Regular Meeting

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[6] Nancy Thomas: Please stand for the pledge.

[39] Nancy Thomas: Because President Nguyen is not here this evening, unless he comes, we will take a hand vote if that's all right. So I would like to call for a approval of the agenda.

[54] SPEAKER_29: I move to approve. I'll second.

[56] Nancy Thomas: All in favor, raise your hand. Five ayes. Next, we move on to student report. Superintendent.

[68] SPEAKER_26: Let's see. Sorry. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, members of the board. Who do we have going first today? Let's see. Newark Junior High, who are our representatives from? There you are. How are you guys doing this evening? Good. Good. Welcome.

[94] SPEAKER_33: Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I am Shane Nelms, the ASB vice president at Newark Junior High School.

[100] SPEAKER_31: And I'm Todd Calabata, the ASB president at Newark Junior High School.

[105] SPEAKER_33: Many things have been accomplished, such as new school gear designed, ordered, and received.

[112] SPEAKER_31: We created designs for a hoodie and a t-shirt, which are being sold in our student store.

[119] SPEAKER_32: All right.

[120] Nancy Thomas: All right. All right. Oh, I like them. Do you have adult sizes?

[127] Ray Rodriguez: Yes.

[131] SPEAKER_33: 2X. We also had a Halloween carnival with fun games and prizes to celebrate Halloween.

[138] SPEAKER_31: Just today, our leadership class at NGHS did our second bowling presentation of the year. We do these presentations to raise awareness about bowling and take one big step towards becoming a no place for hate recognized school.

[152] SPEAKER_33: One very large project the leadership class worked on was our tiki bash. It was a very fun night with food, music, and dancing.

[160] SPEAKER_31: Our cross country boys varsity team recently won the championship meet at Bancroft Middle School. They defeated over six other teams. We had four male runners in the top 10 for varsity. Our varsity girls team took sixth place and had one girl in the top 10 seventh graders. We also had two eighth grade boys place in the top 10 for junior varsity.

[181] SPEAKER_33: Many clubs have been started at NJHS, such as the LGBT Club, the Drama and Slash Acting Club, and 2P Clubs, which are big hits among the student body.

[193] SPEAKER_31: Finally, the students and leadership have planned and started a canned food drive. We are rewarding the top canned bringing classes with parties to encourage kids to participate. These donations will provide food for those in need in our community. The donations will be made to Viola Blythe.

[212] SPEAKER_33: There are some great things coming up at NJHS to encourage a positive climate between staff and students. We are planning more events, like a no-hands pie eating contest. We will also be planning a Toys for Tot drive to help those in need in our community. To further develop a positive school climate, we will be planning a Christmas carnival in the quad. We will plan and host a bunch of seasonal games for staff and students to participate in.

[241] SPEAKER_31: Thank you for your time, and have a great evening.

[243] Nancy Thomas: Well, thank you. Thank you, guys.

[252] SPEAKER_36: I'm curious as to where we can leave food for you for your canned food drive. How would we go about doing it if we wanted to do it? I mean, you could give me your room numbers if you have a contest.

[262] SPEAKER_35: Yeah, it is more of a contest. But if you want to, you can always just drop it off into the office. And how long is that going to be going on? We need until the end of, well, before Thanksgiving.

[278] SPEAKER_36: OK, so this next week, next couple weeks. OK, thank you.

[281] Ray Rodriguez: I had a, if you don't mind, when you deliver to Vial of Blights, do you need help with that? Because I can be available. Oh, they come by and pick it up. Okay, great, thank you. President Thomas, we had, with the superintendent has said that we would make it available for any Spanish speakers to have, so it would, could that be part of the, when we start the meeting where we ask if anybody needs translation?

[318] Nancy Thomas: Yes, we do have a translator available if anyone has a need. She's in the back of the room. Thank you for coming.

[328] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you.

[330] Nancy Thomas: OK, next we move on. Oh, the superintendent's still with us.

[333] SPEAKER_26: Yeah, anyone represent us from McGregor campus? Come on up.

[354] SPEAKER_03: Good evening, Superintendent Sanchez, Ms. Salinas, and board members. My name is Joshua Rivera, and I'm a senior at Fifth Park. And the Toupee Peer Educators went on a field trip September 20th to Dublin High School for an all-day training on tobacco products and marketing. We participated in a mock trial for the victim who died from a lung cancer due to smoking. I played the victim's family member. That experience taught us a lot. There are about 11 of us who meet with Gene Jeffrey once a week for more training. We would be going to the Newry Junior High to meet with students. There was a Halloween contest, and there were 10 participants and 500. Prizes were donated by staff and our principals. The second quarter started last week. We have about seven new students with more coming next week. Good. That's it. Thank you.

[405] Nancy Thomas: Thank you very much.

[412] SPEAKER_26: Sierra, I'll let you lead the new memorial.

[415] SPEAKER_28: Hi. OK, I wasn't here last meeting, unfortunately, because I had some mandatory practices for water polo because our championships were coming up. And all the smoke that was coming down, all the after school activities were canceled. So we had to make up for it. A little update that I would have said in the last meeting was on Spirit Week, the juniors won.

[440] SPEAKER_26: Why is that so important?

[441] SPEAKER_28: because I'm a junior, and we beat the record. I mean, it's always been an unheard of thing where seniors just automatically win. So we won with our skit of Moana, so that's pretty cool because they put so much work into it, and I'm so proud of them. Seniors got second place, and then respectively sophomores and then freshmen. Let's see. Yeah, they were so mad. Actually, the next day, the next morning, they refused to come to class on that leadership. They all ditched.

[476] SPEAKER_26: Moving on. Moving on.

[485] SPEAKER_28: Sorry, upset. Leadership is also, for us, we are currently having a canned food drive. Every year we typically have around 20,000 to 30,000 cans donated for us to also donate to Viola Blythe. We are also currently, well not currently, pretty soon we're going to have our adoptive family. We do this every year also. We adopt several families just from around the area. They're anonymous and they could be people simply in our classrooms that we just get to help and love on and provide for things that they don't necessarily get. If you would like to help donate for that, please contact me because we would love to just reach out to more families and just really touch them, especially in the holiday season. Let's see, currently we have volunteering for science camp open for the high schoolers. So all the high schoolers that get to hang out with all of their elementary school kids all within our district, it's pretty awesome. So that is happening right now. And then for grad night, we have filled up six whole buses. We currently, we had five buses, but then there was more and more people pouring in, so we had to actually call up Disneyland and be like, hey, we need another one. We only have four spots left, so that's going to, they've been just trickling away every single day. Another update is Newark Memorial now has a color guard. If you don't know what a color guard is, it is where they have the flags and they run on the field and they pretty much just pump up like all the spirit. And the next performance they're going to be doing is at the San Francisco Veterans Parade in November. So if you would like to go to that, that would be awesome. Let's see, this upcoming month, or this month, there's gonna be several colleges visiting campus. Just, I believe, if not next week, the week after, UC Santa Cruz will be there. So it's awesome that all these colleges visit campus and all the seniors really take advantage of it and get to talk to the admissions people and it's just really helps them in their support on looking for real four-year colleges or any colleges that they thought like maybe they weren't able to get into. I want to actually bring attention to Med Club. Although I'm not in this club, my good friend runs it. They are once again partnering with Washington Hospital where they actually get exposure and get to work at Washington Hospital and get training to see how it is to work within the medical area. And that's pretty awesome for the students there because you don't get that exposure like every day. Walkathon was a few weeks ago and girls tennis won for three years in a row. So congratulations to them. Winter sports started just as of yesterday. This means it is wrestling season for me. It's also basketball and soccer season too. Let's see, cool update for our girls wrestling program though. We have now entered our own girls duels league. If you don't know what this means, this is typically unheard of throughout the nation, if not the world. Girls wrestling isn't very popular or it's like, oh, like girls can't do that. So we're taking a huge step by entering our own league. And then we have a huge, huge target on our back because a lot of us are state champions, and we beat James Logan by taking the NCS team title last year. So if you want to come see us in action, on December 2nd, we are hosting the Ironman Duels. So that's just at Newark Memorial. So come by and watch all of our girls in action. Let's see, girls and boys water polo both qualified for the NCS North Coast sections within a few years. So that was really cool that that happened this year. And then girls volleyball is currently crushing it at NCS. They have their third round game tomorrow night versus Camp Belinda. So we want to send them a special good luck. And I believe cross country is also about to head into NCS. We just have a lot of good stuff going on at Newark, and just school spirit. It's great. Thank you.

