Regular Meeting

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[10] SPEAKER_36: 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] Nancy Thomas: We have just returned from closed session, where we discussed conference with labor negotiator regarding NTA, conference with labor negotiator regarding non-represented employees and conference with legal counsel regarding anticipated and existing litigation. No action was taken. I would call for approval of the agenda. Moved by Member Crocker, seconded by Member Preciado. Please vote. Four ayes, thank you. Member Rodriguez is not here this evening. He's not feeling well. Next, we move to the school spotlight for John F. Kennedy Elementary. Would you like to introduce us?

[100] SPEAKER_48: Yes. Yes, thank you. This evening, Ms. Pam Hughes, principal of Kennedy Elementary, will share some of the fantastic work that staff and our principal is doing. Thank you, Ms. Hughes.

[111] SPEAKER_30: Hi, everybody. Thank you for letting me come and talk about Kennedy, one of my very favorite subjects. We have a wonderful school. We are the Kennedy Eagles. There's our mascot. You can look at the board in the back while we're waiting. We've got lots to display. All right. So I am the principal of Kennedy. This is my fifth year there, which is surprising to me. Time flies. Right? It seems like yesterday that I moved over there. And here I am, finishing year, well, halfway through year five. Let's not jump ahead. We're going to start by looking at our snapshot of our dashboard, just like everybody Else, I'm sure, we are in the green for our suspension rate and our English learner progress. We are concerned that we declined in the English language arts and math, both moved from green to yellow during the last test taken in the spring. And so our teachers are working really hard on making sure that that decline turns into a gain. So some of the things that we're working on at Kennedy throughout this year, and we started it last year, really trying to focus on individual students. For the most part, our kids do well at Kennedy. They come in doing well, and they leave us doing well. And so what we do find is that we have a handful of kids that need some extra attention and extra support. So teachers are doing that in the classroom, and they're also doing that after school, working with small groups of students who need an extra boost. This year, we've had Soul Shop come in and do anti-bullying assemblies. Soul Shop is well known. Many of the schools in Newark use them. They will have come three times this year. They do an assembly for each grade level group. in the morning and then the afternoon they go into the individual classrooms and work with kids around issues that the class is having. So we've been very happy to be able to have them this year. That happens through the generosity of our PTA who funds that assembly program for us. This year, as in every year, we're doing a whole school art project. This year it's rocks, so everybody in the student is painting a rock, and they'll be displayed in the front of the school. We have a really wonderful parent-led art program at Kennedy. And so our art liaison parents have set this program up. And there's a children's book that goes that has pictures of rocks all decorated. So they've been going in and reading the story, and then we're working on that to put it all together. We want to do projects with the whole school, but it's often cost-prohibitive. So they have gotten rocks donated and paint is paid for through the proceeds from our art auction. So we're excited. We're hoping that over spring break, we will have all of the rocks painted and put together so that when the kids come back from spring break, that art project will be there for them. This is our first year of implementation of PVIS. So we're having things like Lego lunch. and Winter Wonderland lunch, so kids earn tickets and if they want to spend their tickets on activities, they can. The Lego lunch was a huge success and we had kids and they were very happy to play with Legos during their lunchtime. So it didn't take away from class time and it was something that they worked for and earned and they're very excited about it. Our leadership team and our sixth graders have been doing a lot of on-campus community service this year. So, for example, we have some kids that are spending part of their recess time with our special day class, our younger special day class. They're also going into first grade classrooms and working with the kids on sight words. Sometimes they just need somebody to hold the card up and do repetition. And so our students are seeing that as a great opportunity for them to provide kind of support kind of paying it forward to the kids who are coming through the school after them. We also have lunchtime chess a couple days a week for our upper grade kids. That's run by a couple of teachers who just wanted kids to have an opportunity to play chess. And then our STEAM letter is E is engineering. And so our upper grades are rotating. They're putting together a system where they rotate through different engineering projects with the kids. So that's very exciting. As always, Kennedy has a strong community. We have things like Mercury Club, which is our running club. We have parents and younger siblings. And we all go out after school and run around the field. Our art auction is coming up. It's April 20. I just wanted to make sure you knew that April 20. was a really fun activity, April 20th at Kennedy School, where we have an art auction. And it is an art gallery. And it's a wonderful evening. Our parents put together some project that includes all of the classes. And then we auction that off. That's always a hot auction item. Each student produces at least one piece of artwork. And we put them up. They get displayed in the cafeteria, and people purchase them. And sometimes kids get there later with their parents, and their art has already been purchased, and they're very disappointed. But that's how an art gallery works. We sell your artwork. So that is a really fun event, and I would be happy to give you more information as it gets closer. But it's become an annual event that's very, very popular with our kids. families and our teachers who also attend. All right, that's Kennedy School. Do you have any questions?

[498] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Would you introduce the staff that's here?

[500] SPEAKER_30: Yeah, I'm so excited. I was ill and not at school today, so I didn't put out a push. And here come some teachers that just happened to show up. So thank you very much to Babette Babich and Diane Munson, wonderful teachers. And we have a Kennedy panel.

[519] Nancy Thomas: Thank you very much. Does anyone have any comments?

[523] SPEAKER_36: What was the date of the art auction?

[524] SPEAKER_30: Oh, that would be April 20th. Thank you.

[528] Nancy Thomas: Thank you very much. Thank you. Next, we move on to the superintendent's update. And we have someone that would like to speak to this item, Ms. Parks.

[564] Cindy Parks: clarification or when you have a presentation don't you normally do the presentation first before I mean I just am a little confused because the public needs to see what's going to be presented and I'm not saying that I can't ask my question for this item but just as a rule it seems like it's back and forth sometimes the presentations happen first and then the public gets to speak and other times it's like this and the public doesn't get to perhaps ask the questions that are generated by seeing the presentation.

[591] Nancy Thomas: I think some are logically, we want you to speak first. And then some logically, we would. What would be those logical parameters? I think this would be a good thing for the board to talk about in terms of how we conduct our meetings going forward. Would you prefer to speak after?

[611] Cindy Parks: I can ask mine now, and perhaps they could address it later. But just for the consistency, so the public knows what to expect, please.

[618] Nancy Thomas: It's a point well taken. Thank you.

[621] Cindy Parks: My concern is that when I first looked at the Facilitron document that was prepared, the presentation, was that it only dealt with their information. And I think in order for you to properly evaluate the program, it would be very helpful to have at least a three-year history so you know what you're comparing it to. You're looking at what they've said that they've done and that's all well and good, but you don't know what the district was doing on its own. Are these truly, increased financial numbers compared to what the district was doing on its own. And without that to compare it to, you don't, you're not, you're not seeing the full picture. Thank you.

[665] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Okay, superintendent.

[669] SPEAKER_35: I do believe, ladies and gentlemen and members of the board, that we will answer most of that in our process. Before I introduce the presenters tonight, I do want to say that We're still not there yet. We're still in implementation. So we haven't gone to implementation fully with Facilitron the way we want to. But we're building those pieces as we go forward. But I'm going to ask our presenters to step forward. Adeline Lee, Hal Liu, and Greg Payne, if you guys want to step up. And we'll cue your PowerPoint. And then we'll have a chance for the board members to ask after your brief presentation. Welcome.

[713] SPEAKER_31: Okay, so in fall of 2017, we entered a partnership with Newark Unified School District. And what we did was we went around to all the school sites, took photos using drums.

[731] Nancy Thomas: Excuse me, could you use the microphone because we're being televised?

[736] SPEAKER_31: So in September 2017, we entered a partnership with Newark Unified School District. What we did was we went around to all the school sites and took photos using drones and 360 cameras. And we created custom websites for all the school sites, including the district. We went and configured all the accounts to the current board policy rates, including services, things like that. And we also went around and trained the school staff and district staff. So to date, since September 2017, Newark has received approximately $150,000 in bookings received. And of that, it was $100,000 in approved bookings. And this is all potential revenue, to be clear. The rental revenue to date that the district has received is about $9,000, just over $9,000. So in perspective, you have $100,000 in approved bookings. So that is revenue, incoming revenue. Since the inception, we have begun collecting data on behalf of the district in terms of utilization. It's broken down here on the graph by facility type. And the most used facilities is the fields, which takes up over 50% of the usage. The renters within your district with the most usage is top one being Newark American Little League, Newark Girls Softball League, St. Edward's CYO, and Stage One Theater. Those are the top renters so far. Next step in the process is we've actually begun, and this is the early stages right now, is a cost analysis for the district. We take into account your buildings, the square footage, any maintenance costs, utilities, things like that, and we present what it actually costs for you to maintain these facilities. And that is just the early stages right now.

[879] Richelle Piechowski: That's it.

[880] SPEAKER_44: And it's important to note from what we understand that it's been since 2009, I think, since the last fee increase. So right now we're gathering data, processing requests, helping the district monitor and manage the usage. With that data, it becomes insight, right? To be able to make decisions based on the data that we have. Currently, I'm not sure we've had good records of what has happened historically that I'm aware of, but obviously the district has more of that information.

[911] SPEAKER_36: Thank you. Ms. Crocker? I think what Ms. Parks asked is something that I wrote down to ask you too and that is how much savings have we, how much have we increased our income by the use of it and so that means looking at the data before what we were getting for rentals and then what we're getting now. So if you say you're not ready to do that yet or you don't have the information in the past.

[933] SPEAKER_44: We just don't have a baseline to go off of at this point. We're only tracking what's being requested at this point.

[938] SPEAKER_41: Okay. That's data that we would have to gather internally based on past year's revenue from facilities.

[945] Nancy Thomas: Is that possible to get that data to them so they can give us an ongoing timeline? Mr. Richardson.

[955] SPEAKER_46: We're going to have to parse out some data. Let's parse out a little bit of data because the same account code that handles these types of facility uses also handles like our tower leases and the Conango and some of the other ones that are long-term So we'll pull some data out and send it over to them and I'll send an update to the board in the Friday update.

[976] SPEAKER_35: Is that a three year trend, just to be clear? Is that how much you want to look at? Yeah. Last three years?

[982] SPEAKER_36: That would do.

[983] SPEAKER_41: Because I mean the fundamental question that I think the whole entire room is asking is, with this approved amount of $105,000, how does that compare at the same timeline from the previous three years. Has it increased, decreased? Where do we stand on that?

[1002] SPEAKER_44: I think it's important to note the whole basis of our partnership is to help school districts manage how their facilities are being used, centrally communicating with usage but our whole basis is based on cost recovery. So helping the district understand what it actually costs when a group uses the facility and an easy way and mechanism to recover some of those costs. I'm not sure if in prior years if that has been something that's been readily available or not, but that's where we come in and have helped the district kind of understand some of that data.

[1038] Nancy Thomas: can have that instead of in a Friday update, we can have it as a brief staff report so the public, per Ms. Park's question, will also be able to see that information. Is that OK? Yes. OK, thank you.

[1055] SPEAKER_36: Another question? Oh, I'm sorry. Come back, please.

[1059] SPEAKER_33: Mr. Preciado. So it says you began the cost analysis. Do you know, in terms of time frame, when you would have that completed just so that if we can check in maybe by the end of the year so we can figure out like one of the things that we've just historically have done with other things we don't increase our rates and we actually usually take a loss for or we have historically for other things. So just making sure that we're breaking even for the things with the internal stuff and then if there's any gains that we account for that through rate increases. So do you have a kind of rough timeline of when that cost analysis?

[1099] SPEAKER_31: Assuming that we have all pieces of data in order to conduct that price analysis, I would say probably less than a couple weeks to really put it together and present it to you. But that is under the assumption that we have all the data.

[1113] SPEAKER_33: Perfect. So maybe as a good basis, it would be at the end of the year, and then we have something in the summer where we can look at it just because that way you can track the whole year one with Facilitron and figure out

[1126] SPEAKER_44: And at the end of the day, everything is controlled by the district. Who gets charged, what they get charged, what the policies are. We're just a mechanism to help people do that.

[1136] Nancy Thomas: I had a question on the, if you could go, well never mind, but there was a section where the application was not approved. What was the issues there?

[1150] SPEAKER_31: Most commonly it's usually because we don't have internal schedules or class schedules completely inputted and so it's actually already in use by the school and therefore it had to be declined just because it's already in use by the school and so the school site cannot accommodate that request.

[1168] Nancy Thomas: So is it possible to to get those schedules to you so that people don't get frustrated when they try to sign up for something and it's not available?

[1177] SPEAKER_31: Yeah, absolutely. We've been working a lot with Susan to get those schedules in and definitely to our best. But obviously, sometimes we're human. We can forget.

[1189] Nancy Thomas: OK, thank you. Nancy?

[1191] SPEAKER_36: Just to make it clear, we are not charging school groups during the school day. So anything that's related to the school. And there's a limited amount that we're charging for non-profits versus someone that's not a non-profit. So there's various steps that are there in terms of charges. So it seemed to be very reasonable. But it would be nice to know what the total true cost is of that facility used during that time.

[1216] SPEAKER_31: In the cost analysis or the price analysis, we do break it down by whether recommended fees for a non-profit versus a commercial group.

[1227] Nancy Thomas: Thank you very much.

[1228] SPEAKER_31: Thank you.

[1229] SPEAKER_35: Thank you guys. That concludes my report at this time.

[1233] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Next we move on to staff reports, elementary language arts and math data presentation. Excuse me, yes you do.

[1245] SPEAKER_46: His request is on 10.1. Yours is on 10.1, this is not a non-agenda item. Superintendent update.

[1274] Nancy Thomas: Well, Mr. Hennebery, it says 10.1. OK. OK. Good evening.

[1287] SPEAKER_48: This evening, Ms. Amy Black will be presenting some of our data that we have in regards to our elementary English language arts program and our mathematics. As we start to map out our board presentations and also collecting our data baselines, we think it's an important opportunity to really share some of our local data and share some of the data sets that our teachers are using to make real-time decisions in regards to teaching and learning.

