SCSD Regular Board Meeting 5-6-2021

001Okay, we're recording. Thank you, everyone. I'm going to call to order the May 6th of 2021 San Carlos Regular School Board meeting. I apologize for our late start here. If anyone had it down, we had a little miscue in terms of timing. It was also a big seventh birthday at the Leighton household. So there wasn't a lot of pain of attention to things. So I do apologize on my end for that if people were waiting as well. So trustees, I need to make a change to the agenda. I'm going to move item 10 and 10A up to eight or after eight after we come out of closed session. So I'd like to make that change. Are there any other changes to the agenda? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the agenda with that

002change? I move the agenda with that change. Thank you, Carol. Second. Thank you, Wendy. All in favor, please state by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposition? Hearing none, that will carry four zero with Trustee Chen. Not present yet, but we'll meet us probably in closed session. So at this time, I will adjourn us to closed session. Is there any public comment, Wendy, on closed session items? There is. All right, let's take it now and then we'll go from there. Okay, and the first one is from someone who would like to share their comments verbally. So if we can unmute Nicole Martin, if she is here. I don't know if she's been admitted. We don't see her yet. Okay, then maybe I'll proceed reading. There's a couple others on closed session. Okay, and I'll keep time

003for you too, Wendy, and let you know. Okay, so the first one is from Sandy Walker, site rep for Heather School. Dear St. Carlos School Board, the Heather School staff named below would like to respectfully request that you consider the true value of your staff by negotiating a fair and equitable raise. We are dedicated professionals that have kept students growing and learning through this pandemic. We have provided a quality education to the students of St. Carlos with much success through this very difficult time. It goes without saying that living in the Bay Area is extremely expensive. Our salaries are much lower than neighboring school districts. We are often compared to the similarly funded Belmont Redwood Shore School District. Please take a look at their salary scale. As CSD teachers are paid considerably lower than our

004neighbors, we need an increase to survive and remain here. Please show your support by providing us with a necessary increase in salary, as well as an increase to our health and welfare benefits. The St. Carlos School District has long proclaimed that money isn't there to fairly compensate teachers. This should be a district priority to hire and maintain staff as it has been for other school boards with similar funding. We love teaching and working in St. Carlos. Please provide us with the necessary means to do so. Thank you for your time and careful consideration regards to Heather's school staff members, Sandy Walker. Comment on 6B, Rachel Main. Dear school board members, in consideration for the discussed raises for teachers, I ask you to reflect. Reflect not simply about our teachers today, but about the future of

005our district. This year, our teachers have experienced the most challenging year of their careers. Without fail, they stepped up to the plate and began teaching in the middle of the pandemic, beginning last March with almost no warning or training. Throughout the pandemic, they have voluntarily put in time and effort well beyond their contract stipulations. While that should be reason enough for a raise, it is not the only reason why a raise is worthwhile. Teachers in our district are highly trained and qualified, but ask the human relations department how many teachers have left the district in the last few years. Ask them how many open vacancies we currently have in our district. If you look at adjoin, you will find that more than 10 positions are currently vacant with more expected to come. Some positions have

006been vacant since October of last year. Ask our hiring teams how many qualified teachers have turned down offers to teach in San Carlos for other districts. Other higher paying districts are where these qualified teachers are going. Knowing this, ask yourself, how long can the San Carlos School District remain a strong and desirable playful family? Our future without a raise for teachers is bleak. SCSD prides itself on accomplishments and hard work of our teachers and we applaud them. Without a salary commensurate with the area, our teachers will not be in our district for long. Bringing in new teachers and retaining current staff is investing in our future. The only way to do this is to pay them a competitive wage so that the current teachers can continue to afford rent and live in the community they

007serve. For example, one teacher commutes from the Santa Cruz mountains because that's where she can afford to live on the salary she has paid. I personally could not afford my master's degree until I moved in with my parents since it took two paychecks to cover one semester of my tuition. Because of these and similar examples, other teachers are considering leaving or have already left for the surrounding districts that pay more. Additionally, we are frustrated when we reflect on the resistance towards a raise when our administrators were given one in recognition of their hard work. We hope you reflect on the past year and recognize our hard work in the same way. We hope to be paid more than just the kind words expressed in board meetings. Kind words don't cover rent or attract promising new

008teachers. We hope that you'll recognize this as an investment in the future and the wellbeing of the entire district. Respectfully, Rachel Mein, Lynn Fazio, Jen Javier, Christina Morrison, Christopher Ninaltowski, April Frank, Jill Nida, Charu Gulati, Mary Smith, Eric First, Patrick Morris, Karen Gore, and Vivonne Garlick. Let me see if there's another one to read. Okay. Another one on 6B from Laurie Meckie. Hello, St. Carlos School Board Trustees. We, the undersigned teachers of Britton Acre School are writing to share our frustration. After two years of bargaining, our association has shown a willingness to agree to the district's proposed 2% raise and an increase in the district's contribution to our health and welfare benefits. Sadly, both sides are now at an impasse because a compromise cannot be found. We've not received a raise since the 2018-2019 school

009year. Our district continues to prioritize holding a large reserve when our members desperately need competitive compensation. Our cost of living increases every year. Where does our cost of living adjustment go and why is it not reaching us? Our health insurance premiums have increased. So many of us are making less in 2021 than we did in 2022 as our premium increases every January. The same scenario happened in January 2020 as we made less in 2020 than in 2019. Many of us cannot afford to live in this community and to commute to work, and commute to work. As you know, the cost of gas is also going up. St. Carlos teachers are working above and beyond, harder than ever, and we are being more than reasonable. We supported and helped pass our last parcel tax, which earmarked

010money to attract and retain quality teachers. Unfortunately, we have lost some extraordinary teachers to neighboring districts because of our low paying salary. We are among the lowest paid public school teachers in the area. St. Carlos is a desirable place to live because of our schools. St. Carlos teachers are dedicated, hardworking, and devoted to making rich educational experiences for our students. Please give us the respect, appreciation, and compensation that we deserve. It's time to start making teacher salaries a priority moving forward, sincerely. Lori Meckie, Lisa DeBuren, Pam Edgington, Leah Erwig, Christina Lee, Nancy Leighton, Corinne Muscat, Brandon Roslin, Audrey Chan, Dan Lanier, Eve Mencher, Marcy Crea, Deanna Hawkins, Allison Lansing, Brenda Taylor, Greg Zomer, Gina Kiyana, and Kimberly Arasato. And then the other remaining comment was from Nicole Martin, and maybe she has joined. Hello, thank

011you. Great, hi. Good evening, board of trustees. My name is Nicole Martin. I am a third grade teacher and St. Carlos Teachers Association executive board officer. I'm sharing a letter tonight from the teachers of White Oak School. We know that the school board appreciates our hard work, ability to pivot, perseverance, and creating new ways of connecting to our students, collaboration with our peers, and cultivation of a joy of learning, even when we had to cut our own pathway through a global pandemic. This week, we've especially felt the love of our students and of our families with every sweet note, flower, and Starbucks drink order. We are now asking for your support in honoring a monetary promise that was made to our community, certificated, and classified employees last year. Teachers have not had an increase in

012pay for over two years. We don't have to tell you that every expenditure of living has increased, while our pay has not. We have been patient. We have cut our own budgets to accommodate working for our school district when other school districts around us surpass us in teacher pay. When Measure N was proposed, it clearly stated that funds would be used to attract and retain teachers. Teachers worked phone banks, walked neighborhoods, wrote postcards, and stuffed envelopes to help support the passage of this measure. In June 2020, Dr. Harmeier announced to the community and specifically stated in the superintendent's message that our recent Measure N parcel tax was successful, so we can count on the ongoing support from our community for teachers' salaries. We have not seen this come to fruition a full year later, and

013now we are at impasse. As Teacher Appreciation Week comes to a close, we are asking for a 2% raise, effective July 2020, plus appropriate step and column increase for step 14 and 5.6% for health and welfare. We feel that this is not only reasonable, but critical to our ability to continue working and thriving in this district. Please reconsider our negotiating team's offer. Sincerely, the teachers of White Oak School, Diane McGuigan, Veronica Hardy, Rachel Eaton, Christine Fox-Sennett, Deborah Cullinane, Mary Ann Richards, Lauren Steele, Nikki Murgo, Tracy Mitchell-Ardwan, Kim Noorgaard, Laurie Bishop, and Nicole Martin. Thank you. Thanks, Nicole. And that's Neil. No others have come in for 6A or B. Great. In that case, I will adjourn us to closed session. Trustees, I apologize. I sent you out the, check your email. I sent you out

014the closed session link if you didn't receive it. It's not popping up on the calendar. So it should take us 30 to 45 minutes, and then we'll be back with you then. Thank you. Okay, we're recording. Thanks, Veronica. We are back from closed session. We do have one thing to report from closed session. As everyone is aware, Dr. Harmeier announced her retirement in January, and the board embarked on a task to replace Dr. Harmeier in this regard. So we employed Bill Hewitt and Nicole Anderson from McPherson and Jacobson to help create the interview process for us to find the right candidate for the next superintendent of our district. Just to remind everyone, we did over 25 stakeholder panels, which I believe is the record for McPherson and Jacobson for our district. We collected over a

015hundred online surveys. As board members, we did individual interviews and phone calls with our stakeholders and leaders. Our interview process included a stakeholder panel, which consisted of 14 members of our community that knew our district well to help guide the board in their process. We heard few themes throughout this process that were loud and clear from our community during these listening sessions. The first thing we heard was we're looking for a visionary leader who is committed to student achievement and success. We found that that leader must have experience and confidence to be a risk taker as we're forced to reimagine public education post-COVID. In order to be that visionary leader, this person needed to be effective communicator, collaborator, needed to leverage our incredible team of educators and administrators. But moreover, this leader also had to

016be willing to continue our work toward equity in education while understanding the complexities in California school finance system. The board is proud to announce, coming out of closed session, that we did vote five, zero to appoint Dr. Jennifer Fentress as our next superintendent for the district for a period of three years. Some highlights of the contract that we're required to share with you is that you have a base salary of $225,000 for the first year, though increasing by $5,000 pending a positive yearly evaluation by the board. Some of the fringe benefits will be paid health, dental vision, and other benefits in the same manner and subject to the same limitations as other unrepresented management staff of the district. She'll sick leave will be accumulated at a rate of one day per month. She'll have 25

017days per year of paid vacation, paid holidays as provided by the district's certificate of management employees, other leaves as provided to the district's certificate of management employees, up to $500 a month for reimbursement of employment expenses, annual membership dues for up to one professional organization and up to $5,000 per year for hiring of a professional coach. At this time, we're very excited to have Dr. Fentress help lead our district to continued success we've had throughout the San Carlos school district history. Board, what I need from you is a motion to sign and approve the contract that is currently posted for anyone to review the draft contract. And for me to sign the agreement and then officially that will make her our next superintendent of the San Carlos school district. So is there a motion from

018anyone to have the board president sign and approve the draft contract? I move that the board president sign and approve the draft contract. Thank you, Carol. Is there a second? I'll second. Thank you, Sarah. We'll do a roll call vote. First, I'll start with just everyone in my boxes here. Trustee Chen, how do you vote? Oh, I think she needs to be unmuted. I'll take the thumbs up as an aye though. Trustee Doherty. Aye. Trustee Casanago. Aye. Trustee Elliott. Aye. Back to Trustee Chen. Aye. And I am an aye as well, Trustee Layton. So that vote will carry five, zero. Dr. Fentress is with us here tonight to help give some words for us. So Dr. Fentress, thank you very much for wanting to lead our district. Thank you very much for wanting to continue

019the success of this, as I think everyone said, a unique and special community full of unique and special people. So thank you for being here with us tonight and the floor is yours. Thank you so much, board president Layton, trustees, colleagues, member of the community. I am just so honored and excited to become your new superintendent. There are so many good things about the San Carlos school district that drew me to your district. Equity is one of those, your commitment to the whole child, inclusion and project-based learning. And the welcome really confirmed what I heard in the stakeholder feedback. It's been so warm. In fact, I'm even drinking out of one of my glasses I got from the San Carlos Education Foundation. So thank you so much to all of you who extended your welcome.

