PCS Board of Education Meeting: February 24, 2026

001It got so quiet. calling the meeting back to order. Hello, everyone. All righty. All right. We are going to. Uh, do the Pledge of Allegiance. Stand if you'd like. All right. Now, for the fun part. We have recognition for students of the month, and we start with camel worst. So we're going to have to get a little pathway in there if we can. I'm sorry. If you so number 6, we have public public report of action taken in closed session. Oh, I was going to be at the end. Oh, okay. All right. I'll do it now while we're doing this. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to report out on action taken in the closed session. Settlement case number. Ss. 2 5 2 6 0 3 was passed unanimously. Okay, all right. Now we have Kennelworth. Hi,

002my name is Vivian Erickson. My name is Chantel. Kenmore Junior High School is proud to introduce our February student of the month, Evelyn Lee. Evelyn Lee has been chosen Student of the Month because she is one of our top achievers who shows incredible dedication and integrity with a fantastic personality to match. Evelyn has maintained a 4.0 GPA throughout seventh and eighth grade while participating in Kenworth's most rigorous academic courses. Including accelerated math, advanced English, and Spanish. Ms. Minaris, Evelyn's math teacher, shared, Evelyn is an excellent student in my accelerated Math 1 class. Everyone works hard each and every day, not only making sure she has understands. The concepts, but also helping to make sure her partners understand it too. Abund is an accelerated math student, and I know she will continue to excel in school

003as she moves forward. Evelyn manages to excel academically, all while being a busy multi-sport athlete, both in and out of school. Outside of school, Evelyn plays competitively with North Coast soccer and 101 lacrosse. Kenworth has been lucky to have her play for our girls basketball and volleyball teams, and on the track team for both seventh and eighth grade. While Evelyn is not completing homework or at one of her many sports teams practices. She can be found listening to music, hanging out with friends, and enjoying a road trip to see a national park with her family. Evelyn also has big dreams to attend. The health program at Stanford University to pursue a career as a team physician. For a professional sports team. Congratulations, Evelyn. Thank you, too. Thank you so much. Congratulations. Her family and friends

004please stand? Where are you? Thank you. Congratulations. I think that's your 1st sports injury. Yes. No. Okay. I have Kenworth Junior High School is proud to introduce our February student of the month, Brody Short. Brody, uh, Brody's team of teachers have selected him as a student of the month because he displays all of the characteristics of a well-rounded, positive, and mature young person. Mr. Bean, Brody's English teacher, reports, Brody enters the classroom every day with a positive attitude and a smile on his face. No matter what we are doing in class, he tackles it with enthusiasm and patience. Even when he finds assignments challenging. He is a natural leader in our class, works well with everyone, and who models a growth mindset, knowing that if he is struggling to master a new concept, he will

005put forth an even greater effort in asking for help to get his arms around the new content. and skills. He's a joy to teach in our class to our class, and our whole class is better because he's a part of our community. Brody is a valued member of Kenworth's band program, having played the flute since fourth grade, and most recently adding the pinklo to his music reservoir. Brody is also a talented student athlete who has been an important member to Kenilworth's track and cross country team for both seventh and eighth grade. Outside of school, Brody enjoys spending quality time with family at their wilderness cabin retreat, where he can disconnect from Wi-Fi and distractions to enjoy the great outdoors. One of his favorite hobbies is to find amazing trees to climb. Brody. Brody plans to

006attend Casa Grande High School and is highly motivated to continue his excellence in both academics and athletics. Congratulations, Brody. Can your family please stand so we can acknowledge you? Great job. Next up, we have Petaluma Jr. Hello. Hello. Unfortunately, Eli's not here tonight, so I'll just be reading his little spiel, and he won't be able to come up here. But my name is Avian Azander, and I'm presenting on behalf of Petaluma Junior High School. Petaluma Junior High is proud to introduce our February student of the Month, Eli Hunt. Eli truly exemplifies what it means to be an outstanding Bantam in the classroom. Eli is diligent, focused, and conscientious. Constantly approaching his work with care and strong commitment to excellence. He persistently brings curiosity to his learning and always looking for a clear purpose and a

007deeper understanding in what he studies. In English and Math, Eli contributes thoughtful insights and meaningful observations that enrich class discussions. He balances academic drive with the light, good-natured sense of humor that lifts up those around him and brings positive energy to every group he's a part of. Beyond the classroom, Eli serves as a mentor and a group leader in Bantam Broadcast. As a Year 2 student, he helps train and support Year 1 students with equipment and production, leading with patience, responsibility, and an approachable attitude. He genuinely wants others to succeed and works to create a productive, supportive learning environment wherever he is. Kind, respectful, and driven, Eli is a student who leads by example. We are proud to recognize him as our Student of the Month. Congratulations, Eli. Petaluma Junior High School is proud to

008introduce our February Student of the Month, Avery Eaton. Avery is the true definition of a campus leader. She is constantly prepared, motivated, and ready to lend a helping hand to anyone who needs it. As PJHS ASB Vice President, Avery leads with enthusiasm, integrity, and school spirit, always looking for ways to strengthen our school community and make everyone feel included. In the classroom, Avery is a thoughtful and responsible learner whose intellectual curiosity shines. She makes meaningful real-world connections to her learning, especially in English, history, and math, where she's a supportive and collaborative group member. Teachers describe her as cheerful. Excuse me, respectful and driven. Someone who brings positive energy to every space she enters. Beyond academics, Avery is involved in volleyball, theater, Safe School Ambassadors, and serves as a teaching assistant at the PJHS Library. She

009is an avid reader, a creative thinker, and a natural problem solver. Most importantly, Avery is kind, compassionate, and genuinely committed to helping others. PJHS is a more positive place because of Avery, and we are so proud to celebrate her as our Student of the Month. Congratulations, Avery. Congratulations, Avery. Can we have your families please stand? Thank you. Congratulations. Uh, next we have Casa Grande. Sorry. Hello, my name is Tyree Hansen, and I'm here to announce Casa Grande Student of the Month for this month. Our first one is Maya La Perry. Grace Sheehan. Grace Sheehan is a senior and a dedicated student athlete. She is on the varsity track team and was a competitive gymnast for 10 years. While balancing school and sports, she demonstrates discipline, commitment, and determination. Grace's gymnastics and track experience shaped her

010strong worth ethic. And time management, which directly supports her academic success. Trac has challenged her to learn and adapt to new environments, embrace constructive feedback, and continuously strive for personal improvement. These skills have helped Grace remain motivated and organized in high school, contributing to her academic performance. She challenges herself in school by taking advanced classes and pushing herself to meet rigorous academic standards. Grace plans to pursue a career in law and hopes to study political science or criminal justice in college. Grace approaches her future goals with the same dedication she brings to both her studies and her sport, striving to make a meaningful impact through education and leadership. Congratulations, Grace. Congratulations, Grace. Can your family please stand? Oh! Next up, we have Maya LaPerry. Maya is a standout student whose perseverance and leadership makes her

011a remarkable member of the Casa Grande High School. Throughout her years at Casa Grande, she has taken a multitude of AP and honors classes, challenging herself academically and consistently earns high grades. Which results in a GPA that expresses her commitment to learning. Outside of school, Maya has shown extensive commitment to community service, completing over 800 volunteer hours at Cinnabar Theater, as well as multiple community organizations, conveying her willingness for aiding and participating in her community. She also performs and works backstage during live theater productions at Cinnabar theater, as she has performed in and worked on many shows throughout her life. Her responsibility and leadership shines both during and outside of school hours. Although she keeps her schedule quite busy, Maya also enjoys spending time with her friends and family. And she enjoys painting, as well

012as other art, which she considers an emotional and artistic outlet. Maya's academic caliber and dedication to her community make her an exemplary student and truly deserving recipient of the Student of the Month. Congratulations, Maya. Thank you, sir. We'll get her bag to her. Okay? And now we have Petaluma High. the recipients can come up. First, we have Manahil. I'm Paige, I guess. Maho moved to Petaluma from Santa Rosa in 2022 due to wildfires. One second. Due to wildfires. At PHS, she holds leadership positions in the National Honor Society, the Medical Club, and the Astronomy Club. She's been playing soccer since she was 7 years old in both competitive and regional leagues. She volunteers at a rehabilitation facility in Petaluma, where she assists the elderly by doing one-to-one room visits. During the winter, she works at

013the local Copperfields bookstore downtown. Last year, she published research on how narcotics affect mental disorders. Since her freshman year, she has been tutoring students from 1st to 12th grade, both virtually and in person. Currently, she is a math student tutor at PHS and a link leader to help uncombing freshmen transition to high school. In her free time, she loves exploring the city and hanging out with friends. While doing this, she plans to attend a four-year college to study neuroscience, travel the world, and attend medical school to become a doctor. Congrats, Minaho. Congratulations. Can your family please stand so we can acknowledge you? Thank you. It's been a very busy but rewarding four years at Petaluma High for Grace Gutierrez. Beginning with her freshman year, making the varsity volleyball team, Grace learned how to gate… out

014of the gate, how to balance schoolwork, athletics, social life, and family life. Along with her volleyball her freshman year, she participated in band and sustained a 4.0 through her academic year. As a sophomore, Grace took an excellent, difficult elective with journalism, and at times had upwards of 3 articles in a single edition of the school newspaper at the Trojan Tribune. She had an excellent volleyball season where she was named Most Improved Player for the Varsity Girls Team, and continued her club volleyball career where she was named captain. She added a job to the mix, working at Copperfields, all while continuing to maintain straight A's. Her toughest year junior year. Grace continued to see growth in sports and academics, being named second team All-League, adding track and field to her schedule, and taking on a second

015job at a downtown local business. Academically, she completed her fifth year of Spanish, earning her Seal of Biliteracy, and took on 4 AP courses. Passing each exam while her grades never wavered from Ace. Looking to increase her volunteer presence in the community, Grace became a founding member along with her two friends of Positive Pals, a school club that fundraises and helps bring awareness to the North Bay Animal Services. A local animal shelter. In her final. Sorry. In her final year at PHS, Gracie was named co-captain of her volleyball team, and once again, second team All-League in the team setter was an integral part of leading the Petaluma girls volleyball team to their second consecutive league champion. Helping hang two pennants on the gym wall. Her volunteer hours have only increased as she added the Poly

016Class Foundation, United Cerebral Palsy of the North Bay, and the American Association of the University of Women to. Her list of organizations. Adding to a total of 135 hours in volunteer work over her high school career. As of tonight, her straight year average is still intact. She's been a member of the National Honor Society for 4 years, and in December, she's found out she's been accepted to one of her top colleges, San Diego State University. Congrats, Grace. Congratulations, Grace. Can your family please stand? I know you. All right. Oh. Next up. We have the site report from McNeer. Okay. I don't want to. honey piece of paper. All right. Oh, she had it. She had to keep that. You guys needed that right? You needed that start for sure. I'm Melissa Becker, and I'm lucky

017enough to be the principal of the incredible McNeer Elementary School. And I want all of you to know. It is pure joy to be around this group of student leaders. They work so hard. They show up for every single event, and they make everything fun for the rest of our community. So I want to thank them for that. It was fun to work on this. They wrote their speeches. They worked hard. They got the glitter going. They're ready. And I also want to thank we have Emily Deal, who's our second grade teacher who's here. I have Sophia Easley, who's our fourth grade teacher, who's here, and then Britt Rogers is the videographer over there. She's our student advisor, but they are so dedicated. So I would love to give them a round of applause for

018what they do for our school. Good evening, Petaluma City Schools School School Board members and guests. We are excited to share why McNeer rocks our student leadership represents McNeer at every event and we love it. To be on the student leadership team, fourth through sixth graders have to interview with our principal, Miss Becker, and over 75 students apply. We have two leadership groups, one in the fall and one in the spring. We have so many fun school activities. Weekly school announcements and create school spirit with crazy hats. 22 day, mustache day, a dragon parade for Lunar New Year, Ruby bridges, flannel Day, and more. We have a friendly weekly competition to see how many people we can get to show school spirit. We have fun working together alongside Miss Becker, Miss Rogers, and PTA. And

019we love having a voice in our school community. We have so much more to share with you about McNeer. Hope you enjoy it. McNeer has two librarians, Miss Donnie and our school pet, Go-Go the Turtle. Gogo answers notes to students on her own stationery. If you like books, then our library is definitely for you. If you like all things Wicked, then our Wicked room is the place to be. library grew this year, expanding our out indoor space and adding the first ever outdoor library. We just received a $10,000 grant from PEF to the buy to buy Adirondack chairs and amazing sensory tools, including an outdoor marble run. Students hang out in the library during recess and also sit outside to read. In March, we will celebrate Read Across America Day with milk, cookies, guest readers,

020and a book exchange. We instill a love of reading by helping everyone have books they love to read each week and a cool place to hang out and read them. Thank you. McNeer's lab is a hit. The McNair lab opens aspiring and creative possibilities for all kids. It's creative, artistic, and full of infinite possibilities. McNair is focused on authentic learning through the play. We build and explore in our beautifully equipped mask and maker room. Miss Becca gives us brown paper bag challenges, and we are also exploring Lego kits. In Mako, we work as a team and we don't give up. This year, we are all going to build a small car out of toilet paper rolls, and race them against each other on the playground. Disco Fridays are one-way we celebrate our hard work. Sixth

021grade students are DJs, and they spin tunes while students play and dance through bubbles. Hot to go and Bye Bye Bye are our two favorite songs right now. Students can request songs and party through recess. You can dance like nobody's watching. It's an exciting part of the week. People can dance to their favorite songs. And play games with their friends. This girl Fridays are awesome! We love performing arts, music, band, and art! Some of our great students did a production of Matilda, and in the spring, our first through third graders are performing in Moana. is going to be on March 6th, 7th, and 8th. And we encourage you to come watch and support our lower graders. We couldn't do any of this without our parent volunteers working together to make this possible. Our costume set

022designs, props, and direction are top notch. We have a very diverse cast, and we make sure everyone is included. Our school partnerships with outside community groups to strengthen our environmental science and maker programs. In the fall, we had a move-a-thon and made local business and families supported us. We raised so much money that we had a guest sloth, baby hedgehog, a snake, a servile cat. Armadillo and Fox visit. Our PTA raised money to hire an environmental literacy specialist who teaches us to be stewards of our school and world. We enjoy working in our natural habitat and watershed to discover the plant life and deer on our campus. We have over five different species of bats at McNair, and we even have bat boxes. Pta is also supporting our gardening program and we're starting to learn

023Spanish this year. In our garden, we discovered where food comes from. We made salads, plants, seeds, wheat, eat popcorn and salads. We grow and learn about life cycles. We also explore our road boost bird habitat and actively interact with our surroundings. We also plan. and garden. We spend time outside sketching and observing nature. It's my favorite class. McNeer makes sure you learn all you need to learn while having fun. We encourage you to try your best, and we welcome mistakes. It's a place where you're pushed to be your best self. At McNeer, everyone belongs. Maybe you had to add, like. Okay. Yes. Thank you so much. Come on up. We're going to take a picture. Well. That was very glittery and wonderful. Thank you so much. I did not realize I was going to be

024making a cameo in your presentation. We have another site report. Um… There you guys. Good evening. We're back in session. Before we go on with our site report from Carpe Diem. I inadvertently, in my excitement to see all of the students of the month and McNeer Elementary, I forgot that we need to adopt and approve the agenda. So we have. I move to adopt and approve. I think we have a revision. Oh, yeah, I wanted Kayla, you'll have to help me with all this. things, but I wanted to move item 18.4.1. to… I don't know, where's a good place to put it? Maybe after item 15. So you want it before the action before the action item. Yeah. So we can do it be like at the between 14 and 15. Okay. Okay. I move

025to put item 18.4.1. No, yeah, 4.1, but after item 14. on the agenda. I'll second. Okay, all those in favor. Aye. I move to approve the agenda as amended. Second. All those in favor. Aye. Any opposed. Okay. We move on. Sorry about that. Okay, our site report from Carpe Diem and Sonoma Mountain High Schools. Good evening. Good evening, everybody. Thank you for having us. So Justin Maury, Principal carpetium in Snowmountain High Schools, and we have 2 exemplary representatives of our schools tonight. So we have Lev from Carpidm and Gio from Snow Mountain, and they'll both. Be giving you a little insight on what we've been doing for the last year. Okay. Hello! My name is Lev Harper, and I'm a junior at Carpe Diem High School with the December graduation date. After graduation. I look

026forward to working on taking over my dad's jewelry business. My name is Giovanni Bautista, and I'm a junior at Sonoma Mountain High School. I will be graduating in December and then pursuing a career in the trades. Here are some of the things that we've been up to at Carpe Diem and Selma Mountain High School since we last presented to the board in January of last year. Starting off, we always like to draw attention to the best moment of the school year for us. Last June we held our our alternative education graduation ceremony on the Casa Grande football field. Both Carpe Dieme and Saloma Mellon participated along with graduates from San Antonio. and the value of diverse and inspirational stories were shared. The all Ed ceremony is a truly unique graduation, and I hope that all

027those who haven't or have not attended get a chance to at some point. We like to draw attention to this day because for many of us, graduation wasn't always a given outcome, but it becomes one once we become part of the Carpe and Somo community. in August, we once again started with a welcome day for all students at both schools. On the first day both schools gathered at the Phoenix Theater for a traditional dual school opening day. We participated. in community building activities led by our teachers, including a walk to Oak Hill Park and a paper airplane building contest as well. As always, we'd like to thank Tom Gaffney for allowing us for use of the theater. If you haven't been to the Phoenix, you should check it out. It certainly stands out as a

028special Petaluma landmark. This year has also brought change. We have. We have a new full science teacher or full-time science teacher, Missy Zo, and and change our bell schedule in order to better fit with the big high schools and create more alignment for clubs, electives, and other activities being held there. Unfortunately, we had to move our start time from 9 to 8:30, but we have mostly gotten used to it by now. started our year with 29 students, and we've had 3 graduates so far. We still have 28 students with 2 protected graduates for June. We have served a total of 32 students at some of this year. Carpe Deem started with 19 students. We have had 2 graduates thus far and currently have 23 students enrolled for the spring semester. We have served a total

029of 27 students this year, with 4 seniors set to graduate in June. It is also worth noting that amongst our small student populations, we have students from all 4 grade levels and all 4 other high school programs, Ph.S. GHS Valley Oaks and San Antonio High School. We have students who have come to us for a variety of reasons. Flexible scheduling, early graduation, or lack of credits. But most of all, for a different setting that can better fit their unique situations. This highlights the diversity of our students and educational backgrounds and experiences which brought them here. One of the drawbacks of attending our school is that we have the opportunity to participate. in activities and events at the bigger high schools, including. senior activities, sports, clubs, and electives, although this has. been a feature of our

