January 21, 2026 - RVSD Board of Trustees Regular Meeting

001Instructions for accessing subtitles in a language other than English are included on our board meetings web page as well as in the description below. >> [snorts] >> Good evening and welcome to the Ross Valley School District Board of Trustees regular meeting. Today is January 21st, 2026 and I am calling our meeting to order at 6:03 p.m. Uh we have four trustee or five trustees present in person at the school district office here at 100 Shot Drive in Sano. Myself, Rachel Litwac, Chris Sandals Cobb, uh Shelley Hamilton, uh Daniel Cassidy, and Anna Marsh. We also have cabinet members present. We have superintendent Tyler Graph. We have our CPO Chris Carson. We have Assistant Superintendent Julia Walcott. And we have our director of student services Lori Okconor. Our meeting is being livereamed via YouTube. And the link

002is on our website and on our agenda. There will be a 60-second delay between the meeting and the YouTube live stream. A recording of the meeting is available or will be made available to the public on our district YouTube website. Um, and with that, I will move on to our next item here, which is procedural items. And the first one here is pledge of allegiance and democratic reflection. I don't personally have a democratic reflection. There's a lot of chaos going on in our government right now. So, I'm just going to let that slide, but if someone else has a comment to make, please feel free. >> I think she only wants to say >> I was thinking about this, too. [clears throat] And I just wanted to um I was actually reflecting and I won't

003take a whole lot of time. I actually carry around a copy of the Constitution in my purse. Um, >> what was that? >> What's that? Yes, exactly. Um, and so I was I was just thinking about when we say the pledge of allegiance and to the flag, you know, and to the con, you know, and to the republic for which it stands. And I was thinking about the oath of office that we all take, taking it twice now. Um and it's an oath of office that every public servant across the entire United States to defend um the Constitution of the United States against all enemies domestic abroad, you know, um international and domestic. And so I was just thinking about that when I say the pledge of allegiance because I'd like it to have some

004meaning. And so it's feeling meaningful to me. I've been pulling it and reading reading my constitution a lot these days trying to understand. So that's all just want to have it be meaningful. >> Thank you for joining us. >> Thank you. >> All right. So if you would like to join me for the pledge, please stand alsible with liberty and justice for all. All >> right, moving on with our agenda. We have um adopt the agenda and time allocations. Um does anybody have any changes, questions? If not, I'll entertain a motion on this item. >> I'll make a motion to adopt the agenda. >> Perfect. I have a second. I'll second. Thank you. Motion to second. Daniel, >> I >> Chris. >> Hi, >> Rachel. All right. We have an agenda and moving on we

005have communication. Our first item here is public comment regarding items not on the open session agenda. Um so for this um for public comments regarding items that are on not on our agenda. Um public comments [clears throat] are within our subject matter preview. They will be heard when we reach this item. Um so public comments for things that are not listed. If it's something that is listed on our agenda goes later on with that agenda item. So, I just want to preface that ahead of time. Um, do we have any public comment? Okay, we have none. Okay, should just save my breath. Um, the next item we have here is correspondence and communication to the board. Um, we have some attachments there. Had a flow of emails coming in, so hopefully everyone had a chance

006to read all those. Um, our next item is announcements by labor unions, CSEA, RBTA. So, if we have anyone here representing [snorts] them who would like to come and speak, you are free to do so now. All right, we have here with announcements. So, I'll move on to our next item, which is recognition of retirees. Um, we have a recognition ceremony and reception for retiring district employees. This is J. >> Fabulous. Um, [cough] absolutely an honor to to introduce this item. We have two retirees that we are recognizing this evening. I'm going to begin with Benji Rodriguez um who is a member of our custodial staff. Um he's unable to be here this evening, but we are deeply appreciative of all of his years of service in Ross Valley and of course wish him the

007best. Um and here with us this evening we have Katrine Holson. Katrine has been with us for 25 years in the Las Valley School District. I um have had many times of getting to Katrina's room and see the magic that happens with her and with her students. Um but I will turn it over to Principal Wagner who is going to say some more words. Um um yeah, 25 years. I was I was thinking about [clears throat] all of the students that you've had an impact on over the last 25 years. And that's like hundreds and hundreds more than 500 students that Katrine [clears throat] has touched the lives of and ignited a spark for learning and an excitement for being lifelong learners. Whether it's the trout study work or getting to know their neighborhoods, um

008feeling the love for reading and you've touched them with your love and your kindness and we are so so grateful. And not only the students, Katrine, but their parents, their families. You've had tough conversations. You've supported parents through tricky times and celebrations and milestones. And of course, your colleagues, too. Um, before coming here, we had an opportunity to have dinner with Katrina, and there were other teachers that couldn't come to the board meeting, but stopped by to see her, who came to dinner, but couldn't be here. Um, our community is forever changed by you being part of it. Um, and I know you've had your your you've left your mark at Brookside and um, we're just so grateful and so happy for you in this next phase in retirement and hope that it brings so

009much hiking and biking and walks with Cooper and time in Tahoe and time with Dan and Molly and Hannah. And we're just so happy for you, Katrine. >> AND A NEW GRANDBABY. SO, THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING. WE LOVE you and you will forever be a very proper site bear. [applause and cheering] We have a little tradition of creating a Ross Valley whalle for our retirees. And so these are words when your colleagues have asked were asked you know what comes to mind when you think about Krine as a teacher. Um and we have words here like remarkable, caring, encouraging, thoughtful, communicative, understanding, warm skier and then this one is interesting trout lover. >> [laughter] [laughter] >> so much. You're going to stand up. Thank you. [applause] I have loved every moment that I've been here.

010I mean, it's a long time and um it's a new transition for me. Just not doing it anymore. And it's um I'm getting into it now. Quite lovely. I think I've earned it, I guess. Um but I love you all and I'm not gone. I'll still be I still I live in the neighborhood, so you know, you might see me walking Cooper, [laughter] right? >> Thank you. Thank you very much for all the wonderful years. >> THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> HAVE SOME REFRESHMENTS AND JUST A little few moments to gather and and >> all right welcome back um from our break and moving on from our recognition of retirees we are moving on to e presentation andor action items our first one is recommended approval of the annual audit report for the 202425 by

011school year >> and that would be me. Um, and thank you for the opportunity to present the uh report this evening and we have uh Steven Roach with the uh audit firm. Steven Roach um and Associates with us and he's going to give the presentation to the governing board. I'm just going to go through as usual rather quickly and I'll be happy to stick around and answer any questions that you might have. Uh, page one of the audit report is the independent auditor's opinion on the financial statements. And this opinion is what's called a unmodified opinion on the primary government, which is the Ross Valley School District, and an adverse opinion on the component unit, which is the Ross Valley Schools Foundation. That adverse opinion is because we don't actually present any of their financial

012information included in the financial statements. State does not require it, and we we do not we have not in the past. Uh, next, I'm going to skip over all of the financial information that we have. so far because nothing has really changed significantly from the unudited actuals that you approved back in September. Uh I would have you turn to page 74 which is the schedule of financial trends and analysis. And this page uh shows financial information of the general fund for the past three fiscal years as well as the 2526 originally adopted budget. Uh there are concerns on this page and I know that you have gotten communications from the county office as part of your budget and pretty soon probably on your first interim if you haven't already received that. Uh if you go

013five rows from the top you'll see that there was some pretty significant deficit spending uh in 2324 and 2425 which was 2 almost 2.8 8 million in the most recent year, which is kind of I'm seeing a lot of this right now in a lot of the school districts after the COVID 19 time period. There's this uh a lot of people are getting deficit spending and then it's supposed to kind of clear up as we go forward. Uh also on that page, there was a slight amount of uh declining enrollment. If you go down right in the center of the page, average daily attendance, uh basically it was 1638 and 2324 and it dropped to 1611 in the 2425 year. So, if you go right below that is the long-term liabilities, uh, there's $61 million

014as of June 30, 2025. Overall, that consists of $40 million of general obligation bonds, which are basically serviced by the taxpayers within the district. And the other 21 million is basically OPED and net pension liabilities. So, that's an obligation you can't prepay or anything like that. It's just going to be your ongoing contributions to Stirs, PERS, and also your retirey health benefits. So, that number is a good number because you don't really have a lot of long-term liabilities that are being financed from your general fund. Now, that deficit spending, you know, uh that's almost 3.5 million over the past two years, and that definitely cannot be allowed to continue going forward. Uh I didn't really put anything in the report because I think that you guys are addressing that in in conjunction with what the

015county has requested upon you. Uh and that's basically one of the things we look at and see most of this information has been very transparent and spot out to the community so they know of the current situation. Uh the one concern probably my biggest concern for this district is not this temporary deficit spending issue but the parcel tax. Uh a number of districts within this county I think even Loganas has their election this week if I recall. You know a large portions of their fund uh I mean of their general fund budget. I think you guys are about 15 16% of your total uh plus you probably have a couple million in the Ross Foundation. So you have a large part that's kind of dependent from outside sources and you know this was 2.7 million

016def spent this year and you had the partial tax. So if that partial tax was not around you know you can only imagine that that number is going to be uh substantially higher. I mean probably one or two years and you're in serious serious trouble. Uh, so, you know, that's kind of depending on what's going on with the voters. The one thing I would kind of say is that it's always good to communicate with your employees. Uh, over the many years that I've been doing this, I I've seen some elections that did not pass because of margins of people within their own school district that voted against bond measures and stuff like that. And, you know, you want to get everybody involved as much as possible. Uh, this is so so very important for a

017district like yours. You guys have the small class sizes. most of your teachers that work within the district are used to working with those small class sizes. [cough] If you do lose that parcel tax, you know that since your budget is 75% salaries and benefits, the only way that you can make any for any sort of meaningful cuts is to cut personnel. And you know, that's going to be one thing when all your friends are getting laid off. And then next thing is you go to class and instead of 20 kids, you've got 28 kids. and it's going to be like a whole different ballgame because now you're gonna have all these people that are used to teaching 20 kids and now they're teaching 28. So, I think it's just good to highlight to your

018employees and go, "Hey, you need to get grandma, grandpa, mom and dad, any kids that are over 18 years old, you know, get them get them down there to vote because uh you know, you don't want to miss it by a couple votes just knowing that you could have done that little added effort and maybe carried you over the top. Plus, it takes a lot of time doing these uh elections. you have to coordinate people and go, you know, it's a lot of effort and it's better just to do a one time really good and get it out of the way and [snorts] and that's what I, you know, that's probably my biggest recommendation for this district. Uh other than that, you know, we had some findings. There were two financial statement findings, basically technical

019issues. Uh neither of those findings really resulted any significant change in fund balance. Uh there were two state compliance findings as well, which were both technical issues. Neither of those had any fiscal impact on the district. So, um, I don't care to go through those unless someone has a specific question on those. Last year, we only had one finding for your district, and that was basically for the fact that you guys did not, uh, have a ELO program, which this year, you guys did implement that. So, that one finding has been, uh, corrected, and that was pulled out of your reports. Any questions today? Any interest? No [clears throat] questions other than I mean it's it's uh appreciate having auditors because of transparency issues and because if you haven't said anything that we haven't already

020[clears throat] had multiple discussions around it gives us confidence that we're having discussions around the right things because we're hearing you know resonating uh information from you. So I appreciate both you know the ability for whoever's listening to us to hear from another source. Um, if you get nothing else, bring grandma. [laughter] >> I have a question [clears throat] on the technical matters that you mentioned, >> although minor, do those at all remove us from being in compliant with compliance with anything. >> Oh, with state compliance. Uh, there are items that are included in the audit guide. Let me just go back here rather quickly. Uh the the one on the last page is basically a finding that almost every uh district that I had that had an external provider of their ELOT program. >>

021Uh as usual, the state sometimes puts out guidance and they do it late and then they put a a procedure in the audit guide after the fact to have us look at it. So that finding is pretty much just saying, "Hey, you guys need to make sure that your contracts include this certain language between uh the Boys and Girls Club, I believe it is, for your district." >> So like I said, almost every district that I had that had external people had this finding in there. And sometimes the state does that just so that they can use it us as a hammer to get those uh clauses in their contracts and whatnot. >> Okay. >> Uh the other one is basically expenditures and excessive appropriations. Um, all that is is if we go back to

022page >> 104. >> So 104 or no, I was I was looking at the page 59 of the report. >> Oh, okay. >> If you go to page 59 and look at the total expenditures, [clears throat] basically you'll see that same 944,320 and that's basically uh funds were expended in excess of the budget. Uh a lot of districts what they will do is they'll actually have a resolution they pass that you know sometimes allows the business office to true up their budget through year year end. Uh some people use that and really don't use their budget that much. Uh and I don't think that's the situation here. I almost would rather see a budget being used the way it's supposed to be used for planning and budgeting and uh not just at the very end

023you have a resolution that allows you to clean it all up and everything looks perfect. I've got some districts they show there was no difference between their budget and their actuals. In this instance, you know, it it probably needs to be cleaned up more so at uh second interim and I don't know >> estimated actuals probably was the issue. And we also had um the combining with I think it was the deferred maintenance. >> Deferred maintenance a little bit. Yeah. Which might have been some of that. Yeah, we had we had some um projects where we had insurance claims and so it had to do with the insurance claim side of it. >> Yeah. And like I said, this year really doesn't affect anything. It's just a requirement that you're supposed to do that and

024that's an easy one to implement and I I feel I feel that'll be taken care of next year. And I just want to understand our our job is obviously to address and remedy these findings. And what do we do on our side to ensure that we have met the requirements of audit findings to determine that those issues have been remediated? Do we file a report? Do we >> so it doesn't show up again consecutively? basically like on state compliance findings, the state of California actually or the department of education will actually contact you and and he basically has to respond to them on the corrective action that has taken place. >> Okay. >> And eventually they'll send that. I don't know if you bring that to the board or not. >> You would take it