020I am really looking forward to getting to know all of you. I think I have already met several of the leadership team and I look forward to working with the governance team, the leadership team and really inspiring and building trust in all of you as we work out our way out of a pandemic and this strange year that we've been in, I believe that we can recover better together and that we do this by joining hands and putting our shoulder to the work. So thank you again for selecting me and I'm super excited. Dr. Fentress, we are very excited to have you be a part of our district as well. I know you've met a couple of the leaders, but I also want to take this time to recognize everyone who did help lead us,

021Dr. Fentress, about to lead our district, including the stakeholder panel, who I think a lot are on today as well, who are here to celebrate. So you guys, thank you very much for everyone's help, for the surveys, for being part of the online community. And we greatly appreciate it. And we look forward to having you as our next leader. And for everyone knows, she will work, we're working out some details, but she's gonna work with Dr. Harmeier in order to help transition as she retires as we continue the work we started this year in the next year. So thank you again, Dr. Fentress, thank you for being here and thank you again for wanting to lead our district. I will move us on then to the consent agenda. Irene is waving her hand. Sorry, thank

022you. Go ahead, Irene. Veronica, can you unmute Irene? Neil, I thought with everybody's attention on this welcoming Dr. Fentress right now, you could tell her about, you could announce the community and teacher meetings next week. Sorry, absolutely, thanks Irene. Next week on Thursday, there'll be a community meeting for the entire community at 5.30 virtually, as well as Dr. Fentress is hoping to reach out to all the teachers and staff to introduce yourself and explain the vision. That'll be Wednesday at four o'clock virtually as well. There should be a communication that'll come out to everyone with a link so they can join. But we hope that you will join just to get to know her better as well as hearing her vision for the district and how she'll lead us out of the pandemic. I think

023I got it all now, right Irene? Do I miss anything else? You got it. And I think it's also just worth noting because people ask us how transitions happen, that we have such a strong team of site leaders in our principals. And we have an amazing assistant superintendent in Hans Barber and our chief business official with Christine Gong. So really with the strong district team that Dr. Fentress is joining, I think that we're really confident that things will transition smoothly. Well, thank you again, Dr. Fentress. We're excited and I think the community's excited to hear about your vision for St. Carlos. So I hope everyone will tune in as well. I will move us on then to our consent agenda as just a matter of reference. These are items that we believe are routine in

024nature and don't require a lot of discussion or debate. So we'll put them on the consent agenda to approve as a group. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? To approve the consent agenda. Thank you, Wendy. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Sarah. All in favor, please state by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing no opposition, the consent agenda will be approved five zero. All right, now we'll move on to our special recognition of spotlight on excellence. And I'll start with Dr. Harmeier will kick us off. All right, good evening trustees and community. I love the spotlight. This is our chance to celebrate the people in our community and the special things that are happening in our district. And tonight we're going to start by honoring trustee Carol Elliott. This is

025her last meeting and she will be retiring from her post as a trustee after about 10 years. And we have lots of people here to celebrate her tonight and we'll kind of turn over the mic to Neil a little bit and then also to some of our guests. And before we go any further, Neil, if Joan Dentler is still here, I'd like Joan to go first because she did have another engagement. So I don't know if she was able to hang on as long. So let's just check and see if she's here. She is. Joan, does this still work for you as far as timing? Veronica, is she unmuted? We can come back to her. I'll keep posted and then if I see her unmute then we'll go from there. Thank you, Neil. You go

026ahead and take it from here. Carol, I can say it's been a lot of Thursdays. We've had a chance to hang out. It's one of these sad but happy moments where you're sad that you're leaving but happy for you in your next endeavor and more importantly, happy for the time. So sometimes as trustees, I think it's best left to the people that you've worked with to give you a few words first and then we always take the floor at the end. So Wendy, can you work us through some public comment of who would like to talk about this? Great. So I'd like to invite Kathleen Farley, please, to share your comments. Okay, I think I'm unmuted. Good? Awesome. Wow, Carol. Here we are. Wow. I recall the day that we were both appointed with such

027clarity. I can remember it like it was yesterday. After our merit was kind of debated very publicly in a very full hall with a lot of detail and you and I were both announced. I remember hugging you. And then we were like, well, this was an interesting process. And here we go. And who knew what a journey it would be? It's full. It's been full of like governing plot twists and a full cast of characters. And it's Carol with just humble gratitude for you for your many years of service, not only on this board, but on CEF before this board. Our community, our schools, our staff, our parents, and most of all our students have benefited from your leadership, your steady guiding hand, your strategic mind and your eagle eye for all the details. I

028could always count on you to seek clarity when topics were murky, provide voice to those perspectives you had. Have the knowledge and conviction to keep us in line with board policy and procedure. Use your superhuman attention to detail, which was critical and making sure we had data facts and the wording right. And that has saved our bacon many times. Most of all, to steer us towards your North Star, which is supporting all of our kids to be the best that they could be. You held us all accountable to our vision of full child development. And I know you believe that in your heart and it manifests in all the work that you do. Thank you for your partnership, humor, compassion, strategic chops, and most of all your friendship. And I look forward to hanging out

029with you and experiencing a Brown Act free evening. So Carol, thank you for all that you've done and our whole community is enriched because of all the work you've done. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kathleen. That means so much. You're the best. Right back at you. Thank you, Kathleen. Next, someone else would like to share their comments verbally. So I'd like to invite Michelle Nefack, please. Hi, Carol. So good to see your face. I'm just so proud to call you a colleague and a friend. I remember when I was thinking about running for the school board back in 2014, I started coming to all the board meetings and watching. And that was the year that you were serving, one of the years you've done it many times serving as board president. And I remember

030sitting there and thinking, wow, like if I win this election and I can lead in the calm, cool, collected manner that Carol is leading in right now, then I'll have felt like I really succeeded. And you've always been in all my time that I was on the board, a real inspiration for me, someone I looked up to, someone who I did hard things with. We shared a lot of difficult situations during those four years. And like Kathleen said, your contribution to the board has just been immense. I mean, even if you just think about the number of parcel and bond campaigns, you saw our district through multiple superintendent searches, many, many difficult budget situations amid just a county environment that just gets harder and harder for public school districts, declining enrollment, decreased budget. And through

031it all, your focus has always been on what's best for students and teachers. I know firsthand how hard it can be to balance what you know to be the right decision for kids and staff and what they deserve and the realities of running a business, which is what San Carlos School District is. And I'm just so grateful for the long-term commitment that you've made to the district, the work, and with the seriousness with which you've taken the responsibility. And I just am also happy for you that you'll get some of your time back. And I remember in December of 2019 when I was sitting here at my last board meeting and thinking, well, we just made it through some really difficult things. So I don't think it could really get harder than this past year

032and then enter COVID-19. So thank you. I know how difficult it's been. Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything you've done for our district, our kids, and just the other trustees, because you've just been a real piece of historical knowledge that is gonna be something that's really gonna be missed when you leave. Thank you so much, Michelle. That relay is, I'm so touched. And it was a joy to serve with you as well. Thank you. Thanks for joining, Michelle. And thanks for the comments. Laura Palmer-Lohan would like to speak next, please. Thank you so much, Wendy, I appreciate that. Carol, I just wanted to congratulate you on your years of service. When I began my journey into public service, you were one of the first people that I met with, and I found your

033leadership to be such a high bar and inspiring, and your mentorship was fabulous. And most importantly, the work that you've done for our schools and our community. And I am so deeply appreciative, as I know many are, and I wish you well on this next leg of your journey. And this is not a goodbye, but this is a hello in new ways. So thank you so very, very much. Thank you so much, Laura, and thank you for being in public service and doing that really important job as well. I am so grateful for that, for all you do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Laura, really appreciate you joining. And I'm gonna read a comment. Unfortunately, Adam Mack said he was, sorry, he couldn't make it in person, but he wanted me, wanted to share

034this message. Congratulations to Trustee Carol Elliott as she finishes a very successful period on the San Carlos School Board. Thank you for your service and for your friendship. I'm honored to have served alongside you on the school board and on the two plus two committee. One of the best decisions I had, the opportunity to make was voting to appoint you to the board. The school community and city of San Carlos owe you many things to your passion and tireless work towards enriching and improving the lives of so many people. Best of luck on your next endeavors, Adam Mack. Let me see if there's any others posted. And Wendy, while you're looking at that, I will just like to speak. Joan Dittler was here. She is the assistant to Senator Josh Becker, representing both Josh Becker

035and Assembly Member Kevin Mullen. She sends her apologies. She had a seven o'clock commitment and our time schedule didn't quite fit, but she was here. And as you know, Carol, Joan is a big fan of yours. You've worked very closely with both Assembly Member Mullen and Josh Becker and Joan through all these years. And they recognize and appreciate your service and they will have a beautiful framed resolution that will be coming to your home soon and to remember your commitment to public service. So on their behalf, I wanna say thank you from Senator Becker and Assembly Member Mullen. Thank you so much, Michelle and Joan and the Senator and Assembly Member. Neal, I'm wondering if you want to ask anyone to raise their hand using the symbol if someone didn't use the form in advance.

