick up a job I don't know and it's something that we have to take a look at and it's something that we can definitely discuss with you all and we can we can move forward from there okay any other questions I think one one more thing I know it's important to note that you know as we as I was diving into this data and taking a look at it you know you we constantly think like where are the schools with the highest amount of Subs um each and every day you know are they you know typically we think of you know our Monument Corridor schools our Bay Point schools those are and I'm going to share with you all tonight that that is not the case
194you know um we are definitely it's spread across the district you know our three highest elementary schools that are left unfilled each and every day is Delta view Holbrook and pleasant hill and so I think that that's kind of giving you some comparison just to share with you those Elementary numbers thank you because that that is a very useful information is that if we find that there are certain schools you know that that are lacking and and we can figure out why that's happening if it's related to a specific school that would be helpful um and then actually the other question I have which I don't know if you would have this information today but if uh there are specialty areas where we have trouble filling Subs like let's say it's a dual language uh
195position that is vacant and then someone needs to be trying to sub for that position but they need a specific skill yeah I don't I have not I have not taken that close of a dive into exactly what subject areas and um and grade levels we have the most need in terms of stuff so it's definitely something I could take a look at right all right thank you any other questions I just I think these might be um items that I requested so thank you for presenting on them um I just want to share that um uh Librarians and libraries are a big concern for um like the families that are on my block that all have like kindergartners and first graders and so I appreciated that information um and our Librarians just play such
196a crucial role um in helping us try to kind of wrestle with with all of these problems we have around misinformation and social media um and media literacy um and kind of navigating all these all these um difficult topics um and then also um you know as a working teacher obviously we have um the sub shortage where I work so I appreciate um this information and just letting us know kind of how we're how we're trying to resolve it absolutely thank you [Music] just for our listening audience would you review um what the requirements are to be uh substitute in our uh classrooms in Mount Diablo School District yes and so you um I you know I should have all these memorized I don't have them all memorized I go right onto Edge join and
197post off of that but you know you do have to have a bachelor's degree you have to have the um see best and do we have other ones in our district no I believe that's it yeah so if you go right onto our HR page you can we have a substitute page where you can all have we have tons of frequently asked questions as well to get gain a lot of information I know some districts have different uh sub requirements but those are ours and also the basics of fingerprinting and background check yeah so the thing so you would apply first via Ed joint we then we take a look at your applications once we process you we invite you in for an onboarding appointment and that's where we do the fingerprintings and we give
198you information for the TB test and TB test we can give you multiple locations but you can also go to your medical provider to take care of that yep so if you already let's say you were a parent volunteer who already had the TB test and the fingerprinting would you have to repeat that as an employee is it separate we can get you in quicker if you've already gone through the system will we do there will be some paperwork and we'll work with you on that wonderfully okay okay thank you Ryan so there was another request to share just a little bit about our Title One and our CSI sites so just to let folks know our Title One um schools are ones that actually receive support through a Federal grant called the title one
199well Federal grant um it's something that's listed under the elementary and Education Act and it's really funding to mitigate the impact on poverty on the students in a particular Community these are the schools in at Mount Diablo that are being supported with Title One funds these schools are all having low income percentages of 60 or more but it's important to note that in federal guidance any school that's 35 or more could be considered what's called a targeted assistant school they could receive some title one dollars in order to support certain student groups on that campus and those dollars are monitored quite intensely if schools are 40 or above you can actually be eligible to run a school-wide program and all of our programs on the screen are school-wide programs since they are over 40 and
200they've submitted the paperwork to do so any schools 75 percent are over are really consist considered mandated Title One schools they should be getting Title One funds and if not then the school district needs to submit some very specialized paperwork to determine how else are you supporting that school with other funds in order to ensure that you've got that Equitable funding so if they're not going to get it from title one dollars where else are they going to get these dollars from if you take a look at the chart a little bit hard to see but we've got El Monte Oak Grove Middle Riverview Diablo day at Olympic and sunrise and they all have asterisks and those are ones that have actually have another level of title one type of funding coming from the comprehensive
201School Improvement Act so with the cast scores over several years the state identified some schools that were significantly um struggling with regards to having their students meet particular targets so the underserved School sites as they're taking a look to see what they can do better for their students are given a different level of support some additional supplemental funding and those are those schools that have been receiving it over the last 18 months I'd like to highlight though that short acres and El Dorado originally started but because they had increases in their attendance and in their academics they actually cycled out of CSI so that was really really good news for them these schools are continuing in the program and so we're looking to see whether or not they will also hopefully graduate out of CSI
202as we move forward so certain student Support Services um and these are really general ones if you take a look at every School site single plan for student achievement the community is very detailed in what they utilize their federal funds for so generally across the board um student supports at Title One schools include Extended Learning Time community service Liaisons often supplemental reading or mathematics programs additional technology as well as contracts for things such as the mindful life project or possibly rainbow Community Center extra counseling support and then supplemental positions such as let's say intervention teachers or site-based coaches or even site-based program Specialists which are really additional administrators that are not managing and running the school as if it's a normal vice principal position that they're there really to focus on the instructional program and
203again these decisions I'll run through the School site Council um they gather input they look at data and they're the individuals that determine what are those services that are going to be most impactful to student achievement again speaking about student achievement it's a requirement under CSI entitle one to make sure you're monitoring student progress and we are currently going through a federal program monitoring and they have been very specific about what they wanted to see about the evaluation of all sorts of title programs so whether or not it's Title One title two or title three this level of analysis utilizing common assessments Statewide assessments attendance data suspension data SEL social emotional learning surveys all of that plays in to how our schools measuring their return on investment as well as how are they monitoring Student
204Success over time and that plan do study act cycle is something that's very detailed and something that's been included all through the server report so we're very much aligned with our activities our schools are very much aligned and how they're looking at student data and we actually had a huge PD day on Monday where sites all took a look at academic as well as Sal data these discussions about the data really do happen not only at the school site within staff meetings but also at the school site with their elacs with their School site councils with their hopefully with their ptas and pfcs um so this is information that's incredibly important to school Community making really sound decisions about instruction lastly I don't mind so parent engagement and empowerment is also a huge focus and
205if you're if you haven't quite figured it out some of these are very much aligned where they're all cap goals as well community service Liaisons and assistants are huge team members at our school sites incredibly powerful with regards to building family and and Community relationships our school sites generally have lots of different family nights as well as parent education translation support is is generally supported using title one dollars home visits often as well as let's say parent family University nights School Readiness programs for the little ones and I just provided a couple pictures there of a family night Avid family night communication um and so as I mentioned our single plans for student achievement are starting to be developed and so anybody that would like to know more about our Title One schools and our
206schools with CSI funding and what they're utilite or how they're utilizing their funds to support students and their Community I really do recommend that they speak with the school will say talk with the principals engage with School site counselor or Lilac because they can really you know tell a wonderful story about how their school Community is working together in order to support all students okay thank you very much trustees any questions on this or comments thank you very much it's really important for I think the whole board and the community to understand how that works what's with the CSI and the title One funds those are you know terms that are that are mentioned quite often throughout our school district but it's not something that you learn as an average parent about how our school
207system is funded and works so thank you very much for providing that so again our goal is to is to provide information from the board so that the board has accurate and relevant information around what's currently taking place in our in our schools and so hopefully for my report and from the other reports that we've done for the board this evening that we are continuing to do that and and again just so the the public understands you know we put together a very detailed Friday update that that goes to the board and is also available for all the public and every one of our departments contributes to that update and then we also put together other Friday newsletter that really highlights a lot of the activities within the district every week and then on top
208of that when we post the agenda every board member has the opportunity to submit questions to me that I then give to staff and we provide those responses back to the entire board and so all this is in a way to be transparent and to provide information not only to the board but to staff and to the community at large so hopefully this report has has been beneficial thank you Dr Clark that was very helpful and I just want to recognize you for your leadership in this area I think in the last year our school district has really improved tremendously in terms of communication not only with things like parent square and translation out to our parents but the Friday letter and the organizational updates just continue to to grow with the amount of information
209that you're providing and I I would encourage and even on social media that we're starting to have more of a presence there so I think to combat some of what trustee Mason was saying about the negativity on Facebook that people often experience one thing that people who are on social media can do is continue to share out from the official Source right so if something is shared out by the district or by the school and you're in a private closed Facebook group that might be not aware of that information it's really important to share the actual information from the source and there's incredible information coming out every week from the district so really appreciate that we have a tremendous Team all of our you know all of our site administrators teachers classified staff district office
210staff you know we are truly all in this together to support students as I communicated earlier and unfortunately sometimes that gets lost and some of the some of the day-to-day challenges that we're all facing so we really are our team efforts definitely in the superintendent's office with Laura and with um with Teresa you know we are really working to to get information out to all stakeholders so um so again I'm I'm glad that the board appreciates that and we'll continue those efforts thank you very much Dr Clark and I think also this uh these presentations the last few that we've had here on enrollment as well as CSI and title one uh are very helpful in explaining um where our funding comes from and what we can all do to uh to affect that right
211um so if we encourage other uh families at our school sites to fill out that alternative income form that affects our Title One federal funds our CSI funds uh grants that we can be eligible for at many of our schools we can all contribute to that and make sure to be a part of it right and we can share the the ways to be able to enroll in the various schools and programs in our district so thank you okay so that takes us to our consent agenda 15.0 items listed under 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
212separately board members are there any items you would like to pull I'd like to pull 15.8 thank you any other items do we have a motion Madam president I moved the board approved the consent agenda with the exception of 15.88 which will be considered separately I'll second that thank you very much we'll take that to a vote trustee Fowler yes and I didn't repeat the motion motion by trustee Mayo second by trustee Mason thank you get that put in here all right thank you trustee Fowler and the rest of us will vote electronically motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member thank you very much all right so that takes us to item 16.8 trustee Mason I just pulled this because I read it a couple times and I could not see anywhere
213in there where I talked about fingerprinting of the folks from Mills College even though the one that's right after it the other university clearly stated that everybody would be fingerprinted before stepping foot on our campuses sure no problem it's uh I appreciate you catching that you might notice number there is an item in the contract item five reads the district agrees to comply with applicable state and federal work really safety laws and regulations so that that would Encompass it but well we decided the board knows for all student teachers we put we register them and process them as substitutes as well so that they can possibly help us in that manner and doing so requires them to all be fingerprinted so that is how we do process all of them as new employees thank you
