SCSD Regular Board Meeting 2-15-24

001Ready? Good evening and welcome to the February 15th, 2024 regularly scheduled meeting of the San Carlos School District Board of Education calling this meeting to order at 6 32 p.m. First up is approval of the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? I'll move approval of the agenda. Second. All in favor please state by saying aye. Aye. We'll start with our special recognition. Hello. Can you all hear me? Hi. Thank you all for coming tonight. I'm here because I am so deeply honored to be the new leader of Arundel. I'm excited to have the opportunity to cultivate a thriving learning community for all the students and the staff, the families, and the greater community. The collective dedication and talent and spirit of our school community inspire me every day and they are reinforcing

002my commitment to fostering educational excellence. It's a privilege to collaborate in this journey shaping and nurturing and dynamic space where every individual can flourish. And today I get to present some of the wonderful things that are happening at Arundel and you'll see I have kind of used our new strategic plan to shape the presentation. So we'll start with our core our new all of our students which you can see here are curious problem solvers at the forefront of innovation and channeling their creativity and critical thinking into complex problems a testament to their relentless pursuit of knowledge and growth day by day they are blossoming not just academically but as empathetic and resilient individuals and you'll see with this first little video that I have that there's no problem for them that they can't solve so

003they figured it out they want to be successful and they want to make sure that all things are solved and they come up with a solution so you can see the joy there and optimism that fuels their persistence persistence and resilience and those are some of our Arundel Knights here coding you're going to get to see it again sorry coding and working together I don't know why it's going it is tricky so next you can see we have some pictures of our kind citizens at our P3 school students are developing a robust set of durable skills that will serve them well throughout their lives they're learning the importance of actively listening to others and at Arundel inclusive environment is super important and you can see here we all work together to create a heart that

004might not look to you like that many students but there's over 400 students there between our tk preschool first second and third grade up above here is the junior yard duty and they go and they lead the youngers in the tk kindergarten yard and we've been working on spreading kindness creating beautiful school campus and working to help with donations at local charities here's our green team with our green corners green team leader and also we have here just a quick video Marissa why do you like being a junior yard duty I'm not sure if you heard but she said that she likes to spread kindness and having a lot of fun safe and responsible students at the yard through these foundational principles our students are not only growing academically but also developing into compassionate and

005empathetic and empathic citizens who contribute to every individual so here's the next slide here I hope there here you see our school counselor Sam Wickstrom teaching children about what their zones of emotional zones are and being kind of a self-aware learner about their internal feelings teachers are always sharing about the diverse families and different cultures we have students picking themselves into corners to read lots of books and choices you have peers working together with older younger children buddies building ice castles down below lots of fun going on cultivating self-aware learners who understand their strengths and areas for growth through reflective practices students learn to take ownership of their learning journey becoming responsible for their actions and choices our curriculum fosters adaptability equipping students with skills to navigate and thrive in the world of ever-changing circumstances

006that we've had very much in the last few years here you can see some familiar people there's lots of small group learning here at Arundel lots of gathering and collaborating of the teachers and we're elevating joy and working with the whole becoming you know students to take ownership and become passionate about learning and here I have Ms. Brown a kindergarten teacher at Arundel we are very focused on the whole child trying to meet each student at their level and support them as they grow to the next level teachers at Arundel are focused on differentiated learning and many classrooms are currently piloting new ELD curriculum as well as phonics to support our students we like to get to know our students and support them with the appropriate extensions as well as interventions and teachers from tk

007through third utilize our small group time with half of our classrooms to meet our students and provide impactful instruction and support at other times of the week we make sure that our students are participating in art steam and exploring the garden to round out our strategic plans mission and you can see them working in small groups so that things are differentiated and they're learning at their own pace and their own ability there we go here's our beautiful campus the school is gorgeous lots of steps I might go about 21 000 steps a day going up and down elevating joy in multiple ways one of them is the increase of assemblies for our students these opportunities spotlight the idea of that diversity is a gift recognizing celebrating the unique backgrounds and perspectives and experiences that each

008individual brings to our community and so you'll see here we have celebrating the lunar new year even though it was raining the kids loved it and they stayed out there and they did not want to go inside we have many clubs digging for worms in the compost we even have the fawns so you know lots of fun at the school but again going back to the core the community the diversity and and our community which you can see here there is all the students working together with the whole community building a really strong foundation for a great school our pta has tripled from 30 members to over 100 this year so it's been a great building opportunity of fostering a sense of community within a rendle so lots of great things happening okay there but

009this is the main thing and this is our students so when you guys come up I'm going to actually have you come here because I think that the podium might be a little little tall for you so here's your microphone all my teacher all right so there you go and they're going to just say a few things oh there's a cordless mic there you go even better here hold on to it okay you can say what your name is and then tell them that a little bit about a rendle what you like hi my name is surin and i would like to say that all my teachers always try their best for example i used to not know multiplication and now i do all because of my teachers they don't give up and try their

010best my name is kyle choy a project that i had this year that i want to share with you is a mystery reading study i enjoyed reading these books also i did an ending project of creating a cup book cover for a mystery book including writing the back world hi my name is my tea i like how we are prizes for reading at the scat readathon two weeks ago my teacher got our class my teacher got our class really excited to read i read over a thousand minutes i enjoy listening to miss garba reading out loud to our class each day we are listening to because of wind dixie this week hello my name is eliana gipson and um i'm very creative and i love art one of the fun art projects we did this

011year was ice castles with our buddies i enjoy having a kindergarten buddy and i lead others when i'm in safety art patrol and peace pal duty hello my name is steve yan uh at arundel we get to do many projects this year we are learning about important people reading many biographies taking notes and presenting to our parents and classmates at a wax museum we explain what problems they faced and overcame and before we uh stop with our spotlight they want to share with you our new song which we sing every wednesday at our morning assemblies and uh they are doing great memorizing it and have a wonderful voice so let's go ahead want to be able to hold on to it gather together that i'm going to start uh we Thank you so much for

012coming and thank you to the kids and families for being here. We love it when we have students who come and join our meetings and I'm always impressed that they are so confident to stand up for this group. Before we move on with the rest of our agenda, a note about public comment. As a reminder to the public, the board will take public comment on each agenda item as it is discussed and will also provide time for comment on non-agenda items at the end of the meeting. This board values public comment and we appreciate when people take the time to share their thoughts with us. If you're addressing the board on a non-agenda item, please be aware that the provisions of the Brown Act prohibit the board from discussing or taking action on such matters

013at this meeting. If you'd like to address the board here in person, we ask that you fill out a blue card. If you're online, please use the raise hand feature. According to board bylaw 9323, each speaker will have three minutes to address the board and total time for public input on each item is limited to 20 minutes. We will now move on to our consent agenda, which contains items that are routine in nature and for which no board discussion is anticipated. So we act upon them with a single vote. Do we have any public comments on the consent agenda? Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move to approve the consent agenda. Second. All in favor, please state by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Consent agenda is approved 5-0. We'll move on to

014our information and discussion items, starting with the LCAP mid-year update on expenditures. Thank you. This year, there's a new requirement to present a report that includes the mid-year outcome data and the mid-year expenditure data related to the actions and services in the LCAP. The outcome data was presented at our January 18th board meeting and tonight we're providing a report on the mid-year expenditure data. This report identifies both the original budgeted funds and mid-year projected expenditures for each goal. For the mid-year projected expenditure, it reflects the anticipated expenditures for the year based on the actuals to date plus encumbrances or obligations, essentially committed funds. For example, with salaries, it's the position salaries paid to date plus the salaries for the remainder of the year. This is essentially a mid-year look at the expenditures to date plus