025to the board. >> Yeah. >> Sign off that it's been done. >> Yeah. And then for financial statement findings, it's going to be that your county office of education follows up on the ones that are not stake compliance findings. Do you have to come back in and do another audit of those two? >> We follow up on it next year because that's why we have that schedule of prior year recommendations. >> So that's our procedure we have to look at and make sure it's taken care of. >> I would actually sign off that it's been done and what you would get is the finding. It would be a finding and then what was done to correct it. >> Okay. So when Stephen comes back next year, just like he said that we remedied the ELOP

026finding from last year, you'll do the same thing on these four findings next year. page, you'll see all four of these findings and if it was implemented or not. >> Okay. I just want to understand the audit chain of findings and events that we're responsible for ensuring >> gets done. Okay. >> Thank you. [clears throat] >> Any more questions? >> Do we have any public comments on this item? >> Any discussion appear from the board? I do appreciate you Stephen for [snorts] um just an independent like kind of verification of what we've been saying like hey we're deficit spinning and we need a partial tax or some other sort of funds to make up for that missing revenue problem and the fact that you said in a couple years we're going to be in some

027trouble like so I appreciate you saying that because you're an auditor who's not involved in our our system and our business here so I appreciate that. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> No other questions comments. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, Stephen. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate it. [laughter] >> Grab a cookie. >> Take [laughter] [clears throat] a cookie. Don't grab a cookie. [laughter] Sorry. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um, so on this item, um, looks like we need to, uh, approve the audit or not. So, does anyone want to make a motion on this item? >> Uh, I'll recommend that we, uh, review and approve the annual district audit report for the 2425 school year. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All right. Daniel. >> Hi, >> Shelly. >> Hi, >> Anna. >>

028Hi, >> Chris. >> Okay. >> Um, our next item is special education review findings. >> Lori. >> Yeah. So, this one will be Lori. And I'm really excited to have Lori on board. Uh, she's done a wonderful job this fall and through the through the winter. Um, and one of last, if you remember last year when I did my uh, learning tour, there were a couple big things that popped up. One was obviously the budget, and this is part of why we went out for partial tax and we have these plans for potential budget cuts. Um the other big issue that I that kind of surfaced through learning tour was looking into special education and finding ways for um better relationships with families, efficiencies with our staffing, improving staffing and having fewer um fewer agency

029hires. And as part of that uh learning tour, we decided as a team that we wanted to go out and do kind of a review audit of our special ed programs just so we could have a third party kind of tell us like here are some of the things you guys are doing really well and here are some things you might want to focus on. So um I was really lucky to have uh Lori come join us in the summer and I passed the baton right to her and she's taken it from there. So excited to hear what she has to share with us today. Thanks Lori. >> Yeah, of course. [clears throat] All right. Yeah, I think um you know coming in in July, it was this was actually really great for me because

030it allowed me to really look into this programs too. And so um it was also as I was gathering my own um perceptions and just seeing what was out there. Um it was nice to have a partner in Holly [clears throat] Wade to also be comparing these to to have you know somebody a thought partner um and thinking about that. So um so this is um the special education review report and I've been talking about this review throughout the first semester that we all the phases that we've been through. Um and so this is the final um outcome. So this presentation was conduct or this the the report was conducted by Dr. Holly Wade. Holly Wade is um a longtime special educator um all the way up to assistant superintendent of special education in San

031Monteo County area. This was a big a big lift um this project and I want to thank all the people involved. We had staff, parents, community members, our district administrators all participate and contribute and so that this is pretty much the outcome of that. So I want to thank everybody for that. And it also definitely um instills our shared commitment to equity and inclusion in the district. And that's definitely something Tyler um brings through as well as Julia as we're doing all of our equity work. And um and it it it definitely um aligns with all that work as well. [clears throat] All right. And as um Superintendent Graph just mentioned um he this sort of came out of his learning tour when he started um two years ago now. It was really to understand

032the strengths, gaps and opportunities for growth in special education. And the whole project is grounded in inclusion. And inclusion, we mean that we want to make sure that all of our special education students are included in the general education setting and getting what they need and feel a sense of belonging on our campuses. And this this review will be the guide for a three-year special education strategic plan that my department will put together. And um I'm starting work on that and we'll vet it with a lot of different people, get input, um do some surveys around priorities and then um we'll be able to present to you in right around June a um solid three-year strategic [snorts] plan um moving forward. Okay. So, Holly's methodology for gathering the data was she used a qualitative approach

033which were interviews and surveys with family, staff, administrators, special education advisory council um and and me as well. We spent a lot of time together talking through things and um I was you know gathering my own perceptions and we were comparing notes. Um we also did a nice site visit um tour day. we hit all the sites and and saw saw a lot of great inclusive practices in both our general education and special education classrooms. And then um on from the qualitative standpoint, which is all the numbers and data and percentages, she utilized the California Department of Education data quest website, the California dashboard, as well as a lot of district data that we gathered for her. [clears throat] All right, and we'll jump right into findings. um the findings that she came up with

034were some of the bright spots in what we do daily. And these all of these things really align with what I've seen as well. And I don't think any of this [clears throat] is too much of a surprise because um these are these are all um the amazing things that are happening here. We have committed, collaborative, and skilled staff. That's something that um that I picked up on immediately. We have people who are problem solvers who want to work, who are excited about things, who just need the green light to to to move work forward. Um, we have a really strong care team structure on our school sites. So, the care team at each school site is made up of the school psychologist, the principal, a teacher, um the um the resource specialist from special

035education. And as we have kids coming through who we're concerned about, they go through the care team process as a first step. instead of jumping to special education immediately. So there's lots of different practices that we have in place through the care team structure to be able to support kids and put interventions in place before we have to go the special education route and we utilize a multi-ter system of support for that with tiers of intervention. We have an extremely collaborative culture and that starts here at the board all the way down. [laughter] Um and um and that's that's amazing. Everybody's willing to jump in, roll up their sleeves and and get work done together. Um Holly also not noticed that we have family-like school communities. When you walk on a school campus, you really

036feel the sense of of being part of it. And um teamwork among all of our support services. So we have in the special education department, we have we have teachers, we have occupational therapists, we have speech language pathologists, we have school, we have school psychologists. Everybody's working as a team to support kids. And then um we also have very strong tier one instructional practices and curriculum. So um our program is a hu that Julia had brought on board and um we actually had a third or fourth grade teachers here today um getting their next installment of training. Um these tier one supports are what are so important and are universal. So, every student gets these things to make sure that we're we're doing what we can to best support our kiddos. And then more bright

037spots. Um, students with IEPs, we see in the general education setting, we have students in some of our more restrictive classrooms who do get out into the general education setting regularly. They have their desk in that setting. They have their name tag. they have a space on the carpet um to really make sure that they feel a sense of belonging in the general education setting because really all of our students in special education are general education students first and so we want to make sure that they feel that um Holly also noticed that family that families are such a part of the IEP process as she interviewed um a lot of our families um they talked about how included that they felt in that process and not only is it a law that we have

038to include families it's also just the best practice practice because who knows their children better these children better than their families? And um I I sense that too as I'm sitting in IEP [clears throat] team meetings and usually the ones that I'm in are the most contentious. Um and I can tell that there's such a support for um for the process with our families. And then we also have a very strong commitment to inclusion as I've mentioned. And then um Holly did mention that our district leadership is open and responsive. Um and um the staff commented that they were excited to you know if they have an issue bring it to the district leadership to be able to um solve problems u brainstorm and and be thought partner together. And then finally the special education

039advisory committee is um she identified as a very strong piece of our process. um she actually attended one of our meetings and um and noticed that just all of that voice was coming through to the work that we're doing. Okay. All right. And then we also she also did find some opportunities for growth. Um and and again these opportunities for growth align line up with with everything that I'm noticing as well. We have a really strong multi-tered system of support that was um our um wonderful assistant soup here Julia had um put together that process with a um a you know group of teachers and so we have that for the academic side but we don't have that for the behavior side. So we're going to um look at developing the multi-tered system of support

040for behavior and that and the multi-tered system of support is basically a three tiered approach. So you have your universal supports that every child receives. You have tier two which um if those supports don't work, maybe like a little handful of kids need a little bit something else. And then finally tier three students who are not tapping into to tier two get a little bit something else and then we could, you know, wind up going or doing a special education assessment. But just want to work through all those tears to be able to um do whatever we can to support our students. Um and actually there is a already we have a committee to put that whole system together which we should have completed by the end of the year. Um and then again with

041the behavioral behavioral supports and the SEAL is social emotional learning. So we do need to she identified that we do need to um adopt a social emotional learning curriculum because right now our counselors and our principles and staff are just sort of pulling pieces here and there. But if we have if we had a really um research and evidence-based curriculum across the board, we could have common language across sites as well as that transition to White Hill Middle School to be able to um to work with kids that way. um and you know have those things set so that um people aren't having to do extra work on trying to pull things together. Staff recruitment retention and workload. Um really looking in at that we have had a hard time filling positions. Um I think

042we just filled our White Hill um special education team is full right now. So but we um we definitely are looking at that. The workload is quite extensive because we are we have we're we're tight. we've had such a tight crew that we all have to, you know, give a little bit more. Um, and then also retention. When we come when it comes to retention, we're talking about job satisfaction, culture, and belonging, which we have all of that, and also salary. Did you want to hit on that? >> Yeah, that I think that this one is sometimes we get a critique at the district level about uh the amount of money we spend on consultants, like the line item for consultants. Sometimes what that means is we can't find a special education teacher. So we

043have to go hire someone at an agency for a 20% premium. So you know what we normally pay plus 20% and that ends up falling under line item for consultants. It's not like we're bringing in McKenzie to do consulting services. We're making sure kids have a teacher is what that means in practice. And if we have higher salaries, we can avoid the 20% premium. We can hire our own internal people who can go through our training who will stick around. They'll get to know our our families. And it's just a win-win for students, for families, and for the staff. So, the staff retent, this is like this is a real connection to the partial tax and the budget plans that we have. So, um, just I guess I'm trying to [clears throat] talk to two

044things. One is we need to pay our our staff a higher salary so we can attract and retain high quality special educators and general educators. And the the critique around too much spending in consultants isn't what most people think it is. It's actually just making sure we have teachers in the classroom. I'm going to ask a basic question about as we look at opportunities for growth. What is the economic capacity to support this [cough] especially [clears throat] if worst case scenario we don't pass a parcel tax this population of students are the ones that will suffer the most I would assume and probably the impact will be harder for them. So I'm I'm looking at this and thinking these are opportunities for growth and as you start to develop these things but if the rug

045is pulled out from underneath us these things will not be viable. Correct. >> Well I mean then there's also the piece um when when services are written into a child's IEP by law we have to uphold that. So somehow we have to provide this service. >> And this is kind of where >> we're legally bound to >> Y. >> This is where special ed costs can snowball [clears throat] really quickly, right? So you can't find a teacher because your salaries are the lowest in the county. So then you pay for a uh an agency at 20% premium or you can't find an agency person and there's no one in that position and then parents sue you for compensatory ed. So it's not because we disagree, it's because we couldn't find someone. So you know, a

046lot of the critique around our spending around special ed is tied directly to our salaries. >> It's a it's not a fully onetoone correlation, but it is a big component of why we overspend in legal fees and in um consultants >> in the statutory requirements. >> Y >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> All right. And then um okay then other opportunities for growth. We Holly um Holly mentioned abbleism and that word is [snorts] um it's not a super common word but it basically what it means is that um there's subtle practices that happen in a school that put up barriers for ch for students with special needs to access. So, we're talking about um not having um accessible curriculum or um or even like stigmatizing language like when we say [snorts] when we

047have a student um who pushes into a general education class and they're and the teacher says our friend is here, you know, I mean, just very subtle things that we all have to be very cognizant of and very aware of that can put a little bit of a rub or not allow a child to feel accepted and a sense of belonging in our schools. There's also um some of our models to also isolate students. So if we have a student in the special education setting for a long period of their day, they're not getting access to the general education. And so that's also, you know, barrier to them being part of the community. And so um so that word is it you know it's sort of a it's sort of coming it's sort of a

048word that's coming up but that's basically what it means just those little subtle practices that we all have to be really aware of. >> That seems like an area that costs nothing to change which is great. >> Yes. >> Like that's a lot of just communication and reinforcement. >> Absolutely. Yes. Like like I had mentioned earlier we have our students that do push into general education settings throughout the day. They have a desk. That's their desk. If you walk, if they walk into the classroom and there's no desk and everybody has to scramble, oh, we need to get a desk and a chair for this student. I mean, that's ableism. Like, we were not prepared. We're not saying welcoming them and saying, "Come on in. This place is your soup." >> Yeah. >> But you're

049right. >> Yeah. >> It's It's free. [laughter] Well, I mean that's that is fascinating because you just think about like >> Sally it's time for speech and >> that not every kid is doing that and so it's that >> right it's the communication and it's and it >> takes a lot of reinforcement >> is that something our principles >> are that >> that's >> everyone's aware of and is like a consistent >> I think that's part of what this this whole report is >> to try to kind of shine a light on all the things and then >> kind of the three-year plan that Lori will come up with with obviously lots of input will help highlight what professional development and culture things we need to focus on. And to Chris's point, some of these

050things will be cost items and we'll have to have a conversation around where can we increase spending, where we might be able to decrease spending to make it most efficient for our kids. >> Yeah. and and that and that did come up. However, um in districts that I've been in over the years, um I think this district has the least amount of that. I think that our district is in a really good spot as far as the inclusion piece. I there's so many great practices happening and um in fact um at the November, excuse me, March 11th [clears throat] board meeting, we'll do a whole presentation on all the inclusive practices we're doing, which is exciting. And um but but yeah, I really um you know, it's also like the the idea of like like

051the the gap between general education and special education. Some places that I've been, it's like, oh no, I don't do special education. I'm a general education person. But here that that gap is so narrow and if we can just bridge that, we're going to be in a really good position. In fact, Julie and I are already working on that. Um we have a meeting next week um to start um doing more work across across general ed and special education intervention. And so there's a lot of good work happening. >> When you're measuring the efficacy of these programs and the growth you're implementing, >> are you also talking to the students and getting their perspective on how they feel that they're being treated and have a sense of belonging? Um we that is a piece too