[1317] SPEAKER_26: Thank you. Good evening President Thomas, members of the board, Superintendent Sanchez, Executive Cabinet. I appreciate the opportunity to come and talk to you this evening about some of our student local data. I know I've been here in the past and shared some of our state data and how our students are doing, but I think it's also important for you to get a snapshot of the data that we continue to collect. throughout the year in relation to our LCAP goals as well as some of the programs that we have implemented. I think it's important for you to also know that you are my fourth presentation of this information. I've had the opportunity to present at two LCAP advisory meetings so parents have had an opportunity to look at this data and start to unpack it themselves and helping them with goals moving forward as well as reviewed it with our district leadership team. So save the best for last. We're here to share with the school board this evening. I think it's really important to start with a quote and get us framed around the thinking around data. So it is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data, said Sherlock Holmes. So I think that's important because I think that captures Ed Services' view in terms of teaching and learning and that any decision that we make relative to student learning or programs, we must analyze the data and see how our students are doing before we make a decision. So how is data collected? So I know that we have a lot of acronyms that we throw around or a lot of programs as a school board member or a member of the public or community or parents. Sometimes it could be very overwhelming. It's also sometimes overwhelming for our teachers. So I wanted to talk about some of the buzzwords that we've been talking about this year. So local data is collected through, basically think of it as a big file cabinet that lives in the cloud. So we are using Illuminate. It replaced a prior system that Newark used. It was ORS. But Illuminate came in and purchased ORS, so now we're using Illuminate. So we were fortunate enough to transfer some of our ORS data from last year, and I was able to capture that, and I'll share that with you this evening. It's now inputted into Illuminate. I did share some Illuminate reports with you at the beginning of the school year when we were looking at aspect data, but this is a way that we collect state data as well as our iReady data is uploaded in there and benchmark data that teachers collect like at the elementary level we use the DRA which stands for developmental reading assessment. Teachers collect it three times a year and they upload it into Illuminate so it allows us to gather data, do subgroup reports, and measure how students are doing individually as well as in their classrooms and then throughout their schools and ultimately the district. I-Ready is something that's named in our LCAP. We are in the second year. I'll talk a little bit more about it. We're going to actually look at some of the data tonight. We're capturing what's called progress monitoring or benchmark data for our students in kindergarten through eighth grade in both reading and in mathematics. This is really exciting because it gives us another tool to be able to see how our students are doing. And this specific benchmark is aligned to state standards. So it'll give us real-time data. Of course, it's one measure. We have to look at multiple data sources of our students. But it gives us real-time data in terms of their trajectory to making standard by the end of the year. Most of the data that I'm talking about today, and I wanted to mention this, we collect formative versus summative data. And the data we're going to be reviewing actually in a lot of cases is both. So formative is what informs our instruction. It tells us what our students still need to learn, where we need to take them to meet standards at the end of the year. Summative, typically we think of summative as our state test. It tells us how did they learn. So it kind of encompasses everything we taught in that particular unit. So local data and summative data is collected at Illuminate and I-Ready, and then state data. SBAC is collected in what's called TOMS, and that's our spring assessment, our California alternative assessment for our special ed students. New this year for our high school students will be the California science test in its final pilot phase. And then we shift from CAS testing to LCAP. I'm not going to review any of the state testing today. We're just going to focus on local. So looking at ELA local data, I'm going to highlight iREADY scores and our Lucy Calkins, which is our writing program that we've adopted. It's also identified in the LCAP under goal one, action item two, supporting action items three and four. Things to notice, we're going to look at the iREADY data first. We're in our second year of collecting. PM stands for progress monitoring. Our progress monitoring data in iReady. It's also important to note, and I'll point out the student numbers, that iReady data collection is new for grades kindergarten, first, seventh, and eighth grade this year. So we'll see a snapshot of pre and post data from last year, and then how our students fared at the beginning of this year. Also keep in mind, we're fast approaching trimester two. And teachers are frantically collecting data sources and having students go into iReady so that we'll have another marker in terms of how students are progressing this year in both reading and math. OK, so I know it's hard to see. I don't know if I can magnify it at all. But I wanted to show, so this assessment is pre and post data in iReady for last year. Can I go over here so you guys can see? So you'll see the assessment one was taken in October and then at the end of the year of last year, so 16-17 data. The light blue is their pre-assessment or their assessment number one at the beginning of the year. This is not a good one to look at because there's only 13 students, so I would pay attention to these larger numbers to kind of get a larger data set. And then the dark blue line shows the growth by the end of the year. I mean, obviously, we're looking at trying to get on level. And we have some gaps in our progress areas. But what this tells us is that students are making progress. We can tweeze down the data more on individual sites, as well as grade level. And then individual teachers have access to their class. And they can do student reports on how individual students are faring. And then this iReady program also target is next steps in terms of what a teacher should then teach in terms of strategies that is appropriate for that student meeting them where they are. So it gives teachers some really valuable information about their individual students.

[1737] SPEAKER_41: Can we ask questions as you go? Sure, sure. Because I figure you're still on this slide. So just to kind of understand the data here, at the end of last year, 34% of our fourth graders were on grade level. And 28% of fifth graders and 35% of sixth graders. Is that how I'm reading this data?

[1762] SPEAKER_26: That is correct. Let me talk a little bit about the standards and why we're seeing that. So I think it's important to also, when you're looking at this data, thinking about Common Core and when it was really officially implemented here in Newark, I would say I believe it's our third grade group. I can't remember if it was our third or fourth grade group was our first year that they were exposed to Common Core. So you're going to see students in the higher grade, they had a complete shift in their standards. And what we know about Common Core is it's a much more rigorous program. It's also a program where there's new adoptions taking place or transitions of materials. And so the standards that they're being assessed on are very different. So some of the foundational skills that Our students in the younger grades that are getting, you know, starting from Common Core in the beginning, moving up, we're hoping to see a pattern of them. And you'll see that in the writing. Their scores are going to be stronger. Also with the implementation of Readers and Writers Workshop, which is a very rigorous, intensive Common Core program. And I'll talk a little bit about the implementation of that. Some of the kits, like in sixth grade for reading and writing, they just received a kit.

[1839] SPEAKER_41: And it's challenging for them in terms of the standards. And I'm not going up to kindergarten and first grade because there's not enough data there, right? But second and third grade shows a much higher number. So you're saying that's because during the second and third grade, the kids aren't using Common Core?

[1861] SPEAKER_26: No, they are. So they've been exposed since kindergarten. So our current second and third graders have been using, so teachers have been teaching those standards since they were in kindergarten. So in terms of that shift of looking at DOK levels, the types of questioning, the foundational skills, moving away from a hardcore race like box, basal reader, to actually meeting students where they are developmentally and then increasing their reading and writing through specific strategies that we do in reading writing projects. we should hopefully see a trend of students in the younger grades faring better than our upper grades. Doesn't mean that we're not paying attention to our upper grades, but just gives you a little bit of a lens as to why we see that disparity in some of this data.

[1903] SPEAKER_41: It just seems like a huge cliff, right, from 60% to 34% between the third and fourth grade. I know when Common Core was implemented, it was ramped. It wasn't, OK, let's put a halt and then switch over. So I'm just trying to understand. the huge discrepancy between third and fourth grade overall. So thank you.

[1925] SPEAKER_26: Yeah. And something that we look at as well as in third grade, typically that is a grade level that we take a closer look at. This one, actually, they're scoring better. But in our writing, it looks a little bit different. In our primary grades, K to 2, it's like learning to read. And then you shift in third, fourth, fifth, reading to learn. and the content standards significantly increase. And so students that were on the cusp of their reading ability and hadn't really worked on the strategies of inferencing and some of the deeper level thinking and reading, you're going to see them really struggle in the upper grades.

[1961] SPEAKER_41: But the test is an intuitive test, right? It scales to understand that what you mentioned at the second and third grade, it's learning to read and whatnot. You know, the makers of the test program, I'm having a hard time understanding why that would cause it because the test tests for that.

[1986] SPEAKER_26: Oh, it's adaptive.

[1987] SPEAKER_41: Well, yeah, it's adaptive, thank you. But what I'm saying is the questions in the test are crafted around the notion in the second and third grade that the students are still learning to read. It's not that they're not taking, or at least from what I think, they're not taking fourth, fifth grade, you know, sixth grade standards and then expecting the second and third grade students to, you know, to test to those standards. The second and third grade students are being tested upon what they are expected to be, have been able to learn at that level, right? Therefore, it's at grade level. So it's not, you know, so it's, I think there's, I think it goes back to my earlier comment. I believe you weren't here, but as far as the reporting, just a deep dive. And this is a great start as far as being able to have us understand and see what's going on with this. But just dig really deep. What is really happening in between third and fourth? What accounts for that significant drop off in terms of our students being at grade level?

[2053] SPEAKER_35: OK. And Amy, my understanding is that this is comparing to the state average. Right. This data is.

[2059] SPEAKER_26: It's a nationally normed test.

[2060] SPEAKER_35: Right. So it's nationally normed, which means that we're comparing them to everyone else.

[2066] SPEAKER_26: Yeah, in their grade band and age band, yes. OK.

[2069] SPEAKER_35: Just wanted to make sure it's explicit.

[2071] SPEAKER_26: Thank you. So the second iReady test is our current cohort of students. And this assessment marks or measures where they were at the beginning of the year. So it's not measuring where they should be at the end of the year. kind of what is their, are they on target for making growth for this year? So you'll see, you know, kindergarten through eighth grade a similar pattern. We have strong right out the gate in our upper grades and then our, I mean, our lower grades and our upper grades needing some additional support in reading. So we'll get our second assessment coming up in this month. So it'll be interesting to be able to compare that data and I'm happy to share that with you to make sure our students are still on target.

[2118] SPEAKER_41: Sorry, Ms. Black. Why did they change the metric? Because on, so I'm scrolling between the first one and the three levels are below level including immersion and then on level and above level. But when we get to this current slide, it switches. It goes below level and then the on level and then including, you know, includes immersion is on that same,

[2140] SPEAKER_26: Column yeah, it's not a same report so if you look at define on level. It's beginning of the year view So we're looking at a different cross-section of the data, so it's not looking at You know where they are at standard at the end of the year So it's just it's and it's based on benchmarking that this system does so do we have the ability to?

[2162] SPEAKER_41: to pull that report in in consistent manner or is that the system?

[2166] SPEAKER_26: Once I have comparable data I will be able to do that but at that point in time I only had one measure and so with this upcoming reporting I'll be able to do a comparative report like the one that you just saw so I can see assessment one and assessment two and it'll look similar to the one that we talked about.

[2181] SPEAKER_41: Oh no, that's not what I was referring to. So if you look at that chart on the very left column where it says the student placement distribution It has below level including immersion in that column, right, in the first column. Then if you can scroll up please to this one, then it has including immersion in the second column.

[2201] SPEAKER_26: Right, because we're not doing end-of-the-year data. So this has an end-of-the-year data pool, so like that dark blue. telling us the column to shift in because I'm comparing two different reports so it's the beginning of the year which would be pulling this kind of data when you're looking at this report and then by the end of the year which is that top band you're either at standard or you're not so they're gonna have a below level including emerging in the second so it's they're meshing two different reports because they're looking at two different

[2236] SPEAKER_41: So if I were to look at this at a very skeptical level, I'm not saying that we are doing this or you are doing this, but if the program were doing this, I'd say they're gaming some data here by combining those two metrics in a different column than in the previous slide.

[2252] SPEAKER_26: Yeah, but we're also, I mean, if you look at it, the lens, we're not looking at pre and post, how did our kids do by the end of the year? We're looking at, are they on target to make measured growth? And so we would include, and we do that in our report cards as well. We do include emerging data because we want to see, are kids making growth? Are they not quite at standard? Well, there's definitely a point in the year that we start to worry or we see a decline. But if we're seeing kids continually take, even if they're not, is our gap closing? So there's a little, there is usually more flexibility at the beginning and then second trimester for us to look at. We are looking at emerging data as long as that particular student is also making growth. It's hard when you're just looking at one subset of data. So I think it's going to be probably more for us to kind of grab a hold on to once you get that second assessment to look at it.

[2301] SPEAKER_36: What is the emerging data? You're talking about the emerging What is that?

[2305] SPEAKER_26: Emerging on to grade level. So they're within, there's like bands that they use. Like below grade level you would score in this band and you would have that. So it's range. And then it's, yeah. Range within that column. And kids in this data set would be emerging. And then of course there's a variance on emerging.

[2323] Nancy Thomas: Mr. Patil.

[2324] SPEAKER_33: Oh I'm sorry. To member Wynn's point, I think this is why we need to really dive into a strategic comparative one and actually map it out because no matter how you slice the data, it's still not where we should be at and where we need. So I guess what I would say is at the end of this, we have to figure out what's the big picture plan to address the systemic underperformance of the district and what's working, what's not, and this is kind of a starting point. The question that I had was in terms of maybe because ORS, Illuminate, and I-Ready. Illuminate is now ORS, but does Illuminate Will that be replacing iReady?

[2366] SPEAKER_26: No, they're totally separate programs and they do different things.

[2371] SPEAKER_33: Okay, because last conversation, or maybe it was at the last work study, it said that we were going to not use iReady anymore, so is this changed again? Because I'm confused.

[2388] SPEAKER_48: and I'm sorry for that confusion. I think what we said was we are now only in our second year of implementation of iReady and the actual lessons that are tied to iReady and so at the elementary level we have them for grades third through I believe starting at third grade so we're going to continue with that but what we have to look at back to your point is what what is the growth that we're looking at right and we do have some recommendations for today so we'll start to talk about that and I apologize for the confusion the last time.

[2417] SPEAKER_33: Yeah, okay, thank you. Just to, I'll say the point again, but just so that if in the classroom, as a teacher, if we keep on changing different programs then it's like there's not buy-in or it's going to be limited when it's I ready or you ready or we ready or if we keep on changing it and then we'll never be ready if we don't actually stick with one and kind of move forward. So, thank you.

[2441] SPEAKER_35: And just to kind of help move the conversation forward, I think These instruments are really more on the reporting side. But the next question is, in an area that something's working, like the area where I saw 100% kids around grade level, what are we doing that's working? How do we maintain that? And then for the kids that are below grade level, if we look at fourth grade, below grade level, that 28%, what are we doing to target that group of kids? What's the program we're implementing? I think she can answer some of these questions going in the next slides as I kind of look forward. So let's give her a chance to share a few more slides. I think she might answer some of these before they can become questions.

[2484] SPEAKER_26: OK. So you all remember, I think you were all on the board when you voted in Readers and Writers Workshop. Is it 2000, I think spring 2016? Does that sound familiar? Most, some of you, most of you. So for kindergarten through sixth grade, our ELA program is Lucy Calkins units of study. They're Common Core aligned. They're very rigorous and they require an element of ongoing coaching and professional development. So something that I noticed when I started in April, it's been almost a year, it's blown by was that there was a little bit of an uneven implementation with our writers workshop. So we've had schools that have really kind of taken it on and done a lot of professional development, took advantage of the opportunities that were offered through Newark, which was really fantastic having coaches available for teachers and supporting their work in readers and writers workshop. Schools that have jumped on board, we have teachers, I have This last summer, I had teachers come from all different schools, hungry to learn more about Writers Workshop, as well as we had an opportunity to bring in West Coast Literacy this year and do coaching with two of our lowest performing schools and Title I schools, Schilling and Graham. Also, something that we were able to implement in August, and I have discussed this before, is being able to try to level the playing field with our teachers and provide all teachers with Writers Workshop intro or teachers that were advanced actually had an opportunity to teach sessions at our August professional development day. So really putting forth our commitment and also supporting teachers in their really great work. So I had the opportunity to be at Graham today for their second cycle. They're in cycle two with their coach, and they're front loading our next genre, which is opinion. And I'm really excited to show, I'll go through a little bit of the data and explain this, show some of the data of their narrative writing when they worked with the coach at the beginning of this year. And we see some really positive movement. So really excited about moving forward and really making a commitment and adding support for our teachers with this really important work. So with the Writer's Workshop, it focuses on the three common core genres. which are narrative writing, informational writing, and opinion or persuasive writing when you get to the upper grades. At the secondary level, it looks like argumentative writing. So I wanted to give you a little bit of snapshot. It's hard to capture this data in a way that's like really simple to read. So what I did is I collected pre and post data from 16, 17 in all three genres. This is what teachers K through 6 are required to upload. in Illuminate three times a year. So they collect pre-writing on on-demand writing prompt. It's the same. And they use Lucy Calkins's rubric in order to score students and get data. So the green, which is super hard to see on this, it was easy to see on my computer, so I apologize. Now that it's projected, it's really hard to see. But the green bottom line is the pre, and then the darker blue on top is the post data. And then I put a green box around the rubric score. So 2.5 is near standard, 3 is standard on the report card, 3.5 is a little bit above standard, and then 4 is above standard. We go in that gray area of two approaching standard. But it's still really important data. Because if you're looking at, for example, our writing scores pre-data, we had significant, almost 150 students scoring at a one. And then if you look at their post-data, we want to see those blue lines increase as they go up the graph. And we are seeing that. Are they all at standard? No. But it's very promising to see our zero and our one decrease. our twos increase and actually seeing students score 3.5 or 4, they weren't even on the chart in their pre-assessment. So I think that that's really promising. So that's data that I've captured also in the informational and opinion. You could spend a lot of time analyzing this. We don't have a lot of time. But you have it available online. And I'm happy to answer questions if you look at the data in the future and want to understand how it was captured. So it's captured first through sixth grade. So you'll see varying degrees of shifting. But overall, I would say across all the grade levels, we are seeing an upward movement, which is really exciting. So here's one at third grade. If you look at their informational, I would say it's about 120 kids score to one. And then our blue line significantly increases in their post-assessment. Fourth grade, same, similar data. Fifth grade, writing scores from last year, and then sixth grade. I wanted to, I also was like, you know, when you get the data, you're like, well, what about this? So I pulled pre and post, actually, I pulled post data in narrative, because that's the only two-year, you know, local data that I have right now. We're coming up on our second trimester, so we'll collect a second genre. But at this point in time, I have 2016-17 narrative in all grade levels, and then their post data from this year, this fall. So I would say pretty much across the board, we're seeing an increase in narrative writing. Obviously, some grade levels have marked improvement. Like if you look at grade 3, 17% scored 2.5 or higher. And this year, 51%. So I think that that's something to celebrate. The other thing that you can do with this data, which you can't do with all data, but it's based on learning progressions. You can actually do a cross-comparison. So we want to see that the score is not declining year over year. So this cohort is this cohort. This cohort is this cohort. This cohort is this cohort. So you're seeing that strategies that are being implemented in Writer's Workshop, which is something that's a significant shift for our teachers. We're no longer teaching the writing. We're teaching the writer. So we're doing very, very specialized specific strategies on individual writers and helping them lift the level within each genre.

