Regular Meeting

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[10] SPEAKER_46: to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[26] SPEAKER_47: Thank you for attending the October 3rd school board meeting of the Newark Unified School District. Guests of the meetings are encouraged to submit a comment card located at the rear of the room if they wish to address the board on non-agendized items. Each speaker is limited to a maximum of three minutes and can only speak on a single item once. Please note that the board cannot comment on non-agendized items. In close or the special session, the board did give direction and accepted staff's recommendation on item 3.1. No further action was taken for the rest of the agenda items. With that, we move on to 6.1. I'm seeking approval of the current agenda for tonight's meeting. My member Rodriguez.

[73] Diego Torres: I'll second.

[73] SPEAKER_47: Second by member Thomas. Please vote. Six ayes. Thank you. 7.1, the student report from Newark Junior High School, McGregor, and Newark Memorial High School. It looks like we're starting with Newark Junior High School.

[107] SPEAKER_37: Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I am Shane Elms, the ASB vice president at NJHS.

[112] SPEAKER_20: And I'm Tad Kalibata, the ASB president at NJHS.

[117] SPEAKER_37: Many amazing things have been accomplished at NJHS, such as new school gear being designed and ordered.

[124] SPEAKER_20: We created designs for a hoodie and a t-shirt, which will be sold in our student store.

[129] SPEAKER_37: We also will be having a Halloween carnival with fun games and prizes to celebrate Halloween.

[134] SPEAKER_20: Just today, our leadership class at NGHS did our first bowling presentation of the year. We do these presentations to raise awareness about bowling and to take one big step towards becoming a no-place-for-hate recognized school. Adding on to the topic of bowling, October is National Bowling Prevention Month.

[153] SPEAKER_37: One very large project the leadership class has been working on is the upcoming Tiki Bash this Friday at Newark Junior High. We will have food, fun, and music.

[163] SPEAKER_20: Adding on to fun, students in leadership class have been putting on amazing lunchtime activities for the student body, such as cornhole, tug of war, and frisbee golf.

[180] SPEAKER_37: Oh, my bad. Like we said at the last board meeting, we are working on school clubs, which we had many of last year, such as Sci-Fi Club, Hip Hop Club, Ukulele Club, AP Club, and many others.

[198] SPEAKER_20: Finally, the students in leadership will be planning a campus-wide canned food drive. These donations will provide food for those in need in our community. The donations will be made towards viable The donations will be made to Viola Blake.

[215] SPEAKER_37: Today we have four student representatives at the school site PBIS meeting. Thank you for your time, ladies and gentlemen. Have a great evening.

[224] Diego Torres: Thank you. I have a quick question.

[229] SPEAKER_37: The cost of the hoodies and the t-shirts, how much are they? The hoodies? So that will be, it will be 27 without ASB and 25 with ASB. And for the actual jackets, it's going to be like the windbreakers will be 30 without ASB, 27 with ASB.

[260] SPEAKER_20: And the t-shirts, we're not sure how much those are because this is, we haven't done that like last year.

[266] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you.

[273] SPEAKER_47: McGregor? Is there a student from McGregor? Okay. Newark Memorial?

[284] SPEAKER_02: Good evening. Okay. I have a lot to cover, so bear with me. Tomorrow morning, there is Coffee with the Principal. This is available to have coffee with Ms. Huerta from 10.30 to 11.30. Anyone is allowed to join. After you have coffee with the principal and talk about whatever you please, you will also visit the pause period and go into the classrooms and see how the students are reacting with the new pause period. This is just kind of available for anyone who would like to see it. The PSAT test, this will be next week on October 11th from 7.45 to 11 a.m. Students grade 9 and 12, so freshmen and seniors will come to school late this day. The beginning period for freshmen and seniors will be 11.06, so make sure not to come early and to sleep in. As for the sophomores and juniors, a.k.a. me, I get to wake up early and take tests, so that's fun. But feedback for the PSAT. You guys, in allowing the sophomores and juniors to take it every year, it has really had a positive feedback. I know myself and many of my other classmates have been receiving lots of emails and mail, just mail in general, from lots of colleges that have gotten our test scores and are interested in us visiting their campuses. And so that's really great to get that college exposure just off of our PSAT scores. So that's really great. Let's see. Seniors remaining college application workshops will be on the 9th, the 16th, and the 23rd. This will be held by the former NMHS English and Puente teacher, Theresa Stone. She'll be focusing on UC and CSU common and coalition application essay prompts. This is great for students that want to practice their essays to get into college. FAFSA applications are also starting right now and seniors must start applying right now. The deadline is November 30th. There will also be a FAFSA workshop on Tuesday next week. So make sure to go to that. There are also lots of colleges that are visiting our campus which is also a great opportunity. There was just a CSU application workshop today at the high school. And then within the next few weeks, Montana Tech, CSU Monterey Bay, and UCSF, and then UCL was just also on campus. It's really great for the students to get that exposure to the colleges. Let's see, Spirit Week. This is always the best week of the year. Let's see, this will start October 16th through 20th. This is not next week, but the following week. The whole campus is just dressed up in crazy costumes. You are welcome to join us in these crazy costumes if you would like to visit. The Spirit Week Assembly will be on Friday, October 13th. There will be the homecoming rally and all the skits will be performed. This will be live streamed once again just like last year on YouTube Live if you would like to tune into that. Because I know a lot, all of the classes have put in countless hours. They're just practicing right, currently right now, all of the classes. So it would be really cool for them, everyone to see. Also the homecoming game will be that Friday on October 20th. There will be a tailgate party, which is held before the homecoming game. There will be lots of food trucks and outdoor games such as spike ball, and what's it called? Cornhole. And face painting, which I will also be doing. I'll be face painting. So if you want to come get your face painted. So that will be awesome for anyone who would like to come out. And then we are currently starting our sports applications for the winter season. So make sure to register. And we're continuing our championship program with Coach Hess. That is all I have for right now. Thank you.

[551] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. Oh.

[556] SPEAKER_02: Just kidding. That's not all I have. There's also a big, big thing. The Luau is this weekend on Saturday from 5.30. This is a huge fundraiser for athletics. If you have not purchased your ticket to the Luau, please come to me and I will give you the information. It's pretty much all the students for athletics, they serve you and you get lots of food and it's just We don't have that much money for our sports. And there's a lot of students, including myself, who are really dedicated. And just to help us out any way you can, it just means the world to us. So yeah. Where is it? This will be at the Newark Pavilion. And the cost for a ticket is about, I believe, $45 to $50. We're done? Yeah? All right.

[610] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. On to 8.1, School Spotlight, Birch Grove Intermediate.

[628] Catheerine Ingham-Watters: Good evening, Board President Nguyen, Clerk Thomas, members Preciado, Crocker, Rodriguez, and student member Van Rossum. Good evening, Superintendent Sanchez, executive cabinet, and district leadership. Welcome, Birch Grove staff and families, interim principal Ellie Wasser, and the Newark community. I'm Catheerine Ingham-Watters, principal of Birch Grove Intermediate, serving approximately 460 students in grades three through six. Tonight, I will be highlighting some of our site's achievements, initiatives, and goals. We'll take a look at some data. Last spring, students in grades three through six took the Smarter Balance Assessment. As you can see, the right-hand column, 46% of our students scored met or exceeded standards in reading language arts. In this area, our students are right on par with the district's average of 45% proficient. This is in language arts. In math, BGI scored much higher than the district average with 48% of our students meeting exceeding standards compared to the district average of 37%. We do like to look at comparable data to see how the school or our cohorts of students are doing over time. However, BGI is in a unique situation having merged two schools together and this 16-17 data we consider our baseline data for our larger student group. We are in the process with staff looking at grade level specific data as well as identifying target students. We have already expanded our intervention program to include not just English language development, but math, reading, writing, and test-taking strategies. Another set of data we used to look at for student growth is using iReady. iReady includes diagnostic and benchmark assessments to monitor progress over time. Students also had access to the instructional licensees for reading and math as well. So if we look at our achievement in the fall, we can see growth over time. 36% of our students were at or above level. This is in reading. In the spring, you can see the band in green increased. showing our students' growth at 50% at or above level. We're really proud of our math achievement from last year and our focus on that. So when we look at math, in the fall, 30% of our students showed proficiency. And by the spring, using our diagnostic iReady data, 64% of our students were at or above level. What contributed to that success and our subsequent scores on SBAC? All of our teaching staff committed to use of one hour of iReady instructional lessons per week. That provides adaptive instruction to all of our students, not just those below grade level getting the help that they need, but it provides adaptive instruction to our highest achieving students as well, those who surpass grade level expectations. And our work in our PLC included growth monitoring, small group instruction, pacing guides, priority standards, and digital supports. Also, a unique configuration of our site is we have large grade level teams. And we think that contributed to our success in math as well as it provides a larger group for collaboration, planning, and pulling our resources. The next three slides talk about some of our initiatives and our goals for this year. We worked quite a bit last year creating our vision for both Birch Grove sites as one community. And our vision is to create a safe, inspiring, and innovative learning community. So the first slide talks about how we're working to create a safe community. We are in year one, which is our planning year for PBIS, positive behavior and intervention systems, and we're really starting to shift our mindset towards positive systems rather than punitive. We have our character traits monthly awards called our very important Bulldog or VIB awards. And the students who are honored each month get to have lunch with me in our VIB lounge. Our safety team is a group of teachers, and our goals this year are creating comfort bags for every student and facilitating an evacuation drill outside of classroom time, such as during lunch or recess. So those are some of our steps working towards creating a safe community. The ways in which we're inspiring our students Student Council, creating leadership opportunities. For our sixth grade students, we have a Presidential and Principals Award Program, which includes a considerable amount of community service. We have one-to-one technology. Our students are using Chromebooks in every single classroom, every single day. We use digital learning tools such as gizmos, math and science interactive simulations. We are benefiting from 21st century classrooms including flexible furniture and options for our students to learn best. We have sports teams. And how are we creating and working towards an innovative learning community? So our goals and initiatives in this area is implementing project-based learning, use of little bots, little bits, and Lego robotics. Once a trimester, we have STEAM Week, which many of you have visited over this last year. We have a music partnership with Music for Minors to bring music education into our classrooms. And we are very lucky to have Mrs. Weeks here who is, I believe, the one and only in our district nationally certified STEM teacher. She completed 39 activities for the National Institute for STEM Education and Teaching. So we are very lucky to have her innovative practices at our site. So we'd like to thank you for having us share some of our data and our initiatives. And please stop by. We'll email closer to the date. Visit our classrooms to see STEAM in action, the board and district leadership. Thank you very much.

[1109] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. 9.1, superintendent's update. Thank you.

[1120] SPEAKER_06: Thank you President Nguyen, members of the board, ladies and gentlemen. I just want to update on a few different items. First of all, I want to reiterate that tonight I know the board is going to take action on a resolution to look at some budget reductions and I want to really underscore the importance that the main number to really look at is the bottom line of that resolution and the columns that have been identified aligned with kind of the public feedback that we've taken thus far. But there might be movement between now and December 15th within those groupings. So I want to make sure that that's clear. And I also want to make sure that it's clear that the reductions that the board's looking at tonight would not take effect until next school year. I know there was some confusion or misinformation that if something took action tonight that things would go away tomorrow. It's really in planning for budget for next school year. and the resolution tonight is really a verbal commitment and a formal writing commitment to the county that we're committed to making this reduction in the budget and we're going to be working through a process with staff between tomorrow and December 15th so that there is a final version that has been more public, that is more detailed, that the board will be more involved in. I just wanted to clarify those two items. Next I do want to remind the board that we do have a visit from the California Legislative Staff Education Institute. The visit is October 18th through 20th, and I would like the board to attend on Thursday, October 19th from 11.45 to 1 p.m. I believe Char will send you an invite. This will be a roundtable conversation with the legislative staff, Adams County Office of Education Superintendent myself and members of the board to have a conversation about how is LCAP working, what recommendations do we want the legislator to begin thinking about, and our own current challenges with budget and what are some things we'd like the legislator to start thinking about relative to how LCAP implementation is or isn't serving us, how LCFF is serving or not serving us, and just coherence in the progress monitoring of what we're doing with the new budgeting structure. It's a unique opportunity. It is brought to us by way of the CCEE, the California Collaborative for Educational Equity. Carl Cohn, remember he presented last year. So they're the ones that have kind of gotten us this unique opportunity to speak directly to the legislative staff. which I think is a great opportunity. And we've built a multi-day schedule, and that portion of the schedule is a board conversation. So work with Char if you're able to attend. We will send you the agenda and invites.

[1303] Bowen Zhang: Thursday?

[1306] SPEAKER_06: Yes, it's Thursday, October 19, 11.45 to 1 PM. One of the other items that think we're ready to begin working on is really this idea of pulling together all of our education foundations for a larger conversation. I know that our current foundations do raise a fair amount of money to serve our students but I think there's time for us to have a larger conversation with the foundation. We saw a big outpouring of community success and really raising money at Kennedy Elementary and many of those schools are wondering how can we participate in something like that and I think that a natural place for us to look at as a board and as a district is, can we reinvigorate our existing foundations into a larger group that really helps raise money for children? And just the idea behind this is if we could really revitalize or create maybe new, I'd rather work with our existing partners, but to really look at raising money for all schools in the area of enrichment and extended day opportunities, in the area of funding science camp for our elementaries, in the area of reducing class size overages, that cost of overages, and reducing the number of combination classes. That might be a nice chunk of things that would be very helpful to us knowing where we are with budget and trying to engage larger outside partners to help us. Member Thomas has been willing to help spearhead this with me and we've been wrestling with this idea and I think the time has come to kind of formalize maybe a meeting after we get through the next couple weeks to sit down and have coffee with all of our partners and say hey can we do something larger scale to support the kids of Newark in these areas that really extend the day and extend enrichment opportunities for kids and try to keep kids and families within their home school as much as possible. So that's, I just wanted to share that with you. And I think that the spirit of that is really to try to raise and supplement some challenges that we have in the budget and kind of offset that for now. But I think it's just a great thing to get behind. And I think a lot of people want to contribute to us doing more things for kids with the understanding that all that money goes to kids and not some administrative fee. Is there anything else that I missed? Those are all the items I had on my report at this time, President Nguyen.

