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. All right. Good evening and welcome to the Ross Valley School District Board of Trustees regular meeting. Today is October 8th, 2025 and I am calling our meeting to order at 601. We have five trustees present in person at the Ross Valley School District office at 100 Shaw Drive in Sano. Uh myself, Rachel Litwick, Anna Marsh, Chris, Sassy, and Shelley Hamilton. We also have one cabinet member present here, Superintendent Tyler Graph. Our meeting is being livereamed via YouTube and the link is on our website and on the agenda. There will be a 60-cond delay between the meeting and the YouTube live stream. An audio recording of the meeting will be made
002available to the public on our district website within 72 hours following the meeting. Uh public comments regarding item on close session agenda items uh will be heard prior to the board recessing into close session. Once the public comment period is ended for the close session agenda item, no more comments will be taken and we will proceed with the agenda. Um, since we have no public here, that's not relevant at the moment. So, I will um begin with item B, closed session. I'm going to identify our close session topics. We have one item, public employee performance evaluation title superintendent pursuant to government code section 54957. And with that, there's no public here for a comment. and I will recess us to close session at 6:02. All right, and welcome back. It is 6:47 and we are
003reconvening from closed session into open session. I'm going to report out from close session. We actually have nothing to report. There were no decisions made in closed session. Um joining us in open session are our um get the title right here. I've got our assistant superintendent of education services and I've got our director of student services here, Lori Lori Okconor and Julie Ok. All right. And with that, moving on. Our next item is procedural items. We have the pledge of allegiance and democratic recession. If you'd like to stand up and join me to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. And our next item is adopting the agenda and time allocations. Did
004anybody have any changes, questions, alterations? We have no public here for public comment. Anything not entertain a motion. >> Make a motion to adopt the agenda and applications. >> Great. Got a second. >> Second. >> Great. And >> hi. >> Anna. >> I. >> Daniel. >> I. >> Shelley. >> I. >> Rachel. I have an agenda. Our next item is communication. Public comment regarding items not on the open session agenda. We have no public here to comment. So I'll move on to the next item correspondence and communication to the board. Um we don't have anything listed there. So moving on I will have uh we have announcements by labor unions CSEA RBTA. We have no representatives here from them today. So moving on to e presentation andor action items. The first one we have is
005public hearing and recommended adoption of resolution in the matter of sufficiency of instructional materials. And this is Julia Wat. >> Yeah. So, this is something that we bring every year. Um, it needs to happen when within the first eight weeks of school. And this I think at this point you open the public hearing. Yes. All right. So, um, sufficiency of instructional materials 202526. Education code section 60119 establishes steps and procedures to ensure the availability of textbooks and instructional materials. Accordingly, the governing board of the school district shall hold a public hearing or hearings at which the governing board shall encourage participation by parents, teachers, members of the community and bargaining unit leaders interested in the affairs of the school district and shall make a determination through a resolution as to whether each pupil in each
006school in the school district has or will have prior to the end of the fiscal year sufficient textbooks or instructional materials or both that are aligned to the state common core standards and are consistent with curriculum frameworks adopted by the California State Board of Education in mathematics, science, historical history, science, so history, social science, English language arts, and as applicable in health and foreign language. I now call our public hearing open. It's 6:50. There are no audience members here to comment. So, I will now call the public hearing closed unless anybody else up here wanted to say anything. Public members. Okay. Um so I will call our public hearing closed at 650. Um our next item is approval of resolution for sufficiency of instructional materials for 202526. >> And just add we've had no complaints
007about sufficiency of um instructional materials and in fact um we've been moving forward with various adoptions. You've heard a lot about our elementary English language arts program e education. Um, we have a new middle school math program, amplify desmos math. Um, I spent the day with TK on Friday looking at curriculum that, uh, they're already using a program called Heerty formic awareness. Um, but we're looking into how they want to frame their math curriculum. And we have another program that we're looking at called Get Set for School, which comes from Learning Without Tears, which um, has some really good literacy work in there. and um oh and science at the middle school level is taking a look at open sed which is a fantastic open-source program um and all of our grade levels there are