214sure so I would go ahead and make a motion that we approved uh 15 well 16.1 the memorandum of understanding between Mills College and Mount Diablo Unified School District thank you motion by trustee Mason second by trustee Mayo your names are so similar I really tripped up on that okay uh we'll take that to a vote trustee Fowler yes and the rest of us are voting electronically here motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member thank you so much all right I'll work on my tongue twisters okay all right so that takes us to our business items of the night item 18.1 review and potential approval of performance audits of Ayers Elementary Sequoia elementary santeras elementary Foothill Middle and Valley View Middle School from October 25th 2012 to May 30th 2019. Dr Clark
215I believe uh the um our internal auditor is is going to take this item and um you guys have have met Isaac before but uh but Isaac if you'll come to the podium or the seat wherever you wherever you feel comfortable and if you'll present this item all right thank you Dr Clark good evening everyone um so this item is related to the school facility program audit that was performed by Crow the external auditor for the district and the uh the goal of the audit was to determine the amount of um expenditures that the district incurred to make sure that um they were in accordance with the laws and regulations of the school facility program and they review as Spanish as that occurred during October of 2012 through May of 2019. and um besides our
216honor review were Ayers Elementary Sequoia Elementary Sun Terrace Elementary Foothill Middle School and Valley View so after they performed the audit procedures the result of the audit was that they gave the district a plain opinion basically what that means is that there were no findings so so um as with all our other reports once this report is approved it will be posted on the district website so with that I turn it over to the board thank you very much that's very good news a clean audit it's always a good thing for us to hear and for the public to know about our schools as well do we have a motion on this item I believe this is on for Action approval I moved that we approve the performance audits of Ayers Elementary Sequoia elementary centeris
217elementary Foothill Middle and Valley View Middle School from October 25th 2012 to May 30th 2019. thank you very much motion by trustee and Zoe second by trustee Mayo any discussion on this item all right we'll take it to a vote trustee Fowler yes and the electronic vote has come in motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member thank you so much and thank you for your report okay that takes us to 18.2 community facilities District number one special tax levy report for fiscal year 2021-22 and Isaac is going to handle this item as well all right and this report was uh produced by Goodwin Consultant Group and some of the objectives of this uh report this is not an audit report so there's no opinion on it um the goal was to um
218to identify the amount of Revenue that was collected for this uh special taxes and how those revenues was expanded during the year so during the uh 2020 2021 year the district collected 6.6 million dollars in revenues and that amount of that amount of 1.5 was used to pay for Debt Service payments for this series uh 2016 special tax revenue bonds um 3.7 million dollars was used to pay for the 2018 certificates of participation Debt Service payment and the remaining 1.4 million dollars was used for um authorized facilities and administrative expenses for the cfd um and those authorized facilities included um acquisition and construction of any new elementary middle and high school facilities improvements at existing high schools middle schools and Elementary facilities and any equipment that was necessary to operate those facilities um with that
219said once this report is approved it will also be uh posted on the district website for transparency so thank you very much thank you very much your motion on this items I'll make a motion that we accept the special tax levy report for fiscal year 2021-22 second thank you motion by trustee Mason second by trustee McFerrin any discussion trustee mail let's hope I'm not making a big mistake here this is measure a at 67 per quarter acre parcel and there was a tax exemption available and individuals can apply for that tax exemption annually according to the beginning of this document uh so in this report which happens to be how many pages 11 no it's 1800s uh I only read 11 I guess all of us should be able to find our parcel number based
220on our tax what bill that we received from the uh Contra Costa Contra Costa assessor's office so um have fun looking up your numbers and making sure that uh the assessment has been correctly assigned all right thank you very much trustee Mayo for that uh explanation for the public who might not have read the 1800 pages okay all right uh so we have a motion and a second I'm sorry deformation was emotion I don't see the second in here it was Aaron McFerrin was the second okay it's just not showing up in her vote here so okay there we go so we'll take it to a vote trustee Fowler yes thank you and the rest of us are voting electronically motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member thank you very much okay
221that takes us to item 18.3 review and potential approval of the sr3 plan and we do have one public comment on this item Dr Clark would you like to present first and then do you have a comment yeah we'll present first and then have the comment okay foreign gets later the glasses come out all right so we're we're here this evening to answer any questions that the board may have regarding uh the sr3 plan um did you want to do a quick introduction okay um so this is one of many uh amounts of money it's a one-time fund um it came from the allocation from president um President Biden approximately March we have not received any of the funds yet but one of the requirements of sr3 is that we complete a plan the plan
222has to be tied to some of the other plans that we've already created which is why on page one you'll see a reference to the El Cap the local control accountability plan uh the expanded learning opportunities plan or opportunities Grant this would be ab86 ELO and then our sir our systemic instructional review so in all of those plans we were required to gather uh public input similarly this time around we did launch a survey and had over 1050 people uh respond to that survey all of that information can be found on the district website under um it's on the covid update of the covid page it's off to the right hand side and uh I have one copy if anybody would like to see it a very small font but we did want to make
223sure that we included that information and then what we're required to do for this is um we did submit the assurances once we submit the assurances we are able to start receiving the money uh once we have an approved plan it goes from our school district to the county office that then goes to the state of California they will start slowly dispersing the funds we have until September of 2024 to spend those so a lot of what we put in this plan uh not only reviewing the input that we have from the other plans but certainly in the public comments but we really tried to make sure that the services that we're putting in place specifically for students those that are mitigating learning loss we were using other one-time funds to address situations this year
224as a matter of fact ab86 the two different pots of money that we have there we've got to have that spent by the end of August except what we also know is that a lot of the services are still going to be needed for students and so we try to be very very thoughtful about trying to continue the services for another two years or so so for example summer school we would like to continue to offer summer school the same way that it looked this last year so that's one of the examples of of something that you see in here so come on up because we're going to tag team this presentation absolutely so additional counseling support um supports like social workers for our schools within our school Services Department um these count or these
225social workers are ones that will help with attendance which I know according to a part of that enrollment report is an area of concern as well as our enrollment um activities such as continuing expansion of our after-school program at our two schools that are not funded out of title one dollars but ones where we are in discussions with the school sites at Westwood as well as Concord High School in order to serve as our survey which types of enrichment programs and supports they're looking at that are of interested to students as well as the community um additional uh like online supports as well as additional Staffing for our independent study program which may end up being a virtual learning program depending on what the State of California does at the end of the year so
226there's these things that we know they are individuals being paid out of certain one-time funds we have now as we looked at the sr3 conversations on how can we continue with these additional counselors and and staff members as well as programs as long as possible so it is a bit of a building on the plans that we had in the past as well as staying true to the systematic instructional review report and really what we have within our lcat to make sure that we're not just throwing and stacking initiatives and programs and things on top of each other but we have a very coherent online program with ongoing dollars as well as one time I think the only other things that I would add is that there are two items that are in the packet
227to be approved tonight one is the safe return plan that is here it is very very brief and there's very little in it because we um we were required to create and then uh update our other uh safe School return plan so this references the fact that we had an initial plan and then we already did the six month update on that so that's this first document and the second document is the nine page document that does have all of the components I would like to point out some of the general themes of the 1050 or more um responses technology outdoor science labs picnic tables positions to reduce class sizes increasing salaries new curriculum mental health support different types of ppes and Merv 13 filters language arts math supports after school programs and and we
228want to be really clear These funds we often talk about restricted and unrestricted unrestricted meaning you can pretty much do whatever you want restricted meaning they're very strict strings attached this is one of those with very strict strings attached which means that Mika arbelbaid and I are required quarterly to submit pretty extensive paperwork to the state that monitors exactly how we're spending and it is subject to Federal program monitoring audits as well and so the last part or section within the plan itself they also are not talking only about the financial audit but also kind of the academic or instructional audit so they do want school or leas to identify what are these areas that you're going to focus in on what are those supplemental programs activities that you're going to embed and then what
229are your plans in order to monitor the success most importantly for our students over time so we did at the very end provide a couple different circumstances we will be collecting data and we've already been collecting some of this data in order to show that these activities are being impactful you know I think the last thing that that I would like to add is that I know there have been some questions about the the spending some questions about the plan and so one of the things that um I thought might make sense is moving forward I'll bring uh regular reports to the budget advisory committee maybe not every single meeting but at least every two to three meetings um I can send them updates as well so that we've got yet another group that is
230really designed to be overseeing some of those fiscal components that are able to see some of the detailed reports and how the spending is going as we progress so with that I think we're happy to answer any questions from the board thank you very much for that extensive work that it takes to be able to put different items into the different buckets of funding and what they're attached to I know um that's a tremendous amount of work so much appreciated questions or comments by the board oh we also do have a public comment on this item should we do public comment first okay uh Christy Merrick foreign [Music] hello um long time no talk um good evening again I'm Christina Merrick one of the credential School nurses um I'm I'm here on behalf of the
231school nurses and it may be covered in tonight's presentation maybe follow-up questions but we just wanted to inquire if School nurses are specifically included in the Esser funding if we are thank you if not could the School nurses please be included the counselors were listed in the SR survey um and so were the nurses uh we know in the expenditure plan that the counselors are specifically named uh we weren't um we may be partially paranoid um that there's no rescue in sight for us um and our workload is increasing dramatically especially as we work daily um as lvns and scas and we're drowning in our normal workload I have given you guys the U.S Department of Education FAQs regarding the use of Esser funds I've highlighted in blue um for you all the portions where
232it talks about um explicitly staying throughout the document and especially the last page that these funds can be utilized for additional new school nurse Physicians and access for student access to nurses which is what they don't have um this could be and not at a more perfect time we desperately need these and other funds to hire more District lvns School nurses and our lead needs more lead time our lead is 0.5 lead and 0.5 in schools but she works most every day lead on top of her schools and thus the district is paying her and Staffing her as a 0.5 lead but expecting 1.0 lead coverage she is called text she's called and texted morning noon and night by District admin and his onboarding brand new school nurse is hired last year and this year
233is the coveted Point person for district admin as well as assisting with the 170 plus LVN SCA coverage assignments and if there's no one they send her your District admin team is well aware of what an amazing asset she is but her schools don't get her adequate time because she's constantly being pulled these funds can be used to shift more of her FTE and into Elite FTE as our district did last year when they needed her support greatly as the lead and another nurse can pick up the FTE just like we did last year other districts are using some of the millions of dollars they've received from federal and state government to come back this multi-year public health pandemic and using it on health and nurses Oakley acolani's Orinda West Contra just examples of some
234of our local districts that are bringing on more nursing support whether hearing and vision screening nurses so your regular School nurses can focus on their overwhelmed assignments or just bringing on more nursing support in general the district has asked community of what they should spend the 40 million dollars on with the expenditure plan listing four million dollars on vehicles 12 Millions on Tech please spend it on your nurses in a public health pandemic it is interesting to note about the student access to nurses we desperately need this um our Baseline job has been year over year exploding with Health Care needs and our staffing has not kept place please include School nurses and lvns in your Esser funds and any other funds one time and ongoing to lower school nurse caseloads bring on more District
235lvns as we have a better track record of retaining an increasing um them when we bring them on ourselves versus agencies so that they can't staff currently thank you so much for your time I greatly appreciate it I look forward to your questions hopefully School nurses are included thank you thank you very much all right with that that was the only public comment on this item I believe so with that I will open it up to board comments and questions trustee Mason okay just to make sure I understood that the funds you're talking about in the graph you showed here those are the ones that are available through 2024. the other ones that expire before that aren't listed absolutely that is correct so anything that we would choose for example nurses to fund through that