[1464] SPEAKER_47: Great. Thank you. On to 10.1, which is the CASP data. We do have two, actually three speakers. I do want to clarify, excuse me, for Michelle Lozado and John To. On the item number, you put item 10, but then on the title, it's public comment. So do you mean to speak, not you, Mr. New. Wrong item. Wrong item number. So you're meant to be on 11, right? Is that? Yeah. Okay. Got it. Thank you. So then the single speaker for this item is Mr. Kerry New.

[1505] Cary Knoop: Mr. President, may I request to do the public speaking after the presentation because I will talk about some of the results of the CASPE scores and I think it's more polite to get the presentation about the scores first. and then public comment. So that's just my request and it's up to you if you want to grant that.

[1520] SPEAKER_47: That's fine.

[1521] Cary Knoop: Thank you.

[1527] SPEAKER_43: Good evening President Nguyen, members of the board, our community. This evening we come forward with the CAS data. As you remember we had this data embargoed for a while by the state but I do want to let you know that as testament to what our principal at Birch Grove Intermediate shared our teachers and our principals have been working with this data since it came out because we have work to do and we couldn't wait for the state to be able to start this work but today publicly we want to share the data and And Ms. Amy Black, our Director of Teaching and Learning, will begin the presentation.

[1562] SPEAKER_48: Good evening, President Nguyen, members of the board, Superintendent Sanchez, Executive Cabinet. Thank you for your patience. I know that this line item has been on the agenda for several weeks. And unfortunately, we've been waiting for the state to lift the embargo for us to be able to share the data. That being said, I think it's important for everybody to know that we've had the data since August. And we've already started data analysis with our district leadership team working within our leadership groups, analyzing the information that we have so that we can make decisions and action steps, which we'll address later in the presentation. I think it's really also important to note that the delay from the state was not as a result of an error with student scores. It was an error in the actual file that was supposed to be publicly uploaded onto the public's website. So they were having technical difficulties that they had to work out. So I think that's important to note that our scores were never affected. So the information that we've been looking at is accurate. Am I doing that? Sorry. So I think it's really important to frame the conversation about the purpose of CASP. So actually CASP is an umbrella term for all the assessments within the state of California. The specific test that you're going to be looking at today is the SBAC testing. But we kind of use it interchangeably. PASS stands for California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress. We talk a lot about formative and summative assessments. This is a summative assessment that's aligned to our California state standards. So it's a very important test for us to take a look at. Yes, it's one measure. It's one moment in time. However, it also tells us some information about the mastery of how our students are doing aligned to the state standard and teaching and instruction that's happening throughout the year. That's why we take the test in the spring. And so not only does it give us information about our programs and making decisions and how to support our to support our students, but it also ultimately holds us accountable in our LCAP and gives us some really important information. So I want to frame the data. You're going to be looking at a lot of charts. I know some of you have a copy of the PowerPoint. I'm going to also be introducing reports from Illuminate, which is our new data assessment system. Sometimes it's very overwhelming to look at a lot of numbers and data. I know you all have had a packet. for several weeks, and I provided a lot of information. I've also provided information about the county for the purposes of this conversation. I'm not going to delve deeply into the county numbers. If that's something that the public or the board wishes to have another presentation or conversation about, I'm happy to bring that. But for today, we're just going to focus on the district as a whole. So what you will see when we look at the data, and I show some of the slides, is that in ELA, here's a bright spot. You're going to see that 60% of our 11th grade students, they've met or exceeded standard. Our district average was 45%. A couple other things you're going to see in ELA that are Asian, Filipino, white, and two or more race subgroups, they continue to score higher than the district average. And our black, African-American, and Hispanic groups continue to score lower than the district average. So that's an area that we're looking closely at. And also, a significant area of us to take some real reflection and looking at our programs is our EL subgroup and our special ed subgroup. They're significantly below our district average. You'll see that in a moment. And overall, you're going to see a district-wide slight decline in all grade levels in ELA. That's true for math. It's important to note that countywide that is still that is also the case that districts saw a slight either increase maybe one or two percent a flattening or a slight decrease which you'll see one or two percent then you'll see some areas of subgroups that you'll have more significant fluctuation. The district I'm sorry the deputy superintendent at the California Department of Education says that that's a statewide kind of reflection that they're seeing across the board, that there's a flat score representation. And he believes, so they're going to take a little bit closer look as to why that is, doing some group work and trying to understand why we're seeing that statewide. He really believes and made a statement at our North-South meeting last week in Sacramento. He really attributes it to the rigorous standards that California has implemented and really stands firmly on the belief that we need to provide and continue to provide teacher professional development that it's critical in helping teachers to understand and ultimately instruct students on these rigorous standards. Quickly on math before I go into the charts you're going to see that our third grade population and our seventh grade population scored higher than our district average and then you're going to see small increases Within those subgroups as well, as you look at it, because we're going to do a three-year comparison. This is the first time we have three years of data to really analyze and get some information about. Again, our subgroups that were represented in ELA testing are scoring higher, and then Black Hispanic groups are continuing to score lower. Our EL population and SPED is significantly lower. And district-wide, we have a slight decline. Okay, so I'm going to actually try to toggle the conversation so I can explain these reports. Are you gonna be able to hear me? Okay, so what the audience sees and the board members are looking at is one of the reports from our Illuminate system. So I mentioned that before in the data system. It's really a fantastic program. It collects all our data. It replaces what the district used before, which is the orders. So not only does it collect all our as fact data, teachers are also able to create their own assessments within, eliminate and update data, and then it creates more formative assessments. So this, like I said, this is a summative assessment. So let me explain how to read the report, and then I'll peek over here and show you guys, okay? So the gray area tells you what this report is representing. So it's all of our district students that have taken the test in the area English Language Arts, you're gonna see a line, and that's something we're gonna talk more about this year, is the distance from three, which is a line to the dashboard, and we've got a little bit of an introduction in the spring, and that's gonna be a really important conversation that we're gonna continue to have this year. So we want our students to be at three or above, so you're gonna see 45% of our students met or exceeded standard, you guys see that? ELA, and then also gives you the total number of students as well as who's near or below standard in English language arts. We've done a lot of work with our leadership team to really unpack these reports. Something that's really critical for us and we start asking ourselves well, What area are students, you know, not scoring or meeting standard? What grade levels? We look at the claims, which are directly aligned. So on this bottom part, these are directly aligned to our common core state standards. It's the four domains and the claim performance areas. One critical conversation that we have is this area of gray. Sometimes this is frustrating to analyze because it actually combines our near standard and our S standards met. So the score number two and three is actually the gray area. So then it makes us wonder, well, who's almost at standard? Who's at standard? How many questions is that? How are the questions weighted? So there's a lot of questions and analysis that goes into these kind of reports. So I just want to give you a sampling of some of the work that we continue to do as a leadership team and then ultimately at the school sites. I mentioned before, this is our first time that we're going to be able to look at three years of data. So I want to give you the grade level data. So you can see, you can analyze it how you like. There's areas where statistically it's insignificant, one percentage point, two percentage points. And then you're going to see some other areas that makes us wonder why. And we need to take a closer look. 7, 8, 11. Something that's encouraging is that we see with our eighth grade scores that our students, because they don't get tested for two years, and that we're seeing an increase. So that tells us, you know, we want to look at what instruction's happening. Obviously there's some really good things that are happening at the high school for our students to continue to fare well on this test. Okay, math. Okay, so math was an area where district leadership, we were concerned about. And we'll talk a little bit more about the steps that we've taken. I want to, the report, this is Illuminate report again. You read it the same way. Distance from three, 37% of our students are at or above standard. 63% are below or near standard. I want, at this time, to look at the numbers. I want you to look at the student numbers. So we're saying of about 3,000 students that are tested, only 1,000 are at standard in our district. So that means almost 2,000, so 2 thirds of our students are not at standard. So that's something that we're asking ourselves, why? What do we need to do? We're taking a closer look at programs, and then again, looking at the claims. Where are we seeing a deficit? in the score, and why are we seeing a deficit in our program? So those are some of the questions. That's what data tells us, paints a picture, and it has us ask more questions. So for your comparison, I'm going to go kind of quickly through that. This will all be uploaded on our website, so you're able to take a look at it if you want edits publicly released. information is available. Something I want to point out about these sites. So remember in ELA we saw an increase in our numbers from 8th grade to 11th grade percentage. That's not the case for math. So we're seeing a significant decline in our 8th grade to 11th grade in our student scores. So that's an area as a leadership team and then also working with the high school math department. asking some questions, and doing some analysis. OK. This is a super overwhelming chart. This is our subgroup. So this, again, is a report within Illuminate. It gives us a side-by-side comparison. Like I mentioned before, we're moving to our goal is to be at three. So the state wants us to be at three. So if you look on the left-hand chart, This will tell us a distance from three overall in ELA. I don't think you can see on there. I think it's 2.3. So we are below what the state is asking us to be. So that's something that we want to look at. We also want to look at our subgroups, because you can see there's some subgroups, like I mentioned before, that are faring better and others that are not. So then we ask these questions. Why? We also want to ask how many students are there. How many students are we talking about? What does their program look like? So then we tweeze it down to the individual student level. You're used to seeing it in percentage. So that's this side. And it aligns with how the students are given the scores, exceeded standard, standard met. near standard or below standard. So you're going to see a percentage value. So either, it's just two representations of the same information. What does that look over the last three years? When you break down the subgroups, so language arts, you'll see all students the last three years are economically disadvantaged subgroup, are EL and SED. So remember at the beginning of my presentation, I mentioned that those were two subgroups that we didn't take. We're really close to that. They're significantly below our district average. Okay. By ethnicity. So some that are statistically noted and some, you know, percentage point here and there. You also need to think about the total number of students we're talking about, right? So that's another thing that we're looking at. This is math. So the same report. Again, we'll see two and three. So we're at 2.2 district-wide. We need to be at three according to the dashboard in the state. And then this category is what we get calculated by the state. We have our socioeconomic, our English learner, and then our students with disabilities. So part of our grant money. So again, the distance from three, percentage point, and then what it looks like over the last three years. Okay, so next step, and Ms. Salinas is also gonna help me talk about that. So I think this data's really important. It's really good information. It tells us, it confirms we have data, solid data over the last three years. There's some work that we need to do. And there's a lot of work that's been done, and we need to continue to work together and make some adjustments to really see some significant gains. Math is our first goal, our first area of focus, and I'm going to have you break off.

[2450] SPEAKER_43: So, as you see, the data, we have it, our teachers are working with data, our principals are working with data. I think some next steps also, we started to share this with our DLAC parent group, That's going to be something that we also share with our SSCs and having this roll out because the more we know about data, it can inform our decisions as it comes to our LCAP or our site plan. Some of the first steps that we've taken since August. So part of our district leadership team meetings is that we're looking at professional learning community groups where our principals have been grouped according to need within the different schools and they've developed actual SMART goals and action steps as it relates to a goal around mathematics. We meet twice a month. We revisit. We look at assessments that are going to be put into the queue and it informs our instruction. So it's this plan. You do it, you study it, you act, you revise. And so this cycle of continuous improvement, that's work that we're all doing as instructional leaders.

[2511] SPEAKER_48: So I briefly spoke a few weeks ago about SVMI. So I think that's a critical piece that we've infused into our action step. So we have a partnership or a membership with SVMI and their professional development opportunity, as well as their resources. So at the elementary level, what it will look like is that we're going to take steps to infuse number talks or math talks and problem of the month. throughout our elementary school. So that's a year-long goal and plan and we'll come back and explain what that looks like in our progress along the way. As well as you notice in the data we saw a dip from 8th grade to 11th grade. We want to catch that sooner. Within SVMI, they offer MAC or MARS assessments, which are performance tasks, which will give us some really important data about how our students are mastering the mathematical practices as well as standards. So we're going to, this year for sure, administer it in ninth and tenth grade math classes so we can start collecting data on those subgroups of students.

[2576] SPEAKER_43: In August, we met with a new math department chair along with the site leadership at the high school. And we looked at what the plan was for this incoming school year to start the math adoption. Part of that conversation, looking at their specific data in the area of mathematics, is that we saw that we need to make some immediate changes. So some immediate changes were stopping the use of accelerated math and springboard at the high school this year. And instead, looking at supporting our teachers with Engage Newark and they're doing that work this year for the first semester and then as we start to pilot for second semester. I'm very happy to report on Thursday we will have our first meeting of this committee for the assessment and curriculum council as we start to roll out the plan for the math adoption for this year-long project.

[2626] SPEAKER_48: And she basically touched on that. is that we've combined the assessment and curriculum councils. They used to sit as separate entities in the past. We're going to collect them together, and we're going to take them through a full adoption process. So we have a very detailed plan in terms of what that process will look like, including piloting materials, selection of materials, criteria that teachers will develop, and then ultimately bring to a vote in the spring with a full recommendation of programs to the board. We're hoping in May, but then with an actual math curriculum adoption for the first time in a number of years.

[2668] SPEAKER_43: Then our focus turned to English language arts. And as we started to look at the area of need, we saw that at Graham and Schilling, we had a higher need based on the number of English learners, based on the number of students with disabilities, and also looking at the general population of the school of needing some additional support. So what we're doing is that we're going to roll this out in cycles so that every school will have an opportunity to participate in embedded coaching. but the first two schools participating will be Graham and Schilling and we're looking at phasing in the other schools as we come for year two and year three.

