SCSD Regular Board Meeting 3-25-2021

001we're recording. Thanks. Good evening, everyone. I'm gonna call the order of the March 25th of 2021, regular board meeting for the San Carlos School District. Thank you everyone for being here. At this time, do I have a motion to approve the agenda? I move to approve the agenda. I second. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, Irene. All in favor of approving the agenda as is, please state by saying aye. Aye. And hearing no opposition, that will carry 4-0 with Trustee Elliot absent right now, but she'll meet us in closed session. With that being said, I'm going to adjourn us to closed session for 6A, but first, Wendy, do we have any public comment on closed session? We do not. Okay. In that case, I will adjourn us to closed session. We should be back between 630

002and 645 and go from there. Thank you. Okay. We're ready. Thanks. Good evening. I will dabble us back in from closed session. At this time, there is nothing to report out from closed session. Therefore, I'll move us on to our next part of the agenda, which is our consent agenda. These are items we find routine in nature for not much debate. Therefore, we approve them in mass. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move to approve the consent agenda. Thank you, Wendy. Second. Second. Thank you, Irene. All in favor of the motion to approve the consent agenda, we state by saying, aye. Aye. Aye. Carol is saying she can't unmute herself. You got to unmute Carol. Veronica, you can. Thank you. Thanks, Veronica. Was there any objection to consent agenda, Carol, just

003to make sure I didn't miss you? All right. That motion will carry five, zero. I will then move us on to item 10A, for discussion action, our return to in-person learning on campus. First, Wendy, let's just start by taking any public comment. Okay. There are several people who asked to read their, I'm sorry, just share their comments verbally. So we'll start with Christine Ortner. Do you see her, Veronica? Yeah, I see her. I'm here. Okay. Hear me? Yeah. Can you just confirm that you hear me? Yes. Yes. Thanks, Christine. Thanks. Good evening. California Department of Public Health, in alignment with science and the CDC, published new schools guidance on March 20. In summary, one, all schools in counties with case rates below 25 per 100,000 may now open. San Mateo County with 4.2 cases per

004100,000 remains among the counties with the lowest COVID numbers in California. With San Francisco, it has the lowest numbers in the Bay Area. Number two, students spacing of at least three feet is strongly recommended, but not required. This allows all students statewide to return to school full-time. It is now school district's responsibility to fully open since the state is not prohibiting reopening. We ask you to work urgently to return students to in-person education five days a week by April 5th. I'm aware of the new local guidance expected by SMCOE, and schools will be required to submit an addendum to their existing plans. However, I'm optimistic that our school district has been working on this, anticipating the guidance by the County Office of Health and Education. Each day, the delay continues, damage is inflicted on the

005kids and on the parents. My second grader currently spends 10 hours per week in class. However, he's trading off 16 hours per week, which he now has to study without teacher supervision. My fourth grader will spend six hours per week in class after April 5th. However, he's trading off 23 hours of academic time. 23 hours per week, which he should spend at school with teacher instruction. This is very alarming to me. I'm calling on you to immediately return our students to full-time in-person instruction with their teachers. Our students are depending on you. Thank you. Thank you, Christine. Veronica, the next person who would like to share their comments is Lisa Nadiv. For Nadiv. There's only one Lisa. Hi, hi. Oh, there we go. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. My name is Lisa Nadiv.

006I am a mom in San Carlos. I'm also a pediatrician in the community. I work at Kaiser in Daly City. And I am distraught that schools have not completely reopened, especially now given the CDC is recommending that children be spaced three feet apart. The data shows that it's safe and our children are suffering. Child obesity already a huge problem is even worse this year. My colleagues in child psychiatry are overworked because so many kids are depressed and are failing their classes. I've never seen so many suicidal teenagers in my entire practice. Kids aren't motivated. They're suffering from lack of social interaction and they are falling far behind in school. I don't know how kids are gonna catch up if ever. Our third grader had some really serious behavioral issues during remote learning. And we currently

007have her at a private school. This should not have to be the solution. I believe in public education and our district needs to do better. Marin is now open five days a week for four and a half hours each day. And they expect to be completely in-person soon. Palo Alto and Menlo Park have been in hybrid for basically the whole year. Why can they do it and we can't? Why can many counties in California do it and around the world and nationwide and we can't? I spoke to a freshman the other day who has no friends. She was doing great in middle school and now she's failing and she's depressed. I spoke to a seventh grader whose grades are dropping and mom's struggling to try to keep him on task. He doesn't know why he

008needs to learn science and history. School is not engaging over Zoom and our kids deserve better. I demand a return to full in-person learning. Thank you. Thanks, Lisa. I'm gonna go ahead and read the other, I think there's three more comments. This one is from Corrine Vattuone, sorry if I didn't pronounce your last name right. All of our neighboring districts, San Mateo, Foster City, Belmont Redwood Shores and Redwood City Middle Schools are returning four days a week, morning or afternoon hybrid model. Please explain why San Carlos Middle School students are only returning to campus two mornings a week. How are all the neighboring middle schools making this work? How are they meeting the social distancing requirements yet we cannot? The first statement, okay. The next person submitted this, Natasha Mellie. I sent a letter to

009county and district superintendents last week urging full-time in-person learning to begin the school year now that the CDC revised distance guidance to three feet. Their response basically states there will be no full-time in-person learning until possibly fall. What more do we have to do? There is always an obstacle and after every obstacle is dealt with, there is a new obstacle. One, we need case rate in county to be lower. We are now in the orange tier headed to yellow with 0.9% positivity and 4.4 cases per 100K. I bet San Carlos is even lower. Two, teachers wanna be vaccinated. Teachers put in front of the line and will be fully vaccinated by late April. 35% plus of our county is vaccinated. Three, we don't have the space for six feet distance. It's now three feet distance.

010Four, we need extra help for supervisors and cleaning. Parents rearranging their own job schedules to do this and fill the roles. Five, we don't have enough money for the mitigation. Other districts can open because they have money. Federal and state government giving billions of dollars to schools to reopen. I read San Carlos school district getting several hundred thousand dollars. Six, kids need to wear PPE. We send our kids with two masks a day. They have plexiglass. The doors and windows are open. There are patios to teach in. It feels like this district and our union is actively looking for ways to keep kids out of the classroom. I see it more every day how my kids struggle to learn and emotionally deal with distance learning hybrid. I truly don't understand why I can go to

011the Great America Amusement Park in April, but my kids can't go to school full-time. There is no proof of classroom transmission. Schools are the safest public space and yet not running even close to normal. Thank you. And then the last one, Yanyi Fu. With the new guidance from the CDC and the update by the state of California, what is the San Carlos school district plans to get our kids back to full-time in-person learning? We've seen many other school districts now go back to full-time in-person. How can our school district do the same for our students? Neil, that's it. Thanks, Wendy. All right, Michelle, that will be then to you to kind of give us where we're at and then we'll open up to the board for some questions. All right. Well, good evening, trustees and

012our guests. I think the most important thing to celebrate right now is that we did start our hybrid model this week with our K-3 kids. It took a phase three and then phase four to kind of ramp up to getting into our hybrid model. And as you know, I've talked to the board members about this. It takes a lot of effort for the operational adjustments to be made whenever we have a schedule change. This is our fourth iteration of kind of inventing school again. And we're really pleased with how our first week is going so far. I really wanna recognize our principals for all the work that they have put in. There's so much complexity that has to happen in rescheduling and adjusting all the different schedules that are impacted when we do a schedule

013change. And our principals have done just a beautiful job working with all the specialists, special programs, transportation, custodials, all the different things that need to shift. So I just wanna really recognize and celebrate our elementary principals for making that big jump this week. Our middle school and 4-8 principals and schools are still in phase three. So 4-5 is in their third week and kids are coming two afternoons a week. And 6-8 have started their phase three, which is one session per week on Mondays. And they're both ramping up to begin their phase four, the full hybrid on April 12th. Again, especially middle school, the complexity of redoing the master schedule now for the third time to get ready for hybrid is quite a lift. And we really wanna recognize and thank our principals for all

014of that work that has gone in and also the help of the teachers that really do need to help divide up those kids, work out the details and figure out the best way to serve all of our students. As you remember in our middle school program, we have also the complexity of serving about 100 kids out of 900 kids in our middle schools who wanted a complete virtual program as an option. And so our two assistant principals and assistant principal worked with the teachers to come up with a schedule that really would meet the needs of all students. And so I'm really pleased to see the creativity and the amount of engagement they were able to create with students both live in person at school and also to support the students who are at home

