RBUSD Board Meeting 12/14/2021

001okay welcome everyone i'd like to call the open session of the meeting to order the board met in closed session and discussed public employee performance evaluation and public employee discipline dismissal and release and gave direction to staff i'd like to have miss karen sato from alta vista lead us in the pledge of allegiance thank you please put your right hand over your heart ready begin i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all before we start with the business of the board i would just like to publicly express our condolences to the family of kdj scott starring and gabriel starring who tragically lost their lives over the thanksgiving break this board and cabinet sends

002their thoughts and prayers to their family and know that we'll be thinking of them moving on can i get in motion in a second for the approval of the minutes november 9th second elder okay all those in favor say aye aye motion passes 5-0 on to reports from the board we get to hear from alta vista elementary school miss karen sato principal good evening board president flynn board members dr keller and cabinet my name is karen sato i am the principal of alta vista elementary thank you for having the alta vista robocats present their first lego league team the students have been overjoyed to have brought this back to campus this year all to visit alta vista's vision for all students is to be daring leaders that can succeed in the ever-changing technology landscape and

003in life our vision is for students to be an innovator be a leader and be a good human we know the future is unpredictable it will always be uncertain so how do we prepare for the uncertainty we use knowledge to prepare our children for the future we do this by looking at trends in research by doing so we can predict advancements the research tells us technology is at the forefront of innovation introducing science technology engineering and mathematics otherwise known as stem in early childhood develops related technology skills and prepares students for future careers research also indicates that 65 percent of our children entering school will eventually work at jobs that do not exist today i know when i was in college jobs like social media media manager or a ux designer was nowhere to be

004heard and it's so known now it is predicted that in 2030 the job market will need automated and robot system repair people green power creators technology tutors and trainers drone technicians engineers data managers biotech engineers and digital enforcers and more to ensure our students are prepared for these future careers we are building foundational skills in stem at alta vista one of those ways we are achieving this is through our robocats for our otherwise known as our first lego league team at alta vista we pride ourselves on partnering with the community and parents here is a quote from a parent whose perseverance got our robo-team cat a robocat team up and running this year as a mom of a little girl who's always played with legos taken things apart and built countless projects out of cardboard

005one of our top wishes since she was in first grade was to do lego league so when the school year started i kept asking around and no one had done it last year so we pushed until we found someone with coding experience and engineering experience and here we are now what is first lego league first lego league is a group of students usually in grades three to five this year alta vista was able to do a team of grades four and five next year we're hoping to increase that we currently have two teams of 10 students that has one adult coach and one assistant coach they will compete other like teams to solve real world solving problem experiences the mission this year is cargo connect and in cargo connect teams reimagine the global transportation system

006and explore ways for improving how we access and deliver needed and desired goods making all communities more connected the core values of the first lego league are discovery impact and teamwork some of their tenants are innovation inclusion and fun i have brought some robocats to share with you their first hand experience as a first lego leaguer hi i'm blake i learned that the first lego league is not just about building legos it is so much more let me tell you how much more in the last two months we have worked as a team to to build a robot and have learned the basics of coding it we have worked together to build a 16 mission lego setup so we can work on solving these missions we have started thinking and brainstorming about how these car

007connect missions relate to the real world we are preparing a presentation of our missions the problem that has been the hardest to solve so far has been trying to get the robot to follow the black lines using the sensors don't let our competition know this hi my name is devin do you want to know what's next for the robocats the scrimmage at madison elementary in february we want to thank madison elementary for hosting this competition we will compete in 16 different missions all under two minutes next the robocats want to prepare for next year's lego league local competition in november by well yeah um that's it um okay okay um we were not quite um ready for that this year we want to congratulate school we want to congratulate talita for for competing this last

008last november and moving on to the regionals go go tidal waves i'm lilia and i'm proud to be one of the few girls in lego league i hope robocats like me inspire more girls to enroll in engineering courses courses when they get to redondo union high school thank you parents in rbusd and especially my dad for the support of the first lego league we are so thankful to have been able to bring lego league to our school this year because of all the stuff we couldn't do last year this is a bright spot that keeps our creativity alive and pushes us in opportunities and learning thank you thank you for giving us this platform to highlight how we are preparing our students for the future at alton vista elementary [Applause] thank you guys very much

009blake devin and lilia you did an amazing job now you see how hard it is for us to stand up here and talk to all of you so i'm very impressed with all of you and was hoping that maybe you would um introduce who you brought with us with you with you here today um so today i brought my dad and my brother with me my dad's name is thomas martin and my brother's name is sebastian martin wells and um my dad is one of the coaches in the first lego league well thank you dad for doing that hi i'm back and i brought my mom with me her name is cindy shu and she's an engineer um that's it for now that's wonderful blake hi it's blake again today i brought today i brought

010my mom again foo one of the coaches who started this lego league well thank you all you did a wonderful job does anyone have any questions about the robocats for this great group so i just wanted to give some quick feedback and thank again all the first lego league volunteers it's a fantastic program for anyone watching or in the audience who isn't aware of it highly recommend that it carries through to our middle schools as well as the high school i'm i'm a little bit biased because i coached at lincoln for a couple years so you know we'll be at madison as well i appreciate that they're hosting that you know go roaring robotics and lego lions on that line following the color sensor is the trick i'm sure you guys will get it it's

011a little bit tricky particularly with these condensed seasons we're having due to the pandemic but you're doing awesome keep up the great work and definitely encourage everyone to check out the program thank you thank you yeah i want to know if the robocast did you have a favorite mission did you like the crane or the connecting the trucks or the switch engine which one did you really like working on um well my personal favorite was probably um going around the che chicken statue and trying to unload the turbine blade or just getting around the chicken statue anyway just trying to get around it um my favorite mission was um unloading the cargo plane well my favorite mission was probably the unused capacity because we worked on that one first and me and one of my

012one of my teammates helped me build that one was that to get all the pieces to fit inside well the hard part was we messed up once and then we found a hole in the container so so we restarted awesome you learned along the way well thank you very much does anyone else have any questions i i wish i had a question but you guys have far surpassed anything that i'm even understanding at this moment about what you do with the legos so i'm really really proud to have you three here today and thank you so much for talking to us thank you all right next up we have our student board member report mr charles stearman i love everyone uh so i have a few reports from asp at the high school so first

013i participate i want to thank the entire board for giving me the opportunity to participate in the california school board association conference and i got the opportunity to collaborate and exchange ideas with other student board members across california and through that i learned valuable ways to expand my position as a board member asb also at the high school is hosting a kickball tournament currently for the junior and senior class to participate in we are also conducting a holiday spirit week this week where students can get the opportunity to show their school spirit by dressing up for a unique theme each day of the week we are also preparing for our annual carnival for students our holiday carnival for students on wednesday where students will be able to participate in a variety of holiday-themed activities during

014lunch i will also be conducting the first meeting for the young leaders of arbusd program tomorrow after school and that's where i will run the students through multiple leadership activities to get them more involved in leadership in their schools and also to get a consensus to better represent the student body are there any questions on that yes you remind me who the student young student leaders are and where they're coming from is that all the elementary schools and middle schools right yeah so it's two representatives um at least from each elementary school and the middle schools and they're all going to collaborate and work together to come up with ideas to help their school thanks for doing that anybody else have any other questions charles all right thank you thank you superintendents report dr keller

015thank you charles for your leadership and helping out the younger folks coming up through the system that'll it'll serve them well as they move to the middle in high school so thanks uh i want to just take a moment to thank our staff members again this is the holidays and the no better time to thank our folks than the holidays over the last 20 months it's been just a pretty heavy lift for everybody regardless of your position with all the restrictions from department of public health as well it's a constant chase and things are constantly changing so want to obviously support each and every staff member let them know we have their backs and and we want to thank them for keeping everybody safe including students staff and and families this week is very special

016for the renault beach unified school district i'm going to have dr wild share one project we're doing and then i'll share two others to bring a little more holiday spirit to our community yeah thank you dr keller so educational services is super excited to announce that our partnership with the redondo beach pta has allowed us to assist 83 rbusd families in need this year being able to provide toys clothing gifts gift cards to families in need and additionally we'd like to thank the redondo beach fire department who provided 30 rbusd families with food baskets this saturday and one thing the leadership management team does each year at this time is we collect money from the team and we put it towards staff members who we know are in financial need and so i just want

017to let you know we do it very discreetly very quietly but the team you know puts forward plenty of dollars to help staff members that we've selected that we know have a need right now and then of course this week we have our annual staff holiday open house and we'll distribute this year over thirty thousand dollars worth of donated gifts and prizes and it's a fun event uh we will obviously follow all health orders in this process it will be outside it will likely be cold uh highly likely be cold so we're asking everybody else everybody to bundle up and so i always remind folks this time of year the ethic of care is a phrase we use a lot here and this is not just a statement but it's the actions by this community