015committed funds. And it's important to note that any necessary changes to the original June budgeted amount was adjusted and reflected in the first interim budget update in December. So in summary, any savings or increases have been included in first interim and reflected in the mid-year projected expenditures, except for those positions not filled as a first interim such as the wellness coordinator. Those items will be reflected in the second interim and captured in the annual update in June. As a reminder, this is just an update for the board. There's no action needed tonight. And then at the March 14th board meeting, we'll present second interim and any applicable changes will be included. Thank you. Trustees, any clarifying questions about the update? I would just want to clarify. So I saw some of the response from my

016written question before, but the total amount here, total budgeted funds versus mid-year expenditures, it's a projection of what we're going to spend for the entire year. For example, goal four says total budgeted funds, 591K and mid-year expenditures, 617K. What you're saying is our total for the year will be 617, is that right? That is correct. So you explained that why we might be under on expenditures and this particular goal might be if a staff position hasn't been filled or is being filled mid-year, why might some of them be over? For the same reason that this was built in the June budget. And so we may have had staffing changes or salary increases or adjusted salaries, and those have been reflected. Thank you. Now we'll move on to our teaching and learning update about our DEIB

017program. All right. Well, with that, it's my pleasure to have a co-presenter tonight. Thank you for being here tonight to talk about our update on diversity, equity, and inclusion and belonging. My co-presenter is Mindy Shelton, principal at Arroyo School that you all probably know quite well. And we have the pleasure of leading this work throughout the school district and kind of co-lead it. And tonight, we're going to take a few minutes to just update the board as far as latest actions and you'll have a great time, I promise. We might even have a little, you know, little fun here. You never know. So as you know, our our DEIB movement has sort of evolved over the last few years. You recall, of course, it started back in 2020. We had an equity report was written.

018We formed a steering committee, subgroups, we made some goals, and we've really kind of evolved from them. We've organized the presentation tonight to memorialize some of that work, but really to talk about the work since last May or so. And we talked a lot about we kind of culminated in an anti-bias grant that we were awarded from the CDE. And we'll talk a little bit about what we have done with those dollars as well. We've organized tonight in these categories. So we'll talk about the steering committee. We'll talk about community engagement. Mindy is going to do the bulk of the work on community engagement, classroom, curriculum choices and leading for equity. We're going to kind of do that together and then I'll take over towards the end of student impacts and next steps. Thank you,

019Denise. I don't know, doesn't want to cooperate. So as you know, we've had our steering committee now for about three and a half years. We often will meet with the steering committee to review progress in subcommittees was really what we were doing up till last May. So we would meet as groups. We would give each other an update. I was part of the diverse staff subcommittee. We would talk about what have we done that was from the equity report that in our goal area that we've made progress and we give each other updates and we talk about progress and then we talk about, well, do we need to set a new goal? How are we doing? What direction do we need to go from here? We also had the opportunity to review data in our

020subgroups. So, you know, for instance, in our subgroup, we talk or in our subcommittee, we talked a lot about student demographics and demographics of staff and how those matched or did not match. And we'll talk a little bit more about that later. Other groups talked about attendance and discipline and policies. And a lot of that work was updated as a result of that. We ultimately used a lot of that data to come up with some goals in diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, and that would really help support an embedded approach as we move forward out of a formal structure of subcommittees and into a steering committee that sort of is advisory and really gives us ideas about what might be next steps that we can take as a group, especially with our leaders. And we'll

021talk significantly tonight about the steps we've taken as a leadership group to really move forward in this area. Great. So as we first of all, it's nice to be here. Thanks for inviting me to participate. As we've moved forward with this work, we've really come to realize that it kind of falls into different layers. We have our community engagement. That's really the most visible part of the work, the community celebrations and engagement and belonging. And we'll go a little deeper into each of these levels. Then we have what happens really in the classrooms in terms of curriculum and content, literature, how that's supported in our libraries. And then there's the work at the leadership level that really is about creating equitable outcomes for students. And so, again, we'll talk more about each of those layers

022and kind of work through them, starting with community engagement. Again, this is the part that brings so much joy to our campuses. We've had and I'm going to share mostly examples from Arroyo because that's my experience where I have the most direct impact, obviously, and stories. But know that these kinds of things are happening across the district. They take on a slightly different flavor at each school site, depending on just the needs of that site, parent volunteers, staffing. But but the cultural celebrations have happened across the district and really, again, have brought so much joy, whether we're celebrating Lunar New Year with lion dancers and dragon parades or Dia de los Muertos with some treats and other other ways to celebrate. Many schools have had multicultural family events, whether they're during the school day or

023in the evenings. And one of the benefits of those, aside from just sharing different cultures, is also the way it engages parent volunteers. And and in some cases, those are parents who are regularly in classrooms and in some cases, it's parents who are not and are coming specifically because these kinds of events give them a voice to be able to share things that are important and special to them. And so it's a great way to engage more community members. And then we've also done engagement activities outside of San Carlos rather than inviting all of our families to come to our school campuses. We've had several events in East Palo Alto for community members that are part of the Tinsley Transfer Program to really take programs to them and engage them in whether it's around the

024LCAP or just in building community there as well. And some of that work is being done by our new community liaison, Jenny Salazar, who's hired through the grant, the anti-bias grant that we have. Jenny's done some great work engaging families who often have a harder time engaging in the schools, whether that's because of a language barrier. She's also worked with families where attendance has been an issue and really just tried to kind of work with families with the highest need, really, and connecting them with other resources in the community as well. So just some photos. You can really just see the joy that has come from all of those different community celebrations and events and things. Moving into classrooms, you may remember that last spring we adopted new elementary social studies curriculum and our DEIB

025subcommittee on curriculum and content really weighed in heavily. We had a staff committee to identify different programs, but we also asked our DEIB subcommittee to take a look at those programs that we were piloting with a real lens on diversity and inclusion. And so the programs that were selected kind of met criteria for that group as well. We've audited our libraries and really weeded out a lot of old books and brought in some new ones that are a bit more modern. We've done a lot of social justice projects across schools. And again, I'll share Arroyo. We started the year within the first week, I think, kicked off a schoolwide project based learning unit on culture, family culture and tradition. And so we invited all students to interview a family member. And this was across Arroyo

026and Mariposa. Interview a family member, kind of think about their families, culture and traditions and share. And the feedback we got both from students, families and teachers was really the sense of belonging that that helped to create and connecting students with each other, with students that they had similarities with that they didn't know about or differences that they could learn from each other. I was in a few classrooms where they were doing a gallery walk, looking at some of their family profile articles that they had written. And it was so sweet to see the post-its that they left on each other's papers of like, oh, my family does that, too. Or I went to a friend's house and celebrated this holiday once or things like that. So really creating some nice connection there. And again,

027upper elementary example, but these kinds of things are happening across the district. And then really being intentional with the books that we select to read in classrooms. Again, at Arroyo, our fourth grade has really dived into the front desk series. You're not a fourth grader, you know it. It's about an immigrant family who run a hotel and just their experience, which is something that our students, many of many of our students have no awareness of. So it's created a chance for that. And not just in terms of cultural differences, we've also read books about ability, different abilities. At Arroyo, we do a March Madness book bracket. I saw Katie Holkren here somewhere, our great librarian. So much like the March Madness basketball, we do a book bracket and the students vote for their favorite books