[754] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. I'd like to mention that Rotary sponsors the Ironman Duels. Oh, yes. So we should go there and be at the opening ceremony.

[762] SPEAKER_28: Definitely. Yeah, we always have a huge ceremony for Rotary. We support you guys. Great.

[768] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. OK, next we move on to the superintendent's comments.

[776] SPEAKER_26: Just a few items for our consideration. Part of the idea that I want to talk with the board about briefly is the same idea about how do we structure our board meetings to focus in on our strategic imperatives a little bit more deeply. And I think that that's something that I do think it's important for us to continue working on. I know that we do have to carve out a little bit of time to begin doing some deeper retreats, if you will. So I'd like the board to start thinking about some time, maybe January, February, and then maybe another date later where we could have maybe a Saturday retreat to kind of begin going deeper on strategic planning and thinking about how are we aligning all of our initiatives towards a strategic plan. But it's kind of a The purpose of having this in my report is I'm looking for some dates for you guys to think about. I don't need to have dates right now today, but I want you to think about it would be good to have something either January, February, where we could pick a Saturday to do a retreat. I believe I've got someone that's agreed to be a facilitator for free from CCEE that might help us work on that. And I know some of us have been having other conversations about how do we focus our time here in the board on the most important things. We know that right now budget's number one in the queue. So please think of those dates. If you have a date in February or January, get a few of those dates to SHAR. We'll try to see where those align so we can start carving out time for a large board retreat with cabinet. I'm thinking either a half day or a full day, a Saturday or a day that is easy for people to attend. So please keep that in mind. My next request is a little more specific. I would like to request a deeper study session to be scheduled November 29th. If that's possible, I know that Mr. Bresciano, usually the Tuesdays, that Tuesday's not good, but I did try to look at the Wednesday. Just a place for us to get together. By that point, we'll be able to go much deeper into the budget. And that would probably be, we might have some small housekeeping items, but largely would just be a budget study session and potentially some closed session items, but not a lot. But I think that this is really, I'm feeling a need for an additional budget study session. I'm fine with it.

[935] SPEAKER_29: I'm fine. What time? I might be able to do earlier than five this time.

[940] SPEAKER_26: Yeah, we'll take it if we can do it.

[943] Nancy Thomas: Is that a Monday?

[945] SPEAKER_26: It's a Wednesday. It's a Wednesday after Thanksgiving. The 29th is a Wednesday after Thanksgiving week off.

[950] Nancy Thomas: Unfortunately, I will be at the CSBA annual education conference. The delegate assembly meets on Wednesday and I'm flying on Tuesday to be down there for an early Wednesday meeting.

[971] SPEAKER_26: I was just trying to find the time before we got too close to December. We could look at the first week of December. I just think that's getting close to the end.

[979] SPEAKER_29: What about Monday?

[982] SPEAKER_26: The, let me look at the 27th. Can you do earlier Monday, the 27th?

[988] SPEAKER_36: I'd like in the, in the afternoon if we could do it.

[990] SPEAKER_26: I can do Monday, Monday, the 27th we could make work. Um, let me see here. I think that might be a conflict with the CCE retreat. Yeah, I have a conflict. I can't move.

[1012] SPEAKER_36: On Monday. Tuesday, you have a conflict on Tuesday? Yeah.

[1017] SPEAKER_29: I mean, I could do this November 21st, but I know how folks. I'll be out of town.

[1024] SPEAKER_26: That's going to be a tough one. Would moving it back one day to Thursday the 30th help? Or that doesn't help you at all?

[1035] SPEAKER_36: She'd be done. She's done.

[1036] Nancy Thomas: I'll be there through Saturday. Perhaps we can have a doodle sent to us and we can, with some alternate times.

[1050] SPEAKER_26: Yeah, let's, Shara and I will work with you on that behind the scenes. We don't need to take a lot of time now. And I've got a couple of ideas that might work. Depending on the contents, if it's not heavy on staff requirements, I will be here on the 21st, but I want to make sure that if there's stuff we need staff for that we're not, asking them to do it on the week they have off.

[1073] SPEAKER_36: Yeah, I'm out of town on the 21st.

[1074] SPEAKER_26: OK.

[1075] SPEAKER_36: All right.

[1076] SPEAKER_29: And you said the 27th, you had a conflict in the evening? Do you have a conflict in the evening?

[1079] SPEAKER_26: I have one all day that day.

[1080] SPEAKER_29: Oh, OK. I'll ask Jennifer.

[1082] SPEAKER_26: Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, I would have been able to make that work. Let us work on it. OK. Let us work on that. So think about retreat dates, and then Char and I will work on this November study session as a more urgent matter. And the last item is we did spend three days with the California legislative staff and were able to really, I feel, reinforce the concern around the funding gap in California. And they really got an earful from staff of how we were feeling that in a district like ours. They were very much inviting us to still have a voice and stay in touch with them. I thought it was healthy that at least they're coming to see what happens on the ground level. That hasn't happened. It's the first time I've ever seen that happen from a legislative visit to see what's happening with LCAP. So we had a good voice in that. And I know some board members came and sat in on some of the sessions with us. And I appreciate that. And I just wanted to say that it's spurred some other conversations. And I'm still trying to chase down those strands to see if we can get some additional dollars and support for our district. They have a lot of questions. They did have a lot of questions. Yes. That concludes my report at this time.

[1154] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Next, we have a staff report. Yes. Ms. Salinas.

[1166] SPEAKER_06: Good evening. Perfect. So this evening, speaking of November 27th, so we're anticipating the public release of the new California dashboard. If you remember, Director Amy Black had been here previously to share updates as we're moving along. But today's work is actually to review the local indicators and to remind you that the state of California is still working through this. We're still looking at pilots and And every week we get a new indicator that's revealed to us. And so hoping to bring that information as it comes forward. So the first thing is just a reminder around the indicators that are by priority. So if you look at the left-hand side, priority one through eight on the left-hand side is essentially what are all of our priority indicators. In the green, from priority four through eight is something that the Department of Education does for us. And so that's all rooted in our test scores for English learners, our graduation rate indicator and so forth. But each school district has to prioritize their own local indicators. So on my right is the basic conditions at school, implementation of state academic standards, parent engagement, and then a local climate survey. So because we are in the new pilot stage of this with the state of California, what they've actually done is just a survey to be able to do this and to have the conversation. Every school district is having this conversation at their school board level before December 1st. And so we're here tonight to share that information with you and to hear from you. A little bit about the four local indicators. If you think back to like the Williams Act, it's pretty basic. And so we're anticipating that this is going to change as the Department of Ed starts to see how this rolls out, that it's really not quite enough. But to share with you is that we've met with our Williams Act schools. They all have the appropriately assigned teachers, access to instructional materials. And per Williams have their functional school facility. So that's a met for a local indicator. In terms of priority two for implementation of state academic standards, it's a tool that they give us to work with and it's a survey. And per the survey we have met it. In terms of parent engagement, the parent engagement is based on parent surveys. And so we use the superintendent survey from last year. And this is all based on last year's work also to share with you. And so we were able to look at the parent survey that was done last year that the superintendent rolled out community-wise. And so we were able to meet that basic indicator. And then we looked at the final, which is school climate. And what we used for that was the CHICS data. And the data is where students are surveyed as to how they feel at school, do they feel safe at school. It has some aspects of toupee with tobacco use and so forth. But what we found was, although we met the basic requirement with the state, that is something that we want to investigate for this year so we can survey more students. It's an optional, so we do every other year of grade span to do the CHIC survey. But we're looking at expanding that for this year so we can have more tangible student data. so that we can get ready for when the state says, this was basic, this was enough, but let's do deeper work around that. I do want to highlight in terms of the parent engagement, we're working with the Alameda County Office of Education and CCEE. Jason Arenas, who is the point person at the county office, is actually looking at some of the work out of Harvard as to how parents are truly engaged partners at the school site. Not just the bring the donations, sign up to help with duty, but deeper work of what parent engagement truly means. So we're starting to do that work. with our parent partners and also with Jessica Saavedra and some of her work with our DLAC teams and school site councils. So just we, this is just to give some credits to where we got the slides and the information. But essentially it's information only to let you know that we're waiting for the public release on November 27th. There will actually be a webinar. And so everyone's kind of waiting on that. We are hoping to get some preliminary access the week of Thanksgiving. So we will be here waiting for that so that we can actually start to prepare for having it rolled out communication-wise to our parents and families. Because again, it's the new accountability system. Folks are still learning a lot about it. We've moved away from the API and the rankings and all of that, and we're moving more towards the dashboard. So it's continuing that work. If there's any questions.