[2707] SPEAKER_48: So one thing that we noticed coming in as a new leadership team and coming up to speed on the different professional development and board adopted programs that have happened over the last few years in Newark we noticed that there has been an unequal implementation of reading and writing readers and writers workshop although there's been offerings in the summer teachers don't always take advantage of you know summer professional development for various reasons and then with our sub shortage it's been difficult in the past to be able to have you know comprehensive professional development offered in an equal setting. So that was something that with the plan of doing embedded coaching and having an implementation plan over the next couple years to ensure that everybody is getting the same level of professional development and training within this really rigorous complex standards-based program. I think it's also important to note that on one of our August PD days, because we have professional development with all of our teachers, that all teachers had breakout sessions and reading and writing readers and writers workshop, depending on their level of implementation. So if they were at the beginning level, they would went to a beginning training session. And if they're a teacher that's been implementing for a few years, then they had opportunity to go to sessions that were provided by their colleagues. So we had areas, we had teachers that were resident experts in reading and writing workshop components and they did breakout sessions and teachers were able to go into those breakout sessions and receive training on those days.

[2806] SPEAKER_43: And as we start to look at our junior high, meeting with Principal Neal and his department chair and the teachers, we're looking at the phase-in process for grades seven and eight, focusing particularly on writer's workshop. Because where we look at where students need more support is on academic writing, and so that will be embedded throughout seventh and eighth grade.

[2829] SPEAKER_48: So we've also had Corwin has come and done some work on essential standards. So helping teachers identify what are the essential standards within their department or their grade level as well as developing formative assessments. We've moved that work, they've done some work previously with elementary and we've moved that focus to secondary. So we have Corwin that will continue to work this year with our ELA departments and our ELD departments at the junior high and high school. They've already done quite a bit of work with essential standards and formative assessments and now they're going to move on to John Hattie's work of visible learning and so we're going to do cycles of action and basically like action projects or cycles of inquiry with those departments and then phasing in other departments the following year.

[2879] SPEAKER_43: And the last note that I want to share is work that is happening offline is that certainly with our director of special projects is that our district has not had an up-to-date English language learner master plan, which is a compliance document, but at the same time informs instruction for English learners. So as we look at our test scores, we see that that's an area of need. So we are currently looking at updating our reclassification criteria for English learners, and we are also looking at the rewriting of a master plan.

[2913] SPEAKER_48: So that concludes our presentation of the data, and I wanted to see if you had any questions.

[2921] SPEAKER_47: I do have a comment, but let's have the speakers speak first before we get to us. So Mr. Knoop.

[2933] Cary Knoop: Thank you very much, Mr. President. Yes, I looked at the data too, and I have one major concern. And that is the high school. 75% of our students do not pass the high school test. 25% has at standard or above. Newark Unified, on average, is slightly below the Alameda County average. It's kind of Alameda County average. If we look at our average compared to our neighbors, we're more or less similar with New Haven. We're higher than Hayward. We're lower than Fremont. This year, if you look over the three years, we're dipping. We're dipping also with respect to New Haven. We're dipping with respect to Fremont. And we're dipping with respect to Hayward. So that's a little bit of a concern. But the big alarm, I think, is 25% of the math high school tests are insufficient. And that's an alarming number, at least in my mind. When we look at math in Newark Unified, I think there's one thing I would like to point out. Personal development is not the only solution to get math scores up. Math is a lot about exercising. We have a lot of online material. Look at Khan Academy and things like that. They follow programs. And to make that part of the curriculum, I think, is really helpful to look at online programs. Another concern I have, if you look at the school site council budgets, now, Of course, the parents and the teachers together decide on what the budget is, and I'm not going to, you know, say what they ought to do. But if we look at that, it's about 85 to 90% we spent of the budget to bilingual aids. Now, that's a decision you have to make. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but that means there's very little for core academic math and perhaps other things. So you make choices. If you spent money on math, that benefits all students, including you know, English learners. So when the school presents the proposal for a school site council material, think about that. Should we have more mathematics? Last year, there was hardly any mathematics in any of the school site council programs, and I looked at them. There were bullet points, but there was no money. So I would just urge, you know, again, the board to set direction show vision in terms of how can we get a good math program or an improved math program for Newark Unified. But please, the high school, if you look at, again, Newark Unified is slightly below Alameda County average, but once you start comparing the high schools, I can't make it look any good. So that's something that immediately should be looked at. Thank you.

[3113] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. Ms. Parks?

[3129] Cindy Parks: Are you shocked by the test scores? I'd like to ask you another question. Would you build a house with substandard materials? Just because each year you can say that you have instructional materials in the hands of every student does not mean that your instructional materials are quality materials. Neither the Engage Newark or Eureka, whatever you want to call it, instructional materials, nor the Lucy Calkins Reading Language Art instructional materials are state adopted. The State of California goes through an extensive process in order to evaluate instructional materials prior to adoption. Neither one of these programs went through that process at the state level nor the proper process for non-adopted materials at the district level. Terms to describe the instructional material evaluation process at Newark Unified for the math program at least were fake, bogus, or mock. You can use either term, any of the terms. The math evaluation process simulated a process in which the teachers were encouraged to participate, yet when the vote came down, the math materials voted on were rigged. Yes, I said rigged. Ask any teacher who participated. The Lucy Calkins program was presented to the Curriculum Council on April 28, 2016. However, when a few members questioned or requested to look at additional programs, they were told that there were no other options to choose from. That seems to be contrary to Education Code 60002, which states Each district board shall provide for substantial teacher involvement in the selection of instructional materials and shall promote the involvement of parents and other members of the community in the selection of instructional materials. I'm very glad to hear that instructional materials are going to be looked at because what you've been using for the last several years isn't state adopted. That's what I want you to focus on. The test scores are where they are because you haven't provided the teachers quality materials. They've done the best that they could with what you've given them, is my point. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that other districts don't use these materials. What I'm saying is that these materials are not core materials. They are your test, are your test scores so stellar that they don't need to heed the state of California's recommended adoption materials. Fortunately, you have wonderful teachers who have taken the substandard instructional materials you have provided, utilized their knowledge and skills to provide the best instructions they could with the instructions or with the materials they've been given. Instead of continuing to throw money you can't afford at programs that aren't state adopted, I would implore you to seriously consider the quality of instructional materials you're providing to newer teachers, starting with K6 materials. That's where the student's foundation, educational foundation is laid. and watch your test scores increase.

[3305] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. So I did pull up some numbers. And I guess for, I'll get to Ms. Rodriguez in a second, but moving forward for, I know I've made this request before. I can't remember if it was with this group or a previous group. But if we can identify 10 districts statewide that match us the closest in demographics, in percent EL, percent SPED, premium reduced, et cetera, and identified those 10 districts as sort of, they liked districts, so that when we do these macro analysis of data, we can say this is how we compare to the state, this is how we compare to our local schools, this is how we compare to our similar schools, and then use that as sort of like a baseline metric to see how we're performing. I mean, obviously the declining numbers are troublesome, But with at least that identified group of 10, we can then see if they, too, are declining or if they're flatlining or increasing and whatnot. I do want to just read off some splits, so to speak. And these are, for the audience's sake, these are splits of what was presented as far as the percent of students who are proficient or exceeding standards. And the first number is EL, second number, or excuse me, ELA. And the second number is mathematics. For our district, it's 4537. For the State of California, it's 4837. For Fremont Unified, it's 7570. New Haven's 4938. San Lorenzo's 3123. Hayward's 3524. San Leandro's 3926. So as what Mr. Newb stated, relative to the districts around our area, we're doing pretty well. We can't ignore the fact that we're sliding, right? But if we're comparing ourselves to San Leandro, San Lorenzo, Hayward, et cetera, that's not who we want to compare ourselves with. That's why I'm asking for that light grouping of districts so that we can have a true comparison of how we're doing. Mr. Rodriguez.

[3433] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you, President Nguyen. Excellent presentation. Thank you for taking the time to put this data together and it's you've had to do it over a period of time and it's tough when the state gives you information and that says you have to hold on it until we get through whatever loops or whatever we have to go through. I just had a couple of questions and before I do that when my understanding is when you have a bilingual aid in the classroom that person has an impact on all the students in the classroom. Because you have an extra person in the classroom that happens to be bilingual and works predominantly with, you know, English language learners, but also has a positive effect on everyone in the classroom. I just want to make sure that people understand that. And, you know, that person doesn't go in the corner and just deal with a few of the kids. They have an impact on everybody. I had a question on the ethnicity. It's broken down into different groups and then it's at two or more. So would two or more be like my kids that are white and Hispanic or how does that, because they almost scored up to 50% on some of the stuff I saw. Is that basically what it is?

[3527] SPEAKER_48: Yeah. So it's how they're noted in synergy. And so it's really dependent on how the parents fill out, whether they decline to state or choose to state. So yeah, it would be multiple ethnic backgrounds as two or more.

[3541] Ray Rodriguez: OK. So if a child is African-American and Hispanic, then they would be, if the parents declare them that way, they would be under that particular. In the testing, have you noticed Has anyone looked at the testing or the test to see if it's changed? Because past history, the English language learners always did real well in math. But if you have a lot of questions in math that are driven by problem solving or where there's a lot of English in there, then it's going to be more difficult. Have you noticed, have you had a chance to break that down a little bit? As far as the test itself.

[3587] SPEAKER_48: Yes. And so that's been a significant shift with common core state standards and why we're seeing that is that there is it's more heavily language based in our mathematics. And so it's really about not covering you know kind of a by it's not a mile long right inch deep. It's really about the depth of reasoning and understanding. And so one area that we're really taking a close look at is mathematical practices and that's something that Newark really hasn't spent a lot of time in understanding and that's with the work with SVMI. It's really critical for students to understand and utilize the mathematical practices. There's eight practices and that helps them with their problem-solving and we talk about depth of knowledge in terms of questioning and there's four levels with that, the DOK 1, 2, 3, and 4. And so when we take a look at the SBAC test, we look at the test question and the DOK number in terms of what level of questioning students are being asked and oftentimes where our students are struggling is DOK 3 and DOK 4 level questions. So then those are conversations that we need to start then having with our leadership team that then gets funneled down and conversations like that are at the school site on looking at what kind of questioning we're doing with students and a lot of that around math is around problem solving, communication, And Clarity, what do you want to add to that?

[3670] SPEAKER_43: And I think adding some of the work is going to see how we infuse integrated English language development into all course subjects. So it's not just that it's ELD time and that's the only time you teach English, is that if I'm a classroom teacher and I know in my classroom I have five English language learners, I need to know what level they are and I need to know how do I have to specifically teach to this English language learner during math time. And what, maybe it's going to be different types of vocabulary, maybe it's going to be another way to substantiate. Maybe I have an aide in the room that's going to be pushing in and specifically focusing on English language learners. There's different ways to get at it, but I think it's supporting our teachers to know that there's integrated ELD throughout the day in all subject areas.

[3713] Ray Rodriguez: Again, I just have one more and then I'll have other people input, you know, who want to contribute. The ethnicity again. It shows Hispanic and Latino together. So is there a breakdown? Because you might have Hispanic, for instance, that are English proficient, and you might have ELD. Are they all in the same basket, or are they broken down even further?

[3745] SPEAKER_43: So the students that are identified as English learners will be a variety of backgrounds. So they may be. Right. So that's very distinct. But then the Hispanic, Latino, I think the state uses it interchangeably, but those are predominantly students who are native English speakers or they may be reclassified students who maybe formerly were English learners three years ago. They're now no longer with that classification, but they are counted, I guess you could say, under Hispanic Latino.

[3778] Ray Rodriguez: So Hispanic or a student that's proficient in English, would they still be in that group? In the Hispanic Latino group?

[3795] SPEAKER_48: and you may have reclassified students in that, as well as EL, like Ms. Salinas mentioned, you're going to have other languages that are in that particular subgroup. We are going to change the classification. They have created a new category that's called EverEL, so where it's basically reclassified EL students. So we'll be able to take an even closer look at the data students that are no longer, you know, level one, that they've been declassified and are professionally proficient English speakers, but they're in this ever-EL category. So we'll get more, that just got rolled out by the state, and so we'll have more information.

[3837] Ray Rodriguez: And students are identified based on what they put down that they are, right? Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[3844] SPEAKER_47: Member Prosciutto.

[3848] SPEAKER_18: So I have some comments and proposed next steps. So and I'm not going to share this because it just it looks like it looks like we have a lot of work to do collectively. These scores are well they speak for themselves that way and not in a positive way. collectively, right? So I think this is where we as the board, we need to spend our time and resources. We have our strategic imperatives. We do all kinds of board business that we're required to, but I really think this is the meat of what we're here to do. And we really need to start focusing with board study sessions on academic excellence and the way in which the budget relates to that because that's how we prioritize and put our resources in place. So here's my proposed next steps in terms of this type of data and this work working with us to provide regular updates on kind of the program like this big picture type of analysis. I'm flexible of how that can play out like you can however you want to design that particular piece but just regular updates of kind of how we're progressing. or not, right, because then we see what we need to do. And then two is evaluating budget efficacy and how we can support the core program. So if you see that there's a particular need in this particular, in a specific area, reading program or math program or whatever kind of you're focused on, maybe that means we have to adjust our budget in order to put the proper resources in that particular area. And then we need to have the discussion of, we're putting it there, so where are we taking it from, right? So it's making sure that we have those conversations. And then third, this is more on us as the board, what the board needs to do with the community and our partners in order to support these efforts. So if we say, for example, these are the types of programs that we want to invest in. I believe you called it SVMI, Silicon Valley. Yeah, okay, so those types of things. There's a, I'm making this up now, but as an example, if there's an enrichment program that does coding for kids after school, but it costs X amount of dollars in order for us to implement it district wide, this is where us as the board, we gotta figure out of talking to the community with our partners, educational foundation, figure out how we support in that way. So I really think we need to do, those three things as a board.

[4023] SPEAKER_47: Ms. Thomas?