036Do you wanna do that? Sure, we can do that. If someone didn't get a chance to use the form or if they're new to a board meeting tonight, they're more than happy to raise their hand. I'll check briefly and see. Thank you. Not seeing any hand raised. So board, I'll come back to you for any comments. I know we've all had a chance to work with Carol. So whoever wants to start us off, go ahead. Carol, I will try to contain myself to not be too gushy. So short and to the point, you've always done what's right by kids and also have taught me that as board members, we bear a special responsibility to look at things from like a three-year lens or a 10-year lens. And we have to play that role in the

037public education system. So public education, it's a collective good. We do it all together. And thank you for being such a role model. Thank you so much, Irene. Thank you, thank you. It's been a great opportunity to serve with you. And I have some comments for the full board that I'll do later. Carol, it's really been a pleasure to know you and to work with you even for just a few months. And I feel like every time I've been in a meeting with you, I've learned something from you and I will really miss your perspective and your knowledge. So I may be texting you still if that's okay. And I just wish you all the best in your post-board life and look forward to seeing you around town. Thank you, Sarah, and text as much

038as you want. Carol, I think I said this maybe in our earlier meeting when you announced that you were gonna be stepping down, but you've just been an incredible role model and I probably wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. So honestly, thank you. Your leadership has been incredible for our district and I was fortunate that you've been a board trustee ever since my child entered the district. And I've just, she's, we've reaped the benefits of the leadership and that you've provided for this district. And it's been a pleasure to work with you and we'll miss you, but like everyone else has said, we're looking forward to seeing you when we can converse without worrying about Brown Act. And I just wanna say, I'm gonna put into the chat a kudo board that I

039created and asked several members of our community to give you thanks and because not everyone could be here tonight. So that was something I wanted to just do for you. And so it's in the chat now. And if anyone feels like adding a photo or a memory, yeah, I just, I love photos and there's some great photos there. You know, why people just sharing that, you know, why they're proud of our district and how you've contributed to that, that incredible reputation that we have. So thanks again, Carol. Thank you so much, Wendy, that is so incredibly kind. I really appreciate it. And Carol, I appreciate you being part of this group that brought me into the district and having a chance to spend that time in your home, getting to know you and the board

040better as I was starting this journey with San Carlos, met so much. And I think that one of the richest educational conversations I've had in a long time was with this board at your dining room table. And that's when I saw the passion of this group, the dedication and the vision that was being implemented every day in this district. So thank you for your leadership. Thank you for trusting me and bringing me into this district. And we, on behalf of the rest of the board, we have a special engraved gavel for you. That is a little memento that you will hopefully have and remember our team by. So thank you for all you have done for our school. Thank you so much, Michelle. Those are really kind remarks, thank you. So Carol, I get to

041talk last before you go. So, you know, I found myself a long time of what we've all seen you Thursday nights. You know, what are the images I'd want people to take about your thoughts that maybe they didn't see on a Thursday night, you know, that we all got to see as a board with you. And I find it symbolic that this is your last meeting at a time when we're transitioning to a new superintendent, mainly just because I think you embody what this town is. And that's the community aspect that you get involved, your, you know, boots on the ground, you do everything you need to do to make it a better place. You know, the quote I always like is that, maybe you can't change the world, but you can make your little

042slice of it, whatever you want to be. And you embody that more than anyone I know. You've worked on bonds, you've worked on the Ed Foundation, you know, every parcel tax, you have been a part of somewhere or another. You've gone through, you know, difficult times in the district of budget cuts, you know, difficult labor situations, all the way to now a global pandemic. So to say your resume isn't full would be a very large understatement. But, you know, there's also a personal side to you that people probably don't realize, I think you don't get from a board meeting, right? You have very independent, well-grown children who are, you know, it was funny, Michelle and AFAC and I used to always talk about it, like your kids were always seem so independent and where kids

043were young, we were just like, how do we get these kids out there into the world and just out and like moving on, right? That was always what we talked about. We're like, Carol will just be like our parent whisperer. She'll tell us what to do in those regards. So, but I also think, you know, from the political side of things, what most people don't realize is, you know, you come to a lot of meetings and there aren't, the room's often often friendly to a certain perspective a lot of the times, I like to say. I think you and I learned that a lot during the pandemic. But what I think what I want most people to take is that you fought through all of those situations for the kids of this district. It's just

044the reality of what no one saw, but, you know, was the greatest talent that I was able to recognize. So I hope that image is something that lasts with you for a long time. I hope it's something that lasts with this community for a long time of when we think about what this community is to make our slice of it a better part of the world. So with that, I will give you the floor to give your, you know, I don't want to call it a send off because we'll see you all the time, but to give your almost 10 years of reflection. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Oh, first of all, thank you Neil. Those are really kind words and much, much, much appreciated. I just want to reflect all the gratitude that

045I've heard right back because I feel so fortunate to be in a place like San Carlos School District and our community from our schools, our teachers, our principals, staff at every level, our board, our strategic plan, the incredible parents and community. We're just so fortunate in our town to have a culture that values children, that values their development as a whole child, that sees high quality public education as critical in that, and that values the intersection of schools and community, I think to kind of what Neil was saying. While valuing children just seems like something that everybody takes for granted, not many communities take an active role like San Carlos does, not only by donating to CEF and parcel taxes and bonds, all of which are just incredibly important, but also by showing up. Like

046Neil said, by volunteering for ropes, coaching youth sports, healthy cities teeter, scouts, children's theater, supporting safe bike paths, making tiny libraries, the list just goes on. Up and down the peninsula, people wonder what's in San Carlos' secret sauce, and I really think this has something to do with it. We know that the involvement of adults in the lives of children is one of the biggest predictors of their success, but it also has that side benefit of building strong bonds across and between our residents, and the children and adults of San Carlos just reap the benefits of this over and over, and I know I have to. I'm just so grateful for the opportunity to get to know that hundreds of really amazing people over the year in San Carlos through my involvement in the schools.

047San Carlos has a long history of having a board that thinks and deliberates deeply and critically and thoughtfully and respectfully about the really hard issues that face our district, and that's been going on for a long time before I joined. The role of trustee and our work in governance is really challenging, as so many have alluded to, and everyone I've served with over the years brings their whole heart into this work, as well as their head. You just can't be in this role and separate the human element of our work from the governance element, even though sometimes the only thing that the public sees is the governance element. There's just no single bottom line that, like in business, that we can measure our progress towards because we in our community know that child development is

048just far more complex and nuanced. The world our children is entering is not one where rote memorization and good test-taking are the skills that they're going to need to succeed, and serving with a board that gets that, with the staff that gets that, with leadership that gets that, with the community that gets that, and working with a board that just continually challenges ourselves to look, as Seth Rosenblatt so aptly put it, around the corner so we can be strategic and maximize the use of our resources in that long-range lens that Irene spoke to, 10 years. We don't look at it in terms of one year or two year. The board thinks in terms of 10 years, so that our children can really fulfill themselves and their potential in the whole child sense of the word.

049This has just been incredibly rewarding, and I think it's one of the things that really sets San Carlos apart as a district, and I'm just so privileged to have been a part of this. I'm so grateful. Irene, you keep our North Star on Team KID. Not only that, you bring the most empathetic thinking to strategic problems I have ever seen, and you skillfully coupled that with a drive towards concrete action and accountability. I so admire your ability to communicate the full context of complex issues in a really relatable way, and make connections that others might not see, including myself, and to continually make education a kid-centered world. These are all so vital to our community, understanding the depth of factors that boards must take into consideration when it comes to making a decision. And I

050feel like I'm always learning from you, so it has been a gift to serve with you, and you absolutely make the district a stronger place. So thank you, Irene. Neil, working closely with you this year has been a huge gift to both me and the district. One of the many things that stands out about you is your dedication, starting with running twice for your seat, and then once you were on the board, your willingness to step forward in an hour of need and provide strong leadership for the district. When Kathleen left the board in August, it suddenly meant that you would become president of the board in just a few months instead of a 2021. And we were still in the very dark depths of the pandemic. Taking this on when you have a demanding

051full-time job, plus two little ones doing distance learning at home with looming variables due to the pandemic is a huge lift for anyone, but you never wavered. Instead, you shifted into high gear, spending three months before your presidency with Michelle and me to make sure that you were up to speed on all the transition issues, and then doing a masterful job, in my opinion, of leading the board and the district for the last five months. For those of you not in this role, you just have to know that this is an additional 10 to 20 hours per week of responsibility of stress, of time that you're not spending on yourself or your family. And we don't get the opportunity as often as we should to acknowledge these contributions. So Neil, I just want to do

052that now and say thank you. You are a true public servant and a natural leader and the kind that every district would hope to have. And I'm especially grateful that you are here in San Carlos with us. Wendy and Sarah, you're the newest members of the board, and I haven't worked with you for as long as I have with Neil and Irene, but I can tell already that you are fantastic additions to the board. Wendy, your broad knowledge of the public education sector, both locally and at the state level, and your student-centered lens are a powerful combination and serve us well. I see you as a strong advocate for student needs in our discussions and deliberations, and you are always willing to take tough positions when that's what's best for our students. Sarah, your thoughtful

053lens and careful communication demonstrate your deep critical analysis of the issues we're facing and are already adding to the board's discussions. And I know that your deep commitment to the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion will help drive these important conversations and reflections in our community. I know that with you on the board, paired with Wendy on the subcommittee, that this work will get the authentic, rich and long-term examination that it needs to move us forward as a district and a community and move forward the work of inclusion in the public education system for all children in California. Michelle, I'm so grateful for the opportunity to work with you these last three years through what I am sure is the most challenging year for both of us in public education. I had the benefit of

054being able to spend a whole lot of one-on-one time with you, a real front road to your leadership in the district in our darkest hours. I saw your compassion, your dedication, your skilled analytical and strategic approach, and these have served our district so very well. It takes a special kind of leader to persevere through the kind of year we've had, and St. Carlos is so fortunate to have had you at our helm. So I wanna thank you publicly for that. I don't know if Hans is here tonight, but I am so grateful that we have you in the role of assistant superintendent, okay, and that I've had the opportunity to be on a governing team with you. Your skill at building relationships and your keen insight into the intersection of curriculum, the needs of staff,

055the needs of student, and the needs of our district as a whole make you an all-star on this team. So thank you so much, Hans. And I also just wanna recognize the incredible team of teachers and principals and support staff at our sites and at the district office. This is good timing with this being Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week. Whether I knew you through Emma and Ben from the strategic planning process, site visits, campaigns, or other board work, I'm just so grateful for your expertise, your professionalism, and the warmth you bring to your roles every day. You are the strength of our schools. Dr. Frentress, I welcome you to the district. I am so excited that you'll be leading us, and I can honestly say that you're gonna be working with an incredibly team. So

056I just wanna say thanks to everybody for this incredible opportunity. Very, very kind words that you've shared with me tonight. It means so much, and I have so much gratitude for each one of you doing this work and continuing on with it. So thank you so much. Thank you, Carol. You'll definitely be missed, but I'm sure Thursday nights you'll tune in still for the enjoyment and pleasure of it all. So, but we can't let you take all of the spotlight because we still have a very important week here, and Dr. Harmar, I'd like to share some recognition as well from the staff. This is such an important week, and congratulations, Carol, again, for everything and your kind words, but this is a chance for us to really thank, recognize, and celebrate our staff. This is

057National Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week, and we know that our PTAs especially really spoil our teachers and staff on site this week with special luncheons and gifts and things like this, but what I wanted to say to all of our staff is that this week is a time to celebrate you. We have a fantastic dedicated staff, teachers, who really have a positive and lasting impact on over 3,000 students if you include our preschools all the way through middle schools. And this year, really, our exceptional staff have gone over and above to ensure every student had the best educational experience possible while we all worked through a global pandemic. This was not easy on anybody, and I'm just so proud of each and every one of our staff members. If you remember back a year ago,

058we thought we were gonna be out for a couple of weeks before spring break, and then we came back and thought it was a couple more weeks, and then we realized we weren't coming back soon. Our teachers pivoted from kind of a crisis mode of distance learning last spring. They educated themselves over the summer, took a lot of professional development hours on their own and came back to a more robust distance learning approach using Zoom, video conferencing, and a lot of other new tech tools that we didn't have before. And the fact that they took on this professional development on their own, helping each other, collaborating more than they've ever collaborated to learn all the new skills that we needed. They had to redesign the curriculum, adjusted their pedagogy, assessed students in new ways, and

059focused on urgent learners, needing extra support in unique ways too. In November, our strong principal team really did an amazing job of getting our sites ready and everything ready to return. And we were ready for kids to start transitioning back to campus. And we did start that in February, much ahead of many, many other districts in the region. And they did a really nice job of designing, giving credit to our principals, of really helping to design a phasing approach that worked for our schools and our systems from a phase three to a phase four hybrid, really to ensure safety and confidence in our staff and making sure that our students and families were safe. We're still right now working with our teachers to prepare for yet another new phase, which is next year, as we

