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[31] Nancy Thomas: We have consulted with our attorney because of some of the issues that were brought up regarding the posting of this meeting. We know that we posted the special meeting in a timely fashion. However, we're conscious of our obligation to have posted the budget and the LCAP hearing 72 hours in advance to allow for public input. So, I would like to entertain a motion from the board to continue the public hearing for the budget and the LCAP agenda items till tomorrow evening. But of course, we will allow public comment on those items this evening and again tomorrow evening. Do I have a motion to that effect? Moved by Member Crocker.

[82] Ray Rodriguez: I have a question. I'll second it, but I have a question on that.

[86] Nancy Thomas: Okay, maybe you can ask your question after you have seconded it.

[89] Ray Rodriguez: Yeah, I'll second it.

[91] Nancy Thomas: Okay, and your question is?

[94] Ray Rodriguez: So the public hearing, we're moving it to what time tomorrow?

[100] Nancy Thomas: Superintendent?

[102] SPEAKER_14: It has been posted and we're moving it to approximately 715 tomorrow evening. Okay.

[109] Ray Rodriguez: So we have a board meeting tomorrow at 6. How is that going to work itself out?

[119] SPEAKER_32: We actually already had public hearings on the agenda for tomorrow night anyway, so we will add these two items to the public hearings section of tomorrow night's agenda. So we will be having three public hearings tomorrow night.

[129] Nancy Thomas: And the idea is that that gives the public at least another 24 hours to see the entirety of the budget. The budget financials were there, but the supplemental documents were not. So that's, and we have consulted with our attorney and he said that's all right.

[149] SPEAKER_47: Correct.

[149] Nancy Thomas: Okay, please vote. Yeah, we have to log in first. I'd ask for a hand vote. Our president uses his computer to do this, so please raise your hand. Four ayes. Thank you. Member Nguyen, absent. Okay, next we move on to the budget public hearing. Superintendent, are we going to entertain public comment before the presentation or

[190] SPEAKER_47: I would recommend, since we just moved 3.1 and 3.2 to tomorrow, that we go ahead with public comment at this time.

[197] Nancy Thomas: OK. So I'd like to call forward Cindy Parks.

[205] SPEAKER_47: One moment. Do you want to? Yeah. We'll do it in the study session. And we have it in the study session. Let's proceed. Sorry about that. We're okay.

[222] Nancy Thomas: Ms. Parks.

[229] Cindy Parks: Countless times myself and others have spoken about our concerns pertaining to this district's deficit spending. Our current concerns have fallen on deaf ears. I've read excerpts from several of your board policies and the language out of your governance handbook. concerning your financial responsibilities to this district. Yet year after year this board has approved budgets that have involved the transfer of money to cover its deficits. I voice my concern to all of you about some of the warrants, food purchases, and the credit card charges. My concerns were dismissed and the spending continued. I remind those of you on the board about the agony that you had to endure the last time positions and programs had to be cut. Yet you continue to approve deficit spending. Now today you have before you a budget in which you must transfer funds again to cover the deficit. This time it's $4.3 million. Why does the general fund then transfer $100,000 to adult ed and $42,000 for 40 to child development, aka child care? Both of those funds should be self-funded, especially at this time. Why is the budget missing the district certification, workers' compensation certificate, the school district criteria and standards review, and the multi-year projections? Are you afraid of disclosing the district certification and divulging the documents that project layoffs for the next three years? Before you vote to adopt this budget, please take time to review the budget and determine if it is the budget that you would happily sign your name to because that's what you will be doing when you vote for it. One last thing. I have filed a uniform complaint pertaining to this item. My complaint states that the public hearing requirements for the LCAP and budget weren't met. Both were posted after the 72-hour deadline required by the education code for public hearings. Plus, the budget is not the budget to be adopted, and I want to stress that. It is not the budget to be adopted. I don't care what your attorney said. I am telling you right now, I believe that it is incorrect. It is not the budget you're adopting. It is only, the only items that are posted are the funds. Your each individual fund account, it is not the entire budget. Therefore, it is not in compliance with Education Code 42103 and Education Code 42127. It's missing those pages. Thank you.

[378] Nancy Thomas: Thank you, Ms. Parks. Next, Cary Knoop.

[388] Cary Knoop: Good evening. I'm very concerned. I see another budget proposal with more than $4 million from the other funds to cover the deficit. It's been going on. And my concern is that early this year, the board was informed that the future looked problematic. And what I've seen is a couple of study sessions. That's kind of it. So I am really concerned about who's governing who here. The board needs to govern. That means you need to have the power as a body to say, we want this at this time and we want this at this time. If it doesn't happen, you need to, as a body, in my opinion, you need to say that. I've talked to individual board members and exchanged thoughts, but that's not what matters. What matters is what the body decides. And I am very concerned that the body as a whole is not governing. They're not in charge. And I think the board needs to be in charge. They need to make sure that you do a budget in time. You cannot do it on the last minute. You cannot do it in conjunction with labor negotiations. You get all kind of issues and problems. You need to do it in a timely fashion. And the board as a governing body needs to direct district to do that and again I'm very concerned that the board is now again in a position where they can't do anything except to just sign at the dotted line and that's not a good thing. Thank you.

[493] Nancy Thomas: Thank you Mr. Liu.

[496] Ray Rodriguez: A point of order. Since we pulled the public hearings these comments are are actually public comment on non-agenda items because it's not an agenda item anymore. So even though the card that you're receiving might say budget, this is the time for public comment on non-agenda items. Is that correct? That's probably correct but I think... I'm not saying that you can't, you know, anybody can come up here but it's not considered budget anymore.

[533] Nancy Thomas: Yes, I think you're correct that this is public comment on non-agenda items and so we will just assume that 3.1 and 3.2 have been pulled because we did pull them because we continued them until tomorrow night and we are now in public comment on non-agenda items. So, Stanley Kieser. Kieser? Kieser.

[570] SPEAKER_07: on what was posted on the website as far as reductions from the discussion. Now, obviously, you got to postpone it, so nobody's going to have any answers tonight, which is unfortunate since you posted it as being that way. People come to listen to you talk about it, and then we never hear anything.

[589] Nancy Thomas: We are going to have a budget hearing, but public hearings, we are not allowed to comment. It's the same thing with public comment non-agenda items. We are not allowed to comment. As a board chair, I could ask the superintendent to get back to you if you have a question or something, but it's not a time for discussion.

[610] SPEAKER_07: It's... When do we get comments back on this stuff that we ask questions about?

[614] Nancy Thomas: We will be discussing the budget in general tonight and then, of course, we will be discussing it tomorrow night while... When are you going to answer questions?

[625] SPEAKER_07: You're saying you could discuss it, but we want answers. All we hear is discussion.

[629] Nancy Thomas: Well, please be sure to ask your questions and each of us board members have an opportunity to say something or to direct the superintendent to answer questions.

[642] SPEAKER_07: Okay. Well, I got one question. What schools are you going to close and consolidate for this $880,000? Also, I want to know, you talk about reducing class size at the high school. It's negotiable. How can you put it in and say you're going to reduce it when you don't even know you're going to get it from the teachers? Those are very good questions, thank you. Everything I want to know is where's the budget? It was supposed to be, the current budget was supposed to be posted June 1st. It's not on the website. When can we expect that?

[669] Nancy Thomas: The budget is now on the website, Mr. Richard. It wasn't this afternoon when I looked.

[674] SPEAKER_32: Mr. Richard, is it now on the website? Yeah, the budget documents for all of the funds for 17-18 was posted on Friday.

[682] SPEAKER_07: I thought it was 16-17. There's supposed to be a budget out there. You claimed it was going to be there on your notes from January, I believe it was. It says there'll be an updated budget on the 9th on the 1st of June.

[694] SPEAKER_47: Point of order, if I may. I would suggest start the clock over. Let the gentleman make his comments. If we engage in this back and forth, we're going to be here until 4 in the morning.

[703] SPEAKER_07: You just won't talk to us. That's all you're going to do, just like you always do.

[707] SPEAKER_47: This isn't the forum for that. I'm happy to talk to anyone. This is the first time I've seen you all year. I've been here a whole year. I've not seen you once. I've not talked to you once.

[714] SPEAKER_07: That's not a fair statement.

[716] SPEAKER_47: That's just not accurate. But make your statement. Say your piece. You'll have another chance tomorrow night and there's going to be more opportunities to do that. But you're spending time on stuff about procedures without getting your opinion across and that's what this purpose this is for you to be heard and we want to hear you.

[732] SPEAKER_07: Yeah and I like to hear what people say but obviously we're not going to get anything back tonight.

[736] SPEAKER_47: Well that's your perception but I'm trying to help you get your point across and let you say that because that's fair. So I think let's start the clock over and allow you to speak what you need to say And we'll deal with things respectfully. I'm not trying to be disrespectful, sir. I'm just trying to help you make sure you get, and that's fair.

[756] SPEAKER_07: I've been told now that we won't get any answers tonight. Well, that's not entirely true.

[761] SPEAKER_47: A lot of things will be shared in the study session that will be part of tonight as well. So there will be some things revealed tonight that people don't know. But I would suggest that please take advantage of your three minutes. Say what you need to say and then have a little bit of faith that we do plan to answer questions and handle things the right way. Yes, there's been missteps, but we can make some things, and we still have time to adjust and resolve things. Cool heads prevail in these things. We don't need to make it a battle. We're happy to talk about it, but I think because of where you started your public comment, I recommend let's go back, start you at three minutes, and let you speak your piece.

[800] SPEAKER_07: I've said most of it. I want to know where the money is. You're saying you're making these savings. You say you're going to consolidate a school. I don't know if anybody's heard what school that is. You talk about implementing solar. Where are you going to do it? Where's the money going to come to originally put it out? Obviously, you've got to have money to put solar in before you make any savings. And like I said, I'd like to know where the budget is. Can't find it on the website. Can't find the 16-17 budget that's supposed to have been posted almost over two weeks ago.

[833] Nancy Thomas: Thank you very much. Thank you.

[837] Nancy Thomas: Noel Doote.

[851] SPEAKER_40: I'm not sure I should be speaking because you pulled the item I was planning to speak on. Can I relabel the item number?

[858] Ray Rodriguez: No, you don't need to. OK.

[863] SPEAKER_40: So, budgets are funny things. Spending happens differently for different people, but here's the thing. In a time of dire straits, non-essential items are put aside. Notice I said items, not people. While we understand that there are some mandated programs, there are also many non-mandated ones that can be suspended. We have a lot of cutesy names such as STEAM, Sunday, iReady, SIMS, Time to Teach. We have PBIS, RTI, and of course we had the disastrous Engage Newark. Some satisfy state and federal requirements. Some are a desperate attempt to keep up with the Joneses of the educational marathon. Many of them require an already over-impacted substitute teaching pool. Many days, principals cover classes. Subs prefer surrounding districts because the pay as we know is much higher. We have students that have been so over tested that teacher's delivery of regular curriculum has been impacted. And about trainings, this district has placed some staff members in positions without benefit of the required safety trainings with numerous cases resulting in private student placements costing the district in excess of $30,000 per student. Let me tell you what is not safe. Cutting special ed aides. To cut aides is to cut service. In all things, safety must come first. Conferences, suspend them all. Remember, there are virtually no subs. Teachers know what to do. Let them do it. Member health care benefits. This is old news. NUSD board members are not technically district employees. They are elected to serve and receive a stipend for that service. So for one year, let's suspend all non-essential item purchases, program purchases, assessments, conferences, trainings, delete board member benefits, and freeze any wage increase for administrative positions. This gesture of goodwill will go a long way to elicit trust and credibility. This community will be really a tough sell for yet another parcel tax. The cost to simply put one on the ballot could save one credentialed teacher. I know because I've lived here for 39 years. I've worked for NUSD for 26 of them. I've seen many parcel tax initiatives and participated in interaction for 31 years with school boards. I've had children go through NUSD and I now have grandchildren coming through the system. We understand and appreciate that there has been recent declining enrollment. We understand the high cost of living here. The suggestions I've made are a drop in the bucket. They will not reach your five now million dollars. I understand that. We understand that. They're a start. They are a start. You need to trust this community and their input before you make such a monumental decision.

[1045] SPEAKER_33: Thank you.

[1051] Nancy Thomas: Megan McMillan, please.

[1057] Leonor Rebosura: Good evening.