015for the day and still engaging in live instruction with their teachers in the afternoon. So that's where we are. We're really looking at April 12th right now as a start for our middle schools and our four eight schools to start with their hybrid. We will finalize that tomorrow before we go to make sure we're all ready to go so that parents know what's happening. Either way, when we come back on the fifth after the break, they will still both be in phase three doing the same schedule they're doing right now. And that way we have that one week to make sure that we're ready to transition to that next phase. I see it not as much of a challenge in four, five. So I think we're pretty solidly ready to start on the 12th with

016four, five. With the six, eight, we just need to verify. Just need to continue to work with our principals tomorrow and also during the break to make sure that we're ready to go because there's still a significant amount of scheduling and things that have to happen. The good news is our educators are receiving their second vaccines. As you know, it's about a six week process to go through the whole inoculation process. So all of our educators had the opportunity to be vaccinated through the priority program through the county. So it's important to note that little nuance. We didn't require every single teacher to get a vaccine. We can't do that. We gave the opportunity for every educator in our system to get a vaccine. And the Sunday, March 7th was kind of the last round

017when we finished everybody off getting their first shot. So by April 19th, everyone should be completely inoculated. And I know for a fact, I just got mine also and I just feel so much better like many of our staff knowing that we have that extra layer of protection. So thank you to all of our educators who took the time to go do that. And we know it was a challenge to cover classes and schedule things. And it's important to note too, many of our staff members had some side effects after that second shot that people are managing too. So thank you to the parents for being patient and understanding when our teachers needed to take a little step away and to feel better. So I'm really pleased that we are rounding off the vaccination process.

018And really a big round of gratitude really goes to our County Office of Education for working with all the different stakeholders to get this done. A lot of work on the behalf of Nancy McGee and her crew to get this done through many different avenues. It wasn't a real straightforward approach. There were many different venues that we all were engaging in. So we appreciate their support in that. The last piece that I wanna talk about is really some good news. As we learned last week, the federal government for the first time gave some guidance on education for the first time. Joe Biden's administration and the CDC have said, we're going to impart a three foot social or physical distancing guideline. And they restricted that to pretty much elementary students. And it would be more restrictive

019for middle and high school students. But the three foot guidance was pretty much for the elementary. On Saturday, our own state then adjusted its guidance. CDPH, California Department of Public Health, adjusted its guidance to align somewhat with the federal government. Our CDPH actually has a more permissive approach. So the three foot spacing is not restricted to just elementary. There's no designation for grade levels. So the intent of having a three foot spacing at the state level is so that schools could open fully in the fall. That was their intent for not restricting it just to elementary with the intention of us being able to go back fully. So that's the good news. Now our next step is our own San Mateo County guidance needs to be adjusted and then provided to all of us and

020the County Office of Ed, who will then update the County framework, the pandemic recovery framework that will guide our plans. We're anticipating that guidance to come out probably next week during the spring break. We're anticipating it likely will be aligned very closely with the state guidance. So we're hoping and anticipating it's also three feet. That's what we're understanding, but I don't have that information now. But well, as soon as we get that, we will provide an update at our next meeting on the eighth. Knowing that this is coming down the line, as soon as this happened, even at the end of last week, we were already discussing this as leaders, talking about what are the implications? What would we need to do if we had a three foot spacing? Because as you recall, three foot

021spacing was never really in our plan. No one kind of gave us this heads up. It was do a hybrid and then we all go back to normal. I mean, there was no thought of an intermediate restriction or another phased or model that we would have to develop. So our leadership team immediately started talking about this. We all started looking at our room sizes, our configurations, furniture needs, and talked about what are the challenges that we might encounter that might present some challenges to a full return in the fall. So we already have started those conversations this week, and we will continue to look at our plans and see what we need to do to overcome any of those challenges for the fall so that we have a very solid plan coming back in the

022fall. And with our elementary class sizes, we should be pretty much fine with that three foot spacing. Our worry a little bit right now is what will that look like in grades four through eight? How many students can we fit comfortably in the room with that three foot spacing? And how much furniture will we have to remove? What are some of the challenges that we might have? For example, right now we have student tables where students sit next to each other. Do we need to rethink that? And do we need to purchase desks versus tables? We don't know. Will the tables be adequate if we can sit on the ends? Those are all the questions that our principals are already working on, already checking in with teachers to find out what would the needs be?

023How will this work? The challenge right now is we just found this out over the weekend essentially. And now we're also implementing our hybrid models, which is taking a huge operational lift and it's taking all of our time and energy of our leaders to get our kids back on campus. And that was our number one goal right now is get our kids back on campus to the greatest extent possible. So we need to implement that hybrid plan. And we're close to getting all of our K-8 students in that next level. I know there are a lot of parents who would like to immediately pivot to a full return to school. We're not operationally able to do that right now. And I think that's important for people to understand. Number one, it takes planning. It takes

024a little time. It takes our principals efforts and times to completely reschedule and problem solve on the sites. There are staffing changes and implications. There are schedule changes. So we just need a little bit of patience right now. And I think that the goal that we have right now is this guidance that's going to come out from the county is really to drive the summer programs that we are expected to run so that we can deal with learning recovery and also to drive our fall planning. So we're committed to bringing a plan to the board as soon as possible, as soon as we have that guidance. And we also have time to work with our teachers and our principals to problem solve and identify any challenges. And then that next step is to use those

025one-time funds that the state and federal government are providing to us for this purpose. Because of the efforts of our teachers and our principals, we returned earlier than most districts in this county in the purple tier. Our students started coming back on February 22nd, if you recall. And that started our phase three hybrid with our elementaries. And then next came the four fives and six eights. But the key to getting the return to school incentive money grant was to have all of our students back on campus by April 1st. And we achieved that. Many districts in our county have not achieved that. They're not even close to that. They have challenges that maybe we didn't have or whatever restricted them. But I'm really proud of our teachers for coming along with us and developing an

026MOU to come back in that purple phase because that gave us the lead time that we needed to move through those phases to bring everyone back. So you'll see in Christine's presentation soon that we are going to get that return to school incentive grant. We're already starting to use some of those funds already for some needs that are emerging right now with our new hybrid model. And then we also have some learning recovery funds and a little bit of federal money that comes. So we will use all of those funds combined creatively to return to school in the most fully actualized plan that we can based on the guidance. And we know that there are some gathering guidelines that are challenging, but we can work through those. For example, we can't send everyone out to

027lunch during the same hour like we used to. We're going to have to stagger lunches and maybe think about eating in the classroom, those kinds of things. So we have to plan those things now so that we are prepared for the fall. And we're already starting to work on those things. So again, staggered starts, staggered recesses, staggered lunchtimes require a lot of adult personnel and supervision. That's why I'm so grateful for over 70 campus supervisors, all parents and family members that have stepped up to help us out. And that's what's making the difference right now in our education, our hybrid education model. And we know we're going to need to sustain that kind of support in our full return to school because we're gonna still have staggered starts, staggered recesses, staggered lunchtimes and staggered recess

028lunches and staggered dismissals. And one principal cannot manage that. I mean, we've never had to have an extensive campus supervisor plan in this district before. We've had a little LaGarza help at lunch. We've had a little Smartie help, but this is a whole new staffing need. And our HR office, Jennifer Smith, has onboarded all 80 of these people, TV tests, fingerprinting, onboarding through our HR systems. It's been a huge lift in our HR office and a big thank you to our parents who stepped up. They said they would and they did. I'm really, really proud of our parents. That's gonna make a big difference for us. And that is what we needed to see. Do we have the resources? And the number one resource right now is this labor pool that our parents are providing

029for an hour a day or an hour and a half, whatever they can squeeze in. So with that, I think the last piece, I'll just touch base on, when I posted the agenda, our adjusted case rate was about 2.8 cases per 100,000. It dropped on Tuesday to 2.2 cases. So we're moving in the right direction. I think that's really good news. And we hopefully will continue to see improvements in our health rates across the county. So thank you. What questions or comments do you have? One quick, I just wanna clarify one point for everyone. The 70 campus supervisors we talked about, Michelle, is that of the 70 paid positions or are those just 70 people that have volunteered? No, those are 70 paid positions. We have another huge crew of volunteers and I need to

030thank them too, because the volunteers don't have to go through the process because they're really not on campus. So they're kind of helping with drop off and pick up out on the front where our campus supervisors are trained and they're going through all the health protocols and they're supervising recess, dismissal, coming in between classes, restroom supervision. They're just doing a lot of the on-campus. We really don't have capacity to have volunteers. We really need to have people go through the health screening, the trainings and things like that to be on campus with our teachers, because our teachers need to be protected from adult interactions too. So we're really limiting the number of adults that could be interacting on our campuses at that time. Go ahead, Irene. Hi, team. I just wanted to kind of probably