060prepare for another year of teaching in this pandemic era. It will be better. It will be more like normal in some ways, but we still are going to be having to use different approaches and use the silver linings and learnings that we use to integrate into our new normal as we develop that in the coming years. So it's in these times where we really need to take the time to recognize and publicly thank our teachers and staff for all that they're doing, for really inspiring the love of learning in our students and providing that social and emotional relationship connection for all of our kids. What we learned this year is we know how important the personal interconnected relationship is with our teachers and our students. So our students have that sense of belonging and develop

061those social skills. And we've missed that tremendously. And we're very proud that our teachers are back with our kids building up that social muscle again. And making them feel like they really belong to a community. So teachers, staff, San Carlos principals, everyone in the district office, a big, big thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you, Michelle. And big thanks again to the staff and to our educators and to our district office staff and everyone who makes this district run. I know sometimes it's hardly, you always want it to be more than just thanks on Thursday nights as much as we try to do, but it just always, I think a reminder to myself as the board member to make sure I'm always expressing the gratitude I have to make sure that that's

062communicated as well. So we do truly all appreciate you on behalf of the board. I know my daughters have been picking many flowers throughout the week to bring. So I hope everyone else in the district has been doing it as well. So thank you all. Thank you, Michelle for that. And we will move on then to 12-A. Neil, sorry. We have one public comment on this, sorry. Thank you. Yeah. I'll go ahead and read it because otherwise, yeah. This is from Marcie and Nick Korea. Dear district leaders, this is National Teacher Appreciation Week. And this year we could not let it pass without sharing with you how incredibly grateful we are for all of our children's fantastic teachers. The professionalism, skill and care that these amazing educators have brought to their work each and every

063day has been a continuous bright spot throughout our 13 years as parents in the district. This has been a challenging year for everyone, but the way that the teachers were able to completely pivot on a dime and somehow figure out how to effectively do their job in all new and different way has been nothing short of phenomenal. We are so very impressed with the enriching program and wonderful experiences that teachers have continuously provided the children despite the challenges of the pandemic. We have three children who all have very different learning styles and the teachers in this district have been great with each of them. Currently our youngest is reaping the benefits of the truly gifted CMS sixth grade dream team. Sorry, Mike. I'm consisting of Michelle, Frank Escone, Jill Seven, Carol Scannell, Derek Nazar, Stacey

064Cavanaugh. Our daughter has learned so much and has been engaged and happy and is striving in middle school. Her teachers know her. They're aware of her strengths and weaknesses and her daughter knows they care about her and her learning. Over the years, our family has been blessed with these amazing teachers in addition to the ones I've already listed above. I'm gonna read all their names that are listed here, but I'm sorry if I don't pronounce every single one correctly. Christy Lee, Nicole Billings, Dan Lanier, Mary Kirby, Jessica Melton, Angela Naughton, Philly Murphy, Kristen Kenselman, Stephanie Chan, Carly Peck, Jennifer Williams, Tom Petithong, Gigi Banfield, Ken Mitchell, Jay Richards, Terry Somers, Megan Beck, Lindsey Neibone, Hillary Weisinger, Christy Mooney, Jen Henshaw, Kelly Earlywine, Maggie Stewart, Greg Zilmer, Elena Cardona, Nick Garcia, Patty Blumen, Ellen Witter, Sarah

065Mulder, Ed Landels, Patty Frick, Nancy Leighton, Krista Carroll, Michelle Robinson, Mary Ann Cheatham, Heidi Giygas, Kate Dreis, Leah Erwig, Julie Jovak, and Kim Arfato. So those are all the amazing teachers that have blessed our family. That long list of absolute superstars taught our children to read, write, think, and care. They set them up as lifelong learners and scholars. These exemplary professionals taught my kids to experiment, play, read, and appreciate music, nurtured their friendships, believe in themselves, and be good humans. They've taken them to Jones Gold, Sierra Outdoor School, Yosemite, and countless other field trips and made sure that the kids have learned from and appreciated all that these amazing places have to offer. These teachers have also gracefully led our kids through really hard times like the death of a classmate and navigating a pandemic.

066They have done all of this with big hearts and good humor, even when other members of our community who should have been supporting them were not. It is true what they say about it taking a village to raise children. I hope that all of our St. Carlos understand how lucky we are to have these fine teachers in our village. We're forever grateful for our children's teachers, careful stewardship, and we'd love them and you as their leaders to know how truly appreciated they are today and every day. Sincerely, Marcie and Nick Correa. And that is it. All right, thank you, Wendy. If no other public comment, then I'll move us on to 12A, our return to in-person learning and on-campus update, and that's to you, Dr. Harmeier. Great, I'll start off, Neil, and just with some

067nuts and bolts, and then I'm going to turn it over to Hans, and he'll talk a little bit more about engagement process and the state and federal one-time grants, okay? So first of all, we are going to continue finishing out the year in our hybrid model, and our teachers and our principals are finally getting into those routines and the practices that are really necessary to keep everyone safe, including mask wearing, keeping small cohorts together. We're not eating on campus yet at this point, and we are using this time, especially with our new campus supervisors, to learn what we can do and how we can develop our schedules and our routines for next year. We're very confident that as we return full-time next year, we'll be able to manage all of our day-to-day campus activities, including

068having recesses and having lunches on-site. What we have to keep in mind is we don't know what the health conditions will be on August 18th, so we are assuming that the recent pandemic recovery framework from the County Office of Ed that outlines the three-foot spacing of desks and classrooms will be in place. The six-foot spacing when the kids don't have masks on and they're eating, we will have that in place, and also not mixing groups of kids from class to class. So we will have a larger cohort of kids, a whole class worth all together all day long, but they won't be mixing and blending with the other kids on the campus. So we're still going to be having a very, really structured time for kids to play, interact, move between rooms, bathroom use and

069cleaning rituals, hand washing, and we have to just realize that part of our instructional time is going to be dedicated to those things. So we're going to be doing hand washing, and teachers are already developing good routines to get kids effectively through the hand washing process and into their work for the day, and understanding how to do that coming in and out of recess. So we are feeling really good about how things are going now and feel very confident about our full return on campus in the fall. We'll be back five days a week, full-time, and that includes the early release Wednesdays like we've had in the past for professional work for our teachers to be able to collaborate and work together and do their own professional learning. So I think that's really the good

070news. And I think I hear sometimes in our community, there's not maybe a lot of confidence. Are we really coming back? Is it true? Because if it was true, we might be back right now. And I just want to continue to reassure our public, we did not have the capacity to come back any further this year for several different reasons, but we are fully prepared and committed to come back in August. And the work that we're doing now, which is still a lot of work, we're still trying to close the year. We're doing state testing right now, which is very challenging, and preparing for next year. All this work is happening through the last day of school. So thank you to our principals and teachers who are, again, doing a lot of extra things they

071normally wouldn't do at this time of year because of managing the pandemic issues. But we'll be ready for next year. Part of that is all the new desks that we ordered will be installed before the last day of school. There might be a few that come during the summer, but the majority of our new desks will be here. All of our principals have appointments with Amy, our project manager, over the next week where they are walking classrooms and looking at staging areas and looking at which furniture will be surplused, which furniture will be stored. So that's another really big lift on the part of our principals. Thank you, principals, for really dedicating time for this. Having new furniture, as I've said before, is really important because we have double desks and we cannot meet the

072three-foot spacing standard right now. So we will have individual desks, so we'll have a lot of flexibility. Also, teacher recruitment is going really well. We have filled all of our teacher vacancies in our K-5 schools right now with really great teachers coming into our system. So another big task on the side of the principals is to do that early recruitment and screening and interviewing. And so we're very excited that at this point, our K-5s are staffed. Our middle schools are still determining their needs at the middle schools. So we don't know, I know we have some vacancies. We absolutely have a science teacher or two that is always vacant every year. We really have to recruit. We have ed specialists that are vacant every year. We're really recruiting for them. So we do have some

073positions that are not filled yet. These traditionally are hard to fill positions. It's usually math, science, and education specialists that we struggle with, as do all districts in the Peninsula area. But recruitment is going really well. Our summer school program has already launched as far as the organization and staffing of that. We've hired three of our own teachers to lead the summer school program this summer. It's summer school and extended school year. One will support our general education students. The other part of this program supports our extended school year and those students with special needs and individual education plans that qualify for that summer program. So now that we have those leaders in place, they are going to start recruiting and interviewing teachers to join us for the summer paraprofessionals. We'll have a nurse help

074out. We'll have a secretary. So we're really hoping to have as large a program as staff will allow. The key to our summer program is really going to be staffing. So the more staff that are willing to work for those 19 days, they're half days during the summer, the larger program that we can have. So we're really excited that lots of teachers in Paris have already expressed interest. So we're confident we're going to be able to staff the program. The next part is identifying students and the principals have already been working with their teachers to identify those students who are in greatest need of intervention support, math, reading and writing support. We're not providing an enrichment program. We're providing an intervention program essentially. So we want to accelerate the learning of these kids where they

075have some gaps and we're hoping to really get them ready to start the next school year as strong as possible. So that's what the focus will be during our summer school program. And the principals and teachers will start to soon reach out to qualifying students as soon as we have our staffing in place to know how many seats we'll have available for the program. So we'll go through a prioritization process for that. So that's an update about where we are on our actions getting ready for this full return in the fall and also our summer programs. Now I want to hand it over to Hans and he has some slides he'll share with you about our engagement and preparing to create our new three-year LCAP with goals. It's that time this time where we need

076to revise our LCAP and also at the same time engage people on how to use the one-time funds that we're going to be getting from the state to support learning recovery. All right, thank you, Michelle. Appreciate that. I'm really just happy to be back. For those of you that didn't know I had a surgery which went famously, my hip is feeling great. I still am not quite able to drive up there yet but I will be soon. And miracles of modern science, number one. And number two, if one thing we learned out of COVID was you actually can work remotely in the field of education. We would have laughed at each other if we'd said that a little over a year ago. And so I've been working full-time as usual the last two weeks and

077I would be remiss if I didn't thank all those that really helped cover me while I was out. And that goes from soup to nuts. I mean, we're talking about district office staff that helped out. I know that the principals have done a lot of things. Michelle, Lisa Cesario is here tonight to help a little bit with the presentation but if I leave anything out, I'm just very grateful that I was able to go out and have this go well and have the coverage and just the teamwork that I know exists in our team. It's just fantastic. So I appreciate that very much. And also since I have the microphone I get to say something too about employees and how proud we are of the work that you do every day. I often remember being

078a teacher and going, so are they ever gonna say anything about us or what's going on here, right? Especially early in my career. And I thought, all I really want is appreciation and somebody to say it out loud. And I wanna make that really clear. And I completely agree with everything that was said tonight about our fantastic employees. And that goes for everyone. I know we say, it always gets mixed up together like it's teacher appreciation week, it's staff appreciation week, it's staff appreciation week and staff is everyone that works in the system. And we could not function without all the work that you do every day. And I know that we are extremely appreciative of the work you do to make our school district run famously and to serve our students in our community.

