Regular Meeting

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[5] Ray Rodriguez: Hopefully you are patient with this. We just came back from closed session. We had discussions on negotiations and employee discipline and employment. And we also discussed the superintendent evaluation. that we actually took which we we've done if we've already had done it. It signed the evaluation to superintendent and it's positive evaluation and we signed it. On the agenda tonight will be his contract and we also have school closures and a bunch of other things. So with that We also discussed the expulsion and we'll be voting on that later. Thank you again. So at this point we're going to do the Pledge of Allegiance. Do we have anyone that would like to lead us on that? school's over, it's just adults who are the kids, right? Huh?

[90] SPEAKER_39: We have Cesar.

[93] Ray Rodriguez: Oh, Cesar, why don't you lead us in the pledge, if you would. Ready?

[104] SPEAKER_43: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible,

[130] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. So I already did the report of what we discussed in closed session. So public comment on non-agenda items. Do we have anyone that Anyone want to approach the board on anything that's not in the agenda? OK. So we don't have anyone to put in for public comment on non-agenda items. OK. Why can't I? There should be a number order. OK. Sorry. OK. It's just I'm looking at 7.1, and this is 7. OK. So there's only one 7. So yeah, 7.1. OK, so it's just that on the title, instead I just put in public comment. But that's OK. So 7 and 7.1, Ms. Hopkins, is this is when you wanted to address us? OK.

[197] SPEAKER_21: Welcome. So I just wanted to address quickly, you guys had discussed the pool situation for the junior high pool. So I actually had done a little bit of research and I spoke with Gordon Crosby, who's our swim coach and takes care of the high school pool, has 20 years experience, and to get his feel for the junior high pool, and although everyone would love to see the junior high pool stay, it's just not cost effective to do so. In his opinion, we're already in debt for a school board and it doesn't make any sense to keep a failing pool. He raised some concerns as far as, I know you guys had talked about the rent situation in regards to the fact that if we bring a year-round swim team in, the rent is going to be approximately, you know, maybe it's $65,000 a year that comes in, but we have to heat the pool seven days a week. The pool has to be heated until 9 p.m. because the swim teams swim. that long and they swim seven days a week. So between that and the maintenance on the pool and extra chemicals, those types of things, it's kind of a wash as far as bringing someone in to support the junior high pool. He also brought up that currently at the high school, the high school pool has some major repair items. The pool has not been resurfaced since the pool was originally built. So a pool is supposed to be resurfaced, meaning that the The gunite or the plaster is supposed to resurface every 10 to 12 years, and our pool has never been done. I actually have pictures for you guys. I don't know if you guys want to see them or not of the pool that we're taking this morning so you guys can actually see exactly what I'm talking about. The pool has rebar actually coming through it and several different marks, pop marks coming through where cement is breaking in the pool. Also, the gutters are in need of being replaced. Oh, by the way, the cost for that is about $200,000. We called Four Seasons Pool, which does commercial, and it would cost approximately $200,000 to have it redone, and it does need to be redone. We also, he also stated, Gordon also stated that the gutters are in mass, massive amounts of repair need to be done on gutters. The pool is actually an overflow pool, which means that the water flows into the gutters, and it's supposed to be recirculated through the pumps. And that's not happening because the gutters are so broken that the pool's actually not even functioning properly. They've been fixed several times as far as the grout in them, but they were built with unreinforced concrete, so there's no way to actually fix them. The tiles can't be replaced and neither can the gutters. The other problem is there's a second gutter that goes behind this and it's two pieces of metal that sit like this, but the pieces of metal are breaking, they're coming up. So there's numerous pieces that are trip hazards and also that have caused kids to cut their feet on the metal. He and the other coaches have tried to fix this and maintenance has tried to do like repairs to it, but it's just not working. These are things that need to be fixed.

[376] Ray Rodriguez: The cost of that is... I'm sorry. I apologize. We're out of time. Did you want to finish? Go ahead.