[4025] Nancy Thomas: Well, what I find disappointing is the amount of investment we've made over the last several years, especially in professional development, and that especially with our English learners, with the amount of investment we've made, we really haven't made a dent, and I don't know what the answer is to that, but I think part of it is the lack of fidelity to the implementation. So, I mean, these may be good programs, but if the implementation isn't followed through on, you don't see results. And I think maybe part of why we haven't seen the results with that investment is because of the implementation. And now we have a chance to implement a new curriculum in math. And I'll be looking forward to hearing exactly how it's going and how much involvement there is from our teaching staff and what kind of feedback they're giving to you. And so we know that this program is being developed or looked at. And it has broad input from our teaching staff because they know what works in the classroom. So I think that's one thing I hope that we'll see more of is the implementation. And for the Silicon Valley Math Initiative, it sounds great. My daughter's a teacher. She loves the organization. But if we don't implement it broadly across the district, if we sent just a few teachers to get the in-depth instruction, and we don't have a process or a plan or the resources to make sure that they, in turn, are trainers for the teachers. That money, too, will have only limited impact. So I hope we're looking at that. And then lastly, it's just a nitpicking thing, but I noticed we have only six students that are African American Indian. And usually, we don't even see reports of scores for such a small group in the whole district. Is that? Do you know why we're reporting on six students?

[4172] SPEAKER_48: Yeah, so it's just how the report through Illuminate pulls the data. So it pulled the data that way. But I understand what you're saying.

[4179] Nancy Thomas: So it's internal. It's not the state wouldn't report on six students. OK.

[4184] SPEAKER_48: Yeah, it's just not an assessment.

[4185] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, maybe just take that one out.

[4188] SPEAKER_18: I just want to say, I wouldn't take that. I think it's important for us to focus on all our students, even if it's one student.

[4196] SPEAKER_47: We need to map it out, so I. One, no, so let's pause there. So the state identifies 30 students as the minimum to qualify as a subgroup to protect student privacy. So Nancy, Ms. Thomas is correct in this context of a public presentation, let's not include that group with less than 30 students to follow state guidelines. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on to 11.1, which is public comment on non-degenerate items. We do have 16 speakers tonight on various items, not counting the ones who have already spoken. So I know we do give you three minutes, but if you can, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to use up three minutes. So if you want to use less, then please feel free to do so. Our first speaker is Megan McMillan.

[4256] Megan McMillan: Good evening, President Huon, rest of the board, Superintendent Sanchez. So this isn't anything that's on the agenda, and it's probably something that's already on your radar, but I thought it would be helpful to sort of illuminate it further. First, I want to extend a sincere gratitude to the board for approving the one additional speech language therapist position at the last board meeting. I know that right now an expenditure of any kind is really precious and we treasure that you approved it. Especially because that means that you recognize that the investment in that position now keeps our caseloads below the Ed Code level. And it also means that we can maintain the quality of assessment and correct identification of students who need speech language therapy. and prevent due process litigation, which costs a lot more than one speech therapist. The other thing I wanted to talk about is I want to make sure that the board knows how severe our school psychologist shortage is right now. The National Association of School Psychologists recommends that there should be one psychologist per every 500 to 700 students. So for a district our size, we should have a minimum of 8.4 school psychologists. Last year, we employed seven. This year, we were expected to employ five, three that are district employees and two outside contractors. Due to the loss of those contractors for a variety of reasons, our district is now operating with only three full-time school psychologists. That gives each psychologist a caseload of 1,966 students, more than twice the maximum recommended ratio. I need the board to know that this shortage is taking a dramatic toll on the ability of our psychologists to do the jobs they were hired to do. It's placing them in ethical dilemmas on a daily basis, forcing them to triage student needs, assessment deadlines, and compliance with special education law. Quite literally, there is more work assigned to them than there are hours in a week. They are exhausted. They are stressed. They are frustrated. And yet they are persevering. They step up and they continue to go above and beyond all expectation. They have not only lit the both ends of the candle, but they've inserted a makeshift wick into the middle and lit that up too. Obviously, that can't be maintained. I know that this is a struggle. There's a statewide shortage of speech therapists and psychologists. If speech therapists were unicorns, psychologists are unicorns made out of diamonds right now. I understand. They're few and far between. But to me, that says that the two open positions we have need to remain open and that recruitment for those positions needs to be elevated to the best of our ability. Falling out of compliance with special ed law is a rapidly approaching reality. Some of these psychologists have upwards of 200 assessments due in the next three months. I'm almost done. This opens us up to costly litigation. And money aside, though, it comes down to students, making sure that all of our students' mental, cognitive, and social-emotional health is being cared for, and that the psychs providing that care have the support they need.

[4462] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. Mr. Dup?

[4470] Cary Knoop: I will be brief. The last meeting, the president asked for a report for combo classes. And I don't know if that report was distributed among the board members. When documents are distributed among the board members, they become a public record. And I'm sure that parents love to see that information as well. So if the district please could be so kind to also distribute that to the parents. And then the second question I have is with respect to the Kennedy situation. What I understand is that, you know, it took about a month before the classes were rearranged and then put it back. And so the question is, is that an acceptable thing to do? Are we saying that's borderline, it may happen in the future or does the board feel like, no, that looks like that's too much and we need to take a look at the rules. I would expect at least the board to give some directions towards the district and say you know what's reasonable and perhaps for the district to come back and say well you know there's certain reasons we have to wait for 21 days there's logistical reasons and anyway to have a discussion about it and what whatever the result will be I think it would be really nice to have something like that agendized for a future meeting where you know the subject of if the rules need to be adjusted you know it's going to be addressed. Thank you.

[4556] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. Rachel Bloom.

[4567] Rachel Bloom: Hello, everyone. I have two concerns I'd like to address tonight. First, it's about accountability. Mr. Sanchez, at the last school board meeting at the one hour 3-minute, 10-second mark, you said, I will be looking into this deeper. I'm glad someone said accountability because I respect that. I think that accountability is a fair word and I can tell you that I also have interest in accountability for how this misinformation has occurred and I will find it. I'll find out how misinformation was got out there and I think that has to be addressed as well. The problem is when you say I have interest in accountability for how this information has occurred, and I will find it sounds threatening. I know you would never go after anyone, but it's important not to speak words that make it sound like that. It is especially important that district leadership support speech and communication throughout the district. The district might consider providing timely information to all stakeholders so that misinformation cannot occur. In addition, when you, Mr. Sanchez, the boss of us all, say I will find it, it sounds threatening and may make people feel uncomfortable with communicating. Management should never seek to block the ability of an employee to share concerns. When an employee emails a superintendent or school board, that employee should not be told that they should not do that. Teachers are the ones in the trenches. We know firsthand what is going on. We would love to share what we see and our knowledge could be used to identify and solve district challenges. Finally, all communication in the district should be respectful, thoughtful, accurate, honest, straightforward, and timely. There's no reason to have it any other way. My second concern has to do with special education. At the two-hour mark, the topic of speech language pathologists and the needs to have reasonable workloads for them in order to retain them year to year came up. Their services are needed and there's a lot of competition between districts. We cannot or we should set ourselves apart by being an outstanding place to work and not overworking them. Ms. Crocker, at the 2-hour, 0-minute, 40-second mark, you said, and also I think there was a note that speech therapist is required by IEP to fulfill the needs for special ed students and being very careful that you are identifying a true speech need rather than being a language not understood because there's second language for the child. So there's speech therapy and then there's learning a new language. And there are two different things and you learn the new language with a regular teacher. Speech therapy takes care of special glitches that might be there. And member Thomas at the 2 minute or 2 hour, 1 minute, 34 second mark of the video, it says, I just wanted to echo the fact that we need to be very careful not to over identify services especially in our type of situation. When member Crocker... Please wrap it up. Oh, that's it?

[4754] SPEAKER_47: If you have a last sentence, go ahead and finish it.

[4756] Maria Huffer: No.

[4758] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. Michelle Lozado. Michelle Lozado.

[4775] SPEAKER_10: Good evening, everyone. I had the opportunity to attend and participate at one of the budget meetings last week, Friday, September 29th at Schilling Elementary. And I wish I could say that I feel confident in what is happening to the students and our community. On the district website, it says that Patrick Sanchez is committed to building strong community ties. But unfortunately, that is not the way the majority of us Schilling families feel. Instead, you graciously reminded us that we live in the suburbia or ghetto. And during the meeting, you were talking about how we should talk positively about our community only to deliver that insult within the hour. So everyone in the district and the community is looking at you for your expertise since you have over 20 years of it. But the way you spoke about my community makes me wonder if you really have you know, all that experience. As a working person here in Newark, I wouldn't expect my boss to slander my community, my neighbors, my family, or even myself in this way. Our community is very good at sharing information with one another, and we as a community hope that that this will be addressed at the parent meeting that is happening at Schilling next week. And also at this meeting that I attended, translation for this meeting was promised. And as you can see, it is nowhere to be found.

[4868] SPEAKER_06: I'd be glad to address that now. If anyone wants to make any public comment, we will gladly translate that, first and foremost. What I said is it's a suburban district. That doesn't mean ghetto. It doesn't translate to ghetto. It means we are actually urban would be more what you would determine as ghetto. Suburban is more in the suburbs. So that's what suburban comes from. It doesn't mean to make anyone feel less than. It might not translate literally to Spanish. And I hope if people felt that that was a slam, it wasn't a slam. But we are more in a suburb. We're not in the inner city. And a suburb is more middle to upper class. It's not largely one of poverty. It's a very common. term of art in public education but it is not anything that is negative to say that something is a suburb. So that's where that came from. I just wanted to clarify that.

[4922] SPEAKER_10: Thank you for that clarification. So what about the translation?

[4927] SPEAKER_06: If anyone would like to make a further public comment we will have somebody help translate that for you. Okay. So anyone that's with you or as long as we were glad to have fill out the form. We'll provide translation for anyone who wants to say whatever they'd like to say.

[4942] SPEAKER_10: I would just like to mention that you did say after the meeting to me that you would, that as a new person you haven't really gotten the trust of many of the families and I think that a way to gain that is to fulfill or you know do as what you're going to say and you did promise that there would be a translator at this meeting.

[4961] SPEAKER_06: And there will be, there is one available if anyone wants to make a comment. Generally we don't translate the entire meeting. If there was a specific item that you guys wanted more information, we can do that. And I'm sorry about the miscommunication. If you felt like the whole meeting we translated, it's not something that they provided here in the past. But if it's something we need to visit, we can visit that. Right. And if they want to make a comment, we'll translate for them. We can. And what I learned in the meantime is typically we haven't translated all of the meetings in the past. That's my fault, and I apologize. I don't want to make that worse. If I added that confusion, I'm sorry. But we don't want to stop someone that wants to make a comment. If they want to say something in Spanish, we'll provide translation for them. That's only fair. And we'll do better going forward.

[5010] Jodi Croce: Thank you.

[5011] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. John To.

[5023] SPEAKER_33: So 90% of school funding we get from state and local taxes and funding. We pay the highest rate of state income tax and sales tax in the country. In Newark, we pay four and a half times the property tax compared to national average. Our school is ranked 46 out of 50 in our country, near the bottom. Education Weekend Analysis of US Census Bureau estimates that we spend at the bottom in the country, near the bottom for per student. And now we're talking about $4.5 million budget cut. So as a CIS a hardworking citizen. And I speak for everyone. I think that this is outrageous. I think this is extremely frustrating. This is unfair. I don't know if you're allowed to answer questions, but how did we get here? And is there anything the board can do? Obviously, you guys are going to talk to the legislature, get a meeting with them. Every politician that ever ran in the state talks about, oh, we want to prioritize education and all that. These are the facts. It's contradictory to what everyone's saying. So, you know, we're trying our best to try to figure out what's going on. There's this big bureaucracy in California. Is there anything the board can do? And you guys are more educated about the budget, you know, who's controlling the money and all that. So I would implore you to try to do your best to try to get more money so we don't get more reduction, it's just not fair. I mean, we're paying more than anybody in the country and we're told that there's not enough money. Where is the money going? You know, so... Prisons. That's all I have to say. If you have any comment, I'd like to hear it on that. Thank you.

[5156] SPEAKER_47: We're not allowed to comment on non-Agenda items though. So, thank you. Move on to

[5169] SPEAKER_06: What is that? Another speaker card. They need somebody to help translate though. I don't think that's their fault that they didn't understand.

[5177] SPEAKER_47: Okay, so this is Friday the 11th then? Okay. That's fine, yeah. So, I'm sorry.

[5185] SPEAKER_06: Would you help translate?

[5186] SPEAKER_47: Is it Zoila? That's an okay. Zoila Avila? She sees me at the bottom of the pile. Yeah, but this is, we're still on 11 point. This is public comment. Yeah. This is the last of the public comment. Yes.

[5204] SPEAKER_27: Yeah. I had parents come over today. Okay. They were told on chilling that there was going to be a translator. Okay. And there were a lot of parents. Okay. Okay. And they came to, as he was told us, that they were going to have a translator and to participate in the meetings. And they wanted to know, get involved more in the meetings. And they were here. One by one, I lost them because they didn't understand where it was going. And I told them, I apologized to them and I will translate all the paperwork to them and they will have it tomorrow. I believe as a Spanish, it's like you told us, you know, you know how we feel. Today, you didn't show us at all that you were on our side. And it makes it harder for me to bring more Spanish parents to the meetings. It's not fair when you tell them one thing and then you do another, especially when the three of you guys are out there, that you guys know Spanish.

[5279] SPEAKER_06: Can I respond? Can I respond? I'd like to respond. I'm happy to work with you to make this right at Schilling. So if you and I can meet soon, we'll make a plan and we'll make it right. And I'm apologizing for what happened and I'm committed to making it right for Schilling and the families there. Okay? You have my commitment.

[5305] SPEAKER_27: Okay.