[1463] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Any, Mr. Rodriguez?

[1468] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you, Mrs. Salinas, for the point. Can you tell me again on November 27th what actually is happening on that date?

[1477] SPEAKER_06: So if you recall the dashboard that had the different colors of meeting the standards or not, that will be publicly released. So we're hoping to have some access the week of Thanksgiving week so that we can start to get prepared to do that. But it's the new updated indicators and dashboard.

[1494] Ray Rodriguez: you're going to share that with the board at the.

[1497] SPEAKER_06: So if we can have access the week of Thanksgiving, we'll certainly share that out with you all, but it will be embargoed until the public release the following week. Right, got it.

[1505] Ray Rodriguez: Okay. Thank you. Thank you much.

[1506] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Thank you. Next we have a public hearing, which is a Sunshine proposal, re-opener for Newark Teachers Association contract. The school The California Education Code requires that both parties sunshine their initial proposals for re-openers, at which time the public has the opportunity to provide input. So that is what this public hearing is all about. So I will open this public hearing. Is there anyone that would like to come forward and speak to this issue? Seeing none, the public hearing is closed. Thank you. Next, we have comments on non-agenda items. We have quite a few, so I hope everyone that's speaking will go through them as quickly as they can. We do limit public speaking for non-agenda items to three minutes, and there will be a timer to keep you on track if you need to be. So the first person is Cary Knoop.

[1589] Cary Knoop: Good evening. One remark I would like to make about the budget. So I've been looking around to look at what neighboring districts, what their expenditures look like. And of course, the other districts are of totally different size than Newark. In fact, Newark is probably one of the smallest districts in Alameda County. So what I looked at is the cost per ADA. Of course, every district is a little bit different, but I think it's an interesting guideline to take a look at how much do we spend per kid on certain things. And so I looked at that, and I sort of compared it, and I looked at things that popped out. And one of them was, for instance, insurance. We spent almost double the amount of insurance as our neighboring districts per child. And being a small district, I can understand that you have more overhead with buildings, and maintenance, even supervisor salaries because you're a small organization. But insurance, so I think that's something you might want to look at to see if we can cut expenditures there. The other one is the OPEB liability. I think it would be interesting to look if it's legally possible to actually sell these liabilities to an insurance company or to a big financial institution that can package these liabilities and get a better return on the money rather than a small organization. School is very limited what they can do, how they can invest the money for future payments. So it may be interesting to see if we could actually sell these liabilities and get a fixed amount of money that we basically can save money. Another thing that I think really stands out is our operational housekeeping services. It's really a lot higher than Neighboring districts, and I think that's probably related to the fact or mostly related to the fact that we are very small and we have Room you know we have a lot of extra room, but still even taking that into account. We do spend a lot in that area so Again, I think it's important to compare what neighboring districts do looking at a cost per child and and then see if there's something that we can learn from other districts and say, is there anything we can cut there?

[1736] Nancy Thomas: So that's it. Thank you, Mr. New.

[1740] Ray Rodriguez: I'm sorry, uh, president Thomas, but I have a point of order. Um, we've been having the budget workshops, um, from five till six at just about each one of our meetings. And during that time we do ask for public comment on the workshop, which is the budget. So, we probably need clarification on whether, since we're having it then, and we are talking about the budget, then we wouldn't, it's considered an agenda item, so it wouldn't be public comment on, it's my, you know, just my understanding. But maybe someday we can talk about it.

[1776] Nancy Thomas: I don't believe that we can require people to comment, you know, early for a study session.

[1783] Ray Rodriguez: Okay. Mr. Liang?

[1793] SPEAKER_17: Good evening everyone. So I'm sorry. I am going to kind of comment a little bit on that session and I didn't. This is my first time speaking to you guys as a non teacher. So as some of you guys know I taught at the high school for seven years. I'm not teaching there this year but I did purchase a home here. Because I really believe in this community. And I really think that this school district has a tremendous amount of potential. And I come to you with 14 years of teaching experience. And one of the greatest frustrations I had teaching at the high school was I was never made aware of any goals or targets that I was supposed to be aiming for. In fact, I probably just created my own. I'd survey my students, see what my approval rating was. It's around 70%. hey, most people liked what I was doing, okay? My rocketry program, I, you know, over 60% of my students attended a four-year college. Over 80% ended up going to a two-year or a four-year program. So, where I'm coming at with you guys today is that we need some sort of metrics. We need some sort of system of measuring the effectiveness of our programs. And I was very frustrated when I saw at the study session Like, for example, you know, not picking on certain things, but like the education effectiveness evaluation system, the E3, I've been a part of this program. To me, it was never really made aware, like, how do I know this is an effective program? How, you know, like, am me working with this other teacher, counseling this teacher, and I was also being counseled by another teacher, was it making me a better teacher? I mean, and then in many ways, We get asked, we provide data to you guys or to somebody by taking surveys. We never find out what the survey results are. And to me it's really frustrating because Survey data is essential because it's a metric. It's a way to say, you know, how good is this person? Or how did they improve? Or what are, you know, what, you know, that could be some way. Because right now I know we can focus on test scores, graduation rates, and everything else. But, you know, I realize this is too late, you know, because by December you got to make these cuts. But I think with crisis comes opportunity. And this is a time to change our culture. Because, you know, in the past we've talked about being evidence-based and data-driven. But this could not be further from the truth. And so please, I want you guys to please consider that at least This year is still not over. Can we still set some target goals? Because I will tell you this, in 2007, one of the great things that happened at our high school was that we beat JFK on our test scores. And that's because we highlighted it to our students. We said, this is what we're aiming for. We want to beat Kennedy. This is what they're scoring, and this is what we can beat them. And sometimes just competition breeds innovation. So please, let's set some targets for our teachers to aim for. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[1979] Nancy Thomas: Next, Virginia Peters.

[1988] SPEAKER_14: Good evening. My name is Virginia Peters. Last week, I wrote an email to the school board and dropped off books titled, The Leader in Me. The Leader in Me teaches the seven habits of highly effective people to staff and school children that have transformed participating schools. Earlier this year, Margaret Gould and I attended Leadership Day at Bishop Elementary School in Sunnyvale. You could tell right away something was going on there. Registration tables were beautifully decorated and staffed by fifth and sixth grade students. My host made eye contact, shook my hand, introduced himself, and provided registration instructions. As I filled out my name tag, the student made small talk and soon we were speaking of my travels to Maine and his to Virginia. There was a vibe as we entered the cafeteria. As I spoke to the parents around me, you could see their excitement. Audience chairs filled quickly for the 9 to 11 program. One of the students said, 3, 2, 1, and the whole auditorium fell silent. Students led the program, made introductions, and finally became our tour guides. Teachers gave testimonials of the leader in me changing their teaching methods and their personal and home life. Parents testified how the leader in me was already positively impacting the younger and older sibling of the students. The best part was the last 20 minutes when we got to sit and talk with the kids. They said the worst problem was bullying, which has dropped off. An older brother of one of the girls has vowed to help her get to college, a family first. My student group was worried about attending junior high because they know the leader in me is not taught there. So they have promised to stick together. Today, I'd like to use habit six, synergize, which is to seek out other people's ideas to solve problems because I know that by teaming with others, we can create better solutions than any one of us can alone. Please add the leader in me to the December agenda, participate in a book lab, And join me tomorrow, if you're available, at Christopher School for Visitation Day. Thank you.

[2114] Nancy Thomas: Thank you, Ms. Peters. And thank you for the information. Next, Margaret Gould.