031say a couple quick thank yous and then just some questions. First of all, I just want to acknowledge all the tremendous work by our principals at the school sites. It has been a gigantic lift, not just to get kids onto campus, which is a huge win, but it's probably like the fourth replan that they've had to do, because guidance have always changed. I mean, I kind of make it akin of like, I'm the mom of two parents. And if all of a sudden I became the mom of eight parents and you imagine eight kids and my, you know, just family quadrupled overnight. I mean, it's just, it would be hairy. So a huge lift because it's not only just like running the schools and replanning, but it's also organizing all the new public health functions

032and all this like constraints. So I know to some of the, I know that we all hear from a segment of parents that want us to do more faster. And I do have deep sympathies being a parent myself of two kids who even though their teachers are like doing headstands and, you know, doing, going above and beyond engaging that the remote learning is hard. However, you have to understand that as a board, we also have to ensure that our educators are healthy and are able to sustain themselves, not only to educate this year, but for next. So I think going into my comment back to kind of like the board, like as we think about how do we spend our limited time and energy and resources, my top priority as a, and I want to

033hear what everybody else thinks, is that we have to start fall strong. I would like to kind of tell our community, we've already said so in email that we will be at like full, operate as fully open and fully as back to normal as possible. My personal perspective is what that means is like five days on campus learning, you know, with the three foot guidance for the fall. And I think what that means is that our professional come up with a plan for how we're doing hybrid. It has been a suboptimal year. We've got like eight weeks of school more or less after we come back from the spring break. And I would like to see us take this time to do fall really well. And I think that a lot of the parents, they're

034just really hearing a lot of the silent majority is like, they're just really hearing for that, thirsting for that reassurance of what fall might look like. But I'm curious to what others think. Irene, I think there's a lot of wisdom in what you say. I mean, I think we have to accept the reality that we're living in. The reality that we're living in is that we have been living in under conditional, continually changing conditions, changing requirements, changing guidance. And as Dr. Harmeier said, I think we're on about V4 of our plans. And with eight weeks to go in the school year to yet put another burden on our leadership and our educators to pivot yet again, I really question number one, if that's the right thing to do from a program quality standpoint, because I

035think the reality is our staff are overburdened already. And I really want to set them up for success for the last eight weeks of the school year. And as Irene said, to start out strong. So thank you for setting the tone with that wisdom, Irene. Sir, Wendy. I brought up a question last time for Dr. Harmeier about, I've been talking about it in terms of learning loss, how to address learning loss. And then you rephrased it this evening, Dr. Harmeier. You said learning. Learning recovery. Thank you, learning recovery is a good way to phrase it, I'm gonna write that down. But I know that there is a need in our community, especially for our kindergartners, our first graders, our second graders. Like we've talked about them since the beginning of the school year, our urgent

036learners. So my question last week was, I know that, I mean, I'm hearing my colleagues. Yes, I understand that we're in phase three, trying to move to phase four. There's always been a lot of moving parts here, but I'm really, my focus now is, what can we offer for the summer? We know we're getting these funds, that's a win. Because our parents of those younger kids are really hurting. And I want to know that we have, at the very least, all I wanted to ask Dr. Harmeier is if we can, after spring break, it might not be the first meeting we have, but maybe it's the second meeting in April, that maybe by then teachers could have communicated with some of those parents. And I don't think that they're expecting you to hand them a

037schedule, these hours in a day for how many days, that's okay. But I think we just need to signal and get out another survey or whatever it is to those parents so that they have some reassurance. And I think that this new guidance from the county health in San Mateo County Office of Ed is also gonna help us then to really put together a robust program, right? Because the conditions have changed. And so I'm hopeful for that, because I also think that will set us up for success for the fall. So I feel like, I know we're putting so much effort into phase four, and I want the public to recognize that we have an extremely lean district office and our assistant superintendent is out, Hans Barber is out on medical leave, something that he's

038needed, he had to plan for, but it took a year. So we need to recognize that our district office is lean and working extremely hard, for HR to onboard all these people that are helping us in this transition. So that's my ask, that's kind of where my head is at, again, it's just sort of always putting one step, one foot in front of the next. And I think that the summer for me is that next step. Yeah, Wendy, if I could just speak to that, we've already talked about as a team, to get the input through our LCAP engagement process from teachers, from parents, from staff about what are our student needs. And we're starting to analyze the second trimester data from our students, we're looking at math, reading and length, reading, math and writing

039data. And we're really analyzing that as a whole team, we're looking at the whole district together. And that data then will be shared with our site councils, it'll be shared with our teachers and just some initial looks to let you know that we're not seeing the kind of learning loss we were really worried about. We are seeing pretty consistent writing and reading scores, math, I think there's a little bit of a gap, a little slow down there. But overall, we're feeling pretty confident that we've got some academics grounding there. What we truly know we're lacking is that social ability, that emotional, that being together socially, we're critically in need of that. And so that's why we're so pleased that this week, we're back, our little kiddos are playing. I got to visit the campuses and

040I was just watching a group of fifth graders, they had their break from class and the teacher was out there and I just got to stand by the teacher and we just sat there and I was, again, I get choked up, these kids were just playing, just playing on the blacktop. One ball, didn't matter, they're having a good time. That's what they need right now. So to address that, we know academics kind of where our kids are, we're identifying where those gaps are. One of the things we're going to do after the break, we have a couple of surveys that we're gonna be putting out. We're gonna, first of all, look at how can we develop a summer program that makes sense for this summer school, save some funds for next year to support the

041return and also another summer school next summer, a year from now. And we need to survey our teachers to look at interest. What is the interest? How large of a program can we build based on the interest of our educators, our teachers, our paraprofessionals to run some kind of a summer program and we have lots of different configurations and ideas we're already thinking about. And then really targeting our students who have those severe academic gaps first. If anyone's there, that academics have got to be part of it. But there's also that social emotional part that we would like to be able to address for those learners that really need that. So we are gonna be doing some surveying after the spring break about those kinds of programs. Also, we're gonna be surveying about the connections

042program. As of June 30th, it looks like SB 98, which is the bill that really drove the instructional minutes and guidelines for teaching this year that required a virtual program to be provided to families if they wanted it, that bill will sunset essentially. So we won't be required to have a distance learning program next year, but we wanna find out if there's interest. So again, we're going to survey the parents that are currently in the program now and find out what that level is because we would like to see what the need is. And we'll also survey our staff to see if there's interest from the staff to do a full year virtual program. So that might be an option that we continue to provide for next year as well. Just to let you know,

043there's a lot of surveying and a lot of engagement that will be happening April, May, and then finalizing that in June. Okay, and I guess I would just say that's helpful to have more of the context. And I guess I'm just asking too, again, that if we already know some families that whose children have had challenges academically, that, I mean, I just think we need to identify, we need to identify that population that is willing and should be prioritized for the summer learning. And I'm just saying, I think we need to do that sooner rather than later. So it would just be nice to have some of the concrete survey results. I'm not saying necessarily that we have to go over survey data in a port meeting, but I think I just, we need to

044be informed of how many and when that's gonna be finalized, I think. Yeah, I agree, Wendy. And again, this district hasn't run summer programs. We haven't had money to run summer programs, at least probably not in the last 20 years that I'm aware of, except for our ESY, our extended school year. So again, now we are looking at building a whole new program, you know, systems that we haven't had. And again, it just, we are putting all of these responsibilities on our plates and we're gonna get it done and we will have it ready because there's a real strong interest on all of our parts to try to address as many of those needs this summer as we can and then have a stronger start for those kids in the fall. Okay, thanks. Michelle, does

045it make any sense to try to collaborate with neighboring districts on summer programs since we don't have that expertise and that is yet an additional program to design in between now and September when we really wanna be, I mean, I want us to be able to offer a quality summer program to our students and I wanna do it the most efficiently and effectively as possible. And if there are districts that have been doing this that we could partner with and we could leverage that, I would offer that as a strategy. Okay, we'll look into that. Sir, anything? Yeah, I am just in agreement with everything that Irene said and I wanted to echo the appreciation and gratitude for the enormous time and effort that our principals have been putting in as well as our teachers

046and district office staff and every person who is employed by the district and has been on campus, it's been incredible and I think the past month has been really, really successful and I hope that you are proud of that and I am proud and grateful. So thank you for everything that you have done and are doing. So, board, I just wanna make sure, because I think it's important to communicate clearly kind of what guidance we're giving the districts. If I'm at this point in time or the first part of it is that we want full-time in-person back in the fall, given what we have. That sounds like what the board is giving as primary direction number one, am I right? All right, so Michelle, I think you got that. That's primary direction. Is just because