028and we narrow it down to a final winner. And last year's focus for that book bracket was books about different abilities. So really trying to keep an eye on lots of different perspectives and voices in the books that we read. And then at the leadership level, we've been really fortunate to forge a partnership with a group called 21CSLA, which I think is California School Leadership Association. Academy. Academy. They are a group out of UC Berkeley and they've provided some really high level professional development to our leadership team. And we've had kind of a train the trainer model approach where several of us have participated in both their summer and winter summits and also in coaching provided by their equity coaches. And then we bring that work to the rest of our leadership team, do that

029work there and then bring principals, bring that work to our staff. So I'll share one example of that at the winter summit, our main presenter, there were four of us principals who attended and the main presenter was Charles Barrett, who's a school psychologist in Virginia. He's written books on social justice and equitable outcomes. And one of the things that he shared was thinking about I used to think blank and now I think blank or I used to do blank and now I do blank. Interestingly enough, that same question came up at an artificial intelligence conference that several of us attended. But it's something that we've also brought to our whole leadership team and kind of talked about some of the things that we used to think and now we think I just this week brought

030this to my staff meeting at Arroyo and I gave teachers kind of a heads up to prepare for it. And we talked about things that that they used to think and now they think. And some of the things they shared really had to do with building relationships with students and how critical that is and that sense of belonging and connection. And also really thinking about supporting students in a different way instead of in a deficit model, really thinking about an asset based and supportive model. So hearing that change over time from staff was really powerful. I would also just share before we move on from that slide, the work of working with our coaches, principals are being individually coached or actually Hans and I are being coached together to help us kind of lead this

031work. And so it's been really great to kind of have an outside perspective on some of that and has pushed all of our thinking a little bit, too. And then again, like we've taken this work that we've gotten from Berkeley and brought that into our leadership team meetings. Another example of that, actually, just today, Hans and I and Sarah, we're at a county racial justice summit and there was a speaker talking a bit about the school to prison pipeline and implicit bias. And the work that we had done at our summit actually went a little bit further than that even and talked about sidelining bias and that we can't erase all bias. We have to kind of set it aside and know that we have that implicit bias and ways that we can kind of

032work around it instead of pretending it's not there. All right. Well, Mindy's talked a lot about how we're making the work alive. I think that's really what we want to communicate is, you know, it may not be visible to everybody at all times or to the board, but we're really working to make it alive. And we are doing that through our leadership team as a whole, not just principles. And it also happens here. You know, we've spent significant time updating a number of policies with relation to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. You've passed an equity policy as a board, which is sort of a guiding light for the school district and a lot of what we'll do with our LCAP goals. We've we've updated the reclassification process for English learners, which seems like something that's

033no big deal. And it is. And we've informed that practice with our work through Stanford, as we've talked about before, and that collaborative with Sequoia and how we're at the cutting edge of doing that and doing what's right for students that are learning English. We've also brought you an EEL master plan right at our last meeting. I think you actually adopted the master plan, which was no small order. And we haven't had an updated master plan in a number of years. And what we brought was, again, it was in the interest of doing what's best for one of our most needy groups of students. In addition, you know, for example, on the diverse staff subcommittee, some of the outcomes from that, that was a part of that, as I talked about, we're really monitoring the

034demographics of our staff and trying our best to try to match staff with demographics of students as a best practice. And that is very much backed up in research, you know, throughout the country and throughout the world that, you know, students identify with someone that looks and acts like them more than anything else. And so we're working to do some of that work where we've updated our our hiring practices. We're using a different protocol with in interviews. We're using a different protocol for screening applications. And we're also, you know, more widely advertising our job vacancies, not just saying, OK, well, it's on adjoin, but really being mindful about, well, where else can we put these jobs so that we get a wide and diverse group of applicants that are ready to take on these positions

035and be in leadership in our school district or as a teacher or as a classified employee? We're also looking at ways to, again, look into staff affinity groups, and that might involve neighboring school districts as small districts. We don't often have enough staff in a certain, you know, group that may want to form a group. And so we've talked about that as well across districts. You know, you've seen some of these pictures, these are just some examples of us at our leadership retreat and at the two summits. Obviously, you know, this is all done in the interest of student impact and student outcomes. And we discussed quite a bit last month about the outcomes that we have, the most recent outcomes we have for students and how we continue to see growth across the district

036and we continue to see growth for students in some of our neediest student groups. And we're very excited about that. And we firmly believe that has a lot to do with our work in DIB and in sense of belonging, as Mindy talked about on site. It really is the main gauge, right? I mean, there's no way to go in and measure. We did this many activities on campuses about a certain tradition or holiday or et cetera, really the main outcome that we can monitor as students and their achievement and their social emotional well-being. And that's why we continue to bring you that data and continue to analyze it. You know, one piece that I that's really interesting that we kind of take for granted is that school districts are looking at their data across student

037groups and they're disaggregating their data across student groups so they can really hone in on where the need is. And while that's been common practice here and particularly in the Bay Area, it's not necessarily common practice across the state of California or across the United States. So those things we kind of take for granted. And we really shouldn't be because they continue to be an important part of this work. I think with that, you know, we are ready to take any clarifying questions that you have. One other piece I want to offer, there was a question about, well, what do we tell us about this process of developing our LCAP goals and how we're kind of melding those together to form new LCAP goals? So I'll give you one solid example. I'll offer this as

038where we're going with it. Currently, LCAP Goal 5 says that, in short, to ensure equitable access to learning for all students. Our DEIB Goal 3 actually says, empowering educators to foster equity in their classrooms, ensuring that we're going deeper with students in an intentional and supportive manner. And Educator Goal 3 from our strategic plan says, educators use culturally responsive practices to meet the diverse needs of all students. You can see that there's a lot of overlap there. And our real goal is to take those and make a goal that becomes our LCAP goal, that really becomes a guideline that reflects all of those different areas. Instead of having this and this and this and this, we want to have just this. And we'll be bringing you some draft goals with this spirit in mind at

039our March meeting. So now we're happy to take any clarifying questions that you might have. Thank you, Megan. That's a great presentation. Trustees, clarifying questions, if anyone would like to start. I have a question, Tracy. So you said in the last slide, increased sense of belonging. What kind of data are you using to see whether that's increasing? You want to take that or you want me to take it? I mean, I can start and I think I missed you can. So I think it's a variety of things anecdotally, of course. I mean, a great example was our Lunar New Year Assembly just last week. I happened to be on a Wednesday and we had our staff meeting after and every teacher in the room talked about the sense of pride that our Asian-American students felt.

040Those who celebrate Lunar New Year at home and could talk about it in their classroom and even share bits of their language or ways that they celebrate at home and the pride that they felt and the sense of belonging that created for them is a really powerful example. Anecdotally, again, we also look at our California Healthy Kids Survey data that shows a lot, both our student survey and our family caregiver survey. And then we do our own internal district kind of health and wellness survey that addresses some of that as well. You covered it perfectly. During the during the time when we launched the DIB initiatives, I had just come on to the board. We actually had parent groups where parents were engaged in kind of like study community groups. And I was really intrigued

041to hear about parents coming to campus and participating in ways they might not typically have participated. Are there still options for parents to participate in school based DIB like learning groups? Well, I can say that that process has evolved, right? We talked a little bit about we had these subcommittees that we formed. Much of the work that was on those subcommittees sort of lists was sunsetted, but it was done. They're like, OK, so now what do we do? And we consolidated to form one steering committee. OK, and so the steering committee is sort of one venue where parents could be a part of this. One of the other pieces that we're working on is with PTA and P-TECH developing sort of a playbook. Let's say you want to do an assembly or have a celebration