[2895] SPEAKER_41: So this is a great chart. But are we able to get this? with just the data point of at and above?

[2903] SPEAKER_26: I can give it to you, yeah. I see what that looks like. So you also have to keep in mind that when you're working with students, that and then data that's also both significantly below grade level, we need to have a point of celebration. I think that's something that I wanted to make sure to highlight. I mean, we had students that are scoring 0 and 1, and sometimes when you don't have a cutoff.

[2922] SPEAKER_41: But the more desegregated data that we have, the better informed we can be.

[2924] SPEAKER_26: And we have that, and that's what we also look at. But I'm happy to provide that for you. So I want to talk a little bit about Graham. So I shifted the data point from two to four. And I did that purposefully not to trick you. I did it because what I said before, that that's one of our lowest performing schools. High number of zeros and ones on the rubric. And to see some significant growth of students scoring two or above. And they're a school that's receiving direct coaching. So they're on day five of coaching this school year. where our coach comes in, works with one to two grade level at a time. So like, for example, today when we went in, we look at student work. Teachers bring samples. They look at the learning progression and see where their students are to drive instruction. The coach goes and models a lesson in the classroom, and then they come back and debrief and plan for next time. So you can see that we have also something that was exciting to highlight, because I think typically Upper grade, in the past slides that we've seen, those cohorts of students tend to score a little bit lower and we're seeing some higher scores that are going in grade four, five, and six. It's also important to note that grade six has a brand new writing kit, so they're working with even more rigorous standards. And something that's assumed with the writer's workshop that Lucy assumes is that students have received writing instruction since kindergarten in her philosophy, and then also those specific pointed strategies. So they build upon each other year after year after year. So if they haven't received it, it becomes more challenging. OK. I'm going to move on to math.

[3026] SPEAKER_33: I was going to say, before the math piece, just for this piece, you mentioned earlier that readers and writers workshop that it looks like it's working on several schools. But there's some schools maybe that haven't bought in. We don't have to get into that. But I guess from my perspective, it for us to think about how do we figure out or how do we make all schools use this so it's moving forward. If the data is showing that it's going up then that's what you need to do.

[3051] SPEAKER_26: So something I'll be sharing with the board on Friday is our three-year implementation plan and so that was something that when I came in the summer I did my research and finding out what has been done in terms of professional development and kind of figuring out what we need to do and what we've already done. So there's a three-year plan that's been drafted for support that includes the work that we've done this year, as well as rolling into the next two years and what that support will look like. And it will be increasing support at the school sites, as well as summer intensives. And I'm also starting conversations. I met with Principal Neal and the department chair at the ELA department at the junior high, and we'll be looking at implementing writing in seventh and eighth grade starting next year. So there's going to be conversations of sustainability. If we're putting a lot of effort and energy into our students in kindergarten through sixth grade in this program, making sure that we're continuing to support that kind of rider when they go to the junior high. So I'll be sharing that in your Friday report, what that looks like. And I can do a more formal presentation in the future if that's something that you're interested in. Thank you. That's a great question. OK, I'm going to briefly talk about math. I'm going to speed through it, because I know we're beyond time. Please. Do you want me to pause it for a later date? Or I was going to give you a quick update on the adoption.

[3135] Nancy Thomas: I think with as much as we have on the agenda, should we pause it and continue it at the next meeting?

[3145] SPEAKER_33: I would say this is one of the more important things. So if we prioritize other things, like to me, this is why we're here, it's to discuss these specific things so if we can't even.

[3155] Nancy Thomas: Okay well I think we need to to make sure we manage our time so that we don't have to extend the meeting after 10 o'clock.

[3163] SPEAKER_33: So how about we commit the board we won't ask questions till the end for this for this piece.

[3167] Nancy Thomas: Okay and we'll try to go through it quickly.

[3173] SPEAKER_26: Same thing, two years, it's new for K for seven and eight. So this was 16, 17, you have your pre, beginning of the year assessment, and then end of the year. We know our math scores are an area that we need to spend a lot of time and energy, and that's something that we at Ed Services have devoted a lot of time and energy working with our leadership team, working directly with the departments at the high school, as well as rolling out K through 12. math adoption pilot program and I'll talk a little bit about that. So this is an area that needs intense focus K through 12. So here's another view of this year. Beginning of the year and we'll be collecting data again very soon to look at assessment number two in the area of math. So I want to talk to you about our adoption process really quickly and so we have convened our curriculum council and kind of meshed it with our assessment council to create also a pilot committee all in one. Being such a small district, we have a number of teachers that sit on multiple committees. So why not make it easier for our teachers? So we had the opportunity to do some research in August, September, October. spoke with the county experts in the area of math. We got lists of California already adopted curriculum throughout the state. What are the top programs that school districts are adopting? What are programs that surrounding school districts in our county are adopting or have adopted? We're the very last ones. So it's sometimes a blessing because then we get to see what other counties or other school districts have done, and we can learn from them. So we were able to take an extensive list and narrow it down to five publishers. We looked at three categories, K-5, 6-8, together at middle school, and then 9-12, secondary. Each of those categories had five publisher presentations. Our teachers were amazing. It's hard to sit all day and listen to publishers come and present their whole programs. They did it. It was fantastic. And then they narrowed it down to two that they wanted to pilot. They also had time to research it on their own, check out the publishers, talk to neighboring colleagues on what they thought. We've selected the following publishers. So in K through 12. We're piloting Big Ideas Math. Big Ideas Math is a program that's been around a long time in the secondary level, 6 through 12. It's highly rated. They are just rolling out a brand new K through 5 program. And they're allowing us to take a first peek at it. It will come out officially in April, but we're able to pre-pilot their program. So we're really excited about having that opportunity, so K-12. K-5, we're also piloting Math Expressions by Houghton Mifflin. It's been adopted by a number of school districts in the area, in the Bay Area. We are publishing Glencoe by McGraw-Hill in 6-8. And the 6th grade teachers have been brought in on that because they haven't had an opportunity to pilot that before. They've been dabbling a little bit at the junior high. And then the second pilot program at the high school is Pearson Envision Math. And they have an updated curriculum. So they're looking at that. Our teachers are currently in the throes of their pilot. So really exciting to report that the entire math department at the high school is piloting both programs. And they are super passionate and excited and know that there needs to be some significant shifts in their program. They've been wonderful. Junior high and elementary programs are also, so they started on the 22nd. They all have been trained by the publishers. They will go until March 16th. We are going to be sending out parent surveys to the classrooms that have received pilot exposures. We can get parent feedback through parent surveys, as well as hold a public viewing the week of March 19, 20, 21. And parents will be able to get feedback As well to that, we're going to hold it here in the district office. And our committee will come and vote on the 22nd of March. And then come and bring a recommendation to you all. And then you will make the final decision. So that's our timeline. It's been a really exciting and rigorous process to really focus on math. And we're excited about what the future holds and having a really comprehensive, Common Core aligned, supportive program for our students. to move forward. Data next steps is that we're going to continue to collect and analyze our trimester two data and local benchmarks. We're starting to look at how do we phase in IABs, which are interim assessment blocks, which are available through our CAS system, as well as how do we infuse MARS and MAC assessments, which is something that complements our work with SVMI, especially in the ninth and 10th grade. levels because that seems to be a gap in data that we have in the area of math. And then also when if whatever our math adoption if that's something that you all approve looking at their benchmarks and assessment and how we might be able to infuse that and collect data around those adoptions. I think that's it.

[3522] Nancy Thomas: I went super fast. Thank you. That was great. Mr. Nguyen.

[3526] SPEAKER_41: I'm sorry Ms. Black. So the question I do have and actually some homework for you or our staff before the timeline of us voting on this product is. So the iReady metrics as far as below level, on level, and above level, right? It's very similar to the CASP, the state aspect data results, which is the CASP scores. I mean, they use different language. It's, you know, meets expectations, exceeds expectations, but they're pretty much aligned. With that being said, when I perused through our CASP data for our 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, I just took a snapshot. The state score shows that 47% of our 3rd graders who are either at or exceeding expectations based on the SBAC scores. But then IREDI here has it at 58%. In the 4th grade, it's 38% from the state. and 54% in I-Ready. It's similar in the math area. There's some inconsistencies, and there's a huge gap between what the state is able to identify or based on the state testing, how our students perform with that, you know, wide-ranging metric versus how they performed in the local metric, which is I-Ready. First question is, can we explain, I don't need an explanation. Can we explain that discrepancy, why that is? And secondly, is I already calibrated to the SBAC test, and if it's not, how much value does it have for us? Because if we're testing, we're measuring, and then we're getting a false sense of, you know, performance, and then when the students then take the state testing, and they show otherwise, there's a misalignment there, right? So I think we have to reconcile that misalignment and see what is happening. and what explains that discrepancy because I mean as much as as great as local data is and Of course, it's not just I ready. It's near the grading and it's everything else that's done in the classroom but the public Looks at the aspect data. That's what they judge rightfully or wrongfully That's what they judge our district in our schools by is what percent of students have met or exceeded expectations and if these two tests aren't calibrated We really have to see why they're not calibrated and see if we need to continue with this product if it's not calibrated.

[3682] Nancy Thomas: OK. Thank you. Thank you. And then I had a kind of a question or a comment. And that is that this uneven implementation by schools, and I imagine within schools by teachers, is quite bothersome if we're supposed to be looking at improving all students. We need to make sure that all teachers are prepared and all schools are implementing the programs with fidelity. And I know we have a problem because we have only so many professional development days, and it has to meet the needs of all of our teachers. And the fact that the summer training is not mandatory, it's optional, so we're getting an uneven amount of teacher preparation, but I think it's really important that we hold principals of our schools accountable for implementing these programs. Math and science is the most important thing we do for our students, I think, and there should be no excuse for them not to do everything they can to ensure that programs are implemented. Okay, thank you.

[3755] SPEAKER_33: Yes, I was going to ask, I know for the The English language arts, we do readers and writers workshop. We're talking about how we're figuring out to implement next steps. You mentioned that there's a three-year plan. For the math, I heard SVMI and then math adoption benchmark. So are those the two? So our math adoption is our program. And then SVMI, is that like the Readers and Writers Workshop or is there something else?

[3782] SPEAKER_26: No, that's a good question. So SVMI is actually more the coaching and diving deeply into the standards that supports the curriculum. So I think a big shift, this is a whole other conversation, but a big shift in Common Core is no longer, you know, we're not The curriculum is one piece, but we really need to be analyzing the standards. And there's not going to be one program that is going to meet all the needs of all our kids. And so SVMI allows teachers to be able to bring in especially that performance-based assessment and the problem-solving and the mathematical practices that tend to be lacking in a more kind of traditional algorithm-type math program. So it's a nice complement. So that's the membership that we purchased this year. So a $6,000 membership that gives teachers resources to number talks, problem of the month, MARS assessment, ongoing professional development. So it really helps our teachers dive deeply into the standards and mathematical practices and understand how to implement them in their classroom. So it's that coaching supplement.

[3850] SPEAKER_33: So I guess it, for me, like Readers and Writers Workshop is like a tangible program that shows that you can, that's supporting kids in specifics, narrative or opinion, or in their writing skills. For math, if we don't have a program, then we should look at developing a program, especially in terms of our scores, or figure out like, well, I guess both in tangent, see the results of SVMI supporting the kids.

[3877] SPEAKER_26: And that's the process that we're going through right now. And that when we bring a recommendation to you all in May, we'll deeply outline the programs that we're bringing forth to you in all three grade spans, as well as have teachers come and speak to you about their experience and why they've chosen those programs for you all to review.

[3900] SPEAKER_33: decide if we could move forward with it. Thank you. And is that for math and English language arts or for one?

[3904] SPEAKER_26: Just math. English language, we've already adopted, board adopted, and we're not planning on bringing anything forward.

[3912] SPEAKER_48: And later on, as you saw in our previous discussion, we will be bringing forward a matrix of upcoming adoption. So we're doing math first, and then we're working with the county to start to look at science. Social studies is also on the horizon. Thank you. Thank you.

[3932] Nancy Thomas: Next, we have 9.2 Capital Fund Status Update, and we have two speakers that would like to address you on this, or address us on this. Ms. Parks? Would you like to wait for the presentation? Okay, I'll call. Knoop, would you like to wait for the presentation or would you like to speak first?

[3964] Cary Knoop: No, I'll just say it. It's just a question. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. You know, I have a question about Fund 210. And, you know, I don't speak on behalf of the CBOC. In fact, I think the CBOC has quorum here, so we cannot discuss anything. But I just want to have a statement about the facts. I see that the amount for non-Measure G in Fund 210 It's about 150 something. And I thought it was more like 47, 48 measure B money. So I just wanted to make sure that number was correct. Thanks.

[4006] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Mr. Richards.

[4028] SPEAKER_46: This is a very, very brief update that the board has requested just on the current status of our various capital funds. And so the question that Mr. Newt had just asked with regard to things that are not Measure G that are in Fund 210, we have about change left in non-Measure G funds. The non-Measure G funds for many years were sitting in LAIF and got a significant boost with a LAIF payout of old accumulated interest. And when we pulled the final funds from LAIF and transferred everything into the county treasury, so they did get a chunk of income at the end of closing last year and at the beginning of the current year when we transferred the money in October. The Measure G funds currently were just under $12 million if we take into account all current encumbrances with what remains in the Measure G funds. With regard to the capital facilities fund, that's the developer fees. We have additional information coming to the board on developer fees Well, we have an action item tonight, but then we also have the new rates. Developer fee rates increases were approved by the State Allocation Board at their board meeting in January. So we have updated our developer fee study, and it will be coming to the board in March so that we can implement the new rates. So that will be coming forward. Watch for that to be the two board meetings from now, because there's a multi-week advertising process that has to happen. The second board meeting in March will have some further information on new revenue for that particular fund. And then fund 400, which is our special reserve for capital outlay. There are still funds from prior to the sale of Russian of about $185,000 and change. And then with the proceeds of the sale of Russian at this time, we have $10.6 million unencumbered. That doesn't mean that it isn't committed for other things that the board took action on. I actually have a more detailed screen right here. little bit busy and I apologize it's a little bit small to read because of the font size to get everything across but this is sort of a detail of everything that's happened so far with Russian versus what was approved originally. So when we go back to the first big thing that we did with the proceeds of Russian was the reorganization of Bunker and Milani Elementary into Birch Grove and so we had two pieces to that. We had some costs were specifically related to the merger and then we also had the 21st century pilot for furniture. And between those two, we had about a $1.9 million budget. Well, the principals and the teachers worked very hard in economizing what they wanted, and they kept their scopes pretty well under control for what they wanted to do. But they were able to outfit their classrooms and take care of everything else we needed to take care of for the merger, and to the tune of about $716,000 for those two schools. we actually have about a million and a quarter left, and they already have all of their furniture. So that is now available to come back to the board to be reallocated at a future time, because we've finished the pilot of the implementation.

[4240] SPEAKER_41: So Mr. Richards, I'm sorry, your previous slide had 10.6 million. And then this slide, because of the committed, so the actual available is 6.9, is that correct?

[4251] SPEAKER_46: Yes. So 10.6 is what remains in the fund right now as far as balance of what we had at the beginning of the current school year and all the current encumbrances. Everybody that's issued a PO, whether it was for something for their wish list or any other purchase orders that we've done, the remaining balance, we haven't closed out retention on the painting project. So we still have some things that are sitting out there in current encumbrances in Fund 400. And some of the items.