[5307] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. Chris Kendall.

[5314] SPEAKER_11: Hi, I am a parent. I've been a taxpayer in Newark for 17 years. I have two school-age kids that I just brought into the district last year for the first time. One started at the high school and this year I brought my seventh grader to the junior high. I've kept him in private school previous to that just because the scores were so low in Newark, but I really want to I want them to be more a part of the community so you know I was happy to bring them here and they're doing well all of that but there are a few areas that I personally have taken on as a mission to improving within the school specifically at the junior high level. I know that there are capital expenditures, capital funds set aside for certain projects that are not going to be able to help with the budget deficit, they're not going to be able to help keep teachers, they're not going to be able to help with curriculum. So what they can help with is improving the facilities and improving the school experience for our students. So one of the areas that's really important to me is adding lockers to the junior high. We've got 900 students. They carry extremely heavy backpacks. They are starting to experience back problems that are going to create lifelong physical injuries that are really unnecessary. Probably 90% of the junior highs in this country have lockers and so the fact that ours doesn't doesn't make any sense. So I'd like to request that the funding be made available from the capital buckets allocated from those funds to install lockers at the junior high. And I'm happy to do whatever of the footwork that needs to get done. I've already gotten quotes. I've looked into what the installation would require. you know, that's something that we just need to get approval for. Another item that I'd really like to get some clarification on is the school, I'm sorry, the pool at the junior high. From what I understand, it's beautiful and it's chlorinated every day and it's ready to swim in and so I want to know why my kids can't get into it tomorrow. Is it actually a health issue? Is there Is it dangerous? Is there some reason why we are not able to use that pool? It could certainly be generating revenue for the district if it was rented out. It would be an easy low-impact exercise for those children that maybe don't do as well in other sports but could get better, you know, be more active if they had a less impact support available to them. So I want to also request that that capital expenditure bucket be used towards either opening up the pool, doing the minimum requirements to get it usable immediately, as soon as possible, or a clear reason why we can't use it. And if it's not going to be possible, then let's fill it in with dirt and use the space for something else. Excuse me. Because, yeah, it's just a waste of space right now.

[5503] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. On to 12.1, we have our monthly donations report. Do I have a motion to approve? I'll second. Second by member Thomas. Please vote. Five ayes, thank you. 12.2, BP and AR 1240, we do have guest speakers on this item. Followed by Angela Severa.

[5542] Cary Knoop: Good evening. So I want to talk about ARBP 1240. The CSBA usually has an example of what they want to use districts for. And I see that there are significant additions made to that board policy and AR. And the question is, when are you going too far? I mean, one of the things that it says is we want to encourage parents to volunteer at school. And if I look at all these additional rules and restrictions, and I understand that the safety of the kids is of eminent importance, but at one point you have to say, well, where do we draw the line? You know, when you get situations that, for instance, private organizations like the PTA, subject to rules of the school, it's not even constitutional. How can you order a PTA workers to have a TB test because it's not a school organized event. So the other thing I've heard from some things over the internet and I don't know what the width is of the problem, is that a lot of parents want to volunteer and it seems that up to now, they're not even able to volunteer because the forms are not ready or the district is working out the ways on how to do this. I don't know how true that is. But again, that, you know, we want to encourage our parents to volunteer. Paying for a TB test and a fingerprinting is about $120, $130. For some parents, that's not a problem. But for other parents, that's a big problem. And we want to make sure that, you know, all parents can volunteer. What is prolonged and repeating contact? Look at the neighboring districts, Fremont, Hayward, New Haven. I did. I took a look. And none of them go as far as what is proposed at Newark. The last thing I would want to bring up is the issue with respect to workers' comp. Now, does your insurance in the past, I presumed, included workers' comp for volunteers? amount are we talking about? Because remember, if you don't offer that for volunteers, they might sue the school if something happens. So, you know, Pound Foolish, Pennywise, double check that, you know, adding workers comp to a few volunteers may overall on the insurance premium not make a big dent. I don't know. But I think you would want to investigate that before you run the risk that, you know, a parent volunteers and falls over or something and they start suing the school because if you have workers' comp, you can say you get workers' comp but you have to use the workers' comp instead of the ability to sue the school. So these are my comments. Thank you.

[5721] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. Angela Cidera?

[5729] SPEAKER_28: Hello, board. My name is Angela Silvera. I have three children, a third grader and a kindergartner at Lincoln and a preschooler. I'm president of the parent group at Lincoln called PALS. I'm speaking tonight because I have concerns about the volunteer policy for my children's school. First, volunteering is one way that parents connect to their children. I asked my children recently, what is one thing you like about your mom? They said, that you volunteer, mama. It made me so happy to know that they knew I care about their school by being a part of it through volunteering. But by having this policy, it discourages parents to volunteer. It makes them have more hurdles to jump over that will have some parents questioning if it's even worth it. Second, the cost. In this new volunteer policy, it clearly states that the cost of the TB test and fingerprinting is on the volunteer. As you know, Lincoln has over 50% of its population on free and reduced lunch. This means that half of my children's school population can't afford the $2.65 it costs for a daily lunch. But now we're asking them to pay over $100 for fingerprinting the equivalent of 37 full-priced lunches just so they can be in their child's class. If a parent had to choose to let their child eat for almost two months of school or have themselves volunteer in the classroom weekly, I think we know which do they choose. But by making this choice, they aren't able to show through their actions how much they care about their child's education. Third, the policy states that non-students cannot be on site during volunteer hours. I have a three-year-old daughter that I bring with me sometimes to work in the staff room and the PALS room while I inventory shirts or prepare for a fundraiser. While I understand that a non-student shouldn't be in the classroom to disrupt educational minutes, it seems that in the, for them to be on site where students are not present should be okay. But not having her with me, it significantly reduces the amount of time and effort myself and many other parents that have young children can be put forth, can put forth. Finally, the implementation. I understand we all want the students to be safe. But if you implement this today, does that mean tomorrow a parent can't volunteer? The answer in theory would be yes, but in the best case scenario from the time a letter goes home until the district approved you, it would take at least two weeks. But then this volunteer that wants to help has lost out on two weeks of volunteering where they could be helping students learn, where they could be showing their child they care about their education, where they could be helping NUSD ultimately get higher test scores. And what if this parent wants to volunteer weekly and they're required to give fingerprinting? I don't know if you have all the answers to the questions yet. I don't know if their logistics have been worked out from flyer to fingerprinting, but if they haven't or even if they have, I implore you to have a grace period until January 1st so the word can get out.

[5921] SPEAKER_47: Thank you.

[5935] Cindy Parks: I want to say first that I believe in putting children's safety first. That being said, I would love to know what prompted such a dramatic change in the parent volunteer program. Since I, notice I said the parent volunteer program. I didn't say volunteer aid, extracurricular or co-curricular program aid. The education code for stricter requirements for the, there are education code restrictions for those programs. Did something happen at a school site which led to this dramatic change? If so, was it a single situation? A few meeting back, Mr. Richard stated that out of your budget, $13,300 is spent on services from CSBA. Why aren't you relying on their recommended language? CSBA has the experience documented policies supported by law which whether that would be the Ed Code, the Government Code, the Health and Safety Code, or the Penal Code sections, along with referencing other policies that are applicable. The administrative regulation has two pages of additional Newark Unified Language. There's no continuity of thought in those pages. Remember those volunteers are taking time out of their busy day to help the school staff with various tasks, which benefit the students and assist the district staff. With this new language, if volunteers commit to helping in the classroom each week, which would be under the supervision of a teacher, you would expect them to get fingerprinted at their own expense. Education code 49406M states that at the discretion of the governing board of a school district, this section shall not apply to volunteers, and I'm sorry, let me go back, this is regarding the TB testing, required for frequent or prolonged contact with students. The TB testing is only for those that are in frequent and prolonged contact with students. Has NUSD had any students or staff infected? Whether it's having your doctor or healthcare provider complete the Tuberculosis Risk Assessment Certificate or a TB test, both situations cost money. Some families can't afford that expense. And this is at your discretion whether to have that or not. Here are a few examples that are in the AR. Page 2 says that in no case is a loan volunteer allowed to work with a single student. A loan and allow don't even belong in there. That's why CSBA needs to be consulted. Page 4 references a uniform complaint process. However, you don't quote the uniform complaint process which you would normally do in an AR. Also, it says that you can have a uniform complaint which is that, are they saying that there's going to be a discrimination because that's the only thing that would draw in the uniform complaint. The AR quotes the Ed Code which you add language to. You don't get to add language to the Ed Code and then quote the Ed Code. And that's on page 2, page 4 and page 5 and the top of page 6. Finally, how do new requirements align to the 2-page parental involvement policy contained in the single school plan for each site? If I didn't know better, I would think that the district would be trying to discourage volunteers instead of encouraging them.

[6119] SPEAKER_47: Sam Matsumoto.

[6125] SPEAKER_40: Hi, good evening guys. Hi, see you tomorrow in class, Sierra. I'm Sam Matsumoto, I teach at Newark Memorial High School and I'm so glad that I'm not the only one up here speaking to this issue because several of the speakers before me have raised concerns. So I'll share from the teacher perspective side of things. I've coordinated many field trips, some which are funded by the MCA grant, some which I personally applied for other grants before for my non-MCA classes and gotten to take them on. And it's a huge investment of donation of time from the teacher just to get a bus which, you know, is a separate issue but related for sure to get the field trip, get the teachers to chaperone and even when we have the funds for the teachers then getting a sub If necessary, recently I submitted a request for a field trip and I was asked, can you get more volunteers? Because even though you have the money to pay for the subs, we probably can't fill those sub spots. Can you get some more volunteers? So when I'm so grateful when a parent, you know, is taking time off of work to come chaperone a field trip, you know, just for a day, you know, they're already taking off their limited vacation time. But again, the time to go get the TB test, which you need to do twice to get the shot and then get it checked. The fingerprinting in addition to the financial burden. You know, it's again just discouraging and I'm just reiterating what they said. And then finally, to include our non-documented parents, in the process I think this also, it should be a concern as well because they're, you know, they're already probably not going to want to be involved in that and then especially you want to get them finger, they're not going to get fingerprinted, right? So, I think about that a lot. So, I really encourage you to revisit this policy and consider if it's a necessary step for parent volunteers. Thank you.

[6234] SPEAKER_29: I'll keep this short and sweet. We agreed to one speaker, but I did want to say a couple things. I wanted to say, have you ever been to the school to volunteer? If not, please come over. My daughter's second grade year, I volunteered the entire school year one day a week. I never sat in with the student. I never saw the students perform in their classroom. I was behind the classroom wall in the pod doing her filing. I was filing all of the student papers. I was doing all of that so that she could send them home to the classroom. This year, my granddaughter Bella is in fourth grade. Her teacher today, after school, asked her, she goes, oh, I got a project I need done. Can you do it? Yeah, sure. What do you need? I need these. As soon as I get them laminated, can you trim them and put holes in them and put these little clips on them for me so I can give them out to each student? Yes. I won't see a student at all. She will hand me my little box. I'll go to my little corner somewhere on school grounds that has no students in it, and I'll sit down and do my trimming and my little hole punching, and I'll get all of that stuff done for her. We have a lot of volunteers who do things for our teachers who are already overworked and underpaid. And we need us. We need us badly. So please, please reconsider the cost of charging for the fingerprinting. I agree if somebody is going to be with a child on a constant basis, they need to be checked out. I 100% agree. However, let's think about how we're doing it. Let's go out and see what our volunteers are doing. And let's tailor a volunteer policy to what we have the needs for. Does that make sense?

[6338] SPEAKER_46: Thank you.

[6340] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. I can't read it. Sarah Guerra, I believe, or? She left. She left. OK. Thank you. Marek Yarbrough?

[6352] SPEAKER_04: Real quick. Marek Yarbrough, a student over at Lingen. I also spend a lot of time volunteering, but now it's been six weeks and no time to see what's going on in the classroom, no time to get in there, policy is still lingering as to what's going on. People have been told, come, stay, go, which way, get things checked and tested out. And now we have this policy here that the board policy side of it looks like it's been rewritten and corrected. It definitely looks like it should be able to shoot right through. But looking at this regulation, the way it sits, it's half done. You've got definitions that were added at the top that there's no terms that were defined, but there's duties that were scratched out and then a few more duties added to it, followed by some movement onto what defines the volunteer section. I'm sorry, the volunteer, how do you get placement into it and what the roles are that you have for different kinds of screening categories. And then you go into, it wanders off into some legal stuff and there's some misdefinitions. They're in there where you have a definition from the education code for students But then somehow they dropped in parent roles into that student organizations, just airdropped that language right in there. So I'd say go back and check on this one. And when you guys are ready to roll this out, we'd be all happy to have an increased safety and thoughts across the board. But this is not ready for prime time. Thank you.

[6450] Diego Torres: So Robby?

[6456] SPEAKER_24: Hi, boards. I'm going to reiterate a lot of what they've said, so I'll kind of skip to points of it. But I volunteered in my son's classroom. He's a first grader at Lincoln, all of last year. And due to the lack of clarity on this policy rollout, we were not allowed to be in the classroom at all so far this year. Our teacher has lost six weeks of classroom help. Our kids have lost hours of one-on-one reading assistance. And now the new policy, depending on when it's implemented, People will have to get their TB testing done and fingerprinting at their own cost, which could be about $100 a person. I do understand that the request for fingerprinting and background checks for field trip volunteers, especially those that could be driving my children. I would like to know if they have a criminal history, especially any vehicle-related charges. But we also have to weigh those costs associated for those volunteers. Many are already hiring a sitter for their younger children, taking a day off of work, or using their own vehicle and the cost to transport the children. A classroom of 24 kids is going to need six to eight volunteers to drive for a field trip. That would cost $600 to $800 for the chaperones to be fingerprinted. At 15 classrooms, that would be $9,000 to $12,000 for this year. And with the district of seven elementaries, you're looking at $63,000 to $84,000 that you want our parents to put forth just to volunteer for a field trip. It's a huge expense. And I think that we need to look at some way to supplement those costs especially with 49 percent of our district and 52 percent of Lincoln Elementary on free or reduced meals because this is automatically eliminating half of our parent population for participating in certain opportunities to be involved in their child's education. What makes our school so great is the high level of parent involvement, our active volunteers and our fundraising efforts. So please consider the impact that this policy would have on our pool of volunteers and therefore our school and its students. Thank you.