052that she mentioned was that was missing is we didn't have a lot of student voice but there will be a lot of student voice definitely. Um and also even you know as we put that strategic plan together we'll be getting a lot of student voice involved there um focus groups and um empathy interviews and things like that. >> Okay. Sorry to interrupt again. on the behavioral and systems. Is that a tier two, tier one and two? Does it cross all tiers or is it like mainly a tier >> one? How does the behavioral stuff fit with the MTSS? >> Yeah. Well, usually the social emotional learning is like a curriculum and so we would um that would be for everybody. So tier one, everybody would get that. And then maybe if there's something that um

053was happening in a classroom like some bullying going on or something like that, maybe that classroom would get like maybe the next level up with the counselor to talk, you know, in a tier two way for the whole class like, "Hey, we need to work on this." Or maybe there's an individual student or two that need a little bit extra support for whatever skill they're learning, which could be tier two. Um and then the behavioral piece too. I mean we do you know we have um we have a universal supports that everybody's getting as far as like routines expectations in the classroom. Everybody gets that and then K sometimes students are having a hard time with those expectations and and the tier two would be let's sit down and talk about the expectations again like

054you and I one-on-one and then >> sometimes there's things that inhibit students from being able to do that which we might you know like you know all the way you know across the spectrum we might think about a one to one aim to support the child. So, so it's it's yeah, it can it can span on the tears for sure. All right. And then finally, um well, I think we hit universal supports for students. All right. Many times. All right. And then um also this uh instructional practices and curriculum. If you'll remember back to our bright spots, it was there too because we do have amazing instructional practices and curriculum. our I Ready um program and also our dyslex our screener for reading challenges including dyslexia. Um we have all of that in place. So

055we're really catching kids early so that we can provide that support and and then and it's also in growth because we have a lot of work to do still. We still have some alignment to do across general ed and special education. We want to make sure our um students who are in the most restrictive environments also get the same um that same curriculum and figure out how to modify that for them. And then um another opportunity for growth is collaboration time. There's never enough time to get together and collaborate and train and all of that. So that was something that Holly picked up on. And then also crossgrade articulation. So, and when we talk about articulation, we're like we have like if the second grade teacher is talking to the third grade teachers like what

056is this child going to need when they move up or or the big the big transitions fifth grade to sixth grade elementary to white hill or the biggest transition uh n eighth grade to 9th grade and [snorts] so um I I'm working closely with the town district right now to to work on that articulation. So, those are it's also something we need to continue. >> Sometimes that articulation might not even be grade level. It could be a student that was at an NPS or a private school [clears throat] that came back into the district and how does that transition work or >> Yeah. And I think that was kind of highlighted in the in the report as well. >> Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I remember her um there were some quotes from families who are

057in NPS and they were having a challenge like knowing what that looks like or when it happens. So, you know, more clearer communication around it. So, thank you for saying that, Tyler. I remember that one. All right. Okay. Um, so that was Holly's part and then um Tyler and I were talking about um some of the things that I've reflected upon, you know, being here new in the last six months and um and just some and some areas of focus that I'm seeing. So I what I'm finding is when um our staff is so student centered, we are making decisions that are in the best interest of kids and that's at the heart of what we need to be doing. And when we make student centered decisions, we streamline things. We actually reduce costs sometimes

058because we're, you know, we're doing um these things in the best interest of kids. We also um have a huge focus on least restrictive environment. And that's basically making sure that the student is in the least restrictive setting that they possibly can be. We don't want to, you know, have a child who's in a general education setting jump all the way to like a non-public school with nothing in between because that's where all those tiers of intervention come into play and we have to we have to keep um keep those going. So really focusing on least restrictive environment. We have amazing things that have happened [laughter] where [clears throat] staff have said, "Oh my gosh, this child needs to be in a non-public school." And then we and then we go, "Wait, what else can

059we do? What else can we do? What else can we do?" and then they're still in our setting because all of these things happened. Team team team approach, lots of really smart people um collaborating and we we you know the child stays with us. One example too is um is when we have a four-year-old TK student um who there's no NPS in this whole area that will take a child under the age of five. So we had to pull out all the stops and because we had no options. That child has to stay on our campus. So that was the true test to me like what can we do? We have to make this work. We have no options and that child is is excelling. We're actually um collaborating with their preschool which is our

060afterchool program and a lot of amazing things are happening. So there's all of this really smart thinking happening with among the entire team. Um and it definitely takes a whole a whole village. So, one thing I want to say about least restrictive environment, the way I think about this is like just right support. You want the kid to have enough challenge that they're learning, but not so much challenge that they're shutting down. There's just the right amount of support. And if you put too much support in place, then kids start to get dependent on the support, whether that's a onetoone aid or extra other things that accommodations, and then they're not learning as much. So, we want to like there's a really fine line between creating an independent learner, making sure a kid is in

061that zone of proximal development, >> but having all the support they need in order to excel. And I think sometimes the easiest fix is to like give them all the supports >> and it's just too much. So, we're trying to be really careful around making sure it's like the just right support. That's the way I think about it. When you when you when you do talk about the student centered approach too, there's I've heard from special education teachers that the burden of paperwork >> that they have often [clears throat] takes away from that ability to really, you know, plan and be in that student centered place all the time. And I was just wondering like what type of solutions have have did do you guys noodle on to perhaps um alleviate that burden somewhat for

062those instructors so that they can really really truly have intent around when it's student focused and when it's independent as >> Tyler mentioned >> well you know um our student information system for special education which is safe sis is the acronym Um there's actually some really neat um AI tools coming out um as far as like goals like goal writing, monitoring goals um and doing all so and actually the state is looking into all those things. So we we'll be start implementing um some AI um solutions pretty soon which is exciting because like um like when I first started in education I mean an IEP was like five pages long and now it's they're like 75 pages long and there's so many like boxes to check you know just all these things just because you

063know over the years there's probably been legal precedents set like oh now we need to add that oh now we need to add that. So um but yeah there are options like that. There's also um we've also started developing like um a bank of of of goals and verbiage and things like that where we can get get that streamlined a little more as far as those goal writing pieces. >> Um and um and also using like um I've I've turned a couple people on to Grammarly so we don't have to edit five pages of notes. Grammarly can get in there and do all of our correctness for us and [laughter] you know that kind of thing. And so there's definitely tools that that we're trying to >> The only other thing that I would add

064to that is that when you're in a budget situ situation we are, you staff as tight as possible. So every special educator has a 28 kids on their case load. >> So they're maxed out with the amount of service they're giving plus they've got all that paperwork. If you're able to staff a little bit more loosely, then people have more time. Maybe you've got a case load of 22 and now you have more time to do your assessments and check in with families. And so I think this is one of those compounding problems is when you're so tight with money, you make sure every spent teacher has as many kids on their case load as possible and then >> there's cascading. >> We burn them out then we lose them. Yeah. >> And the attrition

065suffers. >> Exactly. >> I have many OT friends who have left >> school based OT because of too many kids on their case >> load. And we're also look, you know, as we as these systems and structures get into play, the hope is that we actually reduce the number of kids we refer to special education to because I think after we got back from the pandemic, there were it was just this huge influx of I, [snorts] you know, we need this child assess they're behind. It's like, well, everybody's behind, you know, at this point. Um, but anyway, I think we're actually getting out of that and I think more and more we're talking about does this child really does this child need to be assessed like like when we're thinking student center like because when

066we talk about assessments we're talking about six, seven, eight, nine, 10 hours of a child sitting onetoone with an adult, not all in all in a row, but but still being pulled out of class, missing all that good first instruction because they're doing these assessments. And so, um, we're really looking at that now, too. And I'm actually when I'm working with teams, I'm like, what what like what haven't we tried yet instead of giving the family an assessment plan to assess for special education? So I think as we're plug it's almost like plugging those holes too and as we have as we get people trained up more around tier tier one and tier two and tier three interventions um that could alleviate the workload too because when we have so many kids being assessed that's

067that special education teacher who needs those 10 hours you know in a six they have a 60-day timeline to get this done and when they have seven or eight assessments open at any given time. you're talking that's a lot of hours and documentation and paperwork and all that. So, >> another solution that we need to get to eventually, I think, um so that we don't run into that, you know, issue. >> So, all right. And then, um and then another definitely a focus of mine this year has been relationships. just building relationships with the staff, with families, um so that we could all work together in a you know in a in a positive way. Um also the team team empowerment within the special education team. Um so many of our team members have um

068so many amazing ideas and they just need the green light. Um we have um process and then all and that gets into developing systems and structures. So many of our like a couple of our psychologists are they they you know they see a need. We need a um we need a process to deter you know like a rubric as far as if a child needs a 1 to1 aid. So I said go for it let's do it. And so we did it and it's in place and now we are using this rubric to determine if a child needs a 1 to1 aid instead of just saying I think this child needs 1 to1 a we have data to support it now. and maybe it supports it and maybe it's like oh no they don't need

069it we need to do something else. So these are the things that are happening and that's turning into those systems and structures which streamlines things which which allows everybody to understand exactly what's going on and and how the systems work. And then the other piece is reducing legal and settlement fees. Um we're um we're definitely working on that and I think all the things above um support that that as well. Um, and that's a a big focus, too. So, right. And then finally, what's next? So, this special education uh review is being presented to lots of different groups. I presented it to the special education advisory committee last week. Um, I met with our whole special education team on January 5th and presented it to to our all of our special ed um department. And

070um and then from here we will prioritize areas for growth. And so I do plan on sending some surveys out, talking to some some families, talking to staff, students to determine where our areas are and we do need to to sort of piece it out because it's a lot and and we don't we definitely don't want to slam dunk anything. We want to make sure that it's sustainable and that um that it's in good shape. And then um and then from that we'll um develop a three-year special education strategic plan by June of this year and then begin implementation July 1, June 26. >> All right. So, >> and I just want to I just want to say thank you to Lori. This was a huge task to kind of come into a new role,

071hit the ground sprinting, and >> [snorts] >> um you know, she's been taking action on all of these things. And I think the report from um Holly Wade just kind of affirms a lot of what you've seen. There were a few things in there that were kind of like new ahas for us. >> Um but overall, I think this is going to provide us a really nice plan moving forward and I just want to give you my deepest gratitude for all the work that you're doing and um all the improvements you've already made before the plan even gets started. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, >> thank you. >> Of course. >> I have questions. >> Okay. I was going to say, do you have a question? >> I have a question. I was like, I

072do have a reflection, but I'll hold back. >> Yeah, save the reflections. [laughter] >> The question that I do have is did part of this process include looking back over I don't know how many years to look at curriculums that have been in effect either at a particular school site like you're saying there might be different patchworks. Interesting reflection. And I was talking to my daughter today who's 24 and we were talking about we were having a mental health conversation >> in her workplace and whatever having mental health conversation and we I was talking about developmentally appropriate approaches to mental health and stuff and I said remember when you were at manner school and and do you remember some of the things that you guys used to do and around like um social emotional learning?

073We were talking about social emotional learning and learning how to be confident or learning how to communicate or learning how to identify your feelings. I said, "That's all in the mental health." She's like, "Oh my god, I still have those things on my keychain. Hold on a second." And she pulled out her Yeah. So, she pulled out her keychain and there were these little um plastic like award tags that kids would get when a when either another student or a teacher noticed that they were demonstrating one of those skills. So, she pulled out her keychains like, "Let me see which ones I have." And she's like, "Oh, I've got the little respect one and the caring one." And she still had it on her keychain 24. So I'm just wondering I know but then we

074had another conversation was like yeah remember that toolkit thing with breathing oh I hated that thing had these breathing exercises with a thing and then you had to do so there was one that that she reacts like oh I really didn't like doing that but then she still carried and I was just wondering whether there was an inventory or an audit of like [snorts] different practices that have been used over the years as part of this >> as far as the social emotional learning goes yeah >> social emotional learning or other kinds of things on campuses >> [snorts] >> um Holly didn't look into that um I have been getting bits and pieces um from people and so um just like you know and it's in like the social emotional learning piece is inconsistent across

075the campuses. So some of some of our our schools are using zones of regulation which is basically you are you in the green zone, the yellow zone or the red zone right now. Um and so um but there hasn't really been as far as I know there hasn't been a lot of formal training around that. Um and so we just want to make sure it's aligned. But yeah, I um there's there are a lot of different things and some of this peace meal too. We have one principal who has all this this amazing, you know, folder, Google folder with all these resources, but then you sort of have to click around and you know, it's hard to hard to navigate. Um but yeah, I mean that's that's amazing though that your daughter that that made

076such an impact on her. >> But it would be interesting to see what's what's been used in the past and what's worked and might be a good thing to get student feedback from. I mean, other, right? And then now there's so many amazing um programs that for purchase of course um and that are are all researchbased and so you know that are all grade level appropriate or developmental appropriate and um so so we we actually should have something because there is z code around that that we do need to do that. Um however it gets quite costly and so we'll have to grapple with that. And then as far as the curriculum goes, um I think in special education, um that it sounds like it's been sort of peace meal too. Um but this year

077we did we had a line. So all of our special educators um have I ready um and our math program too I believe. >> Um but definitely >> and they I mean they use um Sunday and they >> Yeah, there's a lot of line. Yeah. Yeah. >> So, as kids are getting sometimes they'll get extra support outside of class, but they're working on the same thing as they were working on in class. So, there's consistency there. It's not totally disjointed and then it's like what what is this? And so, they're not, you know, missing it missing out on anything. So, >> good question. >> Thank you, Lori. >> Yeah, >> fantastic that we did this question or do we have public comment on this item? Thank you uh PJer Manor parent. Um appreciate the report