008piloting units and so as is always the case um we make sure that we are um using you know current materials that are well researched and are in alignment with state standards and state frameworks um and our all of our LCAP missions and goals. And I think with that, um, staff recommends approval of the resolution. >> Do we have any questions? >> Yeah. No questions. >> There's no public comment. Any discussion on this one? Okay. >> I'll entertain a motion on this item. I'll make a motion to approve the adoption of resolution 022526 in the matter of sufficiency of instructional materials. >> Great. I have a second. >> Second. >> You be Anna? >> Hi. >> Daniel, >> I >> Shelley, >> I >> Rachel, I All right. Thank you, Julia. >> Our next item
009is enrollment update. >> Great. That's me. Uh, can you put up the enrollment one first? There you go. Can you zoom in to the top? Great. Um, so you can see here, scroll down just a tad. There you go. Um, we're up from 1683 last year to 7 1719. Um, and if you look down at the colors at the bottom, you'll see a lot of that is actually coming in TK. So the orange TK last year is at 87 and this year it's at 143. You can kind of compare that way. Or you can follow the orange from the TK last year up to the kindergarten this year. And you can see we took in a lot more kindergarteners um from TK. So, I expect that 143 TK number to go up slightly. Um because
010I think some families still have their kids in preschool and they'll enroll in kindergarten. That number won't go up huge, but um I do expect that it'll go up a little bit. If you look down the far right hand column, you'll see Brookid's down about six students. So, pretty, you know, pretty flat. Uh Hidden Valley is almost exactly flat. They're down one student. Um, Manor jumped up quite a bit, almost 20 students and, uh, Wade Thomas actually jumped up quite a bit and Wade is already our biggest elementary school. So, um, you can kind of see the numbers that way. And then our middle school stayed just about exactly the same. Um and you you can see that uh we had only we had three students leave us from sixth grade as they metriculated to
011>> seventh grade. So pretty good enrollment there. And then we had actually kids join us from seventh grade to eighth grade which is kind of an interesting one. But overall the numbers up. It's good news and I'm hoping that that trend continues that we see, you know, another 15 or 20 students come uh every year. >> Do we have an idea where the kids that are coming into our school district are coming from? >> From the middle school, it's most like in that transition from fifth to middle school, it's mostly RVC, okay, students. Um kids, it's really random. But I actually get an email when there's a new enrollment and I open up that email every time because I'm super curious to see where they're coming from. >> Most of the time it's like from
012outside the the area >> um and families just moving in. And it's kind of the same trend when they're leaving. It's like we're moving to Alabama for a new job or up to Seattle or um to Turlock or somewhere else. So it's not like they're all leaving to a specific place. Do do you know that 10 students from kindergarten to first grade there's 10 it goes from 163 down to 153 that seems like an interesting or odd >> yeah I have some assumptions about why that is and I'm happy to talk with you >> about that offline. >> Okay. >> Um >> sure. Great. Let's take a look at the attendance. So, this is for the first month of the school year and uh start over there at Brookside. Brookside's down a little bit, you
013know, a little bit less than a percent. It looks big on that graph, but it's down from, you know, 97.8 to 97. Um, and Brookside absolutely crushed the goals early last year. They did such a remarkable job. They were very high um on attendance last year and just down slightly from this year. Hidden Valley is actually the opposite. They they're increasing their um attendance this year. Uh you can see Manor's up a little bit. Wade is up uh a little bit. White Hill is down just a little bit, but overall uh we had a very strong start to the school year last year with attendance and we're uh building on that trend. So, thank you to all the families who were sending their kids to school every day. It helps with social emotional learning, academic
014achievement, and obviously helps helps us fund our schools as well. So, this is kind of a three for one. Um, if your kid is running a fever for over 24 hours or throwing up, keep them home. Otherwise, uh, send them send them to school like my mom did back in 1980. >> Any questions about enrollment or attendance? >> It's good stuff. No questions. All right. There's no public here for comment. >> I'll bring it back for discussion. >> Do we remember what our low was right after CO or 98 I think >> for attendance? >> Yeah. >> Uh it was right around 93 or 9 I think it was 93 >> cuz it in over the last few years we went from 93 to 94 to 95 last year. >> Okay. And I'm hoping if
015we could do another half percent, if we could get up to 95.5 or even 90 96% I would be really proud of of that. And I think that's kind of A+ work if we're getting 96% 95.5% uh attendance every day. Okay, >> that's that's really good. >> And I think there's just more awareness of spreading sickness now than there was in 2019. >> Right. So that prepandemic level of 96 and a half or 97% is probably unrealistic, but to get to 95.5 or 96% would be I'd be very happy with that. >> Got it. >> That was interesting. When you said that Tom, I said 316 students this year is like our biggest school. When I think when I think of schools, I'm thinking of an elementary school. 316 seems really small to me. >>