079So I say that with absolute heartfelt gratitude. So without further ado, I will move forward and talk a little bit about our, as Michelle said, this is kind of a dip a toe in the water a little bit with LCAP and we're gonna talk about our one-time grants as well, which are obviously an opportunity. I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen. Here we go. And we will present. And hopefully my computer's not gonna skip any slides, but Carol's pretty good at saying, I think you missed the slide. So I appreciate that, Carol. Don't be afraid to say that again. Okay, so we're gonna talk about a little bit about what these grants are. I'm not gonna bore you with all of the details of the allowable expenditures, but that is an important piece, especially

080we wanted to make sure that the public knew what exactly can we spend these monies on? We'll talk a lot about the engagement process and offer some more gratitude there. And we'll talk about a little bit about our data and then ideas. And what's really important about this is that they are ideas. There's only one thing we know that we're doing and that is having a summer school that's going to start in mid-June. And that's the only real action we know that we're doing at this point. We still have time to engage further, create priorities, bring them back to the board. And I'll get into a little bit more into that later on in the presentation. And then you'll have a chance as a board to offer any input, guidance, ask any questions that you

081need to. So here's our chart on allowable expenses. And there are three, yes, really, actually four different grants that we are going to receive. The in-person instruction grant, which as you recall, had an initial sort of sunshine or sunset, I should say. I wanna say it was February 15th or something was the governor's first thing, right? We had to get this done right away. And if you're not back by February 15th, can't have the money. Well, thankfully that changed a bit, although we were close to that. And that was, if you're back in school by April 15th, then you could qualify. So we certainly qualify for those grant monies. The expanded learning opportunities grant is an additional grant that the state has come up with out of, I guess, out of their surplus funds, if

082you will, to kind of give us a headstart on learning recovery, as we're calling it, for students. And then the ESSER funds, as you might hear them called, that's a mouthful to say the elementary and secondary school emergency relief funds is a mouthful. You'll hear them commonly known as ESSER. And there was an ESSER I last year that you might recall, board, that we did not qualify for because we were not a Title I, and we did not qualify for Title I funds during the 19-20 school year. We kind of drifted back into qualifying for that, which allows us to qualify for ESSER II and III. And we probably will be drifting back out of that. So if there's an ESSER IV or V, we may not qualify. As you see, this list is pretty

083extensive and a lot of things could fit here. And I think that was on purpose. The federal grant has, this is one of my favorites, provide principals with whatever they need to address school needs. That's what it says. A lot of things can fit there. So we've had an extensive engagement process. And again, I say, just great thanks to Lisa Cesario for coming in and helping out with that in my absence. She and Sarah Orton, I mean, they were just amazing going. They've done umpteen meetings with our DLAC, with our PAC, with our principals multiple times with our leadership group. And I had the pleasure of being able to come into that and watch instead of being under sort of under pressure to get that completed. So that was just wonderful. You can see it's

084been pretty extensive. We have large groups that we've engaged with, principals that then turn around and engage with their site councils, which is normal. They always do that. It's just not, it's normally a little slower process as we talked about back in February where there's more time normally. We, you know, we've obviously talked about it in cabinet. We had a special meeting with just our SPED staff and paraeducators that Brenda Bekecki and I did together. FMOT staff had a chance to weigh in with our CFO, Christine Gong. School secretaries talked with Dr. Harmeier at one of their meetings. And then we had a chance for district office staff to weigh in just earlier this week. So we owe a ton of gratitude to all the folks that have contributed to the feedback. We have tremendous

085participation in all of those areas. And then for those that, you know, don't wanna be out on the front lines, we had surveys. And I say here that the surveys are complete. What I mean by that is we have a pretty good sample of parent, teacher and staff surveys. They're all still open. So you are more than welcome to continue to offer your feedback through the surveys. And if you need that link, certainly, you know, email your principal and they can send you the link if you've lost track of that. We're still monitoring the responses as they come in. We also have looked at those responses in our leadership group and principals have access to their specific school responses. And they then turn around and they engage their staff or their site council or both

086around those responses. And some of them have already done that. Some of them will be doing that. And that mirrors the process we've always had. We might've heard before we used a survey called Panorama. So it had a kind of a proper name. And we decided to break our partnership with Panorama partially due to budgetary reasons or it's not an inexpensive partnership. And we've gone the way of SurveyMonkey. And, you know, based on the fact that we had 50% of parents already as of last week participate, and we shortened it up, made it a little bit more relevant to what we want to know right now. You know, that's tremendous. 50% is amazing. There are school districts that would just love to have that level of participation. They can't get anything over 15. And so

087it really, it's just fantastic. Again, if you still feel like you didn't have a chance, please do that. They're still open. The last piece is the student survey, which is going out. I think as we speak, we talked about putting it out this week and having it closed by next week sometime mid, you know, and so when we report next time, we will also have some student data to share. So we, of course, with any process, the first thing you want to do is look at your data. Okay, and, you know, to get into these specifics, this is a very wordy slide. I have to say that right up front. It's very wordy. There's a lot of data here. There's a lot of numbers. And if I was to sum this up in, I'll just,

088it's amazing. Okay, the data that we were able to pull, I think, you know, there's always a question, you know, since we've been in remote for the last year, is how accurate is the data, right? That's a big question. How accurate could this be? A lot of it is done remotely. And, you know, we can't answer that question, right? We don't know yet. So we need to trust what the data says. That's, as a mathematician, that's kind of how I go about it, right? And we'll talk about, you know, sure, there are some questions of validity on some level, but when you look at the data on the surface, it's pretty amazing. And with, you know, 80% of our students growing at or above grade level in second grade, and having increases throughout the data,

089there's increases here and there, you know, where students are still achieving quite highly. It speaks to the strength of our program that our teachers were able to offer. It speaks to, you know, the professional development that we were able to offer. It speaks to our parents. I mean, it's amazing. Are there places for improvement? Of course, we still have an achievement gap, which, you know, we are aware of and really excited to take on as we move into this next year. You know, in writing, you know, the data was kind of, it was kind of static, really, the writing data. But when you think about that, when normally, you know, you're pulling small groups of writers together and you're talking to them and you're really moving their process and their progress, you know, and now

090you're doing that in a breakout room. It's a little different feel. And so to maintain is amazing. The couple of pieces we wanna highlight too about, so I'll get into math a little bit. There was a bit of a dip with our associate economically disadvantaged students. And, you know, that is, it mirrors what's going on nationwide. And it does, that really says and validates what's happening out there that the students that are so economically disadvantaged are really struggling and have struggled more so than some other students with the distance learning format. And we really plan to target that, you know, that group of students to make sure that they're getting what they need as they recover throughout this next year. The other thing is we're starting, in middle school, we're starting a new program called

091iREDIC. And so we're really developing baseline data there. And we're moving into iREDIC as being our benchmarks now, rather than having, you know, a benchmark that we've been, that our teachers have made and looked at. We've really moved into, iREDIC is much more reliable than our previous program, which we call STAR Renaissance, you might've heard of it. And it's much more accurate in reading and it's much more accurate in math. And our teachers are really loving that program. So that'll be something that we wanna build into our budget as we move forward so that we can transition into that being a benchmark system. And it has an instructional component with it, which is a new idea in San Carlos. So that's exciting, very exciting as we move forward. So we've done a lot of engagement

092and what does it tell us? There are two slides here. And again, you know, I have this kind of, we developed this kind of disclaimer here, right? These are ideas. And so folks see things on here and they say, oh, we're gonna do all these things. We don't know if we have the money yet to do all of these things. We have to go through a priority setting. The board needs to weigh in, for example, tonight, right? And so, but these are kind of some themes that we really thought would be important for us to share. You know, first and foremost, as Dr. Harmeier said, there was a lot of feedback about getting back to school full-time, okay? That was pretty close to the number one comment, right? So, you know, as we're coming out

093of this pandemic and folks are being vaccinated, there's a huge desire on our part and to do it safely. So that doesn't mean we just abandon the four pillars and we don't wear masks anymore. And no, we have to do that properly because we wanna make sure that our students and our families feel safe returning. We also have to be mindful of recommended spacing as Dr. Harmeier was talking about already. There's, you know, obviously social-emotional emphasis. We've talked a lot about that, you know, at our board meetings. And, you know, as I heard all night and with Dr. Prentice coming on, you know, that that is a real selling point for San Carlos School District and it always has been. And it's something that always impressed me early on when I got here, before I

094had the job, I thought, is this really happening? And you know what, it really is. And we are fully committed to that piece and that recovery that needs to take place for our students and very much mindful of that as we move forward. Lots of hands-on things, right? We wanna reignite love of learning. I mean, learning's not on a screen. And so, you know, there's a lot of feedback about that. We, you know, keep that growth mindset. Students may not be where we need them to be yet, but we're going to get them there and we're gonna get them there over time. Getting back to our PBL focus and, you know, our science, our new science curriculum is gonna be great in engaging students in hands-on activities. You know, learning recovery, I keep bringing that

095word up. You know, early on, everyone was calling it loss, learning loss, loss, loss, loss. And, you know, it has such a negative connotation because when you lose something, it's gone forever, right? I lost my whatever, I have to replace it. Well, it's not lost, all right? It's recoverable and we really wanna move into that idea that we're moving into learning recovery and we're getting students to where they need to be by getting them to recover back to a more normal situation. We have a lot of transitions in our district which was noted very much so on, especially on the survey data, you know, that there's worry because of my kindergartners basically, you know, dipping their toe in the water at school this year. They've really never been to school yet. Their first time they're

096going to go to school is in first grade. What's that gonna look like and how do we ease that? And similarly for the current fourth graders, right? Who went from third grade to fourth grade and are at a new school, but just kind of went there just for like, just for a minute. And then again, for our sixth graders. So, you know, there's a lot of transition that we need to be mindful of and really plan for. We're excited about some of the interventions we have planned for summer. And we're excited about continuing some of these new pieces that we did. I mentioned iReady already for middle school. And that's really, you know, that's gonna take center stage as we move into next year as a supplemental piece that will really help in addition to

097a number of other things that we're looking at to push in more support for students that need it. And then assessment. You know, this was certainly loud and clear in the parent because I think as a parent, the number one thing you worry about is my teacher's just gonna start teaching fourth grade. My student was in third grade and you're just gonna start teaching fourth grade like everything's normal. And I know my kid isn't ready. And I think that's a real anxiety for our parents. And I certainly feel the same. I have a fifth grader who's moving to sixth grade and it's like, please don't just start picking up like, you're in middle school now, right? Wait a minute. And so, you know, on a personal level, I understand that. And it was really loud

098and clear in our messaging from parents that, you know, please assess before, you know, and let's make sure we know where they are. And if they're missing things from the previous grade, let's get them recovered, okay? So really that same idea of recovery. The next slide talks more about ideas. It's just a lot of ideas. It's like a big brain dump of ideas. So, you know, obviously returning, I said that, you know, continuing use of technology and instructional technology. We don't wanna, I mean, fantastic opportunities we've had. And, you know, one of the things I know that excites me was that we were already using a lot of these things. And now we really, really have learned how to use them. So that's just a great opportunity. We talked about intervention support. Obviously professional development

099is a piece of this. And, you know, everyone says, well, we've been doing professional development for years. It's really about tailoring professional development for teachers, okay? And offering things they need. Do you need ELA? This is what we can do. We have this plan for math. We're transitioning to a new version of our K-5 curriculum. And we're gonna be offering some opportunities around that to get more familiar with it. It's the same program. It's just an updated version. So that's exciting. We've talked about science a little bit. And I know Skeff is, you know, they had just such a great fundraiser around science. We'll have a new science program. And, you know, we'll certainly be offering a lot of professional development in that next year. And then EL support, where it's really, really needed for