042about X, Y or Z. How might you go about doing that? And one of the key pieces on that is obviously to recruit parents who want to be a part of that. And I know that our PTA groups are really excited to have that. And we're working with our PTA leaders to develop that opportunity. What other on-site opportunities? I would say it takes on a different flavor again at each site. I think there are at least one or two sites that have a specific DEIB parent committee and in some cases that is through PTA kind of focused on some of these events and things. Sometimes it's through parent education opportunities that that go around that. We have over the years had several groups kind of opportunities for parents to come and learn together. Not sure

043if that is happening right now. I know it's not currently at Arroyo, not to say it won't in the future. It probably will. It's just not right now. But but a lot of that work is through PTAs. One of the one of the exciting things that Mindy and Teresa did, they were reading a book with their students and they had the opportunity to form a parent group that was also interested in reading the same book to sort of prepare them to answer questions from their students. That was a really great model that I know that many of our other schools have or would like to continue as well. At one point had a group of parents that were kind of reading articles together and discussing them. Yeah, I would just encourage you to keep listening

044for that interest among parents. I was at the Heather multicultural celebration in December and we had a table that was celebrating Jewish traditions and next to it was a table celebrating Muslim traditions. And it really was a moment to say, you know, our community is coming together in peace and belonging in a way in which the world is not reflective. And so, you know, often it's the adults that we really need to bring into those processes so that we can create a space that's supportive for all kids. We've definitely seen that at our multicultural events across the district, for sure. And I know Central just did a survey of parents about interest in different parent ed topics. So we're always kind of asking families what their needs are to definitely open to that. I don't

045have a question. I have a comment. Comment and a request. So I just really appreciate the update on how this work has evolved and seeing how the work of fostering diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging is being integrated into our other planning efforts. That's really the way the work gets sustained rather than putting it on its own shelf. So I just want to appreciate that. And then I love what you did there at the end, Hans, where you connected the dots between different goals. So I would just request when we see the LCAP goals in March, that perhaps you could bring another couple of those examples because that really connected the dots for me. I just have a comment. I guess I appreciate it also the layers because I feel like we see the celebrations and

046we see them in the press releases and on the, you know, social media, etc. And then I know sort of what my kids are doing as far as what they're reading and stuff, but just to see that it's sort of hard, it's very intentional and the fact that the libraries have been updated, all of that stuff is good. And then also focusing on the school leaders. I kind of liked the way that you presented it. I just, the only comment I would make is that this topic is going to ebb and flow over time. Sometimes it's going to be something that is going to take more of our attention. Sometimes it was something that doesn't take as much of our attention. I would just say that from, you know, the experience of at least watching

047it through my kid's eyes, a lot of it has always been little things go a long ways for kids to feel like belonging, right? And it doesn't necessarily have to be these giant diversity topics that are maybe what we focus on nationally. But as you mentioned, it can be something as simple as what you do at home and sharing that, right? I mean, the example I use always was last year's Central's potluck. I mean, it brought out a whole bunch of different groups and different individuals, I think even kids wise that maybe wouldn't be there, but goes a long way. So, I mean, I think sometimes we always focus on these big giant sweeping changes that we want to focus on nationally, but for our little district and our little home, you know, I think

048little things can go a long way. So don't let that interfere with them. Thank you. Yeah, I don't have any questions. Just a comment that I really pleased how you all have continued this work. And I appreciate all that you've done for that. Cause I think in a lot of districts, it was something that a resolution was passed or a statement was made and things kind of went back to the way they were. And I think because of you all and the staff really caring about this, that has not been the case in San Carlos. I really appreciate that. Do we have any public comment on this item? I don't hear on blue cards. Okay. Next, we'll move on to our discussion and action items. The first approval of our appointment of our director of

049health and wellness. It's kind of a great segue from the last topic to this topic. And Ben, you know, part of what you're asking is how we can engage parents. It's a big part of this position. And as you know, our previous wellness director headed back home to Boston and we enjoyed her immensely while she was here. I'm sure the employees in the room would agree. I mean, we're really excited to announce our next person. Important to note that, you know, this is the only way we have this position is through our partnership with the Sequoia healthcare district. And not only do they provide for this position, they provide for a few others in nursing and counseling. And in order to accept this grant, you must have this position filled. So you can imagine I've

050been taking a lot of questions from Sequoia healthcare district and their director about, hey, how's that going? When are we going to have a person? We've had someone in an interim role. You might remember Cora sending a few things out and she was great, but she was only here half the time. And she couldn't continue in the role past then. Also, Matt Steinborn, one of our psychologists was doing some of this work. So we're all excited to have this role filled. And without further ado, I certainly do not believe that for many of you that this person needs a wealth of introduction. But I am very pleased that out of a very, very competitive candidate pool that we've we got because of some of our new practices, we had a large interview pool, and then

051we had a smaller second interview pool, and they had to do a task as part of that. It was very rigorous. And I'm so pleased to announce that our next wellness director will be Sheila Brar. With your approval. Okay, I'd like to just take a moment. Do you want to? I should have said, we asked for your approval. Do you have any public comment? Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. All in favor, please state by saying aye. I would just like to take this opportunity to thank board, district leadership for the opportunity to be in this role. I'm excited to bring my public health experience and background. So particularly around health education programs and implementation, data analysis and community engagement to the district. I said I've interfaced with many people in

052this room as a parent volunteer. So it's a really unique opportunity, I think, to bridge those two worlds together. And I just listening to the questions and comments during the work being adjacent to a fraction of it. I'm excited to bring that experience that I have, as well as what I bring from the public health world. So looking forward to collaborating with our school site admin staff, the board, the district and the Sequoia health care district to really enrich the student experience here in San Carlos and kind of enhance and work in a community that I'm already very invested in. So looking forward to getting started and getting to work. Thank you, Sheila. Next, we have the approval of our comprehensive school safety plan. All right, good evening. My name is Jennifer Gabri and I'm

053here to present the San Carlos School District comprehensive health and wellness update, as well as the comprehensive school safety plan, which is required by the state of California. So this is my 10th time doing this presentation. So for some of you in the room who may have heard this, I do apologize in advance because you may hear some information you've heard before at the school site councils, at the wellness council. If you're a firefighter or a police officer in your free time, awesome, you may have had that experience as well. It's been around our communities and our schools to make sure that we engage. So I'll share a little bit more about the process. So Veronica is going to put our slides up. You want me to do it? No worries. Oh yeah, never mind.

054I'm new to this. Here we go. There it is. All righty. Share screen. Share screen. Sorry for this. It will. Just a moment. There we are. All right. Thank you for your patience. All right. So California education code does have a requirement in it that every single school in the state of California in grade kindergarten through 12th grade have what's known as the CSSP, and it allows us to make sure that we have a policy in place to address some of the concerns that the state has found across the state to create a warehouse, if you will, for policy to make sure that we are attending to the needs of our students adequately and thoroughly. And so every school board in the state of California must approve and adopt a plan by March 1st, which

055is why we're here tonight in February. So we'll review a little bit of the MTSS network, highlight the work that's in action that supports the plan, as well as we have our plan that you've already seen hopefully and taken a moment to review, and as well as given the opportunity to update the SCSD wellness policy, which we wanted to take a moment to advertise and talk about a little bit tonight because it's part of my other role in the food service. It's part of that requirement as we are getting audited, so double dipping. Big five safety protocols, we'll do a brief review as we've already done that in October for you, and then talk a little bit about some of our restorative practices in social emotional wellness. And we've picked these pieces out of the

056plan to highlight, but it by no means exhausts the comprehensive list that's in the table of contents and that's in the plan itself. So in creating a positive school safe community, we want to make sure that we have a culture where everyone feels welcome. We just had a wonderful presentation all about that, so thank you for that. That was good timing, yes. And we want to make sure our schools are also safe in a place where all students feel physically, social, socially, emotionally safe, psychologically safe, and that it has proven to be that is the strongest antidote to school violence. And so here's our multi-tiered system of support, also known as MTSS. The state of California encourages the use of a collaborative approach to making sure our students are well supported in social emotional learning.