016But it's just it's nice. The nice thing that we offer our community is these actually very small kind of private sort of size schools. >> I grew up in California or Southern California and like this size school was like this would all be one school from where I grew up. So it's it's interesting for me to see. >> I think it is it's an under undersold component of what we offer um is a really tightlyk knit community. Your kid is known by all the teachers. your kid is known by the principal, your kid is known by your friends and your neighbors. Um, and having schools of this size really offers that community feel. And you, you're right, you get that in a private school that you pay $20,000 for. Um, and here you get it
017in your local neighborhood school. So, we're really lucky. >> Any comments on this agenda item? >> Thank you for the update. Yep. I'll do this quarterly for us, so not quite as frequently as we did last year. >> It's nice to see. >> Thank you. >> Our next item is consent actions. Um, does anybody have anything in here they would like to pull out for discussion or talk about? If not, >> I would like to pull item four out, which is the agreement with San Francisco State. >> Okay. >> Just had a quick question. Um, is it always San Francisco State? Is this a renewal of a five-year agreement or I'm just trying to understand the relation? >> We have agreements with a number of universities with whom we hire someone in their, you know,
018as an inter on an intern credential and San Francisco State is one >> and they're rolling, I suppose. Okay. Just making sure like this is just it's time to be renewed. >> Exactly. >> Okay. All right. Is there anything that they would do or would keep us from doing a 5-year renewal? Have we have we pulled back from anything? >> The one thing that we considered for the first time they're um asking us to provide a thou to to get them $1,000 for them to handle their mentorship aspects that they're responsible for. And we've never done that before, but we talked about it at cabinet and feel like, you know, we want the right teachers in the in the classroom. even if it's a teacher on an intern credential, but we feel like they're really
019strong and $1,000 is something that we >> Okay. >> um feel like makes sense and I think just everyone is managing costs right now. >> Okay. All right. That was that was my only question for that. Thank you. >> Sure. >> So, you okay putting that back on consent? >> You're okay moving that back into consent? >> I am. Thank you. >> All right. Um do we have There's no public about public comment. Do we have any other items on consent we wanted to pull out and discuss? >> Okay. If not, I'll entertain a motion on consent action. >> Make a motion to approve uh consent items. >> Second. >> Thank you both. And Sh >> I, >> Chris, >> I. >> Daniel, >> I >> and Anna. >> Hi, >> Rachel. I All right.
020So, we have approved consent actions. Thank you very much. Our next item is board business. We have committee updates, reports from and announcements by trustees. All right. Have you all been up to? >> I'll start. Um, let's see. Rock and roll to school day today. So fun. Um, fire truck escorts all of the fun things. >> Oh, that's nice. >> Yes. Um, I there were reporters there, so probably tomorrow will be something in the >> in the Marina J. Um, families love it. like just crowded the streets from S from the town hall to to Wade. >> That's crazy. >> It was really cool. Um I really appreciate last week that we uh this so I wasn't part of the board last year and I I know the scheduling. I actually don't know how that
021works quite yet. But I really appreciate and I just want to point this out. I've had families uh that we get namapor off that we recognize that and I appreciate it on a personal level. I'm Jewish and then also a lot of other Jewish families I know. So, um I know a couple years ago we didn't and so it's I think it's wonderful that we do and we should continue that. Um, so yeah, a lot of a lot of families I know. Um, it was great wasn't just an opportunity to go out of town, which is great for a lot of other families, but um, yeah, and there was I don't know. I'm curious to see if anyone knows about other schools at Wade. There was an assembly uh that I helped out with last
022week that talked about Roshashana and Yamapour. >> Um, and that was nice. uh committees this morning. I had an E2 meeting. It was my first and I felt like the new kid for sure. I didn't know really half of what they were talking about. Um but I'll give some updates anyway. Um so one thing that everyone was talking about is their new uh food service. So a lot of D's organics is I don't know if that was one that we had considered. No. So they but it was the same sort of like you know you know like things rocky start like that we had had you know with like so many more kids signing up and so it was long lines and I mean there were was three of the different schools Miligree and a
023couple others had gone with this other company and they said it's kind of been it's overall like it sounds very similar like compostable packaging and uh but it sounds like that everyone and they've all been having the same kind of getting off the ground issues that we have. So, that's nice to hear. Uh, and let's see. Oh, the other big thing that they were talking about was middle school athletics program, which is not on my radar. That's yet. um but that if it's it's like it's progressing and I'm sure Tyler you know a lot about this but um it was interesting to hear about um that there you know there's a lot going and it if it continues to progress it would start fall next year is what they said. So um anyway I have