[1059] Megan McMillan: Really, I just wish I could just ditto just about everything Noel just said. For me, I'm coming with my special education teacher hat on first. I was informed on the last day of school after a beautiful graduation ceremony that coming into the school year next year, I'm likely going to lose one of the teaching assistants in my classroom. And that this was going to be the case for all of the preschool classrooms. taking me down to myself and two teaching assistants for children in the district that have moderate to severe needs in my classroom, specifically autism. This is a safety nightmare. I can't imagine that this is happening and said so. And what was ironic to me is that in this meeting I was told by my administrator that I bend too easily and that I don't stand up for what I want and that that's something I need to make a goal. So I am here standing up for what I want. I need three assistants in my classroom. The preschool needs three assistants in each classroom. These are the youngest and most vulnerable students our district serves. And to take support out of that room, those rooms, opens you up to very costly potential litigation because that age group and that area of special needs is the one most likely to end up in litigation. remove defensibility from the program and it just opens that door. We have an amazing program. I said to my administrator that day, you know, it's things like this being told on the last day of school when the meeting about this is next week and I don't have time to talk to my parents about how this is happening and how are they going to come and help defend what they need. I said, this is what makes those positions like the one open in New Haven look really attractive. And she said, well, you know, we looked at other districts and this is the kind of aid support you'd have in New Haven. And I said, great. Are those model programs? Are we trying to be New Haven? Because honestly, New Haven and Fremont don't have very good programs. They're nothing compared to what Whiteford had to offer. However, if this is the level of support I'm going to have to deal with, they'll pay me $10,000 or more a year to do it. So it's really, really difficult not to look on the other side of that fence and start to think that that grass is looking a lot greener. I don't want to leave. I love it here. I have been here going into my 13th year. I brought my kids here, not because we have this fantastic test scores, not because the schools are beautiful, but because the educators here are unmatched. More support needs to happen. I don't want to leave and I don't want to pull my kids because God knows what we need are more children here. So please hear me at least in respect to special education assistants. They're the lowest paid. They do so much work and they deserve their positions to be salvaged in this budget. Thank you.

[1253] Nancy Thomas: I noticed there are quite a few people that are here to talk about the school plans. We have several that are on the agenda to be approved this evening. So when I call your name, make sure that I'm calling it for the correct school SPSA that you want to talk about because each one of those are separate items on the agenda this evening. So next I'll move on to Cindy Parks for the LCAP.

[1297] Cindy Parks: Let me first say that the LCAP is much better than last year's. Tonight I'm only going to bring a few items within the LCAP to your attention. 1.1.1, provide ongoing professional development and coaching to the staff using a trainer of trainers model. This will be provided by the Silicon Valley Math Initiative, SBMI. This partnership encompasses five expenditures that total $196,846. The plan says the high school math department requested to join SEMI. This was initiated by the district office, not by the high school. That's a lot of money for professional development, which you know what that means. Teachers out of class and the need for guest teachers. Of course, some of the workshops are on the weekend. Will the attendance at the weekend workshops have the same abysmal attendance as last summer's accelerated English and Lucy Calkins workshops? How could the district already be announcing in various documents the district-wide partnership with SVMI when the LCAP isn't approved, nor has the contract for this amount been presented to the board for its approval? And why isn't it listed in each school site plan? 3.1.8, contribute towards a negotiated retention incentive to retain staff within the organization. NUSD has invested in the professional development of our staff to improve school climate instruction and establish professional learning communities. The first time the parent advisory committee heard about this being added to the plan was at their May 30th meeting. The plan states the committee voiced concerns regarding the LCAP to fund NUSD budget. I was at the meeting. There was some discussion seeking clarification and the committee was told the amount was $150,000. Now it's budgeted at $650,876 for certificated, and the amount for classified is not listed within the plan. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that staff doesn't deserve a fair wage. What I'm saying is that I don't believe that this is an appropriate use of supplemental and concentration funds, and that all of my concerns have been spelled out in my uniform complaint regarding this matter. Expulsions and suspension data is flawed along with any data pertaining to teacher referrals because many secondary teachers have quit writing referrals due to the lack of enforcement at the high school, perhaps due to PBIS since it is an elementary based philosophy. Finally, is it too much to ask for elementary to have state adopted math and language art textbooks? This district does not have a sequential comprehensive language art program with a textbook. It is a piecemealed and the math program isn't even approved by the state of California. Thank you.

[1456] Nancy Thomas: Thank you, Ms. Parks. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak to non-agenda items? Okay, so we're going to move on to the approval of the school site plans which are on the consent agenda and I'm seeing that there are quite a few people that want to speak to this.

[1491] SPEAKER_32: Pardon? You skipped employee organizations 5.1. I'm sorry. You might want to check to see if there's anyone here.

[1495] Nancy Thomas: Is there anyone from our employee organizations here? Sorry about that.

[1506] SPEAKER_35: That's okay. Because I come with good intentions as I know each of you come with good intentions. My name is Timothy Maris. I'm representing NTA tonight as our president. Yes, our president is on vacation and away. I would like to start with some good news. The NTA ratified the agreement with an overwhelming 87% voting yes to approve. We're very happy about that. Some bad news is I don't know how many of you know that our president our co-president from last year, Chris Fogg, has resigned and moved to another district. He not only was our president, but he also served on many committees, including the budget, excuse me, the bargaining. And he also was our state council representative. So this is a huge loss for us. We're very concerned about the number of teachers that have left. I know back in May it was 20%. I'm sure it's significantly higher than that now. A few legal days before more teachers will be resigning undoubtedly. We're also concerned about the process of getting qualified teachers into those positions. It's well over 60 people now. That's a lot of positions to fill in a short period of time. With the tentative agreement, we're hopeful that we'll be able to bring seasoned teachers into the district as well to replace those. Special education is very, very important and a big concern for us. With 50% of the teachers leaving and the reduced reduction of paraprofessionals in those classrooms, as we've heard from others in the audience, is a huge concern for us. The teachers of Newark that remain want to remain. And we want to be part of the process. We want to be positive. We want to be partners. But as in all partnerships, we need to find that balance of collaboration. I also want to mention that some people have some misconceptions about Engage Newark. I personally have had big success with it in my classroom. And so just to discount it because it's not an approved state curriculum is not fair. I taught 6th grade this year and 13 of my 31 students qualified to go into 7th grade algebra, skipping. 7th grade math or 7th grade advanced math. And I use Engage Newark. So there's hope. And I guess I will leave it at that. Thank you very much.

[1712] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. OK, I think with the consent agenda with the four SIPSAs, school plans for student achievement. I think I'd like to pull all of them and then ask anyone that has put in a comment card to come in for the specific plan that they wanted to speak to. So is that OK with the rest of the board? Well, pull it. It's on consent. That's right. Right. So 6.1 school plan for student achievement for Newark Memorial High School, is there anyone that would like to speak to that SPSA? Seeing none, I would entertain a motion for approval. Moved by member Rodriguez. Seconded by Ms. Crocker. Please vote. So, I'm not logged in either. Yeah, I'm okay.

[1816] SPEAKER_31: Please vote. Is there a reason why it's not being

[1846] Nancy Thomas: Displayed. And I will pass the baton.

[1876] Nancy Thomas: Five ayes, thank you. 6.2 is School Plan for Student Achievement for Birch Grove Primary. Is there anyone here that wishes to speak to that item? Seeing none, I will ask for a motion for approval.

[1892] SPEAKER_12: Move to approve.

[1893] Nancy Thomas: Moved by member Nguyen. Second by member Preciado. Please vote. Five ayes. Next is the School Plan for Student Achievement for Crossroads Alternative High School. I see that there are people that want to, I'll call names and if that's not the one, if you're wanting to talk about Bridgepoint, I'll defer you. So the first one is John Angelo. So this is CPSA for Crossroads.

[1936] SPEAKER_12: Hi, my name is John Angelo. My wife and I live in Newark and our teachers and parents in our community. We have three children in the Newark school system. And with the start of the new school year in the fall, I will be in my 17th year with the district. I've worked at the McGregor Alternative Center at Crossroads Independent Studies for three years. I'm speaking before you tonight to express my passion for our specialized alternative school and my concern for its future. For the past two years, Crossroads staff numbered four and a half, competent and very caring teachers, serving the specialized demographic of independent learners. Students come to Crossroads for a variety of reasons, including anxiety, bullying, credit recovery, the need to work to support their family, health issues, and many more situations. Crossroads teachers work diligently to instruct students in an education as equal in quality as the other two high schools, Newark Memorial and Bridgepoint Alternative. We prepare our students for academic success and life beyond high school. We're passionate about teaching and our students. We offer fine arts and drama, parenting classes, and a range of science and math classes, diversifying an approach to students' varying learning styles. In addition, and for a variety of circumstances, we also work with junior high and elementary students. Our very busy office managers' duties include, but are not limited to, enrolling new students, handling attendance, grades and credits input, transcript updating, graduation information, ordering books and supplies, and is the first smiling face greeting students each and every day at Crossroads. At this point in time, when the 2017-2018 school year begins, it appears Crossroads will only have one teacher servicing all students. I understand the budgetary challenges facing our city, but also have concerns our independent studies school may not be as effective as before. We feel a specialized but vital function here in the district, offering a very well-rounded and positive academic experience for our independent learners. When the new school year begins, it's critical to have those teachers and office staff here to continue to provide the very best for our students. Thank you for your time.

[2063] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Bitlana? Could you pronounce your last name?

[2078] SPEAKER_25: Petrikova. Good evening, everybody. I'm Svetlana Petrikova, and I have been working at the McGregor campus for 15 years, 13 years at Bridgepoint, and two years at Crossroads. Today, I'm here in support of my school, my co-workers, and myself, indirectly. And today I'm here to read a letter that a parent of our students wrote, but she could not make for the meeting today. This letter is dated by June 19, 2017, regarding Crossroads High School staff and budget cuts. Staff and budget cuts to the Crossroads High School program would be a very poor decision. and I feel would have very negative effects for any family in our community who has a high school student that struggles in the conventional standard classroom environment. These children are at a very high risk of being left behind. My son will be a senior at Crossroads in September of this year, and I'm certain without the Crossroads program, he would have dropped out by mid-sophomore year. My son is dyslexic with ADHD and started at First Roads his sophomore year with zero credits. Nothing earned freshman year, referring back to the left behind issue. It actually took the one-on-one student teaching direction that helped me identify and later diagnose my son's dyslexia. In closing, I cannot stress enough that it would be a bad decision to cut funds If anything, funds and teachers should be added to the program. Without this program, my son would have dropped out and become another statistic. But with this program, he learned his diploma and moved into a higher education, all of which will make a better life for him. Sincerely, Donna Beans.

[2215] Nancy Thomas: Thank you very much.

[2220] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Bruce McDoodrick. Okay, sorry. Thank you.

[2231] SPEAKER_42: Thank you members of the board. My name is Bruce McColdrick. I am the father of Aubrey McColdrick. She is a Crossroads student. I am here tonight as a concerned parent of a Crossroads student and a concerned member of the Newark Unified Community. My daughter has been a student at Crossroads for this last school year. This was her junior year. The improvement in her school work, attitude, and interest in school has improved dramatically due to the programs and teachers such as Ms. Sarah Keith and Ms. Petrokova, who you just met. Aubrey is a student who deals with Asperger's syndrome. This is a form of autism, the fastest growing group of special education affecting schools, period, nationwide. This is a growing concern. This is not something that's going to decrease. Aubrey attended Newark Memorial High School as well as elementary and primary junior high school here. Newark Memorial High School failed her dramatically. The teachers failed her dramatically. staff failed her dramatically. They could not meet her needs. She attended, she suffered from extreme anxiety and isolation during her time there. Her teachers were not able to spend time needed to discuss the assignments or her work to determine just how well she knew the subject, but had trouble communicating it to her. However, she always tested in the highest percentages for knowledge and understanding of the subject. It was a communication issue. This is common with autism and especially with Asperger's syndrome. The change in her when she went to Crossroads has been night and day. She's working in an environment with one-on-one teachers where she feels safe and empowered and can communicate and articulate. We have two teachers here who are being let go. One being transferred to Memorial and the other one is involuntarily being transferred somewhere else. They both offered to work out an arrangement to stay. That's been denied. You're going to have one teacher for 57 students. One hour per student, that's not a possibility. The math here does not work. Closing crossroads is taking away a valuable, irreplaceable resource. and I strongly urge you to reconsider. Thank you.

[2396] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Tammy Alcorta. Alcorta, okay. Thank you.

[2415] SPEAKER_38: I came here tonight hoping to have a speech and I don't have one. After hearing the teachers and the other parents speak about Crossroads, this school is detrimental to my daughter. I had to pull her out of the high school due to harassment, bullying, and being physically assaulted on campus. It got so bad we had to get a restraining order against another student on that campus for the continuing harassment and bullying. We put her into Crossroads and her anxiety, her panic attacks, her being afraid of going to school has ended. She's been able to have one on one with Mr. Angelo. Ms. Nathan has helped her tremendously. She now attends school five days a week, three hours a day, and the only time she has missed any class is when we had to go to court. Taking away crossroads would make her go back to the high school, which where she would end up dropping out. Having this one-on-one with teachers is extraordinary. It gives the students a sense of self-worth and they feel like they're important. Being at the high school, she didn't get that. She didn't feel like she mattered and she was failing. Now that she's at Crossroads, she has upped her grades, she has made up the credits she is missing, and she is now signing up for ROP starting next year. She knows what she wants to do, and she's going to do it. But if you take away this program, I don't know what's going to happen to her. She's 15 years old, and now she's back to being afraid of having to go back to the high school. And if she goes back to this high school, we're going to have to go and get another restraining order against the children or the teenagers or young adults, whatever you want to call them, that were harassing her, that physically assaulted her on that campus. And the only thing that was told to me is your daughter is safe while this child is not here. Once this child gets back, we can't guarantee your daughter's safety. That was the last day she spent on that campus. If you take away crossroads, There's no guarantee where she's going to end up. Thank you.