057In tobacco education, that's what TUPES stands for, tobacco use prevention education. Some of the things we have at our schools are chill zones, and they were facilitated by the Rotary Clubs and some of the Lions Clubs donations to make our students have a place at school where they can decompress and can find some calm. And we also have places for you to report when things aren't going well at school, and you may experience some bullying, and so we have a plan in place for that. So the tier two mental health and therapy supports are available for a smaller set of students that exhibit the need for that. And then the tier three, we have supports that are also very important and mandated as well. So AB 2246 requires that we have suicide prevention education in

058our staff members and allow for our staff members to recognize the warning times. And so you'll see some of that in our plan. There's also a system of threat assessment that's in our county, and so I know some of the people here tonight are practitioners in that field, and so we appreciate all the work they do around that. Specialized referrals might also give you a tier three intervention or support, and so that's another way that we provide that care. So if go to the next slide, there is a link to the document in there, and I encourage you to take a look at the table of contents and see how comprehensive the list of policies are that are there. When we reviewed this plan, we did look at it in its entirety with all of

059our school site councils, and we also were happy to connect with the San Mateo County Office of Ed, who has now put a new template online that made it systematic throughout the county for all of our schools in all 23 districts in San Mateo County to have the same kind of template and have the same. And that ensures the county, which has to verify that our school district has this in place, to be assured that they have given us direction as a district to include certain set policies into this plan that are compliant with the state. So it may look different to you this year than it did last year, and that is the reason why, because a new model has been put in place so that coaching was provided by Mason Henrichs, who is

060a wonderful and talented coordinator of school safety and risk prevention. So I've listed the dates of the school site councils. Some of them were on the same day. I was pretty busy in that time frame, and we also had the opportunity to meet with our wellness council, and the local law enforcement partners are Captain Myers and Sergeant Cousins. We were able to connect with them and have a meeting with them and review the plan and get some of their feedback, and also connect with our fire marshal who has done a review of our school sites recently around the time of January 25th. I had the opportunity to see him on January 25th, and then again with the Redwood City San Carlos Fire Department on February 8th and 9th when we connected about the plan. And

061just to know that we really did try to listen to people's feedback. Some of the highlights were they were grateful for some of the trauma-informed practices around the Big Five, that staff training is emphasized as something that should be continued and is a best practice and offered often, that the infrastructure of upgrades and facilities maintenance is part of student safety and wellness, and it should be thought of that way. This is another feedback I received from two schools, and that parent education around self-harm warning signs is something that would be welcome, and because it's hard to know what to look for. And nutrition feedback, some of it was just related to some of the packaging that we use in our food service, and that just trying to get enough volunteers to help with all of

062that was shared, just because they had the opportunity to talk about it there once I was there. So for our Big Five protocols, we have, as you know, been trained and talked about this in October when we were together. In the school sites have now received training, and our district office staff have been trained as recently as yesterday, I think we did a practice of drop cover and hold on in the district office, and our staff is very engaged in this work. So we also want everyone to know that it's age-appropriate and trauma-informed. We want to be honest with our students, but at an age-appropriate level about how to prepare for some of these things that might happen. And students who engage in the Big Five have a mindset of think on your feet, and

063that think on your feet is just something that we repeat over and over and over again. And our law enforcement partners are happy to help with our drills, as well as just meet and talk with school sites to talk about what are some possible things and answer questions. It's a touchy subject for some, and we want to have a trauma-informed approach to it. And it's better to be prepared and have a plan than not. So we'll talk a little bit about our wellness policy now. I'm really grateful that you took the time to update it in May of 2022. Thank you very much. It needs to be updated every three years, and so we'll be talking about it maybe in 2025. And so some of the things that come up, and I think I've printed

064it out for all of you, and you have it in front of you. It's good to recognize the nutrition aspects of it. In a public meeting, we're meant to review it and talk about it as part of our food service audit. So just to remind everyone about the goals of the plan and the policy is to have this multi-tiered system of support in place so that we can support student wellness. And we have nutritious foods served throughout the day, and then we educate our students about that. And we use food, we do not use food as a reward or prohibit physical activity as a punishment for behavior or any other things not turning in your homework. That's part of our policy. And so the other piece is to make sure we have a lens of

065wellness when we do all of our planning and that we understand the diverse perspectives and practices that might be present, and we plan for that, which I think you did a great job of highlighting, so there's no need for added examples for that tonight. Thank you, Hans and Mindy, and everyone who's working on that. So the state has asked us to have alternatives to suspension. Suspension has been proven not to be something that has long-term impact on student performance or their changes in behavior. And so as a result of that, restorative practice is a part of our response to that requirement in this plan. So I want to call out some of the things that we do. We have restorative circles in classrooms that kind of work on school culture. So you might see students

066sitting in a circle and talking about things or sharing something in their day so that we have connections between the students and the teacher, and it allows for them to have a place to share more than just what they know in math and science and reading. The alternative routes to suspension mean that we might have tiers of support that we offer to students. So if they also have supports to know when they have a problem, we expect problems on our campuses. We are prepared to handle them, that many people gathering every day, there is going to be something that comes up. And so the restorative work and all of the practices around that are meant to repair the harm that happens between people on a campus. And it also gives the students a chance to

067address the issue, identify their feelings, and then share the perspectives that they all might have about one single event. And so it happens often in recess time or when there's free time or there's collaborative work and they might not get along. And so teaching them how to address these issues and not to run away from the problems, I think, is really, really durable skills, I would say. Teachers and staff were trained last year in an excellent training from Kirsten and Alana that talked about behavior strategies and how to recognize when your student is struggling and how to help them identify the root cause of the behavior and see what their need is and address it. So I hope that answers some perspective about restorative practices. We have some great practices happening here in the San

068Carlos School District. We have a safety walk that we do with our school resource officer before school starts. We identify in the big five, we go through the facilities, and then we kind of tackle that list throughout the year. We have no expectation we'd be able to get it all fixed right before school starts, but we do try to peel away some of the things on that list. The fire marshal also addresses some of those things as well. We have a middle school advisory curriculum that's present that helps the social-emotional wellness piece, and then a crisis response team and post-emergency protocols in place. This is something new in the big five that we have talked about, I think, in October as well, where there's a focus on after the event. What would you do after

069the event and preparing for that? Interestingly enough, when I was speaking with the police department, they were sharing that they have a response that is known as PIRT, which is a psychiatric, the whole acronym is written somewhere, psychiatric emergency response team. And so when an event happens in our community at the police level, they deploy that team to address some of the mental health needs in our community. I didn't know about this before I had talked to them and interviewed them, and I was happy to hear that it was in place. And then we have our school-wide big five practices. So I know that was a lot in a short period of time, but hopefully you had a chance to digest it and read it through it prior to the meeting. And so tonight our

070hope was that to inform and review the contents of the plan, and also talk about the dynamic and ongoing process of crafting it and sharing and revising the plan with our local stakeholders. We hope that you could approve the plan this evening. And then I want to let you know that we have a plan with the county office of education to get on a new cycle because it is, we have a site plan that we approve in October, and then it's not until now that we talk about the district's plan. So our hope is, is that we don't have very many changes to this plan between now and September. We're able to go ahead and present a very similar plan to all the school site councils in September and the few weeks in October. And