047the planning you're gonna have to do for the fall is the same planning you'd have to do if you're gonna flip the switch tomorrow. So I would just like to know as we are developing those things, what can we do now, right? I think what I've learned over this time is the importance of, I know when you talked about kind of learning loss, that's not necessarily the thing I see the most of, it's enjoyment of learning. I think that's the thing that I've seen the biggest loss in in kids is the connection to a campus, connection to a teacher, connection to their friends, makes them curious, makes them enjoy learning, makes them want to do it as lifelong learners, right? That's our strategic plan to make them lifelong learners. So what I'm trying to figure

048out is kind of as this plan comes, can you give me kind of the cadence of what's gonna come back to the board on like a timeline so we can know what the barriers are, right? So if we know we need to buy furniture, then how quickly we need to turn that around because I don't want it to be like every other supply chain that's occurred so far. That's kind of what I'm looking for once the guidance hits from the county is what is it that we're gonna need and what is it that we're looking at and kind of a list of what those barriers are that we're facing. And then so we can start spending, so we can start planning, knowing our goal is returning to normal and then finding ways to kind of

049work backwards to see what we can and can't do, whether that's summer, whether that's sometime in the fall. I know, I think the hardest part about this is everyone's always said the same or what I've learned or what's been told to me during the superintendent searches, the problem with the board this year has been, it sounds like things come to us and then we just make decisions, but no one really knows when those decisions are made. And I think that's a fair assessment. I think it's just hard given COVID to plan anything, but I think what I'd like to do is as these barriers come known, I would like to be updated on them so we know when we can make those decisions and if not flipping the switch on everyone. I mean, obviously knowing

050tonight that we've given you strong guidance to make sure that the fall is successful, but also knowing that we can still, as Wendy said, do things in the summer, maybe do certain things in the fall. We just need to know what they are so we can support all the hard work that's being done. I think that's the biggest part is that all this work is being done. It's just hard to communicate it at the pace that we're at. So, I'd like to support everyone to do it just kind of knowing where we're at, but that's where I'm at as well to kind of give you some guidance as these things come up. You can assist the board in the cadence of it and the timing and I think that'll assist parents as well for what

051we can do, because I think the point is taken. If we can do something now, then we should do it. We just need to be successful at it, right? That's, I think what the community needs to understand is the board's biggest goal has always been success just because of how lean we are, the budget cuts we've had to take for the last two years and go from there. So, that's kind of where I'm at with it. But I think, board chime in if we don't, I think we've given some fairly good guidance on what we want, but if I missed anything, please chime in. I'd like to chime in because this is the first time we're having this discussion based on changing guidelines and I don't feel that I'm very informed on where our staff

052are. We have asked along the way, can we survey parents and survey teachers to understand, are they comfortable coming back in different tiers and whatnot and who's ready and who's not? We know that there's still a significant percentage of parents that aren't comfortable sending their kids back right now because conditions have changed fairly quickly, but they also change fairly quickly in the other direction and that's just been the nature of our year. But I guess what I'm asking is, I didn't think we were coming to a decision tonight about what the rest of the school year is gonna look like based on what's happened in the last two weeks. So- We're done, that's, sorry, that's not- And that's what I'm trying to clarify here, right? Like what guidance are we giving Dr. Harmeier? Because again,

053we know that we need to move from phase three to phase four. We have a phase four. I know the fourth through eighth graders are, have eagerly returned in phase three and are gonna be ready and excited to be back more in as of April 12th. So I just wanna be clear on what we're all sort of, what the consensus is and guidance that we're giving Dr. Harmeier. Okay. And what I'm asking is that until today, we haven't had this discussion and I don't know that I have enough of a sense of where our teachers are at, especially in terms of, I mean, I am just throwing out the question. I mean, is we are gonna start phase four and we still have some of the school year left. So are we going to learn?

054Are teachers gonna say this is way more complicated than if we were resuming, you know, our sort of regular academic or regular kind of schedule that we would for a four or five, six, seven, eight campus. That's all I'm asking because I feel like we're, we don't have that understanding. I don't at least. One question is I don't understand the question then. Teachers, what will teachers be willing and able to do because we haven't even done phase four yet and we know it's very complicated. And I attended the town hall meeting this week and we appreciate that it's been weeks in the making to get to where we're at on that phase four plan. But all I'm saying is that we might start it and then say, you know what? You know, this is a

055huge headache or maybe they do wanna pivot. I don't know. So all I'm saying is I don't wanna, are we setting something concretely now through the end of the school year? That's what I'm asking. So I can address that a little bit, Neil. As you know, Wendy, we have a memorandum of understanding with our teachers that takes us through the end of the school year, assuming staying in the model four or the phase four hybrid model. And if we are going to do something other than our phase four model, then we would need to negotiate a change. And in order to do that, we need guidance. So our MOU is based on the changing health guidance that the county and the state give us. And we're restricted to whatever our county guidance is. So that

056county guidance will be updated within the next week or so. We don't know exactly when. But at that point, right now we're moving forward with the assumption that we're gonna follow our MOU agreement with our teachers and finish the year in the hybrid model. That's our assumption right now. And now remember, either party can come back to the table and say, you know what? This hybrid is just so hard. Let's just figure something else out. And we're always willing to come back to the table and renegotiate when conditions change. And we are on constant communication with the teachers. And this question will always arise because our goal is to give as much in-person instruction as we can provide. But we also have to make sure that we can successfully do that operationally and with the

057staffing and the furniture and all the other things that we have in place right now. So we'll continue to check in with our teachers and the association is not shy in letting us know what's working, what's not. We wanna change or whatever. We have a very good working relationship and we'll continue to get input from them. Maureen, do you have something else? I had a process suggestion. So it's not a plan. It's not a proposal on what we do with school, but just process-wise. Again, there's about eight or nine weeks of school left after we come back from the spring break. And there's a lot of work to be done to get ready for the fall. And our board meetings are at every two-week tempo. So to have a closer loop between the board, Dr.

058Harmer and the principals. And my other eye is we're gonna have a superintendent transition. And I think it behooves us to build an even closer relationship between the board and the principals, just to have a lot of empathy for all the operational considerations and all that. We could revive a superintendent subcommittee where maybe there's a representative from the board. And then maybe there's a rep from the principals and maybe they meet for 30 minutes a week, just so that you can get the latest update on what it takes to get schools to plan for summer and fall. Okay, I think that's a great suggestion. I'd probably let you work that out with Dr. Harmer if that's something over the break and we can bring it back at the next meeting. There is kind of that

059cadence or that I think capacity amongst everyone. But I do think that's a good idea if that's what they need. But we'll check in with Dr. Harmer on it and go from there. That's kind of the best suggestion, is that okay? Fine by me. I mean, I'm just bringing it up to see if there is appetite. I'm sensing there's appetite for kind of greater flow of information. And so that was like one way to do it outside of our two-week tempo. Well, and as far as the transition point, I just think as Irene is saying, I think for the board to understand a little bit better around with leadership at the site level, with the challenges or the concerns or the needs. I mean, it's not that we don't trust you, Dr. Harmer to be

060communicating that in a way that is obviously transparent, but it's just, there's also this transition that's happening as Irene signaled because you won't be here after June. So there's that piece of it that is adding just a level of complexity to it and wanting to ensure that they're gonna be supported through this. Anyways, so we can talk about Irene's proposal, I guess through, you can follow up by email or something. So if there's no opposition then with that, then I can work with Irene and find maybe another one. And then I'll check in with principals to see if we might have just a way to do some check-ins just to keep everyone connected. And I'd be happy to facilitate that. And Neil, to get back to your question, you're kind of wondering about timeline and

061cadence of things. Every meeting, we have a return to school report and update and I will continue to bring as much information as I can. On the eighth, I believe we'll have more information on the guidance. As you know, tomorrow is Friday. Everyone's gone for the spring break next week as far as our principals, our teachers, we have some district operations that are still happening next week. And then we have a board meeting on Thursday night. So I will provide update on the guidance and any additional updated challenges or information that we have discovered that may impact fall plans on the eighth. And then the 22nd is our next board meeting. And by that time, I'm hoping that we have a substantial amount of input and engagement around what are the needs of our students