[2569] Nancy Thomas: Superintendent, would you clarify?

[2572] SPEAKER_47: Just to clarify, we are not closing Crossroads. That was never in the plan. It won't be in the plan. And Crossroads is staffed at two teachers at this time, not one. So we'll be making that very clear in the budget as we go forward.

[2587] Nancy Thomas: Ms. Tara Nathan?

[2599] SPEAKER_39: Good evening, everyone, and thank you for the opportunity to address you. For those of you who may not know me, my name is Tara Nathan, and I am the office manager for Crossroads Independent Study and High School, where I have served our parents, students, and staff for 11 years. Our mission statement says that we join together to create and sustain a safe and just respectful learning environment where everyone will be treated with dignity, respect, fairness, and equity. When people ask me why I work at Crossroads, I respond, because it is of the students and their parents or guardians, the relationships that are made. It is more than a school. We help students feel important again, become their biggest advocates, and in some cases, their last hope. I let them know that we are a place where 100 students walk through that office door for the first time, all with unique and sometimes very sad situations. I listen, I learn, and then I let them know that this is a safe place where they will be supported and learning is the priority. Then I explain the opportunities we have to offer, one based on curriculum, not packet learning. This is a very sad occasion when we, sorry, this is a very sad occasion because decisions to reduce crossroads to almost nothing, why we, because we are a number on a page. And in the past, we have invited staff and board members to come and see our school in action. to witness the high-level math classes being given and the challenging discussions between students and Mr. Hacker, their math teacher, or to see Ms. Sexton, our science teacher, so excited about the next generation science standards, ideas that would have benefited the whole McGregor campus. She has already brought labs and some dissections to McGregor. Has anyone come to witness one of our dramas or plays or dances or see how our talented students are met? And Mrs. Petrikova, dedicating her own personal time and talents to these students and has included students from the TALK program in her productions that take months to plan. Then there's Mr. Angelo, our very talented fine arts teacher and talented students he encourages and the products they create, in addition to their great teaching skills in all the other subjects he teaches. Finally, Miss Keith, the teacher that has a heart of gold that can reach any student and besides teaching almost every subject, she is extremely instrumental in helping a good portion of our student population with both young men and young women that are expecting or already have young children, which, by the way, may be our next generation of students and newer. We are talking about our community students, our neighbors, our co-workers' children. We are talking about a school that could be the reason people don't leave Newark to go to charter schools, K-12 online programs, and private schools, and the reason some of those parents have come back to this district this year. Yet we are facing the transfer of four of our five teachers. Starting with 57 kids, we just don't know where we're going to go and what we're going to say to the other families that are waiting.

[2815] Nancy Thomas: Marsha Delaney.

[2825] SPEAKER_20: Good evening. I'm deeply concerned about the fate of the Crossroads. Your restructuring means that one teacher will be handling all of the 57 returning students who need special one-on-one attention. What concerns me more is that it looks like your plan is to do away with the program entirely. Please do not allow this to happen. Crossroads is the safety net for those students who are not able to attend any of the other Newark schools. It's the last line of defense for kids who don't fit into the one-size-fits-all box of education. It's for the students with health issues, with anxiety, with depression. It's for students who've been bullied, for students who need to work to support their families, for students who are parents or who are expecting. It's for students who are between schools or moving. It's for students who need to work at their own speed, whether it be at a slower pace or an accelerated pace. It's for students who are credit deficient and need to catch up on their credits so they can return to NMHS. Students who attend Crossroads are doing so because they need to, because no other school situation fits their needs the way Crossroads does. My 14-year-old daughter attends Crossroads. After sixth grade, she began to suffer from social phobia, anxiety, depression, and school avoidance. She's also on the high-functioning end of autism. She refused to go to seventh grade at all. Every school we tried failed, until we found Crossroads. It's not just a school for my daughter, it's her lifeline to an education. Her teacher, Mr. Angelo, through his demeanor, patience, flexibility, and passion for teaching students like her, saved my daughter from the downward spiral she was in for the last two years. From the very beginning, it was a program she could do. It wasn't easy for her, but with one-on-one instruction, it was possible. I'm happy to report that she's done well. She completed the 8th grade with Mr. Angelo's much needed help. He had the patience and the resources and he managed to engage her during her sessions. He got her to open up and to talk throughout her sessions and that has made a world of difference in her everyday life. Crossroads is giving my daughter the confidence she needs to be able to get by in life. She now has a pathway for high school and hopefully for college. Please don't take that away from her or from any other student who desperately needs this program. Financially, you may think crossroads doesn't make sense when you're trying to reduce your costs. The costs, however, if you do away with crossroads will be much greater. Students who have no other options will be forced to leave the district. Further declining enrollment is not what you need. Additionally, more students would attend crossroads if they and their families knew it existed. The counselors at the high school and junior high should be identifying the students who are at risk or who have severe issues with anxiety or bullying would fare much better in a program like Crossroads. We should be directing those at-risk students to the program. If anything, we should be expanding Crossroads, not eliminating or reducing it. Advertise it, fund it with teachers, and it will grow. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Delaney.

[3002] Nancy Thomas: Ms. Delaney, I understand that you want to read a letter on behalf of Julietta Wade. This will be an exception and we'll try to make sure that the public knows that the person has to come themselves or it would have to be someone else speaking.

[3023] SPEAKER_20: Dear Superintendent Sanchez and board members, I'm writing to urge you to support Crossroads School, which is a vital part of our school district, and saved my two children this year. We'd been attending a private school outside the district, but the work demands and culture of the school turned out to be unhealthy for both of my children. age 14 and 11. They were developing stress-related health problems that sent us to the doctor. In my son's case, a neurologist told us that if we wanted to help him with his constant nausea, we had to reduce his stress. My daughter had begun suffering panic attacks. We had to leave the school, which had caused these problems, but the prospect of having to integrate into an ongoing school year and classroom community in another place was daunting. We were at our wit's end until we found Crossroads School. My children began at Crossroads at the start of April this year, working with Mr. John Angelo. Mr. Angelo has been a miracle worker for our family. Both kids loved him from the very beginning. Not only was he able to keep them up to date with their schoolwork, but my son's nausea disappeared within two weeks. Mr. Angelo helped my daughter stick with her work, and her panic episodes have nearly disappeared. Crossroads School helped to win us back to the Newark School District. My son will be attending Newark Memorial High School in the fall, and my daughter will start at Newark Junior High. In the meantime, I have been eager to tell more people in Newark how amazing Crossroads is. It's a hidden treasure that has meant the world to us. But though for us it was an important transition school, for so many students it's a lifeline without which they might not be able to complete their education. I was devastated to hear about the cuts to the staffing there, and I urge you not to take this educational pavement away from our community. Sincerely, Juliette Wade, PhD, in Education from Berkeley.

[3127] Nancy Thomas: Is there an Atul Pella here? Yes. You want to speak on the budget, before the budget, okay. I would entertain a motion to approve 6.3. Student, the school plan student achievement at Crossroads.

[3153] SPEAKER_31: I'll move to approve because I, I'll move to approve because by virtue of having a SPSA for 17-18, it clearly indicates that the school is not closing.

[3164] Nancy Thomas: Okay. Do I have a second? I second. Please vote. Five ayes. The next agenda item is the School Plan for Student Achievement, the SPSA for Bridgepoint Continuation in High School. Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item? If not, may I have a motion? Moved by Member Crocker. Second by Member Rodriguez. Please vote. Five ayes, thank you. Okay, next we're going to move into our study session but before that we do have two members of the community that would like to address this item. Atul Palla, would you like to address this item, the budget study session item?

[3252] SPEAKER_24: Good evening, everyone. This is my first time attending NUSD school board meeting, so I'm just here. I heard about lots of messages on Nextdoor app to just express my concern, and I don't know. I'm sure everybody here is really interested to make our new world a better place to live, and I think the main important stuff is the school. If schools are better then we can have more people coming to our community and also increase the price of houses and everything. When I see about the budget, I am sure committee members might have checked out all the different alternatives about if there are any other way to increase the revenue, like instead of cutting down salaries for teachers or not retaining teachers. Besides partial tax, I know many residents are concerned that I don't have kids. Why I pay more partial tax? So some of the consideration like can we get some kind of donation from the students, you know, to... I heard like many other school districts, like Cupertino, they collect like $1,000 every year from each student so they can help to fund the other alternative programs or also hire some additional assistants and provide better technologies to students. So same way, I don't know whether committee has considered like other alternatives to create additional income for school districts. Whether we can rent our facilities to some of the non-profit organizations, or they can rent our facilities to organize some cultural events, and those funds can be used for classroom technologies. Or can we talk to some private companies where they can adopt one or two schools, or maybe we allow them to use their company name. they provide us enough funding for that kind of program. So this is the only, I don't know if, I've been working as a San Jose State University, and I know when it comes to the budget, it's always people talk about, okay, cutting down the salary, but there are many other alternatives, ways where we can generate more revenues. And of course, cutting down expenses also important, but not, where you are living in Silicon Valley and when you see your peers working in private companies are getting 30 percentage raise every year and you are still not making one or two percentage raise and you still have to fight for it. I hope that everything will be considered. Thank you.

[3437] Nancy Thomas: Thank you for your comments. Ms. Cindy Parks.

[3449] Cindy Parks: I'd be going after the presentation tonight. I'm confused about the slides that are in tonight's budget study session presentation that's attached to the agenda because it has items on there listed as acted upon at the last session. This governing body did not vote and take action on any of those items. In fact, the public didn't see the slide presentation until it was presented at the May 30th meeting. How was that transparency? Can the travel slash conference budget be trimmed even further? During previous financial crises, there was a much broader list of proposed cuts. For example, your own board budget, electives at the junior high, or some of these things considered sacred cows. It would seem the reduction in consulting and substitute budget isn't being cut. It's actually being funneled through the LCAP. As I stated at the May 30th meeting, I'm intrigued about the closed consolidate school cost of $880,000. Is that a real number? Where is the breakdown or is this an elusive ever-changing dollar amount like the cost of the merger or just funny bookkeeping? I emailed all of you a document prepared by the CDE called Closing a School Best Practice Guide Did you even take the time to read it? It provides insight as to the process, which isn't to be taken lightly if that's the path you're to go down. The additional reduction for discussion slides list two dean positions at a cost of $245,300, yet the LCAP shows it is partially funding the two deans at the amount of $60,000. The LCAP also shows it's going to fund 40% of the library clerk positions. Shouldn't that be listed as budget reductions? Another reduction for discussion is the McGregor clerical by one FTE at $106,500. That would be the cost of more than one FTE of a clerk at that site. This amount is clearly inflated. Plus it is my understanding the consortium might be covering that position. Let me conclude by saying I have yet to see any of you vote on any reductions. Are you still the governing board?

[3595] Nancy Thomas: budget study session. Superintendent?

[3599] SPEAKER_47: Mr. Richards is going to lead us through that at this time.

[3629] Nancy Thomas: I wanted to ask a question for clarification. Mr. Rodriguez?

[3637] Ray Rodriguez: I just wanted to ask a question for clarification. In my 21 years being on the board, probably one of the most difficult things that we have is we have budget discussions because it basically, other than the community coming forward at the beginning, it precludes question and answer. And I know Mr. Richards has been in education a long time. So my hope that as we come up with a format, the board, where we can have community meetings, where we can have questions and answers, maybe in discussing it with our attorney. Because a lot of times you can only have two board members attend those. But maybe where board members, without making decisions, can just have a discussion on the budget. And so we can have a to and fro. And I think that's what our community wants. And I think it's very important if we can find a way to make it happen.

[3700] SPEAKER_31: So the versions of that that I know of are budget advisory committees where it's made up of two board members plus members of admin plus members of community. I don't know if that's something that's within our future or not. Can I get this turned up, please?

[3718] Ray Rodriguez: I know member Preciado has talked about having community forums, and we wanted more of those doing when we talked about the mergers and... No, no. Okay, thank you. No, we understand what the community wants. I think we do. I mean, we are in this community, but I think it's important for... It's just a... natural thing for us to do, and I think it also helps heal a lot, especially when we're talking about such drastic cuts that we'd be able to engage in question and answers. There's a misconception out there that if we close or if we sell one of our properties then and get $20 million for it, that'll eliminate the budget issue that we have. But we know that that doesn't do it because that money has to go into fixing the schools, like it did with the Russian site. So, and I'll just finish, but it is something I would like the board to entertain, and coming up with a formula, maybe talking to legal, on ways that we can do that.

[3791] SPEAKER_32: That's quite all right. The red one, please. Thank you.

[3811] Ray Rodriguez: I'm glad Larry's here.