[6579] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. Ali, I believe you have a response to the comments.

[6590] SPEAKER_07: So President Nguyen, Board of Education, Superintendent, and community, your community. So I just want to share that obviously we value all our volunteers and the work that you have done over the course of the last few years, many years, and continue. So a lot's changed in terms of requirements for volunteers in our school districts. So how did we get to this point? Well, we looked at the current board policy going back to 1997, sorry, 2005 and 1997. And what we had was a very open-ended, unclear, not very well-delineated board policy that pretty much did not express rules and regulations. Then we went to CSBA and we looked at what the current rules were for implementation for volunteers across the state of California. We also looked at neighboring districts and sister districts next door to us right now and we actually mirrored much of what those school districts are doing. We also encouraged the involvement of community members, teachers, principals, district members, school board members and we've had the attorney review these board policies to ensure that it meets all the requirements based on the state of California. And so, that's where we got to this point today and we are going to put the needs and the safety of our students first when it comes to volunteers. But we're also willing to discuss some of the language and in terms of working through some of the issues to ensure students can be with their children. at the schools, but we are going to put the safety of our students first. And so yes, some of them are a little bit rigid, but we're in a world now very different from 20 years ago. And so we have to ensure that we are meeting the needs of our students, and that will not always sit well with community members who've enjoyed the privilege of being with their students at the schools at all times, but we are not inconsistent with what's currently being seen across school districts across this state.

[6712] Julienne Sumodobila: Thank you.

[6715] SPEAKER_47: So my initial reaction to this is, can we treat this as a first reading and then perhaps bring it back after we have further discussion with the community and principals and get further input to see if we can revise some of the language? We can. OK.

[6733] SPEAKER_29: May I ask a question? Does that mean we stay as we were with last year's policy so we can get back in the classrooms?

[6743] SPEAKER_47: So member Rodriguez?

[6749] Ray Rodriguez: So you're proposing President Nguyen to just bring it back in a couple of weeks? Because we've done it before. We've voted on it. But it's obvious that I'm the one that pushed for this item to be brought forward. We rely on volunteerism, you know, it's just something that as a school district that we do. And I think we really need to look at this policy and put it side by side with CSBA. As Member Thomas is always talking about the CSBA, you know, the template. It's very important that we eliminate some of the barriers that are preventing people from volunteering and would also encourage people to continue to volunteer. And especially with the budget crisis that we're in right now, you actually need more volunteers in the classroom. And from the day my kids started school here, we've always had volunteers. Now, that being said, there's two issues. There's the issue of making sure that the policy complies with what the state wants us to do. And then there's the issue of money which the board can vote on. Are we going to set aside a separate fund so that we can pay for the cost of fingerprinting and or maybe go through the foundation and Superintendent Sanchez and see if we can come up with a fund that will pay for the necessary steps. The last thing I want as a parent is to have volunteers in my kids' school that haven't gone through some kind of check to make sure that my kids are safe. That being said, we need to really look at this from the two point thing. One is, like I said, is everything in there according to what the state, and I realize that you spoke on it. We talk about looking at other school districts and see what they do. Maybe we can do that and find out. And then the board can also set up, come up with a fund to help pay for the volunteers.

[6922] SPEAKER_47: So I think what you brought up is, I would agree as far as the, looking at different aspects and perhaps refining it. From just a layman's person, from my perspective, until a new board policy is adopted, which we are in the process of trying to achieve, I would surmise that the current policy is still in effect. Right. Right. But so with that being said, as I mentioned earlier, perhaps we can take it back and, you know, with some input and collaboration, do some revisions that can meet us halfway, that can, you know, make sure that we're compliant, excuse me, with state rules and regulations, but then not put up as many barriers.

[6965] Ray Rodriguez: So we, not to interrupt you, but it's been since 2005, I think, when we last, you know, looked at this. And that's a long time. So it needs to be updated. But, so we leave everything as is until we have a better look at it and see if we can come up with something that's more parent or volunteer friendly.

[6987] SPEAKER_47: Right, that's why it's coming. Right. That's my suggestion.

[6989] Ray Rodriguez: No, no, no, I agree a hundred percent.

[6991] SPEAKER_47: Member Crocker.

[6995] SPEAKER_21: I did a volunteer for my kids. They all went through the Newark system. I was where you are in the elementary school taking my little kids with me and working in the classroom. We're doing the things outside the classroom. And I certainly value the work of the parents in the classroom, I think, for the teacher and for the children, for your own child, to understand it's important that we all support our community organizations and our community groups. However, I think it's imperative that there be no restrict, no cutting back on TB test. I think every volunteer should have a flu shot. If we're looking at attendance, one of the most important things I think for the kids as well as the adults is to be covered with flu, having a flu shot. I think that checking the Megan's list and being vetted in terms of that and fingerprint is, there's no question in my mind that these are basic things in terms of safety of the children. And these are things that are addressed in policies they've set up. It gets in the way. There's no doubt about it. It has always gotten in the way when you are, looking at the safety of your children, things do get in the way of speed. I would like to see some way that we could utilize the resources that the city has in terms of fingerprinting. And I know that there's a shaking of a head back there, and I understand that police department doesn't want to do it. But I think that there should be some way that we could set up a time when, for a week, we pay for fingerprinting. We do whatever we need to do. I think there needs to be the understanding that when you drive a car, right now we have a procedure. If they drive a car, it's got to be checked. So we're not talking about vetting for other things. We're talking about vetting for being a safe driver. And so when you're talking about driving for a field trip, if they're not working in the classroom, if they're driving, for one field trip, I should think that what policy we have right now works for those particular volunteers. So I think we need to look at the kind of volunteers and what they're doing. But I think that there has to be basic things that are there. And if it's too much work for the volunteer, sorry. We have to think about the safety of the kids first, not about the convenience of the volunteer. And I certainly value volunteer work. Having been a volunteer and seeing people that are working in the classroom, I think it's really very important. So I appreciate the fact that this is the first reading. I appreciate the fact that what was going on last year will be in place until the new policy goes. So that should take care of tomorrow's problem in terms of the classroom, if I'm not mistaken. You should be able to do that. And there should be a time frame. But I also would like to see the district aggressively look at ways that we can utilize whatever community resources we have to take care of the fingerprint, because that's the big thing. That's a big cost. And we'll see what we can do. I don't know. And if it's a matter of finding people to spend the money to pay for it, or if it's a matter of the fact that we can find an organization that will do it for us during a period of time.

[7197] SPEAKER_47: Member Thomas.

[7197] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. My preference would be to start with the CSBA recommended policy and in the past the notes that the CSBA interjects have been included for the board to see when we look at the policy for our first reading. That way we know whether or not a paragraph is required or it's optional. So there may be paragraphs in here that are optional. I don't know because we didn't have the notes from CSBA. So my preference would be just to go back to the CSBA recommended wording for this policy and the AR. And then if there's a compelling reason to expand it, expand it. But I don't see a compelling reason for some of the verbiage that's in here. And so that would be my suggestion. Also, I think I think there's probably funds and there's ways for us to help out with the cost of fingerprinting. And I hope we don't make TB tests go overboard in requiring TB tests for incidental. Because there are paragraphs in here that says prolonged. What does prolonged mean? Once a week, twice a week? I haven't saw a couple paragraphs that seem to kind of be contradictory. Um, so I think, you know, we need to be careful that we don't put too many restrictions on, on our volunteers and try to find ways to, to help offset the funding requirements when fingerprinting is required or TB tests are required.

[7303] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. Member for settle.

[7305] SPEAKER_18: Awesome. Here's my thoughts. I think that in terms of the framework, um, for the particular administrative rule and board policy. It should be with the goal in mind to encourage parent volunteers. So we just figure out to make sure we actually do that. And then we actually streamline the process to make it easier. So what I'd like to figure out is if we can get a summary of the legal requirements to know, because we can discuss like, oh, you need a TB or you don't, or you need a background check or you don't. Like, I think to me, knowing what those legal requirements are, then we have the explanation. We say these are the things that we can't relinquish because of these particular legal requirements. I like the ideas from the other board members in terms of figuring out how to pay for this. We could make the pitch. We could eliminate board conferences and benefits for the purposes of paying for the TB and the fingerprinting as a way to encourage volunteers. So those are my two cents.

[7373] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. Mr. Rodriguez?

[7377] Ray Rodriguez: There was one other item that I forgot to mention. The question about work misconduct was brought up so that everybody's not confused. This is not In my opinion, this is not a workman's comp like if you work for, you know, 7-Eleven and you have to have workman's comp or the employer has to have workman's comp in case you get hurt. If you look at your homeowner policy or renter's policy or condo policy, you'll find that there's a general liability section and part of that is workman's comp and it's just, it's a very small premium and it's required by the state and it's for occasional. If somebody gets hurt, as a volunteer, so hopefully that you don't mix that up. And that is a state requirement that, and it's not as complex to think of when we work for somebody. Just wanted to clarify that. Thank you.

[7436] SPEAKER_47: Thank you, sir. Ms. Crocker?

[7438] SPEAKER_21: Yeah, there are two attachments to this particular item. The AR, which is how you do stuff, and the BP, which is the basic policy. Looking at the basic policy, It doesn't seem to be any of the concerns that people are addressing that are found in the policy. It's very general. It's saying that we encourage volunteers. The superintendent will work out the system. And it's pretty much mostly CSBA wordage. So it's how we implement that board policy is the AR. And I think that's where we're getting into trouble. So I would be comfortable voting on the BP today. We used to have them separate. It's two separate items. the B.P. and the A.R. would be how do you enforce that. Some school districts and boards don't even address the A.R. as a board thing. We are talking about board policy.

[7496] SPEAKER_47: For my opinion, I think it's better off to take it back so they can be further refined in case through the process of review and vetting that the BP does get changed. So we don't have to go back at a future date and deal with it.

[7507] SPEAKER_21: Yeah, I think it's pretty general.

[7508] SPEAKER_47: Yeah. But I guess in the meantime, the current policy stands until a new one is adopted.

[7515] SPEAKER_21: And AR. There's an AR too, isn't there? Right. Yeah.

[7519] SPEAKER_47: So with that, we'll just, you know what to do. Thank you. Moving on to 12.3, budget reduction resolution. We have three speakers on this item.

[7530] SPEAKER_46: Megan McMillan.

[7543] Megan McMillan: Good evening again. So I decided to put this on this item because it concerns information that was shared at one of the budget reduction meetings, actually more than one. And as the special education director for NTA, I'm obligated to correct misinformation that I hear. At the meetings, Mr. Sanchez stated that throughout the nation, 9% of students receive special education services, but that in Newark, 13% receive special education services. That's incorrect. According to the National Center for Education Statistics May of this year, the national average of students in special ed is 13% nationally. According to the most recent public information from the California Department of Education, 12% of Newark students receive special education, not 13. So it isn't nationally 9, Newark 13, it's nationally 13, Newark 12. That does put us above the state average of 10.5% but below the national average. At the budget reduction meetings, Mr. Tanchez said that Newark over-diagnoses students for special education. Stats are important, however, words and terms matter as well, especially in special education. In Newark, we do not over-diagnose students with special needs. In fact, we rarely, if ever, diagnose at all. Diagnosis is for medical professionals, not educational ones. We use specific criteria to determine whether or not a student is eligible for services under 13 specific categories defined by IDEA. Let me add that it is not easy to be found eligible for special education. The criteria for each category are strict, requiring multiple assessments by an interdisciplinary team. It's a lengthy process and one that we take very seriously. Ask any gen ed teacher who has tried to recommend a student for special ed how easy it is to get their kid in. For the superintendent to say that we over-diagnose students for special ed services is not only incorrect, but it's demoralizing to the department. It implies one of two things. Either we are liars who falsify information to qualify students who don't need services, or we're incompetent in our assessment, grossly underestimating a student's abilities. And in both cases, it implies that we do a disservice to the students of Newark. The special ed department that I am proud to work with and have worked with for the last 13 years are not those things. We are a dedicated team of highly qualified professionals with integrity who, year after year, do more with less, always with student growth in mind. Thank you.

[7720] SPEAKER_26: Hi, good evening. My name is Mara Otero, and I'm the senior labor relations representative for CSCA, the Classified Employee Union. During tonight's study session regarding the budget, the board seemed to favor option A for the reductions. However, my understanding is that for tonight, you need to vote on categories of reductions, not the specific reductions. The CBO and superintendent explained that the county is asking for the reductions by category, and the actual cuts would be decided and negotiated separately. Your comments at the end of the session seemed to imply that option A was easier than option B, or that option B was going backwards. However, you asked questions during the study session that implied that you didn't fully understand the items that you approved under option A. Therefore, why not be willing to examine everything? And as the superintendent mentioned, you will receive staff input and can look at the actual cuts. So I ask that you vote for option B and not close yourself to exploring all of the options that would be included. It seems like more work, but this work is the work that should be done. It's not going backwards, because after examination, you could still choose items that were improved under the freeze. Finally, I want to address the infamous bus driver position, since it was mentioned several times during the study session. The focus on this $39,000 position whose starting salary is about $18 per hour when trying to balance a $3.6 million deficit is incredible. Got a lot of shout outs though, thanks. But CSCA has been working with the district on this position for several years and we have been able to use an internal employee and charters to fill the need while we try to fill the position and look at options. This position could not be filled because the $18 per hour wage didn't match the surrounding districts and we couldn't find candidates. By the Educational Employment Relations Act, the district must negotiate with CSCA the decision to eliminate a position as proposed by Trustee Rodriguez, which is what would happen, right, if you were going to eliminate the position and transfer the work to outside agency, you need to negotiate. And if you were going to allow groups to charter transportation services, you need to negotiate that unless you're willing to halt all transportation services across the board. The conversation about this position is ongoing and should be discussed and bargained. The freeze that you approved doesn't reflect that these services have not been halted for 17-18. This highlights that you should consider option B since option A needs to be looked at deeper anyway. I ask that you vote for option B so that you consider the flexibility in looking at the cuts. This doesn't mean that things from option A won't be considered. We'll be looking with the target number and working holistically to determine the actual cuts that need to be made. Thank you.