100our EL students that really do rely a lot on having those English models in their classrooms and have been missing that all year. So how do we help them recover as well? You know, increased counselor support came out loud and clear. You know, social, emotional, and academic. Increased administrative support with all students back on campus in particular. So, you know, specifically was mentioned multiple times was assistant principal coming back at the middle school so that there's a dedicated AP at both sites. Substitute teachers have been a major challenge across the country. We have been no exception. We have a few really dedicated folks that have helped us out right from the get-go and continue to do so. And we need to try to expand that number and that field of folks. So we're grateful that

101we do have some new folks onboarding, parents and community members. And, you know, that support, again, is so unique to San Carlos. A lot of sentiment from everyone, from teachers, from parents to reopen our libraries and get our libraries open so that it will enhance the academic program and also allow access for kids to books and, you know, just getting back to that field. So, and of course, doing it at some level of sustainability so that we don't end up back where we were before. One piece that, you know, that we're really passionate about is we've always had literacy specialists and we don't have them this year. And that came up a lot from, again, from all groups. What kind of support can we offer? Even if it's only for a year with these extra

102monies, can we talk about, you know, hiring extra paraeducators, you know, and then training them in a literacy, you know, how can they supplement literacy? Do they push into classrooms? So that's a piece. And then DEI training, you know, came up. We have some of that on the books and that's an item later that we'll talk about, but that came up quite a bit in all surveys as well. And then special education is always something that, you know, again, as a parent of some special education students, myself, I have watched the struggles that that has presented over the past year. And I'm completely empathetic to other parents that are experiencing the same situation. And I know our teachers, you know, our education specialists have taken on a huge load throughout this whole pandemic. And so,

103you know, that came up loud and clear as well that, you know, we need extra support too in special education. This is not a time to look at reducing or, you know, getting creative, as we might say, with special education staffing or anything of the like. It's a time to sort of get creative and see how we can supplement that. So that is all of the input and it's a lot, it's a lot and it's extensive. And again, we are very grateful to have such a large participation level on so many different levels, whether that's in person, you came to a Zoom meeting or whatever it might be, or if you just filled out the survey, we're just very grateful to have that. And Lisa Cesario, did I leave anything out? Can you please chime

104in? In case I did, I would appreciate it. No, you were quite extensive. I think that what's really important is having gone through all the surveys and the staff input, it was all sent directly to us. And when we went through it, it was major themes that came out. So the details aren't there. There's more that kind of goes with it when you put it to a plan and you start prioritizing, but it was themes that teachers had, parents had, and administrators. It wasn't like one group thought, I mean, all the groups wanted the libraries. So it was really, they all had an opportunity and we have to go back in some way with the time left to kind of start prioritizing some of this and then it'll come back to you. But I think

105you did a good job, Hans, for not being at all the sessions with us. Well, I had a good teacher, what can I say? And the other thing we wanna point out, and this is noted in the agenda, the ELO grant actually requires a board approval before the LCAP, our timeline for LCAP is that you will see a draft of the LCAP on June 10th and approve on the 17th. And the ELO grant actually has to be approved before May 30th, by May 30th. So that will come to the May 20th board meeting where we'll share a little bit more about what those plans will look like. Hans and Lisa, for your big lift on this, Hans, just to make sure I'm clear for the board, you're looking for us for inputs into anything that

106was possibly not shared or things we're seeing as well. That's kind of the first input you're looking for from the board. Correct, is anything missing, are there other ideas that you have? And also, if you want to comment on things that were there or the importance of which, this is also appropriate time to do that. Okay, anything else you need from us besides just that? Not at this point in time, thanks, Neil. Trustees, any things along those lines that Hans was looking for for input-wise or clarification in regards to the presentation? Can I ask a clarifying question first, Hans, just around assessment? On slide five, you shared the data there, and you mentioned that we're kind of shifting over to iReady, which I had understood that there would be some assessments being done even in

107May this month using iReady. So I just kind of wondered what this data, like this data is telling us, and then if there's additional data that we're gonna be collecting that will inform teachers to help for the transition, right, from this year to next year. Yeah, Wendy, thanks for that. Teachers will be giving another assessment in May from iReady, and that will inform, that will help inform teachers next year as they come in. That'll get shared. So how soon that will be ready, given our timeline for LCAP, it may not be ready to go into the LCAP, per se, right? We can add baseline data at a later time. What we're really focused on right now is choosing measures, right? What measures are we going to use? And we can add the baseline data when

108we have it. And what I think is important is for you to know that that is a measure that we're gonna be using in ELA and math in middle school as we move forward. So we will be getting baseline data, yeah, subsequently. Okay, it might just, yeah, the timing just might not work to put that into the LCAP, but okay. Correct, correct. Okay, well, I just wanna comment on the data, and I appreciate having some of this data now. As we've all been talking about learning recovery, what does that mean? What are the needs, right? So it is important. I just wanted to say, it's important to see that we do have groups of students, English language learners, special education students, and students who are socially economically disadvantaged who are significantly below what the majority

109of our student population is achieving. So yeah, we just, you said that's, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? I mean, that's just common across many districts, given distance learning, and not meeting everyone's needs this year. So thank you for just being transparent and sharing. And I think this is exactly what we need to be able to do as a governing team is to look at that data and understand where we're at and where we need to get. So appreciate this information. If I could just say one thing, one of the things that we asked the parents, the teachers, is what were their observations with their students too? Because there's also, there's the test data, the assessment data, but the teachers who've been working with the kids and much, you know, they were very

110thoughtful with their responses too. And so that's where some of the ideas came from or from those anecdotal comments that we received. Thanks. And I'll just say, yes, qualitative and quantitative data are incredibly important and multiple measures. So I'm not trying to focus in on just one number here. I just, yeah, I think it's good as some evidence. And I just appreciate that you're sharing as much as you've gotten at this point. So thanks. Carol, did you have something? I just wanted to say thank you to Hans and Lisa and the folks involved across this. Just, it looks incredibly broad in terms of the engagement and the input, and they came up with a really fantastic, I think, and very thoughtful set of ideas that, you know, are all things that we know that really

111support students in that whole child, in that whole child sense. So just, this looks really fantastic. Thank you. Thank you, Hans and team for bringing that. I have a question and echo the comments on the thoroughness and the themes Lisa and Hans look right on, as well as kind of the ideas, they resonate, right? My one clarifying question is, do you all consider mental health the same as social-emotional emphasis, or is that a different bucket to you? Because I don't think we should necessarily, tell me how you think about it. I think it's this, Irene. I mean, there's some overlap there, right? But, you know, to think that just because we teach social-emotional, you know, learning, that that's gonna take care of all the mental health, you know, things that may be going on with

112kids is not realistic, right? Yeah, I think that's what I- But there's certainly some overlap and yeah. Yeah, I think that's what I was getting to, right? I mean, it's what you said and indicated with your hands, or they fit together, but, you know, friendship counseling doesn't really kind of address maybe kind of like deeper mental health issues. So my question is, it's not listed as a theme here. And so I didn't know if that was just an oversight or if you were indicating like, we're all good. So we're just gonna focus on these other areas. Well, I mean, I think our intention, Irene, is to continue what we have. And we have a really strong mental health piece right now that, you know, between our friendship counselors, our mental health collaborative, as we talk

113about it, that's friendship counselors, that's LMFT interns, you know, that's our wellness coordinator, that's our director of student services. You know, I sit on that at times. It's a really extensive team. So we have no intention of having less of that team by any means. And I think it's just as high a priority as it always has been. And if we feel that we need to, you know, increase that, that's an area that we could look into. And it's certainly an allowable expense of these funds. Yeah, and I absolutely knew that you weren't, there was no intention to reducing, but I'm glad you clarified that. But it was, so my question was more like, did you need to add there? But in terms of input, the themes resonate, the ideas generated make sense. My encouragement

114is to make sure that you've got enough on the mental health in addition to the social emotional. You pointed out about the work needed for ELLs and the socioeconomically disadvantaged groups and special ed. So, you know, please do make sure we're kind of addressing those needs. Yep. And I certainly kind of hear all the themes and the ideas listed make sense to me. Let us know if you feel like you can't generate, if the funds don't like support all of those because then that's when we would have to prioritize. Sarah, thoughts? Yeah, I actually wanted to piggyback on your comment about mental health and ask about resources to support staff well-being as well and time for relationship building and collaboration and just healing from what they've been through as well. So obviously a focus on

115students, but also if there is a way to provide extra support for staff as well in that regard. Thanks for that, Sarah, definitely. One of the things, you know, we have the task of, you know, everybody knows Mindy Hill and kind of when I think about staff wellness, I always say, so Mindy, what do we need to be doing? So we have the task of replacing Mindy and that's not to say that she's solely responsible for the wellness of all our employees. But that is something I know that, you know, I will be talking extensively about with that person who takes Mindy's spot and with our principals as well to really, you know, get a pulse on what it is we can do to help with that, because that is, that's a great point for

116sure. Thank you, Hans, I'll give you just my two thoughts. I think you're obviously, your process of getting information I think found themes that definitely would be the ones that I would say are there. The only thing I think from a board perspective would be is as you and Lisa go through this information, it would be good to help prioritize for us in terms of where you think those money spends would be prioritized, right? In terms of what would be parents, you know, number one thing they'd want to bring back outside of, you know, full-time students, just because sometimes this becomes a zero sum game and a lot of times the money falls off the cliff when it's one-time money like this. So whatever we can do to prioritize our spending and then within that

117prioritization, knowing whether it's one-time spending that can address a need compared to structural change, that will help us prioritize it because the last thing I want to do is throw good money behind bad or throw money into a project that have to, you know, can't be funded a year later. So that would be just my general input for you as you go through it, but I appreciate the big lift on it as well. And it sounds, looks like you had a good process to get the information you needed. Anything else you need from us, Hans? Not at this point in time, appreciate your input and we'll come back to you, like I said, on May 20th. So anything else to add, Dr. Harmeier? No, I just really appreciate the work that Hans and Lisa did

118and all the principals as well. And this, I think listening to people was really important over these last two months. And I think the hardest thing that we're dealing with as superintendents when we're having our meetings is we're going to get this large chunk of one-time money. We're going to inject it into our system and then we're gonna have to pull it back. And so managing expectations from our community will be very important that we are very clear about what things are gonna be able to keep and other things that will kind of sunset at the end of this year. And hopefully with all the new, innovative, creative ways that people are going to be using these funds, maybe there will be some hope that additional funding will come from the state to sustain some

119of these kinds of things. We can only hope for that. But again, we have to manage expectations whenever you have $2.5 million of one-time funds being poured into a year. And then how do we back out of that? And Anil made that point very clear. What will we be able to sustain and what will we have to sunset at the end of the year? Dr. Harmer, Michelle, on the 20th, when you come back with the ideas, it would be helpful maybe to see them for the K3s, four fives and six eights so we can just really understand how they're impacting the student and teacher experience. Okay, we can do that for you. In that case, I will move us on then to 13A, which is our diversity, equity and inclusion update. I believe Sarah, is