[4275] SPEAKER_41: But the real number that we have to quote unquote play with is 6.9 because we can't step on what's committed.

[4282] SPEAKER_46: We still have the remaining commitments. So if we just look at the remainders of these items that are in this more detailed screen, technology as we know the board committed that to be a multi-year rollout. So it's been rolling out in groups of schools over a multi-year plan. So, so far in actual expenditures we are at about a million and a quarter. And we have about another $1.1 million left to go across that project. The exterior improvements had a $4 million budget, of which we've expended so far about $1.75 million. And then we had the school wish list projects that were $636,000, of which we've expended about $100,000. And we have encumbered right now about $182,000 on those particular projects at this time. The cafeteria table replacement project was about $28,000. We have some expenditures related to the Whiteford Music Consolidation. The portion that was not deemed to be eligible to be utilized from the Capital Facilities Fund was utilized out of the Russian proceeds. It was about $1,540. We've had legal expenses of about $2,000 in the fund since the sale of Russian. And the Treasury charges, that's something new. The County Treasury has been traditionally netting their charges against the interest. And during the county audit, they got told they really weren't supposed to be doing that. So now they've split it out. So now they're charging us treasury charges and then reporting to us a higher level of interest, and we have to net the two. So we've earned about $95,000 in interest, and we've had treasury charges of $37.99 against that. The bottom right is sort of the reconciliation of everything from the day that we sold Rush Elementary School and everything that's happened related to it over the course of time. So interest we've earned on the money, the initial cost of sale that were in that initial year, which you don't see on this screen because that happened in 2015, and then the transfer out to the special reserve for non-capital outlay than what has been utilized so far with the various projects and the current commitments there on, but with an add back for what remains from the merger slash 21st century classrooms.

[4421] SPEAKER_41: So by my count, taking all your previous slides, and with just the 6.9, we have $28.3 million left in all bond funds put together.

[4432] SPEAKER_46: For all three? For everything. If you add all of the funds together as far as various capital funds. Yes, that would be correct at this time.

[4439] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. I have a question about technology. So far, we've spent $1.2 million, and we've budgeted $2.3. Will we need to spend all that money?

[4452] SPEAKER_46: We will be spending. A very large project has not yet come to the board with regard to the projections and that process is actually currently, the RFP for that is currently under development, and that's a very expensive project. So that is yet to roll out.

[4474] Nancy Thomas: I believe we installed those as part of the merger projectors.

[4481] SPEAKER_36: It was at the high school, yeah.

[4484] SPEAKER_46: District-wide. This is district-wide. That's not part of the Birch Grove.

[4488] Nancy Thomas: No, no. But I mean, the point I was going to make is that these 21st century classrooms at Birch Grove were supposed to be kind of a test bed for us. And before we go in and put fancy equipment in all of our classrooms, have we really, I think even one of our board members asked for an evaluation of the equipment that we put into Birch Grove in terms of its usefulness and whether it's indicative of what we should be going forward with technology for the rest of the schools.

[4529] SPEAKER_46: OK, I think we're talking about the same night, but we're talking about two different line items that were in there as far as the classroom furniture piece versus the technology piece. So Larry, you can probably address better what's going on. I want you to come over and ask where we are with the technology piece, specifically for the Birch Groves, because they're part of the project, right? Yeah.

[4549] SPEAKER_43: So the 21st century furniture was totally separate from the technology. I understand. They weren't the same thing. We have done pilots of the technology we're looking at. We piloted overhead projector. Those are pretty standard. We piloted some interactive short throw projectors. We piloted flat screen television. We piloted a bunch of different things to just, you know, to come to our sort of to build our specification.

[4573] Nancy Thomas: Okay. I mean, were those piloted as part of the Birch Grove merger?

[4580] SPEAKER_43: No, we piloted them at various locations, including Birch Grove. Including Birch Grove, okay. We didn't pilot a whole school. We piloted, because we wanted secondary, primary.

[4589] Nancy Thomas: And so you've gotten good input back?

[4592] SPEAKER_43: I believe we've gotten a lot of good feedback. We waited a little bit to, obviously this has been a while, but we waited a little bit because there was some new technology that was sort of on the cusp at the time that has sort of materialized now for, just not to get too into it, but lamp-free projectors. And so we're ready to move forward.

[4609] Nancy Thomas: And less expensive ones, so maybe we don't have to spend the rest of that money?

[4614] SPEAKER_43: You know, we'll see, hopefully.

[4616] Nancy Thomas: Okay, thank you. Let's see, Ms.

[4619] SPEAKER_36: Crocker, I wanted to underline something. I see that the merger cost $10,000. Is that the total cost of the merger?

[4628] SPEAKER_46: What was the total cost of the merger? No, the total was $715,787. That's how much, that's by fiscal year.

[4634] SPEAKER_36: But that includes the furniture, and the furniture was a separate piece. Yes. So the actual merger itself was $10,000? No, no. What was the actual merger itself?

[4642] SPEAKER_46: I consolidated those because they're in the same object code. I didn't pull individual invoices to break between those.

[4648] SPEAKER_36: So you don't know how much it cost for the furniture?

[4652] SPEAKER_46: Not off the top of my head, but I can pull the data.

[4654] SPEAKER_36: So that when we look at what's left, has the valuation of the classroom furniture taken place? Has there been an evaluation so we know what kinds of things we're looking to put the other schools particularly the other elementary schools.

[4672] SPEAKER_46: Letty has been collecting feedback from the sites on the furniture so we don't have a report with regard to that tonight for the board so we'll get together and compile that.

[4684] SPEAKER_36: I think it's important to separate out there has been talk in the city about the cost of the merger and I think that they look at this and they figure that's the cost of the merger. It was not the cost of the merger because there's furniture involved, and that's a separate piece, as technology is a separate piece. It just happened to coincide with when the merger took place. So I think we need to be very specific in terms of what the actual cost was to change the format to two different schools that have different grade levels. I can pull that data out. I think that would be an important piece to have, because it's not, I can't imagine it's any more than $100,000. I can't imagine it's more than that. I would say would be less.

[4725] Nancy Thomas: Actually, I also think that the furniture was not something that we approved to go into the other schools.

[4735] SPEAKER_36: We have not. We said we were going to look and evaluate and get the teacher input in terms of what was really. In other words, if you take a desk that may be 20 years old but still functioning and still works with the teacher, then they should be able to have the choice that they do that rather than getting softballs to sit on or getting the triangular table so they can move it in different modulars. So I think that's something that there needs to be the ability of the teacher to say this is what functions for me as a teacher in the classroom and this is what I prefer. So that going out and saying everyone's going to have the new furniture is not a particularly smart thing to do. It needs to be based on what the teachers want in the classroom.

[4773] SPEAKER_41: I would actually disagree with that because I think that runs counter to I think our next set of presentations as far as the district-wide strategic master plan, I think there should be consistency and not allow the teacher to choose specifically because you would run into an equity problem with that, right? Where if I, as a teacher, choose a particular product in one school and then another teacher is allowed to choose a different product, then students aren't getting the same type of experiences. And so I think part of the overall vision of the district is to provide equitable programming and services and products for all of our students.

[4816] SPEAKER_36: I think it has to do with some things that's true. But in terms of how the teacher wants to organize the classroom, that is something that is the teacher's responsibility and right to do so. And so if you have a lot of small tables versus large tables, I think when the teacher leaves, that is an equity process for when someone comes and takes over the classroom. But I think that we need to be sensitive to what works for the teaching style of the person that's in the classroom.

[4846] SPEAKER_41: Right. But I think it's also important to have district standards. And then not standards as far as good standards, bad standards, but just overall district standards as far as what is the baseline and what is acceptable. Because it's very unfair for one classroom to have a 20-year-old desk and the other to have a brand new desk, for example, just because the teacher chose to keep the old desk.

[4868] SPEAKER_36: Because it's new doesn't mean it's better. Well, yeah.

[4871] Nancy Thomas: OK. With that, thank you very much, Mr. Richards. Ms. Parks, and I think, you know, our practice in the past had always been to have speakers first, and I think, to be consistent, I'm going to be recommending to the board that we always have the speaker first. That's before a discussion. Or before a presentation, before whatever the item is. Okay, Ms. Parks.

[4899] Cindy Parks: Again, you're one of five, so I would appreciate it.

[4901] Nancy Thomas: That's what I'm going to recommend to my board members.

[4904] Cindy Parks: Okay. I first questioned the use of developers fees used to pay for a warrant on August 1st of 2017. Then on August 15th, I met with Superintendent Sanchez and outlined my concerns about the legality of the previous two years worth of expenditures out of developer fee account. Over the last four months, I have publicly and repeatedly informed you that the only lawful use of these funds is to mitigate overcrowding caused by the development on which the fees were levied and that these funds are being unlawfully diverted to other purposes. Government Code 65973A states that conditions of overcrowding means that the total enrollment of a school, including enrollment from proposed development, exceeds the capacity of the school as determined by the governing board of the district. Other than the increased enrollment of approximately 43 students this year, Newark Unified School District has had a declining enrollment for the previous 17 years. Your own 2017 justification study and Davis demographic study show that even with the new developments, district enrollment is estimated to only increase by 400 to 500 students. The justification study shows the district's enrollment capacity at 8,926. With the current enrollment at approximately 6,000 and projections nowhere near 8,926, clearly Newark Unified is nowhere near capacity, especially with the proposed class sizes. And it is not lawful to create artificial overcrowding at a school site to fabricate a false overcrowding to excuse otherwise unlawful spending. I ask you to stop the spending of developer's fees on any expenditures not related to vendors who provide enrollment and capacity projections. Please be on notice. If one or more members of the community seek a judicial remedy to solve the problem, the district will not only unnecessarily pay defense costs that are needed for employment salaries, for employee salaries and student educational services, but the district will also be required to pay the fees and costs of the citizen who bring the action to stop the unlawful spending I have described. Plus, you've never, ever approved a budget of spending. It's been done by others. Regarding Fund 40, with the Vanners departure and the interim MOT director, will the wish list projects continue as planned? I guess you believe, I'm assuming that you're going to move forward with that. On November 15, 2017, a Schilling parent sent pictures of the peeling paint at Schilling to all of you. Has anyone followed up with the Schilling email you got? I also heard Graham has bubbling and peeling paint. The furniture project, which you were just speaking about, you did mention that it was to be an evaluated pilot. I went back and I watched the video because you went back and forth. Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Wynn were very specific on the fact that they wanted it district-wide. They wanted the equality. A pilot is a pilot. That means that you intend to evaluate it. Where's the evaluation? In January, when you were presented with the music sign project, I mentioned that they had on their wish list of benches, which they had already gotten. The cost of the benches and the sign would put them over their allotment. How was that resolved?

[5086] Nancy Thomas: Thank you, Ms. Parks. One second. Oh, baby.

[5089] Cindy Parks: Okay, next we move on to... Can I get the answers to my questions? It's an agenda item.

[5095] Nancy Thomas: In regards to the questions regarding... Your questions can be answered offline by Mr. Richards.

[5101] Cindy Parks: Well, that makes it very transparent.

[5107] Nancy Thomas: Next, we move on to 10.1, which is public comment on non-agenda items. And I apologize, we are supposed to do this by 8.30, and it's already over that. First, Mr. Henneberry.

[5127] SPEAKER_14: Yeah, I'm John Hennenberry. I'm a Newark voter. I'm going to comment on the recent 3.2 million budget shortfall and the teachers layoffs and other staff layoffs that resulted from this. It's a multifaceted dynamic problem and it goes beyond this school district. First off, the news reports indicate that the school district is trying to solve this problem by increasing student enrollment. That's going to be a problem because Newark's school district has such a low rating. There was mainstream media reports about six months ago that Newark was one of the worst of about 120 cities in the greater Bay Area and it got such a low rating because Newark schools were in about the bottom 10 of this 120 school district list. They're just horrible. So when it comes to making a decision whether or not people are going to move to Newark, buy a house, pay taxes, people look at property values, they look at their tax bill, including the Measure G funds, $39 for every $100,000 in assessed value, and they're looking at the quality of the school district. You look at all those numbers, the equation doesn't add up, and there's a high degree of probability that Newark is going to continue to lose students here, okay? You're not going to get that increase. It's possible, but all indications are just going to move in the other direction. Okay, problems go beyond the Newark School District with regards to the funding shortfall. There's been widespread reports of financial mismanagement here at the Newark School District, but again I see the problem going beyond that. Newark residents are subject to local taxes, and those local taxes are being levied by two distinctly separate tax authorities. One being the city of Newark, which is governed by Newark City Council, and the other tax district is known as the Newark School District, which is governed by the Newark School Board. This is important describing this as in terms of tax districts, because in the state of California, in order to raise taxes, we need voter approval. And to get voter approval, we need to get something on the ballot. What does an ordinary citizen need to do? Well, they need to collect signatures from 10% of all registered voters. Here in Newark, that would be about 2,000 signatures, considering we've got about 20,000 registered voters. Well, a local tax authority, such as the school district or the city of Newark, only needs a simple majority vote of its members to put something on the ballot. So here's where the problem comes in. The public can only bear a certain amount in local taxes and the city tax district is absorbing lots of those local taxes through utility taxes and through increased sales taxes and the public doesn't have a willingness to provide taxes for the school district. So because this is an election year, I'm encouraging all qualified responsible members, residents of Newark, please get on the ballot. Please basically overthrow Newark City Council and put reversing measures on the ballot to get rid of the stupid utility taxes and also the sales taxes and then from there the Newark School District can put tax measures on the ballots to raise taxes. So it's basically a shift in tax revenue spread across two different tax districts. Thank you for your time.

[5341] Cary Knoop: Good evening. I want to talk about spending money, and we have very little of it. It looks like Newark Unified is getting some really big opponents. American Civil Liberties Union, First Amendment Coalition. We're talking about that Newark Unified is suing a citizen for half a million dollars in fees. Is that morally right? Let me qualify it. I think a school district should have the right to defend itself. There's a lot of litigation. There's a lot of frivolous lawsuits. Somebody says, you know, I need a million dollars. And sometimes you have to incur expenses to stand your ground. And I support that. But in a case where a citizen wants a public records request, and it goes wrong, I don't want to get into the details, you have to ask yourself the question, is it a good way to spend a quarter of a million dollars in pursuing this, something that happened three years ago, a bunch of emails that were sent. Eventually, that bill, if Newark loses, is going to be put on the general fund. And looking at the lawsuit, you know, you cannot claim expenses if they haven't been incurred. So we're already about, what is it, $244,000 in expenses. So this board needs to, at any time, make an evaluation whether pursuing these cases is worth the money. You do it for Newark. You don't do it for a law firm. If a law firm says, we want to, as a matter of principle, go to the end and go to the Supreme Court, you should tell them, you go your own way. But don't put on our letterhead, Newark Unified. What does Newark Unified to do with these kind of abstract court cases? As a board, you have the right to initiate any process you deem necessary in the interest of the district. So if your council tells you, no, no, you've got to do it, just listen to us. We're the council. We need to tell you. You can get a second opinion. You have the right to do that. Nobody can stop you. Second, you can have also the right to cancel the contract with this law firm if you deem that to be necessary. Don't spend unnecessary money. Again, I agree with defending yourself against frivolous lawsuits. You sometimes have to spend money. But a quarter of a million dollar chasing a public records request with emails that, how relevant are these emails now? Are you continuing this? Remember, if the mainstream press finds this, it's going to be a reputation damage for the district. Please take that in mind. Thank you.

[5521] Nancy Thomas: Ms. Parks.