062and our needs to return. So we can start to bring some draft ideas and run those by the board as well. So you can start to see how those one-time funds might best benefit our return next year. That sound okay? Yeah, I have two comments on that, Dr. Harmeier. I think having the return to school update at every board meeting is really valuable. And I think maybe what it's difficult for the public and then also the board to understand is at a particular meeting, what are you expecting the board to take action on or give guidance on? Because there's no like a PowerPoint or something. It's all done in a verbally. And so I think it's hard for people to see when those decision points are. Because they're kind of just embedded in the conversation

063and it's not called out in the executive summary that the board is being asked to take action to determine X, Y, Z the rest of the school year, the fall and give a guided. So I think just a little bit more clarity in those that would help it maybe to Neil's point of people not really knowing when the board's gonna be making decisions. So that's just one suggestion. And then my other is relative to the fall and setting expectations about what we are open to planning in the fall. I think maybe we need to have more of a discussion on whether we would want to offer a full-time connections program if it's not something that the state is requiring, given the complexity of how it impacts particularly our middle school schedules and the planning for

064staff. I just personally wanna be really cognizant of how much extra burden it is on our administrative staff to plan and run multiple models in a year. And while it's a nice to have, if it's not required, is it something that we wanna be surveying about and set an expectation that this is something we're considering offering? So this is just my opinion. It's not the rest of the board, but it's a thought. Carol, if I could address the two items. As you may have recalled earlier in the year, we've always made the return to school an action discussion because we just didn't know what was happening from week to week. And that kind of gave us some flexibility. On weeks when I knew we needed a decision to be made, I was very clear in

065that, in our kind of the agenda item, seeking approval to approve the return by whatever. And so I did have a couple of times where we knew we needed some action and it was really clear. As you know, we haven't had to take action for a while because we have an MOU, we had a clear plan for return. So we would likely will revert back to our regular schedule next year unless something changes. So I'll make that very clear. We likely will return to our regular contract and not require an MOU for next year because we're gonna move back to our regular session. So I think that's important that we're anticipating an end of that SB 98, which means all instructional minutes and times and days go back to normal and which means our working

066conditions gonna go back to normal as well. So we're not anticipating needing a new MOU for next year. So there would not necessarily be action needed on the part of the board, but I'll definitely get clarification and make it really clear in our agendas when there's going to be a big decision made or some action taken. So everyone is cued into that, but you're right. And it's just been a little while since we've taken action on any particular item. But at the same time, new information just keeps coming every week as we've been going along. And it's mostly been to inform, discuss, get direction and continue to move forward to bring kids back. And the second piece is that online program. We learned today that it's recommended that we don't start a particular school for

067online if you're going to offer an online program. It's truly out of need from your families and treat it more like an independent study, almost a home hospital type of program so that you do have some flexibility with instructional minutes and times and days because the law will end. The law will not say you can do that anymore. So that's the recommendation we received actually just yesterday afternoon. So we definitely want to survey our parents and find out what is the level of need? How great of a need is that? And then we'll decide what capacity we have to support that. And so that's what the survey will hopefully share with us. We've been at it for now a little about close to an hour. Are there any final thoughts or any final direction for

068Dr. Harmar before we move on? Hearing none, we will, as always, keep this up the next board meeting with hopefully more up-to-date guidance from the county and what that would mean for us once we lock in and all the continued updated planning that is doing behind the scenes. So I will move us on to agenda item 10B, approval of the second interim budget. We had a discussion on this last time. And I think, Christine, are you sharing your screen? No, you're off. I think we need to approve the second interim before we move on to the budget assumptions draft. Were there any proceeds or any other follow-up to the second interim budget from our last meeting? Yeah, I hate to do this, but there was one more public comment that came in on 10A. That's

069fine, we'll read it now. Thanks for letting me know. Yeah, I refreshed and saw one more. Let me just read this last one. This is from Kamala Omenbauer. First off, I am so appreciative of the work that has been done to bring students back on campus. I am, however, disheartened that urgent learners and IEP students were ignored during the bringing students back to class plans. The plan was originally to bring these students back under the phase the board decided to forgo. These two in favor of bringing all students back. This is a disservice to all students and teachers. These students need help. They've gone a year without their services. These children have developed coping mechanisms during DL. They're now going to be easily channeled into a classroom setting. How are teachers going to address these

070students' needs while also trying to teach? Parents and teachers are going to get frustrated and overwhelmed with these students once they return to class. This is not their fault. When will the district prioritize the at-risk and special needs families? And that is it. Thanks, Wendy. So now we'll go back to 10B, the approval of second interim budget trustees. Any follow-up with Christine or Dr. Harmeyer before? I call for a motion of approval of the budget. Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the second interim? I move to approve the second interim. Thank you, Carol. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Sarah. All in favor of approval of the second interim budget, please state by saying aye. Aye. Any opposition? Hearing none, that will carry by zero. Now, Christine, we'll have you move on

071to 10C, our budget assumptions. Veronica, I need you to upload the presentation, please. Can you forward to the next slide, please? Okay. Good evening. I'll be talking about the 21-22 budget assumptions, which we will use as a tool to develop our district's budget. As more detailed information is received from the federal, state, and local level, the assumptions will be adjusted. There was a six page document that was attached as part of the agenda item, but I will be highlighting the major assumptions and the one-time federal and state funds. Next slide, please. This chart represents the enrollment trend for our district for the past eight years and projecting continued declining enrollment for 2021-22 and 22-23. As you can see, the highest level was in 2017-18, and it dropped 100 students the following year. And the next

072highest, largest decline was in this current year, 2021. We are projecting a continued decline in 21-22 and remaining flat the following year. Next slide, please. What does it mean to our district with declining enrollment? As we lose students, the district loses state aid or our general purpose revenue. We will still remain an LCFF district because our property tax is less than the LCFF entitlement. Our property tax is 95% of our LCFF entitlement, so we are about 5% or 1.1 million away from being basic aid. And what is a basic aid district? Basic aid means that a school district is primarily funded by local tax revenues, and it occurs when the local property tax revenue of a district exceeds the total LCFF funding. Who determines a district if it's going to be LCFF or basic aid?

073The County Office of Education and the Comptroller's Office determines if a district becomes basic aid or LCFF. The Comptroller's Office calculates the property tax amount, and the San Mateo County Office of Ed calculates the LCFF to determine the basic aid or LCFF status. The County Office of Ed performs two calculations a year, one at P-1, when property tax is projected in November and is based on the district's adopted LCFF calculator, which happens in June. The second is at P-2, when the property tax is projected in April, and it's based on the California Department of Education P-1 funding, it's complicated. So CDE is involved because they officially certify which districts are basic aid or LCFF based on the property tax reports provided by County Office of Ed in November and in April. So when a district

074flips to being basic aid or LCFF, the County will notify districts. Next slide, please. Here are the assumptions for the proposed budget and multi-year. The proposed COLA is 3.84% for 2021-22, 1.28% for 2022-23, and 1.61 at 23-24. As we move into 2021-22, we are estimating our enrollment to be about 2,800, and our ADA is about 90% of that. But in the governor's proposal, he agreed to hold us harmless for one more year, which means we could be funded at the ADA level from 2019-20, which is the 2,931 instead of the 2,725. So our funding would increase about $978,000 in 2021-22. But when we go into 2022-23, you can see the impact it has on our funding because we are funded on our actual ADA from 2022-23, which is the 2,735 kids. So we're losing about

075200 kids, and that's the 200, the funding for it too. Because in 2022-23, we are no longer have the whole harmless provision from 19-20. Next slide, please. As I have been mentioning during the interim reports, pension costs continue to increase with no additional funding from the state. And we are anticipating building in the enterprise transfer to the general fund. Next slide, please. Our staffing assumptions for next year is adding one counselor to fill the current vacancy. For this year, we are using contractor services to maintain the service. Because of our declining enrollment, we anticipate losing two teaching positions. However, we still need to fill the middle school position, so it nets to zero. Our other staffing level will remain the same, and it's pending any input from the LCAP engagement. Next slide. Okay, this slide

076is about our federal COVID funds. The federal funds came in three rounds. The first round, which was approved on March 27th of 2020, was called the CARES Act, which included the COVID relief funds slash learning loss medication funds, SR1 and GEER. The second round was approved on December 27th in 2020, and it's called Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, long word, which included the SR2 funds. The third round was recently approved, and it's called the American Rescue Plan, which includes the SO3 funds. For the first rounds of funds, we use the funds in addressing learning loss, academic intervention, devices, PPE, and for school nutrition. Next slide, please. I put together a slide to give us an idea where we are as far as our current status of what has been spent, encumber what means