[384] SPEAKER_21: Well, if I could, I mean... No, go ahead. Okay. He would be here, but he's actually coaching right now to present this to you. The cost of the gutters is $150,000. There's also on the pool deck rebar that is coming through on the pool deck that's coming through on it, which needs to be addressed. And then the bathrooms, the bathrooms are actually, the toilets are, broken overflowing where every time the bathrooms are used, and I can attest to this because my daughter swims, that they overflow. They overflow and fill the bathroom with sewage. So obviously nobody wants to have that. And the other thing I do want to say.

[422] Ray Rodriguez: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We're giving you more time.

[424] SPEAKER_21: That's OK. OK. That's OK. Thank you. Do you guys want the pictures? Sure, sure. Why not? And each one of the marks that you guys can actually

[438] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Brett.

[454] SPEAKER_34: Members of the board, late October President Rodriguez visited the Newark campus and we had the opportunity to discuss some of the positive changes that were being made. We discussed how the campus had changed simply by adding the Pledge of Allegiance. Something that hadn't been done since 2004, 2005. We discussed the hiring of new people and how we were looking forward to seeing plans to remove the school's detention room and having it replaced with an alternative to suspension center. As is typical with Marines, we concluded our conversation with Semper Fidelis. A phrase that means so much more to Marines than what people typically know as always faithful. For Marines, it's a reminder of the sacrifices that so many have made and a reminder to always be faithful to our Marine Corps values. Honor, courage, and commitment. How far we have come from that conversation is truly mind-boggling. I would be remiss in my duties as an educational leader and a Marine if I did not share with the Newark community my beliefs that those values are sorely lacking in the current leadership and provide evidence to support my assertions, something that was not done in the statement of charges that I was presented with in February. The last board meeting, board member Cesar Castillo courageously represented the student views, their displeasure at the lack of leadership and the need to make positive changes. Be accountable and transparent. He also stated that the superintendent and the school board reached out to a student to slow down speculation about my administrative leave. Where's the honor in recruiting a student to pass along false information? Nelson Vandella stated that courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. I believe I've demonstrated my courage by exposing the district's handling of my administrative leave to public scrutiny. 17-year-old Cesar Castillo demonstrated his courage throughout this process, as have the parents and other students that have spoken out. In May, I asked the board to look into the actions of the school district, and you chose not to. How is that choice an example of a courageous act? From day one of boot camp through all of the schooling to one's duty station and daily grind, Marines are reminded of our mission and commitment to that mission, regardless of personal feeling, agenda, safety, and even life. The district's mission is to inspire and educate all students to achieve their full potential as responsible, respectful, and productive citizens. How has the district and the board's action in recent months demonstrated a commitment to inspiring students, parents, and staff, educating students, teaching responsibility and showing respect. Semper Fidelis, honor, courage, commitment. Trustee Rodriguez, you've said all these words, but you have forgotten what that means. It pains me to say that you are no longer thinking like a man of action or acting like a man of thought. You know what is right, and as I have said before, you know what is easy. It's not always easy to be faithful. It's not always easy to be loyal to a common purpose. We all know that you and the school board have accepted the recommendations of the superintendent and human resources director and rejected the recommendations of your Marine Corps values. Trustee Rodriguez, how are the district's actions a direct reflection of leadership?

[654] Ray Rodriguez: We cannot have a conversation back and forth, but your time is up. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to address us. OK, Ms. Parks, did you want to address us before the superintendent's report? 8.1. OK, thank you.