024a lot to learn about that. I didn't really know about that. But um >> did this food service provider did they mention completing or sharing a report? They were going to they had contracted somebody to do a >> like a study of all the different food service stuff in across the county. Did they mention that at all? >> No. They um No, it sounds like there was a mass exodus from lunch master I didn't know about. Um which you know all four from a parent perspective. Um and >> yeah but you know there wasn't any mention of that. Uh yeah and that's it. They were very timely. >> Well they have another meeting right after so they >> uh yeah that's all my business. >> Uh cool. I've got the golden bell is already starting
025up next week. the teacher um and superintendent appreciation. So that starts next week. Um but MCOE does all of that and there's not much from my role on that. >> Uh and then the parent equity task force. I attended that couple weeks ago with Chris. That was exceptional. First time there. Uh longtime listener. Um it was great. And yeah, and I'm looking like we don't meet again until December and that's really far away. So, it's kind of like Aaron had but that was a great uh experience. Um, and then I'm going to Walker Creek uh Tuesday. I've been challenged for tether ball by one of the fifth grade teachers. I forgot that she beat me last year, so I need to start stretching um for that for Tuesday night. Um, >> and uh, >> yeah,
026that's it. Are you going to come out at all, Tyler? >> My calendar won't allow it there. The two places that I could go out, they were kind of wrapping things up or so. >> Okay, >> cool. >> But I did get the invite from Miss Walden. >> Brookside does it early. If you saw in the consent items, Brookside goes at the beginning of the year because they feel like it bonds >> fifth grade classes, which is true. I >> the other schools go at the end of the year for the other schools to bond as a unity as they enter White Hill, which is also true. >> So, >> um, no right or wrong, just different philosophies. And >> I wondered why it wasn't like two and two. >> Yeah. Um, see I had
027superintendent council roundt the multilingual learner event dac yesterday and the uh el not elap and the jac this morning. But the first and biggest most exciting thing was going to the multilingual learners gathering which was also DAC and I was like we're going to have to change the DAC to the MLAC or something like that. But it was great. It was awesome. It was at the one I was at the celebration one last year. Um this one was well really well attended. I think it was like 50 or 60 different people and also extremely engaging. Staff is great. Super shout out to the organization of it. Um >> yes. >> Yeah, exactly. Really well organized, fun, engaging. We played a game. We got at four tables. We played like a Jeopardy game and the focus
028of it was all around um parents as core, not teachers but core people in children's lives learning language. And it was I just really loved it really um embodied the multilingual learner word because the emphasis was on language acquisition and there was support for learning learner language you speak at home learning English. It wasn't just learn English. It was a language learning support. Then what can parents do in the home to help their kids just learn languages and make sure that you continue to speak your home language and learn English and they're both connected and it was great. It just felt very supportive and belonging and helpful and people were engaged and laughing and clapping and all that kind of stuff. So it was great. Looking forward I'm glad there's going to be three of
029them, not just one a year. >> So that was that was really exciting. Um and then let's see, superintendent, council, a lot of um financial stuff still same kind of stuff that you've we've seen um and Tyler you can probably talk more about that roundt um which I've been on since my kids were little when I was you know on it in the very beginning but it's interesting to see one person made a comment about it was called a round table because the conversation goes around and around and around and around which you normally think of as like a negative thing but I actually think that it's more of just it's just always this and it's not and I don't think it's ever going to end which is okay because it's this creative it's this
030continual creative tension between the individual and the whole like individual sites wanting their own freedom to do what's unique to them and yet how do you balance that with being part of the whole district and how do you be equitable within a site and also across sites and how do you not be to conformity to you know everything but everybody has to do exactly the same and yet you don't want one school being able to raise you know and spend five bazillion dollars and another school not have enough to do field trips and that's just I mean that conversation I don't think is ever going to go away so I think it's a good. It's I think it's really valuable that we have a place and a space to have that conversation and to continue