[2134] SPEAKER_21: Good evening. I'm here in support of the Leader in Me. and my friend, Virginia Peters. As a single parent starting 20 years ago, I sought out leadership for my children because I knew that they would need more tools to carry them through life and become successful people. And today they are both in college and my son will be graduating next month from college. And I feel very proud of that, of that fact. As an educator in this district for the last 12 years and now in the elementary level in a special day class, I see more and more that the lines are blurred as to what we should be teaching our children and what they should be taught at home. And I believe that it's our responsibility as a whole to give our children as much as we can. in the special day class because academics are such a challenge already for a lot of our kids. I have personally chosen to use some of the language and ideas from the leader in me and things that I have learned over the years and taught my own kids about being responsible people, being leaders of self, being socially aware, being collaborative and teaching them some conflict resolution and management. And I have seen over the last couple of years a maturity and a growth in the children kind of adopting some of the language that I've been using very consistently throughout the last couple of years. For instance, I'd like to teach my children to really own what they do. A lot of times kids will say oh it wasn't me it wasn't me and I teach them just own it just step up and own it because anything can be fixed but you have to step up and you have to own it and and be a leader of self. And my student the other day said, as Miss Maggie says, you just have to own it. And I thought, wow, that's so cool because it stuck with him. And lots of things don't stick with the students that I teach. So I thought that was pretty awesome. I just feel it's necessary that we take a larger approach. And I think the Leader in Me is a fantastic program. That would be so great to add to our young children's education. Thank you.

[2292] Nancy Thomas: Thank you very much. Oliver Covey.

[2306] SPEAKER_19: My name is Oliver Covey. I'm a student at Newark Memorial High School. I'm a junior, the president of LGBTQ Support Club, and I'm actually here with most of my club and Speakeasy. I'm a female to male transgender teenager. And there's one thing that could have made my experience a lot easier through high school. I've been physically transitioning for almost a year. In November 25th, I will make my one-year mark for hormone replacement treatment. The biggest problem that I have run into is substitute teachers and the first day of the school, not for reasons that you would think. I do not match the name and gender and the name My name and gender do not match what is said in the attendance. When I say my name, it's my legal name. I've tried to change my student name and the name and gender in the attendance, but due not to changing it legally because of complications, I cannot do that. Let me remind you that changing your name and gender legally as a minor costs over $500. I planned getting it changed over the summer, but my family ran into some problems that were costly. I might have to wait until I'm 18 to change it because of other problems. The district should come up with a way that you can change your name and gender in the system. Doing so would make things a lot easier for other transgender kids and future transgender students that would attend Newark Memorial High School in the future. Thank you.

[2394] Nancy Thomas: Thank you.

[2407] SPEAKER_30: Hello. So my name is Amanda Yop. I teach ceramics at the high school. And I'm also the advisor to the LGBTQ plus support club, have been for the last three years, been teaching at Newark Memorial for four. And I've learned a lot from the kids in the club, so much. And I can, I've actually witnessed this thing that Oliver's talking about. with his name and I was one of those people because I was his teacher I think my first year and I use the name that was in there. And it really he was really very good about it and came up to me and said please don't use that name. And he has to go through this all the time. And it's it's unnecessary. It's an easy fix. And and I'm here to talk about that but also about gender neutral bathrooms, which I know is kind of a tough area for districts. But a lot of school districts in California are adapting or adopting them, I should say. So San Jose Unified is doing it. And a few weeks ago, I went to a conference called the, what was it called? The Teaching for Social Justice Conference in San Francisco. Really amazing. Veronica Bulwark told me about it, and she was Teacher of the Year in 2016, so you know it's good. And I went to a workshop on how to support our LGBTQ students, help them graduate. And there were a lot of issues that came up. One of them was pronouns and names, what the student you know, wants to be called, but also the bathrooms. And I really brought up that issue because I know it's something that's important to them. And the workshop, we had three kids from Cypress High School near San Jose, and they were there to talk about their experiences. And I've heard a lot of those stories through my own students. But when I asked them questions about the bathrooms, they were like, you know what? We had people who just, they helped us out with that. We haven't had any issues. And really, it's been something that's just, it makes them safe. Everybody deserves, like, I mean, they all have the right, sorry, I'm getting a little nervous here. They have the right to use a bathroom that aligns with their gender, by law. And all we have right now is a tiny little bathroom in the office. It's out of the way for them and it makes them late for class and it's not helping them. I mean they have to go back through the office and it's it's also making it making them appear kind of special and different too. So I think it's something that we could we could adopt here too.

[2590] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Thank you. Superintendent, perhaps you can keep the board apprised in the Friday update of this issue.

[2603] SPEAKER_26: I didn't know it was just one bathroom. I had asked for more, but I'll keep working on it.

[2607] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Next, Logan Alcaciba.

[2619] SPEAKER_48: She was beaten with a shovel and a frying pan. She was strangled with a rope. She was hog-tied and buried in the Sierra Nevadas. She was Gwen Amber Rose Araujo. This is Newark's narrative when it comes to transgender people, and that narrative still hasn't improved enough. Attending Newark Memorial High School, attending Newark Junior High School, attending Snow School, I've dealt with problems my whole entire life here. I've had some great experiences but I've experienced some of the worst. And it's because of all these bathrooms, all these name and gender issues that we have. It's because of sports. It's because of all these sorts of things when it comes to transgender students. And we really tried as students to make as much change as possible. We developed the transgender presentation, the LGBTQ plus support club. These two projects were started by students, by students, not the school, not the school district, by students. Students were the ones who had to take it upon themselves to really make this positive change. And the change that we have, it's still not enough. We need the support from the district to make sure that every student has a fair chance to pursue their education, to pursue safety and collaboration with their fellow students and staff. We need this for both staff and students who do identify as trans or non-binary. It's not just an individual issue. It's a communal issue that all of us have to deal with. Thank you.

[2728] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Mr. Edwards?

[2741] SPEAKER_47: I honestly don't know how I'm going to follow some of my students and former students. That was powerful. What I'd like to talk to you about is something much more simple than this. These issues are insanely difficult to overcome, but something as simple as because we're not supporting our trans students enough, It's causing tardies, which is going to affect our ADA, which is going to affect our students being able to get to class. We have one restroom, and as Ms. Yop said, it's in the back of the copy room in the front office. If I have a student in my classroom who has to get to Ms. Yop's room, there's at least four different bathrooms that they might be able to pass before they get to that one little closet. And this room is about probably the size of that closet over there. It's tiny. This is also the changing room for our transgender students when they are going to PE. And there's only one of them. So they're going to be inevitably late for class every single time. Because instead of going to one of the easy-to-get-to restrooms that every other student in the school has access to, they have to go all the way to the front office, Hopefully another teacher didn't decide to use that restroom because it's not marked with anything to say that it's meant for transgender students or it's meant as a student restroom. It's just another bathroom. And this is going to continue to affect our students. Already these students feel discriminated against, and these little things, it starts adding up. It's going to affect our students' ability to perform in class, ability to get to class, and in the end, this is the sort of stuff that leads to dropout rates. We need to do something for our kids. Thank you.

[2853] Maria Huffer: Thank you.

[2859] Nancy Thomas: OK, next we move on to old business and the amended declaration of need for fully qualified teachers.

[2871] SPEAKER_29: So I'll move to approve because I think the only issue was that it was not agendized separately last time.

[2882] Nancy Thomas: I'll second. OK, unless there's a comment from staff, would you please vote? Do you want to make a comment? No, thank you. Please vote. Five ayes. Who seconded it? Okay. A new business dashboard alternative school

[2915] SPEAKER_06: Good evening. As I stated before, our new process with the California School Dashboard is that we have a unique opportunity to really focus and identify and support our students at the alternative school. And one of the allowances from the State of California and Department of Ed is that we can actually take a vote tonight and we're able to individually track our students at the alternative school and look at their achievement data separately from the district and so by tonight's action that would allow us to do that and we could submit that that to the Department of Ed.

[2952] Nancy Thomas: So what what do you want us to vote on? What do you want us to say?

[2956] SPEAKER_06: So our recommendation is to approve as noted by staff and that's to have the process for to see alternative high school data separate from the overall district data.