077what's our outstanding obligation and what's left in those funds. I have listed our entitlement, the resource code, and the deadline on when we need to spend the funds. The first rounds of CARE funds, we were not entitled for SR1 because we were not eligible for Title I dollars in 2019-20. For the CRF and the learning loss and GEAR funds, they all had to be included in our learning continuity plan, how we were going to spend those funds. For SR2, we are eligible to funds because we were eligible for Title I dollars in 2020-21 since our poverty level was above 2%. Also, we are also eligible for SO3 dollars, and it's about $200,000. And after we receive the funds, we must plan for in-person instructions in order to receive the funds. Next slide. On this slide

078is the new state funding, ABSB 86. And what the state has done is taking those funds and split them into two pots of money. So I have listed our entitlement, also the resource code because they're restricted, and the deadline on when we need to spend the funds. The first pot of funds is the in-person instruction grant, and our funding is about $843,000. Funds can be used for COVID testing, cleaning and disinfection, PPE, ventilations, and salaries for providing in-person instruction and mental health support. The second pot of funds is the expanded learning opportunity. Our total entitlement is $1.7 million. However, the state has broken it out in two resources. 1.6 million of the funds can be used for extended instructional learning time, learning recovery, and professional development. And at least 10% or 177,000 of the funds

079must be used to hire paraprofessionals. As you can see, like I said, the state has assigned different resource codes for the grants. For both of these grants, the district must adopt an expenditure plan by June 1st in order to receive the funds. I'm open to any questions or discussion. Fantastic, thank you, Christine. Really appreciate the assumptions. Trustees, I'll open up to anyone here first if they have any questions for Christine about the assumptions kind of going forward. I think there's a couple of things that I wanna just highlight again. So to set expectations with the public because there's a lot of press around the schools getting more money and how much schools are getting. And this certainly shows that we are getting some and I find it very opaque because we have about a half

080a dozen different funding streams listed here. And it seems like a lot of money, but then at the same time, we have Redwood City, we are getting 800,000 for the federal money. Redwood City is getting $22 million, right? And they have three times the number of students. So I really want the public to understand when they see that there's a lot of money out there, it's not coming to our district, unfortunately. And the money that is coming is highly restricted. So, I mean, we always are grateful for that, but I think it's really important that we set expectations about what this revenue does in terms of not being able to stabilize our budget in the way that we need, frankly. So that's number one. And my number two is when in the process are we

081going to have conversations about things like that we had to reduce in the past? And I know that we have to look at the budget holistically, but we are still missing one middle school vice principal and we have not returned librarians. We haven't gotten the counselors back up to the full staffing level that we would want. And frankly, that's even close to what we're going to need given the onslaught of mental health needs that we know that are gonna be coming our way with what students have been experiencing. So I know this is a starting point. It sounds like from a revenue standpoint, but what's the process for looking at those relative to our budget? Carol, that's a good question. The next steps that we're doing is developing our local control accountability plan, our LCAP.

082Three years ago, you adopted an LCAP with goals and it was a three-year process that has now ended. And now we need to develop a new three-year LCAP. And in order to align the goals of the district with the budget, we need to have really authentic engagement with our teachers, our parents, our staff to really analyze our student data, our student needs, make our priorities surface, and then start to align those priorities with the funds. So it's like starting all over again with that LCAP process. So we are in the process. Lisa Cesario, retired superintendent, is serving as an interim right now for us in Hans's absence. And she's going to stick with us all through this whole LCAP process through the remainder of the year. She is working closely with us already where we've

083already started analyzing student data, has to start with student needs, then develop process to talk to our stakeholder groups, principals will talk with their site councils, their teachers. We're going to get all of that engagement back and then bring that to the board. And we'll do that, I think through a study session is probably the most effective way to surface what the needs rose, how they kind of surfaced and then make some decisions about how we want to prioritize our budget needs. And that's going to happen very quickly. It's going to happen at the very end of April. April 22nd, we'll probably bring a first draft of some of those things. And then beginning of May, again, based on some direction and feedback, because on May 25th, we need to approve the plan to use

084our learning recovery funds by May 25th because it's due to the county office by June 1st. So that's where all those, the pots of money, the federal and the state one-time funds, we want to have that plan ready to go by May 25th and approved by you so we can get that ready. Then that is a set aside from our general fund because those are one-time restricted funds. So the LCAP does not include those funds. The LCAP will be done separately. That's a three-year plan, ongoing goals, ongoing funds, LCFF kind of based funds. And that has to be completed by the middle of June. So we'll bring on that May 25th, we'll bring a draft of the whole picture plan at the same time. And then June 3rd, we'll have a public hearing. And then

085the next June meeting we'll approve the budget and the LCAP. And I think, do you mean May 20th? We don't have a meeting on the 25th. Yeah, whatever that last meeting is, thank you. Okay. So I think a question I have for the board is, we talked about having, this is a discussion. This is a kind of a miniature study session kind of opportunity to ask questions or to give direction. I really believe there is a need for a study session where we can go into more depth to really look at not just our general funds, but also there's questions about all of these other funds that we have that I think it would be really good to go into more depth to talk about how we can use funds, the goals of using these

086funds, because we did receive some money this year that was long-awaited, but unexpected. And that was our bond money to do facility improvements. Those funds are now back into our budget in our own special fund, the bond fund. I think it's fund 25, yeah. So I think it would be helpful for us to really, for transparency and education, Wendy and Sarah are pretty new. They didn't really get to go into those in-depth discussions that we did the first two years when we were really analyzing our funds and understanding them. I think it's time to do that again, so that we can really think about how can we be creative in using these funds? What are the restrictions? What are the opportunities? And I think that'd be a good discussion for the whole group to go

087through. So I thought I would work with Neil in setting up a specific kind of study session time. And it's not always the best to attach it to a regular meeting, but I know there's so many meetings right now with all that's going on that we want to be sensitive to not kind of stack too many in one week. So I thought I'd work with Neil on finding that opportunity for a study session. But I think what I would like, Christine and I both need to know, or specifically what direction can you give us about what you would like to be able to study in-depth in that meeting so that we can be fully prepared to not only educate, but also give you a chance to give direction on the larger budget. Michelle, before we

088dive into any kind of direction, are there any kind of big questions or issues that you and the staff are kind of, our professional educators are just wrestling with, or what are the big topics on your mind? I think we have a structural budget problem as the state gives us less and less money each year, and our costs go up and up each year. Just when you look at the STRS and PERS, and then just the cost of living adjustments, we are getting it being flat funded, but our bills are higher, so we have less discretionary money. I think that's the big problem that we have to acknowledge. Our district is, this started, was it six years ago or seven years ago, Christine, that the state started pushing the cost of PERS and STRS more

089and more onto districts. It's been a slow ramp up, but it is slowly chipping away at our general fund, and more of our funds are going for healthcare costs, more for benefits, for pension and benefits, and it's just making it really, really difficult to maintain a competitive salary for our staff, and that's all levels of our staff, our district staff, our principals, our teachers, our classified staff. It makes it very difficult for us to compete with our surrounding neighbors, especially we're surrounded by basic aid, high wealth districts that can compensate their employees at a much higher rate, because they're getting more funding every year. In a basic aid district, it's important to note what another dynamic they've experienced in these last few years. Their property taxes, okay, remember that, here's the Prop 98, here's property

090taxes. Their property taxes keep going up. Their number of kids have been declining. So they're actually experiencing more dollars per student, which enables them to give more compensation to employees because they have more discretionary money. So it's a very interesting dynamic in those high wealth districts. We, on the other hand, when we have declining enrollment, we lose not only the revenue that pays for a teacher, 75% then is also operational that we have to reduce. So we are really struggling, and I think I don't have a big, I don't have a other challenge other than helping to inform and help this community understand our unique challenge of being a state-funded district in declining enrollment, losing revenue every year while our costs are going up every year. And this is a three-year conversation, and I know

091it's hard to hear and people don't want to hear this news, but this is why we worked so hard last year to get ahead on our parcel tax. We pushed it early. We went early, we went hard, we passed it, we renewed it, but it was an $88 increase. We knew that wouldn't solve all of our problems, but we knew it was a way to be assured that it would pass, and we did. We raised our revenues $800,000 a year. That was a huge, huge help to our budget, and we have to celebrate that, but we have to realize that our revenues are still going down, our parcel taxes remaining the same. That's really good news, but I think we have to think about our future on how can we increase revenues? How can we