071then we adopted 24-25 school comprehensive safe schools plan in October of 2024 and get on a new cycle so that we have the plan in place really close to the start of the school year. Makes a lot more sense. And now that we have our new template in our document tracking system, it'll be much more in tune with what the county wants as well. Thank you. Trustees, clarifying questions. I have a clarifying question. For summer school, what do we do to ensure that summer school staff are trained on these protocols? And then also sometimes people rent our space for summer camps and things like that. Does this plan apply for those summer camps and are they trained or conformed on all this? Great question. We have signage in all of our spaces. So if you

072are a renter, you would be able to at least see the signage. You see it, right? Yeah. So that's one thing. All of our emergency responders are trained in it. And so generally when an event would happen on a campus, whether any time of day, summer, after hours, doesn't matter, they would get in touch with us and then we would be able to support them with the protocols. The protocols are written in such a way that you could look at the poster and do what you needed to do, at least until the responders got there, right? But the summer school staff are generally our staff. And so yes, they would have had all that training prior to, but it's a great idea to try to provide a little reminder in the training that we do

073before the school starts. Yeah. I think whether it's after school sports or whether it's summer, just making sure our campuses are really safe places and that people know the protocols or what to do. I think that's, you know, job number one is keeping people safe. Number two, we did the facilities master plan and a lot of the elements here were part of the facilities master plan. And so just like a comment would be as we prioritize projects for the facilities master plan, I feel like this should be one of the top priorities. For example, like can kids breathe and can staff breathe when there's forest fires? You know, what's the air quality? Those types of things should be top of the priority list. And so I would, one, want to make sure we're cross-referencing this,

074but then two, when you're under construction, a lot of times people don't think about the safety issues that that can bring up to. And so I would just, you know, I think that's where maybe you and our facility team could work together on any time we're in a transition like that. And then the third, just we talked maybe three or four board meetings ago about, you know, we had these, we have cameras and there's sensors at night and so on, just like how well lit the campuses are at night. You know, if it gets dark very early and if I know most of this is geared towards what the state requires for students, but for staff, you know, if it's dark out and you're on the back of a rundle and it's just, you know,

075all the courts or fields and things like that, just making sure that we're checking on the lighting on everything. So those are my inputs. Right. Thank you. Do we have any public comment? Any other comments before we take a vote? The only comment I always have is these scenarios require lots of practice. So as much practice as you can do is always going to be the better all around. But I also know they also, in today's world, require a lot of discussion. So with children about why you do it, what you do, and that knowing, I think what I've seen in the past couple of years, which I appreciate and hope it continues, is you advise students that there's going to be a drill multiple days beforehand and multiple times. So they know the drill

076from not being surprised on those days. And I just know that personal experience that has helped a lot of friends and kids. Definitely. Is there a motion to approve? Move to approve 6B comprehensive school safety plan. Second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. That's approved. Thank you. We will move on to our board policy update. Are we going to move on? All right. Thank you, Sarah. I'm bringing forth five policies. Our committee is actually bringing forth five policies that will conclude the updates to bring us up to date for our comprehensive, coordinated early intervention services plan. Right. And these five policies are from a variety of different areas, including one about LCAP and recruitment and selection, staff development, non-discrimination, and comprehensive local plan. So we're asking for your approval tonight. I'm happy to take

077any questions as well as we have two committee members that are on the board, Tracy and Sarah. Tracy, anything you wanted to add? No. Tracy and I were involved with the committee in reviewing these. I think they're relatively straightforward. As you can see, the red is the SBA recommendation, and then there's a couple of words in blue that were things we discussed as a committee and decided to make a different choice for whatever reason. But happy to answer any questions about that. Who's on the committee besides the two of you? Well, it kind of depends on the policy. Whatever staff. Appropriate staff. So on this one, it was myself and Jennifer Smith and Megan. Easy. We're all part of the committee. Any public comment? I move we approve 6C. Second. All in favor, please state

078by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Those are approved by zero. Thank you, Hans. And now we will move to 6D, approval of the proposal for the swale repair. We have a project that we would like to secure approval for that is the storm mitigation risk management project that's along a hillside. It does not impact a field at all, but it is on the hillside of Heather if you've been on top of the field. And this is a concrete swale that has pictures that you can see provided in four dots that allow you to see the state of it. And it protects not only the houses below, but as well as guide the water through during times of intense rain. And during our intense rains in March, it collapsed. And so we are now in a position

079where we need to address it. Thank you. Any questions, trustees? I guess that's one question location-wise. This is, so if we have Heather, it would be like the wet part. So there's the solar shade. Is it on that hill or the back hill by that hill? The B Grants, the fence line, the hillside dam. Okay. I know there's other mitigation that we've done for rain at other locations on Heather. Is that still in serviceable? There's some temporary ones. A better way to put it is that there are other homes that could be affected by weather. Have we had to do anything to mitigate anything else at other locations? This is all that comes to our attention at this time that I know of. I can answer that question also because I know exactly what you're

080talking about. You're talking about the other sites that we have issued before that the maintenance team put sandbags around it and it's still there. So that's why we don't get any more campaigns around that area because we put sandbags around the areas. Okay. I guess the question to me is that it's cheaper to do it at once than it is to do it in two separate projects. So I'm going to assume we have studied that we don't need other applications. My only comment on this one is I know this area quite well. I think a lot of people go up and walk and hike on this swell. I've never heard that term before. I think in some spots around San Carlos there's fences that prevent you from walking on these things and in this particular

081spot you can just walk up the hill and walk around on it. So from a safety standpoint, just wonder what we're going to do to make sure that this is safe and then two, from a liability standpoint, making sure that we have the right signage or the right liability coverage so that if anybody did decide to go against the rules and hike on it, you can see it in the pictures. It goes down to a hole that dumps water and it's not necessarily the safest place. So that's my input on it. I don't know if you've considered any of that. The pedestrians are on that sometimes. Are there questions or comments? Do we have any public comments? Is there a motion to approve? I'll move approval of 60, the Heather storm swale repair. Second. All

082in favor, please state the saying aye. Aye. Goodbye, zero. Thank you. Our final action item is our board meeting calendar. Jennifer, did you want to? Yes, we did bring the two folks and one of the meetings is canceled. I just want to call that to everybody's attention, the February 29th. We also did a poll for July 11th to ensure that we have a forum predicting that we'll have only consent agenda. Therefore, it will be a fairly short meeting and it looks like we do have a forum. So those were the only two changes. But we do need to approve. Is there a motion to approve? Any questions? Any comment on the board meeting calendar? Move to approve 60. All in favor, please state the saying aye. Aye. Okay, we'll move to future agenda items. You

083have the list. Okay, sure. Okay, so we do have a lot of work with the LCAP coming up, LCAP goals as Hans referred to. We also expect to bring the learner profile and some of our work on the strategic plan so the board can see those action items. I think we've gotten a request to shuffle the dots between those so you can expect that. We expect to do an LCAP study session and bring our colleagues from the supporting high school district with some of the metrics for outcome data for youngsters as they go to high school. We'll also have a second interim and we'll have several budget pieces that will come along with the LCAP and some considerations of facility fees. And we've also been asked to give a presentation about LaVarza and the work

084that LaVarza does with our students and that's not totally inclusive of everything. Anything else you'd like to add to consideration? I have one just in preparation for the end of the year in regards to lunch. So just specifically from a budgetary standpoint and mainly a budgetary standpoint only, we've now done two separate ways in serving lunch between year to year. I'd like to know the comparison from financials of how that looks in terms of meals served and then how that has with meals not picked up and then what system is better for the bottom line. I guess would be the best way for me. Yeah I'd love to see that. When is our next update on enrollment and what enrollment looks like for TK and for next fall because it isn't aren't we about in