[688] Cindy Parks: Good evening. In your financial report, there are some items that would cause one some concern regarding your financial stability. Yet on this agenda item, there are two new job positions. I understand one of them would more than likely be paid out of Measure G. The other one, I'm not sure how it would be paid. But in your financials, it says there's a lot of, let's put it this way, there's a lot of items that you say that you haven't met or, and there's an area under financial distress reports that you answer yes, that you do meet that criteria. I'm not sure why these job descriptions are on here, but I hope that that will be addressed and what the funding sources are going to be. You also have on this item, there's some requested items by the board. Some of these items are publicly requested, yet for those of us who sit in these meetings, we don't get to see them unless we do a public records request. where some items are, like school closure, Mr. Rodriguez, which you requested, is on the agenda for this evening. There are others that are being sent by email. For example, the FIT report says that it will be provided in a Friday update. Well, I've saved you some trouble. I sent it to you. I did a public records request because for a long time I've been asking to see it. To my surprise, though, I only got it for two sites because it says that it's only for the Williams. Even though the LCAP says all sites, it was only, what I got was only for Schilling and Graham because they are Williams. However, if you want more in-depth, I did find through the SARC reports on every school site, they do have a portion that shows the fit. So you can bypass that. But there's a couple of other items on here. The EBIC report. and it says the counselor presentation, those are going to be being emailed to the board. I respectfully request that this information that you are going to get by email or have gotten by email, that those be posted in your supplementary documents because otherwise you're forcing us to do public records requests and put the burden on Ms. Aquino because You know, you're asking for these in a public meeting, and yet we're not getting, we're not being privy to the answers that you're receiving. So I respectfully request that those be posted in the library under general documents, and she knows where that is, so that we all can also view the information that you're being given. Like I said, though, I did send you the FIT reports as they were given to me, and you can look at SARC to get some other information, although I don't know that it's as comprehensive.

[858] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Superintendent.

[863] SPEAKER_49: Thank you President Rodriguez, members of the board, ladies and gentlemen. I want to first of all take a moment to thank the team that presented earlier today on a great study session on our Latinx Summit. Would we have those women please stand and just be recognized. Thank you and I specifically want to thank you in the sense that you didn't come here just asking for Latino Latinx students, you're asking for all students, so thanks for your work. The next thing I'd like to do is begin this evening by introducing two finalists that you'll be voting on later tonight that we're recommending for hire. The first is the Director of Teaching and Learning, and the second is Director of Special Projects. We'll be recommending these positions later in the agenda for your action. So I'd like to ask Mr. Ariel Dolowich to step forward, please. and have you stand at the podium, and let me share a little bit about you. Mr. Dulwich is our finalist for the Director of Teaching and Learning. He's been an effective middle and high school site administrator for the past, for the last 11 years. He has proven the ability to develop and foster collaborative community, develop and contextualize professional learning communities, and generated significant student results. Mr. Dulwich understands the importance of developing trust and relationships and foster risk-taking and cultivating a collaborative culture to increase academic success. Would you like to say a few words? Sure.

[956] SPEAKER_04: Good evening, members of the board. Having taught on both the East and the West Coast, first and foremost, I'm a teacher at heart. And I take great pride as a school leader in crafting meaningful and relevant professional development for all staff, teachers, as well as school leaders. Most recently, as the superintendent stated, I've been a middle school principal transforming a culture over the past nine years in Hayward, focusing on student voice forums as well as a professional learning community cycle of inquiry that was site developed. If I was fortunate enough to be selected, I look forward collaboratively to work in Newark. And I know specifically, I'm excited about Newark hearing everyone tonight. There's a lot of passion. I know it's a tight knit community, diverse with a focus on equity. And I would look forward to moving all subgroups, all significant subgroups forward together. So appreciate the opportunity if it comes my way.

[1012] Ray Rodriguez: We asked you to, or asked superintendent to have you address us early. I mean, we haven't voted on it yet, but we didn't want to have you stay here for another hour. So thank you for taking the time to apply for the position. And it's obvious that you've done your research on Newark and the needs of our district. And so the administration is recommending that we approve you for this position later on in the agenda. Anyone else? Yes.

[1052] SPEAKER_49: Thank you. I now would like to invite Ms. Isabel Cervantes to the podium. She's our finalist for the Director of Special Projects. Ms. Cervantes, folks, comes to us with over 20 years of experience in the area of English language learner services and Director of Special Projects. She brings with her a set of talents that will be valuable to Newark because she seeks to provide solid foundations to build systems of support and community partnerships. Some of her responsibilities include the districtwide instructional leadership, DELAC, and LCAP. Mrs. Cervantes is an advocate for all, underrepresented groups, is highly organized, and a proponent of school reform through educational empowerment. Would you like to say anything? Welcome.