031to have it and that we find that appreciation for that conversation and create new tools for having it. So, um and then JAC legislative there's been a whole bunch of um bills and stuff that have passed out of committees that are on the governor's desk signed. Some things have been signed, some things haven't. The most interesting thing I found in the meeting was there's was a recent and first ever report on basic aid districts and financial um comparison between basic aid districts and and state funded districts. And I'll get everybody the link. Ed Source had a follow-up article on it, but it was basically saying that districts who get to keep their excess tax money, basic aid, um, have seen a 40 plus% growth in their income where everyone else is like 17%. I mean,
032it's a pretty dramatic difference. Um I thought the other distinguishing factor they did a really good job you know our our um bucket description of basic aid where it pours over >> they had it as a three tiered I thought that description was really good they had it basically as a they took a three- tiered approach to their research and they said while there might be you know where it fills up and then you get excess they had an intermediate group of basic aid districts with just a little bit of excess ding ding ding ding like us Right. >> And compared it to excessive extra tax districts that had a whole lot. And they actually had them in three different categories. And then they focused the most of their research on the 50 districts. 50
033districts, 50 basic aid districts in the state that had this massive extra amount accounted for 87% of the extra taxes of all basic aid districts >> out of almost a thousand districts. Well, there's a thousand districts in the state, but there was like 30 or something that are basic aid. >> And of the 130, 50 of those 130 account for 87% of the total access. It's >> amazing. >> Uh, four of them are in Marin, four of them are in Santa Barbara, and the rest are in Silicon Valley. There's like nine in or whatever. So I I thought that framework was a really interesting framework and resonated a lot with our conversations that we've been having about how this uniform concept of basic aid is actually bifurcated into these two different groups. >> Um they
034also looked at high access low need versus high access high need in terms of unduplicated students. So it's yeah it was a it was a very interesting and I was surprised it was the very first time anybody had ever done any research into it. We'll get links to everybody. >> That's it. >> Have we had a board meeting since our parade? >> We have not. >> Yeah, >> we marched in the >> parade was a wonderful turnout. Kudos to Rachel for writing what I felt was one of the most incredible descriptions >> and successes of our schools. It was this proud moment. Stood there listening to that. It was really well written. I agree. >> Um, joyful, uh, great turnout. Afterwards, they had the bear bash. >> Yeah. >> Uh, at Brookside, which was a
035lot of fun. Big turnout. Um, kudos to the parents who run that. Um, you know, just a joyful experience. We have we now have an official mascot student who wants to step up and be secretive. Can't say the name, but they will be the mascot going forward thanks to marching in the parade. >> Um yeah, and and just a plug, uh Brookside is having their annual book fair. So, we are asking all parents from all of the schools to donate books from their kids' libraries that they're no longer using and help us uh continue the legacy of uh raising great money for the school and also redistributing and recycling those books to new eyes for new reading. >> And that's my report. >> I'm impressed you found a dedicated mascot. That's Um, so let's see.
036I attended the Boots and Barbecue event in Valley, which is like an annual thing they do in the fall to kind of welcome all the families. It's a giant barbecue. Like they literally had these huge barbecues there and they like tables and tables of food. There were like five tables that just had watermelon cut up on them >> and they were almost like decimated by the time like the evening was over. There was an entire plate of like desserts. So there was there's a lot going on. But they had a live like country band. They had activities for the kids. They had a fire truck and ambulance there. They were there for the kids to climb on and take pictures with, not for emergency purposes. Um, it was it was great. It was packed. It's
037it was probably the biggest one I've seen since I've been at Hidden Valley in the last like 10 years. So, that was fantastic. Um, it was a lovely event. Um, we did the Sano community parade with all the five mascots, which was super fun. >> Um, >> thank you, Daniel. I attended our second parcel tax town hall meeting. I didn't go to the first one, but I did get to the second one. So, that was really interesting to sort of hear all the updated information, the financials and things like that. Um, but I think Tyler did a really great job of kind of going through everything and kind of focusing our discussions and getting feedback. Um, thought that was really well done. >> Big attendance, too. >> Big attendance. >> How many people? >> So,
038we probably had close to 50 on the second one and somewhere between 35 and 40. >> And new people. >> Yeah, >> new people. new people. >> Great. >> Yep. Some some repeat customers, which was nice to have as well, but definitely, you know, probably had 65 or 70 unique users of those two events. >> Um, one of which was actually the town high school district uh superintendent who came to stop in. Um, which is interesting. He was sat next to me because I had met him at a meet and greet when he first came on board. So, that was nice. Um and then I attended soups council which is my first one as a trustee over like the what five years we've been sitting here. First time I've actually been on that council. Yeah.