[5532] Cindy Parks: Good evening. At this point, I wanted to talk to you about your LCAP committee that you appointed in January. There was some concern expressed at that meeting about the composition of the committee. The numbers, there was 42 and I remember expressing concern to all of you about the magnitude and the concern or the countermeasure by some of your staff was the fact that they wanted everybody to be included. The time I had pointed out that some of your meetings last year only held about or you only had about 10 people attending. Not much has changed this year. And one of the concerns that I have is that they adopted bylaws this year. And the bylaws, first of all, they say that, I mean, there's several things that are wrong with it. One of them being is it says it's a superintendent or the designee should establish the committee. However, the education code is very clear that it is the governing board that establishes the committee. The voting membership does show the 42 members as voting. However, they now have changed the terminology to where they are recognizing only active members. They've now altered your appointed committee of 42 members, which makes it a legislative body. The minute that you set it in place, according to your board policy, it is now a legislative body. It is now governed by the Brown Act. They have now changed and saying that the committee is now made up of 20 active members and that they only need 11 for their majority instead of the 42 members and having 22 as the majority. The last meeting only had 14 members in it. They have yet to have, of the four meetings that they have held, they have yet to have more than that 14. And so I understand wanting to include as many as possible, but sometimes numbers don't generate the involvement that you want. I know personally that some of the people that were on the list didn't ask to be on it. So I don't even know how some of that happened. But again, my concern is that they're usurping your authority. You appointed a committee. And that's not who's convening, and that's not the parameters that it's functioning. And there's bylaws out there that are counter to what you had intended. Thank you.

[5679] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. So next, we move on to old business, the 11.1 developer fees. Fund 25 annual report.

[5689] SPEAKER_46: This is the annual report that has come before the board on a previous occasion. It was pointed out by a member of the public we actually had some incorrect education code section numbers as the code had been renumbered, so it has been brought back to the board for action with all the corrected sections of the education code.

[5708] Nancy Thomas: Does anyone want to speak to this? If not, I entertain a motion. I'm sorry, Ms. Parks, I must have missed it. Okay, go ahead.

[5724] Cindy Parks: As I stated earlier, over the last few months, I have informed you of the district is unlawfully spending developer fee money that is supposed to be spent to reduce district overcrowding. Tonight, you are being asked to approve resolution 2082. This report contains errors and includes unlawful spending. This resolution was tabled in January and pulled earlier this month. Tonight, I am here to inform you that the revised resolution you're being asked to adopt is still flawed and ask you to table it and keep tabling it until your administration gets it right. On page 2, which is exhibit B, it references government code section 66001D1 through 4. This does not exist. Under item A, you were to identify the facilities, not just list general projects. The account reconciliation form shows the new junior high bleacher assessment at $5,000. Your justification study shows that the capacity for that site is 1,431 students. How in the world do you perceive to use developer fee money when conditions of overcrowding do not exist at the junior high nor anywhere else in the district? The next item listed is or another item listed is the dry rot damage assessment of $1,530. Education code 176203 specifies that this money is not for the regular maintenance nor routine repair of school buildings and facilities. Facility consultant, $10,000. Mr. Dutra's work for the district had nothing to do with the new developments in town or had everything to do with the new development in town and that's what he was working with you on moving or relocating your district office over to the city's new civic center. It had nothing to do with overcrowding of students. Since these documents are flawed, you must once again pull them and instruct the administration to correct these errors. Thank you.

[5847] SPEAKER_36: I have a question. Oh, Ms. Crocker. In terms of the demographic study and the software, was that the Dutra thing or was that with the company that gave us information about new students?

[5865] SPEAKER_46: No, that's Davis demographics.

[5867] SPEAKER_36: Right, so that's the Davis, so it had nothing to do with the due draft. Okay, thank you.

[5872] SPEAKER_41: So the resolution that were asked to pass, did that pass through legal muster as far as being appropriate?

[5881] SPEAKER_35: Yes, we can step back into executive if you want me to brief you on that. As long as we... Relative to Fund 25, otherwise I would recommend anyone make comments about Fund 25. We have had legal opinion, we were acting with legal counsel

[5894] SPEAKER_41: That's all I want to know.

[5894] Nancy Thomas: Thank you. Should we put this forward to the next agenda so we can hear in closed session what the legal... I thought we had gotten information in the email.

[5909] SPEAKER_36: Did we get information on that?

[5911] SPEAKER_41: I think that the information was not very comprehensive compared to... I'm comfortable with accepting Superintendent Shanta's statement that it's already passed legal muster and what we're approving is appropriate.

[5926] Nancy Thomas: OK, then I'll entertain a motion and a second.

[5928] SPEAKER_41: I'll move to pass.

[5929] Nancy Thomas: I'll second. Mr. Nguyen made the motion. Ms. Crocker seconds.

[5934] SPEAKER_36: I need to pull up my voting here.

[5937] Nancy Thomas: OK, please vote.

[5940] SPEAKER_33: You have a question? Yeah, I was just waiting until the second. Oh, I'm sorry. So I know one of the last times the issue was the government code sectioning. That was incorrect, I guess. I'm not going to look it up.

[5955] SPEAKER_46: So Ms. Parks mentioned 66001D1-4. They are now renumbered D1A, D1B, D1C, D1D, D1E, D1F. So we did go in and if you look under section 3, findings regarding the fund, in section C it now says government code section 6601D1A, section D is 66001D1B, Section E66-001D1C, D1D, etc. And then G is now part of D2 and 66-001E. So they've been renumbered from what they used to be. In the resolution itself, correct?

[5993] Nancy Thomas: Mr. Preciado, did you have a question? No, that's it. Okay. Okay, please vote.

[6008] Nancy Thomas: I have to display it.

[6010] SPEAKER_40: Four ayes, thank you.

[6027] SPEAKER_41: Right, 11.2 now, I believe.

[6029] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, we're on 11.2. Vanner, final presentation. We have two individuals that would like to speak on this. Ms. Burns. I... I would... I allowed it. Yes, go ahead. You can do it after. Ms. Parks? Okay.

[6056] SPEAKER_55: Can I wait? No.

[6060] SPEAKER_35: Who was that? That was me.

[6063] SPEAKER_55: Okay. Thank you very much, Superintendent Sanchez, board. I'm here to what I call the celebration of the Measure G and the relationship that Vanner has with this district. And tonight I just wanted to give you kind of a general overview of what you will be getting at the end of March, where at the end of March we will be presenting to Brian and to Superintendent Sanchez a full report on where we were when we started on November the 1st and where we are at the end that we vacate the facility. This is just to give you an idea. This is the Measure G language, just to give you some background to that. And I just want to let you know that we, in October of 2017, we presented a semi-update of where we are financially, what projects we have done per year, which you will see here very shortly and just want to bring it up during this time to let you know that when you look at 2017 it will be based on estimates because we at the time in November we did not have that full report by the time March rolls around we will have the report and specific numbers. One thing I just want to talk to you about that during the time that we were here we were able to to work with your district-wide there was a lot of assessments done and you did a district-wide facility needs assessment In 2013, we did quite a few. We did HVAC assessment, controls, paving, and roofing evaluations. Then in 14, we looked at some of your equipment survey, portable assessments, which was real fun, and then HVAC equipment study. What I want to do here is briefly go through each one of the years and kind of give you an idea. This is a chart that I believe you have seen. If not, you will see it in more detail when we do the final version of this in the end of March. This is the work that we did in 2013. As you can see, we started with $63 million, which you saw you had passed in the Measure G. And if you look on the far right side, it says remaining funds. And what you'll see is every year you'll see where it keeps counting down to where you are. Okay, in 2014, We bumped that up from about $3 million to, it looks like, $10.5 million. We finally got ourselves moving forward, and we did HVAC upgrades, mold remediation, roof replacements, paving, some EMS controls, and a little bit of technology and security. In 2015, we did roof replacement, HVAC replacement, paving, and some clocks and bells. And that was about $15 million worth of work. By the way, each one of these years are not really, they're just the summer months, because we did all this work during the summer when the students were not in school, obviously. 2016 was a great year. That's when I came. And so it was $12.8 million, and we did roof replacement and HVAC replacement, as you can see. And then in 2017, this is based on November of last year's And as you can see, pointed out to me just a while ago, and I realized about three hours ago, that the million dollars that we shall spend for the science classrooms did not happen. So when you do see the final report, there will be a variation of this. This was at that time, it was money that was going to be encumbered and to do the STAR Lab. But that has not happened at this time. And so based on our estimates, based in November, we were around $13 million. still in the good on your bond, which I think is an exceptional for a school district to have only $63 million and do all the work that you have done. And I did notice, thank you, Brian, that it is actually $11,983,250.35 is what you had on your list of remaining funds. This will give you an idea of kind of the flow of way when we sold the bonds, when we did the money. And you can look at this, and you can see every school district I've ever worked for would love to see something like this, where you have more money at the end than you have, than we have spent. And then coming at the end, I just want to kind of give you a background. In November, we met with Superintendent Sanchez and I believe Brian. And we were talked about that since there was not any projects that was listed to be done in 2018, none of them that were committed by the board because y'all had other things you needed to take care of and obviously that just rolled on. The time for anything to happen in 2018 summer was gone by November. So looking at that, looking at my staff and looking at what's left to do, We only had the two projects that were left this summer, which was the roofs at the high school and then some painting. We did some painting across the district for all the skites. So we went to Superintendent Sanchez and said, you know, I think it may be time that we can make the break. There's not always a good time to make a break, but I thought this time would be a great time to do that. And Superintendent Sanchez said that was perfect. He thought that was good, too. In November, we started this process of let's try to make the break. And so we set out some guidelines that we were not going to do any adding more work to our agenda. We were going to just finish out what we got. And at the time, we figured sometime by the end of February, we'd be completely through. But actually, in reality, it's going to be by the end of March. By the time we get all the punch lists done, by the time we get all the paperwork and the reconciliation of the funds and stuff together, probably the end of March. But, and so, on that note too, he asked us if we could make sure that we did, from our perception of being here five years, what would be the list, what would be the recommendations that we would like to leave with you for you to consider. And if you know, we gave you a very nice, colorful, detailed wish list and items that really still need to be done. And so what we did is we evaluated my staff, the staff and I evaluated that. And we came up with these lists here. They're not necessarily in ranking order of what we would do. They're just things that we consider to be high profile or based on what we know of what we spent on the bond. These are some of the items that still would go with that. And obviously, you probably can't read that from here. But the top one is the STEAM or the STAR Lab. That's still in there to be looked at. The complete remaining HVACs, and we'll make sure you're clear that in 2011, you did an HVAC assessment, and we replaced the units that were beyond the life cycle. Well, since that time, there is probably at least 50 more units to date that need to be replaced that has beyond the life cycle. And so that is what this is referring to, is those that are beyond the life cycle since the passage Measure G. Also, there is a removal of the portables. We've had lots and lots of talk. Brian and I have talked about this for several years. There's a lot of portables out here that really do not need to be used, and they usually are not. You need to have a plan in place, and that was a suggestion of us, is getting those removed. And those that you're going to keep, you keep them, you get them updated. Door hardware. This is something that the MOT has come to us, and we've discussed this very extensively, replacing the entire district with more secure hardware. In light of things that have happened in the last week, I still think that this is a really big priority, to be able to install hardware where you only have one single point of entry, or you got a way that you really need to protect who comes in and out of your buildings. And then finally, the replacement of the emergency generator. That is on the priority list of the MLT. And so that is something that we want to leave with you. One thing I want to talk to you briefly about those, as you think about us leaving, I want you to know that even though we'll be off the premises, we will still be available if you need us. All you got to do is call us. We're right up the road or down the road, depending on where we are at that day, and we'll be down here to take care of it. Also, we've got a couple of one-year walkthroughs for warranty walkthroughs. We will be here to do that. We'll come back in and do that. That's not an issue. It's not a cost. But we'll be here to make sure that we finish those walkthroughs based on the work that we did this summer. All right? And then I'll be probably attending a couple more. You'll see me a couple more board meetings. One of them is for a change order that I believe you have already discussed. It'll be our last change order that's coming to you. And then possibly some closeouts and just some formalities of this project's closed out, our contract is closed out. So they will be here. Not anything that I'll give a discussion to, but it'll be something that I could be here and be available to for any questions and all that. And so then my final picture I love is that the sky's the limit for our children, I mean for our students. The sky's the limit. We hear a lot of things that just, you know, we worry about this and worry about that. But, you know, we need to stay focused and the focus is reach the limit and go further. And that's what our students need to be. I want to thank y'all for allowing us to be here this long, for being a partner in this program. Thank you for letting us be here. I think that I look at these things not as just a professional endeavor. We come in and we go away. We never see you again. It's a relationship builder. I've learned from each one of you. I've had very close relationship with your with your staff, all of them, and they're great people. I think you may have some troubles right now, but I think the future's bright. I believe you've got some certain people in place. I believe you've got a head on your shoulders for the board meeting and for the board, and I really just want to thank you for allowing us to be a part of that. So with that, have you got any questions?

[6712] SPEAKER_36: I just have an addition or correction on the first page when it talks about projects list. You eliminated the music elementary school on that list. Oh my goodness. Okay. It's just a point of information. I will take care of it. There were projects that were involved with it. I should remember that one.

[6728] Nancy Thomas: Okay. Thank you very much for all of your service and for putting together such a nice kind of synopsis to wrap up your work with us. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

[6740] SPEAKER_36: Thank you very much. Do we have

[6742] Nancy Thomas: Our speakers. Yes, we will now have Ms. Burns.

[6756] SPEAKER_49: Hello, my name is Jane Burns, and I am a science teacher at Newark Memorial. I was going to ask where was that $1 million spent, but now I know that it hasn't been spent. And so I'm really here to let you know that we do need to fulfill the requirement to update our aging science labs. We've been waiting a long time. We have a lot of immediate needs. We've been just kind of cobbling things together and getting by with sinks that don't work, electrical that doesn't work. No lab chairs for our tables. You know, just a lot of general maintenance in our labs that need to be done. So I'm just here to remind you that that was part of Measure G. We're still waiting. Our project manager is just leaving. So we're wondering what is the plan. We hope you have a plan and we hope you're going to get back to us soon with your plan. That's really all I have to say.

[6816] Nancy Thomas: Thank you very much. All right.

[6818] SPEAKER_49: Thank you.

[6824] Nancy Thomas: Okay. So then under new business we have the 2018-19 school calendar.

[6836] SPEAKER_46: And at your individual spaces and in the stack in the back is a revision to what was originally presented with regard to the upcoming calendar. The bargaining unit when they voted on what was going to be the changed calendar, did not accept it. And by terms of our contract with NTA, if we haven't come to agreement on a new calendar, the current calendar rolls. So what I handed out to all of you and what we have a stack in the back is the rolling of the current year calendar and what it would look like for next year for the board's information.

[6873] Nancy Thomas: Okay. With that, I would entertain a motion.

[6879] SPEAKER_33: So I would ask with, because what's listed online is the old one, so I just want to make sure it's clear that we're, which one are we voting for?

[6889] SPEAKER_46: It would be basically rolling the status quo. Technically, because we're rolling the status quo, and that's an existing term of the contract, I don't know that it necessarily has to have a vote of the board, but we always have brought it forward to a vote of the board, even when we were rolling the status quo calendar.

[6905] SPEAKER_36: So we're talking about the new calendar starting the school year start at H23. That is correct. Versus starting at 15. August 15th.

[6917] SPEAKER_46: It would have been 16 but it's going to be 23. A week later. Yeah a week later. So the whole calendar moves down.

[6922] SPEAKER_36: What happens with the break for the semester?

[6926] SPEAKER_46: The semester breaks at the 18th of January which is right before Martin Luther King Day and so then the report card marking day is the day after Martin Luther King Day.

[6937] SPEAKER_36: And in the proposed calendar, was that before break?

[6940] SPEAKER_46: It was before the holiday break, yes. So because we're rolling the existing calendar and its existing terms, we've rolled it based on the semesters being approximately equal but ending on a Friday. So we actually have 89 days in semester one and 91 days in semester two.

[6954] SPEAKER_36: And school will be out on the 12th of June.

[6957] SPEAKER_46: That is correct, with the 13th being a teacher work day.

[6960] SPEAKER_36: Thank you.