236they're funded through 24 and then that's it if they were in this plan it would be one of the options yes so just so we're clear if we choose to fund something which we could do in 2024 that position would have to go away or come from some other funding correct correct and and just to be clear one of the other things that we're planning on bringing uh hopefully to the next board meeting is an update for all the one-time uh one time funded positions and the length of time we're waiting until this is over so that we can be very transparent about that as well thank you trustee Mason there are other comments or questions just email so I do want to follow up on the public comment are nurses included in the plan
237or is our only counselors included counselors were the ones that the only ones that were included if you're talking about the two so it does not preclude us from being able to do that it also does not preclude us from putting that into another one of the one-time funding sources that we have so they are not included in this plan correct there would have to be another sr4 coming forward before nurses could be included no it doesn't preclude us from going in and saying yes we would like to add nurses we would like to add some type of health support we can certainly put it in the plan it means that we would need to adjust something along the way but as I'm taking a look at the category of implementing strategies for continuous and
238safe in-person learning or even addressing the academic impact of loss instructional time it certainly would be an appropriate tie okay so that is of interest to me I do not want to um what play with numbers at this particular time I would prefer that the board consider adoption of the plan is presented and that that be a consideration of Staff as we're moving forward but of course there has to be multiple decision makers that would agree with that and I also understand that there would need to be a determination of the extent of that but I do believe that having nurses or improving the services for nurses will increase attendance in our schools and the more the kids are in the seats the more their apt to learn and that's my philosophy behind that thank
239you absolutely thank you trustee Mayo I would agree with that as well that we should be looking to make sure that in a pandemic we are fully providing the health services that our students need um I was looking back at the March 2021 ELO plan where you did lay out the one-time funding positions and how they could you know be funded over time or would need to be removed and there were some sr3 sort of preliminary plans there um I also don't see nurses in that plan so um it is something that I would definitely be interested in in understanding how are we going to to handle those needs in our districts it's certainly something that we can discuss with Dr Clark and discuss with the executive cabinet to take a look at what we
240could move around and where it would be appropriate thank you are there questions comments trustee McFerrin I would just like to say that um I appreciated um trustee Mayo's comments and um that I am able to work at a school site that has a full-time nurse and I think it really makes a difference for us um and I know um from my experience at Mount Diablo High School that are stretched really thin and the impact that that has on students um and um it's also something that comes up in my in my neighborhood um where um people have tried to address their concerns about kind of our limited um time with a nurse which I think is maybe only twice a month and then she's pulled once those times so she's only there like once
241or twice a month maybe um and for the parents that I know they don't really feel like that's like sufficient um or that they're that they feel you know incredibly safe um because of that um so uh I would also kind of I'm interested to see like what we what we can do to try to um just do a better job at like serving these Health needs for students one and if I may I just I think it's important if the board is interested to bring the job description of what the nurses actually do because there may be a disconnect on what we assume nurses do compared to what they actually do and so um if we're going to start making adjustments to this plan it's what are you going to take out and and
242then what are you going to add and so so so again I just want to make sure that we're clear on on what the responsibilities are of those of those positions before we start taking you know taking one thing out for another because of because of what what what somebody said so I just want to make sure you guys have that information yes that's really key I think I would agree with with uh trustee Mayo that we're not trying to make edits tonight to this plan on the spot um but rather that is a topic they were interested in learning more about as we move forward um yes um and on the nurses role that would be a very important thing to understand um I've recently learned that uh there are more resources from the
243state for us for our nursing staff to be able to uh be able to tap into a Statewide database that already has all the vaccination records of our students so that it should streamline the system rather than them needing to ask each parent to please provide that piece of paper which is historically how I'm used to dealing with it as a parent um so it appears that there are uh there could be changes even to the job description potentially so that would be interesting to see absolutely okay any other questions or comments on this proposal Christine McCray I almost forgot um Dr Gonzalez I really appreciate you mentioning that you could bring some of this information to the budget advisory committee meetings and I just wanted to remind people that these meetings are open to
244the public so it wouldn't be just for the budget advisory committee to be open to anyone that would like to attend that is correct and the information for anybody who's listening out there because I know the board members all know where to find it if you go to departments and you go to business and you go to budget and fiscal on the left-hand column there's something that says budget advisory committee although if you search it in the top right corner you will find it also and if you scroll down you can see exactly when the meetings are what the links are on Zoom the agendas and all the attachments including about six years worth of history on all those yes thank you so much and the other shortcut to get to it is go to
245parents and community and click get involved and it links to all of your committees I don't know about that one I haven't been to that site thank you so there you go that's for parents who want to join or attend any of the open meetings such as the budget advisory committee absolutely the uh yes it's not a question I just I don't know that Dr Clark commit to sound dismissive I'm sure he didn't um but we heard from a nurse who does nurse school nursing and I think that's a really reliable source of what's needed and I don't think she spoke here just on behalf of herself but on behalf of our whole nursing team um and that's just valuable to hear from so thank you right so on this item if there are no
246more questions do we have a motion at this time it says simple action I believe the recommendation is to move to approve the sr3 plan correct I'll move that the board approved the S3 plan as presented well second step give motion by trustee Mayo second by trustee Mason any further discussion on this item trustee Fowler I just have a quick question uh this is just to clarify that it could be like the nurses can be added to the funding correct okay so right so we're approving the plan as it stands today um but as I think was explained this is funding through 2024. um so I would assume adjustments may be made along the way as needed all right okay so we'll take it to a vote and we'll start with trustee Fowler yes thank
247you and the rest of us are voting electronically motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member thank you thank you so much and do we have to approve the other item that's on the uh docket as well or did we approve that one previously so both were listed the so the mdusd safe return plan was also attached um but the recommendation was to move to approve the sr3 plan so was it just because this refers to that correct you have to have in order to submit one to the to the county you have to submit the other but I've got a hard copy of it and I'm not seeing anywhere that it says that that this particularly this is included with that said it is part of the template it's just a different
248document so I would think by process of elimination by approving one you've approved the other yes yes okay so by approving the answer three plan we have already approved also approved the mdusd safe return plan which is referred to in that document the yes that is our understanding from the County Office of Education okay very much thank you for the for the question I want to cover all our bases there um I just want to appreciate Dr Gonzalez for all of her work on the budget advisory committee uh as well as uh trying to fit in one-time funds and how we can create ongoing positions with all of the different funding sources because that's not easy to do and the main thing that we're told recommended by all fiscal advisors is to never use one-time
249funds for salaries um so the fact that we are finding ways to get that done I think is very uh much appreciated and a lot of work okay so that takes us to item 18.4 review and approve coordinated comprehensive early intervening Services plan the safe plan doctor again I apologize the language was not altered in that first phrase we will not be asking for you to approve it today we'll only be asking for information as indicated all right so here is our plan um here's our presentation as we get started this evening and the plan is attached as a separate document this is just sort of meant to talk you through the process of that development so what we're going to do today is talk about home root causes and measurable outcomes and also a
250request for review of the plan today not approval and then talk about what our next steps will be and in this PowerPoint in its original format those are green links right there are all links to actual Source documents that we have so we were starting work back on February 2021 on this plan um and we have a large number of people in our district working on this plan they're all listed here Dr Clark participated myself Carrie wheel who was a former program specialist here and it's been instrumental in some of our other plans Jennifer Saxon Jorge malgoza who will eventually be gifted the implementation of this plan just as the last csase plan was operated through our Equity Department since we haven't been in significant disproportionality obligation since 2015 the equity Department Focus has changed
251but tonight we're going to talk about how those that group will oversee this plan ultimately because it is a general education plan and then also how we're going to use the funds to allocate resources to support the activities Lucia Stuckey Smith was instrumental in the last plan and she's here guiding us through this process along with Brian cassin a long-term District employee who handles our alternative dispute resolution for special education we also have Linda Pete from student services who has been instrumental with the attendance information and The Chronic absenteeism along with Kathy fetterman who you've heard about several times this evening and she's a rock star and uh all about learning disabilities and reading program and language development so she's been helpful there David cabases is a district resource specialist in Carolyn sakis is our
252lead psychologist who's not only working on the plan but she is also working with our psychologists and those assessment practices and refining them that's not in the plan because that's a special education process but she is working on that behind the scenes Stephanie Roberts who's our mtss director Stavros Google mass is a special education program specialist and um James wogan who recently joined the district as you know was our homeless Foster liaison and the reason we have him involved is because there's a lot of overlap in the demographic data in terms of absenteeism and achievement data suspension data those types of things with our foster Youth and also what we're trying to do is make sure that this program the sea space plan aligns with our serial report it also works to address the needs
253of our African-American students along with our Fosters and homeless youth so basically um disproportionate representation in special education is there's a risk ratio and so essentially the risk ratio should be if five percent of your population Falls within one group then they should fall within the other group right so if five percent of your population are Asian and you would expect five percent of your people to be in special education that would track that would make sense but disproportionate representation is anytime you exceed that by three percent as by three times I'm sorry so basically if you have five percent of your students who happen to be African-American as long as you're not more than you know fifteen percent special education I struggle personally with this number I think it's um just on its basis
254well but that is the number the state gives us also um in order to be significantly disproportionate you have to be called out in any one of what they call cells so any one of our student groups by race um and they fall fall along the lines of you can be significantly disproportionate or disproportionate for graduation rates for Dropout rates English language arts and math achievement and also participation you can also be called out for least restrictive environment if particular one particular group is all in most effective schools or non-public schools or home hospitals something like that you can also be called out by disability areas as well as general referral to the special education so special education as a whole or in any of the 13 specific categories so off the top of my
255head I'm going to tell you there's about 46 different cells you can be called out in the last one is suspension um and in the within those cells we happen to be significantly disproportionate for African-American students with intellectual disability that actual risk ratio was 3.62 that represented at that time 15 students and so one might ask well that doesn't seem like a lot of students well it does if you're one of the 15. right that's not okay so we went through a whole long process that was well worth the time well worth the investment and well worth of thought that we put into it to try to address how do we change this trajectory so I want to go back first of all and remind us that the first step we had to do is
256every year for special education we have to do what's called a sep creatively enough it's our special education plan and every year there's 20 indicators I just mentioned some of them there but um there are others that are not listed in there that's preschool um least restrictive environment amongst other things and so we have to write a plan and that plan addresses those um factors for our students with disabilities and every year we have to do a training we have to provide documents to families we have to do all those things that's just a routine part of business as a matter of fact on Monday afternoon we spent the afternoon with our special education staff doing the required training for our set plan it included information about um participation in State Testing on how to