039I was warned away my first like meeting someone's like you ever joined that >> superintendent or round table? >> I went I just went to soups. >> Oh soups. >> Yeah I just went to soups and I'm not on the round table. I couldn't do it with work so I only did the one. Um, again, it was like great financial information to share with the group and just kind of just to see where that's going was really interesting for me. Um, I attended the TAM Unified High School District board meeting. Um, they invited us because they were holding it at Archie. They're going around to the different schools to hold their board meetings to kind of get more community involvement. Um, I wasn't planning to go, but my kid was like, "You should go." And
040I was like, "Okay, fine. I guess I have two kids in the district. I should go." So, I went. Um, and I was actually really glad I went because one of the topics that they mentioned was their partial tax ad hoc committee and their decision about when they were going out and their committee was um recommending they go out in November of 2026. So, that was something that they were recommending, but they haven't like officially like officially decided anything, but that's what their committee was recommending. Um, and then um this Friday coming up is um Yes major fundraiser, the YesFest. It's a big deal. It's in Centerfell. They've got like lots of music going on. Um you can still buy tickets on there. >> There's only like 20 tickets left. >> Yeah. So there's still
041tickets >> just about at capacity. >> Yeah. It should be a lot of fun. Um and then last week, Yes. um had a fundraiser, a dining donate at the way station, and they had some students performing. So there were some like really cute clips of that. If you look, I think on the Yes, um social media pages and on their website, they might have some of those those recordings. But those are those are kind of cool. >> So And with that, um, I will move us on to approval of regular meeting minutes for September 3rd, 2025. Do any questions about this edits, changes? Do we have any public comments on our No. Okay. Um, I'll entertain a motion on approval of the regular meeting minutes. Um, >> it's okay. I'll make a motion to approve
042the minutes on September 3rd, 2025. >> Great. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All right. Dan, >> I, >> Chris, >> I, >> Daniel. >> I, >> Shelley. >> Hi, >> Rachel. I All right. So, this meeting minutes are approved. Um, I have the next item is approval of meet special meeting minutes for September 13, 2025. Do you have any changes, questions, alterations? Do we have any public comment on this item? No. Okay. Seeing none, um any discussion? If not, I'll entertain a motion. >> I'll make a motion to approve the special meeting minutes from September 13th, 2025. >> Great. I have a second. >> I will second. >> Thank you, Chris. >> I, >> Hannah, >> I, Daniel, >> I, >> Shel, >> I, >> and Rachel, I was approved. Our next
043item is approval of regular meeting minutes for September 17th, 2025. Do we have any questions, changes, alterations? No. All right. Do we have any public comment? >> No. Seeing none, do we have any discussion on this item? >> No discussion, but I do want to just Teresa, thank you for always providing these minutes that need very little >> feedback. I really appreciate it. Although we did miss you when you were like on vacation but you know >> you're forgiven. No seriously missed though. All right. I'll entertain a motion on this item then. >> I'll make another motion to approve the regular meeting minutes for September 17th, 2021. >> Thank you. Do I have a second? >> I will second it. >> Second >> I. >> Daniel. >> Hi. >> Anna. >> I Shelley. >> Hi.
044and Rachel I. All right. So, those are approved as well. Our next item is Superintendent Cabinet Report. So, I'll turn that over to you all. >> Great. I'll try to go pretty quick. Uh, happy Latino Heritage Month. It ends on the 15th. It started on September 15th. And I think having DAC uh this month was a perfect example of bringing our Latino families together to build community and help each other support each other in their education of their kids uh language development. So, kudos to them. Uh we have our first session of our parcel tax working group tomorrow night. I'm really excited about that. We've got about 20 people, um community members, business leaders, uh staff, administration, um so it should be a really good conversation. We're going to talk about five kind of examples
045of a potential parcel tax that have kind of come up in these conversations. I'm going to do the pros and cons of each of those. So really eager for tomorrow night's meeting. Um been spending a lot of time on facilities. Uh we are doing Williams visits. Um so that's where the county office comes and make sure the ceiling tiles are there and there's enough chairs and textbooks and um all the things are posted. And we've also been doing our site walkthroughs with our principles and our maintenance and operations staff just where the priorities for folks. Um fencing has been a big one. So just school safety. Um and then TK playgrounds has been big one especially at Brookside and at Wake Thomas. Um so excited to see that come down um here in in the