030schools. Greater emphasis was placed on it. Helping with the schedule restructures. Sonoma Mountain has had. Five students co-enrolled this year in electives such as robotics, culinary, and jazz club. At Carpe Diem, we have as many as 3 students co-enrolled, including an AP drawing and marine science. In class, we have been busy. In English we have read a couple of books in class covering the triangle shirtways factory and Native American culture in math. We have done financial literacy, algebra, and geometry. In science, we have studied what. Science is the sun and solar power ecology and the space in the universe. To study these we have conducted labs, completed some research projects, and how to set up an experiment and charted the life cycle of stars. In history, we have read old documents, looked through maps, analyze

031legal sources, and written essays. Our topics have included European colonialism, the early American progressive movement. World War I, and just today, redlining during the Great Depression. Our electives have also shifted this year to better fit graduation requirements and include some of our old favorites like art and new classes like environmental science. We also go on hikes and field trips several times per semester. Events this year include our opening hike at Tennessee Valley Beach in Mill Valley, and a trip to the Day Young Museum in January. These trips help show us the many riches afforded to us in our area. As well as help build community and expose students to various recreational and vocational outdoor locations that we enjoy in the area. Staff is busy planning more trips for the spring semester. other traditions include the

032return of our fall break feast at both schools before break in November. Students brought plates and food was provided by staff. We celebrated our graduating seniors in December with tri-tip. Cooked by Mr. Anderson. And again, the day before winter break where we exchange gifts, we expand community circles to once a week, which helps us build community, practice, thoughtful listening and communication. And have a place to work through whatever we might be feeling at the time. These are on top of old practices like our daily watch walks, which get us outside while giving us time to build community. These are important traditions, new and old, for establishing the exclusive family atmosphere that we provide ourselves at our small school sites. Lastly, we'd like to say a few words about our schools at Sonoma Mountain. I feel

033that I am in more of a community where I know everybody and it's easier for me to get help and feel comfortable asking for help. I feel that Carpe Diem is an easier place to get individual help and support while still having an expectation for you to get your work done. I feel less stressed here and more focused on my work. At Petaluma High, I struggle with getting the individual support that I need. I also feel that. the environment at Carpe has less pressure and gives you more of a chance to succeed with difficult tasks, even if you struggle with them at first. I also appreciate the smaller environment, which is a lot less distracting. My grades at PJHS were low Ds and F's, and at Carpe DM, I've achieved A's and B's. Success here

034has helped me change my perception of school as a bad place, and instead as a place where I could learn. Thank you for your time and for continued support for our small alternative schools. Thank you. Excellent, excellent job. Okay, so next on our agenda. Thank you. Is the is an unhoused youth presentation. And, uh, assistant… Superintendent, you're up front. Okay, good evening board. Thank you so much for this opportunity to provide an update on unhoused youth. Tonight, I'll be sharing some of the data from 2425, some of our achievement data and our numbers in terms of unhoused youth being represented in our district. talk about some of the supports and some of the next steps that as we work on continuously improving support, some of the things that we need to work on. So beginning

035with identification, one of the things that we updated last year was our housing questionnaire. So when our families enroll, when our families complete data confirmation, we ask them to fill out this housing questionnaire. And this is a point in time that we're able to then collect that data and determine if our students and our families need some additional support. So this is the actual questionnaire that our families fill out. And also knowing that as the year goes on, families may share with us their circumstances. Right? It doesn't always necessarily come through this questionnaire. But this is the updated one that the Cd. Put out. Um, after 2021. This is information from DataQuest. So for 2425, you'll see the breakdown for our elementary district, and then comparing to the county and the percentage of the numbers

036of student enrollment, as well as statewide. And then you see the type of dwellings and the percentage, how that breaks down between the elementary district and the secondary district, and you'll see that, um, mirrors patterns the state as well as the County of Sonoma, and that we have a lot of our families that are temporarily doubled up. It's interesting sometimes when, um, our student services staff was making some phone calls to our families, um, some families said, well, I put temporarily doubled up because we just live that way. We choose to live that way. So, it's interesting in the housing questionnaire, there's… specifically, it talks about due to economic. You know, loss of housing, right? But we also know that families also choose to live, right, in multi-generational, intergenerational homes, but that's the important part

037about reaching out to our families, um, and gathering that information. So, um, you'll see that at a point in time. Last year, we had 36. For the elementary district and 49 in the secondary district. And then also to note that 85% of our students that count were students of color. And I'll talk about this later. There's a lot of intersectionality when it comes to language proficiency, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, obviously. And that plays into the supports and the ways that we really need to be supporting these students. So we have our chronic absenteeism and graduation rate. Um, this is straight from the dashboard, so you'll see here that, um, we did decline in terms of chronically abs… chronic absenteeism by 20.6%, which was pretty significant, which is good. We moved into the orange. Uh, and

038then with our graduation rate, um, we're still lagging all students in Petaluma, but that was an increase of 20.4% from the previous year, so then we moved into the yellow. And again, this is just mapping that, um, growth from one year to the next. And this is the five-year graduation rate, again, showing that 70.4% five-year graduation rate, and then in those bars, um, you'll see that we had 8, um, that represented 29.6% of the students that did not graduate. And I'll talk a little bit about more, uh, about some of the steps that you all took as a board last year to actually help us. Um, and increasing that rate. This is our suspension rate. Um, we moved into the blue, so we did decline in terms of the percentage of, um… unhoused students that

039are being suspended. So that's a good trajectory. One that we want to continue to see that. But then you look at our academics, and this is a real need, a real area of need for our district. We are in the red, so 140.8 points below standard, um, in English language arts. That was a decline from 23-24 to 2425. And then in the orange, so we increased slightly in mathematics, but again, well below the standard. So, some of the things that, um, Student Services has been working on this year is providing McKenny Vento training. So, some of the things, actually, just at the beginning of the month, I conducted a front office staff, so invited our registrars, our secretaries. Attendance clerks to come so that we could review what those core protections, um, core legal protections

040and services are, but also sharing the data. Some of the data that I shared with you today, so that our staff can really see the characteristics and, you know, how our students are faring, our unhoused students within our system. The signs and common characteristics of housing instability, and really, our front office staff are the, you know, many… the people that are processing the enrollment, that are receiving our families, and so making sure that, right, that we're leading with empathy, that we are using trauma-informed questioning, we're always coming from this. place of relationship building, because there can be a lot of shame that's associated with being unhoused, and so we want to break those walls down and make sure that families. First and foremost, know that we're there for them and that we want to connect

041them with services and support. And then I also talked through… we talked through scenarios and what they need to be referring to student services and what we can help in terms of, um, additional supports. So, this is some of the supports that, um, that we provide in PCS, so our office really fields a lot of questions regarding McKinney-Vento and determining eligibility, access to services. We coordinate transportation and mileage reimbursement. Some families choose to be reimbursed directly, which is a great option if they're able to transport. But we also have families we utilize PCS transportation. We also have a contract with Go Happy Cab, and we transport students from Qatari-Ronert Park, from Santa Rosa, students that really want to remain in their school of origin, um, and we want to work with each family to determine,

042uh, to determine what. What's best for them and what they would like, and support that continuity. Until we get into conversations with the other districts to say, hey, share with us the, you know, the cost, um, but we don't ever delay transportation services and supports for the students as we're working that out with the other districts. Another thing that was done this year at our high schools was automatically providing that ASB sticker to all of our unhoused students, and informing them that, you know, they have access to entry to school events free of charge, um, and the other thing is we have a Seneca caseworker keeping kids in school who supports all of our students. But that's another, um, support person. who can support chronic absenteeism, um, and something else that we did this year

043in our department was making calls to all of our families and connecting them to Home First year, we've been working with Home First and the City of Petaluma. Um, to build a stronger connection, but also to link that connection, um, and resource to our families directly. So, Jennifer Ortiz is able to make those phone calls to our families in Spanish. Victoria Meese, also in our department, being able to make those calls and make those connections so that, um. It's not just the academics, but if there's a community resource that we can provide. Um, we have an MOU with the Sonoma County Office of Ed to support tutoring and transportation, and many of our students access, um, school-based mental health services. So, in June, we updated the graduation and exemption to the graduation requirements. So the

044law has basically stated that after the second year, if a student has transferred after the second year of high school, and they fall within these categories, I highlighted. Students experiencing homelessness, but they're not the only category or subpopulation of students that, um, that this pertains to. Um, in the past, they would not be eligible for if they didn't transfer, they wouldn't be eligible for that reduced credit diploma option. And our board looked at that ed code, saw that that Ed code was updated, and you added an exemption and some additional language to our graduation requirements and exemption opportunities, because we know that. If you are unhoused, you have a greater likelihood of not attaining that high school diploma, and so we're trying to figure out how do we remove those barriers? and make those determinations

045much earlier. So in our last councilor meeting, I shared data for each one of our high schools with the students that are at risk of not meeting graduation requirements, so that counselors now can be making those best interest determinations. Early on, and that we're catching those students, right? And we're not waiting, and also clarifying that it's not… we can make those determinations without that transfer after the second year of high school. And so next steps. So you saw that dashboard data and how we are in the red, and that is that is a real need. And where we're at now is that we really need to work with sites in reviewing the data. But the data, a cross-section of everything from attendance to academics to language proficiency to special education status. Race, ethnicity, discipline data,

046and to be able to determine what additional supports are needed, what resources and interventions are needed to support our unhoused youth. So again, it's that intersectionality, and there are many things as a system, you know, we've talked about. The importance of common assessments, the importance of universal Tier 1 strategies, um, for instruction, and this… this is also important for all of our unhoused students, right? Who also are English learners, who are students with IEPs, etc. And so. We want to continue to build our system of support, but also honing in. We only have. We have a it's a small number of students that fall into that unhoused category. And so when I say every student by name, it can be every student by name. There is no excuse for us not to approach it that

047way. Also continuing to work with our counselors on best interest determinations. I'm already getting phone calls and inquiries from our counselors after having gone through a new form that we developed, so that we're moving through that and making sure that we're removing barriers and looking at each student individually and their current credit. their current credits and their trajectory. The other thing that I need to work on is building capacity and collaboration. So, as I mentioned, I had this initial training with our front office staff. That needs to be expanded to our administrators, but also making sure that we have a system for who is the point person. And so what I envision and what I'd like to get us to is sort of a trainer… a training of trainers, if you will, so that that

048training and that expertise resides at the site. It's not necessarily dependent on district. We support that, and then we expand so that every member of the staff from certificated to classified is really able to understand what McKinney-Vento is and that we're all sort of, um… You know, unilaterally looking and, and, and connecting with kids and seeing, oh gosh, their housing status changed or something's different here. They have, there's additional resources that can be provided to them. And then continuing to strengthen our relationships with SCO, with Home First, with the city of Petaluma. First, of course, our Petaluma Family Resource Center continues to be a partner and then also leveraging those relationships with the caseworkers from the local housing shelters, again, to benefit our staff and students. Any questions? Yes. Okay. What is McKinney-Ventos? Mckinney-vento is

049a law that basically ensures that students who are unhoused, right, and going back to. The, uh, definition of what unhoused is, so staying in a shelter, temporarily living in a motel or hotel due to loss of housing, economic hardship, natural disaster, sharing housing with others due to loss of housing or economic hardship. Living in a car park, campground, abandoned building, and an unaccompanied youth. So, when families fall into one of these categories, they automatically are able to receive these legal protections, which means there is no delay in school enrollment. We're not waiting for immunization paperwork. We're not waiting for a birth certificate. We don't want to delay any of that because they're already transitioning to different, right, different places, and we don't want to create extra burden and hardship. Students who move and now they

050live in another area and they're unhoused and they want to remain at their previous district. They have a right to stay at their school of origin. To be able to get transportation to that school. We want to make sure that they have access free of charge to everything that all of our students have access to within the school district. So that's the title of the law. That comprises those particular legal protections. Yeah, you're welcome. Do we have any other questions? Joanna. Can you remind me what we're in Da. For in terms of unhoused? So, oh gosh, it was special education. And… For the unhoused? Unhoused, unhoused and students with in special ed. It was like an intersection of those two. Do you remember what category? It was chronic absenteeism. Thank you. Yeah, last year. So

051I did see that there was a decline in suspension, chronic absenteeism, and increase in graduation rates, which is fantastic. What do you attribute all of that to? suspension, chronic absenteeism, and so the numbers are small. So when you look at those, at the percentages, I think you don't need too many students to lift that up. I think that. We are now, when we looked at our data, say, 2, 3 years ago, when we just came back right from the pandemic, for example, we had high rates of chronic absenteeism across the board, right? And probably more so for the for this particular group. I think that. Our sites looking at those attendance, looking at attendance data, looking at having a little bit more awareness about sort of universal approaches for students. I think slowing down when

052it comes to discipline and enacting discipline and deciding, you know, how… what is the profile of the student? What are we… what's happening here to better support them. But I think that… More would need to be sort of studied to be able to determine like what that is attributed to. I don't think I could give you like a straight and narrow. I think that. sites with the trusted adult with, you know, things that we have been doing as a school district to support our students universally, I think, help. But in terms of like a problem of practice and really narrowing in, I think that's an area that we need to build on. And then, um… Can you go back to the slide about graduation determination? Yeah. So how is, I guess, walk me through how

053this is being done. Because, yes, the law did change. But then, like, let's say there's a junior, a senior, and they've been in our school for for all 4 years, and we're deciding that we're going to give them the exemption. What does that look like? Also, are we looking at? Why did they not achieve in the other years? Especially if they've been in our system for the whole four years? So if you could speak more to that, that'd be great. Yeah, good, very good question. And one of the things, as we're… as this is a new system also that we. are putting forth is that when I gave our counselors all of the data, it had obviously our freshmen, our sophomore. So right now we prioritize. Okay, look at those juniors and those seniors right?

054We're in that midpoint, and if they didn't transfer. What is the thing? Like, what is the barrier? What has been getting in the way? Um, but I think the next piece is then when we're looking at those freshmen and those sophomore, like, right after that first semester, what's happening? Are students failing? Like, getting those supports sooner and tracking that sooner. But right now it's okay, prioritize those juniors and seniors. Are they still within that status? Yes or no? And then what are those extenuating circumstances, right? Such that they're in this place where they're not meeting those credits. So that's what it is right now. And the form kind of lists through like, did they transfer? Did they not? You know, yes, no, it's the series of yes-no questions, and then if they didn't transfer, and

055they're at risk of not graduating. reach out to Esmeralda, and let's have a conversation, and let's talk through what happened in this particular case, and then making that determination from there. But to your point, um… Trustee Pan, I think it is very important that we're having these conversations earlier and looking at those credits. From the, you know, the moment they finish that first grading period, right, their freshman year. because I know we've talked about this before. We see students who are low socioeconomic. Sorry. Low socioeconomic status, which also the unhoused students fall into that, too, have lower academic outcomes in math and Ela, and we see that for our unhoused students. And so I know. I just wonder, like, what is it about? being low income or being homeless in our school system that's attributing

056to our low academic outcomes in math and English. So I would. That would, I guess, be not a question for you right now to answer, but just like a wondering. how and why are we not serving our students who need it the most, especially the ones with the least amount of resources? Um, because those. That was they were very far from the average of all the students. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. I just had a question. I I had emailed you about it before. How are the general Ed teachers being supported in helping the unhoused students in their class, if they're even aware? I know that there was when I was teaching a gazillion years ago, that wasn't information that was necessarily shared. So I was just wanted you to talk about that and how they can

057help them maybe address some of this. really low. test scores and ability. Certainly. And I think that comes back to this next step of every student by name. So I think I don't this data hasn't been widely shared. We haven't had systems in place to be able to share that when a student, when a teacher is able, their teacher is able to see it's actually flagged in areas that they are part of the unhoused program. But in terms of data review and specific sort of protocols and taking our site administrators that can then take that our counselors are always looking at this data too. But I think we haven't. That's that next piece of those systems in place, both from an academic standpoint. Student services obviously were sort of that wraparound when it comes to

058the transportation and resources. But I think marrying that ed services, student services, all of that intersectionality around achievement, curriculum, instruction, and then how we are also bringing our general ed. teachers along, both with the training and understanding of the rights and legal protections, and then also how, as a system, we are improving, right, in terms of our supports and giving that information to our teachers, so they, too, are sort of armed with resources and approaches. for this. Great, thank you. All right. Thank you. Okay, thank you. It's really good. Okay. and then, oh, this is a human resources. Assistant Superintendent Jason Sutter will present the community of practice. that has been developed over. several years. in our HR department. Hi, good evening, trustees. We're glad to share with you our progress towards one of our

059board goals, and I've asked 2 members of this community practice, our Pft President, Sandra Larson and Kenneworth history. I'm. What's that? The two Sandras. Well, see, the 2 sanders were confusing in the group, so I thought we'd share that confusion with you. But we wanted to share with you a little bit about the work we've been doing over the last 6 months. So… This is, let me change my screen real quick. This is reflective of one of our board goals that is. geared towards human resources, that is, to create systems to hire new staff and retain current staff in order to ensure that our adults are reflective of our students. And this is important for many reasons, but most importantly, it is important because of the impact it has on students. So research shows us

060that. Research shows us that if a student has even just one teacher in the course of their TK-12 career that has an ethnoracial match to themselves, they have higher student achievement, they have greater engagement, they have fewer behavior referrals and suspensions, and many other impacts. So it is a very important goal, and yet we've looked at data for our district, and we see that when we look at the at the comparison of our racial demographics for our teaching staff and that of our students, there's a huge discrepancy. So when we look at this, we know that many of the students in our system that are students of color go through. their entire career, maybe without ever experiencing a classroom where their teacher looks like them. And a lot of times the story that we tell

061ourself is, oh, well, that's because their teachers aren't out there. Like there just isn't diversity in our teaching and the teaching candidate pool. But that isn't actually true. When you actually look at the data. that has dramatically shift over the past 8 to 10 years, and that there is a great diversity of teacher candidates in this is just in the State of California. And yet, when we look at our our candidates that are at our interview tables. we see the same candidates that we've always had. It mirrors the demographics that we see. We see largely white candidates that are coming in, and it doesn't help us get towards the goal that the board set for us to have teaching staff that mirrors the diversity of our students. And so we have to ask why that

062is. Why is it that if the teaching pool out there has changed, we aren't seeing that change in PCS. And we go back to think about this quote, that every system is perfectly designed to get the results that it does. And so we have to we have to think about the fact that. what… look at ourselves, and why is it that if that staff… if that demographic is changing, we aren't seeing that? And what can we do different to change the needle on that? So actually, last year we started by consulting with school services of California to do an operational report of human resources, and and we asked them to to look at how we're doing and how we can improve, especially with this board goal. And they gave us a lot of recommendations, but

063they didn't really help us towards the board's goal. They help us to be more efficient and. more systematic, but it was to do exactly what we're already doing and doing it better. And so that wouldn't… we didn't believe that that would have helped us to… to move towards this goal. And furthermore, when we looked at those recommendations. We at Cabinet could have… decided how to implement them, and we would have implemented them similar to the way we already operate, because we were already operating in the fashion that, as leadership, we… thought was best, and so we really took a step back and said, how can we approach this in a different way? And we decided to work with a community of practice that would bring other people to the table to look at this problem