[1098] SPEAKER_08: Thank you. Good evening, President Rodriguez, members of the board and cabinet. First of all, I want to say that I am very humbled and appreciative of being selected as a finalist for this position and learning about Newark and our demographics and our Title I schools. I know that my skills and my experience and my knowledge that I would bring if selected will definitely be a match. My mission and my vision of educating all students and ensuring that all students have access and opportunities align with Newark. And I just look forward to being part of the team. Thank you.

[1145] Ray Rodriguez: Anyone? I wanted to, again, thank you. Can you tell us where you come from, what district, and what Tell me a little bit about your past.

[1156] SPEAKER_08: Sure. So I am actually originally from Southern California. I'm from Imperial County, where I taught mathematics for 10 years. I have experience working in the county office of education as a coordinator of secondary school support coordinator, as well as avid regional coordinator. I've done curriculum and instruction and instructional coaching for many years. In the last five years, I've served as a Director of English Learners and Special Programs for Sequoia Union High School District. So I've been part of the LCAB and all of the new changes when it comes to our categorical programs since the inception. And I'm pleased to bring all that experience to Newark, where I now reside. I reside in Hayward. I've been in the Bay Area for eight years. And trust me, I love the weather. It's about 115, 120 degrees right now where my mom lives, and I don't miss that.

[1220] Ray Rodriguez: So you come and you'll be trying to fill some big shoes, the individual that's leaving us. But we welcome you. We want you to know that from the board standpoint, assuming we approve it, that we're 100% behind our superintendent and the choice that he's made to replace Ms. Sirk. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[1246] SPEAKER_49: Thank you. Welcome. Next I'd like to ask Char to provide a little bit of an update. The board had asked us to look into how do we beef up registration and make it more accessible to parents relative to registration enrollment and just other items during the summer. How do we improve that so we have better customer service. I'm going to to provide a brief update on something she's been overseeing as a project.

[1274] SPEAKER_42: Thank you. I've partnered with educational services and what we are wanting to do with this being the first year of elementary families registering online it's been our elementary sites have done a phenomenal job they're all in about the 80 percentile except for a few percentage to have parents We want to be able to help our parents, and they need to be able to have a place to go in between the time that the elementary offices are closed and reopened. So we are beginning our Parent Information Help Center here on July the 1st. We will be set up with Chromebooks. We have a person that will be there to assist with enrollment, inter- and intradistrict transfers, online registration, free and reduced lunch, any questions that they have. It's a one-stop shop. They won't have to wait and wonder, and wait until August 6th. All of the offices, I worked with each office manager personally. Every marquee has been updated stating that their offices are closed between June 26th and August 5th. Parent Help Center is open at the district. Please, online enrollment. Our plan is to also start calling families. Larry's providing us reports with families that are still needing to register. And we're gonna support all sites, secondary and elementary. We'll be doing a phone bank, welcoming parents, asking them if they're needing assistance to register. Our hours come in, see us, help. So we're excited. We're going to get started on the first. And we have a young lady who currently is from the high school who is a 11-month employee. So in her month, she's going to be over here. And she will be working the enrollment help center here.

[1378] SPEAKER_49: So just an update for the board. I don't know if you have any questions about that.

[1384] Ray Rodriguez: the board. Thank you miss Aquino for all the work you do I know you're there. Individual that whether it's the marketing team or or that everybody seems to go to. I appreciate that. The board has been. Very adamant that we're accepting students from Hayward or, you know, Union City and other districts. And, you know, relatives, friends of relatives. And that's an important piece. And then working with the marketing people to make sure we market our school district. It just, and so it's appreciated. And I know on the website it's challenging. And member Gutierrez, because of a family emergency, isn't here, but she was very adamant on the website where we can just let our community know all the wonderful things that are happening in Newark, and it's something that we're working on. So it's appreciated. Anyone else? More comments? Thank you. Thank you, Ms.