046next few months. Um also lots of conversation around field work. We're very close to handing over the way Thomas field to the city of Sanelmo um for so the city will be taking care of that field and trying to update it. Um, we are also on the precipice of sending out information about November 8th field day at Manor where we're trying to help level and improve that field and we invite folks out with shovels and wheelbarrows to kind of um roll up their sleeves right alongside with us. And I want to thank our union partners for allowing both of those things to happen. That's union work. both of those things I just named, but they realize that it's an important thing for our community to be involved here and it's a good partnership with us
047in the the city um with our new uh facilities use agreements. The city would have had a huge increase in what we would have charged them for facilities use, which would have eliminated the basketball program. And so instead of doing that, we found a creative solution to kind of trade some of their work. So, they didn't have to pay us as much, but it kind of took some of the work off of our team, which was really helpful. Um, and there's a community member who I had had two conversations with who is working with their family to potentially redo a field for us. Um, so a potential six-f figureure donation where they would completely redo one of the smaller fields in the district. So, keep my fingers crossed that the third conversation goes well. Um,
048so that's been fun. Um, I've got a tech use and uh, cell phone policy email coming out tomorrow with 363 respondents to that survey, which is really remarkable. So, want to thank everybody who filled that survey out. It's going to give us a lot of direction um, for tech use and cell phone policy. Excited that the CASP results are live. We saw some good academic growth and Julie will present more about that the end of the month. uh E2. This morning we talked about middle school sports. I spoke with John and Mayor Claire about it. White Hill has some of the best uh like the widest variety of sports in the county already for middle school. So it won't be a big change for us other than it'll be a little more formal and a
049little more competitive which I think will be fantastic for our kids. Um, and then JLAC, uh, I did ask a question about AB 1204, which is this, uh, a cost of living adjustment for certain school districts. Kind of going back to what Shelley was saying, Sanonteo, Santa CL, and Marin County are the three counties in the state where there's really high excess property tax for some districts, right next to districts that are struggling to pay their teachers. So the story we've been telling for the last year is borne out in this uh research study by Rand and um an article that was put out by Edsource. So I encourage folks to read those. Um that's that. >> How about you, Lori? >> I'm good. Um yeah, a lot a lot of things going on. Um
050the California Department of Education designated next week as school principal appreciation week. So when you see your school principal, give them a high five, thank them. Okay. Um so that's exciting. Um we are in the midst of our special education review with Holly Wade, our consultant. This week um she interviewed about 15 staff and um parents to um just get some insights and feedback into our sped programs. That's going really well. She's also putting together a family survey for special students in special education. So, we'll be sending that out soon, but I want to thank all the um families and and teachers and staff who have taken the time to to help us gain that feedback. Um and then um as far as fed special education staffing goes, our White Hill program um is fully
051staffed um which is wonderful. We also have um all of our at the at this moment all of our um classroom aids and onetoone aids are fully staffed. So, we're able to support students with some more significant behavioral needs at this. So, that's really exciting. Um, we have our wellness committee meeting next week, our first one of the year on Thursday, October 16th from at 3:30. We actually, um, have a bunch of White Hill kids that are going to be on our committee this year, which is fantastic. So, that's exciting. Um we are also in um evaluation season. So all of our evaluation timelines are coming up as far as evaluating staff goes. And so um so that's um you know just to provide staff with support and you know make it like a professional
052more of a professional development experience for staff um to you know make sure that that their professional and personal goals are being accomplished. Um and then our special education team has is working on a lot of different policies and protocols so that we can align our practices um such as we we just finalized a special day class placement protocol so that we can um make sure that kids are being placed there appropriately. And so we have a lot of other things that are happening now too with regards to special education and making sure that um that we have we have these protocols so that um we can all be in alignment and make sure the kids get what they need appropriately. So >> fantastic. >> That's great. >> Great. Um, and just want to reiterate
053that the multilingual learner celebration was fabulous. And just give a shout out to Amelia Elamari who is our ELD coordinator um, who really organized the whole event and was the the biggest thing is getting people in the room and she has kind of a team of folk which includes um, Jorge that are making calls to families and saying please come, please come, please come and and they came. So that was really wonderful to see. It was a really great night. And also all of our EL teachers came as well. Um and checked in with their kids which was really neat for an evening event. >> Where was it? >> It was at Brookside. >> Yeah. Yeah. The next one will be at Manor and then I think the final one will be at White Hill.
