SCSD Regular Board Meeting 8-24-23

001Good evening. Welcome to the August 24th, 2023, regularly scheduled meeting of the San Carlos School District Board of Education, the first meeting of this new school year, calling this meeting to order at 6.33 p.m. First, we need to approve our agenda, and we have one change to make that I know of. We're going to pull 6C off of the agenda. Any other changes? Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? I'll move approval of the agenda with the removal of 6C. Second. All in favor, please state by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Agenda is approved by zero, and now we'll move to our special recognition. Hans and I plan to double team this. We put together a slide deck of part of the press images from start of school. It's been a really amazing start

002of school, and we start with where it really started for us way back in August, the beginning of August 1st or July 31st, and then with some highlights of the professional learning, we've had the TKK events that the trustees so generously attended, and I'm going to turn it over to Hans to start. All right. Thank you, Dr. Frentress. Next slide, please. Sure. I think we have the little videos at the end, right, in the slides? No? Yes, I think so, unless you want to start it now. I thought we had them embedded, but you do what works. With any luck, you'll see that Amber's been really active in social media elevating the really good things going on in the district, and if you follow Facebook, she also has included some reels, but we'll show those

003when we get to them. All right. Thanks. So we started, as Dr. Frentress said, back August 1st and 2nd, and Veronica really helped us by securing a place at College of San Mateo so that we could actually retreat as a group, and so there's a couple pictures there of the beautiful view and the place where we ate lunch, but the room we had was perfect. It was well-sized. We had lots of collaboration. We shared leadership during the retreat, which is fantastic, so we obviously presented, but so did many of the leaders at certain sections, and we got great comments about that being a wonderful way to learn from each other rather than it's just Jennifer and I talking all the time, so that was great. You know you went to many of these. Following that,

004the next couple of weeks following our retreat were the TK and K welcome nights, and I know I did one with Sarah, and I think Jennifer did one with maybe each of you other times, and they were at homes and lots of interested families who were just so excited and overjoyed to be joining the school district had the opportunity to kind of talk about some of the same pieces there. An important day one week ago today, in fact, is when all of the teachers returned, and we had a chance to learn together. Had a full day of learning for all the teachers TK to eight, and I'm happy to report that the returns on the feedback were quite good. Close to 80% of folks thought there was, it was valuable to their classroom practice. Almost

00570% said that they thought there was enough collaboration time with their colleagues, which means there were folks that didn't think that, but that's larger than normal number, and we really did try to land on some pieces that they gave us feedback on in the past, and trying to embed those into the learning so that we could meet as many needs as possible. Obviously, we're never going to meet the needs of everyone, but that's our goal. On the right, we have the TK teachers were learning there with their puppets, and it's the program is Alice Pals is what it's called in preschool and TK. They were fun to watch. They were modeling for each other how they might use those in class with students, and on the right, that is on the left, we have the

006science teachers who are, sorry, the K-3 teachers who convened in the CMS atrium, and you might recognize that, to talk a little bit about science before they went into their collaboration time. Sandy is the one with her back to us, Sandy Yellenberg, and she came and she did a great job of igniting science for about an hour and a half or so at Arundel prior to us going over here, and so this is kind of like, what do we do now? She's getting them ready for that. The picture on the left is TL and CMS who also work together. All of our schools work together, which is fantastic, and they worked around a number of important initiatives, and they were together all day, and they did some site-based things, but they really wanted to collaborate

007around some important topics district-wide, including MTSS is one of those, and we also had the board at the right is, you know, what are you hoping for? What are the opportunities you're going to take advantage of over time, and that's TL and this board, and you can get a picture of CMSs, but there's really a time to kind of rejuvenate. That was one of the themes we used in our administrative retreat was rejuvenate, and they were taking that forward with their staff as well on how to take care of ourselves so that we're best equipped to take care of our students as another piece of the theme, and then the four or five teachers met together around project-based learning, working with a consultant that we've worked with for the last year, and that was also

008really fantastic. So some more pictures. This is Sandy doing a, they all had to make a washer pendulum, and they were trying to duplicate an experiment online. They did quite well, actually, some of them. It's really fun. Lots of smiles, and on the right, we had a keynote speaker come out. His name is Ryan. I'm not going to attempt to say his last name again because I already botched it a couple of times, and he came out and again talked about taking care of our students and really that as a focus as we move forward. And now we have the video in case you didn't see it on Facebook. I've been missing yesterday, but what if there's a better place? Thanks, Veronica. I was so proud my dad found this on Facebook, and he sent

009me a shout out last night, which just cracked me up because he doesn't, he still has a flip phone, but he figured out how to text through messenger. He's like, wait, is this cool? Yeah. So cute. Anyway, so now we shifted the really fun thing, which is welcoming students back, and the spirit of belonging was really big. Picture of Eric Watts over at Tierra Linda, and we have another little video that shows him. So we have a few more pictures of teachers in the classroom. I love the photo to the right of a trepidatious TK students being welcomed in by Mr. Frog. And on the left, a photo from Heather and down below from White Oaks. Teachers getting right down to it with the children. Go to the next slide. And then some more pictures

010of kids. There was just a real focus on making sure everybody felt welcome and really good energy on the campuses. And we'll end it there. Just wanted to give you some highlights. Thank you. Welcome back, everyone. Thanks for a great start to the year so far. Before we move on with the rest of our agenda, a reminder about public comment. The board will take public comment on each agenda item as it is discussed, and we'll also provide time for comment on non-agenda items at the end of the meeting. We value public comment and 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 responding to such matters at

011this meeting. If you'd like to address the board here in person, we ask that you fill out a 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 now we will 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 comment on the consent agenda? I don't have any cards. No. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? Second. All in favor, please state they're saying aye. Aye. Aye. Now we will move on to our information and discussion items. First up is Hans with a teaching and learning update. That's me.

012Thank you, Sarah. Before I begin, yes, great. Wonderful day. Wonderful way to start school. And what we're going to do monthly, at least, is have a teaching and learning update of some sort on our agenda. And we're starting today with some updates, some exciting news, and some updates that we wanted you all to know about regarding some of the programs that we tried out in summer school. I think the important thing to remember with the results that we have so far is that they're preliminary. They are not, they're not formally released by the state. In fact, the state has only given us a file that we can look at. So this is based on our own analysis. But as you can see, they're rather exciting in certain spots. The deeper dive that we'll do will

013happen likely in October after we have formal scores from the state and things look a little bit more official, if you will. And we plan to come back with more detailed information at that time. Another important piece that I know some of you have been asking about is a math framework. There's a new math framework that was approved in, I want to say, July. And there's a lot to it. And there's a lot to digest. And there's also an expectation that it's going to take not months, but years in order to implement pieces of that framework. But we want to start getting you a sense for what's there and what's different and what's not. So we'll begin talking about that as well. You know, these scores are, we talked about it, I brought it up

014in several different venues this past week. To teachers, to when I did the kindergarten night, I talked a little bit about it. And when you look at this on the surface, you're kind of like, well, how does this compare? And right now, we don't know. But we certainly know that we far outperform the state and the county levels. As far as some of our neighbors, we don't have that data yet. It's all local at this time. Like I said, they're doing the same thing that we are. And yet, you know, there's a lot to celebrate, specifically in a couple of our student groups that we've been focusing in with students with disabilities and students experiencing poverty making significant growth over the last three years. In fact, a fun story that I told to all the

015teachers on Tuesday morning, I received a voicemail when we were at our administrative retreat. I got a voicemail from the California Department of Education, somebody in the C&I Division, Curriculum Instruction Division in math. And they said, we'd like to talk to you about your math scores and what you're doing in order to have the math scores increase over the last three years. So I set up a Zoom meeting and got on the Zoom with them. I think what stuck with me more than anything else was we want first, we want to tell you that you are one of a handful of the districts that we're calling in the entire state of California. So a handful is just really a handful, like around 10 or 12 districts across the state. So that was quite exciting. And

016they had a series of questions that they asked me along the lines of what is your math program? What are you doing? How are you, you know, what's different about it? What's the same about it? What are the activities you're doing with your teachers, et cetera, that you feel are making a difference? And I actually, the final question was, so if you could sum up what you really thought was going on, what do you think it is? And I said, listen, I don't know that it's math. What I think it is is it's a lot. Sure, we have a good math program. We have great teachers. We have great students for that matter. And we prioritize mental health and we prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion, belonging work over the last three years. What more timely,

017we couldn't have been more time with that work, right? Over the last three years, coming back to school and the sense of belonging that Dr. French has talked about in kids coming back to school this week. They were kind of floored that that was my answer. I think they expected me to come up with something mathy. And, you know, I mean, given my background that they asked me about that too. And I was like, it's not mathy, right? This is, it's about kids feeling part of school. And yet when you look at these scores, when you see that students experience poverty were 23% in 2021 and went to 42% preliminarily this year, that's phenomenal growth. And we're really beginning to close that gap that we keep talking about. We're really beginning to close it. And

018hence the, you know, the small bump in the overall in math is likely attributable to those student groups and the hard work that our teachers and students are doing together. So that's exciting to report. Shifting quickly to summer school, we had several things. Ada Lee, who was our curriculum and instruction teacher on special assignment, and who you saw starring in the video there in a couple of places as the assistant principal now at TRLinda. She was the summer school principal. And there were a number of things that we'd been approached about. We have a good partnership with Stanford University and they have research studies that say, would you like to try this? Would you like to try this? Would you like to try this? Trying to do those during the school year can be pretty

019daunting. Trying to figure out where it fits. And summer seemed like a good fit. So she said, sure, I will try out three Stanford projects that I'll go over first. The MIRA, the mini mathematics initiative readiness assessment, which is a small version of the assessment that they're using as students enter high school and Sequoia Union High School District. And something called the rapid online assessment and reading the roar, which they're trying to develop a screener. And beginning in the year, I want to say it's next school year, every district is going to have to have a screener for dyslexia. So they're trying to develop something that's fast and user friendly. So we tried that out this summer. And we also tried out high dosage tutoring for the first time with a company that does virtual

020tutoring up to three on one per student. To say that we are excited about any of these would be a little bit of an overstretch. I think our intent was let's try them out and see how they do and give feedback to Stanford about how they might be improved, et cetera. Our intent is to give some feedback and hopefully, especially with the roar, which I'm pretty excited about personally, after giving that feedback, seeing what they come back with after they iterate. They've been iterating this thing, this assessment over the last three or four years. And they really didn't have it come full scale until last school year, 22, 23. We didn't hop on and we hopped on in the summer. And yet there's still some pieces that need improvement, particularly results. When you get back

021results, you want them to be usable and user friendly, and they're not there yet. But we're going to give a lot of input around that. What we feel that is. As far as the math assessment, we're going to talk a little bit more about that when we come back in next month. Ada and Jason, Jason was the assistant principal, Jason Nebo, and they're going to come and give some more in depth about these pieces than I'm giving tonight. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, we've been working with an outside consultant to develop standards aligned tasks that that students can produce something that work that that then teachers can turn around and look at together and collaborate around and to inform their practice. And Ada and her team of teachers piloted this over the summer. And they

022were able to produce some pretty exciting student work that we took a look at at our administrative retreat as well to help inform our practice and see how we might move that forward a little more. And they will bring that back again next month and talk a little bit more in depth. I think we'll probably have some samples for you to take a look at as well. And just very exciting summer activities. And then last, we are participating in the Green Career Awareness Program that San Mateo County Office is leading through a grant from the state of California. And to sum it up, simply, there are 12 modules that have been developed that are meant to turn students on to green careers and build a pathway that will continue from middle school through Sequoia High

023School District and in San Mateo Union High School District as well. So we're turning kids on to, you know, any number of different things. I gave a few examples here, you know, Plate to Planet, home electrification, green transportation, just exciting. One about sustainability and resilient communities. So just exciting modules that really are up to current standards and also are exciting for kids to learn about and have a higher level of engagement that go along with them. There is a significant investment that needs to be made in materials, but the grant provides for that in order to do these modules. And the grant also provides for field trips to these, some of them, startups and green careers. So our students at TL will have the opportunity to experience that. And perhaps next year we'll expand at

024CMS as well. So that's what we have for you tonight. Questions or comments you'd like to make? Thank you, Hans. Trustees, questions about the material? I'll start with Ben. Yeah, and I know we don't have a lot of time on this item, but I just wanted to clarify, and sorry we're not sending you the entire time, but normally when you show us these numbers, the students with disabilities, students experiencing poverty, and students learning English, that student might count in all three of those categories. So there's not a way in which these all add up to the total top. And I just so basically, you know, as we've gone down to just 40 students in the students learning English, it's also possible that they're counted in the disabilities category. Correct. Thanks for asking that, Ben. The

