001Hey. >> Um, at this time we will call to order our September 2nd, 2025 Lame Mesa Spring Valley School Board meeting. We have a quorum with all board members present. Um, our big announcement is please be advised that this meeting is being recorded and that takes us right to the pledge of allegiance led by students from Highlands Elementary. And is it all right if I add to the announcement because um it didn't get and copied over from the last one that um if you have a comment to share and you're on Zoom, there is a form um that is on the board agenda and um please use that form to submit your comment before 610 so that we can have you on our list and call your name when it's time to comment. Great. >>
002So now we will do our pledge of allegiance. Please stand up. Right hand over your heart. Ready? Begin. I pledge algiance 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. Is it done? >> Thanks you guys. >> Great job guys. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Um and next we have the approval of the minutes of the previous meeting. >> Move to approve the minutes from the previous meeting. >> I'll second. >> Any questions, discussion regarding those minutes? All in favor say I. >> I opposed. Okay. Which brings us to the approval of the board agenda for tonight's meeting. I'll move to approve tonight's board agenda. >> Also, >> we need to amend this agenda. >> Oh,
003yes. >> Yeah. We're going to remove item 3B. Our guest speaker is sick, not able to make it tonight. >> I'll uh move to approve the agenda with uh removal of 3B. >> I'll second. >> Okay. Any other questions or discussions about this? All in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Okay, which brings us to communications and we have a spotlight on Highlands Elementary School. >> All right, so while the video is getting uh queued up, I want to invite Principal Melinda Pazone to come on up to the stand. Hi, I'm Fitz reporting for LMS News. Today I'm taking you inside Highland Elementary where every student and every staff member knows what it means to rise. Let's see what it means to the students here. What does the Rise stand for? >> It stands
004for respect. We respect each other, our teachers, and our school. Even small things like picking up trash or helping a friend show respect. What does the I advice stand for? >> We inspire each other to try new things, to be kind, and to keep learning. Even when something is hard, we cheer each other on. >> What about the S? >> That's succeed. We celebrate success in class, on the playground, and in our goals. When one of us succeeds, it feels like we all do. >> What does the E mean in the last letter? >> E means empathize. It means caring about how other people feel. We listen, we share, and we help each other when times are tough. >> When we live by rise, it makes school a better place. You can see it when
005someone offers a helping hand or we celebrate each other's success. >> It's who we are when we walk into class, play at the playground, or help at home. >> It's not just the students who rise, is it? Every adult in Highlands works to rise every day. We know it's up to us to set the example by the way we treat our young scholars and each other. >> Why do you refer to students as scholars? >> A scholar is curious, asks questions and looks for deeper understanding. Scholars take pride in their work and use what they learn to grow not only for themselves but for their community. Highlands Hawks are lifelong learners, empathetic and resilient problem solvers, and critical thinkers who have a positive impact on their community. That's the heart of who we are here
006at Highlands Elementary. >> Respect, inspire, succeed, and empathize. That's how we rise at Highlands Elementary. And together, we're making our school and our community a brighter place. >> Yeah. Hi. So, my name is Melinda Pazone and I am the proud proud principal of Highlands Elementary. First, I want to thank you so much for welcoming us here today so that we could show you what an incredible place Highlands is. Um, I want to first shout out we have a number of teachers who are here. They came and joined me. Miss Butler, Miss Bachmann, and Miss Lemon. Thank you so much for coming out to support tonight. And then we have a number of families who came out as well. And so I these are the reason why I come to work every day. These are the
007people that are at the heart of what we do. Um and so we have so much to celebrate at Highlands. We have really been on the rise as our respect, inspire, succeed, and empathize says. Um our students are working hard each and every day to meet their academic and their social, emotional, and behavioral goals. We're seeing them truly thrive and be the best that they can be. We also have become a community school in the last couple of years and that is one of the things I am most proud of at our school site because we're looking at the opportunity to bring mental health supports, medical, dental, and even an optometrist is coming on our campus this year to support with kiddos who through the vision screening need additional glasses. And so to be able
008to provide those supports at our home with our family and extended family including our students and parents is just such an incredible thing. And so thank you so much for all of the support that you provide us at Highlands Elementary and helping me to make sure that these amazing kiddos have everything that they need to be successful and thrive. So, we have um some certificates for your students and if you could you guys could come forward and take a picture with our board president McCrae. >> Would you introduce yourself? Okay, go for it. No, no, no, it's okay. >> So, these two incredible young ladies that we have in front of me, you saw them featured in our video. We have Miss Faith. She is a fourth grader, totally in her fourth grade era at