018in this larger learning community so thanks to everybody i want to remind everybody winter break begins next monday just wanted my folks to come back on monday january 3rd and happy holidays to everybody including our staff members in our community at large thanks thank you it's hard to believe we're already here in december all right next up we come to our hearing section where members of the audience may address the board on any topic regardless of whether or not it's listed on the agenda however due to brown act regulations the board cannot engage in public discussions on the agenda topics not on the agenda which are brought to the board's attention may be investigated by the administration and a report made to the board either publicly or privately at a future meeting comments from visitors

019shall not exceed three minutes unless the time limit is waived by a majority of the board the board shall limit the total time for public input on each item to 20 minutes with board's consent the president may increase or decrease the time allowed for public presentation depending on the topic and number of persons wishing to be heard um i would just like to remind everybody that um i think there's been some confusion as far as the brown act that means we can't answer direct questions that's the law when this board meets publicly it's to do the board's business this is the only time we meet whether it be in closed or open sessions so um that is why the community has the chance and our silence is not because we're not listening or not caring

020it is so that we can process and follow the law and take the appropriate steps as deemed necessary also i want to know that this is not to remind folks that complaints and problems related to policy matters are going to be referred to the superintendent or staff persons who have complaints against board members or the staff are encouraged to seek resolution of those complaints by the utilization of the district written complaint procedure rather than orally addressing them at a meeting and speakers are also cautioned that under california law no person is immune from liability for making intentionally false or defamatory comments regarding any person simply because those comments are made at a public meeting so those are a lot of words but thank you for your participation we've got um i've got advanced written requests

021first and then i'll call for anyone else and we do receive written public comment as well all of which this board considers so um first up we've got greg hancock and if yeah i'm going to differ you want to wait till that i'd like to listen sure no problem if you change your mind let me know uh we've got kathy i can't read the last name come on up kathy if you can just state your name and we'll there's a timer here and it'll it'll flash yellow when you have a minute left for the process okay you want me to start it no no we'll we'll do that for you i'm just letting you know so it'll help you keep your guiding okay so we can hear you how's that perfect hi my name is

022kathy i'm a redonda beach resident um not a parent i taught uh science at south high and previous to that i taught chemistry and biology the information that i'd like to probably say to some of you that have heard it before is only two days old um five to 18 year old children are at a zero to three percent risk of death from the coven 19 based on american data and the survival rate of for all groups under 60 is 99.7 now some of you may not be numbers people but if you claim to follow the science it's very numbers and data based and i can speak from that experience as a science teacher you can't divorce them so there'll be some numbers coming up medcheck states that even if children and adolescents and people

023in their 20s are infected it is a naturally mild and or asymptomatic because they have less of a receptor called the ace2 receptor it's not mature so they don't catch the virus as adults do asymptomatic people have been proven not to spread the virus american data from the cdc's their system and you may have looked at it yourself right on their website it's called the vaccine adverse event reporting shows that almost a million people have had adverse events reported and it's very disheartening that almost twenty thousand people have died after the vaccination and that might be a surprise to some of you but it's available on the cdc website a study from london showed that uk's data has been misclassifying individuals who die within 14 days as unvaccinated creating an anomaly so it's concluded and

024massively exaggerated to call shots effective my time's running out if children and adolescents and people in their 20s are infected it is naturally mild and asymptomatic because they have less of the receptor the ac2 receptor is simply not mature it is ridiculous to mandate the vaccine to this age group we need choice here not just here but throughout the country throughout the world there should be a choice and it's beyond reasonable to be anything but a choice here in urdonda beach a mandate is unconscionable thank you very much [Applause] next up we have susan marlow susan here how about diana um ayrson i decided not to speak this lady okay thank you how about yvonne abd abt hi yvonne thanks all right hi can you all hear me all right dr keller school board members

025good evening i'm a parent of a second grader here at lincoln this holiday season which is so unlike the one last year i have no problem i have a lot to be okay cool no problem i was just getting started by saying how this holiday season i have a lot to be grateful for i'm thankful for our teachers who go above and beyond every day for our kids providing engaging grade level instruction super cool programs like the first lego league whilst addressing pandemic learning loss i'm grateful and thankful for their help in keeping our classrooms and playgrounds safe and i also recognize those who have provided social and emotional support to students who are coping with more anxiety and stress than usual and all this in the face of significant substitute shortage and increased tensions

026over the health and education issues of our day so thank you teachers thank you to our principals school psychologists counselors and administrators i'm grateful for all of you i'm also thankful for the beach cities health district since the start of the pandemic the beach cities health district has provided our schools with wellness programs that are incredibly well designed and that my child has absolutely loved i'm grateful for bchd for sharing important information on a very timely basis and for setting up free and convenient community programs like the vaccine clinic i know we'll look back and recognize what a large part bchd played in helping redondo beach weather the storms of 2019 and 2020 and our collective goal to achieve broad immunity and finally i'm thankful for the pta and rbef who put on fun and

027safe activities throughout the year like the family art night the movie drive-in at the rhodium and other dei initiatives thank you to all of the pta and rbef members and parents who volunteer their time and energy to bring us this vital sense of community the global pandemic has created numerous setbacks our children are learning and growing in profound ways through their observation of how our community can come together to put collective health and happiness first so thank you school board members happy holidays and good evening thank you very much um next up we've got shawna repay bye hi i'm shawna robbie i um made a public comment and in the public comment i mentioned that i would be delivering a letter i just had it printed out and i didn't want to retype it or

028because i didn't type it in the first place um it's a letter written by a dr patricia lee writing about the symptoms and the deaths of several of her patients after the vaccine for our covet 19 and um as i read this letter i've had it for a while it struck me that um people really are dying i just went to a funeral on friday 55 year old man um tennis pro that had lived with my family for five years when he came from france and he lived in um san francisco area and had been coaching and um he was uh found uh he in his apartment with a well checked because he hadn't responded to his calls to go to his um clients is his his kids that he would teach tennis um and

029um he was found a couple days after he had suffered little mini strokes his limbs had gone necrotic his body had gone sepsis and they ran three days of tests in icu with him and they could never figure out what was wrong they've done one i think they started they did their first vaccine autopsy after 11 000 deaths so they're not practiced in doing autopsies that might be due to a vaccine injury and i do believe from the bottom of my heart that my very good friend is one of the people that i know that has died from this so i bring this urgent message to you the numbers that are that are are that are on my public comment about children dying so far in the first few months out numbers if you extrapolate

030over 18 months the only 94 children that died in all of 22 million american children in the whole country over the whole what 20 months of covet so if you multiply that and add it up to the 18 months that might come ahead of us it just shocks me so what happens with that little kid who can't stand it that he doesn't get you know that he wants to play soccer so he gets that shot and he dies but he didn't tell his mom because he was allowed to go get it without her permission or lied because everybody else was getting it so there's got to be parents that can parents i take that back moms and dads that protect their babies and that's why i'm here and it's i'm adamant about it thank you

031for listening thank you if you want to leave a did you want to leave the letter you can give that to mr gallegos back there and he'll make sure that we get it thank you those are the only advanced written requests i have is there anybody else that's asked that would like to be heard at this time all right then moving on to communications um redondo beach teachers association sarah robinson uh good evening aboard dr keller members of cabinet my name is sarah robinson i'm the president of the redondo beach teachers association and a high school spanish teacher at ruhs just wanted to wish everyone a pleasant holiday and we're looking forward to seeing our colleagues at the holiday open house coming up on thursday ramer as you mentioned you said you can't believe it's

032december on the flip side for that for many of our members it does feel as if this december is maybe occurring in 2023 um that amount of time that has passed but we are grateful for our students to be back working with our colleagues and we'll just continue to work hard in the new year to provide the high quality learning environments that we do for all of our students and to con continue to support our colleagues uh through uh what is remaining of the pandemic and moving past that into a much more positive and healthy environment for everyone so holiday greetings to everyone and see you in the new year thank you do we have anyone from csea here or aft redondo beach pta kim kiwi good evening everyone i'm so happy to be here

033um what dr keller i'm reiterating project unified was a huge success i think there were 71 families that we took care of this year and every family got some kind of gift cards grocery cards and there were things on lists that these kids put down that they wanted and i'm just so proud of redondo beach council pta i'm proud of our community i'm proud of our kids this is a very very important project that we do and i couldn't be prouder and i also want to tell you about a dei diversity equity and inclusion event we're going to be hosting in january more information to come but it's january 27th from 6 to 8 and it'll be at the auditorium in redondo union high school so more information to come there but now i want

034to introduce you a very special person bridget mcberry come on up here she is the pta president at alta vista this is her first term so she hopefully will be coming back next year so i want to sh i want her to share some amazing things that her unit is doing thank you kimberly good evening dr keller and the board i appreciate this opportunity you all can hear me fine right i appreciate the opportunity as kimberly mentioned i'm bridget mcvery the president of the alta vista pta um i have two kids in the district i have a fourth grader at alta vista and a sixth grader at paris i'm really proud to be part of this district i've been in south redondo since i moved to california 16 years ago i'm very grateful for the