[6962] SPEAKER_33: So I would recommend that if it's rolling over, that we actually put the the one that's rolling over and do it at the next meeting, just so it's not confusing. If it's confusing to myself, then I'm sure it's going to be confusing to the public in terms of that. In terms of my framework, I think if we do that, I also think that we need to make sure we have discussions and recommendation maybe for a two-year or even three-year. I was going to vote no on the proposed just because I had mentioned last time that I think, not that I'm against it, it's just that giving parents enough time that you at least give them a whole year in advance to map it out and plan out their schedule. So I think if there's a way for us to do, since this is 2018-19, have discussions now until August for 2019-20 and 2021. so we can move forward. Otherwise, if it comes again with this level of notice, I won't be able to support it because we're not giving parents enough time to map out their schedules.

[7036] SPEAKER_41: Can you clarify to us the precise language in the contract in regards to who holds the ultimate authority in approving or authorizing the calendar. Is that something that the staff has to vote on, you know, the entity has to vote on and approve upon, or is that something that the board can vote upon and approve upon? What is the exact language?

[7067] SPEAKER_36: Except it's an automatic part of the contract, we shouldn't have to vote on it.

[7070] SPEAKER_42: Yeah, the Collective Bogman Association needs to vote on the new contract when there's a change. And at this time, they did not have a majority to approve the proposed new calendar, hence reverting back to the old calendar, which Mr. Richards... Do we need to vote on it then? As Mr. Richards mentioned, I don't think you have to. It will roll automatically for March 1st, but as a matter of course, it wouldn't be bad for... So there is still time? It could be... No. At this time, we're going to revert back to the old calendar.

[7109] SPEAKER_36: to March 1st, this would be our last meeting before March 1st.

[7111] SPEAKER_42: This would be our last meeting before March 1st. That's correct.

[7115] Nancy Thomas: I think it's been historical that we have voted on it after the NTA votes on it.

[7124] SPEAKER_41: Well, so I would hearken back to last year's discussion and vote, right? And last year, the union ratified a particular calendar that had the semester end at winter break or Christmas break. and the board took action and voted on it, and we stopped because there wasn't enough notice given. And so this is a 180-degree turn from what the staff already voted on last year, and I don't think we were supposed to have reengaged in the process of voting for this calendar again. I think it was just proper notification. And so we essentially delayed it for last year's vote because it was too short notice. We've had a whole year now, so I would have expected that last year's calendar structure would have been carried forward this entire year, would have given the public and the parents notice that this calendar was coming because that was already voted upon. To then keep status quo and essentially filibustering any kind of progress that we would want to make with this, I don't think that's reasonable.

[7188] SPEAKER_42: So we will endeavor to move to the calendar that the district wanted last year, that we hoped The calendar committee agreed on that same calendar this year, but the members did not. And so we will move in a timely fashion for next year to ensure that we can come to a satisfactory ending, but it's going to be one more year.

[7211] SPEAKER_36: And I think we're looking at a multiple two or three year, whatever it might be.

[7215] SPEAKER_42: We would prefer three year.

[7217] SPEAKER_36: So that it becomes predictable for the families in the community.

[7224] Nancy Thomas: Can we get a calendar or a timeline for an agreement between you and NTA when you will negotiate and bring this forward for discussion with the public so we can give families plenty of notice?

[7246] SPEAKER_42: I believe this fall we can convene the calendar committee and have it approved and agreed before. for the holiday break.

[7256] SPEAKER_33: So we can't do it now, we can't continue like now and then have the discussion now, is that part of the collective bargaining agreement? I don't see why we can have discussions like continue having until whether it's this or whatever on an agreed on calendar. Just for me again because in the fall school is going to start and then it will be December and then it will be January, February and then it will be March, and we're going to be at the same situation.

[7286] SPEAKER_41: But last year, the staff who voted on the revised calendar approved that calendar. And that was sent to the board to vote. And we were set to vote on it. We backed down because of public outcry that people were not giving enough notice. But from my understanding, the staff at the time voted and approved that calendar. And I thought that this year was the year of essentially notification to our families that this calendar was moving forward. Not that there would be a re-vote because that would be unfair to the cohort of staff members who voted last year to adopt this new calendar. Do you see where I'm going with this? It's essentially, I think we've committed an authorized re-vote or something that was already voted on that just needed some time to notify our stakeholders. Again, we didn't spend this whole year to do any of that. And now we're up at the ball again, forced with this again of inadequate notification.

[7354] SPEAKER_42: So Ms. Condon for CSCA would like to share some comments please.

[7362] SPEAKER_51: Good evening everyone. It's not that the committee did not accept the contract, I mean the calendar. We actually had a calendar for the next three years planned with the proposed calendar based on what last year was. Because we have a negotiating unions, it still has to go back to the members to be voted on. This year, the teachers decided not to accept the calendar as is. So regardless of the fact that you held off for a year because they didn't propose, there's anything we could have done when the members say they're not moving forward. So unfortunately at this point, we have to revert back to this calendar. I do think we could bring the negotiating team, the calendar committee back to see, it's not the committee though, it's our members that are saying no. It's your teachers who are saying no, no, no, we don't want to move forward for whatever their reasons are. Maybe if we can get through some of this other negotiating with the budgets settled, Maybe they'll be a little bit more willing to move forward and make a successful move. I think we can notify parents now and say our goal is to start earlier so that they know. But quite frankly, I think until your members, until our employees say this is where we go, that's the way it's going to be. So you're right, it's frustrating as a committee to say this is what we're working on, this is what we accept. bring it to our members and it goes backwards, but there's not much we can do at this point.

[7463] SPEAKER_41: I appreciate the comment, thank you.

[7466] SPEAKER_51: What I'm concerned about is we have in essence nullified last year's vote with... Which means this year we need to re-bring the committee back and say what do we want to do with this. We accepted it and said let's move forward, we brought it to the membership, the membership turned it down. So, yes, we nullified it because of notification to the parents. Had it been accepted, it would have gone through and been notified with the parents. I think maybe, I don't know, Dr. Wong, maybe we should do another committee maybe next month or right after we figure out what's going on with the budget and see if we can get the teachers on board or CSCA needs to be on board too. It hasn't even gone to CSCA yet. So, it doesn't go to CSCA until the teachers clear theirs.

[7513] SPEAKER_41: If I can request the exact language in the CBA, please.

[7516] SPEAKER_46: Here is the language in the CBA. Thank you. The calendar shall be implemented in three-year cycles and mutually negotiated in the second year of each cycle subject to the following provisions. If an agreement cannot be reached by any calendar committee during the three-year cycle, the district and the association agree that this shall terminate the current three-year adoption cycle with the understanding that there will remain one more year under the previous calendar agreement. Either the district or the association may at any time and for any reason withdraw from adopting three-year calendar cycles by notifying the other party no later than 3 p.m. on the Friday before winter break of the year in which the calendar committee is to be convened. All negotiated calendar agreements are submitted to ratification by the NTEA representative council and the NUSD Board of Education. If ratification is not achieved, the parties agree to meet and negotiate as soon as is practicable. Calendars for each pending cycle shall be negotiated with the understanding that such negotiations shall be concluded by March 1st of the third year in the cycle. If negotiations are not completed by March 1st, then the calendar for the current year shall be adopted for the pending year. So when we did not adopt the three-year cycle at last year's board meeting, it rolled the calendar for one year and forced a new calendar committee cycle for the current year. We took the three-year and it did not pass through the NTA council portion. It did not get ratified. So because we are now out of time for March the 1st, the current calendar has to roll for one year and we have to start this process again because it's a one-year process when we don't have an agreement.

[7620] SPEAKER_41: Thank you. Can you go back to the line that states the ratification of NTA?

[7627] SPEAKER_46: general membership or is that I thought I heard just the executive it reads all negotiated counter agreements were submitted ratification by the NTA representative council and the NUSD Board of Education.

[7639] SPEAKER_41: Not the entire rank-and-file NTA, right?

[7642] SPEAKER_42: Right, but the numbers we have are 54% against 46% for.

[7647] Nancy Thomas: On the council, just the representative council.

[7651] SPEAKER_42: That's the numbers that were given to me by the president of NTA.

[7657] SPEAKER_41: It's not all membership according to the CBA, it's just the council.

[7661] SPEAKER_42: And the president's not here tonight of NTA so. Right.

[7666] SPEAKER_51: I was going to say on CSCA I'm just trying to help you clarify the ratification process for the union. So the best bet is to have this discussion with the NTA president next month but whether you accept this calendar or not to roll and vote on it March 1st, it will become effective.

[7684] Nancy Thomas: OK, but it's pretty clear that it did not require and maybe should not have required a vote of the entire membership of NTA. Not according to what Mr. Richards read.

[7694] SPEAKER_42: So I can contact the president of NTA, and I can bring this back at our next board meeting.

[7702] SPEAKER_41: But Mr. Richards read is council, NTA council, not what Mr. Richards read is NTA council. I understand. OK, thank you.

[7711] SPEAKER_42: Either way, I won't be able to bring it back until the next board meeting, but in the meantime, we are still in the old calendar.

[7718] SPEAKER_35: But if they agree that that's the case, we could have a special meeting, couldn't we?

[7722] Nancy Thomas: We could have a special meeting. Before March 1.

[7724] SPEAKER_42: Yeah. So I will talk to the NTA president.

[7729] SPEAKER_33: And I would still, just based off of the timeline, I personally, we may still have the three to go forward, but.

[7735] Nancy Thomas: You still have the notice? You may not have enough.

[7737] SPEAKER_36: As a past member of representative council of the union, if you ask your union members for their information or for their opinion and you get it, then you as a council vote to support what the membership want. So whether they ask all the members or not is irrelevant if the membership council voted it down, which is what they said. They voted it down. So I don't see any point. I don't see any point in doing that.

[7766] SPEAKER_42: I think that we are stuck with Point of clarification, 6.7 of the collective bargaining agreement, 6.7C, all negotiated calendar agreements are submitted to ratification by NTA unit members and the NUSD Board of Education. The calendar ratification shall be separate from and not linked to any other ratifications. According to this, the members, and then the numbers that I was given was 54 against, 46% for. So it may be a moot point, but I can still bring it back to the board in March for clarification and just an update.

[7799] SPEAKER_36: Well, it won't do any good because it will roll over in March anyway. It will.

[7802] SPEAKER_42: But if there was a change of plan.

[7805] SPEAKER_33: But we still need to have the discussion now because this is what happens, I feel like, every year. the end and then all of a sudden, oh, well, we should have done it earlier. So if there's a way for us to continue the conversation in the spring.

[7821] SPEAKER_46: And what Dr. Wong just read into the record, I believe, is actually a change that they made. Because when I pulled up the contract, I was actually pulling up the 2016 contract. I believe he's at the 2019 contract. So I may have been reading out of the wrong year. So it is now the membership and not the council. Thank you.

[7842] Nancy Thomas: Okay well the question is do we do we vote to on the rolled over calendar or do we just say it's rolled over? I move that we vote.

[7854] SPEAKER_36: Well then you I would like to move that we accept the calendar, a rollover calendar.

[7861] SPEAKER_41: Okay is there a second? There's no vote because that's there's no point in voting. I mean what happens if we take a vote and it's 4-0 to no? I mean it's still gonna roll over right?

[7872] SPEAKER_35: There's no action required on this.

[7873] SPEAKER_36: There's no action required. It's going to happen. But you said we always had voted on it. So if we're voting on something, it's going to happen anyhow.

[7882] SPEAKER_41: It's better complete. It's already going to happen. There's no point in voting.

[7884] Nancy Thomas: Well, next year when the new calendar comes, we have to ratify it. So we will vote next time.

[7891] SPEAKER_39: Hopefully.

[7893] Nancy Thomas: Hopefully. Maybe not unanimously, but hopefully, yes.

[7898] SPEAKER_46: But there is now a motion on the floor.

[7900] SPEAKER_36: Yes, there is. We'll withdraw it. There's no second.

[7903] Nancy Thomas: Is there a second? Okay, we'll let... Okay, next we move to item 12.2. And I believe there is one member of the public that would like to address this, Mr. Knoop.

[7929] Cary Knoop: Good evening. Potentially significant growth. That's what's in the RFQ for the architectural firms. Okay. I'm a little bit concerned of the new construction in there. Asking an architectural firm if it's a good idea to do new construction. Is that like asking the Pope if he's Catholic? I really think it's very important that we have a process in place where the citizens of Newark, parents, get a vote, get a voice on this process. I am very concerned that this is going to be a decision making by proxy, where the architectural firm is going to say, build, we need to build a new school. I'm also worried that the board is going to be behind the curve on everything. It's like, oh, no, we don't decide. We decide in the next meeting after we have the public. And then in the next meeting, oh, no, that's, this is temporary. This is a temporary vote. And by the time the text is there, there's no more time. You know, this is essential. We have too much real estate in Newark Unified. So should we build a new school? Well, maybe. You know, can we house potentially the students who come in Area 3 in the Bunker Milani area? Maybe, maybe not. We need to research that. But we need to get that information out. We can't simply say, oh, yeah, we should build a school because that's cool, lots of glass and marble. You know, Newark, the Newark City will love it, you know, curb appeal, all these things. But really, what's really important is, is it good for our kids? and do the citizens of Newark want it. If you're going to spend money, you can use a lot of that money to fix the existing schools. So, you know, please make sure that you involve the public with this and that it doesn't become like a decision-making by proxy because you said the experts, you know, the gentleman and the gentlelady from the architectural firm say we need to build and that's really a wonderful idea. And again, The interest of the district and the kids come first, not city politics and things like that, right? So I think you need to make some good decisions to make sure that you stay ahead of the game as a board instead of being behind the curve and be dragged into a process where at the end you find out you had no influence whatsoever. It's just driven by other forces. liking the budget cuts. Thank you.

[8111] Nancy Thomas: Thank you, Mr. Newt. Superintendent?

[8114] SPEAKER_35: Thank you. We're going to move on with our presentations tonight, but before we start, I do want to refer the board. You should have two rubrics in front of you, one for each of the presenters tonight. I will collect those at the end to try to get some indication as to which of the firms you think is probably a better fit. And I would say that In the RFP, it is very clear about process, and this is largely what we're going to hear tonight about from the firms. But I think we'll go ahead and get started. We're going to start with, who's going first? I've got to look at the agenda.

[8152] SPEAKER_46: SVA first.

[8153] SPEAKER_35: SVA? Yeah. So SVA representatives, you step forward and introduce yourselves, and we'll get started and let you have a minute to set up your PowerPoint or whatever you need to do.

[8180] Nancy Thomas: We'll let you spend about three minutes so we can take a quick break.

[8260] SPEAKER_40: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know. Thank you.

[8449] SPEAKER_40: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

[8491] SPEAKER_36: Do we need to extend? I'm sure we will.

[8495] Nancy Thomas: Which one are you refrancing?

[8508] SPEAKER_35: We're waiting for Mr. Purcello. We're waiting for one more member. You know, this would be part of the first test that we give you guys.

[8549] SPEAKER_05: I think we got our presentation down to about 45 minutes, if that's OK.

[8558] SPEAKER_35: At your own peril, proceed.

[8562] SPEAKER_05: It will be within the 10 minute time frame. Thank you.

[8566] SPEAKER_35: We appreciate that.

[8572] Nancy Thomas: I would entertain a motion to extend the meeting.

[8576] SPEAKER_36: What do we have left? We've got two presentations and then we have our reports.

[8580] Nancy Thomas: The consent.

[8583] SPEAKER_36: And the consent. 1030, I think, should be more than enough time.

[8588] Nancy Thomas: So are you making a motion? I'll second. OK, Ms. Corker moved and Mr. Nguyen seconded to extend the meeting till 1030. Please vote. Four ayes. Thank you.