009Highlands. And we have Miss Aza who is a fifth grader. She's also a very talented actress and musician. So, really, really proud to highlight these students and I thank them so much for coming and joining us today. friends, if you guys want to go do something else with your evening, we can give you a second to to go do something else. >> Thanks everyone. >> Okay, that brings us to item 2B, other staff communications and information. I'm not showing anything on >> No other staff communications. Okay, which brings us to public comment. Um, I do have two comment cards. Any additional cards? Okay, so we'll start with the public comment with the cards that I have. Um, FRA. Good evening, Board President McCrae, members of the board, Superintendent Feliciano and his cabinet, and our amazing
010Lamesa Spring Valley community. My name is Fee Tran and I'm actually one of our site techs here in La Mesa Spring Valley. I want to give a shout out to my schools, Kemp Literacy Academy, Maryland Avenue and Lemon Avenue and Glenn Street right up the hill. Um, but tonight I'm actually representing our CSEA president Ahmad Swinton and my fellow CSEA chapter 419 classified professionals who are more than 900 people with loving hearts who take care of our students every single day. I am the chair of our new merit system committee for the chapter and we helped facilitate the selection process uh for the appointment of our personal commissioner here before you tonight. Tonight we are recommending that the board adopt uh the uh appointment for Barbara Pratt. Actually, this is a reappoint. We really appreciate
011her years of service both as as a La Mesa Spring Valley classified professional like one of us for many many years in the maintenance department. Of course, now she is retired and she is continuing continuing to serve her fellow classified professionals on the personal commission uh for a few years now. We appreciate her service, her willingness to serve our Lamea Spring Valley community and represent our classified staff and helping to hire, promote, and retain the most qualified people who can nurture and inspire our students in finding their unique voice. And lastly, I want to thank the board for approving the recommendation on behalf of our Lumisa Spring Valley classified professionals. Tonight's action highlights our work as labor partners for our students. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. And next we have Ashken Jones. >>
012Hi. Good evening board members, superintendent. My name is Ash Khan Jones. I'm here with the office of Assembly Member Dr. Lache Sharp Collins. uh representing district 79 here including La Mesa, Spring Valley, Lemong Grove, Southeast San Diego, all the way out to El Cahone and some of the unincorporated areas out there. Um I'm here tonight just to give a brief legislative update. Um the assembly member uh continues to fight for workingclass families every single day in Sacramento. Um pushing forward policies that promote health, education, and economic opportunity for all of our constituents. And we're pleased to announce um a couple of the assembly members bills from her legislative package have passed. These are her uh first bills that she signed into law with uh a couple more um on the way being uh I believe
013they're being voted on this week. So uh the first uh one, this one just passed um recently was Assembly Bill uh 829. This establishes the uh California Parkinson's disease research fund here in California. Um this will make sure that we have a lot of investment in our uh um in our public health research as we see a lot of that is being rolled back at the federal level. Um really trying to make sure that our citizens are healthy, our constituents are healthy and well taken care of as a top priority for the member. Um, another one, uh, this one is now in the Senate. Assembly Bill 847, uh, I believe will be voted on this week. Um, expands law enforcement oversight by allowing, uh, local government commissions, uh, like law enforcement oversight commissions to obtain
014better records, u more expansive list of records, um, for those boards to provide better oversight for the community. Um, Assembly Bill 927, this one just passed uh, recently. This extends the waiting period or the um inspection period at the beginning of the school year for things such as textbooks, uh facility maintenance, things of those things of that nature. So, that recently just passed. Um and Assembly Bill 987, which is now the Senate, which uh protects working families from being taken advantage of by uh cutting uh unreasonable tow fees. a lot of junk fees pile up, whether it be for um for storage and things of that nature of your vehicle. So, we're really pleased to announce uh that that's um about to be voted on in the Senate and will reduce a lot of fees
015for constituents across the state. And the last item we have on here, this one isn't a bill, but is um our office's efforts on Red Ribbon Week. We know we have a lot of elementary schools across the 79th district and we've been working to uh be in contact with a lot of them and get um we're set to get out about 9,500 certificates around uh the 79th Congressional District. This includes um Bankraftoft and Aendale here in the district. So, uh pleased to update you all with that. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Do we have any Zoom um public comment? Uh we do not have any Zoom public comments submitted at this time. >> Okay. So we can move on to our reports which just now includes report the 2425 unodudited actuals. >> We've