025only comment I have for you, Hans, is we usually have done a pretty good study session on this as we head throughout the year. One thing I'd kind of like to see you, I think, add to it is you told us early on when you first came to the district, once you get to about 80 percent, it is very hard to move the number. That seems to be consistent up and down the state when you really do look at the numbers. But what I do think is good is you can break them down by cohort as they go along. So for us, it's not, I'd like to see just ways we can continue to improve maybe at that granular level from cohorts or what was good that you did a couple years or last year

026was you identified questions from the switch. So what happens at like a fifth grade math test compared to a fourth grade math test where students may struggle. So we may see a cohort move one direction or the other. It would just be really good to get that granular now, given where I think we're at, to focus on how we can, what it is that we can identify them from a board level that we can push on in terms of policy wise or financially where that can help move the needle, which we probably, it's great. We can't move it all that much, but I still think you can move it now. You can start to push specific levels further along. So I think down the road, that would be great for us as we dive into

027it. Lucy, any questions? I read the second bullet about the dip in scores for students learning English. And you're saying that maybe you can just explain a little bit more about what it means because we aggressively reclassified and how that explains the. So in a nutshell, it means that the students that we're testing that are actually qualified as English learners, that's the state, that's how they name them. It means we're really only testing students that are English learners. And in past years, we may have had some students that were ready for reclassification, but weren't yet reclassified that tested as English learners, which kind of may, you know, it automatically makes it higher. Right. And so if we have, you know, 10, 15 students in that group, then we're increasing that group to 55 students and

02815 of them actually were ready to be redesignated, reclassified as fluent English proficient. So it artificially raises the number. And, you know, I mean, the math is simple, but I said this to a group, this kind of hit home for them. If we only have 40 students for testing, that means every student's worth two and a half percent. Okay. So it's significant. And that that hit home with some, oh, okay. I get why that number is really, it's a lot different than 60. So. I look forward to when we have the official results and can do some of the deeper analysis. And I'm particularly interested to see if we're seeing the effects of some of the work we're doing around chronic absenteeism. And if that's one way to continue to push the needle here. And

029I'm also curious, once we've been able to hire the community liaison, if some of those types of whole child, whole family supports will also help some of these student populations. I had two clarifying questions. Can you give an example, if you can give a quick example of a standards based task? I'm sure. So again, in a nutshell, the teachers decided that the focus was going to be on two reading standards and a writing standard. And what they did was they wrote a prompt around that, that identified how students would grow within those standards. And then students were given some context for that. So it wasn't like, try this out, and then we'll try it again in two weeks. They answered the prompt and they did some pre they did a pretest, if you will, our

030pre-assessment. Then there was teaching that went on to give them background knowledge, lots of reading, some, you know, look at some of our databases and things that develop knowledge, and then the prompt again afterwards to see how the students had grown. But again, aligned directly to these three standards, not trying to encompass all there is to know, but just three standards. And Ada will get more into that when we come back next month. She'll get much more granular about that. And then I just wanted to clarify the first few bullets before the green careers, those were all piloted during summer. And then the green careers is happening this year at TL. Yes. Okay. A lot going on. Thank you. My question just was around whether it sounds like we will, we'll see some more results

031from summer school in terms of, because in the past we saw some, you know, assessment data. Yeah, correct. Great. Yeah. And we also will have some of the work samples from the tasks. So that we get that in later since school was just starting and give them folks trying to get on with it. Sounds good. Yeah. We didn't want to call Jason and Ada here on the second day. Sure. Great. Thank you. Thank you all. And we will move on to our second item, bond refunding results. Sure. Good evening. President Casanaga, members of the board, Dr. French, staff and community got great news to report back since our last previous board meeting. So we've got a very quick presentation here, just to recap the successful bond refinancing that will provide all the benefit to district

032taxpayers. So if we go to page two, we'll start with just a quick overview of how the market was leading up to the sale. And I think the chart on the bottom really shows how fast staff moved. Once we had board approval on July 13th, we had the offering memorandum out to investors within a week's time. And then the bonds were ultimately sold and interest rates locked in within a two-week period. So kudos to staff for really just moving, moving, moving, because if you look at the interest rate chart, rates were coming up. And interestingly enough, U.S. Treasuries and municipal bond rates generally tie together. So when U.S. Treasury rates go up, municipal rates go up. There was a very interesting disconnect on the week of the sale between municipal bonds and Treasuries. So while

033Treasuries were going up, municipals were actually coming down because of a few technical factors that really benefited San Carlos School District. Number one is for year to date, investors have been pulling money out of bond funds to the tune of about $6.5 billion. As luck would have it, in the two weeks leading into our sale, $1.5 billion was coming into the market. So investors had cash to put into work. The other one was on the week and day of the sale, we were the only game in town. So if investors wanted to buy California School District geobonds, you were getting San Carlos School District general obligation refinancing bonds. So that certainly helped us in having dollars that investors needed to invest, us being the only financing in the market on that day. And as Jenny

034will go into more detail, a lot of positive sentiment around the recent results of your credit rating. So in July, Denise and Jennifer presented the district's credit profile to Standard & Poor's, and they did a great job, so much so that the rating analysts, while they affirmed the rating, they assigned what we call a positive outlook. This means that the rating analysts believe they might raise the rating in the next two years. It's a one in three shot that they expect to raise the rating. So we dropped in a couple of highlights from the report, but essentially, they highlighted the district's strong financials, strong community support through the foundation and parcel tax, and obviously the strong economy of the district. So the best way to show what we think the positive outlook contributed to on

035page four is a direct comparison to one of your neighboring districts, Burlingame School District. So Burlingame sold about a month prior a larger financing, which a bit better sometimes because they have these larger blocks investors want. I want only a million dollars, nothing less. So they do have these larger blocks, but that said, San Carlos seemed to be presumed or received as a true AA plus, which would be the next notch above and equivalent to Burlingame. You can see that because how we compare interest rates on different days is what we call a spread to MMD. MMD is released every single day, and it is what we see as the true AAA bond scale. So we compare the rate the district received to MMD, and you can see that in the spread column. We then

036look to the far right, and San Carlos either got the same spread or better than Burlingame in every year that they overlapped to the tune of two to six basis points. So definitely outperformed the Burlingame sale. So in looking at the investors on page five that ultimately purchased the district's debt, in every single year, investors had the option of purchasing 2028 or putting their money in 2042. Some years had greater demand than others, for example, in 2038. That particular year had 2.6 times demand, whereas the year after that had only about 78% of that one ultimately subscribed for. Those were ultimately filled following the investor order, and those were unwritten by the investment bank. But you had separately managed accounts in green, institutional accounts in blue, money managers in dark blue, bond funds, banks in

037purple, and some of the names that participated in the San Carlos school district financing are big global multi-billion dollar firms. PIMCO, Franklin, U.S. Bank, Eaton Vance, Northern Trust, UBS, Charles Schwab, top tier investors that put their money to purchase San Carlos school district because of the strong credit rating. And again, we were the only game in town, so that's why we attracted them. So back in mid-July when we presented the estimated savings, this was prior to when the district received the positive outlook from S&P. We were estimating savings of about 1.1 million or 6% on a present value basis. The district actually achieved 1.54 million in savings and about 8.25% on a present value basis. This was the district's seventh refinancing now, and total savings across all refinancings is rounded to 10.5 million dollars. Back

038on the very last page, the history going back to 2005, we wanted that one, you know, just 1.1 million so we could clip 10 million dollars in total, and now you can definitively say to your community, we have saved you 10.5 million dollars over monitoring the interest rate environment to lock in taxpayer savings. So, congratulations. I don't have any questions. I thank you both for, I guess, keeping us on track with these refinancings over time and continuing to work with us throughout the years. So you both have been here as long as I've been here, so I appreciate that. I have no questions. No questions. I just want to thank staff. I know this was an investment of staff time, but it paid off with the results we were looking for, so thank you. I

039agree. Thank you to you all and thank you to staff. Thank you for coming. Thank you so much. We'll move now to our 45-day budget revision, which is Denise. We adopted a budget in June based on the governor's May revised proposal. Therefore, tonight we wanted to provide an update on any changes as a result of the final state adopted budget and the impact or change to our budget. In summary, tonight's overview will recap those changes and also provide an update to Prop 28 and TK changes. As a recap, Ed code requires the district to approve a budget by July 1st and then 45 days after the governor signs the budget make available for public review any changes as a result of the budget act. So the governor's May revise versus the final state adopted budget.

040Since the San Carlos budget was based on the governor's May revise, will we highlight the changes? The May revise did include a COLA of 8.22% for LCFF funding, which was maintained in the final state budget. However, the May revise included reductions in the 22-23 one-time allocation for the art and music and instructional materials block grant and the learning recovery block grant. The final state budget adoption continued with those reductions but at revised amounts. Due to this change, there is an increase to the budget for the art and music of approximately $750,000 and the learning recovery for approximately $123,000. Since both grants are 22-23 allocations, we will see these adjustments reflected in the restricted ending fund balance when we close the books for 22-23. And then finally, there was an estimated increase to lottery funding from

041$170 per ADA to $177 per ADA for unrestricted and from $67 per ADA to $72 per ADA for restricted lottery. This will be reflected in the 23-24 first interim budget. For Prop 28, the art and music instruction, which is different than the art and music instruction materials block grant, it was approved by the voters in November of 2022 and the final state adopted budget did include some cleanup language but it still does not provide clear direction regarding the supplement versus the plant restrictions. So while we're awaiting clarification, we do know that we have three years to spend each year's allocation and our estimated funding is approximately $318,000. In the final budget act, there was also some TK policy changes for funding and staffing. As we know, we have been moving towards the full implementation in

042fiscal year 25-26 and as we move to full implementation, there's a requirement to staff at 10-1. The final state budget removed the language of it being contingent upon additional funding, although it's the legislature's intent to fund it. And then finally, our next step. As a reminder, the purpose tonight was to share any updates since the May revise, which is what the basis of our adopted budget, and provide information on the changes as a result of the final budget. There's no required approval or submission. And then in September, we will bring the 22-23 unaudited actuals for approval. And then in December, we will bring the 23-24 first interim for approval, which will incorporate changes from our adopted budget, such as enrollment and staffing. I thought this was really clearly presented, so I appreciate that. And I

043really don't have any questions. No questions. Whenever we're doing a budget update, the thing that I'm looking at is if we flip to basic aid or if we stay in LCFF, what is the implication? And I just, it's more of a clarifying question. So the COLA affects the LCFF, but if we were basic aid, there would be no COLA. That would not be a factor, right? It wouldn't be a factor, but it's obviously, it's the basis of it. Exactly. But our music instruction means we're discretionary about learning and monitoring are independent of LCFF. Correct. So these are wins that we are unlikely to lose if we were to somehow switch. Yes, we would still be correct. Absolutely. We'd still be entitled to receive the categorical funding that they're now bringing back. These are restricted grants.

044The lottery is unrestricted, but there's a portion that's restricted. I'm nothing. Thank you. Denise, can you just repeat for me to make sure I understood correctly the 10 to 1 ratio for TK they're saying they think they're going to require that by 25, 26, but that you won't necessarily get any extra money for that. Correct. It's no, they did previously have language that said that they had to provide the funding for it. Okay. And now they took that out, but it's written weird where it says it's their intent to fund that. Okay. TBD. Thank you. Great. Everyone good to keep going. Then we'll move on to our draft facilities master plan. Do we have our folks from PBK that are going to go first? We do. We have Kristen Rose from foresight planning and Jackie

045Bassman from PBK. And I believe we have Lauren Gatchen in the Zoom space. Is that right? Okay. Okay. And I am, what we're going to do is have Kristen and Jackie provide a presentation and then invite our steering committee members if there's anything they'd like to say before we move to clarifying questions. But as a TF, I just want to bring us back into the work because we did considerable work over last year and that culminated in a good long presentation in June for trustees that presented information that we had learned from stakeholder engagement. It codified what we'd learned in the facility condition reports and smooshed all of this information in together for a set of priorities. We had further meetings with principals. We, in the district office, we looked at facility needs based on

046the enrollment we see because one thing we have learned is that we're defying all of the demographers. And so once you count heads for the last few years, we also have to be mindful that our enrollment doesn't necessarily get predicted very well. But once we did all of that, then the next thing that we needed to do was to consider costing out some of these phases of projects. They have referred to these as scopes of work. One of the things I've learned in my new PhD in facilities is that things aren't quite that simple regards, you know, upgrading air, for instance, in a school. Because if the windows and the doors need replacement so that you can make sure that smoke doesn't get through them, even with an HVAC, that that's all part of something

047called an envelope. And so what they are going to share tonight is where we landed on the phases. I am so pleased that our trustees found time to look through the 200 page document that we presented. But their focus tonight won't be on all of the work we did over the past year, but instead focus on those scopes of work, which we are calling phases and cost estimates for some of that work, and then allow for some discourse around that in consideration of next meeting where we would potentially adopt the Facility Master Plan. So without much more, I'm going to make sure that we have Lauren. We wanted to make sure that we had some of the architectural experts in addition to our excellent facilitator, Kristin Rose. So I'll turn it over to you, Kristin.