064with us. And so we had a community of practice that was 8 certificated educators, and. They represented a variety like the racial, gender, and instructional diversity that is in our district. And we were focused on our goal was to one, look at how we could have more equitable hiring practices, hiring practices that helped us. Uh, have a better process, but also that would be bring innovative ideas. Bring ideas that maybe I, as an HR person, wouldn't have thought of, or as cabinet leadership, we wouldn't have… would have thought of. And finally, hopefully, that this would be ideas that could help us start moving towards. a different way of operating as an organization. We met six times this year as a group. These were the dates. And as we started, one of the 1st things that

065we wanted to get our head around was understanding how organizational racism could be at play in determining these things. Our demographics of of our teaching staff, and who's showing up at the table. And when we say organizational racism, we're talking about the policies and practices. that are favoring one group, racial group over the others, or privileging some, and we were looking specifically at. What are the patterns that are in place that disadvantage in our system, that disadvantage certain groups? What are some of the neutral policies that really aren't neutral that favor some groups? And then what are some of the cultural norms that we have that really work to maintain status quo and to keep our system from changing and innovating? So we looked as a group at where in our organization were those things

066working? And we… we focus specifically on three main areas, recruitment, hiring, and retention and belonging. And as a group for this first 6 months, we decided to focus specifically on recruitment and hiring. We knew retention and belonging, we felt, was the most important. But it's also a big, a big piece, and we wanted to start with two manageable pieces. And so we worked on some products that Sandra and Sandra are going to share with you. which Sandra is first. I think I think you're Sandra's first. So we took a look at ways that we could improve our outreach and our recruitment. We talked about how we post jobs. We spent some time on the Petaluma City Schools website and talked about how someone would feel if they saw that. And the videos, and how we

067could update that. We talked about how to get connections with credential programs, and also. Who do we send to? I'm hiring. Teams, who do we send to a. a hiring fair? And what are we saying with who we send, and to be mindful of who we send. We talked about, um. distributing the status quo, which means we take a group of. How do we get teacher power in different areas, leadership? So an example could be if you're an elementary teacher and you're on leadership, you think you were born there, and that's your chair until you leave, or department head in secondary. I'm the head of that department. That's what I do. How do we open that up? How do we bring more people into leadership? One thing we talked about is if, say, Sandra and

068I were both in the same department and she was a department head, she might say to me, hey, I noticed you've taken an active interest in things. How about next year we co-chair? And then the year, it would be you for the next time. So how do we move that along? And, um, we talked about. How do we support new teachers when we get them? And how do we make them feel welcome and like encouraged to stay with our district and certainly in the profession? So how are we proposing creating leaderships? We want. to let all teachers know about trainings and chances for leadership. As we said, we want to share that. The leadership abilities when you do that, everyone takes more vested interest in what they're doing. Clear some criteria that keep some people

069out, and really look, um, each year to make sure that we're showing improvement. and why the rotation matters. If we broaden leadership, everyone is better for it. If there are people who feel actively involved in their school, and they know their voice matters, they're more likely to take a leadership role, and more likely to share that leadership role with someone else, so that. The whole department is brought up, or the whole school is brought up. How do we get more diverse perspectives? If you've been in a job for a long time, you think you've got it, and change isn't what you really want to do, right? You're used to doing it. So how do we bring more people in and go, oh, this could be. Have you ever thought of going this way? Well, no,

070because we always go that way. That's the way we go. So just to broaden that and let every… bring new perspectives, um, and to show everybody that, especially with shared decision-making, and Peloma City Schools, leadership is shared. And you need to step up and be part of that, so that was our intention. The other Sandra. So just to add to what Sandra was saying about the idea of empowering. teachers to fill these leadership roles. I think that kind of happened with me, because I didn't feel like I should have been part of the process. I wasn't very comfortable. But then now I feel this was important and meaningful work. So now I'm more. I do feel more empowered. So after looking at the employee handbook, Jason and all of us decided there were 3 main

071buckets that we needed to focus on diverse committee selection, confronting bias and screening, interviewing. And we spawned additional products like, uh, how do a committee selection guide. So let's see, what was I going to look? Good. So the idea of the committee selection guide, we started, we began creating a committee selection guide. We're not quite finished yet, but I think it's a really good start. We looked at how to create a committee that is diverse, not just. of education… educators of color, but just of diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, everything. So we created a checklist for a hiring manager principal to start looking at and make sure it's all part of the process. We even started talking about creating a short antibias training that all committee members should attend. So, we can all acknowledge our biases, even…

072I mean, we all acknowledge our biases during this meeting, and it was really great and uncomfortable, all of it. Okay. Okay, so we created some brave space conversations. We talked about the hiring practices that we've been involved in personally, and the questions we ask the candidate the questions we ask each other, how we do brief, and we created. better questions to ask each other and have these brave, you know, brave space conversations, these uncomfortable questions. Um, when asking why are we choosing this candidate over another? What is it? It led to great conversations. It became more collaborative. It felt more of a meaningful debrief of a potential hire. And, um, it just made us comfortable, and at the end, I felt really grateful to be part of this committee. I, at the end, it felt

073very comfortable, and I think this is a great way to have the staff feel like they're part of this and creating a better, diverse community or of teachers for our students. that reflect what they look like at school. Just in closing, we do have. You can see through some of those things. There's a a couple of big changes that Sandra and Sandra highlighted that we have documents to to help make sure that that's put in place like, how do we operationalize in organization that we're rotating department chairs like that's part of how we do business instead of. this kind of existing status quo where things stay the same, and how do we engage in in our hiring process in honest, in conversations about the biases that are coming into play? So we've created. documents that

074help guide those processes, which I'll be able to share with the board as soon as they're done, so you can have access to those as well. But we, I think it was really an important step forward towards this board goal that we have, and it's we are. We're able to redesign and shake up a lot of the existing practices that we have in the way that we operate. our processes for both recruiting and hiring. So that was it. Do you have any questions? Go ahead, Joanna. Do you want to ask? I don't have any. Oh, okay. I have a lot of questions, and I feel like I'm processing out loud. I did not know that this was happening. did not didn't see the slides ahead of time. I don't think they were attached to the

075agenda. So forgive me if it feels like I'm processing, because I am a little bit. So… You talked about the makeup of the group. I mean, you said the word diverse a lot. But what does that actually mean? What does that mean? Like what? What was? So we were looking. Did you select the group? So the the group was a mix of one we asked. We asked for volunteers from Pft leadership, and so half the members were volunteers out of Pft leadership, and then the other half. I was extending invitations to make sure that we balanced out gender, that we were balancing out the grade levels or the or the type of instructors. Like we had special ed instructors, we had secondary, and then also the racial demographics of the group. And I was glad

076at the end someone said something about anti-bias training, because I was wondering about that. If that had been done before this work began and moving forward. What does that look like? for the community of practice, and for when we do our hiring committees. So ask that question again. So I had written down, was there anti-bias training? And at the end, one of the Sandra's mentioned anti-bias training. I don't remember which one. was anti-bias training done? Is it going to be done? And what does that look like moving forward for our hiring committees? So the the the anti one of the one of the recommendations. What from the original report was to incorporate anti-bias training, but they didn't give a there were no resources there. So. One of our our group was one of the things

077that we were working on was where can we find good anti-bias training that we can incorporate into hiring committees? We looked at our we we have public school works. We looked at the videos that they have. That wasn't… that didn't fit the bill. So we were looking for resources that we could incorporate in to into the process for training our hiring committees, and. got some work done, but we didn't find a great… this would be the great thing, so this would be something we'd want to use. So we're still working on that. That's still in process. Okay. Anybody else have questions? But I don't want to take a vote. I guess my question is, how are we balancing when we rotate department chairs? If no one wants to step up? I mean, I see that

078all the time in my own union of. you know it. Where's the balance of like the district forcing someone to step up to be department chair. How do we navigate that? Well, I think that's something that we take. We we discuss that at length. Obviously, that wasn't, you know, that's an obvious concern that that that that is real, that we would face. So we talked a lot about that and the beginning piece is we wouldn't want to force somebody to be a department chair like that wouldn't work. And the other one is is… We were focused on can we create a culture where we're moving towards this, where that is more the norm, where we… where it's understood that everyone stepping into leadership, and there will be places where that lags behind, and if no…

079if only one person wants to step up, then that would obviously be the person. But our goal is, can we envision the system that we want, where everyone knows that my perspective is valued, that I have leadership ability within the system, and that it is not just based on who's been there the longest is. directing the department. It is. It is a real problem that we don't have the answer for, but feeling, can we take a step in the right direction, and then. work, because we feel like there would be a lot of places that would be ready for that change. And there are places that already do this that have rotations in our… in our district, some departments, yeah. Thank you, Jason, for this. My question is, so I know this is a primarily

080focused on teachers and certificated. Is that correct? Yeah, that that that is correct. And I was trying to rush through the B, you know, go through the beginning so you could hear from Sandra and Sandra and not take too much of the time. But. When we look at our when we've gone over our demographics in the past, our classified, the discrepancy is not nearly the same discrepancy as it is in certificated. So we are focused on the greatest discrepancy right now, which is our certificated and how do we change that dynamic to. be more in line with our representative of our student population. I hear you, and I think that's great, and I know that's the area. I do want with a request. It makes sense, but also to sit down with our classified staff,

081because this does again on some of the like post postings. impact. I think it's going to impact everyone. So then we'd like for them to feel included and have opportunity to provide feedback or recommendations based on everything that you've worked on as well. Yeah, absolutely. Jason, have you reached out to credentialing departments at the universities? Because I work for Sonoma State. I've been working with student teachers for 4 years. and all I see are white candidates. Yeah. So… I'm not really sure where I'm going with that, but it's just. In 4 years I have. I've only seen white candidates, so… Yeah. What are the universities doing in outreach to diversify their own candidate pool? Yeah, we did talk a lot with specifically with Sonoma State, because that's really our main feeder and talked with Rihanna

082Casessa, who we work with in our residency program. And and so we did talk with them about that, and there… a lot of the candidates that they… a lot of the candidates of color that are in their program are going to, she said, they're going up to other districts that are more diverse themselves as districts. So that was her anecdotal information about that. Yeah. I'll include when I… I'll share with the board members some of our documents. I'll also include if you're just for your interest, the data that I've collected across the state. I showed you the graph, but I also have by school, and you'll see that it's even stronger, you know, even more diversity on South than it is in north, but it's still relatively. More diverse than I expected in Northern California,

083and even at Sonoma State. Like, we don't see at our table anything close to what Sonoma State has enrolled. So it is… it is a good question that… that we were wondering about. Maybe I'm just working with white teachers. I don't know. It's just that also maybe wherever you're… it might be where you're coaching as well, right? Well, I coach all over the county, so then I don't know. So I do have a few more questions. So. Did you? Because I know people say diverse, and it means lots of different things, just like when people say equity, it means different things to different people. There's not always a shared understanding of what that is. So when you guys were talking about diversity, were you naming that we want more Black teachers, we want more Asian

084teachers, we want. Like, was that actually named? What what you were hoping to accomplish and what? group of students. Sorry. Yeah, which group of adults and students that you're trying to get the racial match for? that was discussed, and also as a group, we were working through discussing and getting on the same page of of like of our own perspectives and our own biases on this. There was a lot of discussion about, are we talking about. teachers with diverse backgrounds? Are we talking about teachers of color? And there was discussion about even that terminology and what that meant, and and the different. the different implications of those different terms, because they obviously meet, like, have very different impacts. So. Yes, we did talk about it. And as a group, we were also coming to calibrating

085and coming to grips on our understanding of those things. So we wrestled with it, and we didn't come to this definitive, but there is my interpretation of the board goal. was about students being able to see themselves and their teachers. The racial representation was how I've interpreted your board goal. And so that was… within all of our discussion as we wrestle with our understanding as a group of that. And then I guess one last question, maybe 2. What did did you guys talk about what is keeping people of color from applying, which is kind of what Ellen was alluding to? And then what is the work that's been done towards retention? So when we do get. Black credential teachers and administrators and other folks of color. How are we keeping them here? Not just hiring

086them, but the retention piece. Yeah. So we did, as with many of these things, we did talk about both those at length. And don't have like, this is the answer for it. But we did talk. We talked Sandra had mentioned websites like, how are we presenting ourselves? So what's the what's the optics of of our district? If we're. Highlighting only one type of educator. Is that a place that people of color are going to say, oh, that's a place where I want to go. So what is it that we're presenting in our websites? And when we go to our, um… to our job fairs, we talked a lot about some members of our group shared stories about the reputation Petaluma has for people of color, like the idea of a sundown town, and so we

087talked a lot about that. Uh, those are not things that we as a group of eight were ready to solve, but we really did talk about the second part of your question, which is, how do we retain, uh. And our employees of color when they do choose to be here, because that's important. And so we did talk about the idea, one idea that we are still we're working on is a system that helps identifies. existing teachers that can support new teachers. A type of a buddy system that we would work, and I think the union was talking about working on on things that you want to jump in? Yeah, it also became very clear that PFT has not done a good job in growing leadership as well, so I think that works hand-in-hand. And I

088think are a job that we take very seriously is how do we support new teachers, and how do we support anybody struggling? We work a lot on that. So I mean, we have to look at ourselves in the mirror, and that's a goal that we are setting. Can we bring just like department heads and school leaders, we need to bring union leaders. up, too. Yeah. II think the the message that I would share is, as you can see, is not that we've, oh, look, we have all these solutions. The message is we're taking steps in the right direction like we're taking good steps and having conversations as an organization that I don't feel that we've had. And are positive and hopeful that we can continue those conversations. And you had one more, Joanna. Okay. I

089I agree. I think it's a great first step. I really, you know, it is something that has not been well looked at certainly over the years, and. the support. It just seems like a lot of times when we do hire people of color, they are isolated. So I really agree that really, I'd like to see that become. you know, because we can hire. But if we don't have a system of support for any of our staff, but particularly for the staff that might feel really isolated. I think that's definitely a priority going forward, certainly for me. Yeah. Because we do want to retain them, and we want them to feel like they're. not just being hired because it's a check box. Yeah, I think as a group, we got to the very quickly to the

090place of reaching this goal is not about going out and finding the right people. It's about creating conditions where people feel like they belong here. Like that was the root of what we were looking at and how do we how do we? foster that? How do we remove barriers and trying to interrupt those organizational practices that favor some groups and isolate others. So that was, I think, the core of what we were focused on. Thank you. Thank you very much interruption. That's very important. Thank you. Wonderful work. Thank you, Jason. And thank you to the committee. Okay. Oh, Maddie, Maddie, if I could just say, I do. I do want to publicly say I appreciate the time that the other 7 people gave to the it was significant. It was 3 full days and 3

091half days in the middle of a very busy year. So I want to just acknowledge all of the work that the committee did. I agree. And I think that whole thing about leadership change needs to go to committees also so that rotation, it was everything. Okay. Okay, we have a wonderful presentation of Be the Light. I believe Amanda is going to do this. Yes, thank you. We have received a generous donation from Petaluma blocks for Community Development of a new children's book titled Be the How She Became Angela Davis. This book will be distributed to each of our elementary schools in recognition of Black History Month. We appreciate the thoughtful donation, which supports literacy and provides our students with the opportunity to learn about influential historical figures. We would like to invite members from Petaluma

092Black for Community Development up to present the books. And, uh, thank you for having us and for accepting the book. I'm going to let Corey tell you about this and why this book. Wait a second. I don't think it's on. Oh. Okay. Oh, okay, there we go. Hello, board members, Superintendent Harris and staff. Petaluma Blacks for Community Development has been teaching the community. about Black history for over 40 years. This year, the museum exhibit is focused on local black history. and it's open till end of March, right at the museum at the museum until the end of March. Yes. So everybody should go see it. In this vein. We are donating the book Be the light about our own Angela Davis to each of the public elementary schools in Petaluma. We hope the book is

093read. discussed and celebrated throughout the year and in years to come. As stated by. Redyard Kipling. If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten. You want to mention about Literate Promise? Yeah. Hi, I'm sorry. I should have introduced myself. I've been in Petaluma since 1975, and I am Faith Ross, the executive director for Petaluma Blacks for Community Development. And I've been involved in a lot of other organizations within our county and within Petaluma. And we're really excited about something that the the county is doing with a literacy promise. With trying to work with students and getting our our younger children reading more and stuff. And so that's a part of why we wanted to give this book. And we doing our black history month. And our exhibit at the

094museum, we always have a table. in there for younger people to read books, and they… they can not only read a book there, but they can take a book home if they want to, and when they come in with parents, parents can also read to them. So we're really excited about this, and possibly being able to give more books. We have tons of children's books within our group. Because we're really interested in making sure that our children learn to read and see and actually see other things, just not what's at their house or within their own culture, but get to know other cultures also. So thank you. Well, thank you. That was I'm really, really glad that you did that. We're honored. They really do. It's wonderful. Is this all about her childhood then? I'm

095sorry. This is her childhood, Angela Davis. starts with the child. I think it will give the the students a little more clarity of who she is. and her life. Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you. Very generous. Thank you. All right, moving on. We have comments from the public on non-agendized items only. I'm going to read. our public comment. kind of guidelines. And then we'll begin. I think we may have after we also have public comment for action items and for discussion items. And so we will, we will have other people who want to talk at that time for those. Okay, under government code section 54954.3a, members of the public have the right to address the governing board on any items of interest. Providing it relates to the subject matter jurisdiction of the school district. While government code

096allows speakers to criticize the district's policies, procedures, programs, services, and or employees, the district does have a policy, BP1312.1 specific to complaints against employees. Should comments from the public pertain to a specific district employee, the board requests that the complaint first be submitted in writing to the employees immediate supervisor for investigation. If the comment is about something that is not on the agenda. It will be heard only during the public comment on non-agendized items, which is now. So if you wanted to talk about something and you forgot to do a card, and it's not on the agenda. Do it now. because otherwise it'll be too late. You can always email us. Once that part of the meeting is over, comments will only be taken on agenda items during the discussion of those items. The board

097values public comment. And although we cannot take action or discuss items not on the agenda, we listen carefully. And we appreciate input from the public. Public comments are subject to a three minute per person limit or a 20 minute limit per subject matter. Commenters may not cede their time to others. Okay. And 1st up we have Mike Witty. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks, everybody. Long night getting longer. I know that, and I appreciate your attention to all these things that have gone before and really admiring the work, particularly that the. The teachers and the kids bring to the this table here. It's it's been really inspiring, and it continues to be inspiring. I'm a family doc. Started the Petama Health Center a bunch of years ago. I'm also a pediatrician, and uh… really have a

098huge investment in. community health, and what we can all do for the health of our kids and the future citizens of this town and also of our area, and how we can, in… Helping to really improve the whole concept of what education can be in this AI-generated era where information is something that is just. Incredibly fast in terms of how we are all exposed to it, and how we have to really be skeptical of how the information is coming in, and as do the kids who are learning about all this stuff and growing up with this new way of learning. So it, um, it creates a lot of challenges, and I think that one of the things that I want to just talk about briefly this evening is. what's called CTE or career and technical

099education. And really, the issues there are developing pathways for every kid to be able to be successful. In school and in the community. No failures, no hopelessness. The quote that I remember now or saw from. from a public health journal is that hopelessness is not a character flaw, it's a public health crisis. And I think we see that our health system is not good. And I've lived in it for many, many years, and it just needs to get a lot better. And we need to start this where health and education really are bound up together, and where we really can recognize that in educating. Kids, we're actually creating a healthier community. And that's one of the things that I've seen as a physician, as a family doc, that creating… that when I see our… my

100colleagues have seen and continue to see. People and children with so many problems, diseases, injuries, etc. So much of it has to do with the environment, where there are challenges that just are not necessarily being met by being keeping. the kids and their families safe. Does every kid have a trusted adult? I've heard that indirectly this evening. Every kid needs a trusted adult. Sometimes that's a teacher, sometimes an administrator, sometimes it's somebody else in the community, sometimes it's somebody that comes in and mentors the kids. But there just needs to be a trusted adult. I mean, we're running out of time. Right? Seconds. Thank you. So the thing I want to emphasize is that it's really important to continue the efforts for career and technical education and to support. That process. The district has already

101has lots of programs. The hatchery, the Well Knife Museum, NASA's Hunch program, the broadcast channel, Health Science Pathways, etc. These deserve… all these deserve full support in the community. I'll stop. Thank you. Any questions? Lots of them. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Genevie Foster. Yeah, absolutely. Hi. Hi. So each of the students in Pcs has a story. I have the family's permission to share this story with you. the student walked up to the gym at Petaluma Junior High School. on 915, 2017, which is when I started working for you guys. She was trying to take one minute off of her mile time. But as she worked out, she experienced persistent abdominal pain. Exercised-induced symptoms was my first differential diagnosis. Vital signs, heart rate 134. normal for somebody that's just been running oxygen level was normal.