035district for all of you and what you do for the community and i just want to say before i talk about our unit as a child of a former school board member and school board president i have a lot of respect and appreciation for what you do i grew up with this and i just appreciate all of you thank you i want to talk about a couple of events but first i think it's important to just highlight the focus of what we're trying to do in the pta this year our focus is really on supporting our students and bringing our community back together where we can safely bringing them back together in person i think it's something we've all really missed and we're striving to rebuild the sense of altivista community that we have within

036that we're trying very hard to work with other schools to collaborate to share ideas to not reinvent the wheel which i think we have a history of doing in the past and we're trying to do everything in a very budget-conscious way especially after not having the same fundraising opportunities that we've had in the past we're really focusing on providing meaningful experiences that don't require a lot of financial investment kimberly just asked me to highlight a couple of things we've been able to do quite a lot but i the two things i chose to highlight one is kind of our first community event where we were able to bring the community back together in person it was outside the gates of our school we followed all safety precautions we prepared a plan and had it approved

037by the district i greatly appreciate you all approving it and that was a trunk or treat halloween event that we had at the school so we had about 18 families including ms sato's family i was hoping she would still be here participate decorating their trunks coming up with themes decorating their families totally staying in character and we had i i would have to say i think 75 percent of our school over a couple of hours came through this event all the kids dressed up going trunk to trunk getting some treats moving through seeing one another again just interacting in a safe way it was really amazing it just really boosted i think the energy of our school the excitement of the students and showed that we can find ways to come back together maybe differently

038than before in a way that's really safe for everybody it was also a really good opportunity to collaborate as i mentioned we shared our blueprint with other schools i believe there are three or four other schools that put on similar events based on that plan and all of us plan to participate and do the same things in the future the other event which i'm really proud of we just had a couple of weeks ago in conjunction with the last day of our book fair we had an altavista kids marketplace again this was outside the gates of the school set up in the fresh air we rolled our book fair outside that day so the whole community was invited to participate in the book fair excuse me and we had a marketplace for all the young

039entrepreneurs at our school who wanted to make things and sell them to our community the requirements of the marketplace where the products had to be made by the children with some had some help but primarily made by the children they had to be sold for five dollars or less most of the things are one or two dollars and the participants had to set up their own tables and manage their own sales right promote their products make change all of those types of things to be independent sellers in the marketplace the participation in the event really exceeded my expectations we had 29 booths at the event which was more than we've ever had in the past products ranging from jewelry bookmarks ornaments paintings hot chocolate cookies all kinds of things made by the children and they

040were just they were so enthusiastic they set up their own space they promoted their products most of them asked their parents to move away so they could do this by themselves and not have their parents hovering over them as they did it and it was just they were proud they were excited they demonstrated independence they were very happy and they were generous most of them gave their proceeds to charities of their choice we had students raising funds for the juvenile diabetes research foundation one of our students manning that table was a is a type 1 diabetes has type 1 diabetes excuse me we had another student whose parents are both veterans and all of their proceeds were going to the wounded warriors project we had a girl scout troop that was raising money for a

041gofundme for one of our own teachers who's suffering some medical challenges right now so it's just really heartwarming i think it really aligns with what misato said earlier about wanting our students to be innovators to be leaders and to be good humans it was a fantastic event i'm really proud of our school i'm proud of our board we have a great board a great association very involved parents a wonderful principal and teachers who are supportive of collaborative and i think a fully collaborative and supportive community so i thank you for that thank you everyone thank you i don't think we have anybody from rbf here okay moving on to general consent calendar does anybody have anything they want to pull can i pull 10.5 please sure anybody else okay can i get a motion in

042a second to approve 10.1 to 10.4 and 10.6 through 10.8 second student advisory vote all right all those in favor all right any opposed or extensions okay passes five zero all right can i get a motion and a second to open discussion on 10.5 adopt the 2021-22 first interim budget financial report second okay start the discussion so i have questions for dr alpern um so this just regards the multi-year projections so pages 44-46 so can you just like the revenues um in the 22 23 school year are projected to be going down around five percent i think i know where where that's coming from expenses um are projected to go down but less than by than the amount that the uh revenues are going down can you just like unpack the dynamics that are causing

043um you know the the revenue yeah the different factors that go into the projection sure and so whenever we ask you to adopt a budget or whenever we provide an interim report to the board it always includes multi-year projections so we're looking out for the next two years a lot of the data that we use for our projections are based on state um on formulas right that we're provided so for instance we anticipate that there are increases in um district obligations for retirement accounts so those schedules look different for different years so those numbers are then calculated into those formulas as well there are projected cost of living increases so we calculate that into the projections we also recognize that our base funding includes [Music] ada or average daily attendance for so the ada for

044our funding for next year is based on our average daily attendance this year right so um we did make some predictions based on what we've seen in terms of our enrollment changes since the 1920 school year as well as attendance um and so all of that is factored in and typically we have had a 96 ada um and we factored in a 94 ada in our assumptions um so all of that is factored into both the base uh revenues as well as expenditures got it okay it looks like revenues are projected to go down like minus 4.8 just looking at page 44 yes and certificated salaries are going down minus 5.3 is that from retirement so the assumptions that are included have to do with a reduction in enrollment which means a reduction in the

045number of teachers therefore a reduction in expenditures okay i guess what i'm trying to get at is like what what is our flexibility in expenditures in case enrollment you know goes down further than we're projecting so um the good news is that our we get a year to plan for it right so we know that the enrollment and therefore the ada for this year will determine our funding for next year so right now we're making certain assumptions based on what our ada has been the first couple months of the school year but in the springtime we will know based on this p2 report that we do in the spring we'll know what our actual ada rate is so when we present a budget to you in june it will include a much more accurate projection

046of what the funding level will be for next school year okay right now it's a it's it's uh best data projections whereas in june it's it's a more actual okay all right thank you yeah see anyone hanging there are the questions um this is a mess and i say that in a complimentary way because there is so much here that's going on there are so many balls in the air with this that are unusual it's as i went through this first time i've gone through an interim it's hard enough to follow anyway but with all those other pieces interjected in for all the one-time funding and we've got to spend with you know i know they're allocated either this year or next year or even the following year and it it skews the numbers it

047skews the percentages horribly it's so hard to get a feel so i'm going to ask kind of a maybe a tough question but if you were to strip away all the one-time funding would you overall because you probably had most experience putting together would you feel like this was a green light yellow light or red light i would say green light okay um i would i think that you are 100 percent correct in that these one-time categorical dollars both from the state and the federal government um make for interpreting the spreadsheets and the data reporting much more complicated because it is somewhat circuitous and we have dollars that we receive that we have multiple years to spend not indefinitely but we account for them in the given year for accounting purposes so you're right it

048you know just looking at it taking a quick look or looking at it for a couple of hours it's hard to really digest all of it um i i do empathize with you but the reason i say a green light is because there is a lot of data that we do have that we do know our school community is a stable community we although we have had a loss of enrollment um and a reduction in our our attendance uh of the regular attendance and we still relative to most public school districts we're still really solid and and our community is not transient you know people are not being uprooted and displaced in in the way that many communities do do you see those kinds of disruptions and do you see significant disruptions to school sites

049we don't have that so i think that stability provides for um for a much better ability for us to be able to engage in predictions i know i've shared with a number of you in one-on-one conversations that one of the things that is involved in the process of going through an interim report or even a budget adoption is that we have to self-certify and so we can we can if if it's not a green light there are ways to notate that for us when we send that information to the county the county actually serves as another layer of oversight on top of you as a local agency because the state and the county have an interest in ensuring that individual school districts are on sound financial footing and so we have always received a positive

050certification from the county and i anticipate that we will get that for our first interim as well so there's another indication of the green light okay yeah and what just as mr wicken noted one of the cautionary things yes we're we've got declining enrollment and that will affect us coming up another year from now when we do have to face that we'll just we'll make the adjustments and looking at the report that's in a separate item here the enrollment 8080 report we're basically back to 2016-2017 levels and somehow we muddled through those years so we can probably do that again and as well um again i only you know it's part of the brown act i have having these conversations with individual board members who are not meeting as a group to talk about this

051but in in some individual conversations that i've had with board members i've also shared with you the actions that the school district has taken over the last number of years to plan so that all of a sudden we're not hit with what we have a reduction in enrollment and you know we um the the previous board um approved an early retirement incentive last year and so we had a number of employees that took the early retirement incentive and part of our strategic planning was to not backfill positions that were not essential so that we're right-sizing as we go so that when you see your reduction let's say in certificated salary expenditures um it it's not looking like we would need to you know displace or you know engage in in a large layoff process or

052anything of that of that nature because we're right sizing as we as we go and one of the things i noted you knew and i discussed this just to bring it up everyone else the travel and conferences budget had from proposed budget to this interim has a signal 550 000 change roughly and you we noted that that was simply because we're getting back to that and now it becomes part of the interim because it wasn't there before right so it's another one of those side effects of kovid that there was money we got that we would normally get and there's money we didn't spend last year and that all gets reflected here and it just really skews those balances to to see what happened to everything and then the unemployment insurance took a big drop