[3814] SPEAKER_32: Me too. Thank you. Ms. Sandoval. We're going to begin tonight where we've sort of left off in our continuing a series of information about the budget and we're actually going to have two presentations built into one tonight, one of which will get repeated again tomorrow night and then the following week. But with regard to, there we go, the study session and where we left off with our reduction discussions and raising revenue ideas and with regard to the question that came up about items acted upon Yes, acted upon is a term of art. We did not take a motion and a vote. The board gave me direction for the purposes of the building of the budget with regard to items that were on certain slides to incorporate. We have incorporated those into the budget document accordingly, and those are the ones that I have described here as acted upon in last session. That could be a misquoting of a term, but the reality is they're the ones that are actually in the budget document. So we are, with regard to those items that the board has seen in the past, and previously said take action on everything above this line in the presentation. That included the freezing of three positions, the operations and safety supervisor, the attendance case manager, and the bus driver, reductions of special education assistant positions, a counselor position, the travel and conference budgets, the books and supply budgets, the consulting services budget, the tier two administrative support program, and a reduction in the substitute budget and a reduction of unfunded overtime. So overtime that doesn't have an outside funding source, such as whether it be facility use or some other outside agency of funding, those have been pulled from the budget. That amounted to about $1.25 million. We left off in our discussion about additional potential reductions, including Potentially taking an action by the board with regard to K3 class sizes to implement flexibility to 29 to 1 is currently in the NTA contract. We also spoke about the possibility of adjusting secondary core class sizes to be the same as elective class sizes. Possibly having to implement furlough days. And we did get a clarification from legal. They do have to be negotiated. That was a correction to some prior information that we had received. that we would be able to implement them by board action. But there is a negotiations process that does have to happen with those. And then we did speak about the possibility of closing consolidating schools. There was a question during the public comment with regard to where those numbers came from. If we go back to budget study session one, which I actually do have on my computer, I could dig up a slide and we'll transfer it over. We can delineate out what those costs are when you're looking at the closing of a school. And so it's primarily the staff that would not be repeated if it was consolidated with another school. You would not normally have two principals on a school, so the reduction of a principal. You would not have two office managers at one school usually, except for our case that we have at our continuation school currently. You would not have the custodial staff that would be at the site that is no longer in existence. and then the utilities and other costs that are directly related to the operation of the plant if the plant is no longer operating. With regard to other additional items that we have discussed, the counselor position, the dean positions, high school assistant principal position, reducing the secondary clerical, and yes, actually, the McGregor clerical by 1FTE, I apologize, that is not the correct dollar amount. That dollar amount originally came from, we were looking at adjusting, the original proposal from a prior slide, from a prior presentation, I think three presentations ago, which we adjusted slightly, was a reduction of McGregor proportionate to its enrollment compared to the rest of the district and so it actually reduced by more than one FTE and that dollar amount does need to be adjusted. I'll grab that number and give it to you shortly, I can pull it off of the computer. The implementation of solar, there was a question that came up during the public comment session earlier this evening with regard to the cost that it would be to the district to implement it. The plan that was presented to the district, as you'll recall, when we had that presentation on solar, is financed in such a way that the solar implementers incur all of the construction costs up front. We enter into a power purchase agreement. at a reduced price from what we're currently paying for PG&E, and that savings would be about $170,000. During the presentation it was $135,000, but they went back and re-looked at two of our elementary sites that they originally said they could not do, but by adjoining them with the other district properties that are adjacent to them, they were able to incorporate the rest of the district, because they had not originally looked at that. So if it were to go across the district, it would be 170,000. So that is the change that happened on this particular slide and why the amount went up. So the total, we were at about 3.8 million. That number's going to come down slightly. That would bring us to 5 million over the course of long-term operations if all of them were put into place and made, and including the freezing, becoming permanent if they were to become that way. and that is where we would be. There was a question earlier in the evening tonight about whether or not we looked at some revenue possibilities and we have with regard to potentially looking at a parcel tax and we've put up some information that we shared at a previous board meeting with regard to some of our neighboring districts and their parcel taxes, the ones that have them and then the one that attempted twice and has not yet gotten their parcel tax approved. Fremont and Hayward each have parcel taxes. Hayward's was just recently approved to renew and the dollar amount was changed from $58 to $88 a parcel. And Fremont's has been at 73 for some time. They recently renewed it at the same rate. With regard to facility use fees, we will be studying those over the summer to bring a revised facility use fee schedule to the board. The CDE passed some new calculation methodologies that we will need to apply in setting our new rates. Additionally, the print shop is in the process of reviewing their rates, and we'll be bringing forward an adjustment to the board at the August board meeting with regard to those. They came to me to review. I've sent them back for a couple of recalculations, and we'll be bringing them forward at a future board meeting to put those into place going forward. And tonight was really designed to be yet another open discussion opportunity for the board to give additional ideas, additional thoughts that they wanted to as far as anything they do want to implement or they would like us to make adjustments in the budget going forward. Things as we begin planning for 2018-2019, not 17-18, but the following year, 18-19. And then taking a look at where we are with regard to the budget. Now, additionally, I'm going to jump off this presentation. Patty, can we flip to the white one, please? And while we will officially be having the public hearing on the budget tomorrow night and the adoption after that later, Information since we have it available tonight. We are going to share some information with regard to the budget so we can kind of see where we are so far with the things that have been done as well as with the Just getting more information out there We figure if we present it multiple times then then we'll have more opportunities for people to look at it and comment accordingly So some of our key budget assumptions for 2017 2018 The state COLA from 156, that number has been set as of the May revised. It has not adjusted in the version of the budget that was approved by both houses, although the governor hasn't signed the budget yet. The COLA percentage has not changed, so that's pretty well locked. The funding bridge at 43.97% is also unchanged. With regard to routine restrictive maintenance fund, we're now at the 2% minimum. And we go back to the 3% minimum contribution to routine restricted starting in the 2020-2021 school year. The budget does not address STRS and PERS, so it's on the district to address it. We'll get into that on our next slide. And then the COLA and the funding bridge, the one thing that does affect us most significantly is that the combination of the two does not offset the declining enrollment effect on our local control funding formula base. So our local control funding formula base is still going down. as the board has seen in previous budget presentations. Now, the district, as the board is aware, tomorrow night the NTA agreement is on the board for action and a gentleman from NTA, Mr. Merritt, spoke about the fact that the teachers have ratified. CSCA also now has a tentative agreement. However, because CSCA's year has ended for many of their members and they are gone, They are not going to hold the ratification vote until August when everyone returns. So, it won't be coming to the board for action until the fall. However, since we do have a tentative agreement, we have incorporated the tentative agreement into the budget assumptions and made all of those calculations accordingly. So, they are already built in to the 17-18 budget. With regard to STRS and PERS, our retirement contributions are still climbing very steadily. That increase, it sounds so small when we say the rate's going to go from 12.58 to 14.43% of covered payroll. But what it means for that expense line item is that it's going up by almost 15%. Two years ago it was a 20% increase, last year it was about a 17% increase, this year it's a 14% increase. It is climbing quite rapidly. And we still have three more years to go of these steep increases. And then in 2020, 2021, it's supposed to level out to about 19.1%. However, thereafter, the STRS board gains the ability, like the PERS board already has, to begin to set their rates actuarially. They are capped at how much it can increase, though. without further action from the legislature. But it could go as high as 20.25% without, by action of the service board, but not until after the 2020-21 school year. The PERS rate is going from 13.88 or 13.9 basically to 15.5% of classified payroll. That is about an 11.8% increase. And again, their increases are actually projected to continue through 24, 25 school year. They extended theirs. They were going through 21 as well, but in their last revision, although they're going up slower than they initially projected, they are now projecting to increase them over a longer period of time. Both plans are still working to recover from the sort of disastrous hit their investments took back in 2009. and 10, and they're still in the process of recovering to get to the appropriate actuarial number. And as a result of some of the history they've now accumulated with regard to their investments, they've also now lowered their long-term rate of return expectations. And so that requires higher levels of contribution to meet up with the amount of formula needed to be able to fund the retirement for everybody that's in the system. So as a result for us as a district, we're projected to have about $48.6 million of unrestricted revenue. That is net of the contribution to the restricted general fund. It's actually over $50 million in actual revenue, but a portion of that gets contributed to the restricted general fund. But because you can't show negative pi, we net the two in that large blue section. We are projecting, as Ms. Parks pointed out during her comments, inter-fund transfer in. We knew that we would be having one. Again, do I anticipate we'll utilize the entire 4.3? Probably not as we didn't in the current year. However, we do have to show everything in balance and we don't have all of our revenue numbers in yet for some of the other local funding in the district. The state revenues on the unrestricted side that are not part of the LCFF are very very limited now. It's basically unrestricted lottery. There's a little bit more in there but There's very little else that comes unrestricted from the state anymore, other than the local control funding formula. And right now we're not projecting any federal. We did get $18,000 of federal reimbursements related to testing, but we haven't seen the award for next year yet, so it's not yet in the budget. It'll get added when the award comes. With regard to our expenditures in the unrestricted general fund, The overwhelming majority of our expenditures, as always, is our certificated and classified salaries. When you add them together along with the employee benefits, we're at 88% of the budget. That is a very, very high percentage of our budget, as we know. We frequently hover anywhere from 80 to 90, usually an 85-ish range. But as we have implemented reductions in books and supplies and services, Naturally then as a percentage of the pie salaries and benefits becomes larger as we make those other line items smaller. Our other outgo minus the indirect costs which again would create a negative piece of pie is about 1% of the budget. So in the end, we do have a slight decrease in general fund balance projected for next year. This number was actually zero initially. However, as I was doing some review of our requirements and criterion standards, I discovered I had actually overcut the maintenance department's budget by $67,830 and we fell below the 2% minimum that is now in place. We were above our Absolute minimum under the old formula, but the 2% minimum kicked in for the new school year. And so we had to bump their allocation of their contribution back up 67,830 was the last adjustment that was made to the budget for next year. So we had enough fund balance to be able to absorb it without actually increasing the contribution from Fund 17, so we just left it alone for the moment. But we're projecting to basically end the year, but as was pointed out earlier, that relies on a transfer in from Fund 17. leaving our component spending balance and the economic reserve fully funded for the 17-18 school year. On the restricted side of the revenue, the biggest piece of restricted revenue is actually unrestricted revenue that we contribute in. It's about 45% of the budget. We do get about $2 million of federal revenue. Much of that on the restricted side is Title I and special education funding from the federal government. And our state restricted revenue About $3.7 million. A large piece of that is also special education revenue. Local of about $2.7 million on the restricted side. And then the other piece that's in here that's part of that contribution besides special education is the routine restrictive maintenance contribution. With regard to our restricted expenditures, again, the majority of them, salaries and benefits, equating to about 82% on the restricted side of the budget. That's up quite a bit, but again, the one thing that has changed quite a bit on the restricted side of the budget over the past couple of years is that change that went in two years ago with regard to the state's contribution to STRS, where we now have to book it as state revenue and then book it as an expense under employee benefits. It wasn't a new benefit, but it's us recognizing the state's Proportionate share for Newark so for our district. It's about 2.1 million dollars of that 5.1 million dollars is that state transaction? In the end The restricted side of the budget is basically flat a slight decrease projected. There's a couple of There's some one-time money in there that it's projected to be gone by the end of the year and all of them show up as restricted so we don't show components with regard to the rest of the funds of the district We have moved the contribution to adult ed back to the standard amount of $100,000. At this time, that actually causes Fund 11 to project to actually have an ending fund balance. They have not had a fund balance for a couple of years now, and we're running a larger deficit. However, with the advent of the consortium and the transfer of several programs into the consortium, it's now sort of righting its footing in the adult education budget. The Child Development Fund does have a contribution of about $42,000. As the board will recall, last year, Ms. Sanchez brought forward a three-year plan for the implementation of an increase of rates to gradually wean off of the contribution from the general fund. And indeed, this contribution that's projected right now is about a third lower than it was coming into this year. So her rates are doing what she planned for them to do, and we hope that they will continue as she continues to work out her three-year plan moving forward, and that we will gradually see that number diminish back to zero. With regard to the Child Nutrition Fund, they're basically flat and rolling. They have not encroached on the general fund. Mary has done a very good job in making sure that her program does not, and it is continued to project not to do so into the future. As the board can see, the Special Reserve does get weaned down very quickly right now. but we know that we aren't finished with the process of identifying all the reductions that need to happen so that we will no longer be tapping into that reserve. Additionally the one other question mark item that's out there from the general fund is the legislature's version of the budget does move the one-time funding that was going to be deferred to May 2019 a portion of it back into the 17-18 school year. Not sure Governor Brown is going to approve it, or if he's going to blue pencil that item, waiting to see what happens with the actions on the budget. So we have not included it in the budget yet, even though we know that the two houses of the legislature put it in their document. It wasn't in May revised, and since the governor hasn't taken action yet, we're not going to modify the budget unless and until he does. But again, that would be one-time money, so we need to be cautious with relying on it and recognizing that it won't be repeating on into the future unless there's future action by the governor and by the legislature to bring it back again. Moving on to the building fund, you'll look and see that this looks like a very small amount of projected expenditures next year, but that's because the purchase orders for this summer's construction are issued in the current school year because some of the work's done in June. And so we don't release those encumbrances and roll them to the new year until the books are closed in September. So right now it doesn't look like we're doing much next year, but we're actually doing quite a bit over the summer, but it's showing up in 16-17, not 17-18. It will roll into 17-18 as soon as we finish accruing the June billings and close the books Capital facilities fund we're continuing to see capital facilities revenue come in from our developers The new rates do go into effect on July 15th that the board took action on at a previous board meeting Fund 40, again, it doesn't look like there's activity, but that's again because this summer's POs will be accrued in the current school year and not in next school year. And then once we make the June payments and we go into July, then we'll roll the purchase orders forward and you'll see the activity in 17-18 once the books are closed. Bond Interest and Redemption Fund, we do not control. The county treasury does. They assess the tax rate, they project the expenditures, and it maintains a portion of the balance. Our self-insurance funds, both for post-retirement benefits and for property liability, are in good stead. We've been assessing the amount actually slightly higher than the amount of the ARC. We've projected a slight decrease in the rate that we'll be charging against the payroll for next year because we did slightly overfund the ARC in the current school year. So rather than an increase, we have just a slight decrease in that rate. So that helps a little bit. as we're looking moving ahead. Our property and liability fund is projected to basically run pretty well flat. We have seen this graph in many different ways. I thought I'd try something a little bit different than the stacked bars that we usually see and just kind of draw it as a line graph over time this time so we could take a look at how our ADA and our enrollment are going. And as you can see, they've been tracking. One of the things I wanted to note just As we talked about at a previous board meeting, our ADA percentage went down a bit in 16-17. We've been averaging about 97%. So where you see this line where it was fat as far as the distance between our enrollment and our ADA, and then it got a lot skinnier, and now it's starting to get fat again, that gap in between the blue line and the gold line is the percentage of student absences, the difference between our enrollment and the number of students who actually attend every day. And so when that number was above 97%, that gap was under 3%, we were running super duper efficiently, much more efficient even than the state average. And even though now we're up a little bit, we're at 96 and a quarter in the current school year, and we projected that flat going into next year as far as percentage wise. We're still okay compared to the state, but hopefully we'll have a healthier year, maybe not quite as crazy wet of a winter and not quite as sickly of a winter as we had this past year. and we'll see numbers bump back up and we'll see those two lines tighten and hopefully begin to curve upward as we actually see some projected growth on the horizon from all the development that we're seeing in town. Meanwhile, the multi-year projection, as we've said now for a year, if we continue on the path we're on, we won't get to the end of the road. Or we will get to the end of the road actually rather quickly, I should say, because we can't continue the way that we've always done. The state began chopping the amount of one-time money for mandated costs, and it went from well over 3 million down to a million and a half, down again, and then down to nothing. We've continued to operate as best we can, getting by with one-time money in various forms, whether it be the old Fund 53, which doesn't exist anymore. Or the other one-time funding that came from the state or now the one-time funding with regard to Russian elementary school But we can't pull this forward. We cannot continue to operate where our revenues exceed our expenditures to the tune of three to four million dollars a year and I'm sorry, the expenditures exceed the revenues. Thank you. Jan. Yes, the expenditures exceed the revenues and so We are in a very challenged situation right now, are at the end of the third year out. Even implementing what we've done so far, we see we have a negative undesignated fund balance. If we also don't want to do a transfer from Fund 17 next year, we take that 800, add it to the 6.6, and we're at about 7.4, almost 7.5, or just about 3 and 3 quarter million, just shy of 4 million a year. of additional work yet to do, which about works out to what we thought when you take five minus the 1.2 of previous direction, we're at about three and three quarters of additional work yet to go. The rest of the supplemental schedules that are in the budget document, one of the challenges many districts have been having with regard to the minimum classroom compensation, it was one of the things has been brought to our attention. Several districts have actually had to seek waivers from the state. We're nowhere near that problem. We are required to be at 55% and we're over 60% which even the smallest elementary districts have to be over 60% and we're higher than they are and projected to be even higher in the new year. Form L is our lottery report. There's not a lot to report there. Lottery funding's been pretty flat for a while now. Our No Child Left Behind Maintenance of Effort, even though No Child Left Behind doesn't exist anymore, the Maintenance of Effort form still does, so it's still there. It hasn't gone away yet. It may get modified in the future, though, with changes that are happening at the federal level. Our Interfund Transfers Reports and then the Criterion Standards are in the back of the book, and they're the initial additional sort of supplemental information that we incorporate into the budget document which we'll talk further about tomorrow night at the budget actual public hearing and then again at the adoption of the budget and if in the meantime something significant happens from the governor's office with regard to the budget I will inform the board of it if we don't hear before the adoption of the budget we'll bring it back in August when we know what the state does with their budget the governor has until the 27th I believe this year to finalize his work on the budget. I want to thank Kim and Carol and Sarah. And I want to add an extra thank you tonight to Maria Rivas who stayed over to help us with getting things through production tonight so that we could have the books ready to hand out to people live tonight. And now we can start talking about all the various subjects for anything related to the budget of 17-18 and either presentation.