102The abdominal pain was persistent and significant. a call to the parent to follow up as soon as possible. I asked her to get an EKG and a full checkup were definitely needed to rule out any serious issues. The call sparked immediate cardiac evaluation at Sonoma County Indian Health Project. Within days, she was referred to the University of California, San Francisco at UCSF after lots of advanced heart scans and tests, the diagnostic. The diagnosis was anomalous aortic origin of the left. Descending coronary artery. This is a super rare and complex congenital disability. This anomaly is strongly linked to sudden cardiac death. The intervention came quickly. On a memorable day, Valentine's Day, 2018, she had open-heart surgery, specifically a coronary artery bypass. The complex procedure ensured her left ventricle got a life-sustaining blood, if needed, completely removing

103the catastrophic risk of sudden cardiac arrest and giving her a second chance at a full, active life. This story is a powerful reminder of why it is so important to really listen to the student. And how crucial it is to be evaluated by an RN. Years of experience of the four nurses that I work… three, four of us. We have 109.9 years of practice. And this is just the beginning of her story. I'll never tell the other part. Do you still have 25 seconds? I'm done. Thank you. Thank you. Hello again. So Randy Weingarten, the President of the American Federation of Teachers, and Jeff Freitas, the president of the California Federation of Teachers, has called for March 4th to be a national day of action. And PFT has taken the call. Our ask is very

104simple. We're asking teachers and everyone else who wants to join us. I've sent letters to the school board, admin, hopefully we're all out there together, in front of the school 15 minutes before school starts. With two simple messages. You are welcome at Petaluma City Schools. And our students are safe. That is the message we want to send to every. person at Petaluma City Schools and who lives in Petaluma. The second reason is to show that when we need to have an action, we can get people out pretty quickly. So it's also. Think of it as a practice if we do need to go and protect our students at campus. So please consider joining us at a site. We welcome students, parents, administrators. I will have signs delivered, you can make your own. The message is,

105you are safe at your school, and you have the right to learn. Feel safe at school. So I hope we see you all take pictures and I'll talk to Matthew tomorrow. Thank you. Okay, we now have a. A public hearing pursuant to government code 4217.12 for implementing the PCS Energy Modernization Program is when the public. has an opportunity to respond to this. And I open the public hearing now. Do we have anybody that would like to speak to the PCS energy modernization program. Is this for the program? Yes. Is this then? Oh, good. Ben Peters. will be speaking. I don't know whether you have a time limit, frankly, it's a public hearing. Okay, well, I think it's still 3 min. But let's see how Ben Peters. I will say proud parent of a couple students

106at Valley Vista Public Waldorf. My. Spouse is also a teacher there. Uh, I'm the former chairman of the City of Petaluma Measure U Budget Committee, as well as the former chairman of the Climate Action Commission, current member of the Climate Action Commission, as well as a volunteer member of the. Petama City Schools Climate Action Committee. So, um, you know, I have been following along. I think you guys are doing great work in this energy modernization program. Uh, I want to thank Amanda for helping on the solar piece. After listening to the. Former hearing, I did have some questions on the solar piece that she was able to sort out. I think the safe harbor strategy for the new systems is an excellent one. That's something I'm personally deploying across the country. On the solar piece,

107and the new piece, that's great, as well as lighting. You know, the lighting and solar, that's great. Uh, I will say, when I got to the information on the HVAC systems, there was some questions raised. I understand the goals of. Petaluma City Schools is to have, you know, a climate forward. situation, and when I looked at the mechanical schedule, I saw there was in the industry terminology, like-for-like replacements, and that's sort of the easy button, where you swap out an end-of-life unit. for a similar unit. Uh, and while that's easy to do, uh, that… is going to continue burning greenhouse gases. And so what people fail to appreciate is that our natural gas comes from the Canadian tar sands 1500 miles away. And so we want to remove that gas. From our schools, and I

108think everyone is here to do that. I think there was some sort of wires crossed in between when we received the information at the hearing, uh, and the First Amendment to the contract, which is being voted on. And, you know, while that happens all the time, I do want to stress that you should not vote on the HVAC measures at this moment. Your Hvac systems are not going anywhere. You do not have any urgency to make this HVAC. purchase tonight. In the 30 seconds. Mm-hmm. you know, in. Attending the citywide Climate Action Commission. I will say that the schools and the gas consumption at the schools is the city's. top climate emission beyond cars is the school district. And so we cannot meet our climate goals with. the purchase of new gas burning HVAC equipment.

109Great. Thank you. Do we have anybody else that would like to speak during the public hearing? Okay, I'm going to close the public hearing. and I am going to go on to the report on activities and correspondence of school board members, and. Then we'll do our student board members. We had our board member. We had a week off, so there was not a ton this time, but there was certainly substantive activities. We had the CTE Advisory Committee. Locene, understanding the history of the term Latinx. Cultivating belonging Summit. The Petaluma Blacks for Community Development event, the History of Slavery in Sonoma County since 1850. And, uh, volunteering at McNeer Kindergarten classes. We also that was it for the school board members. Jessica, would you like to give us your report from Casa? Yes. So again, we

110had our break, so there hasn't been too much going on, but not talking about the school as much, but just Petaluma community within itself. I went to a throwback prom at the old seed bank downtown Petaluma. Um, it was so much fun, and I would recommend anyone that would go, like, couples from all ranges. I went with my friend personally, I had a really good time, so it's a really good way to spend it. You could buy tickets at the door, so a lot of couples went out to dinner and then saw how much fun it was through the window, so… That was really, really great. And it's just a good reminder of, like, a good community we live in. So that was really good. And then also for CASA, we have our spring fling

111coming up March 7th, that Saturday. I'm very excited, and I will definitely be going. And it's our third year bringing it back, so it's been such a good tradition to have and a good way to get the school community together. Excellent. Where was that? the dance that you went to first? It was the seed bank, so now it's the seed bank. Yeah, it was… yes, it's on the bank anymore, but so beautiful in there, and their decorations were, like, amazing. They had so many activities to do. And it was all throwback songs, so it was really fun. It's great. Thank you. Yes. I don't even don't even want to say how long mine was. All right. Paige, do you have a report this time? It's not too much, because we had a break. But I

112went to the Panama High girls senior night for basketball and soccer. So that was a really good time. We've had some good turnouts for girls sports this winter, which has been encouraging and exciting. We had a training with CASA with Scott Bakovich, which is like. for ASB and leadership went, which was really cool. I'm… Harris is there, and so that was a good time, and we learned a lot about like. how to support our community, how to get back in the flow of things, spring semester, and fun activities to do, how to make Asv equitable, all that kind of thing. So that was really cool. And then we have our spring or like winter formal this weekend, and then the medical club is putting on a blood drive. So I'm drawing blood Thursday during school,

113which is exciting. So a lot of teachers and students are doing that, but yeah. Excellent. That's a lot. Ruby, can you tell us what you've been up to since graduating? Yes, I actually met with Mr. Stevenson two weeks ago on Friday, and we were able to catch up on a little bit the San Antonio has been up to. And one important thing that I want to talk about is we're going to have former graduates this Friday for the end of the grading period. So I'm excited for them little clap. Miss Campos has. She's our school student advisor. I'm pretty sure she has been working with 6 students to prepare them for the Spanish by one exam for the Jc. So I want to see how that turns out. I'm going to look at the results

114for them. And Miss Campos has also been doing her Friday workshops, working with students to help them fill out their financial aid applications for August, and Mr. Shinzado was also working with the blue zone. Well. the boozle sponsored San Antonio and was helping them rejuvenate some old plant beds that we have on the school campus, and they were planting new flowers and vegetables with the students. and at the end of the month for February, the students are going to go to the Petaluma Historical Library to see a century of black history, commotion, a future of possibilities for Black History Month. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. Does anybody I've. I want to report on, yes, Ellen on anything you did. I attended the what was it called? the cultivating belonging summit belonging Summit

115at scow, and it was amazing. One thing that stood out to me. They were talking about language, and that use of the N word is not only offensive. But it is a dignity violation. And they. What they suggested dealing with the N-word in schools is for the board to take stamps and create a resolution with clear policy and definitions. Have some training and coaching for adults. Student learning, explicit teaching and tracking and accountability. Just the idea of dignity like that just really… really touched me. And it it's not just the N-word. Almost every minority has certain negative names that they're called. I know Jews do, Latinx students do, Asian students do. So it's. It's the N-word really stands out, but I think that. the resolution and the explicit teaching and learning should be just names

116across the board. It was an amazing conference. And I think they're focused on the N-word because the summit was focused on black student achievement and student learning, and I don't know if that's ever been done in Snowman County before, or how many schools are focused on just black students. period for that amount of time. And I agree with Ellen. It was a great summit. There were a couple of things stood out as well. Just talking about, I know we talked about it here, like when we look at the average, the averages are hiding the inequities, and so I just… I appreciated that a lot, because I do like when the data is disaggregated, because that really tells the full story. There also are some surprising things, like 10% of hate crimes that are reported in

117the country, 10% of them are offenses that happen at schools. That's a large number. and then just related to, I think, what we've talked about a lot, since we don't have a lot of diversity in our staffs here at PCS. There's just a lot of times a lot of white people talking about racism when people of color are not in the room. And so just having more of those voices at the table. So those are my takeaways from the summit. It was it was really good. Excellent. I know. Any anything else? Okay. All right. Moving on. We're about to do consent, but we have comments from the public on consent items, and we have one person that wants to. Talk about the immigration enforcement policy. Regulation and Justin Hansel Durbin. Thank you very much for

118your time and for having let me come up and have the conversation with you. I want to just start by saying, introduce myself. Justin Hansel Durbin. I'm a parent Cherry Valley. I have 2 kids, 3rd grade and seventh grade. And I'm also a co-facilitator of the TIDE organization there. I wanted to thank everybody here and support the approval of these policies and regulations as they're written. It's very clear to me that. Both the board and the Petaluma City Schools has taken a lot of time to make sure that this these documents are prepared to support students, staff, and the community and also comply with state law. I know there's a lot of changes happening, so… A lot of effort went into this, so I'm really appreciative of that. Um, they're varying… these documents are really

119important, uh, elements for advanced planning. In the case that. you know, ice encounters happen, it's very likely they will in the future. Minneapolis has shown us that this is planning ahead and standing together can make a real difference. Um, so thank you very much, I really do support the approval of these documents. Um, I envision that in the future, we're going to have more of these conversations, and we'll probably have to look at these documents again. When we do get that opportunity. Some few things that I'd like us to consider is, before they publish the documents for the public, maybe we should translate them to Spanish so that it has a little broader outreach to the community. I'd like to see us… see the school district coordinate and train, you know, with the other support

120organizations within the city, like the police department, just to make sure that. Everyone's on the same page, and that the schools are going to get the support that they expect, and that everyone knows what they're coming and providing. There is a statement in here that states that. Even in times when officers are acting outside the law or in excess of their authorization, staff shall at all times obey any direction from those officers. That's a little concerning to me that maybe we're directing the staff to do something that might be outside the law. So, we should think about that. I know there's a lot of legal language here, so it's just something I'd like us to think about in the future. Um, and then also, um, one of the other topics that was brought up. Previously,

121in other meetings, um, from CASA, Representative Jessica. We should probably try to spend some time supporting… 30 seconds. Yeah. Supporting the high school students when they leave campus, um, get them the education to know what to do when they encounter ICE off campus during school hours, and know what. that situation is, and how they're going to be supported by the district. Thank you very much, I really appreciate everybody and their time on this. All right. Now we have. I need a motion to approve the consent agenda by consolidated motion. I move to approve the consent agenda. I second any discussion. I just want to follow up. Thanks, staff. Esmeralda in particular for her work additional time on updating on a very tight timeline as the. as the law has been updated, and we just received

122additional guidance from the State and the school board association just at the end of January. This is incredibly important to leadership here to the board. to ensure that we have training for all staff. And I just want to continue to. point to the Attorney General's latest reported upgrade updates where there are additional, I would say, again, training materials, but in particular on the warrants. the different types of warrants. That was one of the lessons learned from Minnesota. That was just kind of released and discussed to ensure staff knows the difference between administrative ICE warrants and actual judicial warrants. And again, we always encourage. you know, staff to elevate it to superintendent and to legal counsel, and then we'll figure out from there. So. Great. Brian, are you referring to the training that's coming up from

123F. 3? Or is this something else that you're referring to? As part of the the resolution and our own policies we last year. We requested that staff be trained on immigration enforcement activities. And so there is just updated guidance that was directed by recent legislation. from the Attorney General's office, where there's some additional appendices that are, I think, incredibly helpful, and also overlap with some of the lessons learned from, um. The ICE. you know, enforcement activities in in Minneapolis. There is. I don't know if this is out of order. So stop me if it is President Cloud. I did get. And this is to my work emails. I don't know if this came to the school board email as well. It was it's a training coming up from F. 3. title when Ice Comes to

124School Legal Responsibilities and Action Plans for Educators. I think there's just so much changing guidance and recommendations. So I didn't know if you were referring to that or something else. If you want, as well, I can pass that along to you if you haven't seen it. Yeah, I have. Yeah. Because I think it's hard to keep up with everything. Absolutely. And F3 was the provider to our training that we held in December. In collaboration with Katady Runner Park. But certainly, yes, I'll take a look at those appendices and also provide those updates to our site administrator. So as we're as I'm updating that training deck, we can include also that training piece around what to look for when it comes to those warrants. But obviously, I completely agree with the elevation and immediately contacting us.

125Okay. We're set. Okay, we have a motion on the floor. All those in favor. Aye. Any opposed motion passes. So now we're going to. We've moved discussion to this portion. So we're going to have public comment on the one discussion item which is alternative education restructuring. So I have, I think seven people here, so you'll all get three minutes. So we're going to start now. Nikki Jackson. Hello. Hello! My name is Nikki Jackson, and I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and clinical supervisor here at Petaluma City Schools, as well as a parent of a high schooler in the district. I'm here again to talk about the current intended closure of San Antonio, which is happening under the veil of the budget cuts. Our alternative education sites are often a second thought, and the students

126feel it. Um, but they do apparently come to mind first for budget cuts and closures. We know that these are expensive programs to run. The class sizes are smaller, and we're able to give more individualized attention because. Then the comprehensive sites. I hate public speaking for a variety of reasons. The comprehensive sites for a variety of reasons, were not successful for our students. But we also have the data to show that we graduate our students, and beyond that graduation, our students find successes in their futures. There's been a complete lack of student voice present in the conversations about closing this campus. And a lot of assumptions made by adults who don't work at these sites. Adults are saying our students want to stay at the comprehensive sites and want to participate in sports, but by

127and large, we have found that that is not the case. And instead, most of our students want a smaller environment and frankly, to be able to graduate quicker. I moved to tears by the number of former students who have reached out to each of us to tell us what this school has meant for them and their futures, and how many former students we have here. We've had more, but this night has gone on very long, and we've lost several of our speakers. Um, there's… in the committee meetings I've been a part of, there are conversations around shifting money from the continuation sites to the junior highs and the comprehensive schools to try and stop the flow of students to alternative campuses. There has also been frequent mention of other districts with small to no alternative

128schools, as if that is a model to aspire to. That very concept implies that there is something inherently wrong with providing alternative pathways to graduation. In this day and age, with career paths and financial futures less certain for our students, we need more pathways to graduation, not less. Please consider student voices before making decisions which will negatively impact our students' futures. I was quick. I also just want to mention that San Antonio has a health center on campus, and it is an amazing resource for our students. And if we lose that campus, those students lose access to a health center that they desperately need access to. Thank you. Thank you. Deanna. Hello, my name is Tiana Grisbick, and I am a teacher at San Antonio reading something from a former student, Devin, who wanted to

129be heard, but could not be here tonight. San Antonio was my second chance. The staff there helped me become aware that my future was worth fighting for, and that I deserved to do better. Without the help of this school, I would have dropped out. And who knows if I would have gone back and gotten my GED. I know the same is true for multiple other students, current and past. This school supports and encourages their students to be the best versions of themselves they can be. It is a safe haven for so many children. A good portion of them don't have any other space to go to just be kids. A lot of people hate their high school years, whether it was because they had tumultuous home lives. Mental health conditions, or they struggled with socialization

130with their peers. San Antonio lightens that load. The faculty is focused on the betterment of the students and their care. They tend to specific needs and support you when and where you need it. I would not be where I am today if I had not been at that school. The school prepares you for the real world and in an effective, contemporary way. No other educational institution has given me the tools and resources San Antonio has to offer. Taking away the opportunity for an educational asylum from this community will be devastating for our youth population. We need this school. Thank you, Devin. Can you be sure and thank him? Daniel Vieira. Good to see y'all again. Yay. I just wanted to say San Antonio. kind of changed my life in a lot of ways. I would

131have dropped out if it weren't for that school, and like for Miss Grisbick, Mr. Smith, and. Miss Marilla, Miss McGarry, and all the other teachers there. They're great human beings, and they don't… they don't need to be there. They could be doing so many other things with their lives right now, but they're choosing to help us. And, like, um, Devin was saying, it's like a educational asylum that it would suck to see go because so many people love it and it's. They don't, uh… how do I say this? Like, you don't get the same support at the bigger schools than, like, than you do at San Antonio. It really helped me and a lot of other people. I know the graduation rate might not show for it. But there's still the big select few that.