016all been looking forward to it all all day. >> We are excited. Not just I know I can't replace Kevin Gordon um but um we're going to be talking tonight about un audited actuals and um give you a little bit of information a little bit more information towards the end. Um just explaining a little bit more um in detail about why things change from when we brought forward our adopted budget and at that point we had estimated actuals um to where we are now with our final numbers at unodudited actuals. Um we're um going to be talking about just the general fund. We also have other funds in the district. They're all included in the Sachs packets that's in the board agenda. They're all restricted programs. So used for very specific p uh very specific
017um reasons um restricted for whether it's child nutrition or our bond program. So we don't really go into a whole lot of details there. Um but we'll spend most of our time talking about the um general fund budget. >> Hey Tina, can I just share really quick because I I used to when I used to be in your job I always loved sharing about this because the name of the report is the unodudited actuals. Um, for the longest time before I was a CBO, I would hear that report given at board meeting and I had no idea what it meant. Like it was a strange title. >> Um, and anyway, when I was I'd love to share just so I'll just share really quick. Um, >> it's our like our year end financials. So it's
018our end of the year actuals and it's called unodudited because we haven't had our the our books audited yet. We every year our books get audited at the end of the year and um once uh they are audited then the audit report is provided to the board and then it becomes the audited actuals. But right now, they're unawituded, which means it's like our finance department's final statement on our year-end spending, which is why it's called the unudited action report. >> Well, and the interesting thing, too, is our fiscal year ends June 30. So, why are we bringing it in September? There's a lot of things that happen between June 30 and and September. and Nathaniel knows this well with the business that he's in, but um it's really an opportunity for us to account for
019things, goods and services that we receive prior to June 30, which is when we have to account for them in that fiscal year, but we don't actually get invoiced for them or pay for them until the new fiscal year. And so that all has to get accounted for in our prior year um unodudited actuals. So, we have time to be able to do that, which is why they come in September to allow us as much opportunity to get those things closed out um and accounted for in the correct year. So, that's that's what that um that's why it's coming later. Um so, one of the things that's different and David had shared with you is that this is the true depiction of how much money we received and how much money we have spent. Every
020other time, it's really an estimate. And so there's not a lot of um art to it in the sense that it just truly is what it is. And so I'm not showing you a lot of comparison reports because there aren't really variances. Um what I'm sharing with you is what we actually spent, which is the revenue that you see here. We received about 194 u million in revenue and um most of it coming from our LCFF funding sources. And then um our expenditures, we spent about 206 million in expenditures. And really what that shows is, as we all know, we're deficit spending. Our salary and benefits as a percentage of our total budget is about 86%. Um meaning we spend 86% of our budget on our people. Um and then the rest of the budget
021is spent on things like keeping the lights on or just general supplies for um the school sites. And so the piece that I really wanted to just spend some time on is what I had referred to the estimated actuals. Um is when we bring forward our adopted budget in June at that point in time we're also providing an estimate of how we think we are going to end I'll say this school year the 2425 school year. Um now we've actually closed our books. We now know what we our numbers truly are. And so now we truly know what that ending fund balance is. And that ending fund balance, similar to a checkbook, carries over and that becomes our new beginning fund balance. Right? So at the time of budget adoption, we had an estimate of
022what we thought that was going to look like. Now we know what it actually is based on everything that we've accounted for. And so you'll see um a difference here that we'll talk about. And really just one of the things you'll see that uh reminder note there at the bottom of that slide um that um the dish the health of the district's budget is really the judged by our projected ending fund balance over the course of a three-year period. So we talk about multi-year projections. I'm sharing with you in the unodudited actuals time frame our snapshot of where we actually ended but we don't bring forward a multi-year projection at this point in time. And as you know, it's not about the current year, but it's really about are we able to um maintain our
023operations over the course of a three-year period of time. That's ultimately what we have to make sure we are doing as a school district and as a board. Um and because we are deficit spending, what happens if we don't rightsize that um dollar amount is that we just continue to deplete what we have in our ending fund balance. And so I wanted to spend a little bit of time on because we're not really talking through well what was the variance between where we were budgeting pro before versus where we're budgeting now. It's really where did we project we were going to end versus where did we actually end up and and why are there differences. So that's what I wanted to spend a little bit of time on here. So, when we brought forward our