[8613] SPEAKER_05: We are SVA Architects, and we just begin by saying thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to present today. We really are excited about the prospect of working with you, your district, and your stakeholders on the Facility Master Plan. the Energy Master Plan and the Deferred Maintenance Plan. It's certainly a great opportunity for us to work with you to look forward to the future of your district, and we value that greatly. My name is Chris Bradley. I'm a Senior Associate Partner at SBA Architects. This is Nathan Herrero, also a Senior Associate Partner, and Velma, one of our just rock star job captains. And so we are part of a larger SBA team that will be working with you. These are the faces that you would be seeing quite a few times over the course of this project and then we also have additional staff members, some 40-odd architects back in the office to provide additional horsepower. Part of what we bring to the table is a lot of experience in K-12 education. We've all dedicated our careers to K-12 work and it's what we live and breathe. We bring experienced architects We have an interiors director, and also does all of our furniture and fixtures, a programmer and project coordinator, two K-12 educational liaisons that help us with support and educational planning, a designer, and a number of other consultants as well. We have KPFF as our structural engineer, BKF as our civil engineer, Commisa and WIPF, our mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineers, ANLA for landscape, building science studio for energy, Sierra West for cost estimating, and then Jorgensen FM as our deferred maintenance partner in doing the assessment and facilities master plan. So we really bring a large team that has lots of experience doing this that can really provide a comprehensive master plan. Our firm is based around California public education. We have decades and decades of experience doing this. We're working with a lot of your neighbors. Here's just a handful of the groups that we're working with. Fremont just down the street, Oakland Unified, Alum Rock, Ravenswood, San Ramon, et cetera. So we're certainly working with a lot of your neighbors and know a lot about the local needs as well. In-house resources, we really are able to provide vast expanse of services, architecture, planning, interior sustainability, and then that consultant team that I just mentioned a moment ago.

[8765] SPEAKER_17: Thank you. So when it comes to doing a facilities master plan, I think we really take a lot of pride in having refined the process of going through the facilities master plan with the clients and kind of defining the steps that are needed to be successful in sort of incorporating input from everyone into the process and really coming up with a solution that the entire stakeholder group can get behind. And that really starts with sort of building a consensus and sort of opening up the floor to dialogue from everyone who's involved. This means teachers. This means students all the way down to the elementary school level. This means neighbors and community members, even if they're not directly involved in the school, often have a lot of good sort of historical knowledge input on the impacts on the rest of the community that the schools bring. And so really to open up and have a lot of dialogue with everyone. So sometimes this takes the place of kind of vision boards and having everyone write down priority items A lot of times if there are schools where there are kind of changes moving program around, we'll actually do gaming sessions, bring boards in, get community members and teachers working on how to adjust the pieces, how their sites can be reworked to be more efficient, to be improved, so to really be interactive and sort of build everyone's momentum behind the project. The next step is really kind of a thorough technical assessment of all the campuses. At this point we have kind of the priorities, we've got a sense of the community at each of the school sites, and we're really looking to get technical information, and this is all the way down to looking at individual classrooms, looking at the infrastructure on the sites, the mechanical, electrical systems, evaluating your energy uses at the sites can be a big portion with the energy master plan included, and having the sort of experience facility site to look at and help lay out those facilities needs for deferred maintenance, whether that's equipment, whether that's general upkeep of painting and roofing so that those items don't become sort of lingering big bond level items later but can sort of be dealt with on an ongoing manner. So this is site walks, meetings, surveys sent out, there's a lot of ways to get that information. And then next is to synthesize that, to come together with the program to evaluate whether each of your existing sites, are there adjustments that can be made, can we move things around, can programs be shifted to really sort of apply your existing building stock. We want to make as much use of the spaces you already have because that's going to be the most cost effective for the school district and to really sort of align that and start to look at the schedule for those programs and how that work could be phased out. And then to develop those into conceptual master plans and we really like to have multiple options. You'll see at the bottom there are several examples but we really don't find it useful to come out to if there are different ideas to kind of get things out in front of everybody, synthesize input. And lots of times the final results will not be anything that anyone in our office first came up with on a page, but sort of the synthesized results of working through with the stakeholders on an amalgam of the different options. And then through that, we can then take the process and extend it out through the rest of the design process and the construction and implementation. And I'm just going to kind of go into some examples. Sure.

[8971] SPEAKER_05: So just to add on to that, I think one of our, one of the things we really bring to the table to the district on this project is a lot of that experience and really through that experience doing a lot of consensus building. I think probably one of our salient qualities really is that consensus building, having worked with stakeholders on just about every project that we work with, whether it's a facilities master plan like yours or even just a small restroom remodel, it's important to get that stakeholder buy-in. And we have experience across these many, many projects we've done over several decades building consensus. And so we've built these processes. a large part as consensus building opportunities. And we can certainly get into more detail about some of those methods that we've used over the years if you'd like. I'll leave time at the end for some questions like that. This is one of the examples of a facility master plan that became a series of projects. One in particular we want to talk about tonight, the Bright Culinary Arts Academy. This is a project out for Washington Unified School District in West Sacramento. We did their facilities master plan, they called it a capital investment program, but it really still had those three pieces that you have. There's the facilities master plan, the energy master plan, and then a deferred maintenance plan. They just called it by that name. We went through each of the sites at the district. We opened every single door. We popped ceiling tiles. All our engineers were out there, and we thoroughly investigated the sites, thoroughly looked at the existing drawings, and put together this comprehensive investment program for them, from which then one of the projects became the Sprite Culinary Arts Laboratory. Here's an example of some of the information that was in our capital investment program so you can get a sense of the level of detail and the information that was provided. The upper right hand corner is some of the costs associated with the investigations and doing that assessment. And then master planning of the site, how to best use their existing infrastructure and what needed to be improved either through changes or in some cases new construction. At the Bright Project, we recommended the district ultimately approved a scheme to use an existing elementary campus that they had closed down. There was a need at the district to provide some additional career technical education programs. And one of the ideas we came up with was taking that closed elementary school and turning it into a career technical education, a campus that the high school students would then use for part of their curriculum. And the first phase was turning half of the campus into this culinary arts program. It's one of the largest culinary art programs in K through 12 right now. We redesigned these portions of the campus to provide supporting classrooms on the bottom, a large culinary arts wing in the center in the purple. They can get 60 students going simultaneously in there doing various cooking opportunities. The multipurpose room was turned into a commercial kitchen and really a teaching laboratory where the kids can basically host a restaurant-style program that could do dinner theater and that sort of thing. And it was a very successful project for us. Here's an example of the before and after, the after being the color.

[9180] SPEAKER_17: So real quickly, and I think If there are any questions, we can get into some more of those examples. But I know you mentioned it earlier already, but a big part of the master plan I think we see is evaluating your new and any new spaces as well as your existing spaces for 21st century teaching methods, whether that involves a lot more collaboration between students and peer learning examples and sort of a more open, adaptable environment than the traditional sort of lecture classroom environment. There's really great ways to take advantage of indoor and outdoor spaces. And then as these projects go forward, are really sort of fully familiar with the DSA process. It's how we spend a lot of days. So we're really comfortable working with them and getting these projects through to construction.

[9226] SPEAKER_04: We view sustainability and energy efficiency as an integral part of our design process. We have an extensive portfolio of CHIPS projects all the way up to LEED Platinum and Zero Net Energy projects. Our goal is to work with building science solutions to analyze the energy needs of the campus and come up with a comprehensive energy efficient master plan for the district.

[9255] SPEAKER_05: So why SVA Architects? This is a list of things that we think really separate us. California K-12 experience, again decades of experience. We've been doing master planning, modernization, expansions, and new construction. Really design excellence, we've won a number of awards, but really I think probably the best award that we get are repeat client work. Your neighbor, Fremont, we're now working on our 16th and 17th campuses over there. And that's just a demonstration of our commitment to the district and their faith in us, giving us repeated projects. Great track record with DSA, incredible technical capabilities, on time and on budget project delivery, and really a great reputation in the industry. you have our 100% commitment to your district and to your goals.

[9307] SPEAKER_36: Ms. Carter? Yeah, I have a couple questions. If we can summarize what it is you do, you talk to the stakeholders, you find out what the information is, you design whatever, or set up the facilities, look at what we have, and then you go ahead and suggest things to improve it or to For example, the science classroom would be one that might be plugged into there. Then at that point, do you watch and do you monitor the construction or is that the end of what you do?

[9340] SPEAKER_05: So there's two large pieces to this program as I understand it. There's the facility master plan and that's collecting all the data, that's doing interviews with the stakeholders, making sure we understand what the issues are, studying the documents, studying the buildings themselves, going out to each of the sites and then From that, having a list of, it's basically an assessment of all the campuses, knowing where you're, where the existing issues are and then on top of that, getting to recommend approaches to basically improving the campuses based on that information. And so that facilities master plan and then the energy master plan and the deferred maintenance plan all come out of that information and then you have a list of approaches on how you can move forward to address these things. then those would ostensibly turn into projects that we could also be involved with, in which case we would be designing that specific project, taking it through DSA, and then being an integral part of the construction administration process.

[9396] SPEAKER_36: Okay, so what is the fee based? I mean what do you base what we pay you on what?

[9402] SPEAKER_05: So for the facilities master plan components, we gave you a lump sum of then we proposed a fee schedule based on the project size for the actual projects themselves should you decide to choose us to move forward with those.

[9417] SPEAKER_36: Can you give me a rule of thumb percentage that usually determines what we're doing? I don't have, what is the amount that we had downloaded? I'm seeing that amount. It's in the attachment. In the attachment, okay. It's on page 30. I got it right in front of me. Page 30? Yes. I don't have it in front of me.

[9435] SPEAKER_17: So there's a amount in the proposal that's for the facilities master plan scope and that fee is written around specifically sort of the RFP and the tasks that are involved with it, the three main portions. So that amount was assigned specifically based on sort of the size of the district, the number of campuses to evaluate and the different activities that everyone on the team would be doing. The sort of I think we gave a fee schedule for later work, but I don't think that's part of the contractor proposal at this time, and that would sort of be a separate individual discussion later, I think, should we move forward from the facilities master plan.

[9478] SPEAKER_36: So I see $270,000, is that correct?

[9479] SPEAKER_17: Yes, that's for the total master plan.

[9482] SPEAKER_36: That's the planning process. Yes. Thank you.

[9487] Nancy Thomas: I have a question. We have recently done a demographic study and we do have a lot of capacity. What kind of information do you need from us in order to make good recommendations about the overall usage of our facilities? Whether we should build something new, whether we should close a facility down, those kinds of things.

[9517] SPEAKER_17: I think we would review those in sort of total evaluation with the condition of the existing facilities so and sort of where they're distributed I know that you we've talked before about future development but it's unclear I don't know if that's making up for the current capacity but we would sort of take that into account to say here are the your projections that the demographer gave us for your enrollment and how that applies to each of your facilities and taking into account how that distributes across the grade levels because there can be some different issues in a district that is a one high school district with a lot of elementaries feeding into it. So it may not be uniformly across the board at all the schools that the enrollment is declining or rising but you sort of have to be looked at at each campus. But that's part of the process we would do is to take all that demographics information into account during the master planning.

[9579] Nancy Thomas: Mr. Preciado? Mr. Nguyen? Okay, thank you very much.

[9592] SPEAKER_35: Next up we have DCA. We'll give you guys a minute to transition. So would you review, just for the audience and for the board, the scope of the RSP? Was it really specific to, not beyond, this initial step?

[9625] SPEAKER_46: That would be helpful. Correct. So with regard to the request for proposals, the question was raised by Ms. Crocker during the Q&A with the first firm. This RFP is specifically for the Facility Master Plan, for the Energy Master Plan, for the deferred maintenance plan the three items that we've been discussing for some time with the board along with it we have the option as part of the add-on to it if we have projects we then want to move forward into the design as a result of after we've reviewed all of that within the contract we have the ability to add on to do projects based on what we find in there and as part of that we ask them to quote the fee process for what that would be like. So it's not binding us to do any specific projects after we receive the plans. RFP is for the plan itself. But the contract was written when we worked with our legal counsel in such a way that if we then wish to move forward, we don't have to go back through a whole RFP process again and bring in perhaps another firm. We can move forward based on the plan that we have if we choose to do so.

[9707] SPEAKER_16: Good evening, members of the board, Mr. Superintendent, members of the administration, and members of the public. It's a pleasure to be here tonight. My name is Juan Barroso. I'm a managing partner. of Derivi Castellanos Architects. So we put together a brief high-level presentation on our process for the master plan, the energy master plan, and the maintenance plan as well. It's about 10 minutes. Feel free to stop me with any questions along the way. And I'm glad to see everybody's wide awake. So we're starting right at 10 PM. So here goes. I wanted to start by really just making a statement of why we're here. You know, my team really thought Through this opportunity, long and hard, we're very interested in working with you. We're excited about the opportunity for working with you on behalf of the Newark community. We want to help you build amazing schools that are relevant to the students, teachers, and the families of the Newark community. That's why we're here today. I'm going to introduce our team. Our project lead is Christina Frankel, who is a principal architect with our firm. She's also an educational planner for us. Adam Bayer, our director of engineering, has very strong expertise in energy master planning and maintenance planning. He's going to talk about that further in just a few minutes. Ramon Gomez, another one of our principals, will be supporting our efforts when it comes time to look at potential designs. Lisa Kaplan is our funding advisor, and she's going to collaborate with our team so that along the way we're looking at funding opportunities from the state of California. Also looking at opportunities related to your real estate and other opportunities in Sacramento with the many agencies that she's involved in. So she's a great asset to our team. Over on the right, you'll see Mr. Steve Castellanos, who was formerly the state architect. If you've heard of DSA, he was the head of DSA for about six years in the 2000s. And he also works with us to make sure that we maintain those good relationships on your behalf, not only with DSA, but agencies like the Department of Education, the Office of Public School Construction, which are important when it comes time to looking at approvals and funding opportunities. Wanted to touch on a little bit about our firm. We've been around a long time, going on 38 years this year. We have offices in San Jose and Stockton. We focus on public K-12 education and work in Northern California. We've had some great growth over the last three years. Currently we have 25 employees, all who live within about an hour here. So you'd have a really strong local team. I noticed on your website that the superintendent sent out a letter to the community dated February 5th in English and Spanish which got me thinking and I wanted to point out that of our 25 staff, 10 of us are very comfortable and fluent in Spanish and sometimes that's a great asset when we're dealing with the community. I'd like to point out a testimonial from one of our longtime clients, Mr. Jose Monzo down at Oak Grove School District in San Jose. We've been working with them for a long time very successfully. Now here's a list of projects that we worked on over the last three years, all in K-12 education. You're going to see small projects on here from toilet upgrades to whole new campuses. Some of these projects are currently in planning, some in design, construction, and some are complete. We bring the experience from all these projects for districts similar to yours and the best practices that we've learned to your efforts. I'm going to highlight just a couple of recent projects that we've completed so you can see the sorts of things we're working on. This is an annex high school campus for Pittsburgh Unified. This campus is about 30 classrooms. Most of them are science labs. It's on about a .8 acre site in Pittsburgh, so real tight. This project was built, the construction phase was right under 11 months, so pretty amazing. The courtyard is equipped with a lot of wireless access points, so it's become a really energized campus annex to the high school. This project is for Seaside High School. Seaside is in the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District, which is on the forefront of 21st century education. This is a cluster of six double-sized classrooms, and this is what they call co-teaching classrooms, where it's two classrooms in a very large space with two teachers. So they're really on the forefront. These classrooms are designed to be naturally lit to limit energy consumption. They have excellent indoor air quality, excellent acoustics, a really great learning environment. This is a new K-5 elementary school that we're currently designing for the Roseville City school district. The concept here again a 21st century concept is indoor outdoor learning. So all of the learning communities have been clustered so that the classrooms create a central courtyard which can be easily supervised from inside the classroom by the teachers. So the placement of windows and so forth very important to create the sight lines and again a lot of wireless access points so that the outdoors is also a learning environment. If you know Roswell, it's pretty hot up there, so we had to add some shade structures as well to keep the kids cool. Another nice 21st century example of our work.