132It really helped, you know. Yeah, that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Daniel. It's wonderful to see you. He was a student board member. and we miss you. Jamie Cardenias. Hi, guys. My name is Jaime. I don't have a sorry colorful resume or anything like that to. Explain who I am, but I'm a student that graduated from San Antonio, and I don't have any statistics like you guys had or anything. I see you guys use students as numbers, which is obviously the easiest way to sort them out and see where you guys are. up or down. I don't know what what that means. But you guys. don't see the day-to-day experience that some of these kids have to go through, and sometimes that's not their first priority is to go home and

133do homework. It might be to go home and figure out what they're gonna eat. They might not have parents at home sitting there to be like, Oh, what's what you do at school? How is school? What'd you learn? Like sometimes they have to go home and fend for themselves or like you guys said, even if they have a home, I wasn't really aware that that was that big of a situation, and… That's even. It's even harder for those kids to put themselves out there and especially at a public school where I failed multiple semesters in a row every class and I was on a track to not graduate at all unless I went to San Antonio. And obviously I did. I graduated honor roll. I had straight A's most of my career there, and the

134one semester I didn't. They brought me in. Hey, we see you good. You've been doing really good, but you have B's and C's. And to me, B's and C's was something I never had before in my life. And that was amazing, but they saw that I did better before, I could do better again, brought me in, talked to me. Michelinzado had a one-on-one. And after that, I was like, damn, they noticed, they know they care. straight A's ever since. You know, I went on independent study a couple of times in elementary or middle school, never did a single bit of homework ever, never in my career of school ever went to San Antonio, got my independent study done first day I got it. I didn't want to come back and see the disappointment on their

135faces because I knew they actually cared for me and who I was, and they wanted to see me succeed in life and not only. see the A's or B's on my report card, but they wanted to see me actually understand a subject or or be able to. do this. I probably would never have done this before, and I probably wouldn't again only because of the situation that it is. And I really do think San Antonio is, or even other alternative schools is definitely some kids only option. And if you guys… close the school down, what happens to my diploma? Is that invalidated now? Like, do I have to go back and get a GED? Like, this is serious. Everyone's laughing, but this is serious. No, it's yours, you earned it. Yeah, I feel like I

136earned that, but if you guys… Just sit down. So you got 20 seconds. It might feel it might feel a little invalidated. Oh, where'd you go to school? I went to San Antonio. Oh, I've never heard of that. Like, they look it up, it doesn't exist. It feels… like a part of my history will be forgotten, and I know so many other kids went there as well, so there's wood as well, and I've met people outside of my life from that school that have also been to that school, and they've also mentioned these teachers to me saying how amazing they were, and I could only do nothing but agree, and. I'm both about them. So thank you for hearing. Thank you for giving me that. Thank you. Jessica Morella, San Antonio teacher. I may ask

137me to stand with them tonight, and I will always stand with these kids from San Antonio that are here tonight. Jesus Barajas. Hello. Good night, everybody. My name is Jesus Barajas. I am a former student of San Antonio. It was really hard for me to come up here. I'm not good at public speaking, but, um… uh, Blue Dale is going on also on Facebook, and I was scrolling through, and I saw that. San Antonio may close, which is very upsetting to me. I struggled a lot in regular high school. If it wasn't for San Antonio. I don't think I would have graduated. A little funny story. Math is my worst subject ever. I came into school. Smith or Smith, you know, teacher there being my least favorite teacher. And to somehow being my favorite teacher.

138I don't know how that played out. Never did I pass math in freshman, sophomore year. Maybe in junior year I did. Second semester, but, um, it was because of his help. How much time he gave me it was really helpful. He understood me, and he knew how to, um… make it easier for me, and that was really, um, helpful. And all the other teachers there, I mean, just wow, the time that they give you, the attention they give you, it's… It was very helpful, um… I have to say, a lot of the… to where I am to who I am today is a lot because of the teachers there. They really care for you. I did not get that same energy at a regular high school versus San Antonio. They really care and try to.

139Make sure you succeed. Yeah, it's very upsetting that, you know, that they're considering closing that school. My sister is still at that school. She's supposed to graduate this year. My brother went to that school as well, so, you know, it's… It means a lot to me that school is everything to me. Yeah, it made a big, great impact on my life. Um… Yeah. Yeah. That's all. Thank you. Great job. Nicole Vollmer Miricel. I'm nervous. Hi, I am Nicole Vulvermeursu. I'm a social science teacher at San Antonio. Um, I have these, uh, responses here from my students. They've. We're talking to me about San Antonio and the closure of it, and what will that look like? And I just compiled all their responses here for, um… some of their some of the students that did this.

140I didn't incorporate all of them. But if you want them, I have them all back here. They have names on them if you would like to see that. But it's just why is San Antonio important to you? What would you do if San Antonio wasn't an option for you, and how would you feel if San Antonio is not here anymore? Um, and just getting actual student feedback on how they feel about the school. And that it's was their last hope for graduating. It's helped them out a lot. It's encouraged them to actually go to school, not give up. And if it wasn't there, a lot of students immediately said, if San Antonio is not here, I'm dropping out. and that, to me seems very like we are very important to them, not only our school,

141but all the teachers and everybody. We're a family. And that's how we're a community. And I think that's how we all perceive each other, students and staff. And so I want us to just make sure that we are getting student feedback and looking at that and taking them into consideration because we're here for the students. The students matter the most. We got to make sure that we support them. And making sure that their future is what we're thinking of. And making sure they have trusted adults and safe places to be. Thank you. Thank you. Heather Mackin. Good evening. My name is Heather Mackin. I'm a parent of a child that went through the Petaluma school system since kindergarten at McNeer Elementary. In September of 2021, my daughter Ruby lost her boyfriend to a fentanyl overdose

142here in Petaluma. She was a teenager in deep destabilizing grief, the kind that knocks the wind out of a family. San Antonio was not just a school for her, it was a lifeline. It was a place where she could keep going when everything in her wanted to stop. It was a place where adults understood that trauma doesn't follow a bell schedule. It was a place where flexibility and accountability coexisted. Where expectations were real, but so was compassion. the staff didn't just educate her. They joined our team that I called Team Ruby. Becky Lofton, Eric Smith, Nikki Jackson, Kylie Cuccini. you all became anchors. for our family during some of the hardest years of our lives. You helped Ruby rebuild her confidence, her structure, and her belief in herself. Because of the support of San Antonio

143and… Not just those teachers, but the entire staff and faculty. Ruby was able to graduate early at the age of 16. And, uh, the very next year, when she should have been a senior in high school, she was now at SRJC. Um, she's now nearing completion with her degree in fire technology and heading to the fire academy. Um, she wants to serve others in crisis, and that trajectory did not happen by accident. It happened because San Antonio exists. Schools like this are not an alternative by convenience. They are often the difference between dropping out and graduating. They ensure students who are grieving, struggling, or are overwhelmed are seen instead of lost and falling through the cracks. When supported properly, they don't just keep students afloat, they launch them. Closing San Antonio would not just eliminate

144a campus, it would remove a lifeline for students who are already navigating more than most adults ever will. My daughter's story is just one example, and there are many more. You've heard some of them here. Um, please protect this school. It saves the futures of the kids here in Petaluma. Thank you. Thank you. Jordan Pacheco. Hello, my name is Jordan Pacheco. This is a bit nerve-wracking, not going to lie. Went to Casa Grande, Snow Mountain and San Antonio was the 3rd time charm for me. And all of the teachers had an impact. One in specific did. And so I just want to give them all credit. But. I graduated the class of 2014. Let me start off by saying, any other school or teacher asked me to speak on their behalf, I would kindly decline.

145But San Antonio and their facility had my back when I was a young man, and I feel it's important to return the favor. This school is full of wisdom, knowledge, and a strong family dynamic. Mr. Smith was one of the first few solid male role models I had in my life. I'm sure that is true for countless other students. By shutting down the school, you are taking away the chance to give these young adults an opportunity to flip the script. And change the outcome of their future. A lot of us who attended San Antonio High School just needed a teacher who really cared, put in the extra time and effort to guide us to success. This school is where the misfits misguided or troubled students can lean on other students and teachers. It is truly

146a big family. Please don't take away this school and have all these kids miss out on finding that one adult role model they need to better their lives. Keep this place open and let the teachers continue to change the kids' outlook on life. I was one of the troubled kids. I'm now 30 years old. I'm a proud union electrician, a homeowner. I owe a lot of that to Mr. Smith for being there when I needed him the most. I am forever grateful to have attended San Antonio High School. Thank you. Thank you. Austin Roberts. Hello, my name is Austin. I could follow the same footsteps as Jordan and say that, you know, me coming to something like this, you know, a public thing to… you know, make my voice heard is not really my style,

147not anything that I saw about this on social media last night about 9.30. And so, you know, I haven't really had any time to even think about what I'm going to say, nor did I know I was going to be able to talk. But with that being said, I just kind of, you know, describe my experience was a kid on a very troubled path. Uh, you know, went down a path of drugs and, you know, things outside of school range were not the best as well. But my experience, I went to Casa Grande and. I guess I say I went there. I didn't go much, you know, I didn't really have trouble showing up to school. And, uh, you know, going to San Antonio High School as of junior year, I was behind 128 credits,

148I think. I was told it's damn near impossible by all these other teachers outside of this school that, uh, you know, I'm not going to graduate. There's no way I'm going to be, you know, a super senior, as they call them. And, uh, you know, got to San Antonio. Um, you know, the first thing that I realized or noticed about the teachers is, you know. They have an obligation to teach you education as well, but they also take it very seriously. They want to motivate you to show up to school because they know that's your biggest problem, and that's why you're probably attending this school as well, is you don't believe in the school system or whatever it is. You just don't want to be there. These teachers, I'm not going to say it's every

149single teacher I've encountered, but a majority of the teachers there, some familiar faces I see in this room tonight, um, really helped me to open my eyes. Uh, you know, I wanted to be the funny kid. I wanted to be. you know, the class clown. It was, like, super cool and awesome. And, uh, you know. It got to a point where, you know, as I'm reaching halfway through my senior year, and, you know, there's a game plan of… Hey, this is possible, and I can graduate on time, you know? I am starting to now switch my thought process and my eyes as to far as, you know, I can make this happen, and I can do it. And you know, it really does come down to me. My experiences at other schools were. You know,

150if you're not pulling your part as a student, the teacher is just obligated to tell you you're not. And then it's just discipline. These other teachers kind of want to hear you out. They want to see where you're at. Why? Why? Why are things going the way they are? They kind of take that extra step. Um, as far as, like, you know, I'm not just here to do my job, you know, I'm here actually for these kids. Uh, and they're, you know, like many other these people are saying, you know, nobody's… nobody knows what they got going on at home or outside of school. And, uh, this school is just… One of the reasons, you know, I'm sobered up now by working construction, I work for myself, I own my own business, I got drive,

151and uh, you know, it's really just made me realize, you know, these things are possible, and uh, to take that away from our youth. I feel like could, uh, you know, our youth is our society and our community, and the future, and to take that away, I feel, is just, uh… gonna do nothing good for the public. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you all for coming. This is you all did a great job. This is not an easy decision. I think we're going to take a short break for about 5 min. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Can everybody get settled? We need to give you a presentation on the restructuring. Shit. Stay and sit. All right. Thank you. Okay, so now next on the agenda, we're going to have

152a discussion. It's not an action item on alternative education restructuring. Okay. Are we on? Yes, and to reiterate that President Cloud discussion item for tonight. No action being taken, and appreciate the opportunity to bring the board up to date on the alternative education task force and the discussions that we've been having. Um, over the past, really, 5 weeks, we met 5 times in January and February, and so wanted to bring an update to the board on where we are. So, um… We brought together… obviously, we were in this place of needing to make budget reductions, um, coupled with, um, also looking at… we've met as an alternative education task force since last year, and looking at a variety of things from our referral systems. to ways to align to the comprehensive High School's Bell schedules,

153looking at credit schedules, really looking closely at our programs and we have four, right? We have our Carpe Diem, Sonoma Mountain, off the comprehensive High School sites. We've got San Antonio. And we also have Valley Oaks Independent Study High School. And so this was an opportunity for us to look globally at our offerings, at our pathways, and so I really appreciate hearing from our students and our former students regarding the impact that these alternative pathways had for them, and I think our goal in Petaluma City Schools is to continue to provide alternative pathways. And to look more closely, holistically, at how we're serving students from the minute they enter our schools in kindergarten. And this opportunity, um, our secondary administrators had an opportunity to really do some deep dive from our comprehensive high school administrators

154to our alternative education students, some members of our board, our superintendent. I joined in mid-year. to do some transcript reviews and begin to really look at data as it comes to understanding our alternative education students and their profiles, and where we began to see some of that onset of discernible failure. Again, looking at it holistically, knowing that as a district, it is important to us to be able to provide those alternative models, and it's our duty and our responsibility, our moral responsibility, to make sure that we aren't creating a system. A wait to fail model system, but ensuring that we have supports and that we're being creative and innovative so that we catch students quicker, right, at that point of failure versus a wait-to-fail model and students not being able to access those interventions until

155they turn 16, for example. So, um, a part of our discussion was reviewing some of that data, um, looking at our current structure, um, and then as a task force, looking at recommendations for next steps. So, nested within this is that budget reduction proposal, and we had many conversations around what this would look like. Again, this is the $661,000 budget reduction that we landed on. Um, looking at a reduction of 4.0 FTE general education teachers. This impacts both San Antonio and Valley Oaks High School reduction of the registrar, student advisor, custodian, career center specialists. Bilingual program clerk, um, and then what the board saw early on in terms of the restructuring in the budget reduction for alternative Ed. There has been some some shift. And so we landed on instead of a reduction of a

1561.0 FTE administrator, a reduction of a point 6. And a reduction of a .4 FTE certificated counselor. What that means in terms of the restructuring and going into the 26-27 school year, um, we have a configuration for San Antonio that leaves 4.0 General Ed Fte that would allow us to continue to serve the students that are currently there. And also continuing to bring in students for the 26-27 school year. Again, within the discussion around our data, um, and when we're seeing those signs of discernible failure, we see that we want to do some reallocation, so begin to reimagine and restructure the supports that we're providing to our students once we begin to see those patterns of failure. And so we landed on a 1.0 FTE moving to support. prevention at comprehensive secondary sites that has

157not yet been determined as to what that's going to look like. When I talk about the next steps, we're just at the beginning stages of what that would look like. Part of that conversation also was looking at potentially one-time funds, no guarantees, right? But we do have a couple of pots of funding that are also linked to other recommendations from our budget advisory. But that was a recommendation from the task force was that it be that 1.0 FTE through the budget reduction process for alternative Ed and adding a 1.0 so that we could have 2.0 FTE to actually start. Some of this intervention work at the comprehensive sites. For Valley Oaks, what that looks like is a 1.0 FTE to support students on a long-term independent study program in grades 9 through 12. So it

158would be one teacher with a caseload of a specific amount of students, and then. Um, we haven't decided yet if it'll operate out of the Valley Oaks, and kids will come there, or if it'll operate out of the comprehensive high school campuses. And so students that want to access that that are part of PHS or CASA. And so again, that's part of the work that we need to do in designing that. And then Sonoma Mountain and Carpe Diem will continue as is. Again, we recognize the importance of alternative models. There is not an idea on the table to no longer have alternative high schools in our district. And we know that we need to also begin to address that onset of discernible failure and that intervention and catching kids. I think it was 64 of

159our kids that are currently in alternative ed had onset of failure and F's starting in 7th grade, so reimagining this idea of how do we put that support. There, right? Or even earlier, hopefully. But this is the current. Recommendation, um… On the table, in terms of where we landed as a committee after many, many discussions, and what we're looking at across the sites for next year. So again, San Antonio remains open next year. We did discuss starting reevaluating that starting in October of 2026. The committee will continue meeting through the end of the school year. I will say that one of the, um. benefits to coming together has been our comprehensive… both our comprehensive high secondary sites, Kenilworth, Petaluma Jr, Eric Canoon, GioNapoli, and the impact that these conversations are having. in the ways that

160they're leading and looking at the work at the comprehensive high schools, that's really where we need to be, all of us coming together to be able to redesign and reimagine for the benefit of our students. Also, knowing that we still need alternative pathways for students. I think we heard that clear in the testimonies of the students that came forward tonight, and that's the beauty, I think, of Petaluma City Schools, is we have… we have that capability, um, and so. We're going to continue to look at the data, that's the next step, is where do we put that support now, right? And how do we… how do we work with our labor partners, um, in… in job descriptions and that next step? But it's been… there have been difficult conversations, and I just. really want to

161commend the task force and all of the people that were committed to coming on a weekly basis who joined us, board members who were part of the conversations as well. There is a heart for students in this… on this task force, and I'm excited about also. bringing other representatives from the junior high and the high school's other teachers, so that we begin to really build out what this model could potentially look like. I have a question. Right now carpe and Sonoma Mountain are at 34 students each. 32 at each site is the capacity total 64. That's yeah. And that. Grow at all. In other words, can we have more students at each site with additional teachers? I mean, I think that they're all points of conversation. I think, you know, looking at facilities, looking at

162the way that we have teacher teams, right? And we've got a, you know, the system down in terms of our teams that rotate on different days, and the way that they divide up. the students, and also the fact that students have a smaller class size as well. And so I don't think it's necessarily off the table. It's just a matter of like building. What would that look like? What are the unintended consequences? And how do we move forward in that space? So I think. Really, what we've done through this process is kind of open up the conversation to lots of different possibilities, and so that could be something that we look at as well. Do you have a question? I just have whiplash. We need like not about what we've presented like that. This feels

163very much more on track with what. I've understood the situation to be so like reading that article and hearing all these comments, I was like, oh my God, am I missing something? Is there like something that I haven't heard? So that's where the whip, that's what I mean by feeling whiplash. I hope people in the audience are feeling like the opposite of whiplash, of like, oh, okay, like… I don't really have words for it. Yeah, I definitely support moving intervention earlier, because people should not be coming to San Antonio with 100 credits that they need to make up like we should be intervening earlier. And if San Antonio is the right fit, they should absolutely be going there, but. not… not… not junior year, if they've failed. every single class for two and a half

164years. So I'm really hopeful that this the intervention movement into the comprehensives will help with that. I. I think you spoke to it a little bit, but if we could elaborate on the student voice in the alt ed task force, that would be really helpful. So last year we had a student representative, I believe, from Sonoma Mountain, who was a part of it. We didn't have a student representative in these last five meetings where we were discussing discussing sort of the nuts and bolts. Our next step is to we discussed as a committee doing some empathy interviews and getting some more student voice. So that is… That is an important piece that we haven't done that we need to do. Ruby, did you have something that you wanted to say? Yeah, I did. So when

165going back forwarding to talking about adding more students into Sonoma Mountain and carpetm. How would that be possible if the school is so small? If it could barely fit the capacity already has. You would have to enlarge in the school, making it more cost, which that's what you guys are trying to cut right now at San Antonio. So why would that make sense? in doing that that way, if you guys get what I mean. Yeah, no, I appreciate that question, Ruby, and you're right. I think there there isn't… it isn't a firm yes or no. It's we'd have to look at what would that even entail. And to your point around cost and and all of the things, right, in terms of space and. Those would all be considerations that we'd have to consider. Yeah.