048Okay. So I'm going to do some introduction and overview of the phasing and kind of the logic around how things are grouped. And then Jackie and Lauren are going to talk about the Master Plan itself, the scopes of work, the costing that went into it. The intent is that we're going to give you kind of a guide to help you understand what you're looking at in the Master Plan and then be able to take your questions or your input that we can incorporate into the plan before it is adopted. Okay. So next. So we're just going to go over our summary of findings and recommendations, project scope definitions. We'll talk about the site plan, site master plan components, and then question and answers. Next. So summary of findings and recommendations. This is just a brief

049overview, but it's helpful for you to understand some of the inputs that go into developing those scopes of work that we'll talk about. So enrollment is higher than predicted, right? So we're seeing that over time. It's actually really interesting to see from when we first looked at demographics projections at the start of this project to where you are now and seeing that fluctuation. But you do have the overall capacity to absorb those students. I want to note one thing. When we look at capacity, we can't look at it in a vacuum. We also have to look at capacity in terms of utilization. Most school districts have been built with classrooms as their only available square footage, but that doesn't mean that you're only using those spaces for direct instruction. And especially when you have a

050lot more wraparound services, as a lot of districts do, you use the available square footage that you have where you might need more space for intervention or RSP or itinerant staff, etc. All you have available is classrooms. So capacity, while it says based on the state's definition of what a classroom space is, you have maybe some excess of classrooms. That doesn't mean you're using your spaces only for classrooms and you don't necessarily have a ton of extra space based on the use, okay? Your school facilities are well maintained in that the building systems are maintained and not failing left and right. You don't have a huge amount of dire immediate needs and that's good. That means that you can focus on a program of life cycle replacement for some of your building systems and then

051move on to enhancement. You're not necessarily retroactively going back and fixing a lot of issues that haven't been dealt with over time. So the visioning for the future facilities that came from our visioning group, it came from our discussions with district staff and leadership, it came from principals, and that informs the future and long-term goals. So for flexible, adaptable learning spaces, expansion of programs like universal TK, and then creating strong school communities. Those were the big themes that we received from that visioning process. And then the master plan scopes, they've been grouped in categories. I do want to note one thing about those categories. These categories reflect the overall goals and guiding principles that have been established for the master plan, but it's not always a one-to-one correlation in the exact scopes. So there's some

052logic that went into developing the phasing. So we prioritize HVAC systems. We knew that was a top priority for your district and prioritize those specific components, but with that there's some domino effects. As Jennifer was saying about building envelopes, right? We've got to make sure that if you're going to install a more energy efficient system to help your learning environments, you've also got to make sure that you maintain that efficiency by creating efficient building envelopes. So if you're cooling a space, all that cool air is not escaping out of your leaky windows and doors and exteriors, right? So that was a top priority. And then we looked at bringing the sites with the greatest need up to basic standards, right? So making sure that there was some level of parity across your school sites and

053making sure that once we get there, then the next phase, we could focus on those additional enhancements, right? Looking at how do we then create spaces that really reflect that educational vision? And then from there, it's balancing existing conditions and parity across sites. You have some sites that have previously received modernizations, some sites that need a little bit more work. So it's all a balancing act and what are the needs of a particular site or a system based on their life cycle? When was the last time it was modernized, et cetera. And Jackie's going to talk to you about the project scope definitions and what they mean. So this slide, you can see the little color coded and there's a definition of what those color coded means. For instance, new construction, we color coded so

054that it's easier for me to see on the site plan and you'll see the site plan in a few minutes. We've identified color, give a color for a new construction, rest rule upgrade, we understand that that's one of the more important components for your site. Light modernization typically include interior finishes such as flooring replacement, painting, interior lighting, furniture, pictures, and equipment. And then medium modernization is orange color up there. That includes all the light modernization items plus major building system repair or replacement. Roofing, HVAC, electrical, it depends on whether it was done before or not, that would be added. And then we have heavy modernization, meaning you go into a building and you remove some of the walls and you reconfigure the interior of that particular building. And then we show demolition, just kind of

055a dashed red line. We also identify and outdoor improvements. So we have these little green rectangle, circle, outdoor learning, et cetera. So next we'll go over the phasing. So phase one is climate ready projects. This includes scopes of work that are intended for creating comfortable environments that are conducive to teaching and learning. It includes your building systems for mechanical systems, so that's HVAC, but it also includes your building envelope, right? So your roofs, your windows, doors, exteriors, it includes all of those knock on projects that come from implementing those systems. So one of the things is that in order to implement these building efficient systems, we need to make sure that all of those components are taken into consideration. So you might see that one site has maybe a little bit more need or cost

056associated with it because the building envelope is maybe in greater need or is older, right? And so that's where some of the discrepancies and the costs come from. This is also an opportunity to kind of set the foundation for any long-term sustainability goals. California is moving towards carbon neutrality in 2045. It's inherent in the legislation that is being passed down for schools to adhere to. School districts throughout the state of California are actively working with the Division of the State Architect to identify ways in which they can implement these systems and a way forward in order to make sure that the built environment is carbon neutral. It also aligns with the district's pursuit of CalShape grants. So you're actively pursuing funding to support these systems and so these projects reflect that. Next. So the next

057phase includes TK and building systems. So universal TK spaces that are adequate to support the expansion of this grade level. So one of the things is when we think of facilities, there's top level needs and one of those top level needs always ends up being making sure you have the space to house students, right? That's top priority. You've got to have that space. With the implementation of universal TK, it's essentially a new grade level and with that comes specific requirements for those types of spaces in order to house those students. And so the universal TK projects look at solutions for that for the long term and so keep in mind that they might not reflect the interim solutions that are needed for immediate needs, right? So the master plan is more long-term, more permanent, but

058some of the things that you guys are currently doing are interim solutions. We need to be able to house these students immediately and then we know in the master plan we have a long-term solution there. This phase also includes building systems. I just want to point out buildings are not stagnant. They're like living organisms. All of these systems have life cycles, right? Your flooring might have a 25 to 30 year life cycle depending on its use, right? Your mechanical systems have a life cycle. All of those things need to be replaced at certain intervals depending on their maintenance and the better maintained a facility is, the less often that you have to replace those. But we do want to take that into consideration that some of your systems are coming up on their age and

059so we want to reflect that in the master plan. Next. So the next phase encompasses dynamic learning environments. The logic here is that once we've got our energy efficient systems and our HVACs for, you know, comfortable learning environments and then we move on to building systems and our immediate needs for capacity, we can focus on what is our long-term vision for creating spaces that reflect our educational outcomes. And a lot of the projects in this category reflect that. Again, also being considerate of balancing what are the needs for building life cycle? What are the needs for parity across school sites? Are there any sites that maybe need more attention sooner because, you know, one site might already have a really dynamic learning commons and another site doesn't, etc. And so those projects reflect that vision.

060And then the final category is really looking at those longer term projects. So once we bring certain sites up to that level and then we build on making sure that we are able to create spaces to reflect those educational outcomes, what other projects that might be site specific, right, might reflect those longer term life cycle needs or be specific to their needs or programs. So the next few slides, you're going to see a rundle. This is an example of what a site master plan look like. So we start with the site profile. This image is the aerial view image of the site on rural earth. And we have information such as site acreage, building square footage, parking, teaching station, and the approximate year that the school started in as well as the renovated, the last

061renovation of that site. Next slide. And then we move into a color site and that shows the existing utilization of the site and they're all color coded. And so we try to capture every, capture where, you know, like restrooms, classrooms, multi-purpose room, you can tell by the color preschool and playground. Next. So the next one, this is the proposed master plans. Here you can kind of identify the colors that we mentioned earlier. And it will, the scope of the work is divided into the building components and then the site components. So for example, the building components improvement, you can see some of the color that we mentioned earlier at a rundle. The, the older built, some of the older classrooms, we have it shown as a medium monetization and some of the newer buildings like

062the admin building and the multi-purpose building that would receive like a light monetization. Next. And then the next component, this is the cost estimate. Ms. Lauren. Yep. I'm here. Can you all hear me? Yes. Okay. So this is the, the cost component of the phasing or the scope of work and a little bit of explanation here. We're using a rundle here as an example. So this is a phase one climate ready project. And so we have identified the scope of work and again, working with a cost estimating consultant that has many, many years of experience in the, the world of cost estimating and especially specialized in the Bay area, have identified these scopes of work and have assigned the costs that are associated with these scopes of work. And that list will turn into a,

063what's referred to as a hard cost. So that's, that's the first point. And then there's the next layer of, of, of cost is that with every modernization, generally speaking, that there is a component of a DSA and implementing accessibility requirements. So with our experience in doing so, we find that roughly that is, equates to about 20% of the hard cost is gone to restroom upgrades or ramps or various site components that incorporate the accessibility improvements. Then from there, we add the next layer, which is the general contractor that will actually be doing this work and the costs that are associated with that, with that group. So we have the general conditions of bond insurance, overhead and profit that adds additional cost. Next layer is design contingency. So again, we're at a very general scope of

064work stage. There are various factors throughout the process that once this becomes a true project that could affect the design. So again, it's prudent that we factor in a 20% contingency or those very variable components that will come about when the project is developed. And these costs, the subtotal here are then reflecting the construction costs if it was built today. But now projecting out on when we anticipate that these projects will be built, we go to the midpoint of construction and with the cost, escalating cost, as time goes forward, we factor in that cost as well to come up with that total construction cost. And then the last component that you'll see, there are the soft costs and those are the costs for the design team to prepare the documents that need to be approved

065by DSA that ultimately will be built by the contractor, surveys, reports, all those various components that are needed to develop the documents for them to be built. And that is typically factored in at 33%. And the total project cost, as you see there at the bottom, that will give you everything included. Next slide. So here what this matrix is showing, it's showing the, well, I guess we'll look at it vertically for phase one projects. We've identified all the different campuses and all the phase one type of projects that are affiliated with those campuses. Then the next would be phase two, phase three, and phase four. So this matrix shows vertically that if all the projects are done for phase one on all the campuses, that would be your grand total there at the end. And

066then for the campus specific, if you look out in the future for phase one, phase two, phase three, phase four, that would be the grand total for just that one campus. So this is a good matrix to kind of see that in both ways. Next slide. Okay, so for this evening, what we're looking forward from the board is ask clarifying questions about the facility master plan document. Also ask clarifying questions for about the phases and scopes of work and provide any feedback on the project phasing. In the future, we're looking to approve the facility master plan, implement the facility master plan, and make the facility master plan a living document. And now we look forward to answering any questions that you may have. We'll get to questions. Can I just add just I think from

067kind of the subcommittee perspective on it. So just to kind of focus us a little bit. So I always like to we understand or I think everyone's got to understand that many a board and many a different administration will probably be working on our FMP, right? So decisions on an FMP are a 10 to 15 year guide that we want to have for our facilities. They're not a this may go at this order, this may go at that order, or this project becomes that project. Because a lot of what ends up happening in these facilities guides over time is that certain things may jump phases because funding may become available for it later on, right? Prime example, that is always like a joint project, like a two plus two. So if you can find something

068where maybe in a phase four, that would fit into our category, but the funding becomes available because it's a joint project with the city, then that jump the line as it goes forward with it. So, you know, I always like to make sure everyone or what I think was a hard time for me to wrap my head around is we developed the facilities master plan and the document was what is it from like my perspective as a board member that we're trying to get to and how's it trying to work. And I think finally, toward the end, what it finally came to is we're trying to give a guide for community, but also more importantly, for staff to try to kind of start chipping away at the list as it goes along for our facilities

069master plan. So that's going to drive things like how Eric analyzes what projects may need to be started or worked on. Because, you know, the example would be if we had to replace the new roof, well, maybe we'd pause the new roof to see if we pass the bond. And then if the bond gets passed, then you wouldn't do a new roof if you're just going to pull it back, put HVAC on top, because that's what community wanted. Or it kind of starts to drive those scenarios. We as a board are going to be involved in all decisions as it has related to our facilities, but we as a board aren't going to be out getting the RFPs or driving the funding as it comes in. It's just making sure that we're chipping away at

070our priorities and making sure those priorities kind of match. Like I tell everyone always, like when I told community about an FMP is the hard part about it is, you know, if a tree falls on a building and crushes it, that changes everything and puts it all on its head, right? If there's wildfires or anything like that, you know, the FMP can just become a paperweight at that point because it may just change everything about how you have to redo that guide. But it's trying to give us a guide more of how we want to work our facilities and where we want to go for it. So I think I had a nervousness when I first started working on it that we had to approve or I was trying to make a checklist like after

071your house gets redone of like, hey, get these last 10%. That's not really what we're doing. And I don't know if anyone else may not have struggled with that. So I could just be confessing things about myself, which is fine. But I just wanted to make sure everyone kind of understood where we're at as we ask questions through it, but that you're not necessarily approving a project. We're trying to approve kind of guidance as it relates. And I know, I mean, I can speak personally in the sense that a lot of my priorities, right? I like to say is like, you get to a lot of the really fun stuff in like phase three, like how you redo a library. But that's why you involve community. A lot of the times is to understand what