[5429] SPEAKER_31: Ms. Thomas?

[5430] Nancy Thomas: Okay, could you kind of, we got the COLA of 1.56% and the funding bridge of 43.97%, okay? Could you tell us roughly how much of that was used for the increases we gave to CSCA or we anticipate giving to our groups. Do you understand the question? I mean, that was the extra money we got this year over last year, correct?

[5476] SPEAKER_32: The 1.56 is next year's COLA, not this year's COLA.

[5480] Nancy Thomas: That's what I meant. Next year's COLA is 1.56%. And then we got a little bit for the funding gap, but yet we gave in increases, we gave 2.56%. Is that correct? So I'm saying how much of that 1.56% and the funding gap went to the increases we gave to NTA and assuming we'll give that to the other groups? I think the point I'm trying to make is that that we have given, probably given more just in the salary increases that we will be giving this year than we've gotten from the state. Is that correct?

[5527] SPEAKER_32: In the end, yes and no. It depends on how you look at the ball. Because as we know right now, because we're still working our way across the funding bridge with the local control funding formula, We do have the base funding. Now the base funding in our district actually has declined slightly year over year for both years. However, we have also made some reductions to deal with the fact that we've been reducing students as well. So it would be quite difficult for me to be able to, I could do it, but we'd need some extra time to delineate out sections of dollars in the way that you're asking your question. The COLA for the current school year, we can just kind of compare the COLA versus where we are with the negotiated agreement. In the current school year, the negotiated agreement has a 1% increase. There was no COLA in the current year. There was funding gap coverage in the current year. And hold on just one second. I'm just going to bring up a spreadsheet.

[5591] Nancy Thomas: Well, I don't think we need to go through a detailed.

[5593] SPEAKER_32: Right. I can look and give you the actual percentage. It was a slight amount. But the point is, we are very, very much yes to answer your questions just in general at the extent of our ability in that regard and the entire COLA for next year is 1.56% and that's what the next year's increase is.

[5612] Nancy Thomas: And my follow-up question then I'll let other board members ask. We, you have built this budget with the cuts that we kind of indicated last time for you to put in there.

[5623] SPEAKER_33: Correct.

[5624] Nancy Thomas: And even though there and then if we do nothing else for the rest of three years, take no more money out of Fund 17. You said it was like an additional 3.3 million or something?

[5637] SPEAKER_32: No, no, it's closer to 4. Okay, 4 million.

[5640] Nancy Thomas: Because you have to add those two numbers together, and that's going to put you at about... So if you add those two numbers together, before we gave the increases, we were predicting 4.3 million, I believe, that we needed to cut next year if we didn't take money out of reserves. When you add the amount that we gave or anticipate giving in salary and benefits increases, is that number $5 million? Is it $5.4 million? What is it?

[5674] SPEAKER_32: It's about the $5 million number that you saw. And then it's between 5 and 5.1. minus the 1.2 that we've taken action on, gets you to about 3 and 3 quarters, 3.7 something. And that's about where we are in remaining actions needed to be taken.

[5694] Nancy Thomas: And the additional amounts on your list cover that 3.3 million. That means that 35 to 1 classroom at the high school means the amount for closing or consolidating schools, especially those big ticket items that we haven't even talked about yet. Does that equal the $3.3 million?

[5719] SPEAKER_32: It does. It equals the $3.7 million or $3.8 million. However, they aren't the only possibilities in the universe of possible things either. We identified as the board requested items that we could get up to what that total number is. Is that the entirety of every possible expenditure change that we could make as a district? No, it's not. We could make other changes in other places. Some of the other things were mentioned tonight with regard to other instructional offerings. They're just not anything that we've identified specific costs for yet for the board.

[5756] Rachel Bloom: Mr. Crocker?

[5758] SPEAKER_14: When you were talking about the fund, the building fund, were you talking about the combination of the money we had left over from Measure G and the money that we had from Russian?

[5770] SPEAKER_32: No, no. They're two separate funds. Fund 21, the building fund, is Measure G. Fund 40 is the proceeds from Russian.

[5777] SPEAKER_14: Because there's still money. How much money is left in Fund 40, then?

[5781] SPEAKER_31: 12, I think.

[5784] SPEAKER_32: Yeah, there's quite a bit still left, but there's a lot of items that have previously been identified that just haven't moved forward yet.

[5793] SPEAKER_14: They're somewhat restricted.

[5795] SPEAKER_32: The funds are restricted, yes.

[5796] SPEAKER_14: They're restricted. No, I know, but we have already committed. We have committed to the spending of some of those funds.

[5803] SPEAKER_32: Yes, some of those funds have been.

[5804] SPEAKER_14: And Measure G will be completed in terms of use this summer?

[5808] SPEAKER_32: Not this summer, no. Next summer? Quite likely the following summer. The board has asked that we bring forward, and we do plan to bring forward, further information actually it's on tomorrow night's agenda as well as further information when we come back after this summer with regard to setting prioritization with regard to Measure G and the remaining capital funds of all the other funds but we were going to be doing that in conjunction with the setting of the sort of master plan for the district so that's all going to be coming in conjunction in the fall.

[5841] SPEAKER_14: I'd just like to make an editorial statement if I might okay rather than a question And that is that it's a very difficult thing to cut. I was here as a member of the audience when we had the big cuts in the beginning of 2000. And it's a very difficult thing to make it fair and make it even. When you have 88% of your budget goes out for costs of people, and we are committed to those people. So to cut away, because we're getting less revenue, things are going to have to be cut. And how do you do it in a fair basis? And I think we have said that we want to maintain our ratio so it's a fair thing across the board. So when you look at some group of students need a higher teacher-pupil ratio than others, that's understandable. But there's also the business that you have to be fair of what's going on. We have commitments in terms of legal sizes that we need to maintain. So none of the cuts that have been made, none of the cuts that have been suggested, are cuts that we want to see happen. But the bottom line is we have been talking and we get complaints from people we've been talking for years because we're deficit spending. We can't do both. It's going to have to hurt. It's going to have to hurt everybody. As sorry as that is, that's what happens in your own personal budget. You don't have the money, you can't spend it. We don't have the money, we can't spend it. So how do we do it and maintain a quality program? And that's what we're fighting with the whole time. So be aware that we are not immune and we do not listen to what you're saying. We are listening. The decisions are hard. They're very hard.

[5951] SPEAKER_31: Mr. Rodriguez?

[5956] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you, President Nguyen. I've had some And I'm sure other board members have from the community on. It took us so many years to get here as far as having this, you know, close to $5 million deficit. And yet we're making decisions on that supposed to eliminate it in just a few years. Why not extend it out a little bit more? And that's the difficulty we have as a board. Because the last thing we want is for the county not to accept our budget. And then you have what happened in King City where the state came in and they don't normally ask people what they want. They just cut across the board 10%, 15% and even it out. And so we still have the opportunity as difficult as it is to make necessary cuts, again, as far away from the students as possible. As we lose students, and we've lost a lot of students over the last few years, and if you don't adjust the staff based on the students you have, which has happened with prior administrations, not to their fault, because they wanted, you know, we had Fund 17, which, We can use that to kind of balance the budget. And so cuts weren't made years ago. They should have been. So now we're at the end of the road and we have a new superintendent who's trying to get us through this. And as difficult as it is, it's something that has to be done. But so you have smaller class sizes where we try to maximize class size other than K you know, K-3 to 29, 29 to 1. And, you know, everybody wants AP classes at the high school, but some of those class sizes have been 15 to 1. And we've talked about doing that. We've also talked about identifying students that are falling behind and switching them over to the alternative school, which would be either Crossroads, Bridgepoint, until they're able to catch up and have them come back in. So that's the difficulty we face. We do have the opportunity initially to make some decisions, but the more difficult decisions are going to be next year and the following year as we move forward. So I'm hoping the board, I don't know if it's a three-year plan that we have to get rid of the 5.0 basically. So if there's any way to, you know, maybe extend that because it took us forever to get here. that would be something that would probably be very much appreciated. My question really is on special ed. We have, it's been made public that we're losing a lot of special ed teachers and realizing that you want the best teachers for your students, there still might be some savings there. How much, I don't really know until we go through the process. A lot of times when that happens, then any savings goes into the general budget. My question is, is there a way to tailor any savings, since we're talking about special ed, into the special ed budget so that we don't have to cut aids, because special ed, as everybody knows, it's mandated. I've been on the special ed board for the last 20 years, and it's very difficult when you don't get enough money to take care of your needs, but still, if any monies that we save from the special ed, if that can be earmarked to special ed programs that we have so that our kids are being served properly. And then it does avoid, you know, grievances and potential litigation, which is the last thing you want to do is get involved in that. And then at the issue at Crossroads where some of those students that have special needs, I'm hoping that some of the students have been identified as special ed students. And is there a way to increase the population at Crossroads so that even though the class size might be larger, then we don't transfer teachers or as many as we're proposing. And again, the special ed piece is a big piece for me. Whether it's identifying Crossroads students that might be special ed, where naturally you would have to bring in an aide or someone to help in the classroom, or the Whiteford students or the staff on seeing if we could find a way to, so that even though there's still going to be cuts, it's not as much as we're proposing. So that's something I'm hoping that we look at. And my way, and it's probably too simplified as to any savings we do get from special ed Let's put it back into special ed so we can minimize any potential hits that we might get as we make changes in an area that's mandated and it's open to so many different potholes. Okay. That's all I have. Thank you. So my question, Mr. Richards, basically is, is there a way on special ed, any savings to earmark that money for special ed? Or does it have to go into the general budget?