053from what was uh the approved budget to what we're faced now with the interim is there an explanation of that went from like 800 000 down to 100 000 or something like that um so in the governor's proposal which are which are the assumptions that we use to build the data for our budget that we asked you to approve in june so the rate um for for the increase in the unemployment insurance you know went up by like a thousand percent it was a ridiculous number that that equated to and then in the negotiation with the legislature they pulled back on that and so this is the implication of that deal the rates are going up and we will pay for those increased rates over time but not in one fell swoop in the 2122

054so have we just kind of put a pause on it for now that we're going to be facing it in facing an increase yet in the future yes okay so it's still coming it's just not reflected right here okay and then kind of a specific question it is on the multi-year projection there's under the classified salaries there is an other adjustments number of 3.6 million can you shed a little light on what other adjustments is to that magnitude um yup and just a modification it's under the certificated salaries and for the multi-year projection so what you'll see is um there is an addition there's additional staffing and salaries that we were paying through one-time state and federal dollars in the 2122 school year we anticipate that we will be spending significantly less because those one-time

055dollars expire or because we've already expended those dollars so for instance we have staff that we have hired specific to one-time dollars and when those dollars go away those positions go away so we have accounted for that in our projections for 2223 and then you will see that that new balance carried over into the 23-24 square okay so what i take from that it's kind of just adjusting back down from the spike because we know the spike isn't permanent then we need to come back down from that and that's that's what this reflects okay yeah just caught my eye there was you know a nebulous other adjustment center if it's three and a half million it's not insignificant so um yeah that's really all the questions there is a lot in here and i come

056in staff and everyone that worked on this there is this is so outside of the normal realm of dealing with a budget from what i've looked back at past budgets and you just didn't have these things it was more the routine a few percent here a few percent there we deal with the things that change slightly and just you know as i said it's a mess and i meant that in a great way that you have handled this mess in a great way and made it presentable and then you know so we can get all the questions answered and on the lake oh next right that's yeah and and thank you and i i really do um want to make sure that i'm giving credit to the physical services staff who who because of all

057of the those differences it's always like a crunch time like you know if you're a tax person and you're working up until april 15th you've got that crunch time this is like our crunch time but this year especially so because of these these different dollars so it was an an extra push this year yeah i had to go back to like 2019 2020 to look at something in the past it was more normal and then looking at our projections compared to that it all falls into place then and then it started to make more sense so but these i mean we see fluctuations in here especially when you look them at a percent basis that are just wild and there's some big numbers so i appreciate all the work that went into this um the

058big picture is it looks like we're in fine shape we're not bleeding anywhere that is gonna you know send us into cardiac arrest or anything and we've got more decisions to make and things coming up and the good news is we've got a good outlook for what we're going to have to do we'll we'll be faced with some choices and we'll address those at the time and then finally the reserve where the is that the right word for it the it's in good shape and can you touch on there's a new 10 percent rule that we have to abide by that we'll have to make some adjustments to that and not to go into any detail but we'll have to be facing that and by when um so probably what will that you know you're

059hearing if you're paying attention to state economics um you're hearing that the state is anticipating to have a significant surplus in the budget for the coming year so over the next number of months we're going to find out just how much of that surplus is going to come to education and so when we we will do a second interim report um in march and so if we have a better handle on it at that time in terms of how much money we're anticipating then we may be coming to you then with um specific recommendations to commit dollars to for the next year and and the coming years because if there are significant surpluses then there are certain rules that come into play with um public school funding and the amount of reserve districts will be

060it will be allowed to carry over in successive years okay and that's time frame for one we're gonna have to deal with that would be uh so march is our second interim so either in march or somewhere between march and the june budget adoption okay very good that's all i have again thank you this was a ton of work especially with all these one-time allocations and trying to make it all make sense it's well done and it's greatly appreciated thank you okay are you ready to vote on 10.5 student advisory vote all right all those in favor say aye aye any opposed no extensions okay moving on to action items can i get a motion and second to approve participation in california multiple awards schedule for multi-purpose room flooring projects at bernie elementary and lincoln

061lincoln elementary from kya services someone's second elder okay this is dr alfred yes it is um your approval is requested tonight for replacement of the flooring in the multi-purpose rooms at both bernie and lincoln elementary schools uh this installation will include um no wax flooring and the cleaning and the upkeep will definitely be less time intensive and ultimately save us dollars in the long run due to the much easier more modern materials that are being used so you know no more of the waxed floorings in the quote cafeterias so we're going to try it out at these two schools and then we'll we'll see how if it holds up to the standards and and high expectations that we have of it does anybody have any questions student advisory vote right all of them in favor

062say aye aye no opposed to extension motion passes need a motion in second for 12.2 to approve additional extracurricular transportation services agreements for the 2021 22 school year second elder dr alford bus availability has been a challenge with our our current contractors supply has definitely not kept up with growing demand even though demand is not pre-pandemic levels like we're primarily looking at bus transportation for science camps intramural sports and athletics that's that's our primary need but we are really challenged so our purchasing director went out and requested um additional proposals from additional vendors so we heard back from these two vendors so tonight we are requesting that you approve these two additional transportation service providers to add to our current three providers um to meet our current and then our anticipated need for the remainder

063of the year does anybody have any questions student advisory vote all right all those in favor say aye aye no post or abstentions okay moving on to 12.3 approve child nutrition services agreement with food safety systems during the current 2021-22 school year motion and second please second elder okay dr alford all right your approval is requested for this service contract with a company called food safety systems they're a vendor that provides safety and sanitation assessments for our child nutrition services department they'll be going to all to 11 school sites and that does not include drysler and they basically what they do is they do an audit of oath to ensure osha compliance and kitchen safety they provide the training to the employees who are have depending on how many hours they work have a minimum

064number of required hours of annual training and so this is a company that many of our surrounding school districts contract with and this will be a new contract for us and our department we are going through um a state audit as well this year so our child nutrition director really feels like this is going to prepare us well for that audit does anybody have any questions yep so do we end up with blue a b and c letters outside all of our cafeteria windows out of this or they will make recommendations only a's any other questions student advisory vote all right all those in favor say aye aye no opposed abstention motion passes 12.4 recommendation to approve the rbusd educator effectiveness block grant plan for the 2021-22 through 2025 through 2026. can i get a

065motion in second please moved second by elder dr wilds yeah so it's been a few weeks since our last board meeting so as a reminder the california assembly bill 130 renewed the educator effectiveness block grant funding to provide professional learning to promote educator equity quality and effectiveness as a condition of receiving the funding districts have to adopt develop and adopt a plan for how the funds will be spent rbusd has developed a plan coordinated with the use of our federal funds that we receive under title ii of essa we presented the plan back on november 9th at a public board meeting and staff recommend that you approve this proposed plan does anybody have any questions quick question on this one the total amount is funds with 2.09 million yes where is it over five years

066where is that reflected in our budget that we see just so i can track that that would be in um state categorical revenues so state right okay categorical okay very good thank you any other questions student advisory vote all right all those in favor say aye aye no post or abstentions okay motion passes 12.5 request approval to partner with hess and associates for the purpose of implementing electronic time and attendance for substitute time reporting can i get a motion in a second please second elder dr wesley yes um so currently our substitutes are keeping track of their time on these cards and they have to go around from to each school and they have to put in their time and have someone sign it and then they have to it's not a stamp machine like

067a clock it's a handwritten time and then they bring it to the district office and drop it off or bring it to the business office and that's how they get paid so we are going to enhance and improve our system for keeping time and this is a recommendation to partner with a hessen associates based on recommendation from a district that is working with them so that we can allow our substitutes to keep track of their time electronically so then they would sign in to the assignment electronically and this would make payroll for our substitutes much more efficient and down the line the goal would be to add our hourly classified staff also because right now they sign in and they sign out when they're on the school site so they would be able to sign

068it out electronically which would then lead to an electronic form of payroll so the recommendation is for uh staff to approve this agreement any questions i'll go again yeah uh thank you dr so is this subject to abuse is it is it on their phones is it an app or how is it going to work and what's the real life i'm running late on if i don't check in now i'll get dinged kind of thing what yeah so how do we protect that so we're going to go through training so we'll have a better understanding of some of those details that you've asked in terms of is it on their phone or app that that i don't know and i can put that in a friday update but they'll be assigned a time in a

069school so they will then log in and indicate that they're at the assignment but they can't change the time that's assigned to them we put in those parameters so if it's like for instance a half day sub then i'll have the time of that assignment just like now they can't change on the card the time it is a set time from this time to this time in this many hours so it's a matter of them indicating whether or not they did show up and they did serve those hours and then there's a validation just like now so then an admin assistant however we set it up would likely then validate that that sub was there and then the principal approves the payroll so there will be a system that will be in place in order

070to make sure that there's no additional hours that are added to their time without some type of assignment first okay so let's say a start time for a sub on any given day is eight o'clock and they get there at 7 45 they can't check in until 8 or what happens it's just like now is there's no difference in our policy it's the only thing that's different is how the time is reported so if they show up at 7 45 great they pick up their instructions they go to the room there's their time the time that they're being paid is from 8 to 12 o'clock and if they if they end up being late how do we know about that so then they would be able just like now they'd be able to indicate that