072everyone needs and what everyone kind of wants. And then how you chip away. You as a board member have the power always to approve it and jump around as needs. But I think it's good to know that this was developed with a lot of community input. And that's how we got to the phases and the price tags and the price tags. I mean, I'll be honest, I hope they completely overestimated everything and it comes under, but that's the reality, right? It's just to help us guide us in where we go. So I hope that, at least give you at least from my perspective on it, Ben, if you had the same kind of thoughts or. Yeah. I do want to just jump in and echo a few things. And the price tag looks like Shohei's

073renewal price. I know only two people in the room know what I'm talking about. But I just first, I want to just honor the work that's gone in and really PBK as partners. When we were RFPing this, I don't think I at least understood the depth of a process that one would have to go through to really surface these themes. And I'm very confident that we would not have come out with at this destination if we had not been partnered with you all and Kristen and just been a really big learning process, I will say. And two, like kudos to everybody in the community, from our very first event to going out to sites, to doing design sessions, the engagement of our community just goes to show how strong San Carlos schools are and how

074strong our connection is. And people that came the very first day were there the very last day of the community engagement, asking great questions. And so I think the most important thing for the board to understand is that that doesn't stop. That's not like we approved it, done, you know, no more community engagement, no more FMP planning, no more. This is really just a very, very like it says phase one, this was phase zero. And just I had to wrap my mind around the report because it isn't really a budget. It isn't really a cost. It's more of bucketing things. But basically, we get this approved, then we go for a bond, and then we hopefully get the bond. And then we go through the process of actually getting specs and RFPs and pricing. And

075then we go step by step with each one. And then we go to a new bond. And so there's just like a lot of, you know, basically what Neil, what I would echo, Neil was saying, this is a roadmap. And like when you're in tech, your roadmap might be like six months or a year. This is a 15 to 20 year roadmap realistically. And I know we've said it's a decade long, because we just expect things to change. But, you know, the one thing that I think we need to keep in mind is if we approve this, what here needs to change and evolve for future boards so that they feel like they have the guidance and then but also the flexibility to like make the right choices. And also on a day to day,

076how does this support Eric and his team? Like if the tree falls down, okay, how do we make that an opportunity to like advance things forward, or we get a grant, and we advance things forward. So that's, you know, my big takeaway is this was phase zero, the process has just started. And then to, I think, the kind of steps for every other future phase, there's just a bunch of decision points along the way. So we're really kind of flying at that high altitude. And then my the last point, just to emphasize is just gratitude for everybody who's been engaged in that process. It's really been a collective learning process. So I'm going to pass back to you, Sarah, I guess. I want to express that gratitude to the two of you as well, because

077I know you've spent an enormous amount of time on top of all of your other board and life and professional commitments. So Neil and Ben, thank you for what you've done as well to get us to this point. What I would like to do is, so on the list of three on the slide list of three things that we're doing tonight, I would like to start with the board asking clarifying questions, then go to public comment, and then any other discussion or feedback on phasing that we want to give, do it in that order. So we'll start with clarifying questions on this document, you know, what things mean, you know, whatever else you need to understand about what's been presented. I think we were with Sarah. All right. Well, I get myself organized, I will

078also echo the appreciation. And as a newbie coming into this, it was really an easy read. I enjoyed reading it. And just the presentation tonight was extremely helpful. Thank you. Everything that I've seen come out of the process has been clear and digestible. I do want to find my clarifying questions. So I have a couple of things that I want to check my kind of understanding about. So the first is, and I had an aha, just as you were talking. There is a section where it outlines the replacement value of the school sites. And then when you kind of toggle back and forth between that and the table that shows the total school facilities improvements, in some cases, the total the total improvements may be more than the replacement value of the school. So I

079just kind of want to check my understanding of that. The hi-hat is the replacement value, that's in today's dollars, right? So there's no escalation built in there like there is in the phasing of the improvements. Yeah, there's actually a couple of things to note with that. The replacement value is based on an assessment of what is existing at that site. So it is a like for like replacement of a system. It's not an improvement of a system. So if you don't, for example, have HVAC at a site, it doesn't include that in a replacement value. It says if you were going to replace exactly what you have, here's what the cost is. And here is essentially the hard cost of that, right? It's materials and labor. It's not the additive cost. What you're seeing on

080that matrix and with those multipliers, that includes escalation, the cost over time of that project. And it includes contingencies for unknowns and things like that. Those contingencies come down as more things are developed in that project. And so you'll see numbers shift and things like that. But yes, you're right. It doesn't include all of those multipliers on top of it. And there would be other soft costs that would be hard to enumerate to just rebuilding a whole school. Yes, exactly. Disrupting the community and portables and all of that. All of those things. Yes. So it looks at it as a like for like existing system if you're going to swap it out for exactly what you have. And then I also want to check my understanding that part of why we can take this phased

081approach is because the facilities are in good repair currently. So we're not looking at having to completely replace a school building. We can take a staggered phased approach. It reflects some of that life cycle costing like we talked about, right? Buildings, you know, your flooring is not meant to last for forever. It does need to be replaced periodically. And so it reflects that. But you don't necessarily need to replace it immediately. Another thing might be with any kind of like a fire alarm system or anything like that. You might see that in a later phase. But that's only because it reflects the life cycle of that particular system. Not that there's an immediate need for that to be replaced right now. Great. So it's a little bit of apples and oranges. You can't just compare

082replacement value with the other cost. Yes, exactly. Exactly. It gives you a starting point. And sometimes what you can do is, and one of the things that we talk about is canalization. Your condition assessment might show you what's existing and what it might cost to repair that. And you might fund that in different ways. There are times when you might be able to repair that system internally with your maintenance team, right? That's one cost and it's much lower cost. And other times you might have to bid that project out. That's a different kind of cost. So the condition assessment gives you an understanding of what you have right now. But the master plan might also cannibalize some of those scopes of work. So like Neil was saying, if you're going to replace an HVAC system

083and you have to pull the roof back anyway, it doesn't make sense for you to replace that roof right away until you do the HVAC system. And that might include a new roof with that. So there's a lot of different layers. And then I have one other area of clarification, which is you touched on this a little bit, but again, I just want to make sure I'm understanding it. The capacity analysis, where you're talking about the number of classrooms, that's based on a maximum allowable amount set by the state. It wouldn't necessarily reflect like if we have value and a priority for smaller class sizes, or we use spaces for small group pullouts, all of that. All of that. That says if you are in dire need and you need to max out your classrooms

084to the state level, which is typically for K through six, it's 25 to one, or 25 students per classroom, seven, eight is 27 to one. And so if you were to maximize all of those classroom eligible spaces, compared to your enrollment, you would have some excess space. And again, it doesn't include your utilization. And so that's one of the things in the next portion of that. Make sure that you're not necessarily looking at it in a vacuum. You want to look at it holistically. Capacity tells us one thing. You have enough space to absorb growth if you absolutely have to, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're providing all the programs adequately, or you have the space to house all of your itinerant stuff, et cetera. That just reflects the square footage that you have

085happens to be classroom space, and that's the number of students that you pick. Those are my two clarifying areas, and then I have other things to discuss. Okay. I guess we'll go then go to Tracy, given that you guys don't have clarifying. Okay. Well, I also want to echo that this really comprehensive and also showed how much community feedback you received, and it was, yeah, 200 pages is a lot, but there was a lot of great content in here, so I really appreciate it. I also wanted to, I appreciated the meeting I had this morning with Dr. Francis. She said a lot of what you guys had said about thinking of how to think about this facility master plan. So I think a lot of my clarifying questions have kind of disappeared. I do have,

086and then, or they're related more to the feedback on the project facing my, I guess one, I don't know if it's a question or comment, but it's, I think it categorized as clarifying. So I'll just bring it up right now. I noticed that there were some projects in phase one that were not necessarily related to climate readiness and like the building envelope in order to be climate ready. Like I could see the ones that are like, oh, roofing, doors and windows, all of those. And it did seem that there were a few, like Mayor Post says, the reconfiguring that where the office is, White Oak's also doing that and TL sort of having that, that driveway. So to me, that felt like those kind of fall under like how to make our campuses more safe

087and secure, which I think may have come up. I know that at the couple of community meetings that I attended, those were sort of the, the first question was sort of like, what comes to mind when you think about what you want from your schools? And that were safety that came up a lot. So anyway, I appreciate that those are in phase one. So I don't know if this is creeping into like feedback on product facing, but I also, you know, I didn't feel necessarily that the naming of the phase one as just climate ready projects was reflected the fact that we are also prioritizing savings. I think that's something that, and again, we can talk about that in the phasing kind of feedback, but things like that are helpful for us. I think we

088grouped things or tried to categorize them in a way that was easily digestible. But like you said, it's a master plan that's complex, right? There's a lot of different layers to it. And so maybe we want to rethink how we're talking about it. I think that would resonate a lot with the community is that, you know, we're prioritizing these things as well. Yeah. So maybe it's just adding more detail or pulling that out as a sub item. Let's look at that and how we can more clearly articulate those projects. Yeah, I think everything else relates to the second part of the discussion. Sounds good. So did you want to say something? I just only have one clarifying point. If you can, as we go through it, it would be, you know, in certain areas, like

089if we can get as much detail on what, where it says things like light modernization phase four on what that may be, the ultimate goal is going to be someone picks us up 10 years from now and knows exactly what phase four wants. And I noticed that just in a couple of areas as it gets down to site specific. So if we, the only thing I would ask is if we can do that in more detail of what exactly it is. Yeah. Yeah. I noticed that especially, I think I kind of didn't necessarily look at phase three as much because I figured, but even there's even a couple of phase ones where it just says medium modernization and like Heather, but it doesn't say what that is. And I think at phase phase one and

090phase two level, we should specify. Yeah. Okay. And one, one, it's not a clarifying point, but it would be great to hear your comment on it is for most districts, you know, and we've talked about this being a living doc, how often do they update it is like annual every five years? Like what's the update cycle on updating the facility master plan? So a couple of key things. One of the things is I'm going to tell you what I recommend. That doesn't mean that every district does it. I recommend that your staff prepare. What they will get at the end of this process is actually a workable database that has a listing of projects. So while the master plan as a document is something that can communicate the plan to your community, to your board,

091they will have working pieces that actually have all of the projects listed that they can work and provide updates. I recommend that staff at least provide an update on a yearly basis on where you're at with each of those projects, in addition to whatever your regular facilities updates are. That's usually district specific, whether or not they have a facility update every, you know, couple of months, every board meeting, et cetera. And beyond that, a larger scale master plan, a refresh, so to speak, not a start from the very beginning, but a refresh. I typically recommend that about every five years for a bigger refresh. But that is assuming that staff is also maintaining that master plan. So that would be somewhere in the phase two era. Yes. Yeah. And you kind of want to work

092through kind of your building program, right? Especially if you have your bond come along, you know, that's an opportunity for them to continuously update that. And then as a bond program maybe comes towards the midpoint or towards the end, then you would come back and refresh, reevaluate how are things going? Where are we at with these projects? Do we need to relook at things? You know, I always like to say a facility master plan is not the end, it's the beginning. It really, like you said, it's a zero. It is the very beginning of a bond program or any kind of build out. And so it needs to be routinely updated. And it is a living document. I wanted to make one clarifying point. It's probably hard to remember because we started there, but there

093was a group called Bureau Veritas who did a complete analysis of all of our facilities. And so under the hood, if you will, for all of these is a new, if you will, punch list that the board would consider. So Eric has had one that we've been sort of chipping away at and doing things, but now we have the new one on the facility condition report that's in that database that we would then bring to the board to consider. And so you'll remember that you periodically get 100% completion of this, 90% of this. So in some ways that will truncate this, right? And we can make sure we include those pieces and really use that as a steerage for the parts of our budget right now that are allocated to routine maintenance, for instance, or

094facilities projects. Okay. So then we will take some time for public comments. We'll start with public comment in the room. I have a card for Mark Forbes. If you could come up to the podium and you have addressed the board and you have three minutes. So thank you for the presentation, Kristen. I'm part of a group of 12, sorry, 13 community members from San Carlos who've made a written submission with comments on the topic of carbon neutrality. So I have a few specific questions and specific points of feedback, but I want to start with the topic of the goals of the facility master plan. So Ben and Neil both made comments that it should set long-term direction as well as defining specific projects. And I'd like to start with the California legislation that Kristen also

095mentioned, that it's the policy of the state to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, but no later than time fortified. That's 22 years away from now, which is just beyond the horizon, but only just beyond the sort of timelines you were talking about. So what we would like to see is one thing in the plan is a more explicit declaration of that long-term goal to act as a guiding principle for the work that happens over the years to come. There are a lot of elements in the plan and specific projects that sort of move in that direction. For example, the mention was made of improving improvements to building envelope. And there are also some opportunities, but I think we may have a number of detailed points. I want to maybe start