078and um you know all the detail [clears throat] um in it and what um what was written. What I was wondering and and I'm hoping that um maybe the board can follow up on or you could elaborate after of what of the suggestions for going forward have already begun to be implemented. What things can we do now before the three-year um action plan is going forward? And then to some of the discussion before, you know, obviously there's uh serious budget issues and it was hard to um sus out a pri you know priority list amongst these items. Um for you know board is already um juggling uh different programs against one another. due to budget constraints of curious if you separate from this report um Dr. Wade gave any guidance on what things are more

079important for the district to uh spend more money on and um you know if it if it has to make make that kind of uh decision. And then uh finally to uh one of the points that you were making Tyler about the consultant fees being agency costs and the 20%. I think it would be helpful um to break that out in budgets or this kind of review because going back you know it's without that being separately broken out we don't know it. Hey, we over these three years in these agencies fees that was more than the salary and benefits of one additional counselor or how many years it takes of doing it this way to go from having uh you know I think we have two full-time counselors uh one for each site or things

080like that um or increasing the benefits to uh other neighboring districts and you know I appreciate we have do and and I think it's important to make sure that we are providing the services that all the students in the district need um whether or not they're part of the general or special education program. Um but to that effort I think you know this report also highlights that it helps everybody for the people providing these services to be district employees and um if the district has to make an investment now how long would it take to pay off in terms of savings if agency fees would help it make decisions and you know if it needs to get a temporary loan from the county or things like that because we know it'll pay off within only

081just two or three years. >> You have 10 seconds. >> Well said. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any other public comments? [snorts] >> No. See that? I will bring it back to the board for discussion. Any comments? >> The only reflection? Well, two reflections. One is I was [clears throat] noticing on the on the um on the um sorry on the bright spots that I I think is great is a lot of it felt like it was around like um culture and the words like looking at the words there's a lot of like open and responsive and committed and family the culture of family and teamwork and stuff like that. So it feels like our our culture as a district and as staff and everything is like super strong which is awesome because as

082we know culture eats strategy for lunch. >> So I was really happy to if I had to pick one one of the other ones because it on the flip side it sounds like what needs work is things like systems and structures and curriculum and practices and procedures. I'm pulling out words that I heard you say and that were up [snorts] there and even like collaboration like really collaborative teams and the thing that can be worked on is collaborative time which is a structure for the collaboration. So I was going to say I felt really good if like I said if I had to pick one I'm super glad that that's the situation that we've got a really strong culture and now we're putting scaffolding and and um support around that existing culture. We're not having

083to do culture change >> which is great. [clears throat] Which I think that's why like some of the work that Lor's been doing >> as this [clears throat] review's been happening, she's been able to put in some structures because the culture is already healthy. Exactly. >> And I think as this three-year plan gets built out, you'll just see that the progress will happen faster than normal because that culture is so good. >> Exactly. And I think that's a and I think the idea too of helping people who are in these roles be efficient with the administrative stuff and like you're not having to reinvent the wheel because the structure and the system tools are there which can help with all of that behind the scenes kind of stuff is I think is going to um

084really pay off very quickly in terms of just all of the administrative time around the actual time with the kids. Um, so that's I just that was that was that one reflection. And then the flip side of that, the frustrating thing on the money side of it is that so much of this is regulatory and required. And you can't really choose you your choice our choices are much more limited in this arena than in other areas of what we have decision-m authority over because of the statutory requirements and things like that which I know can sometimes make it difficult of like we have to pay a certain amount of our budget and this is something we take to the state every year when we go you know do our legislative visits is um a certain

085chunk of our budget just has to be dedicated because it's required um in this arena. So >> I definitely agree with you on the culture that that first part that you said um >> you can have all the systems, the structures, all you like in place and if you don't have that you have don't have anything >> and um and that is not some I mean to shift a culture it takes like years. I'm coming in and everybody's ready to go hitting the ground running um you know we need this. Okay, let's do it. Boom. you know, and I mean, and people are jumping in and it's just it's fantastic. I mean, what's been built here is just it's phenomenal. [snorts] I mean, for me to come in and be able to I mean, feel

086like I've made there's been a lot of progress and there's because people are just stepping up, you know, I'm not having to like push people or, you know, or do all the work myself, [laughter] you know, because can't do that either. So, yeah, it's huge. >> People have been hungry for this >> um and needing that guidance. and we've seen ourselves fail the children and I don't think anyone at these schools feels good about that. >> Um when a child leaves when we can't meet the requirements that >> we are obligated to do. >> So we're very lucky um to have you coming in at this time where everyone parents included are just hungry for improvement. So this to me I am incredibly excited about this. Um fully supportive. >> Thank you. >> It is

087exciting. I'm like what can we do first? Like what can we do Lori? [laughter] >> This is really exciting. >> I'll email it to you in the morning. [laughter] Your honors. >> It's been great. So is Dr. Wade. Is she now done with this her report and now? >> Yeah. she's done with us. >> Yeah. And um we're going to meet a couple more times um because there there are some things surfacing like some staff who've brought up some points in the report like this this feels a little you know rough or raw or that kind of thing. And so we're going to just work through some of those things too. Um not do any revisions but just you know sort of look look at some of those um those things. We're going to meet

088on Friday and talk through some of those. And then she's available too. She you know she she wants to she's excited. She keeps calling me. How'd it go? how'd it go? So, she's she's really excited because um you know having her having been in education for a really long time and seeing different settings. This is just exciting to her too because she can see what's happening and the excitement that everybody has. So, >> I saw that at one of the meetings. She was very excited. >> Yeah, >> she likes it here. >> Yeah, she does. [laughter] with the the committee, the special education advisory committee. How do you feel that tone and the outcomes have changed from when you started to where we are today? >> Oh, the tone's just been super positive since day

089one. I mean, there have been three meetings so far. I've just felt like everybody's just on board, ready to go. We've actually done a lot of work so far just in three meetings. Um, we have we're close to um a district-wide definition for inclusion that we'll be pushing out to everybody and asking people to join on board because there's are there are still people out there that, you know, that has still have that sped general divide and we need to bridge that. Um, and but for the most part, everybody's ready to go. We also um were and then we've you know we're prioritizing um these I did present this to them last week and we are prioritizing um you know putting our priorities together about what people think. Um we also um and then through

090that vision process around the definition um we really dug into what people you know what does inclusion look like? Um I would say taste like >> taste like [laughter] look like no look like feel like yeah you know that kind of thing. So there's and the group is just so dynamic and it's such a great range of people from all different areas in our community and um it's it's just for me like when I go into that meeting I always look forward to it and want to meet every week but we can't do that. Um and it's just um yeah just a great group of people that just just want to do good and and push [snorts] the work forward. >> It's great and it's happening. >> I'd say that Lor's been doing a really

091remarkable job with that group. when we did a we did a special ed town hall at the last year and that was a tough meeting. It was uh you know people had a lot of emotions. I think people had had years of feeling not heard and not included and wanted to see change. So to your question, how have things changed from that meeting to the last meeting? It's been a 180. Um I think parents are feeling like they're getting to roll their sleeves up. I think the one thing that I would say is that some of those parents are like we want to see the whole thing change like tonight [laughter] and systems change takes time. So I think just having a little bit of patience with making sure this that we can grow deep

092roots with these changes and that they last for a long time. Um but it has been a 180 change from that town hall to this last meeting. >> I would agree. I mean it really [clears throat] it's so nice to have the mix of people from the community. I mean with parents and teachers and staff >> because you really it's similar to the budget advisory committee where >> there's like the sense of community. Everyone is on the same page like we all have the same goal. We're not pointing fingers like it does feel like it's yes we all have the same goal. So it really is >> feels feels good. The culture is good. >> Great to hear. I mean, it really does feel like these kinds of committees that we have, the equity committee,

093the budget advisory committee, and now the special education committee are really active, engaged working groups of people um that cross like you said, as opposed to like watchdog groups or complaining sessions like that that they're really engaged. Everybody's in it to work and make it better as opposed to I'm going to come here and then talk to those people over there to make them go do something which is so awesome to hear that this is following in that footsteps. >> I I put them to work. [laughter] >> So I was taking notes here as I was going and Tyler actually like addressed a few of them and took mine. I don't know if you're not cheating. [laughter] But I was just thinking like because I was at those town halls with Tyler. Um it was

094when he was first on board and it was really uncomfortable and I remember we had some discussions the two of us in meetings and it was like okay do we do the special ed review now because clearly we need to have something happen and some changes to be made or should we hire someone for this position and then let them go through this review and kind of so they they whoever is in this position would be able to hear everything you know absorb it and then implement it. and we kind [cough and clears throat] of made the decision together, I think, to wait to do this until now. And I know it was a lot to throw at somebody right when they come on board, but like you you seem like you were ready to

095go anyways. And so I didn't feel like it was going to burden you. And it really doesn't feel like it was hopefully. No. >> But um I'm just really glad that this has been done and I'm really very much looking forward to having it like implemented and seeing what the changes are coming. Um, I'm very confident in your ability to get that done because I feel like there's been so many shifts already since you've been here that I think this this will be I'm looking forward to see what you do with it. [snorts] >> Um, the recruitment or retention thing is the thing that Tyler jumped on. I was like, um, but what I really appreciate about this presentation is you took her report, which I spent a long time reading. >> Um, that language

096was very difficult to read and I read a ton. So, that was really hard for me to read just the language of it. I loved how your presentation broke down like the most essential bits of it because I feel like you captured it so concisely in so few slides and I really appreciate that because for me you distilled it to like the most important parts and it spent so long. I was like I should have just looked at her first presentation [laughter] first um because it was it was kind of like very hard for me to like comprehend. Um took a lot longer than it should have. >> Um and so I just want to say that. And then the other thing that really just popped out at me was the relationships piece that was

097one of the highlights for me. I think that is like a huge thing you bring to this this school district is your ability to foster those to grow them. Um all of that I think you're excelling at that. And so I think that all of these together, we have all the elements we need to make these changes and I'm just really looking forward to seeing what they are and how fast and quickly we can implement them and hopefully we can get the money to pay for them. [laughter] Um, we're gonna have to prioritize that. But I I definitely feel really good seeing this now and I'm Thank you for doing the work on it. >> Um, >> and gratitude to the parents that who do want to see it now because what they're doing is

098>> they're planting trees in which [clears throat] their children will not benefit of the shade. >> You know, they want to see those results now. and having them stick around and help plan for kids so that other kids don't have to go through what their kids are going through. >> I I think of just appreciation to them >> for doing that. >> It's hard [clears throat] to look beyond your own children >> when these needs aren't being met the way you want them to at that moment because what you have here is great, but we can't just do it overnight. So, >> I have one individual I always sort of have on my side here who who I go what like you know as I'm as as we're moving forward like you know um >>

099such an advocate for inclusion and >> um and I always sort of run that like I think about that person and sort of a litmus test like what would they think of this you know I mean just you know what I mean just but such an advocate such a fierce advocate so that's that's good >> and yeah and it's true we it does take time And however, with the culture we have, the climate, it's going to take less time because we have every >> sports attacks pass. >> So, we don't have any on this one. So, I'm going to move us to our next agenda. Any more comments here? [cough] >> Excuse me. [clears throat] >> Yes. Thank you. Um, our next item is update on the Ross Valley School District National School Lunch and

100Breakfast Programs. And this is Chris's item. This one is me. [cough] Excuse me. >> And as we're bringing up the slide, I do have Jenny Wright is in the audience. And I wanted to >> I wanted to say thank you to Jenny because everything that's up here is really uh because of her hard work. Jenny um works in the CNS arena for the district and she is out serving meals every day and has been for years in addition to helping families when they have a need to get um meals ordered whether it's in English or Spanish. He's right there helping them and is um somebody that is very valuable to the district and the community as a whole. So, I just wanted to say thank you to her since she's here. >> There's no way

101we could have implemented a new lunch program without Jenny Wright. No way. I mean, she is literally the heartbeat of the transition between the old program and this new program. Um, and she works way harder than she probably should. And we're so lucky to have her on our team. >> And everything that you're going to be seeing really comes from from her. So last year >> inverted [laughter] accurate though it's already >> where where's the meat? >> The meat's on top of below. [laughter] So, so last year we were tasked with looking at our meal program and we um put it out uh for for bid for RFP process and um we had two vendors that came forward. One was the lunchmaster, a previous vendor and Ordo and Ordo was the one after going through

102an extensive um t taste testing and looking at their financials and doing different things um that came out on top and they were ultimately approved by the governing board in June. And I do have this particular food pyramid. And the reason I put it there in this format is because that's really how the National School Lunch Program is still structured. So it hasn't changed just yet. >> Yeah, we need more meat. >> [laughter] >> So, um the breakfast and lunch meals that are served are done uh under the national school lunch program and the national um uh breakfast program. And those are both federally uh federal programs and ORO hires a u registered dietician to ensure that all of our meals are are prepared in accordance with those guidelines. and they send those um those

103recipes and the order information to our uh our actual pro meal provider and the meal provider who makes the the meals is actually located here in Fairfax. So, it's a locally based company. Every one of our meals is prepared in Fairfax for our students by a local company. Um they are served in uh biodegradable or recyclable containers. And these are some examples of what the the lunch program meals would look like. Our um our breakfast program, you can kind of see what those look like off to the right. All of our meals have been met with a lot of excitement both from uh the parents and the students. And they always want the food. Uh they they love it. And it you bear that out in the data itself and also in some of the

104words. I'm sorry it kind of it didn't register real well. It looked a little bit better on the um actual presentation slide. Uh but if you look at this, everything really revolves around two common themes. One is they love the food and two is they love that it's not wrapped in plastic. So those are two um themes that come through from the students themselves and these are are words directly from them. Now as we go forward, how do you actually look at the meal um and determine how the the program is doing as a as a program? And what you do is you look at what they call participation rates. Participation rates are meals served versus your enrollment. And so when looking at your participation rates, the higher the better obviously. And so I wanted

105to show kind of a breakdown of our 2425 and 2526 both in breakfast and lunch by school. And so you'll see that in these next slides. And one of the things that you'll notice is that as you let let's just focus in on Brookside there for a moment, the two and the 2425, our breakfast program is almost always lower than the lunch program in terms of participation percentages. They were at 20.98% and 2425 for breakfast and 28.7 uh 28.87 uh for lunch. And then you see them going forward into 2526. they have grown in terms of both breakfast and lunch participation rates. It's not unusual and is what I would expect to see that your breakfast participation is much lower than your your lunch. That is standard across districts generally speaking. And so you can

106see how each school site looks and you can see that with Thomas as well as White Hill here. One thing that's a little unusual, if you look at 2425 for White Hill, they actually had breakfast participation that was higher than their lunch. For whatever reason, the kids avoided the lunch and they ate the breakfast. >> From my anecdotes at White Hill talking to students, >> the White Hill kids loved the cereal, which we don't offer anymore, >> and they hated every lunch option. So they all ran to get the cereal for breakfast, but they would all avoid the regular offerings for lunch like the plague. So it was kind of a, >> you know, a preference by the kids. But [cough] it's an interesting interesting uh notice there. >> I mean, Honey Nut Cheerios. Yeah.