166So also along those lines, I wondered, too, about the capacity of. Sonoma Mountain, Carpe Diem, I know earlier during the student presentation, it said there's 23 students currently at Carpe, 28 at Snowman Mountain. How many are currently at San Antonio? It's Greg here. 62. I just have a question about exactly. Could you go back to the slide where you showed the resolution for reducing? So you changed it to 0.6 certificated administrator. Is that right? and then point 4. Certificated counselor in the resolution that we're passing tonight. It has a 1 point FTE for the principal certificated principal. Yeah, I could speak to to some of that. So sorry, I'm just confused. I mean, no, I understand why. So, two things on this that are confusing. One is the first one, the 0.6 certificated counselor that

167was bringing from the information over was just incorrectly put on and we didn't catch that. That would be a 0.4 is what we actually would notice. So you could amend this, or if you pass it as is, we just would only notice 0.4 of a reduction on the counselor, because that's what the recommendation was here. The in talking with Matthew about the certificated principal. We need to. We were putting 1.0 on because we don't know what that what that remaining point 4 would look like. Is that an Ap? Is that a different position where, if you only lay off part of that position, you're stating what. that other part of that administrator is. So this gives us the ability to lay off that position, but bring back the 0.4 in the capacity that the committee

168says is the right capacity for that administrator. Does that make sense? Yes, just so that I'm clear, because eventually the risk. So you can explain this again with the resolution. I can. I can. But with the resolution, just for right now. You are recommending the 1.0 certificated administrator. We would recommend. That part is correct, because we would. We in the end, we would be having still a point for administrator, but we don't yet know what the committee is stating. the role, and every administrator has a different place on the salary schedule, has a different position, so we need to know what it is that is being recommended for that administrator, and match that to the right placement on the salary schedule. And we can't change that unless we lay off the whole position, and then.

169bring back the point for that's appropriate to the committee. Okay. That makes sense. Yes, it does to me. Me too. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Brian. Sure, I guess I'll go now. So what I've heard tonight, and what I've heard throughout the district and talking with our our labor partners, looking at the history of San Antonio is that we are so lucky to have fantastic staff. They're fantastic that have intervention, support, being role models to our students who. you know, have ended up at San Antonio for, you know, so many different, uh, circumstances, and we are so grateful and lucky to have them. And it breaks my heart to see the reductions here, because I know that will have an impact on real people's lives, both in the short term. Just trying

170to help them graduate, and in the long term of just a success in young adulthood. So when I posed this question, it is from a question of trying to save as many of the people, because I believe it's the people and not the building that is. changing lives. So what is the overall facilities cost? of San Antonio, just so an understanding, and I I don't feel strongly about upsetting the the recommendations at this moment in time, but. I haven't gotten a straight answer about that, and I've talked to several other school districts. nearby, and we are the only ones that have a San Antonio-like program. And for better or worse. But I just want to understand because we are in a budget crisis continuing down the path that we have means less teachers. So do

171we have that number? available, Matthew? Amanda. We talked about it. Was it I have. I do you know, Amanda? I think we have to look at it. I'm sorry. Now, I just want to make sure, like, actually, like the utilities. The utilities, is that the question? The overall cost of the program, or like for the actual facilities? Facilities. Okay. Yeah. Facilities plus the staff at the school? Well, it would be like if that campus was open or shut. Right? And whether that is $100,000, is it $10,000? Because then again, like I think Ruby was mentioning, there are new costs associated with maybe additional expanding car pay and other, you know, other sites. to accommodate. But I just want to have like a full understanding as we are going through a budget crisis and doing nothing

172is a choice. continue on this road, and… We need to be honest with what we're doing and potentially by not looking at. moving people around, not changing the program or not changing again, like the support system in all Ed for the San Antonio students. But. Just looking at the building, like, I'm just curious about whether we're doing what's best for our students. And so I just would like to have numbers versus, again, just for the first time seeing presentations at a board meeting. So can I just be clear? So the. So the request is, what is the cost? What is the cost to. run San Antonio from the electric bill, gas, everything plus the plus the staff that's there versus what if that if that site were to, if that site were. not in use.

173What would the savings be? Is that correct? Okay. Yeah, we'll get it. We'll get the number. We'll get it. This is discussion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. I don't I don't have it off the top of my head, unfortunately, so I can't give it to you right now. No, it's fine. I mean, that's just… something that you know I think is important to have. And did it ever come up in any of the meetings? If it, you know. that question. Okay, that I don't recall that question coming up around the cost of the facility. But and that would include the Valley Oaks also that whole complex, right? Yes, a lot of it will be able to break out. I do have. I'm not sure if some of the facilities are on separate meters. I don't know

174without looking at the the bill, but we may be able to break it out by each program. So. if if we moved. San Antonio in some way to, you know, one of the comprehensive sites or, you know, within Carpe Diem and. Sonoma Mountain. What would… is that is the is the are the facilities at San Antonio are our property and so they would be. utilized in a different way. Yeah, yeah, and we would still incur. I don't anticipate that. the facilities would be vacant. We have a lot of programs, but keeping on power, electricity, and all of that, like, there would still be costs associated if… the school was closed. much lower, but but. at Valley Oaks that we're talking about eliminating it down to one staff member. to handle the students on independent study.

175So. How… I don't know how I'm going to phrase this, but how attached is the Valley Oaks building. I mean, is it possible to break that out? How much one school versus the other? Do you see what I'm saying? Yes. So I'm not. Yeah, I'm not sure exactly where the meter… a lot of costs are. We break out. We do annual reporting. Part of every student succeeds, which is part of our… so we do… every bill we pay, um, we have school codes, we break it out by school. Um, sometimes it is a percentage, kind of like when we bill for the elementary versus secondary districts. We do a 33, 67% split because that's roughly what the enrollment is if Valley Oaks and San Antonio are on any shared meter, we would use enrollment as

176a split. So I definitely can. Look at that as we discuss. I'm gonna try and run a few reports to see if I can see anything, but I might have to actually look at the power bills to see. I feel like maybe somebody I feel like I should know the answer to this, but I do not. So I was going to ask Principal Stevenson. Are they different addresses? Are they at the same address? Oh, then they will have different. Yep. So that answers that question. Okay, I know that the student board members would like to say something. So yeah, well, going back to talking about merging car pay or. kind of putting in San Antonio the students into Carpidm and Sonoma Mountain. Talking in a student's perspective, I feel like at San Antonio, I'm actually,

177I was actually able to feel like that was my own school, not like I was just an add-on, like I put them in my high school or Casa Grande, because when I was at Sonoma Mountain and I would go to my break or my lunch. I always felt like I was an imposter when going around those high school students. I'm like, I don't know them. I don't go to school with them, but I'm required to have my lunch here. I'm required to have my break here. It's like, think about how the students are going to feel when in that environment. At San Antonio, you're actually able to feel like that's your own proper school. You're able to feel… You don't feel like you're not belonging there because that's your school. It's not like Carpe, that's

178just an add-on to Petaluma High School. They have to do what they have to have lunch at a certain time. They have to do stuff at a certain time just to be able to match with the other school you know it's like. Things like that. And going back, I read an article about the closure for San Antonio, and in that article was mentioned that our students don't get prepared for four year anniversary universities. And I get that, but there was also a statistic. statistic in statewide NC reports that shows that 57% of students in California attended two year two-year community college, even when graduating from a Petaluma High School or Casa Grande. So I don't really see why it's a problem when our San Antonio students go to a two year college. So I don't

179know why that's a big highlight for us. And I just want to talk about San Antonio is a really supportive school. It's able to support you in ways our bigger schools can't. Our staff is able to put in. more time, more attention into our students individually, because they're not throwing 100 students where they have to deal with all the time. They're not throwing all these students. They're able to individually work with them, and that's the thing about San Antonio. It puts our students up for success. But it's also depending on the person. Obviously, if the person doesn't care about school, they're not going to do good. But if you really are passionate about what you're doing in that school and want to do better, that school is there for the best. So I want you

180guys to also take that into consideration. And coming from a person that her sister and, well, my sister and I actually graduated from there. My sister has been my inspiration since the day she graduated from there. She was a super senior and she's still. Well, she was about to go into adult school, but she fought her way through senior, super senior year, and now she's really successful at the SRJC, and she's planning on attending Sonoma State. Hopefully next year, but she's been doing a lot of great things. She… I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with this group called organization called Puente at the Jc. It's for first-generation college students. She was actually a pal for that program, and she also worked for the Interculture Center in the. Santa Rosa Junior College. So when

181people say San Antonio does not prepare you for college, for the real world. It really does. It's just depending on the person, how much you want and what you want in life. So I hope you guys take that into consideration. Thank you. Well done. Okay, Jessica. I am a Casa student, and I'm sorry, but I have not been to San Antonio. But I do understand the experience, as we heard multiple speakers talking, that they didn't go to school. They didn't want to go to school, and I think by the seeing the jobs that are getting cut. all of those up there. I feel like it would be really hard to get that one-on-one time that's highlighted so much with those speakers we're talking about. Me missing so much school myself, I was considering of going

182to a different program, uh, because I could not catch up, and. people who had lost many credits. I understand why they need that one-on-one support, and it is so critical. So, seeing all these on the board, I just feel like it, like you said, it directs students' lives quite literally, and just, like, very quickly, too, and seeing them maybe not graduate because of these jobs getting cut because of that one-on-one attention being lost. It just really comes close to home, and it's just really sad to see all of that. So, if there are alternate ways to just prioritize students with one-on-one, like San Antonio is, I think that's really important. Also, another thing to add. One of our former speakers who were speaking said in this decision, no student voices have been involved in. And

183with that. This is a school district. It's all about our students. So why aren't we having our students being able to put in their input and what they're feeling or what they're thinking? That's also my question. So I hope our student voices are getting more heard into these decisions when making them. Okay, anybody else have? Anything they'd like to comment about the discussion. My only comment is that if we have kids failing all of seventh, all of eighth. all of ninth, all of 10th. That's unconscionable, in my opinion. Where are the interventions? Where are the safety nets for those students? that are continually failing. I mean, are they failing because of family life? Are they failing because the classes are too? Why are they failing? And why are we letting them get to their junior

184year? minus all these credits. I think that is malpractice in my opinion. We need to. look at interventions for those students so they're not failing. I mean, if they fail 3 classes in junior high and 7th grade. Why? Why aren't we helping? Why aren't we catching them before they get so credit deficient? So I think part of this restructuring. is it's really important to have interventions in place. So we're catching those students. Before they fail all the way through. So I think Ellen's speaking to the wait to fail model you had on one of the slides. Can you explain that further? So, um. When we look at. 12 students. They're currently, um… Oh, sorry. Thank you. When we did transcript reviews of the students that are currently, um, with the exception of Valley Oaks, um,

185the students at the three sites. Um, we saw that 64 of them, right, from seventh grade were already showing those, those, um, those failures or the failing classes, right? And then incrementally, right, by the time they, you know, and I… I need to pull up the graph specifically, but we see that they don't get access, right, to that intense credit recovery until they're 16. In the case of San Antonio, they have some access with some credit recovery option at Sonoma Mountain and Carpe Diem. But we're seeing that the vast majority of students were showing warning signs earlier on, so it's… we've… we've created, right, a system, going back to Jason's quote from his earlier presentation, the system is designed to get the results that it gets, right? And so. That's that piece of that weight-to-fill

186model and looking at that, the data that we have. for the students that are currently there. Um, and so this is part of that restructuring and reimagining, that how do we begin to change that, right? Um, and also knowing that there are kids that still are going to need credit recovery, right? Um, and so… We do still need places, um, and so needing to look at Sonoma Mountain and Carpe Diem as places for that, but also looking… our credit schedules at those two schools is not as intensified in terms of recovery that we see at San Antonio. just from a personal point of view, I was one of those students in seventh grade. I was failing all my classes. I had better things to do. And there was an intervention for me with another, with

187a group of students. And we were all failing seventh grade. And that intervention occurred in the second half of seventh grade. And then it got me back on track. So. It's a very personal thing for me to see kids that don't… get that intervention when, from a personal experience, I know that intervention. really helps. It shows that somebody cares, that they're worried about you, it's the same thing that all the students that talked about from San Antonio, where they… that was their safety net, and somebody… they were… they caught them. They cared about him. And so that's why I'm such a huge proponent of interventions early because. you know, I would. I was close to just not surviving junior high without that intervention. So. Just a little personal note. I think the longer we talk,

188the more questions I have about a lot of things. I think the first thing to come up is… What can we do to keep this weight to fail model from happening at the junior high level, if that's where it's starting? So that's number one. Also, there are data-driven options. There's I was speaking with someone today about, oh my gosh, the book, the the. the make or break year, and it's about how the Chicago public school system implemented an early warning system, seventh, eighth, 9th, and ninth grade year is the make or break year. But you start in eighth grade. proven results replicated in San Diego. And now I think that they're trying to replicate it at sco to bring to the schools here. But all that to say there are things that we can do,

189because. Again, this model, if this is starting in junior high, and we catch some of the kids. even if we kept San Antonio open and we changed nothing, there's still going to be students that need those interventions. Even again, if we didn't change anything, there's still students that we're going to miss. And so we do need a wider net. So I think that's coming up for me as well. So what are we doing? Not just to restructure the alternative education, but to put in some more interventions, or actually put some interventions in at the junior and high school level, because it's not fair for us to have this model that we know is a model. and then expect that the staff. Sorry, the staff and teachers at San Antonio. to be the ones to hold

190all of this when we know it's starting 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th grade. So that that's not fair either to those students and to the staff. I okay. I know there's not a question in there, but those are just the things that are coming up for me. because I think that there's no easy decision to be made. But whatever decision we make, there's still going to be a need to support our students further. And so I guess with the alternative education restructuring. I don't know if that was talked about, like, what does that look like? So that's where we need to begin, because we and it was very clear in our conversations that we needed more people at the table that it was. This was not an alternative education issue to solve by themselves. Right? And

191and also. Um, you know, one of the committee members voiced, like, we can't… we can't do the same things that we've always done at, you know, at the comprehensive doing more intensely if that's not catching kids. So they're… so we need the expertise of our AltED, um, staff, and we need. Staff from the sites and administration and councillors. It's really an all-hands on deck. It comes back to sort of, like, the multi-tiered systems of support, right? And it comes back to guaranteed and viable curriculum and early interventions. It's… it's our system and how we do education. That's not just one… it's not alternative education's lane, it's all of our lanes collectively. And I just we're starting. We're talking about junior high school, right? Seventh grade, seventh, eighth, 9th. I agree it's an issue. And this

192problem stems from much earlier. We we know this. And we're also in a community where we have multiple different school districts, and it's really in seventh grade when everyone comes together, whether it's old Adobe. So yes, and there's this is a this is a start. But yeah, I agree it's it's tier two supports, tier three supports. It's an overhaul of accountability. What is the junior high school? really elementary on up, but that that those some of those critical years. Yeah, so we'll we have another meeting. We have them to begin thinking and planning and and designing, if you will, starting on March 19th. And so… This is just we're just beginning. That just. made me think you had the October deadline of whatever reevaluation. Is that going to be a presentation of, you know, kind

193of what you and the committee has. is going to propose. I mean, are we going to get an actual plan of intervention. for seventh, eighth, 9th, and then also how we're going to have alternative ed. I mean, this whole comprehensive idea. Personally, I would like to see that by October. So is that part of that plan or not? That's what? Yes, we we would come. We would. We would… The task force, and I think probably we'll need to change the name a little bit because it's expanding, right? And so, yes, our goal would be to update the board as we go along. Again, right now we have slated 1.0 FTE as part of that reallocation. And so we're starting very small, but yes, that would be the goal is to continue to update the board.

194And as we hit that mark of October, like, what is it that's currently happening? And what are the other supports that we're working on at the sites to. prevent the failure or to interrupt the failure. So this brings up more questions. So what does the reevaluation process look like? like between now and October. I don't want to like have just a presentation in October. What is that looking like? How often are we updated? How often is the committee meeting? What implications does this have on the budget advisory Committee's recommendations, and is 1.0 allocation enough? If we're talking about intervention, if we're talking about deploying folks to the junior high schools in the in the comprehensive high schools. Is that enough of intervention? Just 1.0? It doesn't sound like it, especially if we're trying to catch

195students. I remember when I was a counselor at Kenilworth, running those DNF lists every 6 weeks and meeting with every single one of those students every single week. if maybe the capacity isn't there anymore to do that, then how will the 1.0 person? help support that. But then is again. Yeah, right? Is that enough? Is that even being done now? And also, I want to know, what are the Mtss? What's happening right now with our MTSS model? It's not working? It sounds like. I don't know. Maybe it is, but it doesn't sound like it. So again, this is just bringing up more questions. And so I'm having a hard time coming to a decision. Because I feel like I don't have enough information about what's going to happen moving forward from now until. whenever. So

196I know that was like 5 more questions. Okay, that's okay. So let's start with the reevaluation. Yeah, I think… so we had to get to this place of figuring out what the budget reduction was going to be, and also this concept of how do we begin to restructure and take that. What we're starting with, that 1.0 FTE, what does that even look like? And so bringing data to see where would we place that? Is it at the ninth grade? Is it at the seventh grade, right? And then figuring out what does that entail? Is that, you know, someone that's teaching a particular cluster of students? There's a lot to sift through and think about with… just with that 1.0 FTE, and then possibly the other 1.0 FTE if we have funds from one time funding.