257get the kids to take the test right you have to meet that 95 threshold also to help with their achievement on the testings you can do as far as making sure their modifications are in place uh teaching to the standards type of basic instructional strategies in addition we also had to work with them on things like attendance um graduation rate and they also follow our special ed kids post school for two years and really make sure that we're doing what we're supposed to be doing which is getting them ready to launch right they have to be enrolled in either a school program or employed or both or either and so um we did that training on Monday and we'll do that every single year it's just part of it um and then though this is
258a is a general education plan this is before they get to special education so it's a bit tricky it's easy for us to say well let's just look at our assessment practices and do that differently let's just you know figure out how to hire a CWA for these special ed kids let's just do that this is supposed to really interrupt that cycle and provide those interventions early so the first thing we did when we were trying to figure out well this is not a good place to be so how did we get here so the very first thing is we looked at our quantitative data and then we conducted focus groups to get qualitative data there's nothing like hearing it out of the mouths of the people who are living that life and that experience
259and we had some good feedback there heartbreaking feedback I will say devastating but it was definitely um important and then from those two pieces of two major bodies of data we conducted um we had some discussions around what are those root causes when we had some group discussions amongst our leadership group and then our technical facilitators came in and they worked with us and then once we got those draft root causes then we did have a stakeholder meeting that was public we did Outreach to the community and we did get those root Clauses voted on we did have 100 approval on the night of that meeting afterwards however two more people did come in with um votes that said no um and so the first one was do you agree in concept with these root
260causes and once said no the second question was well what other root causes do you have none okay so that was a little bit baffling and then the second one said no because they felt like they wanted to have more um parent voice in there so we that was part of the reason why we backed off only um bringing it for approval tonight because we really want to make sure we have that so after we got those root causes approved which was about 86 approval rate then we went ahead and drafted the ccase plan which I have attached the copy for you but I'll run through some of the main parts of it with you and then we held stakeholder meetings and we did make a lot of changes to the plan based on input
261from our stakeholders which I'll highlight in a little while and here we are today we're presenting it to the board for you for information we're going to continue to revise this plan we are planning on having another stakeholder meeting next week where we do specific Outreach to the parents and guardians of our African-American students specifically and again that was based on um the feedback we got from our stakeholders and advice from our technical advisors who have been instrumental in this whole process so we do plan on doing that and then we'll be bringing it back next time for board approval and then submitting it to the CDE so we can get started on the work right we don't want to um admire the problem but we also don't just want to rush through the process
262to get a plan that we know there's not really truly embraced by the community and wanted by the community and it will not be effective so the first thing we did for our quantitative data I do want to point out that this is a little bit hard to see in this format but if you can look at just the first round of bars you'll see that is our um enrollment of African-American students in the district and you can see the second round is just consistently higher because the enrollment of our African-American students in special ed in general is about twice that of where it should be proportionally in the next two bars are our students who are reported to cow pads in Asian category and then our latinx students who you can see slightly over
263represented and then our students who are reported as white who it's about to even so overall we are not significantly disproportionate for African-American enrollment in special education but I will be negligent if I didn't say well that's twice as high why that doesn't make any sense right that was the first piece of data we looked at and we looked at lots of data I'm only selecting some of the key pieces for you but I am happy to supply any of the data you want any of the data sets it's rather voluminous so uh pick up a good blanket and sit on the couch one night but here's where I get a little more baffled because when I look at our students with 504 plans I see that our African-American kids it's about equal so why
264it doesn't make sense why are we twice as likely to have an IEP and not a 504 both indicate disability what does that say right what are we who are we referring to what next are Asian students again far less likely to have that 504 plan as are latinx students but our white students are very much more likely to have those like before plans so this was really eye-opening right and it really highlighted the point is you have a disability or you don't but what are we doing in order to serve you and help you and when are we helping you right so this was a key piece of information for me which I felt was very significant in this story I also am looking at um suspensions and again I want to remind us
265we are not significantly disproportionate for discipline I also want to remind you that um that last column is always going to be high right it's going to be High um and that was because we had so few disciplinary incidents in that fourth year so the way the column reads the First Column is 17 18 then 18 19 19 20 20 21. so you see that large purple spike in suspensions and that's because we had 11 suspensions all year just so happened that sixty percent of them went to our African-American students for what so there's the information there and the fourth column is missing on our latinx students and again because we had 11 incidents and just the first year was higher so our um suspension data is not even and you can see the transient
266suspensions the last column though I do want to remind us is misleading just because it was distance learning the next one is our students with chronic absenteeism this was another one that was really important to me because if you look at our first columns with our African-American students you can see it dropped significantly when we didn't have to actually go to school going to classes is not the problem going to school is the problem so that was important and it did actually drop last school year chronic caps in two years old for students are African-American it also dropped in some of the other categories um for our students who are Asian also dropped our students who identify with whiter also dropped our students who were latinx their absenteeism increased so again as we're looking at
267our focal students the students will be trying to Target our supports towards latinx was another category that we looked at and here's our dnf data you can see our students who are Hispanic and African-American again have higher numbers of decent apps and those are district-wide data we do have a disaggregated by school sites but um you can see just across the board to use an F so we have to ask ourselves again why and so looking at those grading practices and looking at um you know is it work completion or is it skill Mastery right it's a compliance or skill Mastery so all of these pieces together combined for our qualitative data and then when we started looking at some of our qualitative data we had focus groups that were with some of our parents
268um the first parent night was not um particularly well attended we did go out and have a second parent night that we um personally reached out to some families that was there same thing with our student interviews the first one was again not particularly well attended I think we had three students on that one but um Felicia Stuckey Smith did a really good job of working with the social workers and counselors at some of our schools and setting up Zoom sessions where they actually had kids in rooms with no staff present where they could speak just to the technical facilitators who um ask the questions gathered to data I think it was probably the most authentic way to do it and the students um No Holds Barred it was hard but it was good and
269and those um were done at several high schools Northgate participated College Park participated and those were just to name a few we also had a meeting with our psychologists and then our district leadership and again that second student focus group we had community members and again we've had a little bit of a harder time one person in particular has been wonderful in terms of giving us input and also reaching out to other people so that was very helpful and also they met with homeless and Foster Youth and that was James wogan and his crew and gained information and insights there and again because of those overlaps and then we had the second parent group so as we got all that information together the root causes that were approved by our stakeholders was um the first
270one is systemic racism and cultural dissonance that's hard to hear it's hard to own it's also true so so systemic racism and cultural dissonance results in an unsafe culture and climate that lacks meaningful student relationships and culturally relevant curriculum pedagogy and culturally responsive practices as evidenced by disparities in discipline explicit and implicit biases and differential access to educational opportunity I'll tell you this one started out as systemic bias and parents were not having it they said nope it's racism put it in there and as a matter of fact they called out that um racism comes in multiple forms but it was really important that we address both interpersonal racism and also systemic racism within the plan the next one was lack of authentic Partnerships with African-American families in the community over time which has led
271to strained relationships and distress um three and four I would advise you to go back and just see number one but when you look at three and four you see that lack of consistent implementation of discipline policies procedures and practices has created a direct Pathway to special education and number four inconsistencies in the Coordinated Care support and Coordinated Care team processes resulted in inconsistent pre-referable processes and those would be our SST meetings is probably how you're most familiar with them we did already revise that manual shared it out with our counselors and our psychologists who are most likely to participate in those teams and we did share it out with our site leaders last week too with the expectation that that is um so go moving on that one and then also as people are
272putting in requests for special education files in our computer system we are asking for documentation of pre-referral interventions for those students and we're not saying we can't assess students because we can we want to assess students who need special education we want to help them but we also know through the SST process we can intervene for them sooner we can get reading intervention we can get all of these things in place so that's what we're asking for and then the fifth one is lack of Equitable and consistent implementation of evidence-based mtss um multitude interventions to address trauma and academic issues and the focus here was on trauma right addressing the trauma of families either created from in school or out of school but really making sure that safer school is a safe place for kids
273and so what I'm going to do here is talk about measurable outcomes and activities in the same breath because they go together it's too hard for me to separate them out so the first measurable activity is that we want to increase attendance and that one is tied to systemic racism because it's very hard to measure racism how do you measure that that is something that is felt and surveys are sometimes skewed we did propose a survey the stakeholders were not having it they said no just we know that that can be interpreted different ways we talked about different tools we could use and so we wanted to leave an absolute concrete that if our kids are comfortable in school and they're safe in school they're going to come to school so that's why that's in
274there and then in order to um address that we are going to be having um some Community part one of the things we're trying to do within the plan um I'll just jump to that part now is higher three different staff members the first one would be sort of the oversight person the csa's oversight who would coordinate all of the meetings remember this is the Gen Ed plan and this person will operate um with Jorge malgosa under Jennifer Sachs who's nodding over there and um so that particular person would kind of be the oversight person they would coordinate with the school sites they would coordinate with the parents they would make sure all of the reports were done on time and they would make sure all of the activities were on track they were being
275monitored and it was authentic right that would be that person um so this person would be tracking attendance data things like that how are we doing how are we engaging our families the next one what we want to do is create for measurable outcome number two no date on this one because it's upon creation and implementation of our African-American black parent advisory committees that's and both site and District levels meetings with rescheduled and held at our focal sites and one monthly District meeting to be held with parent participation will increase as a result of these meetings and there is a typo on that AAP AC because we had conversations around not every person identifies as African-American some people identify as black and so we did typical technical um advisors who advise us to use both
276terms within there so that's why we added that in we just didn't correct the acronym so we do want to make sure that another person that we hire is specifically um apparently is on for our African-American parents we have very um our parent Liaisons at the moment are predominantly for outreach to our people who our parents and Guardians who speak Spanish but we want to make sure that we have specific Outreach to our parents who are African-American or black and then um that we're including them both in terms of providing information but also getting information what do you need how do we need to make things work for your family number three is um the the that um schools of attendance of the focal Scholars will um decrease their suspension rate by five percent and
277so we'll be tracking and then 320 individual Scholars that is the role of the third person who is our instructional specialist who will be actually tracking these kids what we learned from our file reviews is that of the 11 kids who are left in the district of the 15 those kids were identified by the time now in first grade so a lot of times we start to do those special referral second grade their grade is Too Late by then so we need to make sure those interventions are in place and a lot of times um there is a link between um needing help and behavior right and so what we're thinking is that some of our kids would rather we know for a fact some of our kids would rather act out than be admit
278I can't read or can't do this activity or ask for help right it's hard and that is true across all students by the way across all grade levels so we are really focus on decreasing the suspension rate for those particular kids we know it's an issue we want to get ahead of it before we go into significant disproportionality um the next one is that measurable outcome number four that 100 of our focal Scholars groups will make a year and a half growth for each year receiving intervention services and this is something that is still up for debate and it's presented here because we haven't changed it yet but it was something that the stakeholders were very um passionate about and that not every student's going to make a year and a half worth of growth