085the season where we would get early signs on enrollment? Yes so we are just putting out the intent to return forms which are pretty important for us to get a better view of that. So I predict do you think we'll have something by the next meeting the 15th rather March 15th? I think we could. Yeah I'll check on that. Trying to remember when you intend to return or do. Yeah so we can give a glimpse of the update but we just want to remember the intent to return form due date will sort of inform the final number. Yeah I mean I'm particularly interested in TK. What's that looking like given that's new? The other one is calendar for next year. You know generally our tradition is we have an August meeting and before school starts

086and just with summer vacations and all that stuff planning would be great to know at a minimum what that date would be but you know on like travel stuff for for many of us we're like six months we needed to kind of know when it's coming. I think we have a draft of that. Thank you. I just thought concert tickets realized and then I realized it's probably a board meeting date like August 22nd the Thursday after school. Great now we will move on to public comment on non-agenda items. Before we start with that I'd like to remind the public that the provisions of the Brown Act prohibit the board from discussing or taking action on such matters at this meeting. According to board bylaw 9323 each speaker will have three minutes and total time for

087public comment will be limited to 20 minutes. It would be helpful to know by a show of hands how many people we have online who wish to give public comment during this time. None. I've seen any yet. Okay so we have right here so we will get started. Trustee Park is going to be keeping a timer for each speaker and trustee Layton is going to keep track of our 20 minutes. So if each speaker could who's here in person could come up to the podium. We will start with Kamala followed by Sonia. Can you see this the timer? Yes. You're able to see it. Okay. That's not working. Good evening my name is Kamala Umbenhauer and I'm a resident of San Carlos. My children attended school in the district. I'm a classified employee of San

088Carlos school district. I started seven years ago at the lunch server. I also currently sit on CFDA negotiations team and I'm the newly elected vice president for CFDA. As a classified employee I have done many different jobs for the district from serving lunch to working one-on-one with students. During COVID shutdown I along with many classified staff were the first to return to work. One of my jobs during this time was to perform COVID tests on staff. I risked my health during that time to perform the tests three days a week as well as serve lunch boxes to the families who relied on food from the district. During that time helped I realized how important health insurance was. Classified staff are not the ones who get acknowledged accolades from parents or the general public. Many families

089have no idea the work we do behind the scenes. As some of the lowest paid members of the San Carlos school district we performed we performed behind the same jobs that need to be done to allow teachers to do the amazing jobs that they do in our students meeting the needs of the students. Without classified staff drivers and buses doing registration storm press to name just a few of the vital tasks performed the district would not be able to operate and serve our students at the level we do. I am here today to support my co-workers and their effort to keep medical insurance affordable. Although I've chosen not to take medical insurance from the district as I am a even with the district paying full insurance for a full kind of play it did not

090make sense to me financially to take the insurance if I would have to pay a pro-rated amount meaning more money out of my pocket. It has been affordable for many of us part-time employees even when the district was paying full amounts. It's now even more out of reach. I strongly believe that the district should be providing affordable medical insurance to all employees. Many of my co-workers who do take the medical are now paying hundreds of months more than they were paying in 2020. This is not affordable for many. To make matters worse in negotiations the district told us that the only way that they would help pay for the insurance increases is if we took money out of our out of our salary increases and applied those towards paying for medical insurance. This isn't fair.

091Please help us. We depend on livable wages and affordable health insurance. Grace are you okay with the timer? Okay then we'll have Sonya followed by Linda. I have a special experience. I've been working with the school district for over 20 years. I also receive a mother, a third grade student at the district. While I'm grateful to have this opportunity to work at the district especially at Orlando, I'm here tonight to ask for your help. Like many employees I get my private medical insurance from the district. In January of this year I noticed that the cost of Kaiser went up over a hundred dollars per month. While I understand that the medical cost increases each year, I'm used to the district helping me out by offsetting the cost increases which is why I was shocked to

092see that I had to pay over a hundred dollars more each month. At the single mother who's on six budgets, I'm simply going on four months while the extra hundred dollars might not mean a lot to some people, it means a lot to me. I have to make sacrifices in providing to my daughter to pay my bills and pay my rent. Please help me and my co-workers who are in the same situation. Can we check that the mic is on still? You're not me, okay. My name is Linda Townsend. I've been employed in the school district for 25 years as the librarian for our own new school and I'm here tonight to share my perspective about the importance of providing affordable medical insurance for your employees. I'm now on Medicare because I'm old but at

093one point in time I did have medical insurance through the district and it is difficult when you have such a large increase in your medical benefits and your medical charges, excuse me. Class of employees are the lowest paid employees of the district. Many still make under 25 dollars an hour, work less than eight hours a day, and haven't received the rates since July of 2022. Meanwhile we've all watched as prices of rent, utilities, and other basic needs have risen to new heights and now we're being hit with another hundred dollar month increase in medical benefits. We depend on the district to help offset the cost of this increase simply because we can't afford to. In the past the district has helped to pay for those increases and I'm here tonight to ask you to please

094help us. My colleagues and I work very hard to serve the students and families of St. Carlos. We don't make a lot of money in our jobs but we do have very good medical insurance options and we depend on them to be affordable. A hundred dollar a month increase without financial help is just too much. So thank you. And now we'll have Inger followed by Martin. My name is Inger O'Connell and I'm here to comment on that. I wish to thank both sides of the table for the work that has gone into the negotiations thus far but I was shocked to hear that we've reached this far to this day and allowed them to work as a whole technology associate and join the district 17 years ago. I think I could ask for a show

095of hands if I've ever helped you with tech support. I know pretty much everyone in this room and I do love my job. Needless to say living in the Bay Area on one income has been difficult um uh but the rising cost of living and inflation has made it nearly while we agree as an employee group on a five percent salary increase we do not understand why the district is not in agreement to continue paying for full cost of the lowest cost health care for the employee only which they always have done in the past. If we have to bear the cost of increased health care coverage it would begin to the five percent phase that has already been agreed to effectively cutting our salary increase for a lot of our employees. Coming from an

096insurance background I understand health care costs are on the rise but right now since the district does not agree to the increased health care cost the increase is coming straight out of our individual paychecks and has been since December for coverage starting January 1st, 2004. I have had $117.49 deducted from each paycheck starting in December on January and February. I'm not sure what facts and figures were given for conservation of the health and welfare benefits but our understanding is it's only about 40 of us out of the 110 members in our community even elect to take health care coverage and almost all of us choose Kaiser. The workers in our employee group have hit the hardest as far as our incomes are considered between low, very low, extremely low according to San Diego County Federal

097Income Guidelines for one-person councils lifetime which is between $40,000 and $104,000. Some of us qualify for affordable housing but it is still not affordable. Budget experts say that we should spend no more than 30 percent of our income on rent but I spend almost half of my income on rent thanks to the high cost of rent in the Bay Area and I'm still subject to increases. My rent just went up 10 percent. I have to deal with it. Gas prices, I have to deal with it. Groceries, same thing. I have to deal with it. The $117.49 per month increase for a single employee to about $1,400 per year for employee to put that in perspective. Time's up. Your time is up. Good evening. My name is Martin. I work for the maintenance. I have been

098an employee throughout the Chicago school district over 32 years. I have Kaiser medical insurance from the district for many years because it has been an affordable option for me. Recently the cost of a medical insurance has gone up over a hundred for a month which is costing me over $1,200 a year. In the past the district has helped to pay for these increases so I don't understand why they are not doing that now. I have also not done a salary increase this year so I am currently making less than I did the previous year. I am here to ask you for your assistance. We cannot afford this. We need a cut and we are asking the district to please help to pay for this increase. Thank you. It looks like we do have some public