[6310] SPEAKER_32: Is there possibly a way to, we could work to identify who replaced who where. However, would I advise it at this time, given the district's current budget situation, I would not be able to recommend that to the board at this time. But if the board chooses to take that action, it's the board's decision. But the reason that I would say that I would not necessarily recommend that is because it doesn't, just because there has been savings because a more expensive teacher retired and a newer teacher came in, doesn't necessarily mean that there's been an increase in need related to that. And to basically lock our level of contribution, regardless of the level of cost in the program. And if anything, then it basically becomes like a one-way door that it only ever goes up, which to a certain extent, because of maintenance of effort, that happens anyway. But as enrollment declines, if we have savings, to not allow the program to stay at an even higher level of cost because what you end up doing is creating a maintenance of effort level per student that continues to rise at a much more rapid rate than it ought to on the natural. But are there possibilities to do so? Yes, but I think the better way that I would recommend if the board's going to be looking at special education is look at the needs of the program and where the program is as opposed to just saying if we get a savings because of a retirement, we're going to restrict it to that resource.

[6396] Ray Rodriguez: And then do we, and then I'll leave it at that because I know other board members want to talk real quick. We've talked about declining enrollment as it applies to our whole school district. How does that equate when it comes to special ed students? Do we have those figures? Are we, is it at the same slide or is it differently as far as serving special needs? Because we constantly identify new students that need special ed.

[6424] SPEAKER_47: Let me attempt to answer that. And please chime in if we need to, Letty or Brian. My understanding currently of the data is we're approximately what, 11, 12%? 11, 12% of our student population is identified as special ed. The national average is 9%. So, we have to figure out why we're over identifying. in special education. There's lots of reasons. There's lots of new research. There is a trend to identify additional autism currently. So we do need to figure out why there's an increase of the percentage of students being identified in special ed. And largely due to a process and how are they being identified and taken into the program. So I think that even if we, if the board chooses to OK, we're not going to cut here. It will come from somewhere else, and it's going to be staffing. So it's going to end up being staffing somewhere. But I can tell you that I have concerns pedagogically relative to trying to get to the root cause of why are we over identifying students with special education needs. So I don't know if you wanted to add anything to that, whether you're not.

[6505] SPEAKER_37: I think that's part of the work that I'm hoping that our new director of special education will bring forward. As you remember, she came forward with kind of an up-to-date what she's doing now in terms of some very basic compliance areas where we had the attorneys working with our teachers on a compliant IEP. being responsive to the needs and this also speaks to the work of our administrators. So my expectation is that we will be coming forward with more of a fully developed plan for special education. Just this last week, we had our teachers that were actually going through a professional development training that they have not had recently. And so we're continuing to build on that with the end results of doing what's good for kids. But at the same time, we have to give our teachers the tools that they need to be able to meet the needs of students. So it's this balance. But my expectation is that we will be able to brief the board on an ongoing basis instead of just a surprise once a year. So that's part of Director Willis' work. She started to do that with you all, I believe it was about a month and a half ago with her update, but we will be bringing that back.

[6584] SPEAKER_31: Thank you. And just, there was a brief spike in our SPED numbers from 13-14. We're at 656 at that time. We're currently at 681. But it's remained pretty static for the past three years as far as our special ed numbers to answer your question as far as the enrollment is concerned. But the fact that our overall enrollment has gone down, disapplied, and that our SPED numbers has remained constant, there's a higher percentage, right? So, Member Preciado?

[6612] SPEAKER_29: So, I have a few questions. Excuse me for my voice. I'm a little under the weather. Your slide in terms of the absences in 88, where you said it was a 96.6% approximately where we're at right now versus where we were before, is that 1% a significant amount? Half a million dollars a year. So it is, okay. So then it goes to my next piece in terms of creative ways in which we need to get, have better communication with our community in terms of, we're talking about bringing in revenue, but this is an easy way for us to really explain to the community that you can make an impact by paying attention to this in terms of directly affecting the budget by half a million dollars, right? Yes. Okay. I just wanted to see how much it was and then we can hopefully as part of an engagement. So then that brings me to my next point in terms of our budget process needs to then be more transparent. And make And I as a member of our treaty salute to this earlier in terms of having their community forum or town halls where it's Q&A and we can partner with the city for We can could be we were one city in terms of we all live in the same community and I think it'd be important for us to really have a more open dialogue when it comes to the budget process. Ensure that we're open to Q&A because a lot of times it just comes down to this forum, which some parents can make it, some parents cannot, or some community members can make it and some cannot. We need to be a little more open in terms of our approach to the community. I also wanted to I also want to point out in terms of that the no action has been taken, I just want to clear that we haven't taken action. We've made that clear. All of us as a board to make sure that we are saying this is kind of our general feeling, but we haven't taken action because we want to make sure we follow the correct process of just actually voting on it. So I just wanted to be clear that we're not saying that this is the action that we've taken. These are the recommendations. You're right in terms of the recommendations. The last piece that I had, this is more just a question of adult education. At the end of one of your slides, it said that there was approximately $44,000 left after we put in $100,000. I'm wondering if there's that $44,000 left, then why would we put in $100,000 instead of the difference? Or maybe I'm reading this wrong.

[6787] SPEAKER_32: You're reading it correctly. In the past, the board set an annual. It used to be that adult education came in as a categorical program that was folded into the local control funding formula. When it was folded into the local control funding formula, and this is some years ago prior to my coming to the district when LCFF first started, the board set an amount for the funding of adult education out of the general fund at $100,000 because the money used to go directly to the adult ed fund. And it began going to the general fund. And so the board just set a flat amount of $100,000. So how would we change that?

[6816] Nancy Thomas: I'd like to clarify that. That happened even before that. That happened when, I believe, when we were able to have flexibility back in 2009. Oh, so the Tier 3 category. The old Tier 3 categoricals. It was a Tier 3. And we were able to cut all of it. But we said, well, let's funded, it wasn't because of LCFF, it was because of Tier 3.

[6842] SPEAKER_32: No, no, what I'm saying, that the $100,000, because it was part of the categoricals.

[6847] Nancy Thomas: It just kind of get held over, but that's when it started.

[6851] SPEAKER_32: It didn't start with... So it started at the beginning of Tier 3. So let me clarify what I was saying. Tier 3, all the Tier 3 categoricals, and there were about 32 of them, were all subsumed into the local control funding formula in its first year. So, as Nancy points out, the board had already taken that action with regard to it back when it used to be a Tier 3 categorical. It has never been changed since then. We did have one year where we had to contribute more because Adult Ed fell short. However, this year we're recovering that back from Adult Ed because we're under-contributing in this year to basically pay back what they got extra two years ago.

[6887] SPEAKER_29: Here's my question, if we as a way in terms of cost saving, if we didn't want to put in the $100,000, we wouldn't have to?

[6895] SPEAKER_32: That is correct. The board could take an action to change that $100,000 to the amount that it's needed right now to continue to operate the fund. Because the funding model has changed for adult ed. The consortium that started has changed the whole funding model with the way that adult education is done. And we have not made a modification to that amount to reflect what's changed with the consortium.

[6919] SPEAKER_29: So then, I know we're going to discuss it further tomorrow, but I guess as a way in terms of proposals of being able to find money like that so that we can actually save instead of cutting or minimizing our impact to cutting. What does that look like? Because this is just one program. So for tomorrow, we're going to be diving into those kind of details. I guess what I want to know is, are you going to provide proposals? This is where we're at. This is where we're recommending. So I guess this one won't be on there, right? If we take out the $100,000, or the difference, the $56,000, that savings wouldn't be on your overall budget.

[6973] SPEAKER_32: We can modify the budget to change that amount at any time at which the board directs to do so. Yes, we can do that.

[6981] SPEAKER_29: So is now the time to have that conversation?

[6985] SPEAKER_32: If the board wishes to have that conversation now, they can have it. They can also have it tomorrow at the public hearing. Either way, we could put it into the budget document for final adoption.

[6994] SPEAKER_29: Okay. Thank you.

[6996] SPEAKER_31: Thank you. So, if you can go back to slides four, please, on the presentation.

[7003] SPEAKER_32: Which presentation? This one? The second one or the first one?

[7006] SPEAKER_31: I believe the current... No, not the budget one. The red one. Study session.

[7017] Bowen Zhang: There you go.

[7021] SPEAKER_14: I think that did on my session.

[7023] Bowen Zhang: Right.

[7025] SPEAKER_31: Slide four.

[7030] SPEAKER_47: And while he's looking, I think that's exactly the point of tonight's meeting is to get additional direction from the board, what else we can bring back.

[7037] SPEAKER_31: So I just wanted to make sure the audience hears that as well. Conversation. Yeah. So the slide previous to this and this current slide sort of represents the direction that the board gave Mr. Richards and Superintendent Sanchez at the last study session, because at the time, these cuts or freeze did not entail laying off any personnel that we currently have employed. And that was a priority and very important for our board, was that we weren't going to remove anyone from a job. And so it was relatively easy, well, nothing's easy, but it was relatively easier to identify those cuts to the amount of $1.248 million. With that being said, when we go to slides five and six, and I believe from a timeline perspective, these are the type of cuts that, especially in slide six, that we're going to have to identify by March 15th of next year. And so this, it gives us from now until essentially February to determine if we're going to take these actions to reduce you know, employee reduction of staff, essentially, to these various positions. If we go back to slide five, please. I think among these four items, the only one that I would even be comfortable entertaining at this point is the first one. Because one, it's not negotiated. The second two, I don't think we can even discuss because that's we're treading into, you know, negotiations in public at this point if we start to just dive into this too much. And so I would not necessarily move off the table. These are great, these are ideas, but I don't know if we can discuss, you know, the increasing class size, anything that's negotiable. I don't feel comfortable discussing because that's negotiations, right? As far as closing consolidated schools, that's a major decision, sort of like a last resort decision that we have to make, because one, that not only lays off people, but then also closes the school. And so we would need much more information to even entertain that notion. And so, you know, what, where, how, when, the exact savings, et cetera, and not just say a number. And I know you referenced the first study session as far as the duplication of staff, the principal, et cetera. But I think we need a more firm proposal if we were to even entertain this. The rest as far as staff, I think the board has always taken the approach that if staff leave for whatever purpose or reason, then not replacing that particular position is easier off than issuing a pink slip to a staff or current staff member on March 15th next year. I would have a, personally I do have a concern as far as when we look at slide six, the reduction of the two deans and a reduction of the high school assistant principal, because then that's a double hit on the high school. I think it should be either, you know, either or, not necessarily both. recognizing that those savings has come from somewhere else as well, right? So we're in a beyond zero-sum scenario where if we remove items off the table, we're gonna have to add something else in to supplement or take its place. I think the solar is something that we can feel confident about doing, because that's a zero cost to the district up front that potentially can give us some savings. And then I'm curious to look at the other revenue possibilities. I know our facilities use agreements and our facilities use income potentials, I think we're still waiting on that report to see how much we've made, how much potential we can make. The parcel tax, that's 2018, but I know we can take action earlier than that, but that's a little bit further down the line, right? I think in short, what I'm, in summation, what I'm saying is I feel good about the 1.28, 1.248 in light of the situation, not that I feel good about cutting, you know, 1.248 million dollars. In regards to the rest of the cuts, I think there needs to be greater amount of information. And the 29 to 1 K3 class size is something that we can probably entertain without fear of public negotiations. Ms. Thomas?