120this to you first or Dr. Harmer first? Well, now that Hans is back from his time away, I'll let Hans kind of just open it up, do a brief overview and then have Wendy and Sarah also join in and give a brief update. Yeah, thanks, I'm happy to do that. I'll keep it brief as Michelle said. We had our second diversity, equity and inclusion steering committee meeting, I think it was last Wednesday and it was actually my first one, I missed the first one. And we broke off into some groups and we did some talking and kind of gelling. I think that was an important part of the process was to try to get to know each other a little bit. And then we worked in groups to, again, I use that brain dump idea

121to kind of just share ideas and get some things out on paper and begin to goal, the goal setting process for specifically for DEI. And I'll let Wendy and Sarah give more depth with that. But that was a general sense of how that meeting went. And we have our next one coming up towards the end of this month. I think it's May 24th, something around there. So, Wendy and Sarah, take it from here, please. Hans, really quickly, can you comment on the training? Cause I believe that maybe the training is scheduled. I don't know when that is. Yeah, sure. Actually two staffs were trained this week on Tuesday. And then there's a training set for next week for two additional staffs. And then the following week, the other four schools will all have training as

122well. And that is their first training with inclusion counts. So that's underway as well. Sarah, feedback process, like will we collect feedback from the staff on how they think it went? Yeah, I know that the checkies have a feedback loop that they use regularly on these trainings. And that's something that we'll talk about at our next leadership, DEI leadership meeting is about what does that look like and making sure that that's happening. So Amber and Heather have both talked about that previously. Great. Yeah, I'll just add a quick update. As Hans mentioned, we had our meeting last week. We're working on developing a vision and mission statement for the committee as well as starting to develop goals. There's a small group that will continue that mission statement and vision drafting over the next month before

123our next meeting. And I think the other thing I just wanted to share is that I really at this meeting got a sense that among the committee, there's really shared urgency and commitment to this process, not just being performative, that we are all committed to there being real positive change that comes out of this. And I think the feedback that Hans collected really supports the fact that our community, our staff, our parents want this. And so that gives me a lot of hope. And I, you know, the committee feels the same and we'll be, you know, we're just starting this process, but trying to, you know, do some things that are short term and also, you know, continue the work next year and beyond. And there will be a DEI webpage added to our district

124website. And it sounds like that will be up next week. So there'll be some more information that people can see there. And Wendy, did you have anything you wanted to add? I really just wanted to, you know, show my appreciation. There was about 21 participants in this group. And I am also very encouraged by, you know, the opportunity for these very stakeholders to interact. There's small breakout sessions and, you know, we're really brainstorming and trying to put, you know, ideas, you know, on a paper to develop these goals. But I do think people are, you know, bringing their whole self to this process and being honest and asking questions and just sharing ideas. So I appreciate that we're engaged in this process. It's a long-term process. There is urgency, but I also just want to

125say that, yeah, as we know, it's systemic. So it does take time, but I just want to say, I just really appreciate the way people are showing up. And it's been very constructive. Great. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, Wendy. Thank you, Hans. Irene, Carol, any questions for the group? Really encouraging. Thank you. Just one question for us, just in terms of planning. Update-wise, will we have anything back before the end of the year or probably more towards summer, August, just for our planning? I think one thing that we need to point out is, and part of the contract this year was I hope to have the board go through training. And we postponed that because of all that's going on. So we'll do that in the fall when we have a full board. So that

126is something that will be coming a little bit later. Good. Great. We'll look forward to it on that update and just keep it posted whenever it's going to come back. Okay. In that case, I'll move on to 13B, the board member appointment process. Michelle, you'll start, and then I'll probably chime in with a couple of things as you clarify for us. Okay. Okay. So you did have, we have our process approved. We have our subcommittee working on this. People can attend an information session. We had one earlier this week and we have one on Monday night, the 10th. So those who are interested in participating in the appointment process, we really are encouraging our community to get involved. The candidate information sheets, which are essentially like an application are available and they can be received

127from reaching out to Veronica Rickson, my assistant. So that is, we have a webpage with all of this information on that. So it's very easy to find under the board heading on our webpage. And the kind of the next key date is that May 17th, these information sheets or applications will be due to Veronica, the district office. Then the board subcommittee will review those applications and then the interviews will happen on May 27th at a, in a public session. And that night you will choose somebody from that, from that group that interviews and it's all public. And then that new person will hopefully be able to start on June 3rd. So that's kind of our timeline and where we are. And are there any questions or kind of updates from you as committee members? Cause

128I think Neil, you and Wendy are, no, you and Sarah are kind of helping with this, right? Yeah. I think just from the subcommittee, it'll be probably the same process board as last time. We'll work on the questions that will be asked of the candidates. We'll bring those back to you the day of the interview, just to keep those kind of confidential in the sense, but also to, you know, kind of help shape ourselves as things may change between now and then as well. We'll bring back all candidates or all applicants to you. So depending on how many come back, you know, last time it was six, I think the time before that it was nine, just plan on being there for a while, as I always like to say, cause hopefully we have a

129lot of applicants in that regards. I also say to everyone watching at home, you know, now's your chance to be part of the board. And we have a lot of decisions obviously coming forward that are very important. And even though the things that Hans laid out, you get a chance to be a part of to how you prioritize those as well. So, you know, now it's a heavy lift to come on the board at this point in time, but a rewarding lift because you can definitely see where your actions will directly impact kids, which is great. I also like to say, you know, there's a lot of people on this Zoom or listening at home, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be you who wants to be on the board, but if you encourage

130someone, that also goes a long way. It was, got me on the board, it got me to run again. I've encouraged and reached out to a lot of people to be part of the board as well. You know, if you know someone from a Facebook group or anything else like that, that you think would be good, reach out to them. That's what, you know, makes this process work very well. So I would encourage anyone to do that. Just, you know, there's been a lot of decisions that have been made and you will get a chance to work on those as well. So even that goes out to our educators and staff. If you know a parent or someone in the district that would be, you think good on the board, I encourage you to reach

131out to them as well to go through the process. Sarah, did I miss anything like I usually do? No, I think you nailed it. Okay. Board, any questions about the process, concerns, anything at all? Carol, should I just email the application to you or do you want to pick it up yourself from Veronica? Would you just let us know? Thank you. In that case, I will move us on then to future items for the agenda. Trustee, is there anything you'd like us to bring back, anything we've missed over the past couple of months or weeks that you think we need to bring back to the agenda? Neil, can you clarify on the DEI discussion, would we continue it? I mean, we can give a brief update. I think there won't be a lot of new,

132but I wasn't sure if it's just like rolling, if it just continues. It's basically just kind of keep us on track. What I want to make sure I do is don't forget about it or don't put it on the agenda if you have kind of a cadence you want me to keep. Okay, and I just wasn't clear. If it's not, we can also touch base on offline whenever it's ready, but I just figured I'd ask now. I think it makes sense to keep it on the meeting for our next steering committee meeting. Okay, we'll have a meeting in June. Yeah, and I'm just going to encourage you to continue to work with Hans now, and that way kind of as a team, you can remind each other or decide what information would be good for

133the board, because this is the only way for the whole board to be updated is through a public meeting. So even if it's just a brief update, it's just nice to keep you abreast of what's happening. Okay, great, thanks. I'll do the early June meeting then, yeah. Okay, and Wendy, did I miss any, I didn't see any, but did I miss any public comment on 12 and 13? No, there wasn't any on those. All right, I think with no other future agenda items then, Wendy, I'll come back to you then for public comment on non-agendaist items. Yeah, there are a couple, and they wanted me to read them. They were slotted under 15A, they might sort of relate to 6A, so I apologize if I, any oversight there, but obviously just want to make sure

134we read any public comments. So this is from Ashley Brown. Dear board trustees, I want to thank you for your service on our school board. As I've gotten to know the board much better over the past four years, I'm amazed at the dedication you bring to your role as a trustee. Whenever I've emailed you, I've always received at least one personal response from you, and most often you seek more information to help synthesize the concern I am addressing. As we all know, this year is unprecedented. Our educators and leadership have demonstrated enormous professionalism, innovative thinking, implementing new technologies, and through all this have created classroom communities where students generally feel like they're connected to their school, classmates, administrator, and teacher. This week we celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week. Parents at the elementary level have marveled at

135the growth of children have made despite learning for more than half a year via distance learning. The school year could have been a failure. This year could have been heated with huge gaps in learning loss, technological failures, teacher boycotts, and a prolonged distance learning program, but we are fortunate to have not. Every time something else was asked of teachers, we did it. Every time the MOU changed and our presence on campus increased, we did it. When we were asked to create time for urgent learners, we did it. Throughout this process, we have negotiated our health and safety, but always keeping in mind what is best for our students. We knew the social-emotional toll distance learning had on our students. We could see it in their faces. We could see it in their work. We always

136viewed our decisions through the lens of an educator. That is what we do every day. This is our career, our calling. This is not a volunteer position. I bring the role of volunteer up because sometimes that is how it feels. As a ninth-year teacher compensated at approximately $85,000 with a master's degree, I sometimes feel like a volunteer. I give more than I receive. When I pay 70% of my take on salary and childcare in San Carlos, I cringe. I know that my situation is not different from many of the families in the community, but this spring when I learned that contract negotiations failed and that we would not receive a raise, I was dumbfounded. After two years of trimming the budget, supporting Measure N, personal tax, and our year of COVID, I thought we had

137finally broken out of the shadows and turned a corner. For trustees, I implore you to think about teacher raises not as goodwill, but as recognition of our partnership. We've come so far as a district and we should be compensated for the quality education we provide. We shouldn't be seen as another line item on the budget. San Carlos should be proud that competitive compensation is an important in supporting and attracting highly qualified teachers. Thank you, Ashley Brown. There is one more. This is from Kelly Reitz. The median house price in San Carlos is 2.3 million. I was born in Belmont. I went to Carlmont. I've worked in San Carlos school just for 14 years. Both of my kids are students and love the school community. It absolutely breaks my heart that my husband who is also

138in education and I will have to move from this special place simply because we cannot afford to live here. My family is here. Our roots are deep. I care about this community deeply and I don't wanna leave. I remember a time when teachers could live in this area and live with dignity and a feeling of security. With our current salary, this is no longer the case. I urge you to please give us a pay raise. Please do what is right by our teaching community. I also urge you to please do what is right by our students by keeping quality educators here who care deeply about this very special community. Give us a fighting chance to give our own families a sense of security. We aren't even teaching for the money but we still need to

139put food on the table on the roof of our heads. Thank you for listening. I trust that you'll do what is right for San Carlos educators and that is it. Thank you, Wendy. In that case, I'll move on to employee group comments. Dan, do you wanna start us off? Actually, Angela is gonna speak first and then I'm gonna speak and then maybe Lisa. Angela Naughton is gonna speak first. Thank you, Veronica, for unmuting me. I know it's always that challenge of keeping up on Zoom. I'm gonna get that t-shirt that says I'm on mute actually. So my name is Angela Naughton. I'm a fifth grade teacher at Arroyo and I'm also the chair for the SCTA negotiations team. I listened to my fellow teachers speak tonight and as I did so, I reflected on a

140quote I've seen shared on social media and it's gained a lot of traction, especially during the pandemic. And the quote is, teachers don't teach for the income, teachers teach for the outcome. And I would actually strike the word teachers and add instead, right, in my editing way that all members of a school community from our custodians to our secretaries to our paraeducators, to nurses, embody these words. I think the joke is that you don't teach for the income, you teach for the outcome and summer's off when in fact, most of our staff will spend their summer completing classes and courses and different things, professional development to move up the salary schedule, but more importantly, to really enrich what we bring to the community and to the biggest stakeholders in all of this, which is our