107[snorts] >> And all of this information was through the end of November. Uh that was what we had available at the time that I was putting this together. Since then, Jenny's put together the December information. I just don't have it here. >> And you can see in the white participation there's there isn't cereal this year as an option. And you see the breakfast section went down >> but that we have better options for lunch and it went you know up almost doubled. >> They don't like the overnight oats. And with that, I will say that since January, um, since the new year, Ordo has started serving breakfast cereals. >> So, [laughter] >> we should start to see that ticking up. But that literally is hot off of the presses. And I actually had a teacher

108talk to me about it this afternoon in the parking lot. Jenny and I caught a cereal. So um so I just wanted to break it down like this. The next way I'm going to break it down, it's the same exact data. It's just shown in a different way. >> So this is just the breakfast. >> And what I really it this is designed to show you kind [snorts] of what is happening towards the breakfast program. You can see that Brookside had a growth in their meals served uh of about 3%. uh you see a much larger increase at Hidden Valley 5% 5 and a half% Manor is relatively flat and you see way Thomas actually a significant increase and White Hill as uh Tyler was referring to actually dropped >> the cereal drop off >>

109exactly >> the cereal clip >> and if you were to ask me what what is your participation rate for breakfast I would actually tell you our participation rate is 20.26% 26%. I would defer out to the district level. So that that's what that last piece of information is. And the reason that that isn't going up as much as you would guess based upon the data on the left is really White Hill and because White Hill is such a large number of students. So on the lunch side, you see even larger discrepancies, not really discrepancies, increases in the meals served. So that's actually a positive. And so you see that across the board across every single site and as a whole, our lunch program has gone up um almost 9%. So, it's it's a fairly significant

110increase in our meals served. >> Back to the participation rate, I remember last year when we were talking about this, there was this issue of signups but then not getting them picking up the meals that were ordered or said people said is participation rate true up for that and so it's actual representation of the kids who are getting the meals. [clears throat] >> Correct. Okay. >> And so it's not >> my kid is eating what your kid is not eating. So [laughter] there's >> so there's not the we had a conversation around waste or like there's all these meals that we've ordered and then they don't get them because now they're so delicious and yummy and not plastic wrap. We still have a >> there's a lot of waste. There is a lot of ways

111and one of the things so I was looking at this data last week early last week >> and out of that information I actually scheduled a meeting with Ordo last Friday. So I Jenny and I both met with with them and we've already started talking about how we can address that. >> Okay. >> So that is something that is coming out of this whole process that should help us as well in the long run. U and they've been very receptive to the information and this was actually something that was new to them. They're like, "Oh, okay. So, now we see what your true participation rates look like because we can see what meals are actually being picked up. We see why you want to meet with us. >> And it's to the point where they're

112actually going to come out. Um, >> they haven't given us an exact date, but it is probably in the next two to three weeks. are going to come take a look at our program in meal service and they're going to come look at us and they just um got a new account as well, Miller Creek. They're now serving their lunches as well and so they're going to take a look at their program as well. >> I think that's the one thing I will say like from a parent perspective or kid perspective most people are pretty happy. It's not perfect. It's still you know a school lunch and you know there's some challenges but overall people are pretty happy. I think on the back end with the technology and the communication with Ordo and some of

113the kinks that they're working out, it has been a very big challenge. Um, just from inputting and signups and um, I know Jenny's been working on this a ton and Chris has as well and Ordo has been good about taking feedback and receiving feedback and implementing it. Um, but it has not been like a super easy transition on the on the back end. Was it right that we were were the first account in California? >> We were one of the first, right? They had other accounts, but they were private schools. But in terms of kings, >> but the other thing that I I do want to say, and I would be remiss if I didn't also thank uh Shawn Maher in our IT department. Shawn has done a tremendous amount of work with Jenny uh

114the two of them. And Sean has he's really good at uh databases and he helped put together a database where we can take their data as a as a data download and and get it onto touchcreens so that we can start to track our meals every single meal service. So when they're out at each of the schools they can touch the screen if the kid has picked it up. >> And it makes uh service significantly faster. There used to be a paper system like this where you would have to, you know, lease through, oh, what grade are you in and get to the second grade page and cross that off and this touchcreen that Sean and Jenny have implemented has made that [clears throat] a lot more efficient. [snorts] >> Yeah. And >> as a

115parent, Sheila texts me every Wednesday. >> I got it as well, >> which is it's really helpful. Sheila at Ordo, don't forget school lunch orders are due tonight. Do you know who Sheila? Thank you, Sheila. >> Do you know Sheila? I think Shula is a bot. She >> was [laughter] >> I had a relationship with her. I felt like I connected. Uh >> oh. >> Weird. >> But that is super helpful. And I hope I'm sure that helps some parents that are busy like, "Oh, that's right. I got to do this." >> It reminds me every Wednesday. >> Yeah. >> And if I had forgotten to order for my my child, it would, oh, let me go do it. >> Yeah. So, it gives that super easy. So will the data then be able to

116track like um I'm going to call them frequent flyers like kids and families who have a pattern of ordering and not picking up so that you can do some differentiated targeted messaging to like hey we've noticed that you know you've been ordering these meals and not picking them up. Is there anything we can like nudging people to >> you know help us not waste meals >> because we track it by student. We have the data in the back end, but I talked to Sean about it Wednesday night and by Thursday morning 8:30, he had the database uh set up so that we could see that data. >> Awesome. >> I got a call from Marina about that. >> Oh, not Sheila. >> Not Sheila Marina. Wait, because real person >> because Reed it was defaulting.

117>> Yeah. >> Is that thing fixed? >> We can talk about there is a whole issue about that as well. >> Reed wasn't wanting salads. It was automatically signing up for him for salads. >> Okay. >> So, that was working that out. But anyway, there was a lot of wasted sal. Oh, not wasted though, cuz apparently they're really good. This So, they were getting eaten by [clears throat] somebody else's >> Chris's kids were coming over and grabbing >> right. I mean, Reed, not by Reed, but other other people reading the salad. >> Yeah. So, that's >> that's great. Sounds like there's a lot of different fronts of working on this from the technology side to >> the behavioral side with the kids to the operational side with ORDO which is great. QC is there a

118way that QC is done on the quality of the lunches to ensure that there's not a drop off in in participation and if so how how does that work with informing or like hey these aren't as good as they've been in the past >> the kids aren't liking it and they're not going to order it. Do you have a system like that in place to ensure that we keep that participation level high? I so that's a really good question. We haven't gotten to that point just yet because we're still trying to work out the kinks because it is a newer system. That is one of the things that I want to be able to eventually start to get to is where we can share that level of information. One of the things about Ordo is

119they're based back in the Midwest and we're in California and I know we're still in the same United States, but tastes are different in the two states and you can see it in the food as well. And so I think it's only a matter of time before going back to your point Chris that those orders will start to to minimize. And I know we have seen fewer kids. There was a big rush at the beginning because it was something new and fresh and so everybody wanted it and so the number of meals have started to tend down. But what we don't want to do is in the long term have those numbers drop below the lunch master. >> You know, as a parent who orders the lunches there there have been rumblings of quality dropping.

120Just letting you know so that you're prepared for the kids that are like I used to like them but they weren't as good last time. you know, kids are unless it's bad, they never go back, right? So, uh, and I think also one of the principles at the schools noted the same thing. They were kind of like looks like it's kind of dropping off in terms of quality. So, I just wanted to put that out there that we might want to stay on top of it, especially these numbers are wonderful and we'd like to see them continue to go up, right? Then maybe we should keep an eye on it. I don't know how you can, but you know, >> one of the things that you could do is maybe survey the children later on

121in the year as a as a way to to look at it. So, that might be an alternative for us. >> The kids are not shy from sharing their opinions on the food. So, if you just [laughter] sit and like if you I mean, some of our principles are serving lunches. I mean, they're hearing which ones get ordered or I don't like that one anymore. So, we can just collect that data. I mean, it's anecdotal data, but we can collect it from the principles. And >> I think the the lunch provider here in Fairfax has been wonderful with feedback. So, if something needs to change and it's still within the guidelines, you know, I I think that's a relatively easy fix. The other part too that was interesting of that with like behavioral whatever noodling,

122behavioral economic noodling about how people make decisions and whether making sure that we're teasing out quality control related drop off like the pasta's drier than it was before or the pizza is colder than it was before to kind of the recent the effect of newness versus kids being like the third time I've had the pizza. not as good. Well, it's not really that the pizza has changed. It's just not new kind of thing. And so, there may also be some feedback of like >> if you just switch things up and call things new, everybody loves that. Even though it's not it's like um it's not a actual quality control thing, but it's a thing that keeps everyone interested and engaged. I don't know how to address that, but I wouldn't want them to I wouldn't

123want to give them false feedback about quality if it's really the mindset and kind of a behavioral trend that's just a normal thing that people do. So, just keeping that in mind >> and kind of dovetailing on to your your point, Chris, the uh teacher that caught us in the, you know, out in the parking [snorts] lot this afternoon was also talking that very same point. And so that was something that I was going to just have a conversation with Ordo about and start getting a feel for what is their meal pattern going to look like because the meal pattern shouldn't stay the same throughout the entire year as well. It should be changing based upon the types of fruits and vegetables that are available. And >> and and here's a recommendation. I know we

124don't have kitchens, right, which is a problem because we can't do the hot lunch. >> But as a swim team mom, Good Earth makes breakfast burritos and they're kept in these oven boxes. And if if if Ordo can produce breakfast burritos with eggs and protein in the morning and they're kept in those warm boxes, which is a minimal investment compared to getting a full-on kitchen, right? that might be able to add more nutrition, more protein to the correct food pyramid and um sort of alleviate that that stress of it's cereal, it's overnight oats, which the kids don't really like, right? And the breakfast little bars. So, I I think we can we can think about outside the box basically and how we can do that in a cost effective way. Huh. >> In the hot

125box. being inside the hot box. >> Be inside of the box. >> I mean, I've seen I've seen hundreds of kids fed and parents fed at swim team meets in that way and it works >> the solution. >> Do you have any more questions for Chris? >> Any public comment? >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Seeing no public comment, I'll bring it back to the board. Um, [snorts] I just I do want to say thank you to Chris and to Jenny. >> Yes, I know that there's a huge workload there. Thank you for keeping our kids fed. >> It's great. >> Yeah. [clears throat] >> All right. So, this does not require a vote. Do we have any more discussion here? >> I just want to say that I think that the time that we

126spend on this is really valuable because on food because I the social stigma of school lunches. I don't know honestly what it is today and it would when I was a kid it was real bad. um that you know and I really try to encourage even if my kids say it's gross I'm like you're picking like it makes my life easier and to normalize school lunches I feel like is extremely important and so I don't I think that that's a reason in itself to put energy into this that we are having good quality nutrition absolutely and also that we're not singling any child out. >> Yeah. >> I feel like this is extremely important, Debbie. So, thank you, Chris, for the time you put on this because it's Yeah, it's I mean, it's just important

127for all of our kids other schools. >> I went to school in the 1800s. [laughter] The lunch lady, the pan pizza was that was that was the thing. If you didn't get your pan pizza, you lost out >> on Fridays. We only have pizza on Fridays. >> It's Salsbury Steak Tuesdays. And [clears throat] it was just this joyful, wonderful like, oh my god, today is pizza day. It's steak. No one had the stigma. >> And and uh maybe it I don't know where it came from, but >> somewhere between the 1800s and >> 1798, March 1st, >> 1950s. [laughter] [gasps] >> Um but I think that this is this is removing that. Yeah. Um because uh the kids are really running for the food. Really appreciate this. >> They do run for it at White

128Hill also. >> But they have to get to the line early. >> Yeah. >> Chicken finger day. [laughter] Um okay. So moving to our next item. [snorts and cough] [clears throat] We have recommended approval of resolution 032526 and the annual accounting of the 202425 developer fees in fund 25 government code section 6601D and 660B and this is also Chris go ahead. So this was also presented to the board of trustees at the December meeting and basically what we have to do is provide uh the public the ability to see it for a minimum number of days and so all you're doing now is just approving the resolution. And this is one of those things that we have to do annually where we u provide an accounting of our developer fees that we receive for anybody

129who pulls a permit on new construction. Any questions, Chris? Do we have any public comment? I will bring it back to our board. You have any discussion on this one those routine things? Okay, take a look at this. No questions, no discussion. I'd be happy to um make a motion to approve uh make a motion to approve resolution and the annual accounting of the 2024 2025 developer fees in fund 25. >> I will second that. >> Lovely. [clears throat] And Shel >> I Chris >> hi >> Daniel >> I >> Anna >> I >> Rachel I Okay, there we go. So our next item is ratify agreement with DUDE to perform California environmental quality act compliance services for the Brookside Bridge project. Chris, go forth. >> Keeping [clears throat] you busy today. >> Yes. So