071that there's an admin assistant who oversees the timing just like now they would go in and indicate that so they're the ones that are setting up the time within the system okay and then my other question was others using you did mention that this is based on recommendations for another school district if you share who that was or i don't remember the name of the school district but i could put that in my final update okay all right um and then 5 000 a year this is a basically it looks like a three and a half year contract i can't remember i i did put that in my update i think it was a five-year contract but let me let me give you those i think it goes through 2025 yeah so so june 30

07230 2025 and they're doing a basically 5 000 a year each year but we want to get it started this year now basically because they back dated but they weren't willing to prorate that first year so right now we want to get it started and implemented in connection with our best system and so then the timing of that would be in starting in april so our goal is to get it started in april so mr strassenburg um one thing that dr wesley's talking about is that we're changing our whole payroll system to go with the with the county new system and so now is the appropriate time for us to use any additional software that we need to make that transition as smooth as possible and so being able to do electronic payroll as opposed

073to having our payroll staff hand enter for every employee um hourly reports okay yeah my question was more based on that they're they're asking for 5 000 for the initial period from 12 6 basically now until june 30th of next year so it's just a seven month period and you're saying it won't be even be active until april or so well we're going to be testing that's our goal and training starting in january assuming you approve tonight okay so what's a layman's explanation of why it's 5 000 for that shortened initial period well they have to set it all up they have to set up an initial setup training okay that's what i was looking to train all of our admin assistants they have to set it all up they have to upload data um

074so it's for the actual implementation of it and then it's 5 000 each year thereafter to utilize it yeah but in that initial setup it's outside of the 20 hours per month then because it's the way the contractor is written it's it's 5000 for that short period but if it's more than 20 hours per month it's an additional 125 per hour well it could be beyond 20 hours but hopefully we won't need that much in terms of training but you're saying the initial the additional that were that additional we're paying for 5000 for that shortened period is to cover the implementation but is it or is it are we still going to pay extra if it goes over 20 a month i don't i don't i don't understand your question okay he's saying you know

075there's a startup fee of five grand correct that's going to cover all the training but is that specified that say it's longer than 20 hours are we going to play 5 000 plus 120 an hour over what the time is yeah so according to the contract if we go over the amount of hours needed in terms of the training then we would be paying 125 dollars an hour so i guess the description would be for what that 5 000 is how many hours of startup is included in that if the 5000 is for training right that's what i'm kind of getting at is it if it's the 5000 is meant to cover all that if that's truly happening it's not spelled out in in the contract but if it if it's working that way i'm

076okay with that but that's not the way the contract is written okay i think it's i think it's i think it's in the contract in that it said there the contractors requesting 5000 for december 6 21 through june 30th 22. and so that's what that 5 000 is my understanding is 4 to get things up and running and then it's 5 000 a year and that's what i'm kind of working towards is that understanding correct because then that you go further down in that description if it's if it's anything in excess of 20 hours per month we're going to pay extra for it so we're paying extra for that first seven month period in the conversations that the district had with etoc in discussing our transition to using the hcm payroll system they don't anticipate

077as part of the contract that they will be exceeding those hours however they work with all kinds of districts so there are districts that place additional requests demands etc on them so they're covering themselves should we determine that we want additional services and additional time that will require additional kinds of training than than those that we had already discussed they have that covered in the language of the contract but they they're not anticipating that right and longer term longer term that makes sense once it's up and running i would think we wouldn't even use 20 hours per month and that's fine it's just that initial term because the first answer was that the 5000 because it won't even be up and running until april that's the goal we're trying to move as fast as we

078can okay so we're not paying for the service for the software service will be provided effective january because we will be testing that and doing the training so even on the payroll side we're paying a full we're paying a full year's price for a half a year is what we're doing and the first explanation was we're getting all the startup for that but now it's complicated is that startup beyond 20 hours a week or is that no okay so it's a software service right in addition to the software service that they're providing they're also going to be providing training of our employees who will be moving from that card system that dr wesley was talking about and joining the 21st century up to 20 hours per month included and what they've indicated to us is

079that individual training for the employees should take for an employee about 15 minutes so they will be doing group trainings and so the the thought that that would take more than 20 hours to engage in that work is was just not even part of the discussion at all okay it just still doesn't make sense to me that we're paying a full year's price for six months because it takes time and effort to implement it so we can pay for then that's included in the 20 hours per month but if it's over 20 hours per month we're going to pay additional for that so you have a couple of things one is we one we're purchasing the rights to use this software we also have to implement it so integrate it within our system and we

080have to configure you know a program i'm not a programmer but tell it how many hours can a half day sub at what rate how much is a full day sub at what rate we're going to have to give all this information so that they we're working with them to get all of that done behind the scenes so that we can start in april and then april we're gonna in prior to april we have to train our employees to be able to use it this is why we're paying five thousand dollars it takes a lot of time and effort to implement a program before you actually use the program okay and then once we use the program we're all set we're all up and running then it'll cost us five thousand dollars just to use

081it every year thereafter okay so the majority of the work will be between january and april to get it all set up and ready to go and that is going to be the chunk of that cost and if that in that time period if it exceeds more than 20 hours per month will we pay an additional 125 dollars per hour according to the contract yes do we anticipate that no okay so so is the concern that we're gonna be double booked like outside go outside of it is there a way we can just let them know that if we're in any danger of going outside of that 120 hours to let us know before they start building 20 hours 20 hours so that we're not yeah certainly and remember the way the training would go

082would be to one we have a hr uh specialist who will be there to answer questions and then we're training our admin assistants and so there's multiple people within our district that can support those who need additional training without having to go to hessen associates to provide it sorry this may be a dare question but is this a software as a service offering we're looking at here yeah this is a software as a service i was i was chatting uh i was with nikki and uh internet during this call and so basically what the 5000's really consisted of is implementation fees first-year kind of stuff so they're bulking it into there generally if the contractor goes over the sed fees of 20 hours they will notify the district they notify us saying hey that's additional

083work or we're going to have to do more if we're requesting that and usually the billing of 125 an hour is school districts requesting more work than what's actually in the contract so what basically what hesses and associates are providing us to redondo is that interface between the new payroll system that our county office education is kind of leaving out the county office of education is only providing a connector to electronic time cards but they're not providing the software to do the electronic chime cards and that's where hess associate comes into play here and to be kind of kind of say a lot of the hessian associates they're all former laco employees that are still connected with laco and so that's they basically when they retired they broke off started their own company and and

084filled this niche uh which generally a lot of these software providers do that work with laco so that's kind of what's consistent with this contract yeah so there's some integration work we have to do on the front end and they they support us with that and then afterwards kind of just runs itself we don't have to keep it on site it's not an application we run or manage locally they take care of that piece so there should be very little ongoing work after the initial integration works complete so they came out with 20 hours of that's how much work they need to integrate because since they're doing business with other school districts um they basically have all the scripts and everything written so that's within their time frame we want something special does that answer

085your question i know it hasn't but that's fine does anybody else have any other questions okay um student advisory vote all right all those in favor say aye aye any opposed no okay 4-1 motion passes uh 12.6 i need a motion in second for the second reading and adoption of board policy 61-43 course of study is yep second elder this is dr wilds this is the second reading of board policy 6143 course of study that includes the recommended wording change from our november 9th public board meeting this recommendation adds new language specifically that language adds that the board shall approve all new course offers offerings including elective offerings in grades 7 through 12 staff recommend that you approve this new policy does anybody have any questions student advisory vote all right all those in favor

086say aye aye no opposed motion passes 5-0 okay information items dr alfrin will give us the unofficial attendance and enrollment reports review that with us do i need it's an information so i don't need a motion in a second right ricardo okay um so thank you much of this ended up getting discussed in the first interim report but i think um what i'd like to emphasize with the board is that you know attendance does indeed matter we do use the in non-coveted times you do a comparison from the previous school year but during covid times we're trying to make a comparison between a quote-unquote typical year which was 1920 until march so that's why you'll see this year's attendance data compared to the 1920 school year and you'll see that our average daily attendance is

087down from that comparison year and we especially are seeing attendance tips on fridays and on mondays and mr brandt who's kind of our attendance guru for the district now in his new role um sent out something to cite administrators today saying students who miss two days of school every month are on track to miss 10 percent of the school year and i'm just going to repeat that if you miss two days of school a month you're on track to miss 10 percent of the school year and there's a very strong correlation between good attendance strong school performance and feelings of connectedness in school so it's not you know i'm the business person it's not just about dollars and cents but it really is about child success and student success and kids who are successful are

088kids who come to school so our staff's really encouraged to work individually with families every family and every student has individual circumstances right so we can't deal with these attendance issues as just a blanket um you know solution so really we need to work with individual families to help educate them and support them in um whatever we need to do to help them um improve their students attendance and then their success and performance do you have any idea is the lower eight lower ada due to more kids being absent or a similar number of kids being absent more often we're doing some analysis of that data as we speak it would be interesting yeah when you finish it it would be great to see it in that yeah i'm happy to share that can i