197So San Antonio will continue, right? They'll start the new school year with their 4.0 FTE, obviously, and continue to serve students. We're gonna look at what capacity that will allow when we come back in October, we want to be able to. Is that… whenever we started in August, how is that going? How many students are being served? What are we seeing? And then being able to determine. Do we have… can we broaden it, right? Are we going to be at a place where then we go and we reallocate another FTE for the following year? So, it really is going to have to be done incrementally, and right now we don't have the design of what that 1.0 FTE. would look like in terms of the reallocation. That's where… that's where we're going to start. And

198is 2 months enough time? So school starts August, and then we're gonna be looking at making another decision in October. That's only 2 months. Is that enough time to gather enough data? Well, that's the… we're going to begin the discussions. It doesn't necessarily mean that the board is taking action. Maybe I shouldn't have believed that article either, because it said that we were making a decision. No, no, no, no. Okay. I guess I'm old and tired right now. Um, but I'm confused about what exactly is going to be brought forward in October. It sounds to me like we're keeping the structure that we have now. open, and I'm not sure where the interventions are going to come from in terms of. I mean. I really want to hear like what Ellen and all of us

199are saying is that we need to address. seventh at, you know, will eventually hopefully get to elementary. That's not possible right now. But those. multi-tiered interventions, but particularly at the seventh grade level and the eighth grade and the ninth grade. I just don't hear. where that… what that's going to look like at all, where it's going to come from, we've talked about having these interventions forever. There's never any money for it. So, how are we going to reorganize, restructure, so that. These, um… these… you know, this wait to fail model is, you know, disrupted, as you say. Yeah. And interrupted. And and I just… I want to hear that in October more than whether, you know, San Antonio is is meeting the needs of their students. I also want to hear what was going on

200with the students that are in the pipeline, you know, and I want to get rid of the pipeline. So, I mean, that's my frustration. So is that going to happen in October so that, you know, we're not just looking at one thing? So does that make sense? Yes, that's okay. That makes sense. And it's because we're also we're doing 2 things at once, right? And so we can. I mean, we're going to meet as a committee. We're going to broaden that committee. And so March, April, we can come back to the board before the end of the school year and say, here's some of our thinking. Here's some of our planning. This is what we're looking at with that 1.0 Fte. We begin, right? And then the re-evaluation is just to to look at, okay,

201how is that working? And then we can. You as a board can discuss and decide. Oh, well, we need longer, or we're ready. Oh, this is working with 1.0. Maybe we have the additional other 1.0. We can go as slow and methodical so that the board is fully informed, and that you are seeing the specifics, right? And the concrete information to answer your questions for tonight. Again, it's to go over what the the restructuring in terms of the implications with that budget reduction. Um, and knowing that San Antonio will remain open, right, next year. So, we've been talking about the interventions, and now we're looking at October, so there's another school year gone. I don't I don't want to wait till October. I want to figure something out that we can start. With the 2627

202school year. I think we all just saw the word October on the slide. I don't think anyone's saying we're gonna wait until October and start evaluating something. No, it's okay. Yeah, that's what I thought. No, I know that's why I'm trying to bring us back in like we are going to be evaluating and discussing and talking about exactly where the interventions go, presumably before the end of this fiscal year, because we need to know where we're stabbing people. Right. Yes. And then in October, it's, okay, what's working really well with San Antonio? What are we keeping with San Antonio? Where are we pivoting? Are we gonna do even more interventions? Like, that's my understanding, is October's when. the what's working in next fiscal year is going to start, not no decisions are going to be

203made, just. By October 2026. Right. The October is really to evaluate, so how are the interventions, right? Whether it's 1.0, 2.0 FTE, not necessarily one person, but 0.2 or 0.4, right? Pettleman Jr. May get a 0.2. What is this going to look like? How are we going to… is it a smaller? class, right, etc, etc. Kenilworth may have more because they have more students at the school. Casa Petaluma High School. Part of the confusion, Maddie, is not just your old, it is confusing because. What we should be saying as a district is we need to be throwing more money to support students. In our programs, and at the same time, we're here faced with a $6 million structural deficit, and we're having to reduce money. And in budget advisory, $660,000 reduction from alternative alternative education.

204And one 5.4 million reduction from everywhere else. And so here we are saying we have to make these reductions as part of a budget reduction. And we all know we should be throwing more money in to support at 7. Kindergarten on up. But, you know, particularly looking at seventh, eighth, and 9th grade. So it's it is very confusing, because we're having to make a budget reduction, and we're saying, and we need more support. So we… it's it's, um… Yeah, it's a very frustrating concept to try to think about. Yes, does this current slide. Is it going to impact the decision that the budget advisory committee made? Go back to the other slide. Oh, this one. This is this is the I wanted to go back to the other one. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, either one,

205I guess. But actually, no, go back to the previous one. Yeah. If we do this. This is… this is… This is this one. This is the same. The same. Well, there's too many words. I want to go back to the other one. This is like, that one's harder for me just to read and process. Okay. This is a 600… This one's just easier for me to the process. Okay. the original, and I feel like I do say this over and over, but I want to remind everyone that. cabinet gave the recommendation for the reductions to alternative education to budget advisory budget advisory only voted to move forward like they did with everything. So budget advisory didn't come up with a plan. amount or anything that did come from cabinet. The original was 663. This is

206661, so 1,000 only a $2,000 difference. I was able to come up with the cost of utilities for last year. I don't know if that's helpful at all. Okay. You're in content? Sorry. So Ryan said no. He shook his head. No. It's real comprehensive than that. And I don't want, you know. So, I mean, to my point, like, as I was, you know, we want more resources for our students. And I feel like we have strictly only looked at staff like. And so this is a conversation as we are trying more early intervention. And the question is whether again. what is best for our students to have as many staff as possible. And so I just wanted the data as we are continuing this conversation, probably for the next year to make sure that we

207have it, we're tracking it, and we… just make the right decision. So then what's the number? I still want to know. Okay. The I have all the information. The utilities for San Antonio for last year were $25,000, and for Valley Oaks, $5,000. Okay. Total, not per month. Total. Yeah. I think I pay more than that. We do have solar. It does help with our our electricity is very low. Our highest costs annually are actually sewer. Oh, I'm good. So then back to this, because it's talking about one time funding. And I think we don't want to keep falling into the one time funding trap. So this is for the 2627 school year. So then what happens? 27, 28? Because whoever's on the board next year, we don't want them to be going down this route

208either. So this is 2627, right? Mm-hmm. and then it will have to be reconfigured or. something 27, 20. Or are we just not going there right now? We're just looking at 26, 27. I mean, maybe that could be part of the of the the rest, you know what they're talking about the restructuring, the interventions, and that when they bring that report to us regularly. that that can be included like, how are we looking at this as sustainable? I mean, one of the things we talked about on the task force was, how do we. difficult to have it sustainable right now. So how do we make a system, create a system that is sustainable? and that would be part of that that whole discussion. I would think. It's a lot. It's a lot. Okay. All right.

209Are we? Are we done? Okay. All right, thank you. Thank you. Moving on, we are going to go to action items now. and we have comments. Don't we? Comments from the public on action items? And we have two people. Wayne. Clanter. I'm sorry. I know I have your name wrong. on Wayne. Carter Clark. I I am struggling to read it. Yes, yes, that's it. That's it. That's it. That's you. Come on up. I think it's you. Oh, my goodness. I think I was noodling away, and I, uh… Kind of fun. Well, thank you for waiting. But I was noodling away. Hi, I saw a picture. This is a little story of a tall lady back there. In 2002, December 5th, 60 students from Petalum High School were suspended. Well, I talked to the principal the

210night before, and I said, you know what? You should be celebrating these kids. And I said, I'm gonna show up with 200 people, and we're gonna line Fairview Fair Avenue the next morning. There we were. I turned that into a national story, along with Maria Carrillo, Santa Rosa High School, and 2 other besides, I think Casa. And everybody knew where the hell Petaluma High was. It was a national story, and I brought in all the things. So where am I going with this? I'm all about the ICE enforcement. We're so lucky that the Petaluma City Council. We can almost… the school board can almost dovetail with the Petaluma. city council. Brian's not here anymore. But they're on top of it and just really, we all have to work together. And I'm so proud. I'm trying

211to get a lot of the kids up. Black History Month. Oh my goodness. It's one of my favorite things, and we got the guy in the White House is trying to. Scrub it and whitewash it, you know? you know, the liar in chief. I don't want to mention name stuff, but we know who he is. Oh, and I want to thank the kids that showed up at Walnut Park and Luke Casey. Those 150 kids at Walnut Park, when they showed up, I went. Thank you. Thank you. because they finally showed up, and a week before that they're at Lucasi, you know, from Casa and Petaluma High. Um. It's all about the No King's March coming up. I'm glad I got this March 4th day of action. I'll get involved. The ice out is ongoing. We

212need to get the art teachers doing poster workshops. I am the king of posters. you name it. I could give a workshop. These kids have to know. And you know, another thing I shouldn't toot my horn, but. Talk about budget cuts. I was on the front of the press Democrat. I can't even remember the date. February 11th, 2010, they tried to cut sports funding. All the sports in men. I went like ballistic. I think I saved it because they wanted to get rid of me. You have 30 seconds. Oh, good. Okay, I'm gonna wrap it up now. So, done treating my horn. But this is not my 1st. Rodeo, thank you very much. Hey, I'm a stage for cancer survivor from Vietnam, so. That's why I do have difficulties, you know? And I'm Canadian. I

213mean, they say, what the hell is he doing here? Okay, um… I don't know, that's about it. You know, I'm, uh… Oh, another thing we all have to encourage ourselves to get out of our comfort zones and go out, make a difference. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Hard act to follow. All right. Thank you. one, maybe if we turn the heat down in here, we could save half a position somewhere in the county. And that's it. I just wanted to talk about the Alta task force and how some of these decisions came up. I wanted to respect the time of the students who are here to talk about the restructuring. But just real quick, the task force was created in 24, 25, and I don't think we were given a very good direction in

214terms of where this was going. And we probably spent a lot of time looking at things that were irrelevant based on where we ended up. We only had a couple of meetings this fall. And then. cabinet sent to the to the budget advisory committee. Their recommendation for cuts. Um, that showed up at a board meeting here in December, and that was kind of the first we heard about it. And then I might be off a couple of weeks here or there. And I said, okay, let's talk about restructuring. I spent a lot of Christmas break kind of coming up with all these ideas of what this would look like. And we came back in January, and we're told. that San Antonio was on the block. And so my point is that there's just a lot

215of the message that was being sent through the task force when and where we heard stuff wasted a lot of time in terms of what we could talk about. And so as Joanna mentioned earlier, like. if we're gonna talk about this stuff going forward, can we have more presentations to the board? Things like that, so that there's information coming forward more often, so that, um. task force and things can… put together better information, and maybe provide a more detailed. response to what you guys are looking for when you have to make these decisions. As it is, I don't really feel like… like, I feel the only work we've done in what you're going to end up with as a recommendation happened between, um… mid-January, and now. And so, we did put in we did put

216together a lot of meetings, but it was really a short period of time to kind of give this, I think, the mention it deserves. So. Thanks for your time. Okay, moving on. We're going to actually do action items. We have approval of Resolution 252632 declaring the month of March as Women's History Month. I move to approve. I second. Can we skip reading it? Yeah, please. Yay women. Okay. We love them. We love women. I do. I defer to my colleagues on this one. Yes. Yeah. All right. All right. All those in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Good luck. All right. The motion passes. Okay, number 2 approval of resolution 2526-34 of the Board of Education of the Petaluma City Elementary and joint Union High School, reducing or discontinuing particular kinds of services by an additional 6.6

217Fte. For the 26-27 school year. we comment first or move to yes to comment. When I looked over this and I saw eliminate the equivalent of 1.0 FTE theater arts elementary VAPA program. I sent an email and asked what that was about, and I was told it was about restructuring. We have just spent almost 2 hours talking about restructuring all dead. We have had no discussion about restructuring VAPA. So I cannot vote for this the way it is. I want it explained to me what it's meant. By restructuring and. why we haven't had the opportunity as the VAPA committee to talk about restructuring. This is the first I've heard of it. Um… And I just… I have a real problem… how long have we just spent talking about restructuring one program, and we have spent

218no time talking about restructuring. The VAPA program, um, especially with Prop 28. So… Um, I move to, if we're gonna vote on this… well, I'm… to either remove that until we can have further discussion on restructuring, or I just won't be able to vote yes. Can? Can I address that? Yeah. Thank you. So, and with this PKS, you can see that most of these items, these certificated positions, were having to do with all ed because we were waiting for the recommendations to come. That's why they didn't come last week. The last one, the theater arts one, came as a recommendation from the VAPA committee and the reason to release this one was to. This is the information that was given to me by the DAPA committee chair was to increase the music increased music services

219in within the VAPA program. I've been to every VAPA meeting and… I don't know what chair you're talking about. The chair is Erin, and I really doubt she said anything about that. Yeah. I I've. Can we ask Aaron to come up? It's just really weird to me that it was… presented as restructuring. So I was going to say, to clarify, I've been to none of the VAPA meetings, so I can't speak to it other than that I was told that the desire of the committee was to increase the amount of music support. And that they were in the intention was to decrease the theater arts. Well, and also it's elementary. And music's a huge part of that. So I'm very confused. So we reduced elementary music teachers. So is this to be able to. we

220reduced… we reduced some of the elementary music, and that was… that was also aligned with attrition of retirements. So we aren't actually losing any teachers. We're down some FTE because we have a. Teacher that's going to be retiring. But one thing that that you can do is you can amend this to remove that one, and we can get clarification before the next board meeting. We have one more board meeting that we still can meet our deadlines if this is the way the district wanted to go. I move to remove. The… to amend the resolution by taking out number 8 equivalent of 1.0 Fte theater arts elementary Vapa program. in the information you're seeking is… where that came from, and how is that restructuring, and… Why weren't we given 3 hours? I can answer the 3

221hours, but we can get that information for you for the next meeting. Yeah. Do I have a second? And so I'll second. Okay? all those in favor of amending. the resolution. to reduce particular kinds of services by 6.6 FTE and eliminating number 8, the equivalent of 1.0 Fte, theater Arts Elementary Vapa program. All those in favor of that amended. motion. Say aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Okay, it passes. I'm I mean, all of those opposed. Sorry. Any opposed? Opposed. Opposed. I'm definitely not against eliminating it in the future, but I would like more information on how we got there. So if we can figure out. We can make sure you have that information for the next meeting. Yeah, I think along those lines I I'm in favor of. Since we're explaining our vote because I

222know it's we have to lay off and then bring back. So. Yeah, I just… I don't know. Okay. Okay, so now. Do we do as amended? Yes, but I have a question first, st if that's okay. How on for San Antonio, for the eliminate 1.0 FTE English. Is there a reason we picked English or got to English specifically? Will that actually impact our ability to deliver English curriculum next year? I looked at the. the the recommendation was to eliminate one Fte, and we looked at the Fte. I looked at it with Principal Stevenson, and we saw that we had that was one, the one subject where we had actually 2 full FTE there. So it looked like. it made sense to us. The other piece is that is that when we think about secondary, we

223have to think about district-wide. So let's say, for example, San Antonio had a need of 1.4 FTE. We would reassign. we would reassign people into those. So there is a fluidity like right now we're taking our best guess. If you remember the last PKS. We I shared that we had cast a wider net on the Fd. For second, for our secondary sections, and we will. not eliminate some of those as it… as it takes shape. Um, so there is a fluidity to it as well, to make sure we meet the needs of the students that are there. Great. Thank you. Okay, any other questions about the reductions? Okay, good. I needed a motion. I move to approve the reductions as amended. I'll second all those in favor. Aye. Any opposed. All right. The motion passes.

224Uh, we go on to… 3. Approval of resolution 2526-35. Eliminating classified and classified management positions effective January, June 30th, 2026. Are there any comments about this one? President Clark, could I just explain a little bit of this? So you, I tried to on these ad where these positions like what. broad section these positions were part of, because there are some here that came straight out of the Alt Ed Task Force, and they were… they were in that slideshow that you saw, and they went straight on to this… this RIF. Then we also… you saw that we do have child care assistant positions, uh. That are associated with one of our schools, and it's connected to ELOP, and we are seeing that these positions are are. taking away our ability to to get funding for that.

225So that's why we're eliminating those positions in order to move into working with our partners, Boys and Girls Club to make sure that we're getting our elot funding. We also had put. the site funded. site funded position. We missed one of the site funded positions in the last round when we tried to bring site funded positions, and then also. the wellness grant, there were some positions that were missed in the in the first round. So those… those last 3 are not associated with the Altad, but. are some other pieces that we're looking at. and which sites would be impacted by the mental health specialists? being reduced. Those are our junior highs. And McKinley. Yeah, Petaluma Jr. Kenilworth and McKinley 3. There may be a fourth that I'm forgetting. It may be Grant. And so we

226had a one year wellness coach grant through Sco. And so we had 2 individuals who were working with us as trainees. They were on a PEA in the 2425 school year, and when we got these funds. working with them, letting them know that it really was just a one-year deal, but it did, um, really. It has really significantly supported those sites. But it was only a one-year grant. I hate one year, Grant. Um, okay. Um… I need a motion. I move to approve the resolution. I second. All those in favor. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes. Moving on to business services, approval of capital facility contracts for February 2026. Go ahead. Tonight we bring forward for capital facilities. program. I believe that there was a question from a board member on the change order for

227Wildcat Engineering. The original contract was for roughly 800. Nope, 282,000 on the first change order that came to the board was for $40,000, and then change order 2 for an additional $203,000. The total change order amount of $244,000. which represents 86% of the original contract value. Together, the 2 change orders equaled 23 PCOs that fell that have fallen into 6. categories. 26% was owner initiated. We added and changed the scope of work to the program by incorporating. We did an additional playground work that was not originally there and adding sidewalks, um. Though what you see right now is asphalt at the ribbon cutting ceremony. There are a lot of issues due to the soil with the asphalt. So if you looked close, luckily, the TK students did some really nice coloring on it. It really

228helped for the ribbon cutting, but that will be removed over spring break, and we… the concrete will be poured. We are not paying for the asphalt work that was done. But the cost of concrete is a little bit more, so it will increase the cost. The asphalt removal and is. at the contract company who was not able to do the pour. 22% of those fees were DSA-initiated. There were plan revisions required by DSA that the project was originally. bid out before we had complete approval, which is not uncommon. Um, there were 20% were unforeseen conditions, or also known as site conditions, um, that included the underground infrastructure and. The soil issues that we were having. Um, 20% included design omissions, um, the scope necessary to complete the project was not clearly defined in the plan,

229so we needed to add more scope to that. Um, we had 8% for design errors, items that were shown incorrectly on the contracted documents and general conditions of 4% costs associated with extending the project duration. Beyond the original. So this was already, if you remember this project was supposed to be completed over summer, and we had DSA delays so that. all of… it… it just increased all of the work, getting the… it completed. And Amanda, when I see facilities, does that mean bond? Yes, this is. This is our 2014 bond funds that we were using for this project. Okay, thank you. Yep. Amanda, thank you for that breakdown. I think it's important to. look at projects like this, where the costs have. you know, roughly speaking, doubled and draw on lessons learned. The Sonoma soil

230is a bane of infrastructure projects everywhere in this in this county. So whatever we can do to plan for that, I think we have a lot of projects upcoming. Looking at. Whether we do slow down projects and wait for, you know, full approval from DSA and whether that will constrain costs or, again. What is what's best? You know, I just think that… we can't have… you know, more projects kind of go this go this route. This one, because of all of the differences, is atypical for us. The the soil conditions and things like that. There was existing. Um… asphalt over it so you don't know what those conditions are until you remove it. And we could wait until we have full DSA plans that will always push our timeline out a lot and we often