279even if we try very hard to catch them up so they were looking at more of a broad Benchmark thirty percent of kids will be at standard I'm I'm just making that up you know 80 percent of kids will be at standard whatever is a jump up from the present levels based at those schools kind of backwards and forwards on that because this is an individual plan for an individual student right not a group as a whole just because three kids are doing great that doesn't mean this kid is doing great right so still working on that one information tonight any feedbacks welcome still open number five um that we will update and create relevant board policies some of which are coming for you tonight practices and procedures in alignment with California Ed code is
280measured by drafted documents departmental websites and board of agendas as appropriate and as I mentioned earlier we did update the SSG document already we already have been processed with the 504 document that was done this summer our SST documents were did not include referrals to 504 plans that was a huge oversight we had done um parent information packet from the ground up this summer because that was really heavily focused on when your kids come to school here's the rules rather than when your kids come to school we want them to be safe and learn right and we think it's important that we have both but we wanted to be um from a different lens so that was done this summer too and those are just the starts we're not done we'll continue to do this
281and then at the um suggestion of that last stakeholder group we did add that sixth outcome which um is again that this is a survey that um students will demonstrate increased connectiveness and engagement with school we didn't want to leave it only as the survey but since we were talking about students being disconnected then we wanted to make sure that there was a measure that they were connected again both that quantitative and qualitative data looking at that here's our focal schools the particular schools we chose where the schools with our highest percentage of African-American students they also um the students that we chose also have other risk factors such as um being in the tr3 on our test on our i-Ready test or having disciplinary incidents already or having decent F's in their grades and
282I will um Riverview is only sixth grade and Mount Diablo high school is only ninth grade and the reason why is because while we do have the freedom to choose our own number of students or technical advisors to advise us 300 we went for 320 just because you know wiggle room kids move in and out of the district but what you don't want to do is dilute it to where you've got 500 kids and now you're not concentrating your resources so when we played with the numbers that's what that's where we landed and our breakdown is as follows it does have to be um over 50 percent African-American and I can't read that far away in those letters but I think it's 54 and um and then obviously Linux is the next largest group but
283we do have other kids in there who meet those same metrics who are not performing as well so the activities as we already said I've already kind of run through the activities with you um we are very committed to making sure that all of these plans align that's one of the key Focus that Dr Clark has talked about over and over again none of these are in an isolation bubble we do want to make sure that the plans are working and I will say that us as staff we do work closely together on these things so tonight we have done our review and I'm happy to answer questions I'm sure there's many and then what we plan to do is again hold a further Outreach event next week and then we'll be bringing this back
284for board approval on October 27th and submit this to the CDE we anticipate approval in January and at that point we'll start bringing job descriptions and positions etc etc forward to start to implement the plan so that's where we are right now and I'm happy to take any questions thank you so much Dr agui all right oh that was a lot and I know the report is even more as we've seen we do have one public comment we do our public comment before we go into board questions and discussion we have Dorothy weisenberger okay I think normally we do public comment first so come on [Music] good evening board Dr Clark um I just wanted to say I was a part of some of these um stakeholders meetings and one of the things that disappointed
285me and uh Dr Gilly's already addressed was that we didn't have as large of a parent um African-American parent group and I wanted to hear more from them and what their um what they needed and what they wanted to see out of this and so I'm glad that we're going forward that was one of the things I wanted was to have another stakeholders meeting also um something that I also was um concerned about is these positions that we're going to hire because this money is coming from Special Ed for however long were Sig diff and for whatever we got to remember that some of these positions which I think we're going to still need especially the parent liaison has to fit into the budget afterwards so I want to make sure that we're I don't
286want to start something and get somewhere and then go backwards again because that's what I've found over the years when we've been cig deaf in other things and you see progress and you see things going and then I feel like we go I feel like we're on like on a hamster wheel if you will that's the best way I can describe it but um the other thing is that when I was hearing from community members and family and I in my work that I do also I hear that they don't know what ssts are they don't know what 504s are all they know is is what IEPs are and so I think that it's great that that's in there but I think that we um through the district need to do a better job um
287at our school sites on implementing those firsts and um and there's a lot more I could say but I think that's it for now um I'm looking forward to seeing how this um plays out and um looking forward to hearing from more parents thank you very much Miss weisenberger all right trustees questions or comments trustee Feller um I actually did attend one of the student focus groups along with some of the BSU leaders as well and it was great because it was um kids of all ages middle schools and it was great to hear from them because a lot of the stuff they were talking about or the same things I experienced and when I was younger and regarding the 504 plans and IEPs my mom actually has like this big binder of my brothers
288all his IEP paperwork so I think the district does maybe need to implement that more to parents and educate them about what the plan is I think that's really important to help students succeed all students succeed so I appreciate and love your presentation I will be sharing it with the BSU I've already got some of the meeting scheduled out so it might be further along the lines but I think it's great because I really appreciate that thank you so much we're happy to come and give an update if you need yeah I'll be in contact with you thank you trustee Fowler other trustee comments or questions trustee and Zoe um I agreed what you said um like how kind of painful it is and it's just I think what people will see especially um black
289parents and students is that yes when you look at identified root causes it's like it's not a news flash um sadly but it will be a news flash for a lot of people who are unfamiliar with with those experiences but I just want to really appreciate you um for um putting the brakes on it and taking the time like you know on Monday at the presentation you were ready to try and get in all of these comments and have them ready for today and but then there's just so many comments and so I really appreciate the willingness because I know that's hard um to pause and allow the process to go through and allow for more feedback um I think this plan is really rich and it's even more detailed than the so a report
290I feel like it gives more concrete action steps so that's very exciting um being on a hamster well this feels less this feels more intentional and more purposeful and more like oh we can do this if we do this um and less fluffy sorry for these very you know intelligent words to describe but basically thank you I've described it as writing a second dissertation I'm going to tell you what to tell you and then we're going to tell you I'm going to tell you again what we just told you yeah so there's a lot of that through the plan and I think that's intentional on the part of the state to make sure that it really is purposeful and you're not just jumping to the end and saying I'm going to do these five things
291right that you're actually following the process so we did I feel like we did that authentically but thank you thank you other comments or questions I know that this um has been and continues to be a tremendous undertaking and I thank you for um we're making so many efforts to to gather feedback from the community and to reach out again and again and try to include as many people um as possible um I do want to mention that one of the meetings that I went to um I was disheartened but not surprised by some of the comments from students um as an English teacher I'm always kind of keeping you know an ear especially toward anything um you know that comes from kind of my experience and and what one of the things that really
292stood out to me um was students reporting like um like the use of the n-word in their in their classes um and it just reminded me of something that I I've been thinking for a while and I don't know if it would be addressed in a safe plan or elsewhere and they do think that there's a need um for some policies around um hate language um and that's different from curse words like maybe we heard the notebook comment earlier like I think those things are very different and should be addressed um separately um and so I saw a lot about anti-racism but I think that this all kind of ties together and I just um look forward to maybe hopefully hearing about like what we're what we're doing to address like this specific concern that
293came up from students it came up from students and it also came up from parents um and that was that was disheartening um I at one of the meetings Jennifer sacks did talk about what we are doing to address that so I'll let her jump in we're going to need an extension of our meeting time soon less having to deal with should we pause for one second it's 10 23 would you like to make a motion for the extension of the meeting I'll make a motion we extend the meeting until midnight since I have nothing to do till tomorrow thank you very much motion by trustee Mason second by trustee Mayo uh we'll take that to a vote trustee Fowler yes and we probably don't have this on the electronic system that quickly I'm assuming
294since we just jumped that Voice vote trusty mail trustee Mason yes trustee McFerrin yes and uh trustee and zabi yes I also vote Yes motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member uh the reason for that is our board policy does require that we extend the meeting if we go beyond 10 30. so thank you very much for recognizing the time trustee Mason all right thank you trustee mayo and uh with that I'll bring it back to you is that absolutely so just very quickly less about board or less about policies and and discipline but more about education looking at our core novelist um taking a look at the choices there is something that's in the works as well as anything that we're looking at with regards to new adoptions ensuring that you
295know everything is very inclusive with this language with the portrayals um a very balanced perspective one that actually represents our community and not something that is more archaic in nature um so that's also something that we're also taking a look at but I think it's really part of is is just people don't know what they don't know and we know better we have to do better and part of that is is educating our young people as well as our communities and we do that partially by making sure that we've got the materials and supplies and books in their hands that are actually encouraging proper and productive discourse around particular topics thank you okay thank you very much did that answer your question okay any other comments or questions I too want to um thank you
296for um working on this project so closely and intensely and with such passion I did speak to a an African-American individual who has been involved in several of the focus groups and that individual was complementary as well the individual did not know that we would be postponing the decision tonight so um one of the comments was that the individual felt that we should be reaching out to the um African American and black community churches predominantly this person's opinion was that most of our families in Concord and Bay Point attend the churches in Pittsburgh and Antioch and if we can connect with the faith groups that that will bring more of the parents into the into this process and because they trust the members from their faith groups so you know we it's the old adage
297of having the right person deliver the message and accompany them perhaps the other thing was this person felt that we um need to help train parents to be advocates for their children and that's something that I'm passionate about um and that parents need to be informed about the terminology we all understand that part and that um parents need to feel comfortable about speaking up about their children the um um things that we talked about were parent-teacher conferences our parents receiving information of how to engage with their teacher at parent-teacher conferences and yes I can provide some resources that I find valuable but those have to be also considered at those local sites and so there are many things like that this individual felt that the parent advisory group would be very beneficial but also felt
298and this speaks towards the work that's done in our special ed parent advisory group that there were resource parents out there that could work with parents when they were having challenges or maybe even make some of the presentations at the school and perhaps that's what the goal is with the employees that would be hired but their the individual failed there also needed to be more parent involved in it not just School Employees that would help bring in more parents and engage parents more authentically so this is a person that I value a lot and I just wanted to share her comments thank you thank you that was that was a lot of comments but I want to also say you you I appreciate all of the thanks but I'm not the one writing this plan
299this is a whole team of people so I have to be really clear that has to be shared with or that whole group I happen to be the face but not for long they're going to take it in equity um and then again it's that whole group of people and um and I think I know the person who you're referencing with the comments I have a lot of respect for that person um I did forget to tell you on this topic that at our last meeting the stakeholders did approve the planning concept right with the CH and so what we did is we did send out a Google survey to them and say hey yes you adopt the plan as it is yes you adopt it with the additional sixth measurable outcome that we had
300talked about at the meeting or no you don't approve it at all and we got 100 approval and it was about 87 approved with that sixth measurable outcome and then 13 no they don't care about the additional measurable outcome and again because I think it was about the um the um quality of quantitative data which I firmly believe and I think it's very very useful probably at more useful um than quantitative data in a lot of points as we talked about the things that we talked we heard we felt with those student comments right that's more valuable than a chart so that was important so yes thank you thank you uh trustee Mayo I I think you made a good point um or or the person you spoke to about uh reaching out to the