089ask about um the ill quarantine note there that you have when you say this attendance is this people who are quarantined considered absent so there were some factors that definitely when we have had to quarantine or modify quarantine in our schools that is one of the factors that we're seeing impact our ada we're also seeing that you know in a pre-covered era when kids had the sniffles they came to school um and we don't nobody recommends that anymore right so there's a lot of there's a lot of factors there's a lot of anecdotal information but again it really comes down to individual students as to the reasons why and you know we we're reporting at a high level here um the the total results but you can see how like these um like i'll just

090i'll show you this friday monday pattern a friday monday pattern so you'll see those lower rates kind of on our ice sunday pattern and then that bc is one that wasn't the bc is a friday monday pattern and i think one thing you pointed out that struck me when we spoke earlier was that friday monday is probably in part due to parents who are now working remote and it's just as easy to work out of town and have your kids with you and maybe there's some ways of getting that message out to parents you know to please reconsider extended weekends yes does anyone else have any other comments or questions okay moving on to 14.1 it's a discussion item so i don't need a motion in a second do i ricardo okay so we are

091going to have a board discussion with staff regarding the covet vaccine of the vaccine and covet 19 guidance protocols i do just want to clarify this is um as i mentioned previously the board only gets to meet and have a discussion on topics when we have board meetings so the process would be that we would have an open and transparent discussion regarding and there is no word vaccine mandate in this agenda at my choice and dr crush dr keller's choice because we do not have a vaccine mandate currently in place for radonna beach unified school district and in the interest of not confusing anyone and being clear that's why we're going to discuss the covet vaccine the guidance that we have and of course we have parents that have asked us to consider not implementing

092the covet vaccine so i know each of my board members are going to have a chance to talk about this we have not the reason it has not been on the agenda is this board has not considered its own covid19 vaccine for either staff or students up to this point school boards are allowed to do more than what public health decides but not less than what public health guidelines are we've had this amazing partnership with the beach cities health district which has provided us with vaccine opportunities when we didn't even have a vaccine they were always there to stand up vaccines availability as soon as it was approved we had that in the works for what as soon as it was going to happen for five to twelve-year-olds i believe is the latest one that

093had been in the works since the beginning of our partnerships with beach cities that's separate and apart from the governor's statement that he made regarding a state mandate for the covet 19 vaccine which to this point has not been implemented in any school as the governor's mandate he's made his statement no like noted to the state other school districts have considered their own vaccine mandates up to this point but redondo beach unified school district has not so i just would like to hear from our board members here to see how you feel about the necessity for creating a board resolution speaking against the covet 19 mandate yeah so one of the things i would say and some of the feedback i've really heard and we've heard at numerous meetings is that parents don't feel like

094they're being heard people don't feel like they're being heard and just to reiterate a lot of that is because unless it is on the formal agenda we can't respond that's under the brown act um so it's it's not that we're not listening it's that without something agendized we can't discuss it and we have met with people individually um you know that doesn't violate the brown act and we can express you know and get feedback and things like that but as a board we can't do anything until it's actually discussed so yeah there's there's a lot there i know this feels like we're not listening we're wearing masks we're not responding to questions or things like that but that's that's the reason why i just want everyone to understand why we can't do that another piece

095of concern i've heard from a few people is that you know the the vaccination clinics happening so often are so right after uh you know a vaccine is allowed one of the things we try and do is is provide services that the community wants and and that has been something where there's been significant community demand we always want to be clear those are optional uh because again just just to be clear we do not have a vaccine mandate we've never discussed one we haven't had it on on the agenda but because this is something that the communities look for and something we can offer in conjunction with beach city's health district for free it's it's been something you know it's like athletics programs or all these other clubs or things like that it's it's totally

096optional but because there's huge demand we're able to offer it um and so yeah i want to be clear about that too um you know just just there's been some confusion and want to clear clarify completely optional um you know it's it's something where i i do hear a lot of parental concern about um the the you know efficacy and side effects and there's concerns about emergency use authorization for vaccines because there is more limited data set about available for that and just to clarify again even at what the governor's proposed was never an emergency use authorized vaccine it's only been a vaccine that's fully authorized and even after a year of being you know available only one vaccine is even fully approved for ages 16 and up so it does take a long time

097for these vaccines to go through that approval process so i know there's there's a lot of concerns about about a vaccine mandate involving emergency use authorized vaccines and that's not something we've ever proposed that's not something the governor's proposed i do know some school districts have proposed that but we're certainly not one of them so that was what i wanted to clarify there but um i guess my concern with a lot of the proposals that that people have asked us to promote are against something that doesn't exist at this point there is no vaccine mandate so being asked to take a stand against something that no one's proposing um that that doesn't that feels like we're trying to start a fight that isn't there um when when you know if the situation changes and something

098like that's proposed yes i certainly understand the concern with with any type of mandate involving a vaccine with limited study and things like that but because that hasn't been proposed at any point i don't see a need for us to take a stand against something that doesn't exist yet and and probably never will you know of course if that changes in the situation is constantly changing that's that's something worth considering but that's my personal thought but i'd love to hear from everyone else too i feel like i've been hogging the mic i have some thoughts but do you have any mr whiteken i agree with dan in the sense that there's nothing concrete on the table to support or oppose so as conditions evolve like we've had emergency board meetings in the past um and

099we can certainly do so again and have robust debate at that time but my my personal stances i'm just doing as much reading as i can as much listening as i can and beyond that there's there's very little action that like i feel like we need to take vis-a-vis this a state mandate or not that's those are my thoughts well i do think that um to be fair the statement that the governor made was wanting to make this a vaccine is the same as you know the mandated vaccines that have that are implemented in school that you have to have in order to go to school it's a statement he made in october it's certainly something that we have when we have discussions i know dr kell and i have been on calls with our

100state representatives we have expressed the parental concern about anything that will keep kids out of school as we've just heard we want kids in person in learning we want them there safely and we don't we're not sort of in the business of excluding kids from education so um you know we can't i mean we are at the school we're a school board we do have our local control we don't have a lot of local control when it comes to state mandates but again i agree with you it hasn't come to us to be implemented at our level yet so rachel i don't know like yeah like if we really felt like we look i'm just one board member right the state mandate can be challenged by anyone who wants to challenge it it's a you

101know and that would ultimately wind up in in court somewhere i'm not saying that i would support a challenge or not support a challenge like there there's nothing to challenge yet like i for one will always think for myself i'm not going to accept any mandate blindly and that's kind of what what guides my thinking rachel um i think i think that i'm on the same page is what dan and david are saying is it's my understanding that there is no mandate that the governor has has just said he may issue this mandate and if he does i would certainly expect there to be a lot of personal exemptions within that mandate that will allow us to keep kids in school for parents who don't want to vaccinate their kids i would hope that i

102would hope that that's what we're going to do is focus on keeping kids in school but for me it's really hard to have a position or or to vote or stand on something that just doesn't exist right now and i don't feel like this is this is something that's just before us to make a decision it is good that we're aware and we know what the governor has said and what may or may not come into effect so that we can be prepared to make those decisions but i expect there going to be a lot of changes to whatever it is the governor does or does not do between now and then um i did hear earlier a parent someone who spoke was talking about having kids vaccinated without permission and i just i want

103to be really clear i don't know of any authority anyone in rb at usd has or has used to vaccinate kids without parental permission i personally would be horrified if that happened of course and i think we all would and that is just not something that is happening in our district i don't know about elsewhere but i want i think it's important that we acknowledge the fears and concerns that are out there and and say you know we understand some people are really afraid of this and and that's legitimate and we're doing our best we can to kind of negotiate through the process with everyone i do have a question dr alfred dr keller i just want to clarify all of this one-time funds we've had a lot of discussion about their budget having a

104lot of one times fun are any of those dollars tied to us vaccinating masking or following public health protocols they are not and i think there's some one of the pieces of confusion around that is that it's allowable we are not using those dollars to do that but there might be electrics and so so when people are reading things in the media and and when they go to like particular websites to try to get information about like esser funds from the feds or they're seeing that it can be used for vaccination clinics et cetera et cetera we are not using those state those state and federal dollars um for vaccination clinics the only exception be and that's not even our funds the laco grant we got that provides optional cova testing for parents that need

105it and that isn't even coming through our budget correct i think it's going straight to the testing yep mr strutzenberg do you have any thoughts oh the fun of this one so i think it's a i want to phrase it a legitimate technicality to say that it doesn't exist yet it is true it's not in place is it coming i certainly think it is and but it's not unfair for us to say no it's not in place right now so we're not going to address it because it's not in place feeling i get is that what certain members of the public are calling for is essentially a preemptive strike against it with that batista here the people i've talked to that you know is that a fair characterization yeah i'm getting some head nodded yes

106that's the feeling i'm get and that's what i've seen in some of the other school board resolutions that are coming out they are essentially preemptive strikes to say no we are against this and the concept would be that if enough school districts did this then it becomes a legitimate force we've got 1037 school districts in california i think and so far we're less than 10 i believe that have actually done this type of resolution i don't mean to demean that that's just the reality of where the numbers are so i i wouldn't say that it doesn't exist because it does exist it's there is it in place no but is it something that people are definitely wanting to address and thinking about absolutely i agree with that as far as doing a resolution as that