[2967] SPEAKER_36: Okay. May I get a... Is there some some way that could be done for all students? Is that...

[2974] SPEAKER_06: No, well, they have it because of the way that the McGregor campus and the individual programs that are there. So this is particular to alternative school placements.

[2985] SPEAKER_36: But the process is there. Correct. So you're going to a big student database and you're able to pull out students, which means if you can track one group of students, you can track them all.

[2998] SPEAKER_06: Correct. If you choose to. Yes. But the way that, I guess, every three years we're allowed to recertify, and this is for our most at-risk students. And so because they are at the alternative setting, the way that it sounds is that their scores come into the hole for the district, but this way we'd be able to pull out their score so we can support them better academically.

[3020] SPEAKER_36: Are they still considered part of the district in terms of scores?

[3022] SPEAKER_06: Oh, yes. Absolutely.

[3023] SPEAKER_36: Good. Thank you.

[3028] SPEAKER_29: I'll move to approve. I'll second.

[3031] Nancy Thomas: Please vote. Five ayes. Now notice of play equipment. We have a speaker, Ms. Parks.

[3050] Cindy Parks: Good evening. I'm very excited that you're finally finished with all of the playground equipment. I can tell you my grandchildren have enjoyed the structures at Lincoln. One of the things that it's nice that it's all done, but I know that part of the discussion on the onset was the maintenance, the long-term maintenance of the equipment that you've just spent quite a lot of money on. And there was discussion of having one or two district employees that would be able to maintain those facilities so where it's nice that you're done with the completion of it. I don't know if there's an extended warranty on the equipment, but just to make sure that once that is complete that you do have the staff that is trained to be able to actually maintain what you just spent a lot of money on. Thank you.

[3111] Nancy Thomas: Okay, I have a question. Do we have anyone that's certificated and trained to do this?

[3116] SPEAKER_26: I believe we do, but I need to follow up to make sure.

[3119] Nancy Thomas: Okay. With that, please vote. Thank you. Next, we have a contract with Facilitron. Superintendent, do you want to introduce that?

[3134] SPEAKER_26: Yes, this is a contract. that's entered for ratification. There is not a cost to the district for this contract, but it does define the relationship that we will have with Facilitron. We can cancel at any time, but we are going to try. Part of it is their role and where they make their profit is in charging fees to people from outside of the system that use our facilities. This is not intended to change the relationship we have with our existing partners and people that work with us currently. This is really potentially somewhat of a revenue building opportunity. And it also helps us manage and market our district in a little different light. But the contract is here for the board to review and for the public to view what it is and what it isn't. But we'll see how it goes. And I think that if it's able to work the way that I would like it to work, we might be able to get some revenue in to pour back into improving facilities and pour back into making our environment nicer for the kids during the day as funded by outside of the day use. So that's kind of the idea behind it. Yes.

[3207] SPEAKER_36: Yes. In terms of their role for in-house determining the use of facilities, what is the time frame that they have to do? Is it going to be shorter now? Are they going to have to, for example, if I'm a teacher and I want to have a room for For a club meeting, how much time lag do I have to have before I sign up for that kind of thing?

[3232] SPEAKER_26: Anything that's internal, we control. So we would just not put those things on the table. So for example, at the high school, if they know they have certain clubs until whatever day in whatever rooms, we would block that out. And that space is not available to be scheduled for anyone else. So it goes to internal people as a priority. And there's no charge for that. There's no fee for that. The only people that would incur a fee would be people from the outside using it, or it might be even people from the outside using it at a sliding scale because we have a different relationship with an entity.

[3264] SPEAKER_36: Have the people that are using the facilities now, have they been notified, and has there been a reaction from them?

[3271] SPEAKER_26: So far, we're just starting to roll out our communication with it. We haven't heard much yet, but we're just kind of barely rolling it out.

[3279] SPEAKER_36: Are most of the rates going up?

[3281] SPEAKER_26: To some degree, yes.

[3283] SPEAKER_36: So because there's a 6% to 10% fee that's either in the front or the back, depending on how we do it. But they're still paying that. I assume that would be on top.

[3292] SPEAKER_26: There will be some increase in fees.

[3296] Nancy Thomas: Is the increase in fees something the board, because I know we have approved the exhibits for the fee structure in the past. Is that something that should be coming to the board?

[3308] SPEAKER_26: As soon as I have that information, I can bring that to you. I know that I'm waiting to get an update. And there was a change in the staff at Faciltron. So I'm waiting to see where that comes back around. But I'm happy to provide that in the future.

[3320] SPEAKER_36: We got something. I was trying to find it. We did get a breakdown.

[3323] SPEAKER_26: Do you have anything on that, Shara, to your call on fees?

[3326] SPEAKER_36: I thought there was one. Because I looked and compared to the one in 2004 to see how the difference were.

[3332] Nancy Thomas: Ms. Condon has some information. Can we call on her out of order? Do you mind? I'm sorry. Ms. Condon. It's raised in her hand with some information. Oh. You're president. May I call on her off order? Sure. OK, Ms. Condon?

[3344] Jodi Croce: I'm sorry.

[3344] SPEAKER_33: I just wanted to say we're supposed to be having a pre-scheduled meeting the 29th of May.

[3349] SPEAKER_26: OK, so we're working on it still. OK, so it's not coming up.

[3353] SPEAKER_33: I don't know exactly where it's going to go, but we're going to be meeting Sarah, myself, and Susan from Facilitron are going to be working on it.

[3362] SPEAKER_36: OK, so we have our staff been working with Facilitron.

[3365] Ray Rodriguez: OK, I had, if you don't mind, in the interest of openness, So, superintendent, we're not, they're not charging us to do this, right? No. Okay, so is the increase in fees the reason for that, or?

[3382] SPEAKER_26: No, well, they do make their profit from the rental fees, but they've been able to show a track record of increasing a lot of revenue for other districts that have used this outside of just normal use. So, they plan to expand our use and market our use and have a little bit easier to access through the internet. And they do a lot more of the management. They have a whole management team that deals with customer service and all of that stuff.

[3406] Ray Rodriguez: Now, our, you know, like the Boy Scouts, you know, they use our facilities. How is that going to affect them, if any?

[3416] SPEAKER_26: Part of what my conversation with Facilitron for groups like that would be, my first question is, how many of our students do you serve? And I think the more students they serve, the less we're probably going to charge a group like that. So we want to have a sliding scale that really, if it's an organization that is really, many of them only serve our kids, like Music for Minors, for example, they serve a lot of our kids. We wouldn't be charging them outside of just the cost. So there's always a fee, even though it may be the least fee. So those are the existing partnerships that we have to keep intact. So we wouldn't anticipate charging anyone that we've been working with that's been kind of our partner. They wouldn't be charged more. unless there was a charge in the base fee that we have to look at for cost of custodian, which might happen because of other reasons.

[3465] SPEAKER_36: If it's a curriculum identified group, then there's no charge.

[3469] SPEAKER_26: Yeah, if it's a school related organization or a school partner organization or somebody that, like for example, earlier we were talking about, Alameda County Mental Health, that wouldn't be somebody we would charge this fee to. It's really largely for other entities that we haven't tapped into, organizations. I mean, if Amazon wanted to rent part of a building to do an event, we would charge them a full fee. But we would be willing to negotiate that, depending on other factors, yeah.

[3502] Ray Rodriguez: So unless there's any other, I would like to second, because Sierra wants to make a motion. If that's okay.

[3511] SPEAKER_28: Sure. Okay. I move to approve.

[3514] Ray Rodriguez: Second. Okay.

[3516] Nancy Thomas: Great. Um, uh, before one question before that, I know we have had a, um, a list of price list that hasn't changed or a fee list. Um, is that what you're going to be working on adjusting that?

[3533] SPEAKER_26: Yeah, we'll be bringing that back to the board. Um, and I know, thanks for the clarification, Susan. Um, So as soon as we have that, we'll bring it back to the board, and we'll have more definition around who are our partners. Because we have to provide that to Facilitron, so we have to set different tiers of pricing for different organizations. So we'll bring that back to the board.

[3551] Nancy Thomas: Please vote. Bye-byes.