092continue to decrease expenditures where we can? And I'm really struggling with how to reduce expenditures. I feel like we have done almost $2.8 million of reductions, I think is the number since I got here. My first year, we had a $2.4 million reduction plan. We only actualized about 1.5 million. Then the next year, we had about an 800,000 reduction plan. It's all kind of variable, because we brought things back and did other cuts, and so my numbers are vague right now, but we've made significant operational reductions to try to keep up with the decrease in revenues, and I think it's gonna be an ongoing challenge that we're going to have to acknowledge and all work together to figure out how to manage this fragile budget. Well, it's just a couple of questions to keep us

093on track and not grow off the public, because we're talking about assumptions. Are there any other questions for Christina regarding assumptions from any of the trustees regards of her presentation? Go ahead, Wendy. I have a quick question just on the ABSB 86 one-time funding. I guess I just wanted to understand there's different line items. I think I'm looking at slide nine. It was the last slide, but no, just that there's a separate line item for expanded learning professionals, and then this other, the 177K, and then 1.6 for expanded learning opportunities. So I guess, I mean, are we just assuming that both of those are gonna go towards summer learning? And obviously these are one-time funds, but is that just, would both of those be used for that? Like the definition of those, do we have

094any more detail on them? Well, the 177 has to be spent on paraprofessionals, and the 1.6 million can be used for extended instructional learning time or a learning recovery or any professional development. So Dr. Homari, can you expand on expanded learning paraprofessionals? What does that translate to? So when this bill was passed, there was a real effort on the side of the classified unions, CSEAs, to say, hey, we want to ensure that the districts are using some of those funds on the paraprofessionals to help support learning. And so what they did is they said, they just designated, they said, you have to use 10% of your grant on paraprofessionals. That means that we have to hire additional paraprofessionals. We cannot supplant. So we could hire more behavior paras, learning paras, reading paras. It's essentially a

095classified pool. And we have several different classifications of paraprofessionals in our district. So we're obligated to use those funds strictly for paraprofessionals. Those paras can help during a summer school program. They can help during the regular school year. They could help with even an afterschool program as long as they're supervised by a certificated staff member. So sometimes afterschool programs might be a teacher and three paras, and maybe they have a cluster of kids, right? That's one model. So we have this summer, during the school year and next summer to use that 1.7 million. I like to say there's three buckets, summer school, regular school, summer school. And throughout that time, we have to use 10% of those funds on paraprofessionals to provide that additional learning support. Thank you. Okay, and then the other question I

096just had is timing. These are deadlines of by when we have to spend the money, but by when are we going to receive these funds? So that for the summer, for example, do we know? No, we don't have that information yet. We don't know how soon we would have the funds. You know, we're hearing some information about this. It's like, I know we can count on going ahead and planning and spending the money for this summer. So we're okay. It's not like we can't plan summer because we're not sure we're going to get it. So we're getting the money. I don't know exactly when it's gonna come. That's a technical piece that Christine will work through, but we can be assured that we're getting it. So we need to make plans to use it. And

097there won't then be a cashflow situation, cashflow problem. I mean, okay. It's our trend in place. Okay. All right. Yep. Thanks. Good question. Good question, Wendy. Christine, I have one question on the basic aid aspect that you talked about in the assumptions. The county you said updates the state off of the tax roll November and April. Yes. And how is that? I guess the question is, is that like retroactive or is there a lag time with it, right? Because obviously there's been quite a turnover in housing around here. So I'm just wondering like, is it, how often is it updated or is it, you know, looking backwards? The CDE certifies the apportionments every February and April. Okay. And then I guess in that regards, in your opinion, in terms of assumptions, kind of off of

098like same things we ran last year, like are we going to run into any more cashflow problems in your assumptions or has the trend covered majority of that? Well, the trend has covered cashflow, our cashflow situation with this year. For next year, I would have to finish building our budget for next year to see if we have a cashflow situation, but I anticipate that we won't because of all the, because of the one-time funds. And Christine, wasn't there discussion about the, because of the excess revenue the state's experiencing, are they going to reduce the deferrals or change the deferral timing? The deferrals are remaining for this year, but the deferral goes away next year because of the governor's January proposal. So he's not holding back money for next year. That's really good news for us.

099Go ahead, Irene, finish. Hey, just a quick comment. And this is about the spending of the one-time funds. I know the education trust just put out some really nice briefs on kind of like key strategies and they had three buckets. One was the expanded learning time, which we're talking about. The second one was tutoring, high-intensive tutoring. And the third one was strong relationships, which I think covers off counseling, mental health, that entire third bucket. Because it's hard to get programs up and running, it takes time and planning. We do have partners, in addition to neighboring school districts, which Carol pointed out earlier, but maybe Healthy Cities tutoring, which typically tutors once a week. Maybe they'd have a way to provide tutoring more often. And that could be a resource to draw upon. Great. With seeing

100nothing else, we don't need to approve this, but thank you, Christine, for doing this. And we will look forward to the next assumption update. I'll move us on to 10D, which is Temporary Certified Release Resolution. And this is to you, Michelle. Each year, we hire certificated staff, teachers, to serve roles that they just may not quite be credentialed for yet. And so they are on PIPs or STIPs, or different kind of credentialing mechanisms. And sometimes we hire teachers on a temporary certificate, also to cover for leaves of absence, so that we are not overstaffed when that person comes back from a leave of absence. So every year, we need to officially notify anyone on a temporary contract, that the end of their contract is coming. It's a make sure it's a certification that their time

101is ending. So this is a routine HR matter. We like to let people know as early as we can in March, that just really as a reminder that they have a temporary contract. In this case, you'll notice that the temporary certifications are not for people on leaves of absence or overstaffing in any way. It's people who are still gaining their credentials. So many of these people will be offered another opportunity or another year to continue with us, but we need to officially notify them that their temporary contract is ending. And then we will notify them if they will be rehired for next year. Great. Trustees, any questions to Dr. Harmeier in regards to this resolution? Questions or motions to approve 10D, the temporary certified release resolution? I move approval of 10D, temporary certificated release resolution.

102Thank you, Irene. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Wendy. All in favor, please state by saying aye. Aye. Any opposition? Hearing none, that will carry five, zero. All right, we are to agenda setting 11A. Trustees, is there anything you'd like to see us come back after the break outside of kind of our normal stuff we've been going on so far with our returned schools update? Anything else? A question as to when we will have another report on the DEI inclusion counts report, because they are coming out with a preliminary report that will be shared with the steering committee. So I'm just kind of wondering how either those of us who are on the steering committee, excuse me, would report out on that and or were we planning on having inclusion counts present? That's a

103good question, Wendy. I don't believe it would be inclusion counts reporting out. I think it would be our staff and I would rely on our board members because Wendy and Sarah are participating on that committee. What it's kind of up to you, timing wise, do you want to look at the eighth or the 22nd as a possible update for the board? I think I was looking at this yesterday. We've only had one steering committee meeting and the next meeting with that group is not until late April. And that's when I think we would be discussing kind of the findings. So Sarah, I don't know if you have a suggestion whether we should wait. I'm not trying to put it off because I certainly is the one that raised the question, but just kind of understanding

104that there's nothing in the agreement that they were gonna necessarily present to the board that they would be coming back. I think, I'm sorry, I'm trying to, it was actually in the calendar you shared with us, Dr. Herrmeyer. I saw those dates there. Yes, and if you notice, I think there's a, the report, the equity report is done, just so you know, board. So what we'll do is that's kind of being pushed out to our steering committee. I will share that report with you. It'll eventually end up on our website. We're gonna put a new landing page, so it'll be a public document. But because that report is out there, I think it's probably gonna be a good idea, Wendy, really on the eighth to just do a brief update. Where are we? Because the

105document is out there, and I think it'll be worthwhile to just keep our, the rest of the board members informed. And this is our only chance to talk about it. So how about if we go ahead and put just a quick discussion item on the eighth, maybe 15 minutes, because by then, everyone will have seen the report, they could read it through, and you can update about how the first meeting went. And Matt, I think would be adequate for right now. Okay. Does that sound okay? Yeah, I kind of forgot that, as you said, it will be posted on the website. So I don't think I remembered that. So will it be posted before the eighth, or will just the board have seen it before? No, I don't think so. We haven't built the web

106page yet. So we need to just get a new landing page. And we just wanna put the committee members on and stuff like that. So I'll be sending it out to our leadership team because they haven't seen it. The board hasn't seen it. This committee had its first chance to look at that. So we'll start to distribute that. But once I distribute it to the board, it does need to be available to the public. So the intention is to have it on our website as soon as we can. Okay. Okay, thanks. All right, thank you. I have a question. I guess it is related to agenda. What is the date for two plus two? I don't have that on my calendar. You can send that to me offline. Okay, we'll do that. Anything else? Great,