107type of preemptive strike i'm looking into that more because it is somewhat of a slippery slope in the just in the fact to do a type of resolution like that because it becomes a precedent upon which others in the future can then utilize to say if you did this resolution therefore we can even take you to court and say you have to do this resolution that we want and resolutions are at the discretion of the board but if we start to show a gradient of doing that type of thing that can be used and it has been used in court cases so i i'm looking more into that to see you know what are the implications of that because we really do want to understand that going forward i'll throw out my personal thoughts on

108what is likely to happen and some people don't like hearing this but i just i see the writing on the wall that this mandate in its current existence will happen it will have the exemptions that are in there in place by law currently and i think it won't take very long i would guess a year or two before those exemptions as they were with the is it 10 or 11 current vaccines i believe that were taken away in the 26 year mr pan that is also looking into that right now for the possibility yeah we would as we i don't say we as a board i see we as the legislation would probably do a similar thing maybe they won't things would have to change and that's the part that we don't know what what's

109going to happen in the next year we don't know yet that's going to have a big influence if it starts to taper off and things are getting back to normal things are dying off i you'll see less of a push for that we may allow the the currently allowed personal exemptions basically is what they are those don't exist anymore for the 10 mandated absolutely mandated vaccines and you know the only way out of that is to home school so that is honestly what i see happening in the future and i know that a lot of people don't i have my own concerns for that for my kids i know a lot of people absolutely don't like that for multiple reasons so right now i wouldn't see doing a resolution because i i'm mainly concerned about

110that slippery slope of starting to do resolutions like that and even one sets a precedent upon which others can rely we could get a group of people come back and say we want a resolution says you will mandate vaccines and we would then have to entertain that and that really gets difficult in a legal sense so it's not an answer that people are looking for that's just kind of where i'm at with it right now what i've learned so far yeah i think um look i even test the word mandate in general i mean the way it was always explained to me is this is one of the tools valuable tools that we have in this fight against this pandemic whether it's indoor masking washing our hands social distancing and vaccination and we've been implementing

111everything that we can to keep our schools open dr mr witkin and i were here when schools had to close and knew what it took to get it opened again so i think everybody on this board wants to keep schools opened and kids learning in person do we like these what we have to do in order to make that happen at the time i don't think so i don't think it's a it's mandating things is always a very difficult tricky situation but it isn't coming from this school district that mandate it's not us saying we're mandating this vaccine i get and i appreciate and hear it's a concern that you have but it is i think somewhat misplaced and not to shirk responsibility with that but we aren't the people implementing a vaccine mandate if

112we were coming to you and saying we're going to have redondo beach unified school district we're in a mandate all of our employees are vaccinated not give them the option to test if we're going to mandate all our students ages you know obviously not emergency authorization then yes that's something we do have control over and it's not something we've chosen to do and don't plan to chose to do um waiting and seeing what happens with the governor's mandate i think we can look to la unified let's be honest they're the first that have stepped in and they've implemented their mandate it's scary they're a large entity and that's what makes the news and that's what people hear and it's hard to separate that we do have the benefit the of local control in redondo beach

113when it comes to that and that isn't what's happening for us right now so um you know if we the idea of you know board resolutions are important they're generally brought forward by the board written by the board we certainly get community input um but taking the the request that was made of us was to take a resolution that was written not by this board and bring it straight to an action item which would always have to come to a discussion which is why at my discretion i made this a conversation before we even consider that which was brought forward so i do want to ask does anybody on the board want to take that actual resolution and see it come back as a future agenda item i'm not the only decider i just get

114to have this lucky job for a year trying to keep order does anybody want to rachel no um i don't i don't think the resolution um as it was phrased was within even our responsibilities or our power as a board i don't think it's our almost i don't think it's our business to be making those decisions right now and i hear what you're saying about the mandate and it and it's out there so it exists but to me i have a really hard time with that because it it doesn't until until we're forced to actually do something with it and right now it's my understanding that the governor cannot implement a mandate on his own without there being an enormous amount of personal exemptions that essentially any any parental choice any issue would be exempt

115the only way he can do that is with what they call the super majority vote and if they have a super majority vote and it becomes a law and becomes one of the 10 recommended then i would want to know well can we do anything i'm not sure at that point we have a choice so i'm just kind of going back to i think we're just we would be jumping ahead of ourselves at this point to bring the resolution up i just feel like there's too many unknowns for me personally i don't know what i would do with that right now and i think for or all so much is going to happen between now and any supposed mandate that could change our minds from politically and all the way down to you know omicron

116and and what else is going to happen with kovid we just we've learned more than anything in the past 20 months that every day things can change and you just we can't we need to be um flexible and just stay on top of it and it's nice to be able to bring it to the board discussion so that we're all on the same page because it's like i told i think i told people this is the most discussion we've had as a board about this issue because we we don't sit and talk about these things so just to hear where everybody else is is is nice so the resolution served a purpose in that it allowed us to open up this discussion um but that that's where i would leave it one of the important

117things i noticed and what was shared with us is it starts with the premise that the school district does not have the right to tell parents how to vaccinate their children agreed i mean i don't believe that our school district does have that right nor is it doing that even with the 10 i'd argue even with those 10 vaccinate you know that are there we're not telling you you have to go do it we're we're saying i mean that's a different bad example but no we don't have the right we aren't pushing that but i don't want to discount that it is many for many of an important tool it's in the fight against covid so um you know just to be honest if we were to take a resolution and say we would not

118implement a mandate that came from the governor's office we make that statement say it did come to bear and redondo beach is not going to redondo is not going to implement something that is being said whether it's public health or the governor is that going to keep is going to be in the best interest of all of our children is that going to keep most children in school is that going to make our staff feel safe be safe is that the best decision i mean we're not at that point at this place but i mean if the control were to come and say that there if there was funding that was tied to it and our i think this is how it was put if we have 35 kids in a classroom suddenly we said

119we don't care about the money it's the principal and classrooms became 60 kids to a teacher is that what's in the best interest of students if they came and said we're going to shut down redondo beach food you know unified school district for non-compliance is that what's in the best interest of children so before we get jump ahead of ourself and make that statement that mandate that we're not going to do it when it hasn't been pushed to us there isn't something that we're pushing out ourselves doesn't feel like it's in the overall best interest for the most of the majority of students and that's what i try to keep in mind in all of this yeah president flynn you made a point of saying you know would we write a resolution that said that

120we will not do this we will not implement any mandate that comes forward and from everything i've read i don't believe any of the resolutions that are out there now go to that extreme they they dance around it they they state a position they make you feel like maybe they would do that but none of them go to that point that said no we will not do this it's just not in there and i don't see as much it doesn't have the force and effect it's a political statement would be how i would characterize it and certain school districts have done that in their makeup i honestly don't see that happening here i don't know i just don't and unapologetically i there's nothing really to apologize to there that it's it's just not really there

121in our in our area that i've seen it it exists to a certain extent like i say i have my own concerns but to me and if i look at the big picture i read those resolutions and say well what's the point of this it's not going to do anything they're not saying they won't do it they haven't driven a stake in the ground they've said we have a stake here maybe but they've never said no we will not do this and you can shut us down or do whatever you want it just hasn't gone to that extent so i kind of questioned what what's even the value of doing a resolution that says you know we're against this for any number of reasons or any position that like that that similar to the other

122resolutions that are out there um i think it means something to a a great number of people and i won't deny that but is it the the real end end all to everything no they're just not so you know it's it's not like that has happened that any school districts out there said no we will not do this it just to my knowledge it hasn't happened i'd stand to be corrected absolutely but that hasn't happened yeah and i would just you know piggyback on what everyone else is saying it's it's asking for a preemptive strike which i understand is very important for some people um because i do want to make that prompt to strike against mandates and i you know i understand the parental concern issues particularly with younger children where the you know

123efficacy and safety are so little known i mean it's only been approved for that age group so i i certainly understand that um but but for me starting that fight now when we don't even know a timeline for implementation we have no idea how long it will take to be fully approved for these age groups what things will change before maybe you know maybe they'll need entirely new vaccines because of new variants or who knows what um it just seems very premature to to you know absolutely we advocate for you know our parents and we want to support their choice but but taking a stand to get something that's that's not here and is continuing to evolve um that just feels premature to me i just think two important clarifications one we don't none of

124our staff have access to a covet vaccine or any vaccine not even our nurses so nobody can be vaccinated at redondo beach unified school district unless we have a medical partner like beach cities and there needs to be and that but that's important i mean that's it to know that that isn't we're not even equipped to do that so that isn't going to happen and we're not we are sharing the concerns that we hear from parents with our elected officials those who do go to sacramento and who do have the ability to bring this up on the senate floor ben allen al murasuchi the people that are actually elected to do that advocating work we have made it it's not as if we haven't passed up that information but as far as passing a preemptive