301faith community I think sometimes we uh get used to holding all of our um committee meetings you know at school sites or at the district office and that's not always the most welcoming place for people to be um so I think we can be um you know think outside the box a little bit about you know if they were I think in the plan it said that the the aab PAC meetings would be at those sites um but that would be something to consider as well could some of the meetings happen at uh one of the churches that people attend for example um so just a thought there um but I really appreciate that the aab PAC is something that will be created because I think that's something that um has been has been missing
302that's the voice that's been missing in our decision making um and it was uh you know even in the process of building this plan was something that people want more and more of and that's one way to make it happen so I really appreciate that that's in the plan I guess the only thing I'm sorry go ahead just really briefly um if we'd like to go with um trustee Mayo's suggestions um from from the person that you were speaking with um we do have a faith leader um in the African-American um uh Church community that I that works in the district I would be happy to tell you you know we can connect certainly after thank you Justin Mason I was just going to say in addition obviously you reach out to the African-American Community
303but when you look at the list of schools obviously you reach out widely to Bay Point and I've been going through my mom's stuff we're selling her house and I ran into um articles she had and one of them was an article written to the editor of the paper about the service of our community and the perception of our community from Mount Diablo school district and it could have been written yesterday and that was written in 1967. so I'm not saying much because we've seen a lot of things come through the ranks that's going to make a big difference and here we are from 67 to today and it doesn't look a whole lot different okay any other comments or questions because this is information tonight coming back for Action to our next meeting and
304okay thank you so much for the presentation and for your time thank you I'm just going to stay right here yes you are 80 18.5 uh as was mentioned earlier during our resolution um to review UCSF Learning Ally dyslexia screener pilot study this is something that I'm quite excited about um this is something that's been in the works for a while we've been um working with Dr fatiman now for about four years around our dyslexia initiatives and about four years ago we started working together when she approached us to do her dissertation in our district and people said dyslexia we can't say dyslexia well you can't it's been in it's been the law since the 80s so we've done a tremendous amount of work with our staff and our psychologists around how we address dyslexia
305in the district um we've also um brought in some different reading programs which we'll talk about at the end but this is just sort of the latest in that group so Kathy is also um is facilitating our dyslexia advisory committee and uh Miss Levy right here and Rachel is a part of that committee and very helpful to us along with some other parents and some other staff members we do not have students on that group at this time but that's not to preclude that they usually meet within the school day um we have principals we have teachers we have other providers so this is the latest project and we were approached by UCSF who is doing a lot of work they're getting grant funding from the state to do this work as you know the
306state um has proposed multiple years that they want to do Universal screening but then the loss never seems to get through and then they turn into two-year bills and everybody opposes them and we're not sure why so um supper actually is going to support that bill next year because it really is speaking to this early screening and pre-special Ed intervention so this is a project that we're excited about as part of that UCSF work and so basically what's happening right now is really the window to identify um and really provide intervention for kids who are dyslexic um it's not a print disability it's a phonemic disability it's the ability to discern sounds and introvert sounds it comes in different types of Dyslexia too so by the time our kids get to school it's actually already
307too late for a lot of our kids UCSF is doing work with preschoolers in this area that they're actually doing the brain scans and so really then when we get into um interventions in school well you know all kids struggle reading in kindergarten well you know they're just late and by third grade we're like oh maybe something's going on but by Third right but we're missing sort of this window so what the goal is of the screener is that we can really intervene early if we know who to intervene with early and this is not a screener for dyslexia this is a screener for kids at risk of dyslexia so basically what they're trying to do is they're trying to come up with a screener that's free for all public schools and it's efficient based
308in Neuroscience they're doing tremendous things with brain mapping by the way if you ever want to take a tour of that place well worth a day and um that is valid and it's also effective for English language Learners because there's um obviously being a phonemic um awareness disability right there's overlap between language acquisition and language disability and so sometimes you think oh they're just learning the new language right no no this is real disability so how to differentiate between the two and so then what is happening is that they are right now doing sort of the tier two um level of the testing on this they already did a small pilot study over the summer and now they're expanding the program and so we are actually both um the student and also the teacher for
309the program right where our data will be used to validate the screener so again in the summer um they did that play test with 200 students and by the way the kids do think it's play because it's set up on like an iPad like a little video game right it's also adaptive um so that if you know the student is missing 12 in a row it just shuts off after two you're not just going to keep going and losing the game right um any of us who you know know kids playing video games to give up right if you that's sort of science behind that so what they're trying to do now is they're trying to um administer the test to 2000 students so they can validate the test right and so they can see
310if it's actually measuring what it is they want it to measure and then hopefully um launch it next school year so um the test will give insights into reading proficiency for those children and obviously Early Access for the screener which is a huge benefit for us it is at no cost but Early Access is good um we'll be recognized if we want to have our name published in the study is doing something good for Science and the good of mankind and obviously we have this obligation um not only to our students who we identify and also to our staff so they will be opportunities for professional development for our staff who participate and also um it will help us really know who to identify for reading interventions so what ends up happening is they do
311the screener three times a year and first of all they do the family survey to we know that dyslexia is not direct just like it's not a direct genetic one for one link but we do know there are some family connections there and so what ends up happening is for our kindergarteners including 2K should we choose to participate um and our first graders they do the stage one and that is where they test them in those specific areas they say it takes about 15 minutes on paper and then for those students who are kind of like flag right okay this is might be something to follow up with about 20 of those students will do stage two and again they predict it's about 15 minutes and then of course they're trying to validate it so
312they have to validate it against a known instrument right so to make sure that those things correlate so that's the next 15 minutes those things were all on paper I think they overshot the mark because these are kindergarteners and so they're actually finishing the test in a much shorter timeline so what will end up happening is they will end up having um a person who is on the site and yes the principals know that their sites are selected we already had a meeting with the principals and the staff at UCSF so this won't be a surprise tomorrow if they get the packets and so what will end up happening is they will end up pooling it's a one-to-one test tester and student so it's on one-to-one basis it's fun it's great yeah we're gonna go
313play games and the kids will go ahead and go on back to class and so they will just rotate through the day so the classes and the schools will be asked to provide a space for them and somebody to kind of do Logistics here's the bathroom here's you know don't pull that class at 10 o'clock that's recess you know those types of things but all of the Proctors will be provided by UCSF and um then again those are the things that they'll need to get enthusiasm I forgot to mention that one it's really important you have to sell this and then our selected sites what we did is we looked specific for certain things for our school sites right we could only pick 300 kids we would like to do this with all of our
314schools but that just wasn't an option they didn't get us through that so we picked Bel Air because they are doing a lot of work around literacy so that one made sense the next one is Fair Oaks and that was because they had used to have a very low percentage of kids in special ed and now they have a higher percentage and Gregory Gardens and Valhalla just because they're different close to each other so that was like are we under identifying or over identifying Ren principle is on our dyslexia subgroup and very committed to reading literacies and and reading and literacy and then Sunrise was something that UCSF is also looking at which is the link as I mentioned earlier between reading disabilities and behavior and how that manifests in schools and so our kids
315ending up in really restrictive programs when they really have a disability of a print disability or dyslexia or some other that is not actually um social emotional in origin so we wanted to make sure we get those guys in there too not a lot of kindergarteners so Sunrise though and so now um what we're doing is we've already asked the schools and designated the research leads that was the principles we had a meeting on a Friday afternoon a couple weeks ago and then we will execute that mou with UCSF and then launch that partnership with the school and so that's kind of the nuts and bolts of our dyslexia partnership and screener which will be starting and I also did want to just touch base very quickly on the things that are also in place
316as over the last few years so we have um again if we're identifying kids great now they're identified now what do we do so what we did is we did adopt three different tiers of our reading interventions in special education the first one is our Spire program which is through um run basically through our elementary resource program those are 30-minute lessons they're scripted and it meets all of the um requirements below that it provides explicit direct cumulative intensive instruction that's focused on the actual structure of language right and it starts with phonemes and builds up from there and then the next one is it does have to be multi-sensory so that we have it as visual auditory and kinesthetic tactile Pathways all activated at the same time because we know that's what works best we
317know our kids with dyslexia can learn to read we know they will learn to read if we provide those right supports for them we also know that for some kids Spire is not working and so those are our kids who really have greater needs and they typically move to our special day classes we have that available in our learning handicap classes at the elementary level and also some of our resources at the middle school and the reason why is because if they've already gone through Elementary with spire and it's not working we need to try something different and this year we were able to do something brand new and our goal is to build it out to two classes and two clinics but right now we only have one but um we are using some
318of our one-time money at this point to operate this program but it is a Lindamood Bell class and so what it is um Linda mood Bell is the reading instruction making math wheel and again it's a multi-sensory um evidence-based math program so that these kids can still continue to learn contact content but in a very structured environment so that class is not for every student it's for a very very highest needs students with um significant levels of Dyslexia and then the clinic is something that is um done through zooms um because we historically have sent students to the Lindenwood Bell clinic for you know dirty sessions or whatever that is as they need it but we decided to go ahead and bring that in-house so we did already trained staff on those um we trained
319them already on Lindenwood Bell making math real they're scheduled for it but it books a month in advance so that's really scheduled so those were our dyslexia interventions that we have so far and we're excited to get started all right thank you very much Dr agui two big presentations in a row yes all right trustees questions or comments we are good to go thank you so much it's great to see uh our district being a part of this Innovation and really making a difference in dyslexia okay thank you uh oh this is a comment on 18.5 oh Dorothy weisenberger you have a comment on this item here I'm really glad to see this is happening um in our school district um I think in all schools I'm not going to say our school district because
320in schools across the state and across the country were behind on helping kids with dyslexia and and um find um and finding them in the schools and so I I hope that the bill does pass that Dr Gilly was talking about of early intervention on screening because I'm going to give you an example really quick of two different scenarios in my family of dyslexia I have one son my oldest I was in the military at the time they said oh he's a boy oh he's ADHD or not ADHD add at the time I used to call it add and they they said oh he's this oh he's that and then he started having behavior problems or um trying to get out of class and by the time he was in second grade I said enough
321is enough and I went and had him tested on my own to see what is going on with his reading I'm a love I love reading and I love reading to him that he couldn't read to me I knew there was something and I felt the school at the time was failing him and no it wasn't here but but with that said he uh he never learned the love of reading and it took him five years to graduate the program but he still had a hard time reading he still through his high school had a hard time needed more time to read and more time to process things go fast forward to my other son Kelsey kindergarten came we knew he had some processing we knew something was going on but we weren't sure he
322was in speech so we were like you know what is it and then I started seeing the signs kindergarten teacher at the end of the year said well if he gets to the double syllable sounds of pronouncing he'll be fine well he didn't so guess what guess what they wanted to keep him back what happens I said no and I said he I went to Hope and got him tested the Hope Academy and got him tested and yes he's dyslexic I got him in a program the same one I had my other son and he graduated in three years was at a 12th grade level of reading with comprehension in sixth grade the only thing he still struggled with was math which I'm glad to hear that we're doing something about that but this is