130this is to ratify the um the SQA um process that we need to undertake for the bridge and there is a a small period uh to get this done. it will be incorporated into uh the bid uh that we are in the process of putting together right now. We will have that out for the bridge um by the end of uh this month. And we also are at a point where we're just waiting for the final approval of the actual approved um DSA drawings. So we'll we'll include the current drawings as they are and then if there are any changes to the DSA um drawings we would just make an amendment to our bid as well. So everything will be incorporated to that and at this particular point we are also looking at um timelines

131for the construction of the bridge itself. I might be purchasing the bridge oursself for construction. We did a agenda item to soul source it to a certain vendor. If we can't get it, if the lead times extend too far out where we can't get the project done during the summer, we would go ahead and purchase it ourselves and ensure that the bridge is also part of that bid. But um at this particular juncture, we anticipate and expect the bridge project to be done this summer. This is one of those projects that's like, you know, some of these things we can kind of squeeze in at Thanksgiving break or get done over the, you know, winter break or ski week or, you know, any of those other weeklong [snorts] things, but this one is big enough

132that it's like a summer thing. So, if we don't hit the target this summer, it waits till the next summer. And I think Chris and I both have a lot of urgency, which I know you all do, too, to get this thing done for safety reasons. and we've been talking about it for 18 months. So, we we need to get this one done and um the timelines are really important here. >> Um in looking at the proposal and the proposed budget, do you is is this with school districts? Is it similar where you've got either a negative declaration or a ne um what do you call it amended or modified declar? I'm assuming that this is anticipating like not having to do like a full-blown SQA massive thing. I don't know if it's the same

133with school districts as it is with regular construction because when we were >> it is um and they're going to have to look at certain things. We're not actually doing construction within uh within the creek itself. So, we're not going to have any issues with that part of it. All we're doing is removing what's there. But because it goes into the the creek itself, there'll have to be some mitigation uh things that will have to >> right >> to be done and that is all part of it. >> But do we at the end of the assessments do they do they then come up with like a negative declaration meaning no impact, mitigated [snorts] declaration meaning some impact but we can mitigate it and then a like oh no you have to do a full

134sequel which can be really expensive on the construction. like do we have a heads up on kind of what direction? >> We won't know that until they do all the assessment. >> We won't know that, but because we're not touching the creek itself, we don't anticipate a full >> full squa. And before we um before we brought this to you, we'd also provided all of the documentation from the project uh architect to Due Deck. So, they've seen all of the architectural drawings. they know everything that's there. >> Um, and we don't anticipate that, but so yes, it will have something >> mitigated or negative. >> Yes. >> Depending is kind of where it Okay, that's what I was assuming based on what I was hear. But making sure. So if if they come back and

135and and one of the secret barriers could be that they come back and indicate that a metal bridge would harm whatever micro antique frog they found in the water that we didn't know existed. If that is the case, the prefabricated bridge >> option becomes a problem. Correct. And do we have what have we thought about like like I I don't know. I'm a risk manager. I think what could possibly go wrong and [clears throat] how can I prepare for that? And I'm just wondering are we thinking about having our go forward plans obliterated because of some finding by SQA that keeps us from doing a pre-fabricated steel bridge. Yeah, I don't anticipate that because we've had pre-fabricated bridges put over that creek um within maybe half a mile, >> okay, >> of our site within

136the last year. >> Okay. >> You can see it when you drive up to Hidden Valley. You look to the right and there is a >> I think that's part of how we got the >> It's on Butterfield. I haven't talked to the owners. >> Okay. The house. >> They have a metal prefab bridge there >> across Bon Temp and Alpine Dam. I hiked there this weekend. And there were like three or four of these pre-fabricated steel. So the water shed is using them. >> If the water shed's using them, then I'm not worried about the creek that the coyotes pee in. >> And the way the the way we've had to do it in order to get through [clears throat] the Department of Geological Survey is in essence we're not touching the actual creek.

137We're not >> we're not putting the bridge into the creek size. >> Yeah. But it's the it's the run. >> Yeah. It's the runoff that would be This is my first time going. This is just bonkers. Like the the timing, the costs, like all all and we we still don't have a bridge. >> It's just bonkers. That's all. >> Question. >> No, that's a statement. That's a statement. >> We haven't gone out for comment. >> We haven't got comment yet. >> Come on. >> Going to save your statements for later. Be before we go [laughter] to the next section, the one [snorts] thing I will say is this is the first bridge that the architects have done um it I'm sorry that DSA has done in many many years. Our architects have done one other

138bridge and and so it's one of those things that you don't see very often and that's led to some of the the longer periods. >> I got a question. Can't Johnny just do this? Like what would Johnny do? [laughter] >> WWJD. I got a wristband. Like what would Johnny do? [laughter] >> That's my question. >> It would have been done last summer. >> You any more questions for Chris? >> Okay. Public comment. >> No comments. Okay. All right. Now we can make comments up here. Board discussion up here. [laughter] All >> [cough and clears throat] >> right. >> I just want to say thanks Chris. This is like it is a insane process. The number of hoops you have to jump through to get something and the fact that it's a Blue Line Creek only

139makes it harder. [clears throat] Um so, you know, I appreciate the fact that you're moving with urgency to get this done by the summer. And you know, I apologize that it's been such a circus to to get to this point. Yeah, I was also gonna say >> CFO. >> Yeah, >> that's what I was going to say. Appreciate >> naming the Chris Carson Bridge. [laughter] >> Chris Carson Bridge. >> What we should do is sell naming rights for it. >> Oh, that's a great idea. >> I mean, it's the it's cutting the power off. It's cutting the power off >> and disrupting that. And so you can only do it in the summer. >> Absolutely. >> And so the good news is that we have what ninew week window. Um yeah, but huge appreciation knowing

140that this like the h the multiple hats that you wear as a staff person in addition like we just did the audit and now we're doing a bridge and it's the same person, [laughter] right? So really, I mean, we are hugely appreciative and lucky that we've got someone who can like, >> but wait, there's more. There's school lunches. [laughter] >> Yes. And of course, and then there's lunches. So, really appreciate your ability to take on so many different things and it's really difficult. That's why it's seems bonkers. >> Rachel just made a really good throwaway comment like why like >> I'm serious and that's going on later board topics. I'll cut it then. >> Great. [laughter] >> I like it. So, do you need us to ratify this agreement? >> I do need some sort

141of motion on this one. >> Okay. Um, >> someone like to make a motion. >> I'll make a motion uh to um ratify the agreement with Dudek is it uh to perform the California Environmental Quality Act compliance services for the Brookside Bridge project. >> Great. Do I have a second? >> I will second. >> Thank you, Chris. >> I Daniel. Hi, >> Shel. Hi, >> Angel. [clears throat] Hi. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. And our next one here is recommended approval of amendment number eight to the lease agreement Red Hill School and Sanoma Montasauri School located at 100 Shaw Drive, Sanoma, California, extending the term of the lease through June 30th, 2031. Oh my gosh, Chris show, go ahead. >> I'm actually going to turn it over to >> Oh, okay. >> Tyler,

142great. [laughter] >> Give me something to do tonight. Um, yeah. So we are going to extend the lease to uh for Red Hill right actually behind us to Santael Monasuri for another five years. They've been uh wonderful tenants for us for quite some time actually. Um and we went back and forth a little bit earlier this uh this fall just about some of the terms and um I think one of the things they were looking for was stability. So a five-year term gives them some stability. Um and we're excited to to have this agreement in place. Okay, any questions trustees? >> It looks like the only thing that was that is being amended is just the time frame that we we don't have any other terms or anything on the subject. [clears throat] >> Any

143other questions? >> And you're making faces to a question. Oh. [laughter] >> Um I mean we exp we we talked about this already, right? Didn't we a while ago? Did we talk about this? No. Different. Okay. Confusing it with something else. >> What um just if we didn't agree to if we didn't lease it to them, what would what would the alternative be? likely the the location would be empty and we would lose the the revenue. >> It's not a desirable. >> No. >> Okay. >> The other thing is we would we could potentially put it out to bid >> and then see who else would come >> to bid. The bidding process for schools I'm I'm finding as a relatively new superintendent is really interesting where it's kind of a blind process where you

144kind of have a floor and then people put their bids in and whatever the largest bid is it it that's who it is. So that person, >> right? >> You know, there's just complications in there and to have a known entity like the like Sam's. Um we've got families that some of those kids actually come to our our TK program after. Um so just that known entity is is great. They want to be here. We want to have them um they're educating kids that are in our community, you know, that go to our schools. So it it's a good agreement and um keeping them around for another 5 years is is wonderful. >> Okay. So if we went out to bid potentially it could be less income >> or complicated tenant that doesn't meet the

145spirit of what we do as a district. [clears throat] >> Five sporting goods maybe. >> Yeah. [snorts and laughter] And I I think, you know, if you also think about this is a preschool program that's serving little kids and to end an agreement with them and kick them out and go out to bid and like it just >> it's not really something we're interested in doing as a district. They they're great tenants. Let's keep them there. Let's keep the kids and families that are attending there happy and give them a little bit of stability for them to do long-term planning. >> Absolutely. I am not suggesting we kick them out. I just to clarify I just wanted to uh >> you know what the other option would be for >> all of our listeners out

146there that were curious. Now you know [laughter] how >> listeners doing so cute. >> Yes. Okay. Thank you. >> Any more questions? >> Any public comment on this one? >> Okay. >> Um, do I have any discussion here? >> I will make a motion. >> Go ahead. [laughter] >> To amend number eight to lease the to the San Monos school. Did I get all that? Hold on. Did I miss something? >> Yeah, there's like a approval >> approval of amendment number eight to the lease agreement to San Salmon School. >> Okay. >> Do have a second. >> I'll second it. >> Great. Anna >> I >> Daniel >> I >> Shelley >> I >> Chris >> I >> Rachel Hi. Okay. >> Thank you. Bring it on forward. Um our next item is F consent

147actions. Um we can approve this all in one motion unless somebody would like to pull one out or anything out for discussion. um or questioning if you have any of those. If not, I'll entertain a motion. If we do not have any public comment on this item, do have any comments here. Nothing. Okay. So, I'll entertain a motion on this if someone would like to make one since nobody said they wanted to pull anything up. Someone like to make a motion tonight. Would someone like to make a motion on the consent action items? >> Oh, I was just looking. >> Yeah, I'll make them. >> Let me start. If you're still looking, go ahead. I don't want to rush you. No, no, no. Please take your time. >> Making sure I didn't miss any of

148them. >> I know. I'm having a hard time with like How do you get yours condensed? >> I don't know. >> Just the way it shows [clears throat] up. >> I'll make a motion to approve all the consent action items in one. >> I'll I'll second that. >> Thank you. >> Daniel, >> I >> Chris. >> Hi, >> Anna. I >> Shelley >> I >> read July I >> still Tyler's computer. Okay. Um our next item is business >> is it? Okay. >> Okay. Next item is board business and the first one here is committee updates reports from and announcements by trustees. So, [snorts] >> executive first, Dana, >> uh, we had a good another challenging but effective budget advisory committee meeting last week, two weeks ago. >> Um, [clears throat] yeah, it's getting real,

149but it it's a great representation in the room. Probably 25 people there right across >> teachers, principals, um, staff, parents. Um yeah, it's not fun but it's it's an effective discussion. Uh starting plan for golden bell awards in May. Uh so met yesterday or two days ago with MCOE. Those will be at [clears throat] Dominican I think on May 21st. So everybody will get more information about those that event. Awesome event. If nobody's been it's a it's a really fun celebration of the teachers across Min County. Um and you won't believe this. Get a golden bell. >> Yeah, I know. I know. It's in the name. It's in the name. Any golden bell winners here? >> Oh, we got three. Three. We got a couple. >> Last year. >> Oh, that's right. Four. >> Uh,

150I think that's it. Also, uh, the sixth grade girls White Hill basketball team's undefeated so far. M >> looking pretty good. I might have a heart attack. We've won the past two games by a combined two points. >> Can you give an update on your talk about the tech use? >> Oh, well, yeah, that's Yeah. So, um I've gotten more involved in introducing technology responsibly to kids, right? Jonathan Hate's book on the anxious generation. He just launched a new book. It's a graphic novel for fourth graders to nth graders about >> the amazing generations. It's awesome. My sixth graders are reading it. She goes, "Dad, >> did you know like depression has gone up in the past 15 years for girls?" I was like, "No, that's amazing. Why?" She goes, "Well, it's, you know," she

151goes, "Also, do you know what FOMO means?" No, tell me more. She's like, "It's the it's the fear it's the fear of missing out." I'm like, "Oh, that's awesome." Um, >> she didn't know what that meant. >> Yeah, sixth grader. She doesn't have FOMO. She >> I mean, it's an acronym. I thought they knew all >> I don't know. I don't know. She's also She lives in a cave. Um, [laughter] but uh, so I've been with some other people with kids in real life and screen sense. We've been leading talks across Ross Valley. I've spoken to St. Anselm's parents. I facilitated conversations among St. Anselm's parents. uh partnering with somebody at the charter school who's got students at St. Ansms in the charter hidden valley manor Brookside and and Wade Thomas. Um so we've got

152people uh all school ages trying to have conversations with parents of the third grade parents. Let's have a conversation about what's how are you introducing tech in your kids' life. There's no judgment. There's nobody knows what we're doing, right? but what are some of the things that you might are doing that that might be helpful for your child um or what's maybe hurtful that you've seen and so just having parents create this community because as they get into fifth grade sixth grade everybody has a phone I need a phone [clears throat] so just trying to spread that word that Mil Valley actually last year uh a group of parents in the fifth grade it started with one person as it always does say, "Hey, why are we giving cell phones to our fifth grades at

153graduation?" That's crazy. There's some research here that says that might not be the healthiest thing. Let's try to create a movement. And so this year, the current sixth grade students at Mil Valley Middle School, 19% of them have some type of smartphone. 75% of the seventh graders do and 85% of the eighth graders do. incredibly successful immediate overnight for the sixth grade class. >> Attention, conversations, involvement, enjoyment, kids playing. The parents have seen such awesome results from the sixth grade class. Now, they're going in now talking to the fifth grade parents. Now, this is what we want to do. We want to create this movement. And so, we're trying to trying to figure out how or I'm trying to figure out how we do that for our students here. And if if you need a