125strike as you mentioned resolution that's not something that i could be comfortable with right now but it's not that we're not hearing but we have to make the best interest or even what our own personal opinion is about it that's one of the hard things about being on what i do from this point on the school board is look at it bigger picture overall for all students and what's best for students and staff and the community so you know that's sort of my thought on it does anyone else have anything they want to say just to clarify in the vaccine clinics too um yeah some very concerning stories have been shared about potentially you know situations where there wasn't parental consent always to clarify for ours that in partnership with beach city's health district thereby

126appointment only a parent or guardian has to be there um there's there's all kinds of checks and balances so i want to reassure remember i i've had a few people you know ask some very concerning questions and that's not how any of the vaccine clinics have been done here so just to confirm they are optional they require parental approval and a parent or guardian to be present question it wasn't too long ago that we couldn't wait to have this vaccine available for our adults and staff so that we could get back to school and it's crazy how you know i don't know it may i can maybe i'm with you sarah robinson that it's december it's more like covered years it's long year that's been in it anyway um it should that change or we'll

127always be flexible as mr witkin pointed out we can always have emergency board meetings as needed we'll always consider what we think is in the best interest and right for all children and we don't when we do hear what people have to say about it and we'll continue to do so and i thank everybody for being very um honest and taking the time to share their feedback dr keller do you have anything that you want to add to make it clear i'm here to keep our schools open and thriving and i want to thank our parents and our staff for making that happen so successfully thanks okay uh moving forward does anybody have any correspondence they'd like to share how about board member reports we've had a lot of board member talk but mr witkin

128do you have anything else you'd like to share nothing from me nemeth yeah just real quickly um i know there had been some concerns about um switching to the other side of it to um covet testing through beach cities health and for people who did get tested i was one of them um and there were some delays before the thanksgiving holiday break it's my understanding that's all been fixed and people should be encouraged to go ahead and use the services get tested if they want to and i just wanted to recognize that so that everybody has confidence in the process mr alder just want to thank our incredible teachers and staff i know these are difficult times got a nice holiday break up ahead so hopefully everyone can come back refreshed and recharged um you

129know thank our parents of course too for supporting our school community and most importantly our students i mean it's constantly evolving and uh it's i really appreciate the resilience and everyone hanging in there so thank you have a happy holidays everyone mr stratzenberg god just did it on dan he always covers all those bases um one of the things that i brought up at the last board meeting was this issue of the having a career technical education advisory committee and i wanted to in the part of the rep i'll be coming back to it in future action to request something but one of the things we discussed at the last socal rock board meeting was i brought this issue up and i think it caught everyone by surprise so it's not that we're alone in

130this and since then i've got talked with dr hilaire the superintendent there who came into the presentation here that the way the ed code is written it doesn't preempt us working together on this with other school districts so dr hiller and i have discussed and we'll bring it up thursday we'll be discussing this a little bit more of the possibility of our jpa school districts joining together to form a committee because he says he already has some people that they use through other things that they do and by the way that even socal rock had that same board policy i think it was 6178 that i think brings in this 80-70 and i didn't know that so i learned along the way there but there's a possibility here and this would be an efficient way

131to do it because and he said he even has contacts with the edd the department employment and yeah employment development because they bring people to socal rock and they they request things from so-called that you know that to me seemed like wow that could be a tough one but he seemed to have a little bit of insight to that and that would be one of the key things because that is a requirement for this committee so we'll be discussing a little bit more um but i want to bring to the board that's a possibility and the way the head code is it doesn't preempt that and it's much more because you know i looked into it too that this is a board committee because it is a standing board committee it is therefore a brown

132act committee it would have an agenda notifications it would be open to the public now how many people might show up i don't know but we would still have to go through all that and we know how to do that so we can do that but to do it as and there's the other thing is it doesn't say how often it needs to happen that's kind of us up to us to decide you know once a month i think would be too much maybe quarterly annually doesn't seem like enough and to make it effective so those are the things i'd like to bring back as a discussion here and i from that i will also bring in anything that we're discussing at socal rock that would help us all with that because we can work

133together we can work with torrance and pv and el segundo and all of our jpas who we have good relationships with anyway and make it happen in a way that's much more doable for us because it's no small thing for every individual school district and they're all required to do it to do it on their own so i just want to report that out to something that's a future agenda item i i will when we come back to that yeah okay but i wanted to kind of give that background of what what's been happening since then because i i it it caught all of us by surprise i think yeah and just briefly um i did connect with dr hiller he reached out to me uh and so we're going to check we're going to

134chat today today was a little busy um we didn't get to it uh but uh dr uh toronto and i have been talking about it and i like i like the idea so keep me posted uh we're happy to you know entertain a conversation so certainly something to consider yeah it would be a great way to get our school district our boards working together a little bit more you know we just i don't feel like we do enough of that and they're all in the same boat as we are and all going through the same issues that we have and you know i know this happens at the board president's level um that we have our board president meeting right so just yeah i want to bring that up that we're looking to how we

135can make this happen because i do really see the benefits of it it would be a huge boost for programs like this and for the kids that need this kind of thing and want this kind of thing and to make it happen for them better so i'll come back with it on a future agenda okay i don't have a report other than to thank everybody for an amazing first semester for an amazing hard work teachers we see you students we see you parents we see you there's a lot of uh it's been a lot we for us as well um and we appreciate the collaborative spirit and the kindness that we can show to one another and grace that we show to one another because nobody's perfect not this board not our schools not our

136teachers but we certainly do have the common goal of wanting to serve children children or families in our communities and are your humble servants when it comes to that so i appreciate this board and i appreciate everybody in this district and thank for that thank everyone for that as far as calendar events this is our last meeting of 2021 we will be back here uh we're on christmas or not christmas break winter break from january 20th through the third till the january third oh december 20th to january 3rd we will be back here on the 11th we have two holidays in january on the 17th and um it's not on here for the high school anyway there's one on the 24th and back on the 25th and the february 8th does anybody have a future

137agenda item they'd like to see added actually i do come to mention it uh so yeah as far as uh putting together and this is a board thing it's a board committee so we need to address it as a board with the support of staff and other boards perhaps but i'd like to get that on our agenda for a discussion at least and you know not to solve it but to keep your breast looking in january if we could do it the meeting agenda i don't know how full that's going to be on the 25th i'd be okay with it because we will have another socal rock board meeting on the 20th before that where we'll get some more info we will actually have a presentation on the 20th meeting talking about the second meeting

138of january sure do we have a first meeting in january we do the 11th it's not on my home side it's in the agenda i just had it okay very good so yeah the 25th would be better i think um yeah we have the 11th and the 25th and i'm not looking for this to get it's not going to get solid overnight it's it's been in place for 20 years and we haven't done it so we can finally get to it so that's one the next one is a report on spending and in funding for special ed to look at special ed as a an entity so that we understand it better and this is driven by a session that dan you were there with me i believe we went to at the school board

139association that talked about um there's pending litigation right or not litigation pending um legislation both at the house representatives it's hr 5984 and in the senate at senate 3213 that would be i they're called idea which is an individuals with disabilities act the idea full funding act because idea was put in place and it's never been funded we have these mandates it's essentially an it's not an unfunded mandate it's a partially funded mandate so we end up pulling money out of a general fund to cover the costs that we have to cover for it and i'd like to get a feel for the board where we are because then we have the tool to advocate to our senate and hr leaders that look this is where we're at this is why we support this we

140want you to support this we want more co-sponsors on these bills it's my understanding that currently senator padilla and is on board with it as a co-sponsor senator feinstein is most likely to get on board with it the hr author is actually a california district 2 representative gerald huffman so it's a start there but we need more people you know our own legislators to get on board with this is code legislation but to do that we need to know where we're at so i'm looking for a somewhat of a big picture to start with what are the income what's the uh funding we get if we can identify whether it comes for federal state or which levels and which programs it comes from great but in overall what's the funding we get that is specifically

141allocated for special ed or coming in only for special ed and then what are our expenditures and the picture you'll kind of break that down as to where it goes is it you know what staff what's facilities what's equipment that type of thing i don't know where any of those online but that will give us a feel to start with and then we may ask for a little bit deeper dive into some of those areas but get that feel is it 10 million or 30 million is it you know underfunded by the same way is it underfunded by 10 million or 1 million i i know it's far more than one i'm betting it's more than 10. and that's the kind of thing we need to advocate for to say look we have to take

142this out of our general fund and we're making it happen we're not against making it happen but it has it yeah implications so if staff could help put something like that together um would you prefer a board presentation probably to start i think a board presentation that could be good not to make it a discussion item we can ask questions at a board presentation but to get that uh and i think to do it at a board meeting is appropriate um it's you know the old time you know the business name these were lifting our kimono a bit it's a bit of that because it's hard to find where those things are they're in the budget but it's hard to segregate them out we do need to look at it independently not to draw attention

143to it but to draw attention to it in a good way the last thing is for dr keller specifically i think we had talked about you having to report out on your goals that you had presented earlier this year that's my three for tonight i'll quit there thank you okay can i get a motion and second to adjourn the meeting so move second elder student advisory vote all right all those in favor say aye aye any post nope meeting is adjourned thank you