[7331] Nancy Thomas: Yes. I think there's some things that I'd like to see added to the list for the board to discuss and maybe Mr. Richards for you to cast out. One of them is following on with what Mr. Preciado was saying, I think it's time that we look at adult ed and say, you know, this is an area that we can cut because adult ed does not impact our children. We got, we became members of a consortium. We got a lot of extra money. My thought is we should put that whole $100,000 and take it out of adult ed. Also, it seems that we were going to cut one FTE out of the office staff, the office manager staff at McGregor. but if you're going to pay for that FTE out of the consortium funds, that's not removing work out of the system. The reason to take one away was that there were three employees for a set number of students and that number of students is combined would dictate only one and a half. That was my understanding about what you said. I think we should start negotiating immediately because those 700,000 and 529, that's a huge chunk. And I think if we want to accomplish this in a timely fashion, we should put together a budget development committee and we should start negotiating right away, I think, for next year. So I would like to recommend that we take the $100,000 away from adult ed and find a way to restructure adult ed. And it's nice that we can do taiko drumming and art classes and classes for traffic school. But I think we need to look at those. Another thing I'd like to see us look at is EBIC. the bits of consortium that we were managing, we lost, what, $600,000 or more. I forget how much we lost. We said we would continue that program, and it would generate revenue, and that it would generate revenue after about two years. I think it's been about four years, and I don't think the EBIC has generated revenue. So my suggestion would be, if we can't show that it'll generate revenue, taper off and just do the second year teachers from outside the district. Because in effect, if we are losing money on that program, we are in effect subsidizing private school teachers from other schools and special ed and other teachers that we are servicing that are not in our district. So I think we should look at EBIC. The Career Center has two Two people, you know, maybe we need to look at whether we can operate the career center with one. Class size, I think, is a big one that we have, we tussled with last time. So for example, Ohlone Connections has 20 students. That's one teacher all day for just 20 students. If those, that teacher was teaching full classes, we would be saving about $50,000. So that's $50,000. that it's costing us to keep a program that's not enrolled. And in my mind, I'm thinking, well, why not backfill the Ohlone Connections courses, have them do the morning at our school and backfill with regular students, and then have them go to Ohlone in the afternoon like they would be there anyway. So maybe there's some creative ways. But if we can't fill these programs, I think This is the time to say we just can't afford it. The water at McGregor Field, we're paying $50,000 for that. I don't know where it is in negotiating with the city, but they're the ones that use it. They're the ones that get the revenue from it. That might be something we can, every $50,000 counts. Every time we have a class of only 15 students, 700,000 is a lot to negotiate but even now we have classes that aren't filled so I think I'd like to see on the list that if an elective isn't filled that we have to let that student take their second choice. So I think those are my comments.

[7640] SPEAKER_31: Thank you. Ms.

[7640] SPEAKER_14: Crocker? I'd like to comment on something Ms. Thomas said which I think is probably a really good way to go and that is that we need to get a budget committee. And it needs to be able to be directed so that the community can funnel in their questions, suggestions to that committee. So they should come in early rather than late. Coming in when a budget's being presented with ideas doesn't help much. We need to have it three months before, which means there has to be a way for the community to do that. So I think that having something that people understand If you see something or have an idea that this might be a way of doing things, something you heard about another district doing that worked. Part of the problem with these things is that in the past when I've seen these things, for example, closing all the electives off at the junior high was one of the worst decisions we ever made. It was awful, just awful. It gutted the junior high and didn't save any money. But people were emotional and they said, well, if we get rid of electives, we're going to save all this money on elective teachers. You have to staff your school. And so it's really, really important to have good information about what the net saving is, not what the gross saving, what the net saving is. Because kids have got to be in class. We pay so much. We figure that one to 30, every 30 kids would have a teacher, sort of what it works out to be. And so we need to look at that. So whenever we have these things, in getting them early on to Mr. Richards because last minute stuff does not help when you're making out a budget. It's too confusing. It's too complicated. So if I have a great deal of trust in our new superintendent. He has his heart where it needs to be with the kids and he's looking at setting up a different way of looking at our educational structure in Newark. That means there are going to be changes. which means the same old, same old's not going to be happening. And when people come and say that we're only going to have one teacher at a school, when in truth there's two. There's a lot of information out there that's not true.

[7773] SPEAKER_33: That's not true.

[7775] SPEAKER_14: That's correct. So I think that the source of information has to come from the people that have the information, not from someone who heard a rumor. And if you get people hot under the collar about stuff, It's not productive. Everyone hurts. So that sort of enters into something that he just gave us, that Mr. Sanchez has. Maybe you'd like to take it from here.

[7800] SPEAKER_47: Mr. Rodriguez? Let me just clarify the first one. There is two full-time positions at Crossroads right now. There's no intention to close it. There's a reason I want to be closer to that school next year. I'm personally invested in making sure that school's successful. If I was a school, When I was growing up, that's where I would have gone to school. We didn't have those options when I was a child. So I made a personal commitment to the staff there and I plan to follow through on that. So I want to be clear about that. But I can tell you, one teacher having 50 students, any teacher anywhere else in this district on any other campus would love to have those percentages and ratios. Most of our teachers at the high school have somewhere around 150 students every day. And the ratio has to be balanced based on enrollment. So I think our new normal is enrollment with all the students. And the commitment I made to the staff at Crossroads, which they quickly were willing to commit to and to work towards is increasing enrollment. And I have to commend that staff. They were ready to go the very next day and they're ready to do the work to build it back up to where it should be with staffing. So I feel good about the motivation for that staff while I understand it's difficult to see people separate from positions. That's just part of the tough nature of the work. There is an FAQ that was handed out to you that is available. And I definitely am, what's resonating with me is that we have a need to develop a budget advisory council. And in my closing comments, I was going to save it until then, but I think that now is appropriate. But I also want to make sure that it's not just a handful of people with a special interest guiding the work. So I think we have to have a structure where we have two representatives from each school. Parents. I think having kids in the district would be helpful. Not that it would only be for those people. But we need a good cross section of representation from each school. At this group that would meet to help guide the board and give advice directly to us. So that we could wrestle with these issues. And I think I could see subcommittees under that. Maybe there's a group that wants to really work on cost savings and one group wants to look on revenue building, one wants to look at, you know, we really got to wrestle with what programs do we need to keep and return on investment. Because my worry is if we just put out an all call and say, hey, who wants to be part of this, I can promise you within a matter of months it'll be a handful of people. Even tonight's an example. We were prepared for a maximum, a huge number of people here tonight. And this stuff is brutal and it's not very fun. And I'm sure people are watching from home and just it was too hot to come out and all of that. But we need to find a structure that's going to actually ensure that we have a solid voice from each school. And I'm willing to commit to that. And I think we can start rolling that out. and that should continue for the next two to three years, I feel. However, we have some deadlines we need to meet. We can plan for the worst, hope for the best and as the budget begins to unfold and we start having other natural places to save, we can cut less and we can adjust. That's the challenge that we have so many rules in public ed and how many funds would you say we work with in an average budget year, 30 some funds that we draw from? outside of general?

[8015] SPEAKER_32: We have about a dozen funds total but then within those we have multiple resources.

[8020] SPEAKER_47: Just different pots of money with different strings attached is the simple way to say it. I just I think that I'm very willing to start looking at a serious structure that ensures input from every school and anyone from the community can participate. I think what I would like to see is just some level of commitment if we were to put that together just stick it out for a year to stay with us because we can maintain that level of voice going forward. But, well, that's all I'll say for now. I have some other notes for later, but I think that this is a dilemma. Boards don't get problems. They get dilemmas, and we have to choose between. I'm really worried about, well, because tonight there was a lot of people with a strong voice from special ed, don't cut us. And if we just react to that and then go, OK, we're not going to cut that. We're going to cut something else. Then we keep chasing this problem around. We're not dealing with the root cause, which is we're not funding buildings and staff according to our enrollment. And that's really the larger problem that we're wrestling with. And it's for lots of reasons. And I'll explain some more of those in a moment. So thank you.

[8088] SPEAKER_31: I think just to piggyback on Member Thomas's comments about Additional items that that we kind of want to see or get additional information on Is that in the past we've discussed our LP as far as our cost to that program and if memory serves me correctly, I think we Pay out but close to nine hundred thousand dollars nine hundred sixty nine thousand nine sixty nine thousand dollars into that and and I know we've wanted to see the report, the detailed report as far as how many students are in that program full time, how many students are taking classes, you know, a la carte, you know, single classes here and there, just to see if I know we're getting, you know, as a percentage a deal in comparison to Fremont and Union City or New Haven, excuse me, but we still want to see the actual numbers and see if that $969,000 is a justifiable expense. And related to that, I think what would be helpful to explore is the new, you know, ECO policy on dual enrollment or concurrent enrollment, excuse me, with our community colleges. And I think we can realize not only opportunities for our students as far as earning both college and high school credit simultaneously, but also looking at staffing savings, of course, you know, with the intent of not pink-slipping folks, but, you know, as they're resigning, retiring, et cetera. I think that's a great opportunity that we can utilize, especially the fact that, you know, there's an Ohlone campus across the street from Newark Memorial High School. I mean, that's perfect synergy to be able to do that. And many, many high schools do not have that luxury. So I think we need to utilize that to the greatest extent possible and see where we can find some savings there as well. Mr. Rodriguez.

[8206] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. You know, Newark, I've been here over 40 years and it's a community of rumors. It's just who we are. And I mean, when times are good, it's community rumors. And when times are bad, it's definitely one. But like, you know, getting a call that, why are you going to close the junior high school and build a brand new high school? What's behind that? Why don't you call the, you know, just close the district office? We can't run a district on a board. We have to have educators. I mean some of us do have experience and we have to have, you know, the people we select to run our school district. A lot of times it's simplified. Why can't you just sell a property and use the money and that'll take care of your deficit. So there's so many different things. Member Thomas, her and I have gone back and forth naturally when it comes to adult ed. We just graduated. I think it was 20, 25 students, I don't know the exact numbers, that went back to the adult school and got their diplomas or their certificates. high school equivalency, and it's a wonderful program, and it's not, it's just part of adult ed. I've always been a proponent that if we have adult ed programs, we should charge enough so that the program should be self-sufficient in my opinion, other than the fact that, you know, the kids that we serve, you know, to finish their graduation, and most of them are between the ages 19 to 21 that kind of just missed the boat and they want to come back. And that's what we want. We want to be able to have our young people that didn't make it to be able to come back and get their equivalency. One of the things I don't see here, revenue possibilities, is what the superintendent talked about is increasing enrollment at the alternative schools. And Member Thomas and I have been on the same page on that one. as far as being able to bring students over from the high school. And the whole, I talked to a young lady the other day and she says, I don't want to go there because I heard once you go there, I can't go back to the high school, which is not the way we intended it to be. It's supposed to flow, okay? So, you know, my daughter was in Crossroads and it was the best thing that happened to her. She was there a couple of years and then she was able to go back to the high school. You know, looking at the arrangements between, The alternative schools and the high school as far as what the kids can still do, you know, so it makes the transition easier. And I think we've gone a long way there. But we had a community day school that originally the state gave us a lot of money and then all of a sudden it took it away so we had to close it down. Now we have new leadership over at Fremont Unified and doing a partnership there. There might be some revenue there. We have plenty of space at McGregor that we can do stuff like that. You know, there's different ways. So when you look at revenue possibilities, if we don't get this right, and I think the community will attest to this, there's no way we're going to come close to passing a parcel tax. It's just not going to work. So we have to, if we don't communicate properly and have the meetings that we need to have in order to have input, and I appreciate you know the superintendent talking about having two from each site and that's great but we have a community a lot of our parents that go to school here a lot of them don't vote and we need to engage our whole community and to accept you know so that they know what the problem is so that when we do decide to jump that you know Bridge and go over to a parcel tax that it's easier to engage because they already have an understanding we have a lot of grandparents that kids have Finished I'm one of them where where my kids have finished school and now the grandkids are in there And if I didn't have kids in there, I would still want to be engaged because I want good schools People say that if you don't have good schools then your property values go down well I Our property values are going to go up regardless. We need to engage our employees. Like Member Purcell said, in order to do that, you have to have a place where things can flow back and forth and And sometimes we don't have an answer But we could sure look it up and try to find the answer for you We have plenty of people that are more than qualified to find answers to just about all your any questions you have so we need to find a way to get that forum done so that we can people feel that that Instead of being on the outside looking in that they're part of the solution to make this work. We can't do this on our own. We need the community engaged so that they feel that, hey, this is our issue also. It isn't just yours. And we're willing to help. And the only way to have that is to have community meetings. And so I'll keep stressing that until hopefully we can come up with something. Ms. Thomas talked about the Ohlone program. Well, yeah, the teacher starts it at about 30. hopefully 35, and then you lose students. So in the mid, what are you going to do, cut the program six months in? You can't do that. The College Career Center, some of that money used to be paid by RP. So we probably need to have more information. How much is still being paid by RP for the second person there? You know, So the more information we have, the consolidated schools, and that figure definitely everybody knows is off. My thinking is you only save about $250,000. But anyway, the more information you have, the better off you are in order to engage our community so we can talk about stuff. And even if you walk away and you say, hey, they were all full of it. You know, they don't really know what they're doing. Still, we engaged and we had a discussion and that's what we need to do in my opinion. Okay, thank you.

[8590] SPEAKER_31: On to tomorrow. Do you feel you have enough guidance as far as direction?