323two different kids on two different sets of the spectrums of my first to my third we have a huge problem and it's still going on and we're not doing it fast enough and it breaks my heart especially after we had the experience of uh um at CAC when we got to his parents witnessed what our kids with dyslexia go through and actually went through the test I left there broken as a parent I went there broken and felt like I failed my kid my oldest so please we need to do something and with this we're going to start but it needs to be more in our reading program in the state of California is outdated there are other states that are doing reading programs that do help kids with dyslexia that can still help and
324not have to be something diff totally different so we need to get out of the Dark Ages thank you thank you very much and that's just another example of how a parent's input can make a difference um because you've you've lived that experience um and I think it brings to mind also if we're looking at what we can afford and not afford when it comes to things like this um it's going to be more expensive for us to do the interventions later on in a student's um you know in their educational career than to spend the money up front to identify the needs and provide the supports and so that's part of what was in the resolution earlier tonight and the beginning of what we're seeing in this pilot study so this is this is
325just a start but it's a good start so really appreciate all of your work on this okay that takes us to item 18.6 review updates to board policies and administrative regulations one thousand six thousands and seven thousands Dr Clark yeah so we uh we started this process last year right before we went out on winter break and um and it wasn't until um Miss Germanic kind of took it over that we uh that we started getting some pushback also I mean getting some getting some progress but also trustee Mayo helped us when she reached out to csba and and got them to respond to our to our many um requests and whatnot so it's been a team effort and and um you know Dr Gonzalez opened up the contract at first and we've all been
326working at um updating our sections and whatnot so so again this is this is for information um we are going to give you not till the next board meeting but the one after to to bring it back for um for approval but just fair warning that there's a there's more where that came from and there's going to be some some more coming forward and um so with that said I I think this is a a big step for our district to update all of our policies and to do it in to do it in one big swoop and um and we're excited about that now to put you on the spot but is there anything you want to add to that Mr Alvarado okay question trustee ma'am so not that I'm not passionate about these
327uh if we have questions uh about the changes uh that we're seeing whom do we reach out to do we you know is it according to the the number or do we no no let's start with let's start with uh mranic let's stick with Laura because if you send it into one of us we're gonna um it would be best to start with her okay thank you I've already got a few foreign thank you very much uh this is huge um that we're getting this done I know it's the thing that that has always falls off the plate because who has time to do this this kind of work but really our board policies are the rules and regulations and laws basically of our district and when they're out of date it makes it really
328hard for anyone at a you know in leadership or at a school site to be consistent across the district in how we're you know even just the example tonight of uh special education and what's the process for our School site teams to uh to identify students and to offer the 504 plan that there's a board policy for that right so um thank you for this I look forward to some bedtime reading any other questions about this process it's informational only tonight oh thank you you have put in many cards tonight so I'm losing track Dan Reynolds come on up again this agenda item addresses for discussion tonight and potential approval at your next board meeting updating three entire sections of board policies and administrative regulations you have a total of nine sections so this is
329roughly a third of the entirety of your board policies and administrative regulations the three attachments to this board agenda item are a total of 909 pages of board policies and administrative regulations and these board policies and administrative regulations are being presented to you without redlining without the editing that at redlining is the editing term for explicitly showing what language is being stricken what language is being added how much of the old version will make it through to the new version and how much of the new version is all new these board policies and administrative regulations are being presented to you without showing you the existing policies and regulations and showing you what is being removed and what is being added are you okay with that sounds like trusty Mayo was asking a question in line
330with my questions are you okay with changing 33 of your board policies and administrative regulations without being able to see side by side what changes are being made are you ready to wipe away 33 of everything in your board policies and administrative regulations without looking at the differences are you okay changing your board policy and administrative regulations for courses of study without tracking the changes that's one of the ones on the list tonight are you okay with changing board policies and administrative regulations for high school graduation requirements without looking at the changes or controversial issues or homework or class size or student assessments I would encourage the board to not change 33 percent of your board policies and administrative regulations until you have had a chance to see what it is you're changing away from
331and two and how much of it is as you want it to be it is great to have them all they're published and to be able to go through them but if you cannot track the changes I worry that you cannot fully dive into what it is you're moving away from and what it is you're moving into thank you very much okay anything else on this item okay moving on to item 18.7 review board bylaw 9270 and resolution 21 2230 conflict of interest code yes so we we needed to update this policy we've had we've had several individuals we've we've changed uh position descriptions and um and it was this was this was needed to um to bring us into compliance and so um so again we're bringing this this policy forward we will be
332um you know we will be sticking with our standard timeline on on this policy because it is just it is just one that we're ever asking to change but um Mr Alvarado is there anything you would like to add to that okay yeah so yeah so so again we we've changed our um cabinet positions from you know from assistant superintendents to Chiefs and um and there were also some site administrators and and other administrators throughout the district that were not included in the old policy that that that are now and so we just again want to um put get this policy updated um as soon as possible so that's why we're bringing it forward this evening thank you very much and so it's on for information tonight not action yet and I do see a
333redlined version for our information thank you any other questions on that one okay next we have 18.8 review and potential approval of the revisions to the title one site parent involvement policies and I know um Miss Sachs has been deeply involved in federal program monitoring so I'm I'm uh this is just an extension of that lovely work it certainly is and it actually is connected to the earlier presentation about our Title One schools and uh the funding that they receive there's a whole list of things that we need to make sure we have in place in order to ensure that folks are involved in the decision making and how we're involving our parents and our community and so these involvement policies were brought forward for information at the meeting prior they're here for action and
334they have been responded to and edited by School site councils and so again they are here for approval tonight thank you very much do we have a motion on this item well you guys argue over it I'll make a motion to approve the revision to the site parent involvement policies as presented second by trustee McFerrin any discussion on this item I just have a comment um and I just wanted to I really appreciated Oak gross um because it gives more detail I know this is a template it's a federal document whatever and the answers are the same on all of them but Oak Grove expanded and it made me feel like I could understand better how they actually engage in parents engagement besides just saying parents have the opportunity to um so I would encourage
335all of our sites in the future um to follow that that their lead I understand that this is a like Federal oversight and it's just something you just have to do and it's just another thing but it's a thing that if you're gonna do it make it count um so that's just my comment I just wanted to shout out Elk Grove it's okay thank you I think it's always great for school sites to know what some of the great examples are out there and share share information all right any other discussion on this item okay we'll take it to a vote trustee Fowler yes I'm sorry oh okay got it in there thank you all right thank you and with the rest of us are voting online here motion passes five zero with concurrence from
336our student board member thank you very much okay that takes us to 18.9 review and potential approval of the job description for the coordinator career transition specialist I'm going to ask that director Stephanie Roberts come up looks like our HR department would at night [Laughter] thank you for being here Stephanie this is what this would be a new position that would be funded by K-12 stronger Workforce program um it's one of the grants we have for K-12 stronger Workforce grants in addition to supporting the ctag funds primarily you can see it all lift listed in there it's supporting the transition through our Middle School to high school and then post graduation we have one administrator who supports those seven grants and so we found a um some additional needs and then it is Grant funded
337so at the end of the grants we'll make that determination about other funds but I'm here to answer any questions and the administrator for career Pathways and Link learning Heather fontanelle Wood supervisors decision all right thank you very much yes and we can see the funding sources on here which is great those grants uh do I hear a motion on this item I'll make a motion that we approve the job description for the coordinator for career transition specialist thank you motion by trustee Mason second by trustee Mayo any further discussion okay we'll take it to a vote thank you very much trustee Feller yes [Music] motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member thank you all right item 1810 review and potential approval of the job description for information systems administrator and we
338have a public comment from Dan Reynolds on this one as well public comment first there's a presentation is there a presentation Dr Gonzalez no so there's not a presentation there is no presentation so come on up with your public comment for those keeping score five is not the most number of speaker cards I've ever put in in a single meeting item 19 1810 asks you to review and potentially approve the job description for information systems administrator the item says it is a change from a database administrator position that was approved by the board on May 26th of this year that database administrator position was included in the Extended Learning opportunities plan from item 17.7 on the board agenda on May 26th the plan in that item shows funding for this position for three years costing
339422 thousand dollars for this one position on May 26th the position was listed under a new Services New Personnel item you are using one-time funding to pay for this admin position for this year in the next two years questions is is the board planning on continuing this position when the one-time money Runs Out this is especially concerning to me because if you are why are we adding ongoing administrator positions right now when you are being presented with fire and brimstone predictions about enrollment clips and discussion of cuts and right sizing thank you thank you very much okay so this item is on for info in action would you like to that is confirmation so there is a position that was created in the expanded learning opportunities Grant that will continue and I don't have all
340of this information I believe it continues either one or two additional years and I believe it's out of sr3 I don't have that information right now happy to follow up with the board but this item is to change the job description in the job description only because the new position that we received permission to fill we cannot find anyone for and the reason for that is because anybody who's looking for a database administrative position is not looking for what we have and so after two full rounds of interviews in a department that really needs another database administrator especially since we're trying to upgrade business plus over the next year or so it's impossible for us to fill the position because we're calling it the wrong thing so this item is before you tonight to change
341the title and the job description so that it matches the work so that we can actually go out and recruit the type of individual that we need to be able to come in and do the job thank you so what we're looking for is the information systems administrator correct and that's what we think will attract the right person to the job correct okay it better describes the job um I don't know all of the technological terms but somebody that comes in and does SQL yes you're able to do that with um with the database administrator but you don't want somebody that just just does that narrow thing and Design Systems we're not designing systems we're actually having people manage and and build out the current systems that we've already purchased I don't know if that
342makes sense yes I can do perfect yes uh yes and the funding on this item does show ELO for 2122 S3 for 2223 and sr3 for 23.24. thank you for that information I don't have it on the item so okay all right uh so this item is on for Action do we have a motion on the side I'll move the board approved the job description for the information systems administrator I'll second thank you motion by trustee Mayo second by trustee Fowler any further discussion may I uh interrupt unfortunately one of the few uh restrictions for our student board member is the chicken map participate in matters related to employee matters thank you very much for that clarification do we have another second call second on your behalf all right so motion by trustee mayo and
343second by trustee Mason thank you any discussion on this item okay we'll take it to a vote trustee Fowler yes thank you and the rest of us will click on the electronic vote motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member thank you very much all right that takes us to item 1811 First Amendment to the employment agreement for superintendent this is on for Action this evening I don't think I can introduce my own item but so shall I introduce it to begin with and we'll have some uh some direction from our legal team here all right um so uh as uh as a board we did um complete our evaluation for superintendent clerk a few months ago and um the action that we wanted to take this evening that we were proposing to