054Um Friday was both a PD day and a teacher work day. If you were a K5 teacher or a K5 resource teacher, you got the training in the summer for E education. So, you did two days of training and we normally do one day in August and so they had the day as a teacher work day and I heard incredible reports from teachers of just how amazing it was to have a day to dig in. Um, lots of collaboration going on. I know at least one team, the fourth grade team, got on a Zoom for the whole district and spent a couple of hours planning together. Um, and that was all on their own in their own decision. Um, so that was really terrific. Um, White Hill continued the work that they've been doing. Every
055year they have an area of focus and this year it's on student engagement and what engagement looks like both cognitively and behaviorally. Um, and so they continue that work. Um the math team at White Hill in the afternoon had their first coaching session for Amplified Desmos math. Um and that was a virtual session that they said was really really good. 3 hours and then coming up in October and then again in January they'll have a full day on-site coaching where every teacher will get individualized coaching from someone from the Desmos team. Terrific. I spent most of the day with TK um working on curriculum which was just wonderful. One of the things we did was we went really deeply into the um California PK standards and they're really such great standards really speak to the
056importance of intentional play being really the center point of a TK program. Um and all of our TK teachers are very much in alignment with those standards and um anyways it was just wonderful collaboration and a great day and making some really good decisions together. Um, tomorrow we have our I Ready training day and so we have three trainers coming to Ross Valley and elementaryaries were pairing elementary. So each elementary gets a half day and grade level teams will be released to meet with the trainer and so they'll be they'll have an expert there just to dig into their data with them and really make sense of it and help to plan next instructional moves. White Hill will have them the whole day, but a portion they're they're splitting it in three parts. Math has
057a time, ELA has a time, and SPED has a time. So, terrific that that's happening. And then starting next week, um, our EL e education coach is coming. Um, and every site is getting a full day of coaching from the EL education coach. um they'll be talking about planning and how to kind of unpack these lessons, but they'll also be modeling lessons and then later on teachers will be teaching demo lessons and getting feedback. Um so excited for that. That's going to take place three different times this year. Um so we're just getting ready for our first round. >> Do we have public comment on the cabinet or superintend? >> Yeah, I just want to speak and say Tyler's doing a great job. very happy to have him here. Um, having these meetings about trying
058to get this passed for Ross Valley School District is very important. Having those two town halls is going to be very important. I met with uh Kevin Sedra and Jenny Holden on Monday night. They really want to help us get this thing passed. Um, flat tax is going to be probably where they align and I feel the same way very strongly to each and every one of you. flat tax is where we need to go because if you start doing all these other you're going to confuse everybody, you know, cap here, you're going to lose them all. And I've been talking to many people in the community and for those of you who don't know me, I'm very tied into this community. And so, um, I've not heard one person say they want something different
059than a flat tax. So, don't listen to a consultant. Listen to the people that you live near that are stakeholders in your community, which I am one. and I transit will help you get this passed with the help because like Kevin and Jenny said the other night, we feed into these into those school districts. So, they definitely want to make sure that this gets passed because we definitely don't want to go and have be like Oakland or Valleo and go into conversion. I can't say it. Can't think of the word. >> Receivership. >> Yes. Thank you very much. I get time on that one. And so I want to thank all of you for what you do because I know that as you know we don't get paid to sit on these boards and committees
060as I sit on and what you do. So I know how hard it is sometimes and how challenging it can be but I know all you do are trying to do the best for our community but please listen to a flat parcel tax. Thank you very much for your time. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. And uh with that our next item is meeting review. Do we have any future board topics and board direction? >> I only had one administrative thing. Um, I'm on the DAC, but I wanted to make sure that everybody is invited or feels invited to the reclassification celebration at Manor School. >> So, I don't know, just administratively letting people know when that is and then people can RSDP, whatever we need to do. But I just thought it'd
061be great for everybody to feel included. >> Thank you. That's a really fun fun event. >> So, yes, >> even more people show up for that one. >> When is it? >> It's usually the end of the year, like May. The dates came out. >> We'll have uh Teresa send an invite to everybody. >> 17th of December, >> this evening. >> So, we'll just just >> send it out. Let us know. Great. >> You have any other board direction topics you wanted to discuss? >> Oh, good. >> I was also because you had mentioned this the first time you'd been to superintendent council >> and it made me think we don't have to solve this here, but it made me think about how we do that rotating of it. So, everybody has it. even if
062you're not on the committee, it might be great to have rotating experiences with different committees. So maybe in our next whatever it is that we go about having conversations around what committees that we're on and maybe before that or somehow think about >> August. >> Yeah. or somehow think about during the year how people get an opportunity because you can have two people be there and so that people can have an opportunity to go to those meetings because I think it that's just really helpful and informative to be in those kind of meetings >> in our board bi-weekly board update typically at the very top you'll see those dates upcoming DAC or JAC we can add a few more things in there >> so if you're not the main committee member and you're interested you
063can just reach out to Theres or I and >> we can get you on just a like if you want to kind of peek behind the curtains on what Soups Council's all about or round table or JAC. Yeah, >> we can get you in on that. >> Yeah, I popped in a round table once. I mean, if there's not already two of us going, then it's fine to do that. They just have like three >> or one or the two of us can be like, "Yeah, okay, whatever." So, yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah, round table just for me it was one of our superintendent. I it conflicted with work so I'd never done it for that reason cuz it's daytime. >> We going to go to Jac this morning but Ellie was getting a
064marvelous Mustang awards. >> Yep. >> Meeting debrief comments feedback. >> Glad it's short run kept track. We did a great job with questions, public comment, discussion. >> Thank you for that following up rules for dinner. All right, with that any other comments, Wes, I'm going to journ at 7:39. >> Great. >> Look at that. 7:40 in approximation.