[8598] SPEAKER_47: Yeah, I think we have some direction on things we can add to the table. If I may, I'd like to add some of the comments that I prepared in thinking and listening to the room. Let me start with this. We're not alone in California dealing with this dilemma. In fact, I was at the county office last week and there are a few other districts even in our county that are facing the same struggles. And something that I don't think gets called out enough is just the general funding gap in California. having a wide funding gap that's just getting to the point where it's painful for districts that are either only seeing modest increase in enrollment or have flat enrollment or declining enrollment. All those things, if you're one of those districts like us that we're only anticipating modest enrollment unless we do something different, which we're working on, are going to be cutting. And that's a function of the funding formula. And I know people probably don't want to hear that. But I can tell you, for me, being relatively new to California, I happen to know that we spend $271,000 for incarcerated youth in the state of California. I know that we spend approximately $60,000 for an incarcerated adult in California. And we spend about $8,500 on educating students. And that puts us right in line on the national stage, right between Arkansas and Mississippi in funding public ed. That's something that I think needs to be brought to bear and I think it needs to be brought to lawmakers and legislatures and that's something that we just have to deal with. So the funding gap is an issue. The increase in benefits, as anyone that runs a business knows, that's a really big chunk of your budget. increase in STRS and increase in PERS, keeps climbing, outpacing cost of living. And I think kind of the point that I think member Thomas was trying to make earlier, you know we can give 1.56 that just becomes a wash and then we added a 1% on top of that because we think we want to try to keep our employees. It's hard to have people come here and stay here. I mean you heard there's so much pride in Newark and so much willing to stay because of the environment that's here. Even with the challenges, people want to stay here, but it's competitive out there. Fremont Unified has approximately 200 vacancies right now in teachers, and we can't compete with them with salaries. So we have to find another way to compete. I think the piece that people don't think about a lot besides enrollment is average daily attendance. That has an impact. I think that's a revenue building kind of concept. What can we do to incentivize and have recognition of high enrollment and high attendance and encourage maybe some awards or rewards for kids in schools that beat certain numbers and offer them some kind of a carnival or we have to start thinking outside the box because without all of us working to really try to increase enrollment and stabilize, it's going to be an issue for us. But as you were talking about Ohlone Community College, something the city can do to help us and we're engaging in this conversation, it's something as simple as how about we have a gate and a crosswalk. to go across the street from the high school to Ohlone. There's not a light, there's not a crosswalk, the gate is difficult to get through. However, it's just something where I work with the, this conversation with the city they are a big partner of ours and I think they've done a good job In my opinion of just trying to work with us through those situations and I think that's appropriate for the city liaison committee. So I want people to know those conversations are going but I guess I'll end where we kind of started this. Those conversations are underway. We're reestablishing communication in many arenas. However this did not happen overnight and I know that any board in the situation over the last 13 years in this district has had to make difficult decisions with the hope in the back of their mind that the funding in California would stabilize, and it hasn't. So I think it's important for people to know that history matters because it's not going to happen quickly. But I think that the more we can find ways to be creative with how we communicate with people and, you know, I want to find a way to actually get questions so we can answer them here in this forum and in other forums from the community and that's why it was so important for me to ask the gentleman earlier, please get your questions out because we write them down and we incorporate them into what's coming next. We do listen. I know it doesn't feel that way because of the structure sometimes but we do want to listen and make sure that we answer those questions. But it will be getting better and I do see that two, three years out it will stabilize but this is temporary and it's seasonal. But it is really difficult. And I think that the more we communicate that and do it with kindness, I think it'll matter. So that's all I wanted to say. OK.

[8927] SPEAKER_31: And I think if there's a future follow-up as far as the concurrent enrollment and see what we can do with that. And just to acknowledge the audience, there is a crosswalk there. It's on our end to break the chain link fence behind the soccer practice field. And perhaps we can direct some. construction money, and that shouldn't be a huge expense to do that anyhow. With that being said, we have a couple of members of the audience who would like to speak on this item. Banch McCordrick, excuse me.

[8966] SPEAKER_42: I would like to ask a question and hopefully get clarification which will provide an opportunity for me to apologize to the superintendent and to Ms. Crocker if I can understand where I have information incorrect or perhaps you don't have the most current information. Regarding the full-time teachers at Crossroads, there were presently four. Three have been transferred. Ms. Petrkova, Ms. Keith and Mr. Hecka. So that brings up from four to one. That's where we have the information of one. So if there's information for two, it hasn't been given to the crossroads staff to let us know.

[9018] SPEAKER_47: Petropavlov was transferred. Let me sort part of that out and actually there's more than two. The structuring that we're looking at and talking about, all the teachers, anyone on that campus that has a teaching credential should be assisting all kids on that campus. So that changes how many people can interact with kids and that gives us a better ratio. So any staff member that works for Crossroads or works for Ridgepoint should be sharing and supporting students regardless of what they need. So as we start expanding individualized plan for students, will be able to serve kids differently and kids can kind of pick a little from each bucket to serve their needs. So that's one thing. The other part of the people part of it is part of a negotiated agreement and there's certain rules around following tenure and So even though those people appear that they moved out of Crossroads, we are going to look at how do we work as a team. That's been the clearest direction that I did give the staff is let's blur the lines. Because right now operating as three different schools on one campus, it's okay and it's working well and they've done a good job, but there's definitely enough students to go around. I really anticipate that campus could serve easily in the next two years over 200 students. So I think there's a way to expand it. I think that as that enrollment increases, staffing will be added back. But I can commit to you that there's a way to do it in a way that is not just stuck in the box of, OK, Crossroads only does this kind of thing, and Bridgepoint only does this. How do we work together as one teaching staff to offer those different options to kids? So the answer's kind of in the middle, but that's the direction we're going to be going. So I hope that helps you at least understand kind of the approach.

[9128] SPEAKER_42: But more of what the plan is, the plan is coming across as a pretty radical deviation. Right. And you've had two years where their scores have gone up 10% year over year. Right.

[9145] SPEAKER_47: With a smaller number of students. So I can tell you that there's 270 kids out there who aren't receiving services. So in my mind, it hasn't been successful. When you look at the number of kids that could benefit from the resources going on at Crossroads, and the resources going on at Bridgepoint, We could be serving a lot more students, and we're not. So for me, from that lens, when I see how many kids are at the high school that are overage, under credit, and fixing that communication between the high school and cross-growth is critical, and I'm very aware of it. So it's more to it. I'm happy to meet with you individually and talk more about it in detail. It's pretty, and that's my background, is secondary, alternative, and high school is where I'm probably strongest.

[9188] SPEAKER_42: President, you were talking about the ROP. That, from my experience at Crossroads, has been a significant role for many. We've got a community just within my family over eight friends and neighbors who've transferred to Crossroads and from there been able to work into the ROP. Similar to my daughter, with the computer services there, she's now going to be working on an internship this year, computer graphic. She wouldn't have been able to do that in her state when she left Newark Memorial. So the funding that you have there is producing new results.

[9234] SPEAKER_31: And I've never questioned that, and I've never questioned as far as, you know, we've never entertained cutting or whatnot, but I wanted to examine whether working or biggest bang for the buck in light of the new laws that have been passed in regards to concurrent enrollment because some of the community colleges can offer classes above and beyond what RRP can offer.

[9254] SPEAKER_42: We appreciate that but we weren't allowed to go to the alumni until she was farther through your memorial and she left.

[9263] SPEAKER_31: The laws have changed within the past year and a half so it's significantly different now.

[9268] SPEAKER_42: Thank you for your time.

[9272] SPEAKER_31: Svetlana Petriakova.

[9277] Diego Torres: No?

[9279] SPEAKER_31: Okay, great. So with that, with that, there are no more public... Did you turn it on for me?

[9291] Leonor Rebosura: What is your name? Hi, I'm Barbara. Welcome. Yeah, it's in there. Come forward.

[9295] SPEAKER_31: Go ahead, Ms. Barbara.

[9301] SPEAKER_33: You came in late, so you only get half the time.

[9302] SPEAKER_41: I did, and I apologize for that. However, I called the district office, and I was told 7 o'clock. So since I was told 7 o'clock, I was here early for 7. First there is a I don't mean to correct that the gate next to the shot put is open and PE runs that circle every day. I see the kids out there. Oh yeah.

[9324] SPEAKER_31: That's on the. No. Alongside.

[9327] SPEAKER_41: I know. Yeah. It's outside of the gate that they come outside of the gate and run along the street and then in with the shot put gate.

[9335] SPEAKER_31: Correct. There's also another gate by the creek as well. Yes. But what I'm saying is there probably isn't a gate right in the middle right at the crosswalk.

[9342] SPEAKER_41: I think there is, but I think that one's always locked. But I do know that two on the ends are open. So I wanted to say, I'm a grandparent, so please don't discount us grandparents. Like Ray, I've been here, my kids went to Newark. The district has gone downhill since my kids went here though, majorly. I'm a grandparent with a granddaughter at Lincoln, and I'm now understanding why I'm told there's a combo class next year. Kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and third grade, there's been enough students for two full classes. You're bringing up the class size. If there is 30 or more students in her class and she's in a combo class, I will pull her from the district because you cannot successfully teach a combo class with that many students. I don't know why we are doing a combo class when all of a sudden we've had enough students for two full classes every year, but we are. I'm not opposed to a combo class. I was in a combo class. So it's not that I'm opposed to a combo class. I'm opposed to a large class size and combo. The other thing is our substitute teachers. This year, my granddaughter had a day at school, towards the end of school, when her teacher got the flu. She came home and said, I had all kinds of recess today, Mama. Why'd you have all kinds of recess? Because we didn't have a teacher. Our teacher called in sick because she had the flu, and nobody was there to take her place. So her class spent most of the day on the playground. We can't cut our substitute teachers anymore. We won't keep any that we already have. We're already $70 less than the surrounding districts. We need substitute teachers that will stay with us. And regarding our aids for our handicapped students and special ed students, we need to make sure that we're in compliance. We can't cut when we're already under. So we need to look at what our compliances are before we start handing out pink slips for them. I agree. We need to keep, if a teacher leaves and one comes in at less money, we need to keep that money for that aid that needs to stay. So in that retrospect, yes, I agree that the money should stay with special ed because we need our aides. Our aides make the difference in these students' lives in the way that they learn. Without our aides, we're dead in the water. The IEPs, my grandson was given one in grade school and the person who gave it is no longer with the district but she gave it wrong. Sorry. So thank you for your time. I was on the LCAP. I would be on the budget if you asked.

[9507] SPEAKER_31: Thank you. Okay. So that concludes 7.1, which is the budget study session number 6. And Superintendent, Mr. Richards, you have enough guidance and direction from us to proceed as forward? Thank you. I think we have a good start. Yes. Onto 8.1, which is Board of Education Community Reports and Announcements, Requests, Debrief Discussion. Member Preciado? Pass? OK. Member Crocker?

[9537] SPEAKER_14: I just went to a lot of graduations and really had a good time. It's really kind of fun to sit there and wash the faces We get so excited for going to the next step. That's one of the advantages of Newark is the fact that we have one junior high and one high school.

[9559] SPEAKER_14: I have to congratulate the artistic ability with all the things that they put their head down and mortarboard showed. You can see all kinds of different stories.

[9568] Ray Rodriguez: Rodriguez? There's nothing. more exciting than to go to a promotion class, sixth grade or kindergarten. We had a little bit of an issue, so we missed the, or I did, the one at Whiteford. But, and then those junior high school kids wear you out naturally. There's over 400 of them at the high school. And then the high school was, having it early in the morning was perfect. So it was great. You know, this friend of mine passed away a few years ago, Bill McMillan. He was on a board with us. And he's the one that actually put together getting that Ohlone campus in Newark at where it is now. And we had talked about having a overpass over, you know, over Cherry. And it was too expensive. So, anything we could do there to make the flow a little bit better nationally would be good. But I, even though I don't like to talk about budget cuts, the fact that we're having more dialogue and it's great and thank you President Wynn for entertaining some of our audience or our community members from speaking after. So it's a learning process for all of us. And like the superintendent says, hang in there with us. And as a community, we'll get through this. OK? Thank you. That's all I have. Dr. Thomas?

[9659] Nancy Thomas: Well, it was a busy week or two. And I just want to thank staff for the great job of organizing the various the events that we were able to attend and let the various staffs at the schools know what a nice job they did and the parents, what a nice job they did for all the promotion ceremonies and open houses and things like that. It was really nice to attend and to see all the excitement.

[9693] SPEAKER_31: And I would echo member Crocker, member Thomas' sentiments as far as promotions and graduations. I had the opportunity to attend. Unfortunately, two of them were for my very own. And for this upcoming year, 17-18, I have one at every level in the district. So one at the high school, one at junior high, and one still at the elementary. So we can't claim partiality there, right? So thank you. 9.1 superintendents concluding comments, updates.

[9728] SPEAKER_47: Nothing really to add. I agree with all of those. I would just add a little bit around the incoming class into the freshman at Newark Memorial next year will be approximately 485 students. The high school's been working on a plan to make sure that we retain and help those kids get to the 12th grade on track, meaning no Fs, and earn their way to the appropriate grade promotions. If we keep that 485 over four years, that solves a very significant enrollment dilemma at the high school. So I think that's something that I know the high school is aware of. While I was sitting at graduation, I was texting the high school principal saying, how many students are you graduating? Oh, 435. So if you're able to retain these kids that are starting next year and keep them for four years, that solves a lot of problems. And I know that's been a lot. You'll hear more about what they're doing with, I don't know what they're calling it, flex time or freshman seminar. But the idea of how do we keep kids on track is something that's not going away. And I think as we start thinking about the metric, That's a good metric to keep in mind that we are able to all the kids that start ninth grade finish in four years and have all passing grades. Pretty simple metric to calculate and you'll be seeing more reports on that. So with that, that's all I would say. And just shaking that many hands in one day was awesome.

[9814] SPEAKER_31: Thank you very much. So it is 8.47. Meeting is adjourned.

No minutes available.