024budget to the board in June, our estimated um um ending fund balance was about 44 million and what we actually ended up was about 47 million. So, the difference was about a $3 million difference. So, it means we we actually have $3 million more at the end of the year than what we thought we were going to have. And then in turn means we're starting the year off with $3 million more. Um but why? And so that's one of the things that I just wanted to explain because there's a lot of nuances that go into that. We're again it was a projection. Now we know what it is. And so um from estimated to unodudited actuals, we're estimating our revenue. Um our revenue is the best forecast we have at the time based on what
025we know about our budget at that point in time. Um in um some cases um we don't know what our final information is. Well, we don't know what our final information is, period. But even when we're adopting the budget, we don't know what those estimates are until even later in the year after we've started. Um, and I'll talk about what some of those are. And then, um, once we end the books, once we close the books, we actually know what we have. And so, at that point, it's no longer an estimate, right? So, so we are projecting all throughout the year what our funded ADA is going to be. And ultimately those estimates are happening in June. The reality is is we're not funded on our attendance until April. So again, everything is an estimate
026until that point in time. It's that um what they call period 2 attendance that's done in April. That's what we actually get funded for. So it's not until that point in time that we truly know what our LCFF calculation is going to be. all all in that time frame between the time we adopt until the time we get to April. We're all adjusting the formula based on where we see our projections to be. We're using um an assumption of what our attendance was from the prior year. You know, in this case, we were estimating a little bit higher because of all the attendance efforts that we've been doing. Um but we really don't know what that is until April. So, it's not until April that we actually kind of true that up. Um and then
027our unduplicated pupil counts. You've heard us talking about that before. Um, a lot of that, um, is, uh, that's basically what we get our funding for for our supplemental and concentration grant funds. So, it's for that student population that's of the highest need. Um, and that doesn't get certified until October. So, again, we're providing an estimate in June. So, all until October comes around, we're making that adjustment. And I don't know if you are aware of this, but there are there are things that change. We're doing attendance recovery. we're constantly updating our attendance even from one period to the next. We can actually um go back and recoup attendance for two years back. And so in some cases, depending on what might be happening in our district, we might be going back a year or
028two um in order to make sure that we're accounting for all of our attendance. So we had um an emergency and we're we applied for waiverss to recoup some attendance back. We don't get that in the year that we apply. We typically get that in the year after. So those are just some of the changes that happen. So um we do watch that, but it does it does fluctuate from one year to another, but I I just wanted to make sure that you all knew why there were some of these changes that take place throughout the year. Um one-time funds, we know, we've been down this rodeo before, right? We think we have them and then we don't or sometimes we don't know we're getting them and then we do. Um this year we ended
029up getting um for we don't have any issues spending our ELOC funds but there have been other school districts that have had some challenges in spending it and um the state for those school districts that didn't spend the state pulled that money back and redistributed it and we got some of that money. Um and that was something that we knew was happening. We just didn't know to what extent and how much. And so that was another adjustment that we made in our budget which ends up being more in our ending fund balance. Um and then property taxes, um interest, earnings, uh and then you know one-time funds can come in higher and lower than expected. So those are just some of the things that change over the course of the time frame of when we're
030adopting and when we get to unodudited actuals that may change that I wanted to share with you. And then on the flip side for the expenditures, there's also a lot of things that that happen there. Um so if we have a position that becomes vacant, it takes time to recruit, right? So you may not have that position filled for a month or two months. That's savings then that you're not spending that will end up what we refer to as dropping to the ending fund balance because we're it's money that we're not spending because the positions not filled. So those are savings that end up for lack of a better term kind of helping the bottom line. Um if you have a lot of turnover in positions, campus attendance, ESS, you might have programs that end