099comment online. There was a hand that just disappeared. We will now move to employee group comments starting with Dan from a CTA. Good evening. As president of the San Carlos teachers association I am sad to see our friends and the classified union discouraged with their negotiations with the district. I along with our executive board are hopeful that both sides can come to an agreement to end the current impasse and our classified employees are an integral part of our district. Thank you. Thank you Dan. Do we have Lisa or someone representing? Thank you everyone who came here to support the CTA including teachers and neighboring districts chapter union members. I appreciate it so much. Hello to our board members. I am Lisa. The classified employees are those who work hard day in and day out to

100make a safe, happy, and healthy learning and work environment for your children, our teachers, and our community. I'm here to speak tonight regarding the struggle that my co-workers and I are facing regarding skyrocketing costs for medical insurance of the district. As you may already be aware if you as you've heard tonight if you have heard before the cost of medical insurance for most of them that most of the employees has gone up over a hundred dollars a month. This has hit district classified employees the hardest since we're the lowest paying employees in the district. Historically when the cost of medical insurance has increased the district has offset that cost increase for employees which is why we are heartbroken that the district is forcing these costs onto the backs of these lowest employees, lowest paid employees.

101I personally have been impacted and you can see here tonight the faces of the families and the children who are also being impacted by this. In 2023 I paid $730 a month for my Kaiser for my plan for my daughter and myself $730 a month. Starting January 24 I'm now paying $946 a month and an increase of $216 a month $2592 a year. I've been working for this district a place I've always considered my home for over 25 years now. While $100 to $200 a month may not seem that much to you please understand $100 to $200 a month is a significant impact my me and my family. The amount our members are asking for is not out of line. We want to be able to work to serve the community we care about. We

102want to be able to afford to live in the community we care about. The two sides are in agreement over salary and it is only the health increase that is not and that not all members take that is holding up getting the salary increase to our members. CSEA is your support staff show your support for us. We'll now move on to board member comments. I'm going to start us off tonight first with a statement on behalf of the board about negotiations between the district at CSEA. The board has delegated full and complete authority to its negotiations team to carry out our direction and has complete faith that the team is doing so in a manner that is as open and straightforward as possible. The board is confident that so long as both parties approach the

103table in a spirit of good faith with a view for what is best for the district and the students it serves in both the short and long terms negotiations will ultimately be successful. The board knows that its team is committed to this approach. I also want to recognize tonight that February is Black History Month and I can really see evidence of the ways that the district's DEIB focus like Hans and Mindy talked about on community engagement and classroom and curriculum has expanded. You know our classrooms and our school libraries have robust collections of books and materials by Black authors. Students learn not just about MLK but also about Black scientists and poets about music culture and food. My daughter came home this week quoting Amanda Gorman after reading her poetry in third grade. So I

104appreciate the thought and care that our educators and staff are putting into broadening the perspectives and voices that are represented in our classrooms and I will pass it on to you. Thanks I just want to remind everyone tonight at 9 45 the Skeff auction closes to all of our teachers and staff who graciously donate their time and money for it. Most people don't remember recall that you know the Skeff gives us six percent of our budget and that is usually not 100 percent of people don't donate. So it's those who are reaching into their pockets to add more to know the importance of school funding. So I always remind people especially for these events for staff auctions and teacher events it's a great way for people to give smaller amounts because every dollar counts in

105our district to try to help with the funding. So that's all. My update is I went to the PTAC first PTAC meeting of the year last week and you know we got updates about Skeff and the how the readathon did which you know they outperformed last year last year's numbers by over a hundred thousand dollars and also healthy space tutoring. But I think the thing that I wanted to spend a little bit of time on was to talk about chickens ball like we got an update from Mona Mona Klein Connie Barbara and Jean Dana at the last one and you know I don't I never had a chance to attend chickens ball and when we moved to the district pretty late and then we there was the pandemic which kind of canceled the last one

106that was rehearsed and I don't think I understood the magnitude of the significance of chickens ball so I and I don't know if everyone in this room has either but you know just hearing from Mona Connie and Jean about everything that was involved and how elaborate the costumes were and the sets and you know how they were able to also get a bunch of sponsors through the local vendors and like they raised like tens of thousands of dollars for our schools that was it was the largest PTA longest running PTA fundraiser for like 80 years and you know this year they decided that they were going to say goodbye there's no more chickens ball and so I just wanted to take a moment to like you know say thank you to all those who have

107been involved who poured all their love and effort into you know bringing the community together and to raise funds for performing arts and you know I hope that at some point there is some version of you know an event that brings together the creativity the laughter and talent that chickens ball did you know and I just want to thank all those who have were involved for so long thank you I appreciate those comments I was going to be in the chicken ball right before it's going to be my first one so I echo all of the things you've shared and I know that I believe the city is celebrating their centennial next year and I think this would be a wonderful St. Carlos tradition to somehow highlight during those events and I think we've got

108folks that are on that committee so I think that might be one way we could raise up and acknowledge in that event and then I have one event I wanted to share with all of you it's a climate ready school symposium being put together by the San Mateo county office of education and coordinated by one of our San Carlos parents Julie Hillboard and the audience is superintendent CBOs but also school board trustees it's April 30th from 9 to 1 30 at the county office and the summary is learn and share promising practices to improve environmental literacy meet legislative requirements and build sustainable operations and facilities so it seems kindly in light of our master plan and the efforts around measure age I just wanted to let you know about that event I want to echo

109the comments on the bond that's coming up measure h the elections on March 5th so I guess our next board meeting will know what the outcome was measure h is really an investment in the safety of our schools and making it a place where kids can learn and where our staff can come to work safely whether there's a wildfire or whether there's a heat wave and there's many things that we've not upgraded on our campuses some of those some of the windows have been around since the original days of these campuses and so our ability to really make our schools reflect the pride that we have in the learning and the work that goes on there so just encourage everyone to get out the vote this is one of those elections where not very many

110people vote because it's not like the presidential election or the senate election so there every single vote really really counts and what that would do is give the district the opportunity to do these projects to to make our schools safer and better for everyone so I just encourage everyone to get out the vote yeah I am going to ask to share I'm going to use the time allotted to me to share a beautiful moment from the week and it also illustrates the beautiful collaboration between our classified and certificated staff on the left is a picture of a hummingbird that was caught in a skylight and Sebastian the custodian at BA, Martin a maintenance person and Mr. Lanier collaborated to get the little hummingbird out and they found a way to give it some nourishment this

111could have been a really traumatizing experience for students who've just grown to love nature at BA but indeed they were able to rescue the little bird and it flew off into the trees it's a beautiful moment because the children in some authentic writing sent to me these notes so I would know about this and these are letters that they wrote to Sebastian and Martin saying thank you for rescuing our cute little hummingbird that was trapped in our skylight you had a great idea to mix sugar and water to make nectar that gave it energy to survive and fly away it was amazing awesome and magical to see it fly away thank you for keeping our schools clean you guys are heroes love Ella I have samples of these I'll share with the board but it

112just was such a wonderful reminder that every day there's magic going on in our schools with our children and that's my comment the board will now go into closed session to discuss items 13 a and b is listed on the agenda do we have any public comment on closed session items no okay the board will now adjourn to closed session ready the board will now leave closed session and reconvene into open session pursuant to california government code section 54957.1 no reportable action was taken in closed session on items 13 a or b and this adjourns the meeting at 9 0 6 p.m.