[3554] Ray Rodriguez: That's the first time CIER has ever done that. Thank you, Sierra. That's great. Thank you. Exciting.

[3557] SPEAKER_28: You like that, huh? I wasn't sure if I was, because I do it at the school site meetings and stuff and all my other meetings, but I wasn't sure if I was, because the role for my position isn't exactly defined. Right.

[3569] SPEAKER_36: It's slightly different in terms of your responsibilities.

[3572] SPEAKER_28: Yeah. Like at the, what was it, the CSBA meeting I went to last year, there was a huge topic debate about that, different functions, yeah.

[3583] SPEAKER_36: Legally, I don't know if you can.

[3584] SPEAKER_28: No, they are. It depends on your guys' choice if you want to give me, yeah.

[3590] Nancy Thomas: I will give you that. OK. OK, thank you. Next, we have our donations report. One second. OK, all in favor? All in. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yes, that is on the agenda. Please speak. Thank you.

[3614] Cary Knoop: Um, in the donations report, you'll see the, uh, the generous contribution of the parents of Kennedy who helped Kennedy school to resolve a problem where after a month the kids were mixed up in other classes and that was undone. Um, but I question whether that amount is correct. I think the amount that's listed is the cost of the teacher stipends, but more money was raised. And this may have to do with, you know, something that came up in the audit committee meeting with respect to how certain donations are coming in front of the board and other donations not. But again, I think it's very important to recognize that I think it was more money than that. So again, you know, it was great, great effort of the of Kennedy.

[3673] Nancy Thomas: Thanks. Superintendent, could you have Mr. Pritchard's?

[3677] SPEAKER_26: I could tell you that is the accurate number of what was deposited in the district. I know there was fees that were taken out from GoFundMe and there's some other detail behind it, but I can find out and get it to the board.

[3688] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. So we have a motion and a second. Please vote. Five ayes. Just briefly, I'll go over most of them, but not all of them. We have $775 for Birchgrove Primary, scooters for PE from DonorsChoose. $1,000 to Birchgrove Primary from DonorsChoose for Little League, Gain Great Knowledge. $974 for Birchgrove Primary for DonorsChoose, printers for Young Authors Need Their Writing Published. for Newark Memorial High School, Donors Choose, Tables and Stools for Classrooms, for Classroom 415, $9,760 for Newark Unified School District, Newark Betterment Corporation for the Young Authors Program, $1,600 for Newark Junior High from Richard and Susan Steele for Classroom Supplies, how nice, $7,260 for Kennedy Elementary, the one Mr. Newt mentioned, for the overages stipend. And the donors, Kimberly and Ryan McCarthy, who managed the GoFundMe page campaign. And there were many, many donors. $8,796 for Newark Memorial, for Washington Township Hospital Development Corp, for the athletic trainer. A 2000 Birch Grove Intermediate for Newark Memorial High School Boys Soccer. And one used flute from Christine Clinton for Newark's Elementary Music Program. And then there's quite a few Birthday Wish Marquee listings.

[3805] SPEAKER_29: You should name the past practices. You name all of them.

[3809] Nancy Thomas: OK. I guess so. $5 to Birchgrove for birthday from April Holland and Brian Miller for birthday wishes marquee. $10 Birchgrove Intermediate from David and Blanche Maculan birthday wishes marquee. $25 to Birchgrove Intermediate from Darren K. Chinon birthday wishes marquee. $20 to Birchgrove Intermediate Robert and Krista Coloretti birthday wishes marquee. $6,000 worth of tables. 45 of them to McGregor Center by Blue Star Company to use at McGregor where needed most. Total was 41,686. Thank you, everybody.

[3854] SPEAKER_29: Every donor is important and we shouldn't skip.

[3856] Nancy Thomas: I just thought there was a long list and that, yeah, you're right. But if you recognize one, do you recognize all? I stand corrected. You're absolutely right. Thank you.

[3866] SPEAKER_29: Hopefully this is every month that we can raise this much.

[3872] Nancy Thomas: So next, we have an update to board bylaw 9250, remuneration, reimbursement, and other benefits. Do I have a motion?

[3885] SPEAKER_36: I'll move, but I would like to discuss it, too. OK. I'll move to accept. And I'll second.

[3889] Nancy Thomas: OK. Ms. Crocker.

[3891] SPEAKER_36: Yeah. I'm trying to think of page three of the document. It talks about health and welfare benefits for former board members. We don't have any health and welfare, to my knowledge, for any former board members. We do have former superintendents. I don't know that there's any board members that are getting. And Brian is not here. Does anybody know? We probably need to find out. I think we need, because I think that.

[3921] SPEAKER_26: I'm not aware of any, but that seems odd to me.

[3924] SPEAKER_36: We definitely will not be having that. So I don't know whether.

[3929] Nancy Thomas: But I think I read that thing and I was concerned as well. But if you read what it says, it says at their own cost later on in the next paragraph.

[3939] SPEAKER_36: But it says here it should be no greater. So it should be. I mean, that's what we got rid of.

[3945] Nancy Thomas: It implies that there's a monetary amount to it. But it's very clear that it is at their own cost.

[3953] SPEAKER_36: Well, if there are former board members, we may legally have to In other words, there are some retired management people that are getting full benefits. It was part of their contract, and they're grandfathered in. We can't get rid of that from what I understand. So I don't know that the board members were in that situation. And I don't know of anyone that is a former board member.

[3976] Nancy Thomas: Well, again, I think Mr. Richards could check into that. But I'm not aware of any former board member that is getting full medical

[3986] SPEAKER_36: I mean, former board members are still around. So they may well, I don't know what the law was at that point. But it would be interesting to find. So I question this. And there was something else. Let's see.

[4007] SPEAKER_29: 9250. Can we get staff to clarify that?

[4017] SPEAKER_26: I'm looking at it right now. We can either strike it out and come back if we need to change it, or we could table it until we find out.

[4025] SPEAKER_36: I think we need to table it until we find out. Let's consider this a first reading.

[4029] SPEAKER_26: There's no hurry in doing it.

[4031] SPEAKER_36: We can come back with a second reading. There's a date there that I think that we want to in January.

[4036] SPEAKER_26: But that's adjustable. We can come back for another reading. I think I had a brief conversation with Brian about this, because he had to be somewhere, and he's fine if we need to bring it back. I don't know of any other HR reasons that we wouldn't bring it back for another reading. Let us get clarification on that. Was there another item of clarification? No, that was it. Mostly it was the former board language.

[4056] SPEAKER_36: It has to do with the former board. OK.

[4058] SPEAKER_26: Let us work on that, and let's table it.

[4060] Nancy Thomas: Next, employee organizations.

[4072] SPEAKER_47: Hello again. I just wanted to remind you all that during budget reduction, our labor organizations are supposed to be involved in this. And so I'm hoping that maybe by the next board meeting, I know a new one was set up for just after Thanksgiving, that both labor organizations can come together with the superintendent and with any other involved party. to make sure that we have our input and that we can, can talk to you all about our budget reductions before the December 14th deadline.

[4107] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next we're going on to the consent agenda. We have, we have CSCA. She has nothing. She passed. Okay. Next we have a consent agenda and I would ask that if members of the public want to speak on this, that they come forward now before we consider this consent agenda.

[4133] SPEAKER_29: So, um, Mr. Carey knew for personal items, for consent, because it was, it looks like there's two separate consent agenda, personal items. We do have two separate non personal. Yeah.

[4152] SPEAKER_26: Uh, you still haven't approved 17. We haven't approved 16. We have to approve 16.

[4157] Nancy Thomas: Okay. Thank you. Um, thank you.

[4159] SPEAKER_29: Uh, I'm moved to approve the personnel report.

[4164] Nancy Thomas: All those in favor. Five eyes. Mr. New.