031up having like a lot of savings. our transportation department. If we're not able to fill positions right away, they may be vacant for a while. Those are some of the other pieces that may happen where we end up having some savings that we otherwise didn't anticipate, right? We budget for the full position as if we're going to have them there for the full year, but the reality is in some cases they may not be there for a month or two. And that's that's some of that money that ends up um um dropping to the ending fund balance, which impacts what our actual ending balance is at the end of the year. Um and then we have um just supplies and services. Uh what happens when school sites or departments purchase supplies? They'll put in a
032purchase order. It encumbers the funds which basically kind of sets those dollars aside for you to be able to spend them with and then you know kind of what your budget looks like and then not all the time does that amount actually end up being spent in its entirety. So, a good example is we might have a school site that will um encumber funds and set those dollars aside. It might be I'm going to make a number up $5,000 for Amazon supplies for the school year, but they end up only spending $4,000 because it's set aside in their budget. Sometimes the site doesn't realize that they're not spending all of that money and so there's $1,000 that is in this encumbrance set aside, but they don't end up spending it and that money ends up
033um dropping to the ending fund balance. So, it's it's all of those kind of nuances that end up changing what we thought we were going to. And in that particular case, again, we budget as if every dollar is going to be spent. But those are some of the reasons why um they may not be or in some cases an item gets cancelled and um they try to order it before the year ends, but it doesn't get received before the year year end. So, we have to pay for it out of the next year's budget. So, it's those kind of nuances that I just wanted to make sure um you were all aware of. why that why that changes um because there is you know that that change that happens. So where do we go with
034this information? So now we know where we ended the year that now becomes our new beginning fund balance and now we'll start to look at what first interim looks like but our auditors will be coming in and then they'll audit our actuals and then at that point it'll be audited actuals. um although we don't call it that, we just call it actuals. But we'll be doing that work. And then at that point in time, we know now what our new beginning fund balance is. We'll be looking at our first interim report that we'll be bringing forward to the board in December. We're looking at enrollment. Enrollment is looking good right now. Um higher than our projection, which is great because that also impacts our budget going into first interim. We'll be making those adjustments. Um
035continuing to monitor attendance. We're continuing our efforts on attendance recovery. Um that's been going really well. Um so, uh we're grateful for that. Um we did have in our budget at adoption, um that we would be looking at a $2.7 million budget reduction for the school year. Um that number really was the number that we needed to reduce in order to make that 3% required reserve that we have to have in year three. Um, and if you recall from the slide earlier, we're sitting at about 11 million um, deficit. Um, so that that $2.7 million will help us reduce that deficit. Um, and similar to last year when we come back in December, we'll be bringing forward a general list. We're we're not going to have like the details, but we'll be bringing forward a
036general list of what that 2.7 million um, will look like. we already are starting to look at um you know what what we can do within our realm again similar to what we did last year looking at vacant positions and whether or not we fill them now um etc. Those are the things that we're starting to look at and we'll be bringing forward um information in December um with a little bit more um detail on how we think we're going to be able to get to that 2.7 um million dollars. So that I didn't talk as long as Kevin Gordon. Um, and if and Kevin I would I would harass him a little bit if he were here too. So I'm not saying I wouldn't I'm not saying anything I wouldn't say in his face.
037Um, and I just want to uh say and give a huge shout out to Seth and his team. Um, again as well um there's a lot of work that goes into it. Um, a lot of times board meetings are in midepptember so there's a little bit more time to close the books. We happen to close the books. you know, of course, our meetings are the first Tuesday of the month. So, we close sooner than than a lot of other school districts. So, just really appreciative for um him and the finance team on closing us early every year. So, thank you for that. Any questions? >> I don't have any questions. Do you guys have any questions? >> No, just thank you for all the work that you guys put into this. It's always a lot
038>> and it was fantastic. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, we're moving on to item 4 A which is an action item of board policy updates. I'll move to um approve the board policy updates. >> I'll second. >> Any questions or discussion around these board policy updates? All in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. >> Okay. Which brings us to 4B, which is a resolution um a conflict of interest code. >> Move to approve resolution 4B. >> I'll second. any questions or discussion regarding this resolution? >> Um just a quick comment that it's nice to see I know that we had been doing some work updating the actual code portion um but seeing the um the or the policies actually but seeing the code actually updated is is good. >> Yeah. So the code here is