[1463] SPEAKER_49: Aquino. And I'm going to come back to marketing at the end. I want to just clarify for the audience and for the board, the job descriptions that are attached under my report are purely There's been no discussion about creating a position. There's been no discussion about a funding source. But a couple of board members say, what does that look like in the area? These are some specific examples we found. So a conversation for a later date. But I thought attaching them just in the spirit of transparency, that's what we've talked about. But there's not been any hard commitment to do either. Nor would I recommend certainly the pay scale of the senior project manager. That's pretty high. The other one, it's yet to be determined. So we're not anywhere close to making that happen. But just trying to be responsive to board requests is all that really was. The last one I do want to share, and Shara's going to help again with this, is communications. I know she prepared some information for you that we'll be uploading later into supplemental documents so the full public can view what Valera has been doing. I think some of it has just been challenge to document and sometimes our meetings get busy and it's hard to really focus in on you know what the board asks so I'm gonna have Char just walk us through some of these things she's sharing with you this evening.

[1540] SPEAKER_42: Thank you. I won't take up too much time but I actually would like to take a little bit of time to really bring across to the community and to the board what Voler Strategic Advisors has been doing. To remind you they came on board with us in October And when they came on board, Superintendent Sanchez asked me to be the direct contact for them, to coordinate, to work with them, to meet the requirements that the district had asked. And we had asked for them to work with us on district school marketing, media relations, social media, and crisis communications. It's unfortunate, because I've heard many, many say, we spent all this money, and they haven't done anything. And what have we gotten? And I really, really want everyone to know, and there's examples of the packet that you have in front of you. I just felt it was really imperative that you all know we have spent hours together, this company and our sites. And some of the things that they have done for us, for example, they created from nothing videos, videos that discuss NUSD as a district, kindergarten and TK enrollment, our junior high, and we're still finishing up a STEAM video in which we just have to approve the script, and we're going to have a STEAM video. In addition, during the time that our site admins, so our administrators of our sites, we asked so much of them throughout the year. And during the time that they were being tasked with comprehensive safety plans and CPSAs, we were trying to get them to work with us on brochures. So this company took that sensitivity, was very patient, And I will tell you, I have in your packet 10 brochure copies for you to see of 10 of our schools. And you will see in every brochure the principal's mark on each of those brochures. They sat with every principal, did everything that they wanted for their school. Their footprint is on every single one. You'll see bridge points, crossroads, every elementary school. We didn't have proper pictures to do that. We didn't have proper logos. So they have recreated this entire PR, and we now have printable copies. So while on vacation, actually, I was working very hard between our sites in Volar, and I want to personally thank our graphic arts department, Michelle and Maria. They have worked tirelessly to find just the proper paper. You wouldn't think paper was a big deal, but you spent all this time to do these beautiful brochures. We want to make sure they look well. So they have gone above and beyond. We're waiting on paper. We're going to have brochures at the builders next week. So before our sites close, when houses are shown, our brochures are going to be there. They'll be in our welcome center. In addition, I wanted to share, for example, the Latinx summit that you had that great They took the index cards, the post-it notes, the notes that parents wrote in English and Spanish. They translated and created this beautiful document you have in your packet that the team was able to use to create the study session from what the parents said. And it was vital that we had that information. We don't have the manpower to do it. They did it for us and did it no problem. Just a couple other things. Press releases. They've done press releases. They have been on standby for us in case of media, if we need media. During the fires, they helped us countywide when we were needing to close the school for the day. And last but not least, I really, really want to talk about, we have a Facebook page. And it's our NUSD Facebook page with the symbol. We made it a promise and a vow since October that that page would be nothing but positive. nothing but positive reinforcement. And it's sad that out of our 5,000 families, we only have 200 followers. Now, I could tell you every 400 friends and family know everything in Newark because I share everything. But it's the bike to school, the volunteer, the reminders of school closures. It's nothing negative, all positive. And I wish that more people would look and we would maybe If we spent as much time on our Facebook as we're doing maybe on some of the other social media platforms out there that are gathering so much attention, I think you'd really see what our district is. Not to mention, we've been doing an enrollment campaign through Facebook. We're doing NUSD Enroll. Our videos are showing, our kids are talking, our teachers are talking, all this great stuff, but I'm afraid no one has seen it. So I wanted to take the time tonight to tell you what the district and this company has done in your packets, you will see social media results. And they basically tell you how many likes we've gotten, how many people have looked, what the genders, what the age, kind of gives you a picture of what our followers are. But I think we need to do better on our website. I agree with like us on Facebook. I mean, there are things we continue to do. But I just wanted you to know that there has been a ton of time and hours and work for really positive, good stuff. And though it hasn't been seen out there yet, it wasn't for a lack of effort. But timing, we had to be sensitive to our sites and not bombard them with timings. We wanted the brochures done in January as well. But again, so again, that's where we're at. And I really just wanted to share that. And unfortunately, last week, we weren't able to project that in our presentation from VOLAR.