344take this evening um is to extend the contract for Dr Clark for an additional year um and so we wanted to take that action uh publicly here and um be able to continue the uh good work that Dr Clark has done here in our district providing stability and um uh ensuring the high quality education that we're attempting to provide here in our district and building a strong stable team to do so over the next few years anything to add trustees all right so uh Mr Alvarado if you would help us with the procedure here as far as what the motion needs to look like sure and so the board May uh go ahead and as indicated move to approve the First Amendment to the superintendent's employment agreement I would State for the record will actually
345request that the board President's Day for the record the terms of the agreement which in this case was that the terms are to extend the employment agreement to June 30th 2024 at the current rate of compensation um and and then once with with that on the records uh then the board to proceed to to uh move and adopt the if it's always just uh the emotion on this matter very good so to clarify uh the amendment to the employment agreement the recommendation is to extend the employment agreement to June 30th 2024 at the current rate of compensation so at this time I'm looking for a motion on this item so moved second that's legitimate all right thank you we have a motion by trustee Mason second by trustee Mayo any further discussion on this topic
346all right we'll take it to a vote trustee Fowler yes thank you for your advisory vote and the rest of us will vote online here and the motion passes 5-0 with concurrence from our student board member thank you very much congratulations Dr Clark we appreciate you your dedication to our district and for sticking with us for a longer haul all right until almost midnight tonight okay that is all of our business action items tonight so the most one main remaining thing is board reports you ever forgot about the board report do you have a board report trustee Mason for you he's got one up that I would like to go first trustee and say we I'm not lying when I say it's brief okay um I attended a listening session for parents of black students
347hosted by Dr Clark which is both comforting and disheartening and my message is to all the black all of the parents of black students out there just know you aren't alone and your experiences are not unique um I was serving on a jury last week and the week before so I regretfully had to miss an opportunity to join Dr Clark in a in hearing from leadership students of our bridge program but I just want to acknowledge especially as this relates to Civic engagement how honored I was to receive the invite and more importantly how hard I know they work to prepare for the meeting to express their concerns and ideas um and they promised to invite me back so I hope that comes soon and then finally I virtually attended the West Contra Costa Unified
348School District meeting where they mandated vaccinations for all and hearing the misinformation and lies that permeated public comments further solidified my belief the need to partner with trusted Messengers in our community to help answer questions and concerns about coveted vaccines and address myths for people who are willing to listen thank you foreign all right um last week I attended the CAC meeting um I always enjoy the speaker series portion of the meeting and this time Dr geely gave a presentation about next steps for unfinished learning um and learning uh recovery distance learning plans and online IEPs um I really appreciate being a liaison to this group it's a group of really knowledgeable and supportive and dedicated parents I noticed quite a few new faces in the group I want to encourage anyone who's a parent
349guardian or friend of a child receiving special education services to attend the next meeting um if this sounds interesting to you it will be on November 2nd um information can be found very easily on our district website um by typing CAC into the search function which is how I got it quickly um I attended to break I break the sweat for Education event on October 2nd I want to thank everyone at yours yours humanly and the Mount Diablo Education Foundation you're putting together such a great event also thank you to Walnut Creek mayor Kevin Wilk for attending and speaking the yv cheer team for their incredible performance and for cheering us on at the beginning of the route and all of the volunteers who work so hard to prepare for and staff the event um
350I want to um to space stakeholder meetings um which were mentioned earlier so I won't talk about talk about them really at any length um and the last budget advisory committee meeting among other topics um we discussed the results of our bond refinancing so it's really exciting that um the tax property taxpayers are going to be saving um money on their taxes over the next 16 years I want to thank the fiscal Department again for all of their hard work toward this effort and for exceeding our expectations saving more money than we even anticipated early on um I want to congratulate our director of food and nutrition services and Warehouse Dominic Bocce and chief of Educational Services Jennifer Sachs on winning an award for garden education and school food collaboration award from California food for
351California kids the announcement States in part Dominic Machi and Jennifer Sachs fostered an interdepartmental collaboration to strengthen connections between garden education and School meals together they use a three-pronged approach underscoring the links between in-class curriculum meals served in the cafeteria and garden spaces on campus Jennifer and Dominic collaborated to redesign their food service and scratch cooking opportunities connect to connect with the gardening program I am so pleased to see Mr Machi and Miss sacks being recognized for the tremendous work and that they do for our students and for our school communities at Large and last I've been preparing for my first professional development day on Equitable grading practices by reading rating for Equity by Joe Feldman I was looking for it I have it in my bag with all my grading um this was provided
352to me by the district where I work um where I teach I'm currently reading chapter nine which is on practices that value knowledge not environment or behavior um and I'm doing a lot of highlighting um and I'm particularly interested in um in kind of the different activities that fall into the behavior category which is kind of a wider category than I've generally thought of it um during my career so I'm looking forward to finishing the book and going to that training and I will talk about it probably in my next report all right thank you trustee McFerrin trustee Mason I attended the teacher of the year or watched the teacher of the year um presentation I went to the csba meeting um as some of you know my husband's on the Los Medanos community community
353healthcare district board and um at their last meeting once again they approved funding for eyeglasses for Pittsburgh and mount Gabby unified students who attend schools in Bay Point and um there we don't they don't get a lot of response from Mount Diablo so there's an opportunity for kids that need glasses to get free glasses but they're not really taking advantage of it and um lastly I know there's nobody from Bay Point listening but I've told my friends that public health I would make this announcement there is a new initiative that's actually a Statewide initiative to support stores with healthier options for children and families and um the county is joining on and in for bavate Point Community they're having a community survey on October 28th at 1 pm and if anybody's interested in participating they
354can email me and I will email them the link to participate the teeth pull it all right thank you Justin trustee Mayo um most of you have already mentioned the things that I have been involved in as well um I wanted to give a shout out to the folks from the Mount Diablo Education Foundation who did participate as volunteers and participate in the run on October 2nd including our own uh Dr Clark and I'm disappointed he didn't wear his medal today um and you know it was a race to set everything up at dark o30 but some of us were there at before seven o'clock so um and it was a great event and the weather was perfect I you know we just need to get a shout out to Mother Nature every now and
355then um the and I want to thank the numerous volunteers who turned out for the Pleasant Hill Community Service day on October 25th many of our schools had projects that were approved by our labor groups as doable by volunteers and I know a lot of uh enthusiasm has built um or increases in support for our schools when we have those kind of events I was unable to participate because I was attending a memorial service that morning and I also want to give a shout out for the growing healthy kids workshop that was held at Riverview which seemingly was a ReSound ending success based on all the pictures that were on social media so thank you thank you trustee Mann trustee Feller um regarding the student advisory committee I have gathered students from Northgate montgomo High
356College Park Concord Sequoia Middle School and Holbrook Language Academy and I'm working on Gathering more students from Ignacio Valley and other middle schools as well such as Riverview and Valley View our meeting is tentative for uh for about it's been two weeks I just sent out the email I'm not sure if anyone will be able to attend but I do have some topics lined up that we will be discussing and it's basically just an introductory meeting on a bunch of icebreakers and what we're advocating for and another thing I wanted to point out is regarding the fights and suspensions that's what's happening throughout the district and my amazing college accounts are actually appointed this out to me so Props to her but she mentioned how that we have only been compromising with ourselves for the
357past year through the pandemic and so a lot of students teachers parents don't know how to compromise with others and that's just leading to everyone just being upset if someone like bumps into bumps in you in the hallway people get upset it's it's just going to take time for things to get back to normal and people to understand that it is the way it is sometimes and I think the concept of understanding and forgiveness are really crucial right now and just to be patient with everyone and the time we're in and lastly regarding the black student union at College Park we're doing great I have been running the recent meetings just because my club advisor is out on a personal leave and last week I had an interactive presentation and some of the questions I
358included was what is it like to be a black student specifically at College Park do you feel comfortable alone represented protected advocated for um another one was Heavy when it's a richly motivated to Bennett College Park and we do have a lot of allies in the club so I included how do you support your African-American friends and do and another one that's a very Hot Topic at College Park I just had a meeting with the principal Mr Honey about this is um if you feel comfortable with the use of the n-word in literature uh we're actually having a discussion on that next week as well on what's my opinion is not okay to use literature for teachers who are not a black or African-American and yeah we're just we're doing great getting by the year
359all the seniors I know are applying to colleges so we're under a very stressful time so just be patient teachers please and understand it's hard to keep up with everything thank you so much trusty Fowler and on top of that you've got a late night meeting tonight we'll try to end this thing so very briefly um yes that break a sweat run was fantastic um Dr Clark and I also participated with calpurg on advocating for federal funding for electric school buses um so we had the chance to go out and meet with bus drivers including um bus driver Tim ing was featured in the video that calberg posted to to do this advocacy work Nationwide for federal funding um the Riverview Garden open house was fantastic I also enjoyed seeing the library there and hearing
360their plans to hold Library events outside in the garden as a more welcoming and also coveted friendly location um so I thought those were great those kind of collaborations with the school are a great example of of how I think River Riverview middle is already acting as a community school for the area um and so I think if we can get it recognized for that that it would make it eligible for state and federal Community Schools funding so something to potentially explore me yes another great collaboration thank you thank you trustee Mason um I want to thank the volunteers at the community Walnut Creek community service day um it's amazing to see what dedicated parent volunteers can accomplish on Valle verde in particular had a really huge project engaging local businesses and parent volunteers to
361assemble garden beds from recycled fence materials they built tables they planted succulents really incredible project out there shout out to our students who were active on National voter registration day um you know that's probably an activity that can already count towards their seal of Civic engagement but I saw that well um Jen up tweeted a video that was featuring Michelle alas with the Secretary of State Dr Shirley Weber um the YB High Democratic Club registered students and Northgate High invited the County elections mobile van out to their site to register students which is something that's free to anyone who asks so those are just the ones I know about I'm sure there were much more students active on that walk thank you also to everyone who participated in Walk and Roll to school day seeing
362that Golden Shoe award at Valley Verde for the class with highest participation reminded me of when I organized that event for my own kids school years ago and it just makes such a difference to get out of your car and meet your neighbors and create safer routes for students to gain the confidence to walk by bike and scooter to school when feasible um so with all of this I just feel that community support for our schools is so strong um and sometimes that's not as apparent if you're if you're just sort of reading things online um but when you get out in person to our schools and to these activities you can see it and feel it firsthand um and so I've just really enjoyed seeing so many of you out there in action and
363thank you you are renewing my hope and belief that really together we can build positive healthy schools and communities so keep it up all right so with that we are almost done with our meeting we have a future agenda items which is item 21.1 um just a reminder of how to put extend items on to our future board agendas um according to our board policy uh you can email any requests to myself as well as Dr Clark for consideration and so I think this item on our agenda is an opportunity for Dr Clark to clarify uh for if he needs to check in with with inter is there interest you know among the board as a whole for any particular item at hand yes yes anything else you want to add to that no just
364um just I I know that um you know I meet with board members individually and they may give me suggestions or ideas and whatnot and really um but what needs to then happen is I do need to bring that back to the whole entire board and get consensus that these are things that the whole board agrees on for an agenda item or for there to be additional staff work and and researching or or bringing the board information on those particular items so um so again I will I will work on that and continue to bring stuff to the entire board thank you yes it's oftentimes things that we request do require even more staff time so we want to make sure to prioritize for things that the majority of the board is looking for yeah
365very appreciate it uh trustee Mayo did you have something uh yes we do we have a document to sign tonight before we leave yes that was going to be the next thing I was going to say thank you thank you we have a stack of board resolutions to be signed so please stay to add your signature and with that we will adjourn at 11 27 PM hey it's earlier