096with the topic of the HVAC systems. So HVAC upgrade is a significant opportunity to make a huge difference to the carbon footprint, but it depends on how you do it. And that's one of the points that's not brought out explicitly in the document. One of the ways to implement HVAC upgrades and to add air conditioning is to install heat pumps, which are electrical devices which implement air conditioning, but they also have ability to replace existing space heater. So one of the very specific questions that I learned from the team working on it is to clarify whether at this time there is specific intention about how to implement the HVAC and to encourage, if the plan is not already, you can see pumps, to encourage the board to make cost estimations or to pursue that particular

097direction as a means to implement HVAC. Because the biggest single thing that you can do to reduce carbon footprint is to replace space heating systems that might presently be powered by gas with electrical systems. So that's the first point. The second point again is with a view to identifying a long-term destination is to make sure that all of the projects that are relevant to that long-term goal, which may also include work on upgrading water heater systems to heat pump-based systems, are at least identified. So if you set that as something that has to happen further out, then some of the other work that has to happen like upgrading electrical panels that is identified in the phase one work can take that longer-term objective into account and thus save money. Mark, I apologize for interrupting. That's

098your three minutes. If you could wrap up, that would be great. Okay, so I guess I don't have time to think of the other points, but thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Looks like we have some other hands online. I don't know if we know what order. Julie was first. Okay, great. Julie, are you able to unmute yourself? There we go. Yes, are you able to hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Okay, great. Thank you so much, and thank you for creating this Facilities Master Plan. It's a very forward-thinking plan, and I appreciate in particular the pieces that are very student-centered and also the part that focuses on climate readiness, and I would like to echo some of the same things that Mark was talking about in that what we really have right now

099in our county in California is a climate crisis, and so this Facilities Master Plan has a great opportunity to be able to address the urgency of that crisis, but the way that it's written now frankly doesn't go far enough, and I would really encourage the board to add more detail similar to some of the things that Mark was talking about. I want to echo that there are multiple pieces of legislation that are meant to move California businesses, agencies, and schools to net zero carbon emissions, and there are no specifics in this plan at all for how San Carlos School District is going to move that way. In my day job, I'm part of a group called RICAPS, which is the Regional Integrated Climate Action Planning Support Network, and I was literally at a meeting two

100days ago where they were driving home the point that the policy has to drive the decisions, and if the policy doesn't have those specifics, then people like Eric and his team, they have to have those specifics in order to make the decisions that will take us, for example, to net zero, so that really needs to be in the policy. We have excellent examples of good policy. I want to encourage you to look at the San Mateo Community College District Facilities Master Plan. They have decarbonization goals that are very, very specific to net zero, talking about electrifying with heat pumps and replacing all gas appliances, again like Mark was talking about a little bit there. There's an implication that that might happen with air conditioning in this plan, but again, there's so many implications in this

101plan that the specifics are really lacking. Our kids are dealing with these climate traumatic events. These are not in the future. They're now. We're dealing with wildfires, heat island effect, the smoke, the flooding, the atmospheric rivers, and San Carlos really has an opportunity for your facilities master plan to be an example for other school districts. And again, in my day job, I work with a lot of school districts, and there's really a great opportunity here for you all to be the innovators and for you to be the ones that are saying, we're going to do this and we're going to go and be net zero and we're going to be the example for those other school districts as well with cost savings. And the last thing I just want to say is that there's a

102lot of help for this. There are many agencies like Peninsula Clean Energy, the Office of Sustainability in San Mateo County. We're very, very fortunate to have these agencies that provide technical assistance and funding for this sort of thing. So I just really strongly encourage you to go back and put some more specifics on these things into the facilities master plan. And again, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. Thank you, Julie. It looks like we have at least one other hand. Anusha? Anusha, are you still online and able to, or interested in providing a public comment? Yes. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Okay. Yes. Hi. Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity and thanks for putting this together. I just wanted to echo what Mark and Julie said. I think

103this is, we should think about this as setting an example for future generations. We are showing these kids how and why our generation needs to take these steps in order for them to have a livable future. And of course, we're all seeing the effects of what is happening related to the climate crisis. And it's been the hottest summer ever, et cetera. It's all in the news. I wanted to talk a little bit about solutions. There are solutions that have already been identified through, for example, the Drawdown website. Drawdown.org already has solutions that they provide for building automation systems, building retrofitting. Have we considered the IRA and what that provides in terms of tax benefits, tax incentives, low cost financing, grant programs, et cetera, that again, allow for buildings like schools, post offices, et cetera, to

104basically become more green and energy efficient. So I would really encourage the board to, or the people behind this report to do some thinking around this, or if there is any way in which the community can help. There are organizations like Julie mentioned. There's the climate reality projects. There's also a bunch of other local organizations, climate citizens lobby. Everyone has done a lot of research on things like this. So it would be great to have that foundation of net zero as a strong part of this facility's master plan. As we think about things like building automation systems, thinking about controlling heating, cooling, lighting, and how that basically reduces both cost as well as efficient, provides more efficiency in how these buildings operate. And then things like building retrofitting, for example, again, to improve energy efficiency

105and reduce basically greenhouse gas emissions with better insulation, et cetera. So the drawdown website, the IRA updates, it would be really great if we can do a little bit more research and bring that into the master plan. So we have something that basically gets us even faster than 2045 to where we want to be in terms of net zero goals. That's all I have to say. And thank you for the opportunity. Thank you, Anusha. I don't see any other hands. Okay. Thank you so much for providing your thoughts. Apologies for the strict time limit. And we do it in order to ensure that everybody has an equal chance to provide their comments. So we will now then move on to more of our discussion and providing feedback on phasing and anything else, any other feedback

106we wanted to provide to PDK for this document. Now, if we want to, Sarah, you want to? Sure. First again? Sure. First, can someone remind me what we think we might be able to raise in a bond 2024? Check. What's our max? 74 million? We have a few options. Options. Depending on the tax rate targets. And something we'll work on with staff. It ranges anywhere from 85 to about $150 million. Again, it depends on what the tax rate and the tolerance. I'm getting asked to unmute. No. What's going on with Zoom? You're good. No, you're fine. I'm just hearing you talk. Okay. And I appreciated the recommendations about keeping this a living document and receiving an annual update. I love that idea. If there's some kind of digestible dashboard that we can revisit on an

107annual basis because there is so much great stuff in later phases. And some of it really seems ripe for grant opportunities or other state funding or federal funding opportunities. So just to keep us refreshed on what is in all the phases on a regular basis. I love that idea. And this feels a little bit nitpicky, but it's kind of similar to the comment about the first phase naming the last phase, the future ready projects, kind of struggling with that one. Since a lot of it is around outdoor learning spaces. Maybe there's a way to highlight that more obviously for the readers. Because again, I think a lot of those projects have specific types of grant funding that we may be able to keep our eye on. That's it for me. I guess my name, the

108thing that really kind of makes me kind of made my eyeballs like pop out of my head. The best way to describe it is looking at phase one and the cost summary with written acres, close to $300 million. And I understand that's because of the, in order to make the building envelope appropriate for HVAC. Should I be saying HVAC or H-V-A-C? It's interchangeable. I do want to make sure we're talking about the same thing because I think we're close to $30 million, not $300 million. That's right. Oh, sorry. Did I say $300 million? Yes. I don't want to scare anybody. I had a brief moment very hard to tell. That represents like one third of all of these ones costs. And so to me, it's like spending a third of our phase one on VA,

109like that feels a little bit like a lot of money. And especially because when we look at the replacement value, and I've learned a little bit more about replacement value though, is 33 million for VA, right? No? Am I not thinking about things correctly? I think Kristen, again, I've touched upon it earlier. Okay. The Bureau Veritas replacement value is like life for life. Right. So it wouldn't include the HVAC, it wouldn't include all of that stuff, right? It would, but it doesn't include all the fees associated with it, all the overhead profit. Okay. That's equivalent to the subtotal number, and then you have to add all those multipliers? Yeah. Just to give you a sense throughout the state, California, going rate for replacing a elementary school is between like 50 and 60 million right now.

110Okay. So it's not quite, yeah. It's expensive, right? It truly is. And then but phase one for VA is 30. That's like half of the replacement value. Which includes significant building envelope upgrades. And Jackie can talk about the specific issues on that. So when you go into a building and you're looking at replacing or upgrading your exterior envelope, it all depends on like what you have there now. And when we walk through, we see a number of things that it's going to be a big ticket item with DSA, because DSA is the Division of State Architect. When we go into to do such improvements, you know, the building codes back when Britain Anchors was built were like a number of years ago. Nowadays, you know, it's like every three years that code improve itself based

111on past events. And so now when you go back and try to do something there, the requirement is much more stringent. And Britain Anchors has a number of things there that really needs to be brought up to, you know, to today's standard. And so that's why it's a large number. Can I jump in really quick with that? I don't know if this helps at all, but sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't realize I interrupted you. So that number is project cost. It's not construction cost. So if you look at the construction cost with Britain Anchor is like less than that number. So when the replacement cost in the Bureau of Veritas, that is the construction cost. The project costs include all the soft costs, and that would be 30, 33 percent, sometimes more. And that's all

112the fees, you know, for the DSA inspection, all those. Yeah. Okay. So it's more like, yeah, it's not, it's not applesauce. Yeah. So if you take the 33 and then add all those The example I keep thinking of is that 10 years ago when we bought our house, which is the 1939 2-1, and we got homeowners insurance, the replacement value was listed at like $300,000. And we all know if we had had to, if that house fell down for some reason, and we'd had to completely rebuild it, that we could not have built, even 10 years ago, like we could not have built a house in San Carlos from scratch for $300,000. Right. So like the, how you calculate replacement value is not a really, in some ways, not a meaningful number in terms of

113what, if you actually had to build a new building, what that would cost with today's numbers. And was that? Yeah, that helps. Yeah. It still, but it still represents 33 percent of phase one's project is being directed to printmakers. Right. So yeah, that, that doesn't change as far as like, as far, I mean, but in terms of the project cost compared to the replacement value, like I think almost because BA is so old, that the replacement value is not very high because what's there isn't worth very much. Right. If you're going to put in really old windows, you couldn't do that anymore. Like three minutes. Okay. All right. I still, it still gives me pause, just the magnitude of it, but I understand it's sort of a, it's an older building. It requires a lot

114more work in order to get it to be able to house the HVAC in a comfortable climate ready space. So, but it also seems like we have a lot more money than I thought. I was thinking, no, the original bond amount I had in my head was like 74 million. So maybe we can do it all. Well, and that's a, that's a strategic question about how much we want to, just because that's our bond limit, that doesn't necessarily mean that that's the answer to go out either. And, and, you know, having done facility stuff in Hayward and Oakland, I would also say the bids could be wildly different than what is here, like by, by real order of magnitude, just because like, once you open up a wall, like you find out what's there and

115it can go up or, you know, supply demand stuff where it's like, no one's doing HVACs because interest rates are high. And all of a sudden everybody wants that job and is willing to do it for lower costs. So, you know, from my standpoint, I really do see these as like very, like broad estimates. If we bid it out, let's say, and we had, let's just for round numbers, had a hundred million. And let's say this one was 30 and then another couple of projects ended up making the cost 120. Then we'll have difficult conversations as a board to say, okay, which one are we going to do? What do we do to get under a hundred million? So I, I just think it's just good to know that this is a big one that

116we're going to have to really, and, and this is also where Eric, I think she's getting multiple bids. Ideally, you get comfortable with a few people that have done this before so that the, over time we get way more specific on our cost expectations. And it also depends on how you want to go out and build these projects because there are, you know, there's like the design bid bill and you have the lease lease back. You can kind of control your cost by having the design team put in all the minutes too. And that way you're not like saying you're going to do all this and then you ended up only doing this much or not, not at all. So there are a number of ways to, to control that. Yeah, that's what we did

117in Hayward. Yeah. And then I know we're at such a high level as far as the cost estimates and stuff, but does it, would it change drastically or is it already embedded in here? This idea of maybe making choices that are, you know, better for the environment or would that then kind of change the multipliers? So a couple of things to note on that. One of the things that maybe we as planners and designers take for granted is that we, first off, live in California. We're doing this in California. California has very high standards, especially for public buildings, for sustainability. There is an entire building code specifically related to sustainability. Title 24, the Cal Green Code that, excuse me, all of these buildings have to be designed too. So when you're talking about, for example,

118heat pumps or things like that, is inherent in the building code. So there's some of that and that building code has been established over time and updated most recently in 2022 in order to move public buildings to that carbon neutral goal of 2045. So it's inherent in the building code. I think one of the things that we can do is maybe more explicitly say that and talk about how that gets implemented in terms of additional costs or anything like that. That's where the design contingency comes in. The master plan essentially tells us what we're going to be doing. We have an idea of how, in terms of, we know it's going to need to meet those Title 24 standards, so it reflects that. Your design contingency gives you that flexibility to maybe pick between this