[10054] SPEAKER_07: Good evening, Boyd. As Juan introduced, my name is Christina Frankel. And I wanted to review with you the facility master plan process. That's the reason why you asked us here. It can be a confusing process to people, so I wanted to kind of review DCA's process on how we would move forward. So it really starts with the due diligence and understanding what your existing conditions are. It's understanding what your priorities are as well. It's talking to key stakeholders about key issues, but basically it's being prepared before we start the process. The second is community engagement. That's a huge process. part of the master plan process. Even though the box is the same size, I would say that that's the key component to the master plan process. And I'll discuss it a little bit more later. But basically, it's about engaging stakeholders. And that's in multiple groups. That could be a steering committee that you meet and come back to often. It could be the board in having regular updates. It could be your school communities, it could be the teachers and students and parents that are focused either on the elementary or the high school level. But it's all about communication. First and foremost we listen and we hear what everyone has to say. And then inevitably there will be some discussions related to the new proposed school. That starts with the demographics. It's encouraging to hear that through Vanner and that you've already had some of this work done. So we would bring that in and inform the process. And we would listen to what your educational program needs are. Is that new school going to be, you know, a K through 12 or K through 8, sorry? Is that going to be a magnet school? Is that going to be an IB program? Is that going to be a specialized program? Basically, we want to hear what it is that you want to do. But it's also an opportunity, not only for the school site, but also district-wide to be transformative, to look at not only what you want to do possibly in that note school, but what you want to do with all your schools, especially related to the declining enrollment.

[10204] SPEAKER_18: Good evening. My name is Adam Mayer. Long night. Really appreciate that. So I would be heading up the energy master planning and the deferred maintenance planning. For energy master planning, it sounds like there's quite a bit of data that you already have, which I would characterize more in the benchmarking. And the whole concept of benchmarking is to understand your utilization in each individual building. And then on a campus-wide, for the purposes of setting standards for the purposes of identifying targets and for the purposes of establishing budgets. When you know what you have, then that's the primary way to save money, is basically to identify where all your energy is being used. An integral part of that is design standards. So it's design standards for when you do new construction, but also when you do renovation. And establishing sustainability benchmarks is also a very important component of that. And that's all kind of under the energy master planning part. And then demand side management, which is basically conservation. As far as deferred maintenance planning, the approach would be to really have a strategic view of it by taking a lot of the information that I'm thinking that you already have relative to the building inventory. Some of the information that was on Facilitron is already collected, all the square foot data, It sounds like there's utilization data that's already established. So we'll be looking at that. And then developing a facility condition index, which is a relative number that basically is from any number that you make it easy to evaluate. But if you take a scale from 1 to 10, then it helps you to identify which facilities are more you're better placed in terms of your investments to not put a lot of money into it. So a facility that has a very, you know, established like a cutoff. So if you say a facility that has a six and below, the amount of money that you have to invest in it to be able to bring it up to a specific standard is really greater than you would want to do in terms of a long-term investment relative starting either looking somewhere else or building a new school. And then just really kind of focusing on the resources that you have, data that you've already collected, and establishing that as part of the deferred maintenance and energy master planning.

[10377] SPEAKER_07: So to complete the master plan process, we would review with you the funding opportunities. There's no One size fits all, and it really depends upon what it is that you're trying to do and where you're trying to go. There's obviously state funding available, but there's also things like hardship funding. There's the possibility of geo bonds. There's also alternative funding like CTE funding. But the idea is that we would work with you based on your project list and propose a course of action for the the future. And that basically is kind of an overview of the facility master plan process. But I did want to touch on the community engagement. That's a key component. That's basically where you get all of your input, and it really starts with listening. Everything that we do starts with listening. It's listening to you as a cabinet, the district staff, all the way down to members of the community and teachers and students and staff. And that is an understanding of what the problem is. There's no right answer for, you know, taking one-size-fits-all from district to district. And we do a process called interactive visioning. We use manipulatives. So it's very hard for people that are, non-architects to explain to us what they want to do. So we give the plan the opportunity to show them by putting things out and having them come back and show us what it is that they want to do. And then the validation and the transparency that goes to some of the things that you had talked about earlier in your board meeting about progress monitoring. Heard a lot about wanting to have regular feedback from the board about what it is that's going on in every process and having regular updates. And so that transparency is something that we would strive to do on a regular basis. And based on your strategic imperatives, it seems that it would be, you know, 6, 12, 18 months. So where the previous slide was based on graphics, This is based on the mission statement and the results. So when you have a sincere engagement, you basically build trust with your community because they've heard that they've been listened to. And that builds and strengthens long-term partnerships. The idea is that you create amazing and relevant designs that basically everyone buys into because they were involved in the process. So DCA is committed to you. We're very good listeners, starting from the very beginning. We are flexible. We understand that this is not going to be a process where we're going to go down a very straight road. And so we are, have the capability of adjusting. We're creative. We're architects. So that's easy for us to do. But we also understand that for you to be nimble in the future for 21st century learning, that you have to create flexible environments. so that your students and your staff can adjust to the growing marketplace of education. We're transparent. We understand that you are a public board and that you have to be accountable. So it's easy to be transparent and be accountable at the same time. But the point is that in creating the circle is that by creating and going through this process that we create relevance. and that we want to deliver an amazing solutions for you. And that all stems from having a sincere community engagement process. So thank you. I recognize that this is very late. I appreciate you taking the time to listen to us. I know you have a lot of things on your plate. So I do thank you for the opportunity to allow DCA to present our qualifications to you. So did you have any questions?

[10649] Nancy Thomas: Well, we certainly appreciate you for hanging in there at this late hour.

[10653] SPEAKER_41: Thank you. I do have a question or request for actually both firms. Are you able to provide us with a sample or an example of master planning projects that you've completed in other districts or other areas so that we can you know, not necessarily what you are planning to do, but the actual product, the end result, right? Whether it's the presentation and or the book, the write-up, et cetera, so that we can further review that.

[10692] Leonor Rebosura: Okay.

[10698] SPEAKER_16: Thank you again. Thank you.

[10699] SPEAKER_35: Thank you.

[10704] SPEAKER_41: So I'm a little confused with this, not Mr. Confused, but as far as timing wise. And I know for this item we were asked to rank, you know, the two firms. Is this typical of how we select?

[10721] SPEAKER_35: No, it's not. Yeah, it's... It's not typical and it's partly is because there was such an interest in the board of putting out... I think part of what we, I think, agree and the direction from the board was making sure that we had a clean and authentic process for community engagement. As I met with both firms, I shared with them one of our desired outcomes of going through this process was actually to reestablish trust in the community and to really let people know that we are listening and that's kind of also why we have no firm commitment beyond this first process to go forward with any of them going forward if we don't have to. It's not a requirement. But no, I think that part of it is we want to make sure the board had input and fingerprints on whatever the final selection was. We had a staff go through interviews and these two were the finalists that made it to the final stage. But, you know, it's certainly open to whatever the board wants to do. I think that the intent behind it is just to get a feel for what resonates with the board more. You guys represent this community and you guys hear questions at Safeway at night or when you're shopping and I think that I wanted to make sure that you had a little bit more input than typical. A typical process would be I'd make a recommendation, it'd be one, you either vote yes or no. So I did change the process with that intent behind it.

[10815] SPEAKER_41: I think the community I think what I believe that would be helpful for them is the request I made in regards to getting those samples so that the community knows what we're going to, you know, what firm we're going to hire or vote on, right? They need to know what is the end product that's being produced. What are we paying $270,000 and then for this one $288,000 for? What is the end goal? What is the end purpose? And I think some of the board members, we'll want to know the same thing. What is it that we're getting from it? I don't know if without reading those samples, before reading those samples, if we're ready to rank tonight those two firms.

[10871] SPEAKER_35: Certainly we can get those samples from the firms I imagine pretty quickly and have that to you. to look at before the next board meeting. I think our intent was to bring whichever you think was, if you can let me know who I'm bringing back for the next board meeting, that would be helpful. But I think both of these firms are qualified. But right now it's a matter of fit. So as you look at those samples and you look at those additional information, what's a better fit for what you need? And what you need is the community. So I think that's kind of what I would be looking for if I was interviewing two principal finalists, same kind of ideas. Yeah, they both qualify to do the work, but which is a better fit for what we need knowing what you guys know about our community and the history we've come out of and the vision we're trying to set for the future. So I think that's easy to ask for that additional stuff and you guys can hang on to the ranking sheets until we provide that to you, but I'd like to at least make a decision by put something on the board agenda by March 6th and that's easy to do. But I think that's a simple request that we can honor.

[10941] SPEAKER_36: Ms. Corker? That was my comment. I agree with Mayor Nguyen that seeing an example of what it is we're paying for would be very good. And so because we're looking at a limited amount of money, we want to make sure that we are not redoing what we've done in the past. And I think that's a really important piece too. I would like to suggest then that you do so and so there's no vote that's necessary right now then.

[10968] SPEAKER_41: We can treat this as a first reading so to speak. And then we can ask further details because selecting a firm doesn't necessarily have to be a public process, does it? I mean I know approving the contract does, but can you help?

[10986] SPEAKER_46: We actually, I've actually done this process once before in another district where we had In our case it was three very qualified firms and as an administration we wanted to get the board and the public's input. So we did a very similar process to what we have here and we had three firms present and the board went through a ranking process similar to the rubric that Mr. Sanchez gave to all of you. But if you don't have enough information, we will collect those from them, we will submit those all and we can table this item to the next board meeting and then Bring it back forward for further discussion based on that. But deliberation of the board on this item, because it is not eligible to be a closed session item, because it's deliberation surrounding entering into a professional services contract, it does have to happen in open session, not closed session.

[11039] SPEAKER_41: But there are elements of this project that can be done in closed session in regards to the superintendent's evaluation, correct?

[11051] SPEAKER_33: I don't know if that's what we want to do. I mean, I wouldn't be comfortable doing that.

[11055] SPEAKER_41: I think... Not that we would deliberate this, but, and as far as the elements of the evaluation that speaks to, you know, master planning and whatnot.

[11068] SPEAKER_33: So here's my thought as far as the next steps would be to get the different outcomes or the end... Samples, okay. Exactly, samples for the next and have that discussion and not even necessarily make a decision at that point, especially from my perspective, because this is in line with the strategic plan, but I feel like we need to map out that piece of like, okay, here's our strategic plan, here's the three imperatives, here's how the facilities master plan falls within that framework before we embark in this or make a decision. That's just my thoughts.

[11104] SPEAKER_41: And are we in a position at all, and like I said, this process is new to me. You have more experience with this than I do, obviously. But it says in the statements here there were five firms that submitted proposals. And through the interview process, election process, these are two out of the three that came. Are we able to review at least just the costs of the others to see where they fall versus where these two fall?

[11133] SPEAKER_35: advised to stick with the staff recommendations at this point. I think we did have a rigorous process. We certainly could share those with you. I don't know if those had costs in them in the initial interview, did they? I don't think that's, it's easy to share with you, that's fine.

[11148] Nancy Thomas: I read them all and, or skimmed them all, but I feel comfortable with the two that you've brought forward. We only have seven minutes, can we move on to the next consent agenda? Oh, employee organizations. Okay, thank you. Consent agenda, personnel items, 14.1. A motion please. With your acceptance. Ms. Corker moves. Second. Ms. Nguyen. Mr. Nguyen seconds. Please vote. Four ayes. Consent agenda, 15.1 through 15, actually 15.2 through 15.5. I move. Mr. Preciado moves. I'll second. Ms. Crocker seconds. Wait, sorry. Please vote. Ms. Crocker.

[11214] SPEAKER_36: I thought I had voted.

[11217] Nancy Thomas: OK. Four ayes. Thank you. Next, we have five minutes. So we move on to Board of Education reports, announcements, et cetera. Mr. Nguyen?

[11231] SPEAKER_41: I shall pass, but for the sake of time.

[11232] Nancy Thomas: Ms. Crocker? I'll pass. Mr. Preciado?

[11235] SPEAKER_33: I just want to say I appreciate the pieces in terms of the calendar and trying to map out the plan. So for me, like having more of kind of the meat on the bones, like as with the previous discussion we just had with Facilities Master Plan, that this kind of falls in line. I want to make sure we don't put the cart before the horse, or from my perspective, that it aligns. We're on the same page, or at least three of us are, in terms of the strategic plan. Hopefully five, but... And then moving forward in that way. So I'm glad that we're doing that. So hopefully by next meeting, we'll have a little bit more concrete subsidies on that.

[11272] Nancy Thomas: Yeah. And I feel that this can go in tandem with the staff bringing us the strategic planning elements of the three imperatives that we talked about and how this fits in with it. So I feel comfortable moving forward in tandem so we don't have to wait too long to make this decision.

[11292] SPEAKER_41: Okay. I'm sorry, I do have one question. So in the previous process that you did with the three firms in your previous districts, were there just open deliberation as far as, and debate? How did that work?

[11309] SPEAKER_46: There was deliberation amongst the board after the conclusion of all of the presentations and then the board ranked 1, 2, 3. We collected all of the boards. Similar to when actually when you and Mr. Preciado were appointed, a very similar process. They ranked 1, 2, 3. We read the rankings into the record. The one that had the highest, the lowest score, got the most ones, was the one we negotiated with first and that was who we ended up getting a contract with and that's who we went for.

[11337] SPEAKER_41: mentally prepared for the next time that we have to actually deliberate. Everything's on the table, right? As far as, you know, everything that was in the proposal and the presentation, is that correct?

[11350] SPEAKER_46: I'm sorry, repeat your question. I didn't understand the question. You mean as far as what their proposals are? Right. The proposals were attached to tonight's agenda.

[11358] SPEAKER_41: We'll attach them again at the next board meeting. I saw that. I guess I'm just kind of laying the boundaries for when we deliberate and discuss if there's anything that's off limits for us to debate or not debate. Or is it just an open... So usually, and Superintendent brought up the example of hiring a staff member, right? You have deliberations and back and forth in a private setting and not necessarily an open setting. You would never deliberate the virtues of two candidates in public if you're hiring a principal, right?

[11395] Nancy Thomas: It seems to me that the ranking that we were asked to do gives input to staff. They have two firms that they've brought forward and they'll bring their recommendation. We won't choose. They will bring their recommendation to us and we say... No, they're asking us if they want input. And we approve or not approve.

[11416] SPEAKER_41: So let me just give you an example. So what happens tomorrow if I go across the freeway and I talk to Fremont Unified and I say hey how is so-and-so firm doing for you? Let me see some of their work. Is that in-bounds or out-of-bounds?

[11428] SPEAKER_35: That's out-of-bounds because you're in the weeds doing staff work. That would be out-of-bounds.

[11433] SPEAKER_17: Right? Okay.

[11436] SPEAKER_35: If you want me to call Fremont I will. If you want me to call any of the ones I can. But I think that per the bylaws that would be out-of-bounds.

[11443] SPEAKER_41: Okay. Can I go online and research their firm's history and what not? Is that what it's all about?

[11450] SPEAKER_33: It's all public information.

[11452] SPEAKER_41: OK. Alex, I just need to know the premise of the debate.

[11455] SPEAKER_35: That's all. But to your core of your question, it's also, what was in the RFP? What are we asking to do? And who do we think is best qualified to implement those things? All that's on the table. All that's on the table as far as what's in the RFP. And I think that it sounds like you need a little more information before you're ready for that, and that's fine. And we can get that.

[11482] Nancy Thomas: And a community member gave us a very nice sample of a complete master plan. I don't know if it included deferred maintenance or anything, but I can get copies of that to also bring.

[11498] SPEAKER_41: I'd like to get a copy of their master plan that they've completed.

[11501] Nancy Thomas: I know that, but I mean, I know what it I read that one and I loved it, so it kind of gives me a benchmark against which to look at the samples they put forward.

[11511] SPEAKER_35: And that influenced RFP. So we looked at sample master plans before we generated the RFP.

[11518] Nancy Thomas: We have one minute to get superintendent comments. Superintendent, you have one minute.

[11522] SPEAKER_35: One comment is that Sierra went on to state in wrestling competitions.

[11529] SPEAKER_36: OK, great. She spoke today at Rotary. Did she?

[11532] SPEAKER_35: Great.

[11534] Nancy Thomas: adjourned. Thank you everybody.

No minutes available.