141students. And tonight, you heard from a number of teachers, school site representatives, we are moving to impasse over simply 2% salary increase and a 5.6% increase in health and welfare, which that number was chosen from kind of the mid-level coverage that is offered in San Mateo County. These are actually below the projected cost of living increases, which this year is 3.5% that is being provided to the district by the California governor and federal funding. And over my time on the negotiations team, which is approximately the last eight years, I have come to understand the intricacies of budgeting. There's a need to project a budget for multiple years. These are honestly things I didn't understand prior to my tenure on this team, but I also recognize that our members don't have that same ability to project

142the increased cost of living, our day-to-day expenses. And frankly, past practices have shown that SCATA is happy and willing and happy and open to returning to the bargaining table should there be a dramatic change in funding. I'm happy to report that we're not back in 2008, 2009, and our time of great recession. But at that time, history shows that SCATA did take furlough days. We did make cuts in the time of budget crisis. We said, okay, we don't want to lose our librarians. We don't wanna lose custodians. And we operated on a very lean budget. And in fact, I ran into a librarian the other day and I said, our biggest need is to have you back, not really for ourselves, but for our students. And so I just wanna say, we understand the need

143for the projection and that that's required by the county, by the state, but also understanding that the return to the bargaining table is constant. It's always revolving. And so to say, well, we don't have it in three years from now is really difficult for us to apply that to our own day-to-day expenses. And most of all, I echo the words that were shared tonight. We continue to move forward. I'm very excited that we see an end to these challenging times, which Dr. Harmeier addressed with the, as we move towards a quote unquote new normal with our classrooms and everything, is I really just urge you to reconsider our proposal. We wanna continue to attract and retain the amazing individuals who embody the vision of the San Carlos School District, which I know is what everybody

144here on this meeting tonight really wants to see is just a celebration of our community and welcoming new people and celebrating that aspect of San Carlos. So thank you. Okay, I'll speak next. Good evening and happy Teacher Appreciation Week. I'm Dan Lanier. I'm president of the San Carlos Teachers Association. It really should be Teachers and School Employees Appreciation Week. I promise I actually wrote this before all the speeches earlier where lots of people said the same thing. Teachers rely on the dedication of school secretaries, paraprofessionals, maintenance staff and school custodians, school librarians who we want back, nurses, counselors, school principals, administrators and district office staff. There's no show in our classrooms without all of the support of these amazing people. So thank you to all of them for helping us to perform on our classroom

145and on our Zoom stages. Thank you to all the passionate and dedicated teachers who give of themselves every day so that their students can flourish. San Carlos is blessed with extraordinary teachers. The SCTA negotiations team with the consent of the SCTA Executive Board declared impasse. We've not had a raise since 2018, 2019. That was two years ago. We've been patient with the district's budget crisis and we've also been patient with the COVID pandemic and extreme teaching challenges we've all been through. We helped pass the parcel tax. The language of the parcel tax stated that some of the funds would go to increase teacher salaries and to retain highly qualified teachers. Many of us contribute to SCAF, the San Carlos Education Foundation, through our donated auction items. I recently did gardening in the Bugs Garden at

146Britton Acres. We planted strawberries that each kid got to take home and had a great time. We work countless hours of overtime for our students. If we logged all of our individual overtime hours, it would increase our salary far beyond 2% that we are currently asking for. Our district has received a huge amount of state and federal funding for COVID. This frees up other money in the budget for a small raise for certificated and classified staff. 2% is a small raise. Also, our state's budget projections are much better. We have a huge surplus right now, even though we were expecting to have budget problems. So our state's financial future looks healthy. And at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, it did not. An increase in our health and welfare contribution of 5.6% is a very

147reasonable request. We respectfully ask the board to give our dedicated teachers, school counselors, and school nurses a 2% raise retroactive to July, 2020, and a 5.6% increase in our health and welfare benefits. Past practice has always been that our sister association, the CSEA, which is made up of secretaries, custodians, paraprofessionals, as well as our administrators, receive the exact same increase in salary and health and welfare that the SCTA gets. In other words, a raise for teachers is also a raise for secretaries, custodians, paras, and administrators. We all deserve a modest 2% cost of living adjustment to our salaries, especially our classified employees who are paid at much less than teachers and much less than administrators. At the same time, I'd like to thank our board for including the SCTA members in the superintendent stakeholder interview

148panel. We have been impressed with the process, and I'm happy to welcome our new superintendent, Jennifer Frentress, which I have phonetically spelled out here so I wouldn't make a mistake. We look forward to a positive collaborative relationship with Dr. Frentress, and I hope I'm saying it right. Welcome to our amazing school district. Welcome to our family. The SCTA wishes Trustee Carol Elliott all the best in the relaxing years ahead. Hopefully they'll be relaxing, but I imagine you'll still be on committees of some sort. So thank you. All right, good night. Thank you, Dan, thank you, Angela. And Lisa, I saw you out there. Do you have something for us tonight? There you are. Yes, please. Hi, thank you very much. First of all, welcome, Dr. Frentress. Nice to see you. As CSEA president and district

149office staff member, I look forward to working with you, and welcome aboard. Also, thank you to the board, like Dan said, for including CSEA specifically, but all of the stakeholders in the process. It was very encouraging, and I am very excited about our future working together that way. I also wanna thank Dr., excuse me, Trustee Elliott for her service to San Carlos School District. We wish you luck in your future endeavors, and it's really exciting. Many years working with you, so thank you very much for your service. Basically, just happy Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week. I love all my team members, so thank you very much for all you guys do. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa. And we will, I don't know, board, if you have any other comments than we have, but we'll go

150to you. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry to disappoint. Carol, I'm trying to keep it short. It's your last week. Lisa and Dan, thank you for your recognition of the words of the process. This board did try to push the boundaries as much as possible, and I know sometimes we think words don't matter so much, but they mattered a lot to me, what you just said right there, and I look forward to just continuing a collaborative relationship. And in the spirit of the fact that words do matter sometimes, for Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week, I can't list the 31 or 37 teachers that my two boys, Alex and Nicholas, had, but they started kindergarten with Candy Richard, and Jay Richards is Nicholas' eighth grade advisor. And I do see of the people logged into this Zoom account

151that my boys were taught by Angela Naughton, Jan Heinschel, Kelly Earlywine, Michelle Robinson. They've received counseling from Julie Joback, Kim Arasato, and Vicky Gammas have kept us all in line. And there are a dozen others that helped us out. So thank you, thank you. You are never, ever a line item to me. Never, ever. I mean, my God, I mean, we are a team of people and humans who came here to do right by our kids, and we're here to figure out how to be team kid together. Dr. Frances, welcome. We're so excited to have you here. You're joining an awesome team. And I think we also need to encourage people to apply. Neil said it all, about applying for school board positions, encourage a friend, and shout out, huge shout out, and thanks to

152our amazing Education Foundation partners for the incredible gala that they hosted. I know many of us here on this Zoom attended, and not only just enjoyed the night, but really raised much necessary funds. Thank you, everyone. It is so good to see everybody continuing to stay so engaged. Thank you. I had a lot of air time earlier, so I won't say anything else, except extend my gratitude again to our staff, trustees, leadership, and the whole community. I think that our trustees have said it well tonight, throughout the night, and so have our teachers as well. So thank you, everybody. Thank you. I'll keep it brief as well. But I just, plus one to Irene on all the topics you hit, but I really just wanted to use my air time. Shout out to a teacher

153in particular that I just, it kind of speaks to what Dan Lanier said about how teachers go above and beyond their community to teach our kids in so many ways outside of the classroom. And I wanted to give a shout out to Mrs. Peck, who's a science teacher at Central Middle School, who said yes to being an advisor to a new environment club that some students decided to start this year during the pandemic. And she said yes, and they did a beach cleanup this weekend over in Half Moon Bay, and she brought the supplies, and we had strangers saying, thank you. Thank you for cleaning up our beach. And they saw these kids and adults, and it was a very small group, but I just want to say, as Neil was saying too, about how

154we can create change in our own community. And so I just want to thank Mrs. Peck, and you're a great role model, and thank all the teachers. Thank you. Is there anything? Yeah, sorry, I couldn't find my unmute button. Plus one to everything Irene said. Thank you staff and teachers for all you do. And I will do a shout out as well to Pam Edgington and Shannon Logie, who's no longer in the district, but was my daughter's teacher last year. Anyone who can teach five and six-year-olds on Zoom and somehow teach them to read and write and do math is an incredible superstar in my book. So thank you for all you have done this year. I'll just finish off by, again, thanking everyone through the process. Tite's a very kind of symbolic night with

155Taro leaving and Dr. Fentre starting, and all the other things that we've done in between. And it falls on the night of Teacher Appreciation Week. So I always like to tell everyone the same story of, from Mrs. Massoff, who was my kindergarten teacher, to Ms. Milliken, who was my third grade teacher, to Ms. Silva Thurman, who was my second grade teacher, to Ms. Ashford, who was my fifth grade teacher. All of them impacted my life one way or the other. And sometimes it's one of those things that you forget about in this profession, why we all do it, why Carol's done it so long, is I always like to say you have this three-year rule where maybe people forget you after three years, but it's the teamwork you do within the group that keeps it

156going forever and keeps the next generation engaged. So I applaud everyone for all the commitment they have to this district, all the work they've put in throughout their careers throughout now. So I appreciate everyone for everything they've done. So Dr. Harmar, to you for the last word. All right, well, I just want to welcome Dr. Frantris. I'm very happy and excited for you to join this amazing community. So I look forward to supporting you in the transition and just really welcoming you here because you are joining just an amazing team and you're going to just love being part of this community. I had a chance today to hang out a little bit at TR Linda and it was so fun to see Kristen Ugren, principal, working with her eighth grade kids, putting on their little

157gowns for promotion ceremony, going through and videotaping their messages and those eighth grade teachers out there, Jason Scatina and Jill Nida, just having a really great time with their kids. And it's just nice that our principals are doing everything they can to create end of year experiences that really support the memories that our kids will take with them. So thank you to Tom Domer and Kristen working with your PTAs and your staff on how to finish the year for our eighth grade kids with some type of a promotion ceremony that really celebrates them and recognizes them and launches them onto their high school career. That was a lot of fun. I also want to recognize the executive director of our CLC charter learning center, Jennifer Pellegrin. I had a chance to spend a couple of

158hours up there with Doug Johnson, our director of FMOT and Christine Gong, our CFO, and just really spend time walking through the campus and seeing how that beautiful site has changed over the three years, now that some of the landscaping is filled in and just some of the things that they've done up there to really be innovative and collaborative with us as a district. And so having that partnership with our charter learning center is a valuable relationship and Jennifer being a new executive director taking over Stacey who was there for many, many years has done just a wonderful job of just bringing that community through this pandemic. And it was exciting to walk through and see all the learning happening in the classrooms and the kids on site today. So thank you to CLC and

159Jennifer. And thank you again, Leslie, Carol for all you've done and thank you for your service. It was nice being in partnership with you during really the toughest year of my 28 year career. And we've got through a lot of tough things together and I appreciate your leadership and your dedication. So best wishes to you as you retire. Thank you. With that, we are not going back to closed session. So I will adjourn the meeting and we will see you in two weeks.