154phone, great. Get a phone. Flip phones might work. Watches might work. It's the unmititigated access to the internet that is the challenge for kids and adults. How many of us have installed and uninstalled Instagram in the past couple of months, right? And we're somewhat fully functioning adults. And so, how do we help just let parents know, hey, we're in this together. What are some things that we want, you know, if our kids are hanging out, what are some rules that we want to agree to? You know, if Chris picks up my kid at school, I know she's gonna wear a seatelt on the drive home >> and I'm not gonna give him cigarettes. >> And you're not gonna give him cigarettes, [laughter] right? But what are the rules for YouTube and in like, you know,

155it's it's it's it's good to have the conversation because it's we've not had the conversation and so I'm just facilitating a lot of these conversations across >> and and I appreciate you driving it back to it's data driven. It's not just like we shouldn't have our kids on phones because it doesn't make any sense and it's ridiculous and it's dangerous. It's datadriven that short-term content, YouTube, Tik Tok, it is actually causing deeper ADHD symptoms, sleeplessness for children, anxiousness, and depression. And that's data and we need to have that communicated. And I really appreciate you putting those efforts out there in our community. >> Yeah. So, we just uh John Baker just sent an email today to the sixth grade parents at White Hill. Hey, group of parents want to get together and just chat about

156this. How are we doing this responsibly? And and in moderation and what are some things that we're learning? And so, I'm going to be pretty nervous on February 10th because I don't know what the reaction, you know, who's going to like >> what if I'm the only one in the room? I'm not going to be the only one in the room, but still, you know, it's it's not everybody agrees with this because it's Mhm. >> It's It's easy and we've done it for so long and that's just how our kids have done it. That's that's okay. >> You mentioned once there was something called like wait till 8th. It what where >> Yeah. Wait till there's like phone packs. Wait till 8th grade. Yeah. Wait till 8th grade before you give give your kid a

157smartphone >> after. >> But again more research is coming out. >> You can't go from zero to a smartphone in 8th grade, >> right? So kind of >> woohoo. Look at this. So, how do we again introduce this responsibly and with some type of knowledge behind? Hey, here's some of the things you might want to do online. It can be it can [clears throat] be a rocket ship. You can learn to play tennis from Serena Williams. >> You can also doom scroll for three hours from 10 p.m. until 1:00 a.m. Yeah. Right. And so, just again having those conversations with parents is is what we're doing. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thanks for asking, Chris. >> All right. I think the >> updates and sorry. Yeah, >> updates and announcements. >> I [laughter] thanks buddy.

158Um I also went yes budget advisory committee it is feels very real if parcel tax does not pass right we talked about if it does not pass in June if it does not pass in November all of we have there's a plan we do not want to implement that plan so we are all yes we all know what to do there we need it to pass um also the special ed advisory committee that's been wonderful as we talked a whole bunch about. Uh yes uh went to the the yes board meeting they are we are at districtwide 70%. >> That's wild >> yes higher than it's been in I mean long long time which is fantastic. Um [clears throat] yeah really on all fronts like merchandise, school participation like everything is um the events they

159are still very much looking for anybody who wants to do parties with a purpose. So if you know anybody think about that. Um that's and then of course all the um the plays are happening right. Annie is was that the one? No manners was last weekend and then Wade's is coming up. Anyway, very exciting. Uh there's Yeah. So there's a lot going on. The yes board I'm just going to say. So, I'm like the liazison, but the voting members of the board, they are fantastic. I've been really enjoying uh being at those meetings. They work, they're all just so I mean so passionate, as they should be about about arts in our school. So, that's been really exciting to see and really using their individual talents on that board, which is cool. Uh yeah, and

160Lisa's really um she's great. If people want a lot of people have asked me like she doesn't seem like, oh, I can't like can I just email her? I'm like, yeah, yeah, you can just email any board member ever about anything. Um because she's got Yeah, she's got a lot of lot of great ideas. So, the goal is I've heard rumors that they're trying to get past the million-dollar uh goal. So, and they think they can do it. So, we will see. I think it's just a rumor that I'm spreading now. [laughter] Um, let's see what else. I'm sure there's other things, but I feel like there's a lot. I feel like January like we're hitting it hard on all fronts in our district. >> All right, who's next? Shel, you want to >> um

161missed the J lax. I'm hoping he great sounds hoping to hear about it from Tyler also because this [snorts] this meeting um and then um that was that was that was my main thing. I've got two coming up here, so I'll have Laura say next meeting. Yeah, there was a safe routes to school um meeting in [clears throat] January um where they presented an update on the Marin County school access safety action plan. They discussed priority corridor projects for Fairfax San and the unincorporated areas. Um they're got these two projects 15 mile per hour school zones they're putting in and vision zero for unincorporated parts. And there's some upcoming activities for education and program specifically at our schools. They're talking about the illegal legal use of the ebikes and they also done it at Archie

162as well and um that's um had some great reception and they got we got some updates from um Sano on the progress of some of the funded projects for uh road improvements and bike bike lane expansion. Um that's it for my committees. Um, let's see what I have. I Gosh, it was crazy. But after the December board meeting, I went to the Brookside and Manor sing alongs, which is kind of fun. Get to see the schools and their different like it's interesting to see how excited the kids got about different songs in each school, which is really shocking because they pretty much do the same repertoire at every school. Um, I did a trusty coffee chat on December 21st, which is like, "Hey, here I'm going to be here." And a lot of people saw

163it, so I know that a lot of people saw the post, but nobody came. So, I'll keep doing those because I'd like to have people have the opportunity to not have to come and sit at a board meeting to talk to us. So, I'll I will keep doing those probably every other month, if not more often. Um, I had a call with um a company called Instrumental. It's a grant writing software company. Um, like I said, I'm looking at like all kinds of avenues for us to increase finances or or revenues. Um, and in this case, it's like a program where you like input your information about whatever you're looking for for grants and then it goes and finds matches for you for grants and it helps you like apply to it and it has

164this thing where you can use all these templates for it. And so I I spent a good hour talking to this guy going through the whole thing. Um, it might be something that might be better suited to Yes. But it they do work with school districts. They've worked with Kentfield. In fact, one of the things that they showed me was like, hey, type in a school district you know that has a foundation. you can see what other school districts or their foundations have pulled funding from. And so, you know, that they will give money to similar organizations. And so, it was just like a different kind of way to look at it. Um, just to see like what where we might be getting opportunities for more income even if it's grant, which is not as

165sustainable as other options. It's still more money and it might like I I put plugged in stuff for like a TK K classroom supply thing and they're like, "You already have matches for this." I was like, "Oh, I mean," and I just dummy that up and it took me like 10 minutes. So, um something that I'll um looking at a little bit further and I might end up passing over to Yes. Um but you know, they they might work for us, too. So, we're looking into that. Um I went to the League of Women Voters Laban Education Committee meeting last week and Shel was there. >> I forgot about that one. So they're doing just like their planning for the year, but in that because part of their thing is like educating the public about

166voting things and issues like that. They asked about our school district and a partial possibility of a partial tax. We haven't voted on it yet, but um just gave them like the reasoning and timing and stuff like that that we might possibly have and just told them about our special board meeting next week and then how we have something probably in our February meeting. Um, uh, we met with MCE, a representative, a couple representatives from them, Shelley and I and Tyler and Chris, about inloop property taxes. Just like a discussion, a chance to basically like grill them for about financials for school districts and specifics about like in property taxes and how that actually impacts our budget and just like inflows and outflows of students and how those things kind of affect our bottom line.

167Um, so that was really helpful. I was thankful that they were open to talking to us. Um, I feel really good because Shel and I I feel like we were pretty well informed about most of that. So, it wasn't anything shocking or revoly. Um, I talked to um the superintendent at the Buckeye Unified School District. He Dr. David Roth. He sent some information to Tyler a couple months ago, I think, or maybe just last month. Um he is he reached out to Tyler and several other districts because he put together some research and created a website um which focuses on LCFF funding and he sorted it out so you can see which school districts are underfunded which by his definition of it's like you're a certain a certain amount below what the average school districts

168make in California as far as LCF revenues. And so we were identified as because we're in the four bottom 4%. He's like obviously identified us. Um and so he reached out to to Tyler. Um and then I looked at all his data and I was like I want to talk to this person a little bit more. So we spent like an hour on the phone talking. Um and he just told me a little bit about his research and how there are actually three other school districts in Marin County who are all in the same [snorts] boat and just kind of what he's trying to do. Um, something that I learned while I was talking to him is that, um, you know, there's a lot of us, but we're all kind of small school districts and

169we're not very well represented in Sacramento. And he he mentioned like LA Unified School District has on staff a full-time person, like a lobbyist that make sure that there are like things that are being passed in Sacramento that are beneficial to their district specifically. That's [snorts] their whole job. And so his his I guess reason for reaching out to the other superintendents was to see if he could get maybe a broader coalition of districts who are being you know um suffering underneath the LCF calculations to see if maybe we can band together to like make a little more change so it's more equitable across the board. Um >> like have one lobbyist represent all of us. >> That's a possibility. Yeah, he mentioned so things like that. Um, but it's basically like the more voices

170you have saying something, the more impact you're gonna have. Um, so I spent time talking to him. Um, one of the things that I've been doing after talking to him is I did reach out to the board presidents of the other three school districts in Marin County that are affected the similar similarly to us. I think we might be in the bottom of those who were affected. Um, but it was like Neato, Centerfell, >> [clears throat] >> uh, Miller Creek. I've heard back from two trustees at Miller Creek already. Um, so I think we're going to try and see what we can do just locally here to see what we can make shift happen. Shift's going to happen here. Um, and then, um, not necessarily directly related to RBSD, I went to the mock trial

171scrimmage that Archie Williams had last night at this, um, county courthouse, which is fascinating to watch. But I thought like, how incredible was it to watch this? While I was while I was there, one of the security guards, because it's the courthouse, there's security checkpoints. And one of the security guards came up to me and the teacher who was running it and he said, "You know, I have a 10-year-old and he's really interested in this, but it's not accessible for him when it's like attorneys that he sees and like adults." He's like, "But seeing the high school students would be really great for my son. Is it okay if he comes on Saturday?" And the teacher's like, "Yeah, I don't see why not. I think they'd be great." And I was thinking like, "Oh my

172gosh, what if there's kids at our middle school or our elementary schools who are interested?" So, I just wanted to like say it out loud in case there's anybody listening maybe. Um, but I just thought what a great opportunity because I thought it was great to watch. Like I learned a ton, but like it would be very inspirational I think for some kids to see that. So, >> was my last piece. >> Can I rewind one quick second from the League of Women Voters? >> Yeah. >> Which dubtales with your conversation about uh coalition and coming together? One of the things that the league is interested in and is interested in helping in is doing some just general education around educ uh public funding of schools. Like how does school funding work? Because one of

173the things that we had talked about was every district at some point has to do partial taxes and bonds. And the more we can get the general public for all of us understanding how stuff is funded, the better. And if we could do that all together, it'll be less expensive and it's a common like a common messaging type of thing. So they were thinking that that would actually be a perfect thing for the League of Women Voters to be involved in is helping with that kind of common messaging around here's how public schools are funded, dispelling myths like don't you have enough money from the lottery and all those kinds of things that we had heard of the misgivings and the misunderstandings and the all those things. So hopefully we can keep working with them

174to maybe help do some and they might even um [clears throat] come and make a presentation and help us. So we should look at what and we can help them format or we can help inform what are the frequently asked questions and things like that from what we're working on right now to help people understand about it. So that hopefully will help. [cough] [clears throat] Great. All right. So moving on. Thank you. Uh we have the approval of regular meeting minutes for December 17th, 2025. Anybody have any changes, questions? Those go [snorts] >> unless anybody has anything. >> Do we need any public [clears throat] comment on this? So if we don't have any comment, I'm happy. >> I'd make a motion to approve >> the regular meeting minutes for December 17th. >> Second. >>

175Thank you. Shelley >> I. >> Chris. >> Hi. >> Daniel. >> John. >> Hannah. Hi, >> Rachel. Hi. >> Thank you, Teresa. Um, our next item is superintendent cabinet reports. >> Great. I've been I feel the same thing Anna was saying, January coming back and just hitting the ground sprinting. Um, and we'll be sprinting until June. So, uh, hopefully everyone's [snorts] lungs are ready for it. Uh, budget advisory committee meeting I thought went really well. I mean given the severity of the conversation, the culture in the room is like about as good as you could think. Uh people are, you know, collaborative and um sharing their thoughts and um it's really really great. Um SPE advisory meeting I thought went really well as well. Um that was it was fun to be a participant there.