[4171] Cary Knoop: Good evening. Um, I have a question about the rejection of claim and it's, it's basically a question and you know, since the board is doing the business of the people and this is On the agenda, I think it's important that at least every member should ask a question if it's something not clear to them. So my question is that I understand that the Keegan Associates told the district that it should be on the board, which I find a little strange, actually. But my question is, most of all, is Keegan acting as an insurance agent, or are they acting as an advisory because if they're acting as an insurance agent and obviously just the fact that an insurance agent says oh we're not going to cover this does not imply automatically that a district should deny the claim and I assume if that's the case that I assume that the board members are brought up to date with respect to the details of this claim because of course you can't take advice from the district and an insurance company in good faith. But I think you do want to be diligent about that you at least know what the claim is about before you approve something. Now, if this is the other option that Keegan functions as an advisory, which means that this could even be legally holding. Because if they advise the district not to accept this claim, that's a strong statement. So I think the question is, the letter from Keegan is that as an insurance agent or as a consultant, And if it is as an insurance agent, does the board have sufficient data to approve it? And again, you can approve it on good faith, on advice of the district, but at least you need to know something about the case. Thank you.

[4285] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. So I will entertain, does any board member want to pull any items?

[4296] SPEAKER_29: 17.8 and 17.9.

[4299] Nancy Thomas: Okay, 17.8 and 0.9 are pulled. Can I get a motion to approve 17.1 through 17.7 and 17.10? I so move.

[4309] Ray Rodriguez: I'll move that we accept.

[4313] SPEAKER_29: Member Crocker already moved, so you can second.

[4315] Ray Rodriguez: She was very quiet when she said that.

[4319] Nancy Thomas: So, Member Crocker moves, Member Rodriguez Briggs seconds, please vote. Thank you.

[4327] SPEAKER_28: I might want to pull something.

[4333] Ray Rodriguez: 17.1. 17.1. So we have to change our motion. So Ciara can pull it.

[4340] Nancy Thomas: If you two are willing to amend your motion, you may. Jan, would you amend your motion?

[4345] SPEAKER_36: I would be open to hearing. I don't know if she's looking for amending. I don't know if she's if she wants to discuss it.

[4351] Ray Rodriguez: Do you want to discuss it or just comment on it? On the 17.1. 17.1.

[4357] SPEAKER_28: Let's see.

[4361] Nancy Thomas: The time to do that would be before we move on and since we haven't really.

[4367] SPEAKER_29: We were voting and then you didn't raise your hand. And neither did she. Yeah, so. So the vote was not complete. No, we haven't voted on it. We did vote, it was us three and then It was in the process of before they brought it up.

[4380] Ray Rodriguez: So I don't know. No, it's still open as far as I'm concerned. We have a motion and a second.

[4386] SPEAKER_29: So I guess, OK, let's do this.

[4389] Nancy Thomas: Could I suggest that there is a room after the consent agenda for board comments on the consent agenda, and you could make your comments then?

[4399] SPEAKER_36: Does it affect the actual process? of completing that.

[4407] SPEAKER_29: So let's just discuss, 17.1 you wanted to make a point or discuss, is that right? Oh, approve it. Oh, yeah, so we're voting to approve.

[4424] SPEAKER_36: We take the whole group. That's what I was saying.

[4427] SPEAKER_29: We are voting to approve it right now. Yes. OK, so we're going to call the vote again.

[4431] Nancy Thomas: Please vote. Five ayes.

[4435] SPEAKER_36: All right, so then. 17.18.

[4438] SPEAKER_29: So it's 17.8? OK, 17.8. So I'm going to discuss why. Yes. OK, so I just wanted to get a sense of, I know Mr. Richard's not here, but if we can figure out, like, we've mapped out, we've approved already, fund 400 and the specific things. But it'd be good to, for me at least, to get a sense of, if we move forward with this, like, where are we at with the total amount? So we approved x amount of dollars. Approving this where does that leave us and then kind of that track record right?

[4470] SPEAKER_26: It is we can pull up in a minute here. I can tell you that this is Below the budget that was allocated for the school okay on the per pupil ratio, and there is some dollars left But after this approval I'll go be going back to the school to revisit the balance of what's left on the wish list There's some I don't think it's a large amount of dollars left, but I don't know from memory. What was the total amount I?

[4497] SPEAKER_36: So this is discretionary money the principal had.

[4499] SPEAKER_29: No, this was the wish list that was approved. No, we approved.

[4502] SPEAKER_26: We approved it. Not to exceed that number. Exactly. So this is part of it. This is not the whole thing. Based on equity and based on.

[4507] SPEAKER_36: And if we made that decision, we did that.

[4509] Nancy Thomas: Yeah. This came up in our audit committee meeting. You were there. Because Fund 40 has a budget. What's remaining in the budget is technology and its three-year rollout, the wish list, and any the remaining curb appeal landscaping that hasn't come before us yet. So we do have a budget. And Mr. Richard said that it would be possible when we do vote on something from one of the wish lists that we have a simple spreadsheet that tells us where we are in the budget. And I think that would be very helpful.

[4548] SPEAKER_29: So what I would do is I would move to approve this agenda item and then with the understanding that at our next meeting, we'll have an updated spreadsheet of where we are in terms of all of the programs so that these are highlights that we have.

[4565] SPEAKER_26: I can tell you that we can email that to the board tomorrow. Char's been helping me as I've taken over operations, and Char's been assisting. So we'll have that in your hands tomorrow or by email. But we are tracking per the original resolution and dollar amount and making sure Nothing goes over, and it's within the parameters of those dollars. So I'm just happy that both 17.8 and 17.9, after a year, are finally in the queue and ready to get an update.

[4595] SPEAKER_29: So I move to approve.

[4598] Nancy Thomas: Second. Please vote. Five ayes.

[4603] SPEAKER_29: And for 17.9. Yay. For 17.9, it was the same framework, so that's why I pulled both, because they were both. So I move to approve. Good. Second.

[4613] SPEAKER_36: Didn't you do both?

[4614] SPEAKER_29: No, I did 17.8. So because I pulled it, so we have to vote. I'm texting Coach K as we speak. Move to approve 17.9. Please vote. And then member Rodriguez seconded.

[4624] Nancy Thomas: Please vote. Please vote.

[4628] Ray Rodriguez: Just a quick point of order. You said that we normally have board member comments on consent items, but I don't see that in here.

[4638] Nancy Thomas: Yes, and I noticed that it's not there. In the past, Char, we have had. board member comments on a consent agenda item. So we may approve everything, but we want to make a comment afterwards, and that allows us to do that.

[4654] SPEAKER_29: Okay, because I remember last time I was, that's the whole process thing that I wanted to figure out. That's really frustrating, because in the past, I was told I couldn't comment on a consent agenda item, because we do not do that. So whatever the process is, let's just go with it and stick with it. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. We have committee reports and answer requests right after. So whatever it is that we decide, let's just stick with it, please.

[4685] Ray Rodriguez: That's fair.

[4686] Nancy Thomas: Yes, but it has been there in the past, and it got dropped off inadvertently.

[4693] SPEAKER_29: With the heated discussion with the Kennedy, I know I wanted to make a statement, and then President Nguyen said that there was no There is no, so then I want to make sure that it's consistent with everyone that we either allow it or we don't, and let's not change it.

[4711] Ray Rodriguez: We've had it in the past, but I think as president, you've made the decision to not put it in the pyramid.

[4720] Nancy Thomas: OK, so with that, we move on to board member committee reports, announcements, requests, debrief, and discussion. Member Rodriguez? This is the first time we're going to this tournament and this is once again a groundbreaking step for our girls wrestling team.

[4737] SPEAKER_28: There's going to be a around 30 colleges there that we also get to compete alongside with college collegiate and Olympic women wrestlers. So that will be a really good opportunity for our girls to be exposed to colleges because a lot of us are planning on getting scholarships and are being currently looked at by colleges for wrestling. So that's pretty awesome.

[4788] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. I know some of you also, but I had a chance to see the Halloween that was done at the different sites. I personally went to Snow for their event on Friday, the Friday before Halloween, which is like a carnival. All our schools do excellent work. and they also use it as a opportunity for them to fund, to fundraise, to raise money when they have those events, and so they're all good. I also had the opportunity, like the superintendent said, to sit and have the individuals that were there, I didn't realize there were gonna be so many, ask a lot of questions, and they had a lot of questions for the board, And I happened to be the only board member there when they were asking. I was hoping, why couldn't other board members be there? And it wasn't your fault. It was just the way it worked. But I had the opportunity to thank them for visiting Little Old Newark. And hopefully the conversation we had with them will help us when we go visit. Sacramento asking for funding and additional funding for our schools so I thought it was I'm glad that superintendent that you put that together and and as far as a community report we did have a SELPA meeting and we're just trying to work ourselves through the budget and making sure that you know everything moves forward and we had a event last week and it was at American High School for the Special Olympics and we'll be having another one that Newark's going to be hosting pretty soon. So make sure the board gets that information because we'd like the board members to be there. at the Special Ed Olympics. I think it's important that we show support for what's being done in the area of Special Ed.