[7894] Cary Knoop: I have one comment about the STRS resolution, the resolution with respect to the entry about STRS. It says the state had burdened the district and I don't think that's correct. First of all, the STRS board decides the percentages. STRS board is not a democratically chosen majority because it's only chosen by STRS members. So I don't think you can, definitely you can blame the state as it is currently for the mess which stirs and purrs. The mess that stirs and purrs went all the way down to 2000, Ray Davis, you know, retirements and all that stuff. We thought the sky was the limit and now we are in a situation if we don't change it, then the new teachers who get hired in 30 years have no money. So we have to raise these things. Now, so I don't like, We should not play politics like that. I really think that line should be changed. You can't go on the blame game like that. With respect to one thing is, I do have a question. So on the 15th, the state, the county superintendent sent a letter to the district, they have to. And I would like to know if all board members received that letter, as they should. And if they are not, Why not? The board was cc'd on that letter and everybody needs to be made aware. In addition, since it has to be distributed to the board, I would have appreciated if it would have been in the agenda package so that the general public understands what we're doing right now with the resolution. Last comment. The budget cuts, we're doing this exercise now for the county, but we're again wasting our time. the presentation from Jeff Potter, what he said. We're already over time. And what have we done since the fact that when Mr. Richards came with his budget and saying we're in trouble with the multi-year forecast, what have we done since that? Again, please board work on understanding where you can cut and add your vision and your leadership to things because You can't leave that all up to the superintendent. The superintendent is a very capable person, but he should not bear all the weight. The board cannot sit down and do nothing. Get extra meetings. Get an ad hoc subcommittee to study and advise the rest of the board what programs, what things could be cut. Study the material. Don't sit back and just wait for the district to come up with another proposal and then say, well, okay, we approve it. I really think the board needs to work.

[8070] SPEAKER_47: Thank you.

[8083] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you President Nguyen. We're at ten minutes to ten so I'd like to make a motion that we extend the meeting an hour. We're not going to need an hour just to be safe.

[8095] SPEAKER_47: I'll second that motion. All in favor, show of hands. 5, please. 5, 5, 5. Meeting is extended until no later than 11.

[8103] Ray Rodriguez: Yeah, thank you. Before we start to discuss this, I just wanted to address the board and also the community. I'm the longest standing member of this board, and our superintendent's been here a little over a year, and he's had to, you know, step in and try to help us work through this whole process, which is a very difficult one. As has been stated, as far as enrollment over the years, the last nine years, we've lost approximately 120 to 150 children, students, on an average, which equals four teachers. You can try to put the blame and a lot of people are looking at where do I blame somebody? Well, the blame is here. It belongs to the board. We can easily blame prior administrations but bottom line, the board is responsible for staying ahead of the curve and making sure that when we lose students that we have the correct staffing and we haven't done it and that's why we're deficit spending and now, we're facing this cut. In years past, we looked at monies and we wanted to protect our kids and protect programs that help our kids. In some cases, we probably shouldn't have done that. It's difficult as it is because when you have cuts, you want to keep them as far away from the kids as possible. But it's our responsibility as a board, and especially the ones of us that have been here longer, to make sure that when we approve the budget every year, that if there's anything in there that needs to be addressed, such as staffing and other changes, that we make the reductions. So I'm not shying away from my responsibility. But here we are. We can live in the past. We need to do the best we can to get through this difficult stage in Newark Unified School District. It's not the end of the world. We still have great teachers teaching excellent kids and classified and all the management and the principals and all wonderful people that could easily go somewhere else and make more money right next door but stay here in Newark, okay? Because we love our kids And we love the school district. This is not changing. We're just going to run through this tough process. We're going to get through it. And we're going to be stronger because of it. And I just want everybody to understand where I'm coming from. And having seven kids and eight grandkids that are part of the system. And if I could have more, I would to get more money for the schools. But I'm too old. although I've encouraged my daughter to look at that. But anyway, thank you, President Nguyen. And before we start, I just want to make sure that Superintendent Sanchez, who I think in the administration have done their best to do the budget workshops that we had. And sometimes things are said that are read the wrong way and for whatever reason. We can take the heat. When you get up here and comment, you can get on our case on everything, and that's fine. That is part of what we do. But bottom line is, in working with parents and all the staff we have with Newark Unified School District, we're going to make this work. And we're going to be stronger again because of what we're going through. Thank you.

[8346] SPEAKER_47: That's all I have. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve 12.3?

[8352] SPEAKER_21: I so move.

[8356] Cindy Parks: Member Crocker, is there a second?

[8362] Ray Rodriguez: It's going to be read after we approve it.

[8365] SPEAKER_47: The resolution's in the back.

[8366] SPEAKER_21: The resolution's in the back. There's some in the back.

[8369] Ray Rodriguez: There's some in the back, isn't there?

[8371] SPEAKER_02: We weren't here when we got here.

[8373] Ray Rodriguez: I'm sorry.

[8376] Nancy Thomas: In the meantime, can I make a comment?

[8379] SPEAKER_47: Go for it.

[8382] SPEAKER_21: we have a second.

[8383] Nancy Thomas: Well, I'll second it for comments. Go ahead. You know, the idea between option A and option B, I think we're at the point where everything's on the table. So even if we say option A, with option B, any of those items can be changed over the course of the year as we modify the budget. So I don't see any difficulty with that. There are a couple things that I would hope that And I could do this during board requests or I could do it now because it's kind of part of this. Whichever, while we're waiting for people to be able to read the resolution, I would hope that we board members would review our own budget because, in fact, I had asked that this be agendized, that our budget be agendized. didn't happen earlier, let's make it happen. Because I think there's things on here that we should look at, certainly our health benefits, whether we should get them, conferences. I don't know what this maintenance agreement is, professional services, legal expenses. If we get more granular on that, on what we spent last year, maybe we can take it out this year. So I would hope that we could get have an agenda item just on the board budget and specifically look at our board policy on board remuneration with the idea that we will, you know, my recommendation would be that we eliminate medical benefits for the board. Also, one of the things on the option B or on that list was overtime, and I'd like Mr. Richards to look at that. I think I gave him a similar copy a while back. It's an overtime report that goes through 2012, and over a five-year period, we went from $197,000 in uncompensated or unreimbursed overtime down to $58,000. Mr. Richards says we can reduce or eliminate unfunded overtime to the tune of $68,800. I'd like to see more detail on what our, like last year's overtime was well in excess of $140,000. How much did we budget or do we plan to spend this year? And could we save more than $68,800? How do we monitor that? How do we know, you know, about overtime? So there's just two things that I think we should get more data on in detail and hopefully at the next meeting have those as separate budget items or talk about them in the context of the budget.

[8572] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. So there are no further speakers. There is a motion and a second on the floor, correct?

[8581] SPEAKER_18: Yes, in terms of the resolution I did want to add in terms of from There's been a motion to approve it as is, but I'm going to amend it to say that, or at least from my perspective, that we have the understanding that the board will make a final decision by December 15th for the actual reductions and have a budget study session where we analyze the budget every meeting from now until then. And you don't have to accept that, but that's my.

[8614] Nancy Thomas: I would accept your friendly amendment.

[8617] SPEAKER_21: You're talking about, so you're talking about special meetings for it?

[8622] SPEAKER_18: Or are you talking about a workshop before each meeting? Yep. Every single board meeting that we have it as part of the agenda. It can be however, it doesn't have to be a study session. We need to have it on the budget. I mean, sorry, on the agenda every.

[8636] SPEAKER_21: I think I would accept on the agenda.

[8638] SPEAKER_47: So just a point of clarity on that, or clarification, excuse me. So at the next meeting in two weeks, If we haven't allowed staff time to dig through this further, are you still want a study session to address the budget, even though we may be getting the same information as we got tonight?

[8654] SPEAKER_21: Well, we can at least address the board. The board is sure.

[8657] SPEAKER_18: Yeah, so we can have the conversation with us, at least in terms of saying, OK, look, here's expenditure by function. Here's our proposed recommendations in terms of the framework, right? I mean, you're right. I want it to be productive. But I also want to make sure we get We have it set so that we commit to actually having those discussions. Because, I mean, a big issue is not having the time for us to discuss that. And then we're here where we have to make the decision. I can already foresee December 1 to December 5, we're having this conversation again. Hey, we didn't have enough time to actually map it out. And it's either take it or leave it. And I want to avoid that.

[8703] SPEAKER_21: We only have three more meetings before December 5th. OK. So it's not like we have a lot of time.

[8710] SPEAKER_47: I think that type of time is, I don't know if that needs to be codified in the resolution, though. I mean, I can see the first part as far as the final board, the board will make a final decision as far as what to cut. But this is a resolution that will go to the county. I mean, we can direct staff, hey, the next three board meetings, prior to that, we want to study the budget further. We can certainly do that, and then there will be more, you know, I'm sure they're going to honor that. I'm not sure it needs to be in a resolution.

[8745] SPEAKER_18: I know, it's just part of the framework in terms of, in light of the previous discussion that we had, at least for my person, it would help address the fact that we haven't been able to delve deep in these particular things. It doesn't have to be accepted, and then Then we go through the process, right?

[8766] SPEAKER_47: So that's up to the person that made the motion on the floor.

[8771] SPEAKER_21: Just a moment. Would you repeat again? So you're talking whereas, another whereas?

[8776] SPEAKER_18: Yep. So whereas, there's an understanding that the board will make a final decision prior to December 15th for the full and actual reductions. Or not, I won't say actually, for the full reductions, I guess.

[8794] SPEAKER_44: and commit to, if you flip it over to the second, to the back page, that's already addressed in the resolved section, that the board will incorporate reductions of that amount into the first interim budget at 17-18.

[8814] SPEAKER_18: So is there a way to say that, because it's just the first interim report, which is just one meeting, right?

[8823] SPEAKER_44: Yes, but that's the deadline at which you have to do it. You were talking about putting something in the whereas's that the board would take action by December 15th. Actually, that's a good place to put it. Taking action by December 15th is the first interim report. That's right there.

[8834] SPEAKER_18: OK. OK. So that makes sense. OK. So then it would just be then the whereas the board commits to, I'm OK with the language of either agendizing a discussion or having I'm okay with either one. The whole point for me is we need to have the conversation collectively to dive into this. If we don't map it out from my perspective in a structured way, then what's the commitment to make it happen?

[8869] SPEAKER_47: I would absolutely agree. I don't think it's appropriate for a resolution. We can direct staff now that in the next three board meetings, that preceding every one of those meetings, we have a budget study session. And like I said, they'll be more than happy to honor that. I don't think that that needs to be stated in the resolution, frankly.

[8889] SPEAKER_21: I don't think it can't be. Well, yeah, but. And the point is that if this, I mean, this is for us, but if it's going someplace else, it's indicating intent and the procedure in which we're planning to do it.

[8903] SPEAKER_47: I know it can't, I mean, it doesn't, I understand what you're saying. I just think as far as an operational dynamics, for us to ask staff to do something or request staff members to do something shouldn't be in a resolution. We shouldn't have to make a resolution to do that.

[8919] SPEAKER_18: You're right. No, you're right. You don't have to. It's more of making the point than if you wanted to. So here's been, and I guess this is just my experience in terms of like sometimes we collectively agree to things or we think we do and then we don't. And then in terms of figuring out what our next steps are. So this way it would outline that we could at least, I'm okay with saying we commit to having the conversation, like something even as broad as that. My point is I'm really pushing to have it there too. Like when we did the budget, when we did this whole budget, excuse me, community input session, we added a language because then we could, then we have thought.

[8960] SPEAKER_06: We have a suggestion. Okay. If we may read it. Okay.

[8965] SPEAKER_44: At the, on the second page after the, between the first and second paragraph on the second page, And be it further resolved that the Board of Education will hold study sessions on the budget at each scheduled meeting until the adoption of the district's 2017-18 first interim report and multi-year projection, period.

[8982] SPEAKER_18: Good. Perfect. That works really good.

[8984] Nancy Thomas: I accept that. I accept that for my second.

[8988] SPEAKER_47: All right. Please vote. Six ayes. Thank you. 12.4, is there a motion to read it?

[9004] SPEAKER_21: No, no.

[9005] SPEAKER_47: You don't want to read it? It's not a standard resolution that we have to read. Thank you. 12.4, notice of completion for fireproofing repair at Newark Memorial High School Events Center. Is there a motion to approve? Excuse me. I move to approve. By member Thomas. Second? Second. By member Preciado. I'll second. Please vote. Six ayes, thank you. 12.5, notice of completion for concrete pad installation at Newark Junior High School. Is there a move to approve?

[9044] SPEAKER_21: I so move.

[9045] SPEAKER_47: All right, member Crockers. Second. Second by member Rodriguez. Please vote. Six ayes, thank you. 12.6, notice of completion for a bake. Move to approve. Oh, thank you.

[9061] Guadalupe Lopez: I'll second.

[9062] SPEAKER_47: Moved by member Preciado. Second member Thomas, please vote. Six ayes, thank you. 13.1, employee organizations. Are there any speakers for NEWMA NTA? NTA?