231see costs. We will then see cost escalation depending on the last we heard. We're seeing Dsa taking 6 to 12 weeks longer with all the new code changes. And also those costs would have been incurred anyways, once the plans came back from DSA. what we can do looking. And I do want to point out that this is a project that was near completion before we started working with Van Peltz, so we do have a different way now of how we're anticipating and planning for costs. with the Van Pelt team on, they they see these kind of things before they get there. We can always look at increasing our contingencies when we were going through bond implementation. There was a question about contingencies. I don't remember from. which Trustee. Yeah, because we were so close to

232the amount, full bond amount. So that is something we're definitely looking at is making sure our contingencies. The great thing about contingencies is if we do not spend them. We do get them back at the end of the project. So those are things that we're doing to make sure. This doesn't continue to happen, and Brian from Van Pelt is here in the audience tonight, and happy to speak more, and maybe tell the audience or the audience, the board. Whatever I left forgot to say. Apparently I forgot to say something. Construction Services. I'm the bond program management or manager. So one thing to add to what Madness said with the issues we had with VSA adding scope. is we would look at doing early procurement and getting a contractor that helps with free construction. That way

233we can have their input on the drawings before they go out to bid. And we call those more collaborative procurement method, and we can select a contractor based on best value. So it's very helpful for our projects. And another thing with, uh, not the project we were talking about at McKinley. We had two different increments. So we had the building and then the site work. Um, what I like to do with these projects is combine them. So you don't have contractors pointing fingers and seeing the scope in this certain area. So, um, that's what we like to do. Thank you. Thank you. That was very helpful. Thank you for waiting. Yeah. Okay. Do we have any other questions about? Are you satisfied? with the answer. Okay, I need a motion. I move to approve the

234contract. I'll second all those in favor. Aye. Any opposed motion passes. Approval of resolution number 2526-33 authorizing implementation. of the Pcs energy modernization program. Thank you. This is another item that we had a few questions on. I did answer a couple emails. I don't know if there. So I so either I can 1st talk to some of the questions in the emails. Amber with Climate Tech is here. She can start the presentation and see what questions are answered during the presentation. If you would like to go that route and see if she can hit them all, or… I'd like to hear from her. Okay. I would like to hear from you first. Well, I have two little ones at home, so this is well past my bedtime. So I'm sorry if I can't keep all

235my facts straight, but I will do my best. So, Board President Cloud, members of the board, Superintendent Harris, members of staff, what's left of the Petaluma community? Thank you so much for having me back here tonight. We're really excited to share the combination of our efforts over the past eight months. Um, so thank you again. Oh, here we go. There we go. Just a friendly reminder on the program objectives to improve the learning environment first and foremost, increase efficiency throughout your facilities and promote environmental stewardship. And you know, as we, as you've been discussing all night. Just really reduce your operating costs in general. I know that's obviously very important to the community, so we've been here for quite a few hours talking about that, so I think it's very important to recognize that this

236type of program can really help to reduce and contain your operating costs. A little bit about where we've been. The district passed a climate resolution back in June 2025. We were awarded a Rfp shortly after that. We conducted a utility analysis in July last year, did a needs assessment with your team and the Van Pelt team as they came on board with the district as well. Did comprehensive side assessments with a team of engineers. Did a feasibility assessment, and then presented a study session to you back in November of 25, and it was a hypothetical scope of work, and it was a broad range of things that we were looking at, because we didn't have a refined scope of work as of yet during that time. When we, after we've heard from you, you were

237excited to look at, you know, anything that that could be fit under there that needed to be modernized. So we developed a scope of work and funding plan that met the district's needs. And tonight we're here to share those findings with you. In collaborate on hopefully considering an item. You've seen this slide before. It's the cost of doing nothing, essentially. And back in 2024, which is what your baseline year of utilities is built on, you spent 1.4, almost 1.5 billion dollars into a million dollars in. utilities. That's between your solar and your PG&E bills. Over the last 5 years, PG&E has raised their rates 70%. So we don't foresee that coming down anytime soon. So the cost of these projects used to be nice to do. Now they really have to do is because just

238containing your operating budgets is so critical. Under the Energy Master Plan, we looked at interior and exterior LED lighting, sports field lighting, HVAC, solar building envelope, EV charging, building automation systems and power resiliency. The refined scope of work is HVAC modernizations at 14 sites and adding air conditioning to kitchens at 2 of your facilities doing building automation system at 14 of the sites interior and exterior lighting modernizations and occupancy sensors and dimming controls in the classrooms. and then additional solar structures at 3 of the sites and ev charging, which is a building code requirement here at the district office, just due to installing solar here. and stop me if you have any questions, because I know there has been quite a few. In total, I want to go into some of the details, especially on

239the HVA HVAC scope, because I know there's been a public comment about it. There is 300. Hold on. I have it on my notes. 300 and… In total, the district, you have 613 units, well over half of those are past their useful life. 385. And 351 of those are gas-fired units. So in total we would be replacing 377 units that are past their useful life, and that's due to at McDowell. We would be doing a pretty big VRF system in 2 of the buildings. So that would take care of that and. kind of consolidate some of the units. The critical need for doing LED lighting modernizations is you're no longer able to actually buy fluorescent lighting. Under AB 2208, the state law to reduce mercury containing fluorescence. So anything that goes out and that you

240don't have replacement fluorescent bulbs currently for has to go to LED. So that's currently what is. you know, making everyone go to the led modernization work. And that's about 12,000 fixtures throughout the district. Any questions on the scope? This is the funding plan total infrastructure modernization modernizations is just roughly 24 million, and this is a guaranteed not to exceed maximum price. So there's no change orders associated with this, so we can't come back to you and say. Well, we missed this. So this is a guaranteed maximum price. The lifecycle savings over the useful life of the equipment is over 27 million. And how the district plans on paying with it, paying for it is through local bond funds. The Inflation Reduction Act funding, which expires July 4th of 2026. and utility incentives. And that is

241LED lighting that is coming from. It's Pg funding that's for the LED modernization. It's netted out of the price already. And then our our team of grant writers will go after, continue to keep a pulse on anything that's available through Sonoma County or the Sonoma Power or Pg. And E, or any other different local grant places. We keep a pulse on everything to make sure that we can go after any, you know, dollars that we can for you. So. It can retroactively help pay for the project. I have a quick question on life cycle savings. Is that inflation adjusted, as you mentioned, PG&E costs are going up 10 10% per year. Yes, it's in the escalation is 5%. 5% with lifecycle savings and the infrastructure modernization. That's not inflation ingested over like the life spent.

242So that's what we would pay. Now, correct? Because you're getting all the work done at today's construction prices, and over since COVID we've seen construction prices go up at least 10% a year. Right? Okay. So it's not inflated at all. Any other questions here? Just a little bit about the environmental benefits. 41.4 million pounds of CO2 emissions reduced by doing this type of program. We stick along… we stick around for the long term when doing these types of programs and really engage with through ribbon cutting ceremonies, groundbreaking, even stem, you know, kits for the kids, so that they could, you know, learn about solar. We do. Assemblies, we, um, you know, anything that you can think of, we help to make it possible for the district. So your STEM teachers want to do something along

243the lines of solar, or you want to look at HVAC, or we'll bring the right… the right people in to help. do that. So making sure that the community is definitely involved, and they they they know what you're doing. So a little bit about the next steps tonight is the board consideration. We would immediately mobilize, and you would start to see work being done probably within the next 8 weeks, and that would probably be the lighting modernization work. There's some some middles and DSA approvals, obviously, for the HVAC. and the solar and equipment procurement to make sure that we meet the Inflation Reduction Act deadline for the solar that would happen immediately as well. In construction would take about 12 to 18 months. And I'm sure there's questions, so. Yes. So I am not an

244expert in any of this. But I was made aware, um, through a very detailed, thoughtful email. about the heat pumps and the HVAC. And that we are going to continue to get. Gas-powered. We're going to keep, or… re… Anyway, we're going to have a certain percentage of gas burning systems. And so I just have a question about that. I know Amanda, I did ask her, and she got back to me about that. But I I have a problem with having anything gas powered. Sure. First of all, it goes against our resolution, which this whole thing is connected to. Sure. And it also goes against the climate action plan of the city. Sure. And so I know that it would be a cost savings to. You know, and it would, it would allow for because we

245wouldn't have to supplement strip heat and things like that. And so my question is, I don't want to have. you know, even though in the short term it would save us eventually, we would have to convert. And so I I just am having really struggling with why we are still talking about gas powered burning systems. We were trying to do the most cost-effective. solution for the district. And we found out today that is not, you know, it's it's very clear that the the district does not want to go that type of route. I had my team working overtime this afternoon fit coming up with a rough order of magnitude of what it would take to convert those. gas units that are like for like change out, which is… I know you said it was the…

246it's the easy route, but it's really not. It was just actually a better solution in the winter, um, for not having to. add extra load, electrical load, but… If that is the resolution and the district wants to go down that path of actually doing electrified units and electrifying all of those units, it would cost in the range about a million and a half to 2 million dollars more, and that does not include. the utility service upgrades that would be required at a handful of sites. a million more to what to electrify the unit. So instead of installing gas units. No, no, no, I understand that. What I mean was that is that part of the 24? No, it would be a million and a half to 2 million dollars more in addition. In addition to

247the 24 million. Correct. Okay. Because there's significant electrical work that will have to be ran. There's. Um, to convert all of those units, and 88, like I said, 88% of those units that are being replaced are gas powered units. Do you think that it would also change the life cycle savings since I mean it's not gas. it might change it. I don't mean to put you on the spot. It might be the same. No, no, no. But I would just think it it might. Okay. So just one of the, um… the things that at the last board meeting I brought where our new. non-functioning battery backups at Casa and Petaluma Junior. I do want to remind the board that we are actually doing power studies because just. adding the batteries alone to those sites is

248tripping our power. So that was the other piece like that we've been considering from our angle. A lot of our HVAC units are 20 to 25. years old. We often they. I know you guys get the emails when the heat goes out, and our site's tearing the winter and like Amber briefly spoke about McDowell, we have some sites and units that just don't function adequately. So it's also weighing. That piece of it, I understand the importance of moving to electric, but maybe looking at like a site by site, I would have concerns that somewhere like Casa, only because we are. We are already having so many issues with the power, the electric that can be supported there, too. So I don't know if something like that would be. Well, we can move it to, um,

249the, um. Second. phase, right? Possibly. I mean, is there a rush to have this all done? Yeah, the Inflation Reduction Act money, right? Yeah. But is that only? That's also be that's also connected to the lighting, isn't it? That's connected to the solar. You're correct. That's connected to the solar. Now, would all electric heat pumps. Qualified. For Inflation Reduction Act? Yes. No. But there could be other funding that's available through the local utility or Sonoma. Yeah, there's probably, yeah. We looked in depth today specifically for different programs, but they they pop open for a month and they close. So we would keep a very close pulse on them. Especially now that we're in the heat pump replacement. 2 or 3 months ago. I'm sorry, water heater. Sorry. No, you're good. But yeah, I. So, you

250know, I think, you know, the major electrical work wouldn't. may have to be done at some sites, which is quite expensive. I got an electric car and saw like the, you know, if you wanted a fast charging, it was like, it was… you know, it was like the down payment for the car, you know. It's like, it's like, no, you can do slow charging, that's fine. So I understand that, Ben, because, like, the the electric demands in winter for, you know, the worst 10 days. would be, you know, and that's what would trip the system, and would be the worst days for the system to go out. So I understand that. So I think, Amanda, like, I think that's great. Let's see if there are sites and maybe we can defer final decisions, since this

251is not. as time sensitive. Well, you… there's quite a bit of work to do before that time period. delaying it any further would for especially the solar would be. difficult internally for us, or I think for anyone. But what the resolution that's being brought forward to you tonight allows is allows you to authorize Amanda and Matthew to. you give them authorization to finalize the scope of work and sign the contract once it's, you know, once you guys are happy with the scope of work that… so maybe you say, we'll do 50% of the heat pumps instead, or you do 100% of the heat pumps. And we can bring it back for an info item, too. But to get things moving, especially to keep us on track for the Inflation Reduction Act to postpone it any.

252any further than March probably would be would be hard. Similar to what we did with the community workforce agreement where we had authorization. because we needed to have that passed by a certain date authorization. And then, once we figured out that final scope of work does come back to the board for approval anyways. Okay, that would. I would like to do that. Yeah, as many. I mean, I have concerns with that. Okay, I mean, I I I would like to focus on what the time sensitive projects are, and we can provide direction on a scope of work for the solar. And but, like, I still have unanswered questions. I mean, I've talked to the government relations team at Sonoma Clean Power, um, and they also do energy audits, and, like, they also provide guidance on

253some of the, um, again, they've worked with other school districts in Sonoma County. So… I am just, like, curious to make sure that we are maximizing our dollars, especially for we did an energy audit with them in June. That was for the utility for yeah. That was for the utility rate structure or the the. But yeah, the rate. Yeah, and we've… Yeah, we've been… They do site visits, too. Okay. Yeah. So I just wanted to do a double check with our government partners and. So I would say for the lighting itself, what is happening? We do not have a we'll call it a stockpile of fluorescent lighting. So when things are going out, we're having to replace them. one-off, um, so not everything then is the same, which makes replacement and harder, so I would

254say there is emergency there, and, um, as we know, with every winter, like, I understand needing to take the time and get as much of electric as we can. Um… We have HVAC or HVAC units that are not adequate, adequately sorry guys heating our classrooms. We hear about it every winter when those units go out. We're back to either trying to continue to have them fixed, um, and need to bring in for that, or aging, or we're again replacing one-offs at whatever we can get, um, ordered. They're of that, um, because we have over 600 units, there are. more than half of those that are over 20 to 25 years old. So… So you're saying it's better to replace them all at the same time. Yes. But making sure doing as much as moving to

255electric. We understand that, but moving forward. So we are 10 min from 10 30, and so we need to move on with this. I need a motion for it. I move to change it, I guess. Do we need to change it? We're doing the authorization with the understanding. Okay, so you move. I'll second. Okay. All right. All those in favor. you can. You can say no. No. Okay. I clarify what what what you changed. Nothing has been changed. Nothing's been changed, and it's going to be shut off at 10 o'clock, I guess. It's just that they're going to come back with the scope of work to change. Okay. Yeah. Or as much all electric, all electric. And also just like the. Good. It's all electric. how… how it proceeds all electric, or is my electric?

256We as we can do, because some are like, if it costs like $10 million on one site, yeah, we can talk. I think that should be flagged, you know. So, I mean, we've discussed, too. So I was under the impression as much electric as we can do within. what is feasible. But then Matthew just said all electric. So I'm not clear on. I'm asking the question. But I don't know how everybody else goes. We need the scope of work back. Yeah, of course. So you're approving the… you would approve the resolution. We would fine tune it with Amanda and Matt, and we can do a study session with you to share with you the fine tuned scope of work. Perfect. Okay, that sounds great. That sounds good. I'm still a post. All right. Now we're

257going on to open up. Thank you. Can we vote? Thank you. It's late. All right. Overnight field trip requests. I need a motion. Okay, could you please approve it? The overnight field requests. I second all those in favor. Aye. All those opposed. Motion passes approval of schools, comprehensive school safety plans. I move to approve. I second. Any discussion? All right. I just would like to, Esmeralda. you know, based on the updates, what was the edited language? Could you just quickly for the unlawful demonstration or walk out? Yes, in the event of an unscheduled or unlawful student demonstration or walk out. Our primary objectives are the physical safety of all students and the maintenance of a respectful. Collaborative campus environment, while we respect students' right to express their views, staff must prioritize supervision and clear communication

258to ensure that the situation remains orderly and safe. Guide students to safe on-campus areas and maintain high visibility monitoring, maintain visual counts, and document participation until dismissal to ensure student safety, ensure that the demonstration does not disrupt the learning environment for those remaining in class, regardless of the demonstration status. Students are expected to remain under school supervision until the standard. end of day bell. Thank you for your work on it. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, all those in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. No. All right. The motion passes. We are going to adjourn this session. Oh, future business. Do we have any future business? We have no future at this time. Amanda, I would like to work with you and check in with the county. They just provided funding to upgrade the site outside

259of Penn Grove, the intersection. You're kidding. But it's… I don't believe it is… work that maximizes safety or traffic flow at the school site. So we… would you like you, Leanna, to set up a time for us to meet? Uh, yeah. Okay, perfect. Great. Yep. Oh, yes. Let's give you flowers. Today is Mr. Jason Sutter's. Last board meeting. And so I just want to express my, our collective, my gratitude for Jason Sutter. When I came to the… when I came to Pelham City Schools 14 years ago, he was the principal at McNear, and I became the principal at McKinley. And I really looked up to Jason as. you know, he had he had been a principal a little bit longer than me, and as a kind of a mentor, and. Just hit the way that

260he led his school site, the way that he interacted with students, it was just inspiring to watch him work. Um, I've been in awe of just everything that he, he brings. to a school site, and then at the district level to watch him, you know, rise up through educational services, human resources, and the way he… the way he was able to partner with our labor partners, our employees who are, you know, come in at their their highs and they experience their lows. The empathy that he was able to show with employees, I've just been… it's been an honor to, um, to serve with. With you, Jason, and just wanted to show this appreciation for you. So thank you, and we all are excited for your next steps as superintendent in Sonoma Valley. They are they

261are incredibly fortunate to. to have you there as their as their leader starting next week. And just wanted to say thank you and for everything you do. Thanks. I'll keep it short. But. I just, with all sincerity, want to say it. I mentioned this in my communication out to staff. It is bittersweet. I do. I do love Petaluma. I came back to this district because I love it, and it took a very special opportunity for me to leave. I will miss. I miss the people here very much. It's a wonderful place, and. I look forward to watching the future of this district. So I will miss everyone. We will miss you. I don't have really any words as it's temporary. You know, you know that that we will miss you, and your sense of humor

262and everything that you've brought, the fact that you have changed the way that we're doing HR and really have. you know, taken our priorities and what we want to see in our district to heart, and we, you know, we wish you. Well, I wish you all the best. You're going to do great. Sorry. All right. All right. I need to adjourn this meeting. and I am calling to order. So just. Just to be clear. So 10 30. So do we want to extend? Do we want to do 30 min extension? The board can vote to do that. We have a special meeting. I I understand. I think special meetings can go later. Right? Special meeting can go later. It's a whole new meeting. We did say it's going to start at 8 o'clock. But okay,

263great. Welcome to the world of a superintendent. All right. And power mad president. Okay, I call to order the special meeting at 8:00. Yes, 10 30 comments from the public. Before in closed session. Yeah, I just have to call it to order first. All right. Adopt and approve the agenda. I need a motion. I move to adopt and approve the agenda. Second, I will second. All those in favor. Aye. Do we have comments from the public on closed session items? Seeing none, we are adjourned to close session. Bye!