176I went to the yes board meeting and presented um just kind of like the budget overview and what the kind of conversation around the parcel tax will be. So that was helpful for other parent leaders to to get that. I'll be going to Wade Thomas uh actually with Anna on Friday to do a similar presentation the way we Thomas parents um at at a coffee chat there. We finalized CSEA negotiations um which I am really proud of. I feel like what we've uh done with CSEA has been, you know, really great over the last few years and the relationship we have with our union partners is really strong. Um even given our financial situation, I feel like the union leadership understands where we're at and is willing to link arms with the board and and

177us to um make sure that we have the the right revenue to run our district in the way our community wants it to be run. Um, last week I visited way Thomas twice. It was really nice. I got to go in the classrooms with Julia which was really fun. And I went to like a science fair thing on Friday which was really great. Um, just fun to be around the kids and um I'm known as the Super Nintendo over by a few W [laughter] feel like a a mild celebrity when I walked on to the Wade Thomas campus which >> I heard you got electrocuted. >> [laughter] >> rumors. >> Rumor that's rumor. Um and then I did attend JAC. Uh they talked a little bit about funding. There are some bills that are floating

178around um AB 1204 which I think a few of us have sent letters to our state reps about AB 1204 which would be helping with a regional cost of living living inflator which would help uh Santa Clara uh San [clears throat] Mato and Marin counties [snorts] in particular who are kind of impacted by this >> uh effect of these deep deep basic aid school districts right next to districts like us that are kind of at the bottom of the uh state funding barrel. Um the one disappointing thing that came up in JAC is there was a bill there is a bill that talks about funding schools by enrollment rather than attendance and the legislative analyst office came out with kind of a little bit of a what I considered a scarring remark about it and

179the total cost of the state of California would be an additional $6 billion. Um, so they basically said that they we shouldn't do that. Um, one thing I'll say about that is that the intent of attendance-based funding is to encourage districts and principles and district offices and boards to make sure kids are coming to school so they can learn. Like the the intent is right. Um, but then when you look at the data between states that have attendancebased funding and states that have enrollment based funding, the attendance rates really aren't any different. >> They're 95 to 97% and that's kind of what it is. Kids don't come to school when they're sick for the most part and that's about what it is. So, um, that was disappointing to hear, but we will continue to do

180state advocacy. I think it's a really important thing that we're um doing more and more of here. um to that and I'm was going back and forth David Grath uh the superintendent of Buckeye Union that Rachel was just talking about today um and I have two superintendents and myself are going to meet with him coming up to talk about how we can continue to advocate at the state level um because the LCF really does it is the root cause of the issue that we have and um if we can't solve it through that which is a three four five 10y year project that may or may not come to fruition we've got to find local funding here through a partial tax. So that's we want to make sure we're knocking on every door when we're

181looking at our budget. So those are kind of the things that have been working on over the last few weeks. >> What a perfect storm if we could get both of those aligned. >> It'd be amazing. >> Yeah. >> Did they say anything about the budget? Like just overall good, bad. [clears throat] >> I think that I mean Chris, you can add in on this. The state budget to me from the from the governor is kind of a status quo budget is what it feels like to me. Um the cost of living adjustment went down a smidge and there are some one-time funds that are in in the works. Um who knows if those onetime funds will come. Um even if they do, they're onetime funds. So essentially what the way we will use the

182one-time funds is to reduce cuts. It's not going to be to expand programs. It's not going to be to pay teachers. It's mostly going to be to make sure we don't cut a program um because they're one time and not ongoing. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> All right. Um lots going on in January for sure. Um today we started our second round of coaching for EL education, our new ELA program. And in the fall, the coaching days were sightbased and we've shifted and now they are districtwide grade level days. So today, all the fourth grade teachers in the district got together. I actually think it was a really good move to make this shift. um just great collaboration. And it was really neat to hear them talking about, you know, what was working

183and like little stories about um you know, some successes that they had with kids um and things that they're seeing and then also things ways in which they're filling in where things aren't quite working. Um which is the case with any curriculum for any subject. you know, the curriculum is really a tool and you're always going to need to kind of hone that tool to make it work for the kids that are in front of you. Um, and then last week we had a coaching day for our full math department at White Hill for their program, Amplify Desmos. That was another great day. It's a really great coach that comes out and works with them. He did a model lesson um that was really neat to see. And um and then there was a lot

184of collaboration and a lot of and I find this um to be the case for most curriculum where teachers have these big lessons and there's so many layers and so many parts to the lessons and you really have to kind of look at the whole thing, get the gist, and make some decisions. Um because if you do every piece of it, you're not going to get through it. Um and so just some support with how to do that. um and he was really great at that. And then last week I was in a meeting with the administration from Archie and our white hill principles and we're setting up kind of a series of articulation meetings. Not sure there'll be multiple days or all in one day but pretty much every department we'll have some department

185leads couple of teachers from Archie come on over to White Hill to meet and everybody's really excited about it. And then inside that phone call, the idea of doing some observations came up. So, we're going to have Archie teachers coming and seeing white hill teachers and the reverse. And it's just really great. Math has been doing a good job of of participating in articulation each year, but our other subjects really haven't had that opportunity. And so, just everyone's really excited about it and putting that into place. Um, we had our teacher leadership meeting delight last week. Um, I love that group. They they are um amazing and just so important for us in terms of their feedback. We're working on calendar again, my very favorite shop, part of um >> why'd you look at me?

186[laughter] >> And we're also um looking at we're creating a document that talks about technology agreements. Good right at you, Daniel. For our for district teachers. And so really looking at where is technology showing up within the curriculum, what kinds of technology, what is more like teacher use technology like um lesson slide presentations, how are students using technology, how frequently, what type, all of that. And so um it's gone through a number of iterations and then we're going to bring it to our principles and then we'll roll it out to all staff. So that's exciting. Um we're in the middle of we're just actually finishing up our reading screener. Dibbles um should be finishing up in the next week or so. And it's been really great to see the data. Um seeing some growth in

187some areas, some grade levels where there's a little bit of a dip, which is actually pretty common when you're um implementing a new program. But what's really fantastic is getting this data and being able to say, you know, here's a group of kids at this site in this grade level that need more support. And I've already meetings have been taking place between intervention teachers and our instructional coach and the classroom teachers on putting plans in place immediately, which is just fantastic. It's like great data to use. Um, and I Ready is happening right now, both reading and ELA for K5. White Hill is going to I ready test I think I think it's the week before or the week after the February break because they're not going to [snorts] test at the end of the

188year. They found that running I Ready and CAP testing almost concurrently too much for middle school kids. Um and then hiring season is just peeking around the corner at us. We are hiring season is kind of all year long now. >> [laughter] >> But the real hiring season is coming and so we're just kind of preparing for that. [laughter] >> Sounds exhausting. >> Um yeah, so um we as I mentioned I mentioned a lot during the presentation, but yeah, we had our special education advisory committee meeting the third of four um last week and that went great. Um we seems like a really long time ago by January 5th we had a staff development day and um I provided um a behavior training to our TK teachers, our um and all [snorts] of our specialists

189teachers, our art music PE um and some of our special education staff and that um people appreciated it and um we're going to do some um sharing of best practices and some um observations of um you know best practices in action in classrooms. Um we also that day I met with our special education team and we had a great um get together. We hadn't all been together since [clears throat] the beginning of the school year. So we had a lot to talk about and um and it was nice to be together and make some um decisions and do some planning. Uh we also although our classified staff did not have a staff development day on January 5th, we did have seven of our classified staff members who we paid um for the day to go

190to um Marin County Office of Education to a safety care training which was um a full day of um behavior strategies and how to deescalate situations and how to be safe around kids who might not be so safe. And so um yeah, so that so that was wonderful. Got some really good feedback on that. they were happy to be um included and and get to do that. So that was amazing. And that group actually works with some of our most at risk students. And so we really identified um that group um the you know that so important for them to know the skills. Uh our principles, counselors, and school psychologists um attended a threat determination training through the Marine County Office of Education. They Marin County came here to do that presentation and answer several

191specific questions from our groups so that we could fine-tune our threat determination process. And I think finally, I I actually um I'm serving on the um ad hoc committee for the the SULPA, which is a special education local education area and for Marin County, and we're doing a lot of work on um policy and facilities and lots of different aspects of Marin County special education. And so it's exciting to be part of that and advocating for, you know, what we need to. Um and so, um so that's neat. And then I actually also I did want to mention um White Hill Middle School. I had a meeting with their team um to talk about um totally revamping some of our [snorts] special education practices there, especially our special day class program um to make it

192look a lot more inclusive and um allow kids more access to um to general education. So, a lot of good work there. You'll hear more about that coming soon. And I did a lot of talking, so I'm going to make it very brief. Um, I met Dez Mckesak, our director of maintenance and operations over at Manor School this morning. He was removing the signs at the on the Manor field and so we were opening that back up. Um, it still needs additional work. Uh, but the grass itself is been able to take hold and we look forward to getting people out there again. Um, we continue the implementation of the new financial system through the county office of education. What that means is uh for us in in terms of impact is we still have

193to go through all of the training still through the rest of this year, but also the double entry that is going on with the new system in human resources, payroll, and accounts payable. And that continues to expand as we go, which is why I keep talking about it. So, we're doing more and more and more work as we move through the year. And then finally, not to um say too much more about what um uh Tyler mentioned about the governor's budget. Everything he said was was spot on. The one thing I would add is that school services of California said that this wasn't the the most at risk budget in terms of the the revenues that they've seen. that would have been last year, but it's the second most. And so to kind of highlight

194why they're saying that, they said that the legislative analyst office came out a week prior to the budget being presented by the governor and they their report said that there was something like a seven or eight billion dollar hole in the budget that the governor needed to to address. Well, revenues suddenly appeared within the budget is kind of how they they were saying it. So that's just something that's out there might be a risk to the budget. And so which is also part of the reason that Tyler mentioned what he did about the one-time dollars. So and as we look at the the coming board meetings, we'll see if they're we always have to look at the the scheduling. uh if I can't get it into the uh February board meeting where I pro provide

195additional information, I'll incorporate that into the second inter in March. >> Okay, so we are down to meeting review uh future board topics and board direction. I wasn't joking when I was talking about dedicating the bridge and having somebody like offer to pay for that. I was dead serious about that. >> So I don't know that that's obviously a future topic when we have a bridge. >> [laughter] >> only thing I was thinking about. I really like that time that we when you were doing a curriculum review for the math curriculum and then we all kind of did a little demo thing out [clears throat] here. I thought that schooled by middle schoolers. >> Yeah. Yeah, exactly. [laughter] I thought that was actually really interesting and effective and informative and so I was just going

196to encourage if there's other stuff like having us do an I ready evaluation [laughter] and if there's a way of I don't know you know if there's a way of broad [laughter] >> our scores >> not broadcasting our scores but so that you can video something so if somebody wants so if a parent is wondering what does that look like for my kid >> we could be the guinea pigs for that you know and somebody could watch the thing and see what it looks like on the screen. Not our score. >> I like that idea. But I volunteer [laughter] >> we could do it collectively. But yeah, I thought that was either with I Ready or you know one of the other ones. I think >> it's always great to see it and that comes

197up with assessment a lot, right? >> Yeah. What does it look like? What does it look like hands and that kind of hands-on stuff for us up here >> um I think was great. future board topic. >> Cool. Um, like I know we talked about this a couple meetings ago, but where we're at with uh um uh that's like the next thing. Um AI policy. >> Oh >> yeah. partial tax is taking precedent right now obviously over the next few meetings. I have a cell phone policy all teed up with recommendations for families that are kind of in line with um Daniel and then once that's up I want to start working on the AI policy. The AI policy needs to get done by the end of the year. So, both those policies, the new

198cell phone policy and the AI policy, which can kind of pair with the tech use for teachers, like all three of those things can >> they'll get done by the end of the year. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Teacher board topics. >> Um, I think we should probably I'm not sure where we are about the uh training that we have to do. We're mandated for the teachers to do that. um student teacher u I'm sorry my brain is we had talked about it where um the county is going to start mandating that we have training for teachers about responsible relationships either online contact >> yes the one that we got in the >> we do do that we don't do that that I remember that conversation >> to make sure we're compliant >> yeah make

199sure we're compliant with that Um, still don't want that to slip and have us. >> Yeah, I'll look into it. >> Yeah, it might be. I don't know if it's been updated though comply with the new >> I did review that earlier this year. The um the board policy that we have on the books. Why don't I follow up with you? >> Okay. later this week and we can chat more about >> great >> probably more awake too when you're finally [laughter] >> that actually what Chris just said brings up something I saw on an email today there's like a legal update there's like a new training CSBA is offering that's like going to be a new [clears throat] requirement for trustees to take a class on like K through2 public education school finance laws

200>> I don't know the timing on when that thing looks like we have to do it by April 28 2028 so it's like it's for in the future but like we need to get that on our radar >> yeah for Sure. >> Okay. >> I mean, at this point, I feel like we're all pretty well >> that before we do I [laughter] already >> like that's on our side. >> And then I don't know that we've ever like not in the last like six years at least ever done the masters in governance training, >> but I don't know if we would be interested in having >> years ago >> there's like a full six course series. It's like >> it was I remember a couple years ago we didn't do it. a couple years ago

201came up as an option. I don't think anyone was raising their hand to do it, but to me it's >> I've had uh met with three other superintendents last week and I found that one of them actually does a governance training after almost every other board meeting. They do one board meeting a month and they start at 4:00. They're done by like six and then they do the governance training and they're out by like 8. and it's just something they do all the time. But, [snorts] um, I mean, I feel like the governance that this team has is is pretty darn strong. So, I don't feel like we need super robust training. But, if any of you are interested or you want to tack something on to the front or back end of a board

202meeting, I'm happy to, you know, bring someone. >> CFBA also offers that for like if you wanted to sign up for their masters in board governance program, I guess we would just talk to you, Tyler, about How does that get? >> It's like going to a conference kind of thing. You sign up, you have a cohort. >> Yeah. >> And you learn about that. So there's somebody saying, "Chris, I remember the mandated reporter training." >> Mandated reporter. >> That's online with Kenan. >> But it's No, we're not. Board members are not trustees are not required, but they will be >> and so we have not done it. >> Is that what you were talking about, Chris? >> No, we're talking. >> We require training for staff. >> Okay. teachers. >> Yeah. >> On >> the

203types of forbidden contact and relationships with students. >> Yep. >> Could you send the link back out to with the website with the data again just after this meeting? I know you sent it once. >> The website from Dr. Roth. >> Yeah, great. Who else has been the CSBA from training came on to our guys too, right? >> The CSBA I think >> it came to everybody. Check it out. >> It's on there. It's not on like the the news ones, but it's like on their [snorts] >> weekly update is what it is. >> Okay. Sorry, we just gave you a lot of stuff you got. >> Okay. [laughter] Um, meeting debrief. Any comments on the meeting tonight? >> No. >> It's nice to see like the lovely retirement sound. Yeah. >> Felt like it

204been a long time. Nice. >> And I just feel like it's the longest. Okay. With that, I'm going to um adjourn our meeting at 9:16.