[4942] SPEAKER_36: What's the date on that again?

[4945] Ray Rodriguez: We just had one last week. I'm not sure when the high school is having theirs. We'll get that to you.

[4950] SPEAKER_28: It's usually around, I believe, February or January. And it's all for basketball.

[4957] SPEAKER_26: Thank you. We'll get it on the board calendar.

[4960] Ray Rodriguez: Appreciate that. Thank you. That's all I have.

[4962] SPEAKER_36: Thank you. Yeah, I've got a couple things. One has to do with liaison committee. We are working hard to find a date. We've got an agenda building. We have more time, more and more things are added. So if there's anything that you want us to discuss with the city or any insight you have, I know I've got some issues and Frankie has some things. And so it should be a good discussion because I think they're really open at this point to to doing what we can do to support each other. So it was originally planned for this next week, and then it had to change. So it probably will be after Thanksgiving, hopefully. In January. OK. In January. So after the holidays. The second thing is we are talking about in December is when we usually have the new president take position. and we have the voting in terms of officers and at that point we accept the governance handbook and the policies and there's a couple issues I'd like to address before that meeting and it has to do with getting the governance policy for censure, getting that up to date and getting it complete with the information that's found in the bylaws versus the final policy. I have a letter that was sent, that we sent as a final letter to the grand jury that indicated what our policy was going to be, and I don't see it listed there. So I want to make sure that we get that cleaned up and we have the process down that we agreed upon to take care of. And then we were talking about getting together and having a meeting about setting up the process for a liaison committee, getting an ad hoc committee. So I don't know if we need to address that here, but I think that we are addressing issues in terms of how the board functions, and that's something that we want to make sure that we have clean guidelines that all the presidents will have in terms of procedure and expectations. So those are the three things that I have.

[5103] SPEAKER_29: I did want to ask about the city's colleagues on date, because I thought we had settled them. I thought we did too. It was gone, so if we could figure that out. For the strategic planning process, I'm thinking that, from my perspective, it would be helpful to, if we had as part of the conversation the dashboard indicators, because it could be a guide of what, well, it is a guide of what we're accountable to, so it helps us frame the conversation. And then once we set the date, if we could see the agenda before, And with the agenda, if we can have a section that is outlined of expected outcomes so that we know at the end of that particular thing, this is what we expect to come from that. And it may be a series of strategic planning. Strategic planning isn't just one thing. It's various retreats or various discussions. So it might, maybe we have a specific foci for the various meetings. So I just, from my perspective, it helps map out how we're going to move forward collectively, and then how we're going to hold ourselves accountable by listing out expected outcomes. That's all I have.

[5181] Nancy Thomas: I was glad to join Member Preciado at the Audit Committee meeting, and thank you, Superintendent, for going. I thought it was a very productive meeting, and we'll be meeting again in December. On another topic, You'll recall that about three or four times ago when we had a budget setting discussion, I suggested that we board members be able to give our ideas for budget reductions. And so I've been spending some time looking at ideas that I'd like to see part of the discussion as we move forward. And so I've created a document here that I would like to share with the board members to take and read. And I've got enough for staff. I think it's important that we be part of the process. As we come down to the deadline, we're going to be given a list that staff generates. And I think it's important that we be able to put forth our own ideas for cuts, not just say yes or no to cuts that are prepared for us based on input from community and staff. So these are my inputs, and I hope that folks will read them and hopefully consider some of them as they prepare potential lists for us to look at. And I think each one of us should do this. I think each one of us should have ideas. We've been on the board, some of us for 12 years or more. Some of us have gone through the system. Some of us have had children in the system. Some of us currently have children in the system. So we know the community, we know the culture, and we know that this is a difficult process and that we have to do it, really thinking it through and Hopefully the data and some of the ideas I put in here, I'm sure a few of the numbers are probably not completely accurate, but I spent a lot of time trying to make sure that they were clear and accurate. It's something for us and for staff to think about whether it's a worthy idea that we should consider.

[5339] SPEAKER_36: Yes? Can I comment on that? Sure. I am not going to make it such a list. I think that it's for information only, and you have done a lot of work with it. And I think that it's good for reading, but there should be no expectations that because it's a staff decision in terms of the cut, I think we can give directions and ideas for them to look. But I think it's something that our job is to do overall policy. Our job is to have the the vision in terms of looking at what is good for the whole general thing in terms of specifics. Ideas can be thrown out and information can be thrown out, but I don't think we should have an expectation that we're going to find that that's what they're doing. As much as they will get ideas from the district, from people in the community, I think it's important that they hear the ideas, but their final recommendations will be their recommendations coming from their level of expertise in their area.

[5400] Nancy Thomas: And so, I feel that we have the, as a board, it's our responsibility because in the past we haven't always asked questions. We, we've approved one-time expenditures with one-time money that turned out to be ongoing. So, so in the past we have not, we have not really scrutinized and asked and involved ourselves and I think in some of the things that I saw when I was looking at the data, it was how is this going to impact students if we make this choice, which was on the list. And I think we need to ask the question, if it's going to impact students negatively, we need to set that direction. And we did set one piece of direction and that was that we want the cuts to be as far away from the students as possible. And some of these cuts do impact students and the way we make them and the priorities that we place on making these cuts can impact our decision on what to cut.

[5480] Ray Rodriguez: have no problem with you know reading through this but personally when you give it to staff to me that's micromanaging and we depend on staff to give us their recommendations. We have the board sessions on the budget that we have that we've had and we will continue to have and that allows us an opportunity as a board member to share our thoughts

[5505] Nancy Thomas: This is a public document because it's not limited to staff. Anyone can have it. Of course they can.

[5510] Ray Rodriguez: It's a public document. And that's fine. But what I'm trying to say is that, in my opinion, we pay a lot of money to staff to do their job. And we depend on their expertise. And for me, I'm fine with that. And the discussions we have in open session, doing our Bud study sessions. That's as far as I'm going to go, as far as recommending or sharing my budget reduction considerations to staff. I'm just not going to do that. But not saying that you don't have a right to do that, that's strictly up to you.

[5551] SPEAKER_29: So here's my thoughts. And I think this is the intent of the superintendent is that the reason we're going to have another budget study session is really to dive into the specifics and outline, like, this is the kind of proposal in terms of the specific programs that we're recommending. And then we can dive into whether your recommendations or other board members' recommendations. And then collectively, we decide how we're going to move forward or at least inform the conversation, because we don't want to make the decision until December, but at least have that in-depth conversation. At least that's my understanding of the whole, of why you're looking to have another meeting in November. So then we can move forward in that way, and that's where we dive into the specifics.

[5610] SPEAKER_26: Just a few comments. First of all, the purpose of this next study session that I'm lobbying to get after the break is going to be to go into the detail of where we're coming up with the $3.6 million. I don't know how much into the granular aspect of it we're going to get. I don't anticipate talking about a 0.2 section of a high school budget. But that is my intent is for the board to be very comfortable and be aware of what we're recommending before we make the final recommendation. So that is the intent. I think that my only, my last comment is really for our employees and for our community to really have time to be thankful for the things we do have. in this country. I think we have Thanksgiving holiday that's coming up and a Thanksgiving break and I know Sierra doesn't want to take any time off but I think we all need it. I think this has been a hard semester. I know for our employees it has been. I know they work hard. I know they worry and I think that I really do wish everyone to have a really nice break soon with their families and just really kind of rejuvenate and recharge and come back ready for the next step. And I just want everyone to have a good break and a well-deserved break. That's all I had this time.

[5701] Ray Rodriguez: Before we dismiss, could we do it in memory of our veterans that have given so much to our country, if you don't mind? Veterans Day.

[5708] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, I move that this meeting be adjourned in memory of our veterans who have done so much for us.

No minutes available.