119system or that system, et cetera. But we are thinking about things like building automation systems. Those are pretty standard. We're doing that kind of all throughout the state. Any new HVAC system typically includes a building automation system. So all of those things tend to be inherent in that. If you want to go above and beyond to some additional system, beyond that, that's where that design contingency comes in. As you make those decisions, that design contingency goes down. It's higher now because there's a lot more unknown. As more is known, your project budgets get a little bit tighter, a little bit more known. That design contingency number can come down. I know we're beyond an hour from this, but I think this is important conversation for us to have. Thank you. I guess my general comments

120are from an overall perspective. The FNP for me is exciting because it gives us a guide on our facilities, which has historically just been what breaks and then how can we fix it. So it gives us a better plan on where we want to go with our facilities, how we want to achieve our pedagogy, and what we can do to replace it. That's the exciting part. The depressing part is to do everything we want to do. It's $409 million. Even though, as Ben said, you may have this range that you can go out for a bond, but you have to figure out what people can stomach in a bond. So it's not just like, oh, we're going to go out and then that's a guaranteed $200 million. You may say, hey, your community could only

121stomach $75 million at this point in time or $85 million at this point in time or nothing. So I think from a perspective on it, I'm excited about the document. I appreciate all the work that's gone into it. I definitely appreciated the community's feedback in terms of shifting where my goalposts were on it, of what I thought we needed or what we should do as a board compared to overall. Our community basically said what we're doing is pretty good with our facilities and how they're laid out. We can do better, but we really want us to focus on making sure that we can keep schools open and keep schools functioning and keep kids enjoying and staff and teachers enjoying where they work. So I think that was an interesting scope for me to change our

122focus on how we prioritize our money. I also think where Facilities Master Plan is incomplete, that also is part of kind of what we talked about, is how you add to it your facilities to make sure you address things like climate change, just things like using recycled materials. At least the way I look at a lot of those scenarios are those are kind of chunks. Those Facility Master Plans can be augmented like a lot of other cities or schools have done with having that work done. The part that always gives you pause is that works usually on consultants because we don't necessarily have the bandwidth to do it. So that's just more cost that takes away from facility over time, but something that we as a board will have to decide. It's value and where

123it plugs in over time is something I think we're going to have to focus on as we get that facilities plan up and running and saying this is what we want our facilities to look like. So I think the thing, obviously I have been involved with it from the beginning, have a different perspective, so it's not as many questions about it. I think what a Facilities Master Plan does for us is maybe strategically changes how we have to start operating as a board around our facilities. Someone mentioned the other day a lot of it is like certain districts basically every four years go out for a bond and that's how they chip away at their list. But historically, if you look at us, this would be 10 years since we went out for a bond

124and I think before that it's maybe another seven to 10 years that it was before that. So you have to start thinking strategically as a board of how we're going to meet our goals but how we're also going to meet the goals as well of all of our community that supports these bonds as well and what other documents or what other plans may be missing. Where's the partnerships with the cities? I mean, I like to think that a lot of the work that the city has done around planning and procurement and things like that would also include energy use from the district, I'd like to think, but I don't know that for sure as well. So I would just say that that would be part of the guidance that I would give us as a

125board as you go through the plan. I think for me, you know, the big things just between now and approval, just be making sure that if someone picked up this document 10 years down the road and I'm going to take a wild assumption that, you know, 10 years down the road I'm not going to be a school board member, will someone be able to read it, right? That's the plan overall. So I hope that if any of us have any questions where it's like, hey, I don't understand what phase four X is or I don't understand where we can plug in, you know, if we're going to review this five years down the road, where can I plug in a climate action plan or where can I plug in a different plan? We should at

126least have all those details known now so then down the road when someone else picks it up, they're going to know and be able to pick it up later. I guess that'd be my only general suggestion from where we go from here. In between now and our September meeting that will get built in. So, you know, my comment on this overall is this is a great starting point. I think this is part of the process is bringing this to the board meeting. We also sent it out to all the people who participated as well and asked for their comments. And I think the general feedback was, wow, there's a lot here that reflected what we had talked about. And I think the same kind of thing like phase one, phase two looking like I get

127it phase three, four, five, a little bit more vague. And I think to Neil's point, you know, over time, we're going to have to keep clarifying what that looks like. I think in terms of action, I'm just getting the sense that this, the like steering committee group should like continue but maybe in an evolved way, both around like, all right, how are we communicating this publicly? And how are we going out to the bond? But also, what are the parts that were kind of implicit or assumed that need to be more explicit in here? And, you know, the other, so if you look at it on page 42, he talks about sustainability and environment, but it's from our strategic plan for the district. And so I think what I'm hearing from the feedback is there

128are a few things. One other that someone else commented to me is around students with disabilities. And I know there are plenty of regulations out there in California around students with disabilities, making sure schools are very, very accessible. But it's not necessarily called out in that part. It is in our learning plan and in our strategic plan. And so we just want to make sure this is why we did these two concurrently is we need to make sure we connect the dots. And I think from an intention standpoint, there's a lot here where I think the board's very aligned. A lot of it actually lives in more of the strategic plan. So we might between now and the next board meeting, just taking a look at that and working on some low hanging fruit just

129to bring some implicit to the forefront, I think could be good. But I heard also that there's other best practices that other people are doing. And I think that that's a little bit more in depth and longer term. And so I just, you know, I'd volunteer if I know we're not voting on this or making action items, but I'd volunteer to continue over the next year to continue working on this and bringing some of those pieces to bright. And then if it's like, hey, we need to pass an addendum to it, or we need a overarching policy that's beyond this. I think those are the types of things that we need to continue to surface. And this is just like an example of where this process, the best part of this process has been the

130community engagement the entire time. So that's my bigger takeaways. I too, when I saw the numbers, I'm like, 400 million, that's not going to happen. And then you start seeing the multipliers too. And it's like, so every year that we don't do something, the price just keeps going up, which I guess that's inflation. So it is a little bit, while it's encouraging around the phases and seeing a lot there. I also think we have to be prepared that some families are going to see this and they're like, my kids never going to be impacted by this plan, or only certain things are going to impact my child because it's so far out there and the costs are so high. So, you know, I think there's like a balance there. So final saying is, I think

131whatever we do, trying to wait until the facility master plan is in a perfect state before we adopt it and work on it, I think would slow things down and be an error. Leaning in and saying this is a work in progress and the community engagement and activation is ongoing. I think that that's the way to go. And, you know, I don't know what revisions will come back, but it feels like urgent if we're, as the cost is mounting, like we need to get moving on this thing. That's over to you, Sarah. Thank you. I appreciate what you said about, you know, California's goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 and how, you know, the Division of State Architects is on, you know, as a state agency, right? That's inherent in the work that they

132do, the requirements that they set. And it was, you know, something that just was helpful to clarify for me, right? Because these are public facilities, it's the Division of State Architects, it's not, for example, the city or the county that's doing the planning, approval and permitting and all of that. I do think for the phase one, just the description, you know, we mentioned energy efficiency, I think we could, you know, adjust that to add a reference to clean energy use and carbon emission reduction. And I think like we've kind of agreed, make some of those implicit assumptions more explicit and, you know, without adding a lot of text, but just in references to those terms. One of the things that I sometimes work with districts on, if they have kind of a master plan, the

133next step might be to develop design guidelines, and then from their district standards, right? District standards are really specifications or outline specifications for exact systems and things like that. We're not doing that at the master plan level, but what we can do is say, okay, the district has already started to identify some of those guidelines. And so we can bring some of those elements into the plan to help guide anybody who's coming in after the plan is, you know, adopted and coming in to actually implement those projects so that they have kind of that checklist to say, okay, we need to make sure that this criteria for the design and the systems that are being chosen and the materials and whatnot meet that criteria. And then as detail is developed, then you can develop those

134district standards. That developing district standards is a whole process in and of itself, but this at least might be able to start you down that road. And that's something that we can absolutely include into the master plan. Well, and that is a good segue to something else I would like to do tonight, which is direct staff to activate our policy committee to ensure that our district and our board policies that are related to facilities improvements are up to date. We have, you know, policies on energy and water water management and evaluating existing buildings, for example, that are, I think, 10 years old. So, you know, we should, you know, I think, I mean, the facilities master plan, right, really is not a policy. We have policies and we have, you know, kind of an internal

135process for reviewing and updating those. And Tracy and I, as the board policy subcommittee members would be involved in reviewing that and bringing anything back to the board that we would want for consideration. So we would like to do that. I think that covers everything that I need to say. Just from a committee standpoint, who's on the policy committee, who's on, like, so Neal and I, I think the intention is that we're continuing on with this for a bit on the policy committee, who's leading. Yeah, and I mean, it's really like the staff who would do the research and make the recommendations and then Tracy and I would be involved in reviewing before it was sent to the board. It feels like for both any resources from best practices that maybe you all have seen

136from other districts or, like, templated language, that just having, being able to start from a starting place or react to something someone else has put forward is always helpful. Absolutely. There's, like, a ton of stuff. Yeah, she and I have already found some there. There's, like, climate resilient California schools and then there's also another one that's called, like, a roadmap to de-creditization and they have, like, templates. They have a lot of things for that. There's a lot of, like, work that's already been done in this area. So it's a matter of, you know, doing it thoughtfully and determining what makes the most sense for our districts. I guess the one piece is the fundraising side of it where, you know, in addition to going for the bond, identifying other buckets of money, who does that

137rely on? Like, who's on our team and the district office in charge of that? So staff are already doing some work on that. I know this isn't agendized tonight and we can talk about it in the future, but as soon as resilient schoolyards was done, Jennifer Gavrie was already investigating ways to make some of that come to fruition along with our partners on that. So that's kind of one small example of the ways. And then Sarah actually talked with me about making sure that we have a grant writer who could provide support when we do identify resources. So in some ways, this can also become, you know, the call to action for where we focus our efforts. And then certainly things further down on the agenda around our bond consultant, you know, making sure that

138we're thinking broadly about what are the appropriate resources for projects that are in here, including, you know, early learning. We know there's resource there. That will be kind of a next step that comes from this, but I like this notion that the steering committee then helps marshal some of it so that we don't have to do any catch up on what we know is in here and what the priorities are once the board approves in September should you decide to do so. Yeah. And just leveling up my comment just a little bit, I know that other larger districts have individual people staffed and dedicated towards this type of work. So I think the one thing for the board is we're just, we're voting on a consultant in the next section, but there may be additional

139resources that we have to as consultants or positions to achieve the goals outlined in the master plan. I guess I'd just add, I always like to say for community, I think as we prioritize these things, I think what we as a board need to wrap your head around is not everyone is going to get the project completed. That's just going to be the reality of, you know, we can pass a bond, but you can tell a school like this is what we think your school will get. And there's a very high likelihood that your school will not get that just because things happen. Right. So I think in terms of prioritization as we focus staff, it can, should be at least for me is what can we hit the ground running on quickly? What needs

140DSA approval? What doesn't need DSA approval? What is going to need a roof within the next two years? What's not going to need a roof in the next two years? I think that's going to drive a lot more of our decisions than, or at least I think we need to be prepared for that to drive a lot more of our decisions than necessarily trying to say you sprinkling a little bit onto everyone. Because at the end of the day, it's just never going to be enough. I just, no matter what our bond capacity may be, it just is never enough. So I think lessons learned from last time and lessons learned from community feedback was, I don't think we should be in a position where we start to over promise that every phase is going

141to be checked off. I think we should be realistic that this is where we want to go and we're going to do the best we can with the money we have, but we're going to be strategic about it. And, you know, sometimes you may have to fund things like a grant writer to go out and get more money, but I think we just need to be realistic about it as a board because the last time we promised a lot of things and then we ran into escalation problem pretty quickly. Anything else come to mind? Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for being here. Thank you for all your hard work. Thank you, Lauren. If you're still there. I'm still here. Thank you all. Really appreciate this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll follow

142up. We'll be in touch. I'm going to recommend that we recess for five minutes to take a quick break. Hey, we're resuming our meeting at 850. Now moving to our last information and discussion item, Charter's LCAP and budget overview of the parents and 2020 budget. Okay. One of our responsibilities of chartering authority is to monitor and assess the charter school's fiscal position. Dan Carlos Charter Learning Center approved their budget at their June 13th board meeting. For the 22-23 estimated actuals, CLC is reflecting an ending fund balance of approximately 1.7 million, which is reserves of roughly 30%. This is a projected increase in their ending fund balance from second interim of 58,000 and is due to an overall reduction in revenue of 52,000 and an overall reduction in expenditures of 110,000. For fiscal year 23-24 adopted