039aligned to the policy itself which it was >> delayed in being updated even though the policy itself had been updated >> but now it's >> now it's updated. They're both aligned. And um once approved by the board by resolution, then it goes to the county of San Diego who oversees the conflict of interest code um information for uh all public agencies in the county. >> Okay. Anything else? All in favor say I. >> I opposed. >> Okay. And that brings us to our action item of our personnel commissioner. I'll um move to approve action 4 C our um and uh reappoint Barbara Pratt to the personnel commission. Um thank you to CSA for speaking today and support of her. I'll second it. >> And I was sharing with someone today um Barb Pratt um my
040uh son Israel who is uh in fourth grade 9 years old. Um when he was born in he's my um I have four kids one of whom was born in San Diego. When he was born Barb made me and my family a um diaper cake at school. Love Barb. >> Awesome. Any other questions, discussion? >> All in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. >> Awesome. Let's move to business services. We have our business services consent items. >> I'll move to approve item 5A. >> Okay. I'll second. >> Any questions or discussion regarding the business service consent items? All in favor say I. >> I. I opposed. Okay. And that brings us to 5B, which is a resolution, an annual resolution on the GAN limit. >> I move to approve resolution 5B. >> Second. >> Any
041questions or discussion regarding this item? >> Can you give um everyone here an update or reminder on what the GAN limit is? >> It's always a fun one. Um it it's it is what it sounds. It's basically a limit on spending um bas our local property taxes. It's a calculation that's done. There's growth that gets included every year for like inflation and student population. Um but ultimately at the end of the day, it's really just kind of a way to make sure that we're spending within that limit. It's not additional money, but based on that calculation that was done in 1979, >> so it's probably something that needs to be updated, but it is what it is. So based on the constitution, it is it's basically a limit of spending. >> Cool. Any other questions?
042No. >> All in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. >> Okay. And now that brings us back to the action of our unodudited actuals financial report. >> I'll move to approve item 5C. >> I'll second. >> Do we have any additional questions that pop up after that report? >> No. >> All in favor say I. >> I. oppose. Which brings us to our educational services which our action item of educational services consent items. >> I'll move to approve item 6A. >> Second. >> Any questions or discussion regarding these? All in favor say I. >> I. I. >> And that takes us to human resources um consent items. I'll move to approve um item 7A and also congratulate the HR team and thank the HR team for all of the work. There's as you know three
043pages of uh hirings which is exciting to see. Um and a lot of these are for ESS and our parapros and so it's good seeing um those positions getting filled. >> I'll second. >> Any other questions regarding this? All in favor say I. I. All opposed. Okay. And that brings us to our closing communications, announcements, reports from the board and superintendent. Any announcements? Um, you want to go? >> I was going to say I know it's back to school night. I know for some was last week, some of this week. So, thanks teachers for putting in that extra effort and um just all the work that you guys do. So, thanks for that. I think since our last meeting, we um got to some of us got to attend the ribbon cutting for our new
044field at Elmac and that was really exciting to see that and it looks amazing and I'm glad that that's something that the kids will have an opportunity to use. Um and um exciting to see all of the events starting to happen at our schools as things are all the way back in session, which is good to see. Um, and then wanted to, yeah, you know, yesterday was Labor Day and wanted to thank all of our, um, you know, various unions, our CSEA and our teachers union, um, and everyone for all of the hard work that they do making our schools run smoothly. >> Any else? I just want to welcome everybody back and u I was able to attend Kempton Elementary School's back to school night and it was uh really amazing to see all
045the little kids happy. Well, not little, you know, but but everyone was excited to be back to school. >> Yeah, I think the only event I did was the ribbon cutting and that was back to school night at Elmac and I realized that's my last one. >> So, I was like, wait, I'm not going to do this ever again. So that was pretty special but very exciting very excited for the school year. The kids are excited, families are excited, teachers. So it was a good it was a great experience. >> I was not able to attend the ribbon cutting but I'm looking forward to the first game this weekend of AYSO at the field and mentioning David uh um I'm assuming all the rocks have been taken out. So I'm looking forward to not hurting
046myself out there anymore because as I get older it's harder to move around. So, uh, uh, yeah, very exciting to to see the improvement in our schools and the hard work that, um, all that were involved. Um, though, yeah. Yeah, I think it's great to see improve fields for our students to enjoy and to participate in programs. Uh, yeah, and I know we're saying welcome back, but I mean, I think we're about halfway to fall break. So, uh, I hope the teachers uh are enjoying the transition, but look forward to their uh their their upcoming uh, short break in a few weeks. Mr. Superintendent, how about you? >> Yeah. Um, it was a really smooth start to school and just want to thank everyone for all their hard work. Um, I do want to share