[9091] SPEAKER_23: I came here with a lot to say. The budget's obviously been hanging over all of our heads for a while now and I'd like to thank Mr. Richards for the little ray of sunshine that he brought before the study session. I know that some tough choices and some great opportunities are ahead of us and I hope that the board and the superintendent and the executive cabinet work with us to help make these cuts as far away from the classroom as possible and as far away from our employees and community members as possible. I honestly don't think much can be said that hasn't been said by our colleagues and our community members. But I've heard some really concerning things tonight from our community at this meeting, and that gave me some pause. I hope the school board, the superintendent, and the executive cabinet are serious in solving some of these problems. But I would like to bring some attention to the board of an issue that's very close to my heart. Four years ago, I had this amazing student in my class. In her sophomore year, she came out as a transgendered individual. It was through her strength and tenacity that she was able to advocate for herself. Her family and school community worked hard to make sure she felt welcome and to let her know that she's loved. Unfortunately, it was only by the love and kindness of her community that she found the support. There is no current policy for NUSD for our transgendered students. I gave a budget neutral model trans student non-discrimination policy to Mr. Sanchez and Mrs. Salina about three months ago and I hope to see this policy on the agenda very soon. Our students need the adults in the room to step in and help them and I hope the board is ready to step in. Thank you.

[9188] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. Any further CSCA?

[9196] SPEAKER_53: This is getting harder and harder every time to come in here. Good evening, Mr. President Nguyen and the board, Mr. Sanchez and our cabinet. I'm not sure, and members in the community and our teachers and staff here, I really want to talk about the budget. And don't get me wrong, I know that this decision is not going to be easy for anybody to make. But I have to say in a couple of different ways that as the president of CSCA, I'm an elected official for my membership. I also work for the school district. So, as an elected official, I've been invited to the superintendent's budget advisory committee. And we've gone to the budget meetings that are done with the community. And unfortunately, as good as I commend Mr. Sanchez for opening them up to the community and making these committees available. And when we do the reports and we see they're based on 98, and don't get me wrong because when we have CSCA members come to our chapter meetings, we don't always have the full amount. But it's very hard to make decisions based on 100 people when you have 500 or 5,600 students out there. And you're only dealing with 100. So we've asked to include staff to be part of the decision making in this. Even our budget advisory, we're just going over the information that's coming from the community. And quite frankly, I don't believe, and as much as I value the community, I don't know if they understand sometimes how, what it takes to run this school district. And as an employee in the district and a member of CSCA, for instance, I find that there's a lot of money they want to take out of the district office. I believe it's a lot financially top-heavy over there. But I also believe that there isn't a position in that building that we could live without. Maintenance, the same. And Mr. Rodriguez, if you'd like to take the bus driver away, we'll have that conversation because it's $40,000 in a budget of 4.7. It makes no sense that should even be on the table. And quite frankly, you don't want to take away from the kids and that is taken away from the kids. It doesn't make sense to me some of the things you come up with. You want to go 40,000 away for a bus driver but you want to figure out how to take the money in for fingerprints for parents. Do we really need to do that? There are ways we can figure it out. Maybe like Frankie says, go into the city and see what we can do, or was that Mrs. Crawford? Try and see what the community members in the city can help us with with fingerprints. Maybe we can hire a part-time person to do fingerprints in our district so it doesn't cost the members or the volunteers to do those kind of things. I agree we need some sort of protection for our kids, but do we have to do it at such high cost? We do it for our own subs. You know, you have substitutes that come in that want to work for the school district and we send them out to make, to spend $75 to $100 on fingerprints. And then we don't hire them because we freeze the subbing. Some of those decisions on A, that you said you froze and you want to leave, I'm a little confused about the numbers because we gave you a spreadsheet and none of the numbers match the totals on the bottom. I really don't care because the number on the bottom is what the county wants and hopefully you've decided and I think I kind of got that, that you're going to take from here and there and look at it and figure that part out. But when you do those kind of things, you bring them out and we see numbers and we have sheets with numbers that we give to you and you turn around and make, there isn't a number on that sheet for the resolution that matches anything we've done on our spreadsheets. That's not real transparent. We don't know where you're bringing it from. But again, hopefully most people will understand that the bottom number is what we're looking for. And I really, really hope when you look at those numbers, you stop looking at them as numbers and start looking them at people. Those are people on those number sheets. And every one of those people affect every one of our kids. So start to look at some of the other options. It doesn't necessarily have to be a person you cut. Cut a day. Reduce the school's system from a five day to a four. Look into other options before you start cutting all these people and programs. Because no matter how much you want to stay away from the classroom, every one of those cuts will affect every one of our kids. Good luck with your decisions, and I look forward to the workshops coming forward.

[9528] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. Thank you. 14.1, personnel report. Is there a move to approve? So moved. By Member Rodriguez. Is there a second?

[9537] SPEAKER_21: I'll second.

[9538] SPEAKER_47: Second by Member Crocker. Please vote. Six ayes, thank you. Consent item 15.1 through 15.6, is there a motion to approve the law?

[9558] SPEAKER_18: I'll move to approve.

[9559] SPEAKER_47: Moved by Member Preciado. Is there a second?

[9562] Nancy Thomas: I'll second.

[9563] SPEAKER_47: Second by Member Thomas. Please vote. Six ayes, thank you. the week of the school administrator, the resolution.

[9588] SPEAKER_18: It's the same as last year, right?

[9593] SPEAKER_47: Yeah, in the context. We don't have to read it, so let's just skip it for now. Yeah, let's just skip it. 16.1, committee reports, announcements, requests, debrief discussions. Let's start with Member Rodriguez.

[9610] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you, President Nguyen. As a lot of people with the budget meetings that we had, again, I appreciate staff. Some of the stuff that Superintendent Sanchez said was misconstrued, like for instance, having translators at the Schilling meeting. We've always had our meetings in English. What he meant was when somebody comes up and they would like to address the board in Spanish, then we would be able to translate that person's comments. It was never to, in my opinion, to have the whole meeting translated into Spanish, which is probably something that wouldn't be bad for us to take a look at. The other thing is I'm a bus driver. I never said to eliminate the bus driver. What I wanted to do is eliminate the cut so we don't have to talk about it anymore, okay? But yet people thought I wanted to eliminate a bus driver. Hey, if I could, I used to drive a bus. I'll come back and drive a bus as a volunteer and have to go through fingerprinting. Hey, I'm a good bus driver. But anyway, so a lot of times things happen, which is fine. I'll talk to Miss Condon and make sure she understands. The other thing is I've had a lot of people call me and email me concerned about my family in Puerto Rico with the Hurricane Maria. There's a Dominican song that talks about go away Maria. But it didn't. It devastated that island. And luckily, as opposed to Katrina, there weren't that many people that lost their lives. But when you don't have the basic necessities that we just take for granted, like having electricity so we can have our kids go to school, and go to the grocery store, and nothing works, and not being able to get cash out of an ATM. and not being able to drive your car to the grocery store. So luckily my family's all well. There was a lot of wind and rain and some trees came down, but thank God they're all doing well. And hopefully now that they have a general in charge, like they did in Katrina, now things can start moving over there and getting the military involved to make sure that the island gets back to normal if that's, you know, as soon as possible. So again, thank you everybody for your kind thoughts. As far as meetings, again, I'm looking forward, like Member Preciado, to having additional meetings on the budget. I think it's important that we continue to talk about ways that we can, you know, continue to engage the community in what we're trying to do, okay? Thank you. That's all I have.

[9812] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. Member Crockner.

[9814] SPEAKER_21: Thank you. I would like to request that we look into the meeting with the city so we can start accessing some things that we want to talk to them about in terms of budget, one being fingerprinting, whether there's some way that they can help us or give some sort of direction. The second has to do with watering the fields. There's a whole possibility of being able to get almost free water for that if we go through the process. And so we need to get them on our side as far as doing that. A second item has to do with a comment that was made at one of the budget reductions, and it had to do with the furniture, indicating that the furniture that was given to Birch Grove primary and intermediate was not part of the merger. That was part of a separate piece that we went ahead and did there because we wanted to test the new kind of furniture and how they could use it, evaluate it, and then decide about the furniture for the rest of the schools. It was never decided as one thing that only Birch Grove would get. It was decided as a time when we could go ahead and do a pilot on it. So I would like to have a follow-up on that to see what it is, to see what... I know that the teachers were asked about their feelings about the various kinds of furniture, whether it's helpful or not. the amount that we spent per classroom, whether that in truth was money well spent, and we'll go from there. So I would like to have some sort of, in the future, some sort of information about that. When we were at Schelling, there was two places that the HVAC did not work. So I'm wondering about what's happening. I know we're getting to the cool time of the year, where maybe HVAC is not such an important thing, but I thought we were going to have a couple of years without having HVAC problems. But it looks like that's not happening. I'd like to know what's happening as far as that goes. Oh, the last item has to do with Spanish. And I think that having interpreters there is a very empowering thing for a good number of our parents. And I can remember going to a session at Schelling. I think it was at Schelling. Was Schelling or Snow? Where Mrs. Walser was there, and she was She was doing interpretation of what was going on. People had headsets. What happened to those headsets? If we had people here and someone, it's distracting to have someone talking loud enough for people to hear. But if you do it over a headset, then it's not distracting the rest of the people, and yet people are getting real-time information about what's going on. And I think it definitely would be money well spent. Now, that's part of the board budget, however. That would be a cost for the board meeting. So we have to decide how important that is. To me, it's a very important piece. So that if there was, as there was a group here from Schilling that felt minimized or marginalized by the fact that that was not done in their language, and I think that we have the technology and the people to do it, we should be able to do it. I have nothing else.

[10015] SPEAKER_47: Thank you, Member Pro Seattle.

[10018] SPEAKER_18: All right, so I'd like to echo member Crocker on her last point and then I believe it was the prior point or two points before in terms of the city school liaison piece. I also want to see in terms of these kind of budget discussions to see if there's a way for us to get on the same page about talking to Fremont USD about whether or not we're open to discussing leasing space on a short term basis or working with them to address mutual needs. There's a cost cutting and revenue building or figuring that kind of more, I guess I'd like to get thoughts on where other folks are at. And then lastly, I'd like to see if we can get an ad hoc committee with two board members relating to communications and the budget, so.

[10077] SPEAKER_21: You're talking about two committees?

[10078] SPEAKER_18: Sorry, no, same one, sorry. Relating to, I put communications, relating to communications related to the budget.

[10085] Nancy Thomas: So I put my notes there. So would that be someone, two of us that would sit down with staff? Yes, me with the superintendent. And yeah, I'd like to volunteer.

[10103] SPEAKER_21: I think, I think. So you're in the shadow?

[10107] SPEAKER_18: Since I'm recommending and I'm asking for it, yes.

[10113] SPEAKER_21: I think that you're talking just about communication, you're talking about actual budget pieces.

[10116] SPEAKER_18: Sorry, ad hoc committee is related to the budget reduction and then figuring out how we communicate that to.

[10123] SPEAKER_21: So we'd have two roles.

[10126] SPEAKER_18: Yeah, so I mean it's really about figuring out how to do budget reduction. I put communication so that we can communicate with the public and the community to make sure that's an aspect of

[10136] Nancy Thomas: of what we're doing.

[10139] SPEAKER_47: Member Thomas.

[10141] Nancy Thomas: I'd like to reiterate the overtime detail that I asked for, the board budget, looking at places where we might cut and maybe get some ideas about how much money we spent last year on legal and do we need to spend that much more again? And then also the board policy and remuneration, it has a, optional paragraph in there about the board members getting medical benefits and I would like the board to review that hopefully soon. And then one of the things I noticed when I was looking over the unaudited actuals is that the Russian money fund 40 has no budget for next year yet we have approved an amount from each school district for their site beautification or the wish list or whatever we called. And so how do we know that when money is spent on that, that it's within the budget if we don't have the budget. Also, we're rolling out technology three years in a row, so certainly there's going to be expenditures in Fund 40. Mr. Richards?

[10226] SPEAKER_44: Because Fund 40 was one-time funds and the fund balances roll over from year to year, we've just closed the books. So now that we've rolled opening balances over, the budgets for Fund 40 will be built from the one-time money. So those budgets will be coming as part of the first interim report to the board. Because when we budget out a categorical for its expenditure, And then we don't spend it, it rolls to the bottom line and we carry that over when we roll the books at the closing of the books. So they'll be coming forward shortly.

[10257] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, but isn't, I mean in the other places we have a budget like for fund, for the adult education fund we have expenditures and don't we?

[10269] SPEAKER_44: The adult education fund has ongoing funding each year that's the revenue that offsets that and it's fund balance. when we close all the funds fund balances carry over when we close the books. And so those will be coming forward to the board as they always do.

[10284] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. I'll pass.

[10286] SPEAKER_06: 17.1. Just one final, two final comments. One, certainly our hearts go out to the massacre and the families in Las Vegas. That tragedy reminds us how vulnerable we really are. And in our own, community on September 27th, we had an incident at Lincoln campus. And I wanted to go on the record and thank the city of Newark, first responders, police department, fire department, paramedics, for their quick response and ensuring our students are safe and they're taken care of. And also just a reminder to the board that on October 10th, we have a special activity planned that I think Char sent you an invite to, to recognize our own employees who were actually somewhat heroes in that situation.

[10334] SPEAKER_21: And that's at Lincoln School?

[10335] SPEAKER_06: It'll be at Lincoln School at 3 PM on October 10th. That's all I have.

[10341] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. It is 10.23, meeting.

[10345] Ray Rodriguez: Can you, when you close the meeting, can we do it in memory of the people that have lost their lives in Las Vegas?

[10355] SPEAKER_47: OK, so you just want me to add that verbiage? Yeah. OK, so no moment of silence right there. That's OK. So it's 1024. Let's close the meeting in memory of those who've lost their lives in Las Vegas. Thank you.

No minutes available.