143budget, CLC is projecting an operating increase of 45,000 and an ending fund balance of 1.7 million. And is based on enrollment of 380 with the projected ADA of 361. For their multi-year projections, CLC is reflecting an operating increase in fiscal year 24-25 of 133,000 and 130,000 for fiscal year 25-26 and is projected to maintain their reserve levels at approximately 30%. So based on the district's overview of the financial documents submitted, CLC's adopted budget and multi-year projection appear to be sufficient to meet the charter school's financial obligations for the current and two subsequent years. With that, I also reviewed their LCAP. They have five goals. An interesting organization they have where the first goal is about learners, the second goal is about educators, the third goal is families, the fourth goal is community, and then it

144goes back to educators and staff for retention. But interesting and their actions are aligned very clearly to their goals. It's obviously a much shorter plan than we have with only 300 students, but they definitely met all the statutes that they should and I think it's already been approved by the county. It's all scheduled to be approved next month with ours. Great. Thank you. Nothing to approve. It's just a question. Okay. Thank you. So now we'll move to our discussion action section. The first is approval of a provisional internship permit. All right. That's me again. So tonight we're asking the board's approval for a provisional internship permit. You might hear these called PIPs for a moderate severe education specialist. His name is Joe Joseph Nardoni. He has a year and a half of special education classroom

145experience. He also has a master's in special education, but he doesn't have his credential yet. So by approving this resolution for the PIP, he'll be allowed to remain in our moderate severe classroom at TR Linda and he will continue working on his education specialist credential. So asking for your approval for that PIP so that he can do that. Thank you. Any questions? He has a master's. Correct. And a bachelor's. I need the less to be a lawyer. Move to approve. Second. All in favor, please state by saying aye. Aye. Very much so. Resounding by zero. Thank you. That's 6B resolution for authorized signatures. This is an annual process. We have one change with the addition of Jennifer Gabri for signatures. We need to make sure that we have the right personnel certified to sign documents,

146so I ask that the board approve this resolution of the list of persons who can sign things for the PIP. Move to approve 6B. Second. All in favor, please state by saying aye. Aye. So we removed 6C. We'll move on to 6D, a contract for window shade replacement at Arundel and Heather. Hello, Justice. This is the 6D agenda to recommend that the board to approve a vendor called a contract diaper for replacement of both Arundel and Heather's existing window shades. So what they have right now is what they currently have for both Arundel and Heather's elementary school. If you've been there, it's like the vertical vinyl vines, which is they're falling. Originally, these vines are designed for more like residential use, but well, maybe at their older time, they will use this residential product for

147schools also, but they won't last long. As you see, they are falling apart, and it's really hard to find parts. Second is even though you can't find parts when there's an emergency, you don't know which one to pull, right? One why it's like flipping them, one why it's like moving them. So it's like hard. It's a security issue when there is an emergency for the rules. So I recommended that we will change these vertical shades into roller shades. So they are just simple, very easy to use, just put on the shades, and it's not only better for security, it's also good for energy saving because this will have a blocking or blocking better on the sunlight. So I compare, we tried to send out a proposal, I mean, request a proposal, we received two back.

148The reason is we asked for a minimum of 25 years warranty on the hardwares. So two manufacturers come back, I mean, two vendors come with the manufacturers that can provide this 25-year manufacturer warranties to us for the price. And we pick the contract decor for the, since their price is lower. So any question? If this is approved, when would the new shades be installed? I talked to them before, like last week, they will say the fabrication, as long as we have the contract first of all, of course, after that, the fabrication times about four to five weeks, and then the installation time that we have coordinated, because they cannot come in when the students here, right? So we'll coordinate with them on the installations process. They probably need to do it like at all of

149our times. So it will depend on the duration, how they're going to do it. Questions? I move to approve item 60. Second. All in favor, please state by saying aye. Aye. Thank you, Eric. Looks like you're up for the next one as well. So I'm not leaving. Okay. So next item is, I recommended the board approve actual leasing agreement with Mobile Modular Forbidden Acres Elementary School, Portable West Room Rentals. It's actually leasing, but leasing is random. So this is part of the XTK extensions, projects. So let me show you some of the slides that I prepared. Let me see. I should go to my Zoom first, right? Do I share it with the Zoom? Okay. Yes. So this is what we're doing is we will put, what is the book? It's like portable classroom, but

150it's a portable restroom we put there. The reason is because, right, this is the original kindergarten classrooms, and they build an existing restroom right there already. Because of the TK program, the school used two of the original kindergarten classrooms and move it there and make this into the TK program. However, these regular classrooms for the kindergarten, they do not have restrooms. So the kids, if they have to use the bathroom, they have to all walk all the way to here, which is a long way for the little kids to go. So part of the program is we have to put a restroom, temporary restroom right there. And let me see. Okay. This is going to be portable restroom layout. They will have multi storage inside. The teachers can monitor the kids when they're using the

151bathroom inside. And they also come here to stock restroom also. And that's a benefit to us also because originally, the stock bathroom had bittern acres all the way at the other end of the campus. So right now, they could have two stock restrooms right there also. So this is where they're going to put it. Right now, it's landscaped, so we have the cleanup of the existing landscape. And this is the demo plan. They have to pick out some trees. And that's the length. See, that's the footprint of the new bathrooms. And this is kind of how it looks like. So come with like two restrooms and two bathrooms. And it's come with the ramps also. So it's accessible to anybody. And this is a model similar to what we're going to have in that location.

152So open the question. Thank you. Does this require plumbing? Is this required plumbing? Yes, it requires a connection to the existing pump. So that's some side works there. Some changes. Are they small toilets for kindergartners? That's a good question. They are smaller toilet than, okay, regular accessible toilet height is 17 inches. But these are, I order them with 15 inches. However, you cannot order lower than that. The reason is, you see these platforms, if you try to use very small bathrooms, by plumbing code, you need to have at least a certain height, so the dropping height of the sewer. If they use it like very low restrooms, they have to raise the whole building 12 inches. So the ramp will be like, really long ramp. So that's, you are both are not very practical. So

153we go with the lowest height that we can for this kind of layout. That might be one of my favorite answers. The fact that you know all of that. You never know what you learn on the school board. I'm going to help you with the next remodel. No, I just have one comment. This would be a prime example of how a phase two project may move into a phase one project. And that there are just immediate needs that we have, you know, this isn't the best solution, but it's the solution that we can do that meets the need that we have now. Right. That's why we're going for rent for not purchasing it. So that we, whenever we're going forward with the FFP, we can just return them. I often say, like, it's a win

154when you get staff bathrooms. I mean, in the future, like, you know, iron bladder, you know, trying to hold it all day. You know, when you've got, especially if you're in an elementary environment where you have kids in and out of your bathroom all day, like, kudos for getting that out of them. And that's going to help with something. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I was a sub, so I don't even, I haven't even developed the tolerance to be able to hold my stuff. So I appreciate the vicinity. I think that they have chopped down a couple of cherry trees though, right? The nice cherry trees that are on BA. So, yeah. Move to approve 60. Second. All in favor, please stay by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. And our last item

155is an agreement with Clifford Moss for strategic communication services. Okay. With the development of a facility master plan, the district requested proposals for consulting services to assist with determining the feasibility of a bond. The district received and reviewed proposals and conducted interviews. And as a result of this process, we request approval to enter into an agreement with Clifford Moss to provide strategic consulting services. I mean, I'll just speak real quick, Denise, to add to it a little bit. So Ben and I had said part of just the groups and the interviews along the process for it. First, Clifford Moss helped us with our parcel tax forehands. So they did the last parcel tax and they helped the district. And then that led into them being, I believe, as well hired by the consultant or the

156independent committee. They know our district very well, which was one thing that anyone who's done anything in this town knows is that we are very big, but you have to answer the why. And they understand that really for us was a big part of, they understood the why in St. Carlos, what people want, but they also understood, you know, what you need to do in terms of getting that community support behind you and having a large group of volunteers that will help spread your message and be open and honest with you as a district. So, you know, anyone that can help advise us as a board on where we want to go for a bond as well. I think also too is a big thing from the committee was we're looking for groups that were

157open and willing to do difference on speed. One that could get us in March, one it gives in November. Clifford Moss had a more internal component of groups of pollsters and groups that could assist right away that would speed up that process. So if we didn't want to do a March look, they could start the polling process now. And I think a big part of it too is they were very open to starting the polling process now because they felt they had the internal capacity to do it. So that was a big push or big promotion from us, I think, for what we wanted to do. We understand that, you know, timing-wise, if that's where we want to go, it would be a December. So, you know, everything's got to be up and running. But

158we, like anyone else, wanted someone who's available and wanted to do it. So just to add some context, you know, as well, the background of why those groups are not other groups. And if we approve them, then how does the, is it a subcommittee with staff or how does it get decided then when we start polling and sort of just how, when the steps are taken? So it's, there'll be more of a staff committee that works directly with them because they would are going to advise staff and then we'll advise the board from them. I think the FNP group will continue to work with them if there's any sort of direct crafting questions they feel need or what a lot of they like to know from the polling beforehand is whether or not something they

159need to know community-wise. What happened in the past in prior bond? Is there something coming up in election that could be hotly contested? That may be where FNP goes. But from a process-wise, they'll be working primarily with staff to make that advising on the financials and everything like that. And then they'll give updates to the board. How do you make the decision about March versus November? So good question. Once, when and if should we hire them as consultants, they start the polling process and the polling process will kind of help you determine whether or not the message is there for March or November. And then they'll try to give kind of a statistical analysis of whether they think support is there based off of that message. So the polling starts right away. So yeah, the

160ultimate thing would be an approval tonight would then immediately create a phone call tomorrow that says, great, you're approved. Start polling or start the process of polling with the goal is it has to be done by December 8th. So I think then we have to schedule as a board what that would look like in our meeting times to get to where it may be. So I don't, I'm maybe talking about, I don't remember this, but I know, I don't know if it can be done at a special, it has to be done as a general meeting. So I think that's the only timing issue. And then from there, they continue to advise and then, right, we'll give a go, no go. And then we as a board, if we decide to go bond, that ends

161our agreement with them. And then the independent committee can hire who they feel would best be advised. Yeah, I think that those questions are what we ask them. And, you know, they're, they're not fixed on one outcome or the other. I think they really want to help the community guide us on what is the best way for success. That's why I'm working. I'll move approval of the agreement with Clifford Moss. Second. All in favor, please state by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. So, to our agenda, in terms of future agenda items, Tracy and I will at some point bring back policy changes and we determine that there are things that we would want the board to consider, a potentially resilient schoolyard. If that makes sense. Yeah. Do you have any, is there anything scheduled? Anything

162else? I know at the retreat, we talked about some potential updates to the handbook, and I have volunteered to start that process. So, I just wanted to let you know, I haven't forgotten. It would be helpful to know kind of when we want to target bringing that to the board. You and I, we can chat about that. Yes. Don't have the calendar in front of me. I mean, to outline what's coming up in the next couple of months. No, that's okay. Is there anything else that comes to mind? I mean, I would be curious. It's probably, I'm not sure when, but to get an update on the lunch and the new program and how that is shaking out. Yeah. Yeah. We need to confirm a date, but we had talked about having maybe one more,

163at least one more study session this year than last year. So, I think we're going to aim for October, because then we have the budget study session in December, and then we have end of February, beginning of March. And what's the topic of the October study session? The dashboard and mathematics. Okay. I don't know if now is the time to bring it up, but like if there's a conflict for a future date, how do we resolve that? In terms of like a board meeting that takes place during like a TL orchestra band concert, for example. Hypothetically speaking. I mean, I can just let Jennifer know if you have a conflict and we'll confirm that we'll still have a forum or if it seems like you need to move the meeting. Okay. That's okay. Karen, we

164see your hand up. Are you unable to unmute? Can you hear me? You can't hear me? Now we can hear you. Okay. Okay. Very good. I'll project. Okay. Hello, San Carlos School Board trustees. Thank you for taking my comment and thank you for your work shepherding our schools, students, and staff through the many competing priorities that make up our children's education. My name is Karen Dempsey. I'm a mom to three, including two Tierra Linda sixth graders and a Karlmont sophomore. What I'd like to talk about today is air quality. Air quality was touched on earlier tonight with regards to the facilities master plan, a great long-term plan that will improve our schools on this front. However, I'd like to discuss what we can do in the shorter term for air quality. Cleaner indoor air improves

165cognition and productivity, reduces the spread of airborne diseases, protects against outdoor air pollutants such as wildfire smoke, and decreases the number of environmental triggers for conditions like asthma and allergies. There have been a number of studies linking better air quality with better learning outcomes, not to mention the beneficial impact of reducing absenteeism. San Carlos updated its HVAC system to have MERV 13 filters back in late 2022. That is very good because MERV 13 filters are 85% effective at removing particulates from the air at the 1.0 to 3.0 micron range. The San Mateo County Office of Education recommends these MERV 13 filters and also recommends in conjunction running HEPA air filters in each classroom, two air filters if it's a large classroom, the ideal target being six changes of air in the room per hour. San

166Carlos has air filters in each classroom, but they are not mandated to be run during class time. There are also no best practices, to my knowledge, around where to place these air filters to maximize their usefulness, nor are there measures to determine when a second HEPA filter is needed. Hopefully there is a schedule for replacing the filter mechanism on a regular basis. The concentration of carbon dioxide in indoor environments is an indicator of air quality, and measuring this data can be used to optimize the tools at our disposal. Measuring a room CO2 is cheap and easy. A simple CO2 monitor can be purchased on Amazon for under $200. Each school could collect data readings from classrooms throughout a school day to identify when additional measures should be taken to reach the goal of clean air.