107I think we have it. We'll move on then to Wendy. Is there public comment on any non-agenda items? Nope, I refreshed and there wasn't. All right, thanks. In that case, we will move on to employee group comments. Dan, to you. Good evening. Angela Notten, our negotiations chair is gonna speak for our union tonight. Angela, you need to be unmuted. Veronica will help you get there, Angela. Thank you, everybody. I'm actually gonna keep this pretty short tonight. I know our teachers and everyone is looking forward to spring break. Here comes my dog, sorry about that. He likes to interrupt at the most opportune times. Good evening, everyone. My name is Angela Notten, as I was introduced. I am the bargaining chair for the San Carlos Teachers Association. And I wanted to follow up on some of

108the comments and concerns and everything that has been heard tonight. As we welcome students back over the past month, the word that I've heard from so many teachers and the number one emotion is around excitement. Teachers have actually shared with me that we feel, they feel, and I know I speak for myself as well, we're reinvigorated to have students with us in person once again. And I think it's really important to remember that and to acknowledge that that is our ultimate goal. And while we have received vaccines and we've received the new guidelines, is we continue to keep that in mind, but our ultimate goal is to get our students back in person. And while we would love to do that tomorrow, like all members of the community, to throw open our doors and hear

109the sounds of students in our classrooms and our hallways full time, it would be amazing. But we also want to do it safely and efficiently. We don't want to have to turn around and close our doors again, which we actually had to do in November when teachers came back. And then a week later, we were asked to work from home. So we have learned from experience that going too fast is not applicable for us. So we're really focusing on reaching the finish line in this marathon, which is this once in a century pandemic. We're looking forward to a full-time return in the fall. Teachers are excited to decorate our classrooms, to put artwork up, to throw open our doors and give our kids that elbow bump instead of the handshake that has coming now. So

110just really recognizing that our union and our membership is so excited to welcome kids back. And it is our 100% intention to return to as normal a schedule as we can. And I also want to say, as we continue this positive momentum is what I'm really asking the board is please recognize the amazing amount of energy our nurses, our counselors, our teachers we're putting forth every day, whether it's on Zoom or in person or a combination of both. And what we're asking for is to be really prioritized as we move forward with financial planning, both now and in the future. As Dr. Harmeyer spoke about, the expenses are going up, our expenses are going up too, our day-to-day expenses, not just our retirement funds but my electric bill, childcare bills, our commutes, our food bills.

111And to be able to compensate for that, we also have to look to the future and it's not just the district. So when we face things like a frozen salary schedule, that does impact our day-to-day living and our budgets. And so we ask that you really make that a priority in your three-year projections. Thank you. Thank you, Angela. Thank you, Dan. Lisa, I see you there. Do you have any comments tonight? Veronica, can you unmute Lisa for me? One more time. Okay, got it. Sorry about that. Good evening. Thank you for having me back. Lance says hi. With the board's goal to return to in-person learning in the fall, I'd like to ask you to strongly consider bringing back the laid-off school librarians as you build the 2021-2022 school year budget. As all of you

112know, and as all of you know, librarians and access to library support even augment, excuse me, I'm sorry. As you know, librarians and access to libraries support and even augment the hard work that our teachers are doing. The opportunity for a child to find a book in the library, often with the help of a librarian, and to get lost in that book's stories and adventures is nothing but positive. Our St. Carl's School District librarians who were laid off last year are still dedicated to their craft, and denying our students and teachers access to their wealth of knowledge and support is shameful. I would also like to acknowledge and thank our maintenance department who's been working diligently to get our schools ready for reopening, such tasks as delivering equipment and supplies to the school sites, maintaining

113the HVAC systems, and repairing and replacing equipment as needed. They are small but mighty, they're a great team. And also I'd like to thank the lunch servers and the drivers who have been working all year, making sure that our families get meals that they order each week. Knowing that we are helping feed families in our community during these trying times is one of our most important tasks right now. And thank you. Thank you Lisa. All right, I will move us on then to board member comments for whoever would like to start off. No one needs to jump at it right away. Or I could move on to Michelle if no one has any comments. Okay, just very quickly, I mean, thank you Lisa for calling out, you're right, the bus drivers and the lynches and

114sort of all of our certificated staff that's made kind of reopening campuses possible. Just want to shout out, I hope everybody takes the time to kind of rest and rejuvenate a little bit over spring break. Everybody's been working so, so hard and being an educator is to be in the giving profession and you're constantly giving of yourselves. So do allow others to take care of you and whether it is enjoying nature or spending time with family, do take care of yourselves. And that of course goes well to all of our community members, it's like, okay, that's it. I'll just jump in with some more expressions of gratitude. I wanted to thank three different, say three different banks. One is to the 20 plus people that came to our first DEI Steering Committee meeting. It was

115an hour and a half long and these were teachers, parents, site leaders, board members, board trustees. And I just appreciate everybody's willingness to be vulnerable and that I am optimistic that this space will help us to not only address the challenges that inclusion counts has helped identify, you know, that we're facing in our schools and our communities, but that this space will allow us to build greater trust as a community with this group and hopefully we will be able to message out to the larger community. And as I just mentioned earlier, we're gonna have that on a future agenda item, but really I just wanna say thank you to those, you know, 20 plus people who are willing to put the work in and really help us. And I also wanted to just say that

116I expressed my gratitude in writing to some of our elected officials at the county level to say thank you for the COVID-19 testing that has been put into place this year that has allowed us to reopen back in February and then also for the vaccinations. I just feel fortunate to live in a county that is really prioritized health and safety and provided access. So I think we should, I just wanna recognize that I don't think we'd be here where we are today if we didn't have that support from Nancy McGee and our other county elected officials. And just my third thanks is to all the teachers and the site leaders for all of your effort. And as Angela put it, for your excitement that you have exuded that is really helping our kids who are

117just so happy to see you. So thank you. Thank you Wendy, Sarah, Carol. Nothing really, nothing for myself. So Michelle, I'll give you the last word. Thank you. Just to carry on with what Wendy mentioned, our DEI work at diversity, equity, inclusion. I just feel as I've said in the message that we sent out this week, it's more important than ever. And when incidents occurred last May and June, I reflected back on the message I sent at that time. And we didn't have a lot of language. We didn't have a lot of prioritization toward dealing with anti-racism and some of the structures that we are challenged with. And I think I look at where I am now compared to where I was at that time. I've learned a lot. We've been engaging in a lot

118of professional development and personal self-growth so that we can understand the systems of oppression, the racism that does occur in all of our systems in the United States. And with the recent events with the anti-Asian hate issues, it's happening in our own city of San Carlos. And it's happening across the United States. And I think every single one of us is doing our part right now by learning and growing, having courageous conversations, educating our neighbors, our kids. And so that we are creating a more inclusive and a safer community for everybody in our little San Carlos community and beyond. So I wanna thank you, the board, for taking the lead on this and really modeling and showing our community. It's just not something you can do on your own. You have to have conversations with

119others about, really, in order to grow and learn. And I'm glad our students are going to be the beneficiaries of our students getting more training as we learn more and put more goals in place for next year. And I hope our students have a better learning experience overall and our parents. So thank you for the feedback for the parents and communities that do give me feedback when I send out a message. I appreciate it. I like to talk and listen to people who have more information to share with me at all times. So thank you for that. And secondly, I really want to recognize our school board. Our school board members are volunteers in our community. They're elected officials that have dedicated an enormous amount of time, leadership, expertise and skill, devoting themselves to this

120San Carlos community. And they are incredibly professional. I feel so honored to work with you as a group. We have an incredible board to work with. I think any superintendent would be lucky to work with you and to move into this position. And you've been faced with really hard things this year, things that boards have never been asked to deal with in the past. So I just want to thank each of you. You're putting in double time right now with doing the superintendent search and going through opening up schools and looking at budget challenges and on and on and on, but you show up and you're professional and you give great direction and guidance to us and you're doing the community well. So thank you to every one of you. Thank you, Michelle. Also too,

121just one last plug is our final superintendent search community stakeholder meeting. If you didn't get a chance to be heard through survey or through any of the other panels, we open to everyone in the community, teachers, staff, district office staff, any community member before 30, before everyone heads out of town or heads off to the break tomorrow. Look for the Zoom link on our website. So if you didn't get a chance to be heard, we want to make sure that we do hear your voice. So that's there. So I appreciate everyone for being with us tonight or everyone enjoy your break. Teachers enjoy your break, especially given the things that have, you know, everything's gone on. So we all deserve it and we will see you back in April. No, there's no further closed session,

122right? Okay.