047a little story from this last week that, um, we all found really, really interesting. So, uh, Tina and I have been working on a project just to it's something that's been an ongoing thing at the district office. Um, and Matt's been a big help with this, too. um digitizing all of our our records that we have on hand. Um and so we have um mostly gotten to the place of success here at the district district and we started talking about the warehouse where we have boxes and boxes of records. And so we went down to the warehouse. We took a little field trip to start to dig through some things just to get an idea of exactly the number of pallets of um you know legal boxes that we have. And our warehouseman um Robert
048was so great. He took us through everything, showed us where everything was. Well, there were a couple of boxes that were labeled um history archives, something along those lines. And so we started to talk about, you know, what was in there. and we weren't able actually to get into them because they were up uh behind a bunch of things and it would take a forklift to move everything. So hopefully later this week or next week we'll be able to go over and um get into them a little bit more. But Robert asked a great question. He said, "So when was the district founded and um I realized I didn't know that date. Um, I had seen actually some conflicting reports and I also knew that at one time the district wasn't named Lamea Spring Valley
049that the district was named um Allison School District and I knew that because I have a book upstairs in the superintendent's office. We have a book in the superintendent's office that is from 1895 and it is the first um book of board meeting minutes from the very first um school board meeting for the Allison School District which Lamea Spring Valley is today. Um, so really neat on one of the very first pages, uh, is a, um, written description of the boundaries of the district. And by the way, everything is like, um, quill and ink. So, it's it's really neat and in phenomenal condition. So, anyway, we started it to like go down the road of, okay, we know 1895, but at one point did it become um, La Mesa/ Spring Valley. So we started out,
050you know, with our best friend in the world, chat GPT, and it took us down a certain road. We started doing like some deeper searches and reading um some like uh county descriptions of some things from community plans. And again, we were finding some conflicting information. So, we reached out to the Laame Mesa Historical Society and we had gotten it really nailed down to a a couple of key points, but we did not understand how some things fit together. And we spoke with um Jim Nuland, I believe his name is, with the historical society. He was so helpful and also really excited that we reached out to him to get this information and totally like filled in all the blanks for us. And here's just the the quick lowdown on it. So the district is
051the product of two districts merging together. And that was Allison School District and Spring Valley School District. Spring Valley School District was founded in 1877. Allison School District was founded in 1895. In 1915, Allison and Spring Valley merged and became the Allison Spring Valley School District. And in 1932, and we have this um document upstairs as well, Allison Spring Valley School District was renamed La Mesa Spring Valley School District. And what's so interesting about that, the way that we figured that out, the the renaming piece, that was the one thing that wasn't clear and we put those those pieces together even for the historical society about the um the exact date of the renaming. We actually have it in the board book. On one page, it's referred to as Allison Spring Valley School District and
052on the next page, it's referred to as no board action, no announcements or anything. It's just a different name on the next page over. And we're like, okay, so it must have been July of 1932 is is when that happened. And um and that aligned with some of the information that the um historical society had. So yeah, really really cool information. And the historical society has a great book also one that I have up in my office um that is uh the history of La Mesa in pictures and it's a lot of great old photographs from the early 1900s late 1800s and um anyway he offered to put together a similar book for the school district which sounds fantastic. So once we gather all of our archives to get a good idea of exactly what
053we have, we'll we'll um let him look at all of that and and um basically go through and and um take pictures and be able to include that in Elmesis Spring Valley book. So yeah, super interesting and it was also really interesting to see how far we could get with artificial intelligence. Um, and how much of it was actually really it the great thing is now like with chat GPT, you know, it's ever evolving. When you do these searches, it gives you the links actually to the sources. So you're able to verify that it's not like a hallucination on behalf of the AI. And so we went to the sources and then found, you know, where there was some errors and that sort of thing. And um like, you know, probably that would normally be
054six months of research that we were able to do like within the span of like six hours, which was pretty exciting. >> That's a great >> That's it for me. Yeah, >> that's really cool. >> Yeah. Thanks. >> Okay, so are we are we good? All right, so it is 6:45. We will adjourn tonight's La Mesa Spring Valley School Board meeting.