167An easy first step would be to make sure the HEPA filters that the San Carlos School District purchased are turned on during class time. Perhaps a designated student could take on this role. A second step would be to collect CO2 readings to measure if we're meeting the goals we laid out for indoor air quality, and if not, putting measures in place that improve the air that our children learn in. Healthier kids, lower ADA, better learning. I hope that you will agendize the subject of clean air in the near future. Thank you in advance for your consideration. Thank you, Karen. Any other hands? Don't see. All right, then we'll move to employee group comments. I see Dan. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Yes. Good evening, and first off, I want to formally

168thank Dr. Frentress and her team for negotiating with our teachers union for a 5% raise, and I want to thank the board, each of you, for approving it and your vote of confidence in our teachers and your understanding that this is an expensive place to live and that as you lift our salaries, it helps us do a better job in the classroom and hopefully retain quality teachers as well. I really want to thank our friends in our classified union, our school secretaries, custodians, district office staff, maintenance crew, for all the extra hours that they worked to help our schools open beautifully for our students, their families, and our staff, and we all know that teachers work extra hours at this time of year, but I think it's important to recognize everyone else that's helping to

169open our schools. I want to recognize Alejandro Gutierrez for all of his years of service in our district. He's been just the most positive person to work with and has gone above and beyond for our district, and he will be missed. Our school counselors, principals, vice principals, Jennifer Frentress, Hans Barber, Janice Lacroix, Eric Chu, Veronica Rickson, Amber Farina, Ralph Earlywine, Jennifer Smith, Molly Seaman, Lisa Serioli, and many more give extra hours of time and energy to make our schools open smoothly. I'm using part of my speech from the other day to the teachers. Thoughts crossed out. I want to thank Jennifer Frentress, Hans Barber, and our school board members, all of you for portable AC units and other units which are kind of like a swamp cooler. This is a big step in the right

170direction to cool our classrooms down. You're the first administration to do it, and so we really appreciate that that's happening. I also want to applaud the district's focus on climate readiness in phase one of the strategic plan. I did a little happy dance when I saw that that was what resulted from all of the meetings last year. We understand that you, the board, still has to decide whether to move forward on a bond which could include AC, double-paned windows, and solar panels on our roofs. We understand that it would be a big ask of San Carlos voters, but this is a fundamental need for our students to learn classrooms that can be made cool in an economical way. So thank you to Jennifer Frentress and you for steering us in this direction. I wish this

171for the teachers and I wish this for you that I hope you can find joy in knowing that you're supporting our students in their learning. We're fortunate to work in such dynamic schools with amazing colleagues, and thank you for your part, and I appreciate all the teachers, classified staff, administrators, and our district leadership as to make our schools a special place, and we're going to work to pass a bond if you go in that direction. So thank you. Thank you, Dan. Is Lisa online? Okay, all right. So we'll move to board member comments. Is there anybody who would like to start? I'm happy to go first because hopefully it'll keep me brief. I just want to, there's one thing I think as a profession and educators is I've never seen a group of people more

172excited about like the first day of coming to a job, and they do that every year, so I don't know. I think it's just from a parent perspective, I know often educators get, you know, have excess demands put on them, but, you know, you do such a great job of, I think, managing my expectations as a parent of having me enjoy your time, our time on campus, and, you know, even little things like selfie stations now for when your kid appears on campus for the first day of school, just knowing that that's part of it as well, and, you know, just watching teachers walk students to the gate so they feel comfortable how they get home, knowing where they go. So those little things that you forget about over the summer and you forget about

173as the year kind of grinds on, but you're constantly reminded once a year. So, you know, to Dan who thanks us a lot and to Lisa who thanks us a lot as well, so both of you for your leadership in maintaining that culture within our schools is something I just want to say thank you for, as I'm reminded as the year goes, and to our principals who work incredibly hard to maintain our parents. Denise was out running gate security at Arroyo on day one, which I thought was kind of funny, but maybe just highlights what we are as a district if everyone has to roll up their sleeves, but it is truly appreciated from a parent perspective of that work and that culture that we create. I'm happy to go. It's start of the school

174year is like a time of renewal and it's one of the best things about school is that you can always, you get a fresh start every year to start again. This year's a little bit different in that we have the strategic plan and we have facility master plan and we have the work that we've done in the last two years, much of which was shown in the results that Hans shared today. And so we've been talking the talk about being learner centered and we've been talking the talk about being transformational and our impact for kids and how we're thinking about preparing our learners for the 21st and 22nd and 23rd century. But I think the reality is that we're leaning on and relying on our educators to walk the walk and that's a big responsibility

175and I would just encourage everybody with this fresh start to, and this goes for all of our leaders in the district, in the administration, at the school sites, as well as classroom educators or anybody who's working facilities and maintenance or anyone who's thinking about operations and support. This is the chance to try some new things and instead of thinking, why are we doing this? Thinking about why not? Why can't we try it? And so I just encourage people, hopefully echoing some of the messages that you've received from the leaders here. But San Carlos is one of the original innovative districts in the state of California. It's our heritage and this is our opportunity now that we've gone from survive to thrive to take it to the next level. And as a board, it's also a

176little scary because this is the time where we're going to have to follow and we've been trying to push things forward and come up with those plans and engage people and rally the troops. But at this point, it's our educators and ultimately our learners who are going to lead us. So I'm very excited for that. I'm a little nervous. It's hard when you have like, it's actually harder when you have all California distinguished schools to be innovative. That's like the classic paradox is like the leading organizations often have the hardest time innovating. But here we are and it's a unique opportunity. And so I just encourage everyone, challenge everyone. And with that, knowing that there's going to be times where there's some failure and we are going to learn from that. So I just want

177to send a shout out to all the team, all the parents and all of our learners and to the district team who has been working tirelessly. I mean, I was out at the parking lot taking my photos with Nico and I saw Hans out there. I don't know. It was like six o'clock, Hans. And it's how we do things in San Carlos. We make sure everything is set up for success for our learners and Hans, you in particular, but I know everyone here. I really appreciate you all leading with that kind of ethos. That's it. Thank you. I can go. I'm sorry. I think I'm actually like falling sick. I apologize for my nose. I apologize. So I echo what my trustees said, but I also wanted to add that, you know, thanks, Jeff, for

178organizing all those TK kinder socials. And to me, that was a great time to meet new people who are fresh to the district. And you might not even know that we were for six California distinguished schools and, you know, they're just starting their journey. And to be able to share with them sort of my experience as a parent, as well as now as a board member, um, I thought that opportunity was fantastic. And, you know, also think, think staffs, think the PTAs for all the things that they did to welcome all the new families and make sure that they felt like they were already part of a community before the first day of school. So, um, and of course, echoing, I also was surprised as a, um, my first year as a board member coming

179into the district office during the summer. And it's, you know, they're still working. Everyone's still here. And, you know, so I really appreciate the work that gets done during the summer to ensure that we have, um, a really great start and, you know, everything needs to continue to move forward. So, um, just want to state that I think that everything else, ditto Ben and Neil. Thank you. Um, I'm going to kind of come full circle to the teaching and learning, um, presentation. I wasn't sure whether to make my comment then or now, but I wanted to highlight, uh, an event that I went to last Friday, which was a San Mateo County summit on, um, childhood poverty that was convened by Congresswoman, former Congresswoman Speer. Um, and it was really a very impactful event. Lots

180of harrowing stories shared about children living in, um, poverty in our county, despite the fact that we're one of the richest counties in the country. Uh, about 27,000 children live in poverty in our, in our county. Um, and so the call to kind of do more really struck me. And then looking at our district, if we're looking at about 10% of our student population experiencing poverty, that's, you know, roughly 250, 300 children, which actually feels like a number we can wrap our arms around and build a safety net. And I think it just validates everything we've put in our strategic plan around whole child approaches. And it's validated in the data you shared earlier, um, that we can't take our feet off the gas in terms of addressing the needs of that population. Um, so

181I'm again, kudos on the, the preliminary data. Um, and I'm still really excited about the community liaison. I don't know where we're at with that position, but I think wonderful. I think there's going to be a lot of county-wide anti-property actions that come out of this summit. And so there'll be a network of support that person can tap into, um, to continue building that safety net. So, um, I think stay the course is my message there. Thank you. Um, I wanted to echo the thanks to all our educators and staff who've worked so hard to get our schools and classrooms ready for the school year. I appreciate the effort that went into installing all the AC units and air chillers in the classrooms. I have a feeling there were many more people than just the

182maintenance staff involved in that. Uh, and I appreciate again, that, you know, attitude of we're going to get it done. Um, and you know, we know that these AC units and air chillers are not the long-term solution that we want, but hopefully that's a short-term solution that will tide us over until we're able to implement, um, the bigger longer-term projects. Uh, I attended, also attended a TK Kindergarten parent event and the staff welcome breakfast on Tuesday. And it was energizing for me to feel the excitement from new parents and from our educators and staff kicking off the school year. I agree with Neil about the positive culture and community that, um, our staff build. I saw evidence of that today at VA with, um, lots of kids, including my own being so excited to see

183their teachers from last year. I saw Mr. Lanier get a big hug from a former student. Um, and I think that's just, you know, evidence of, you know, that caring, um, culture and community that our staff built. Tomorrow I'm attending a ceremony to celebrate a $150,000 grant that the city of San Carlos is receiving for the Safe Routes to School program. Thanks to the advocacy of assembly member Papan. That will be used for improvements at the intersection of Woodland and Arroyo, including sidewalk reconstruction, modernized curb ramps for accessibility and a rapid flashing beacon system. So I'll be thanking her, uh, tomorrow, but also wanted to acknowledge and thank her tonight. And as well, thanks supervisor Ray Mueller, who gave a grant of $50,000 directly to the district to cover the cost of an additional crossing

184guard at the San Carlos Ave, Dartmouth Ave club drive intersection of chaos that exists up there. Um, so both grants have made possible some really key additions to our Safe Routes to School program. Um, and again, echo what I said earlier, thanks to Neil and Ben for all of the work that we've put in. We've gotten us to this point and with that, I'll turn it over to Dr. Prentice. Yeah, I'm going to, uh, echo the things you heard, but they're important. Um, it's been an unbelievable start to the year and the energy is really really positive. Um, but launching this year, are there any conditions to be left? Jennifer, I don't think they can hear you very well. Um, they're doing their ear like this. Well, thank you. Thanks to the studio audience. Yeah.

185So I was saying that while I'm echoing some of the things we heard, especially you, Dan, and the trustees, we did enjoy an unbelievable start. Energy was really high. People are joyful. And the start of 23, 24 school year, I've just never felt more optimistic than I do now, but launching a school year under any condition is a gigantic lift. And Hans and I talked about this earlier, that we want to make sure that we recognize all of the work that happens, um, before the show starts. Um, and it's certainly all the educators and all the work that they put in in their classrooms, um, trustees, like, um, you two just working so hard on the steering committee, uh, trustees showing up for the TKK events. I mean, all of those things are, um, really,

186really important to the community. We have, uh, our PTA and education foundation partners hosting events, um, district office staff, uh, not only custodial and maintenance workers, but, um, as you know, lots of people are involved in making sure that our classrooms had, um, chillers and coolers, um, Jen, Gabri, Eric, uh, Denise, Hans, and I, uh, many hours making sure that that was done. All the professional learning, um, the ed services, uh, put lots of awesome things on for all sorts of audiences. Um, uh, Jen and her team on new systems that were implemented to make things go more smoothly in, uh, you know, the ticket system for maintenance. Um, on day one, cabinet members were out and our work doesn't go away. So, you know, even today I was having a meeting with Sarah while

187I did TKK duty, um, and got run into by, uh, four-year-olds on tricycles, which is quite daunting. Um, but it's super rewarding because kids are back and they're really, really happy. We're going to have kinks. We always will, but I just feel like the several weeks coming into this highlighted that the heart of San Carlos school district internally and externally, the community is strong and we will have a really great year. 13 a and b The board is now leaving closed session and reconvening into open session for agenda item 13a pursuant to California government code section 54957.1 approval by a vote of four to zero with trustees Casanago, Keenahan, Leighton and Cornell in favor and trustee park absent was given by the board to deny the liability claim of M. Rivera against the San Carlos

188school district. And this meeting is now adjourned at nine 57.