[1892] SPEAKER_49: Any questions from the board about that or comments?

[1894] Nancy Thomas: Thank you for all the hard work you've done. Oh, my pleasure.

[1897] SPEAKER_42: My pleasure.

[1900] SPEAKER_49: That concludes my report.

[1903] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you, Superintendent. We only have one staff report for this evening, and it's 9.1 Revenue Enhancement Committee recommendations. Mr. Medina would like to speak to this before it goes to the superintendent. Mr. Nguyen. Mr. Medina.

[1933] SPEAKER_48: Good evening, board members and staff and committee members. Thank you very much for being here. I think the Revenue Committee did a very good job in giving the board member a good presentation of what we discussed. I think it's a good time for you guys to realize that this community is ready to go beyond what the standard board member does and just sit there and look pretty or just come to meetings and read and vote on stuff. I think the community is ready for the board members to have an action plan to actually vote on things, to commit, to put goals together, to execute and not prolong decisions, not have that political debate about it, not play games with the kids' education. We seem to have kicked the can down the lane for many, many years. And there's two senior members in this board that understand the good and the bad, and they understand that there was some good years, and Newark had many good years. I discussed that with you guys, how good it was. And we have some three new members that have the chance to also make a difference. So I'm hoping that the next report, you guys see some real change that we need the board members to start working together with the city. I was so happy to see the mayor on Monday's meeting because it told me that when I met with him, it was nice to see that he was also engaging with the school board and the leadership there. So you guys have to come together. with the new businesses too that are coming into Newark. Newark is a growing city. We're not San Bruno. We're not Redwood City. We're not. We're a growing city. And just because there's a trend in those districts that they're closing schools or they have a deficit, our deficit is, I'll give you, I'll even hike it up and say it's 5 million, but it's not. And 5 million in this Bay Area should not be a problem. You know, people work in business, and you know that. What's 5 million going to do? Huh? Nothing. So we can make it. We can tackle that. But you have to roll up your sleeves and tackle it with different ideas, with community ideas. Come together and make sure that you understand the next presentation that's going to happen because that's going to be a very, very critical point in the success of you guys sitting in that chair.

[2100] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you. OK, with that, thank you. Mr. Nguyen?

[2108] SPEAKER_39: I'm going to hand out some PowerPoint presentation to the board.

[2123] Nancy Thomas: Thank you.

[2132] Ray Rodriguez: Is this available to the community, too?

[2134] SPEAKER_38: Yes.

[2135] Ray Rodriguez: Just wanted to make sure.

[2137] SPEAKER_39: OK. I want to bring up some of the members that participated in that committee.

[2147] SPEAKER_38: OK, no worries. It's all good.

[2164] SPEAKER_49: So, all right. So we- I'm sorry. Before you start. Sure. I think it's important to read all the members- Yes. Of the committee into the record.

[2176] SPEAKER_39: So I have, not everyone's here that was part of the Revenue Enhancement Committee. Whether they're here or not, I mean if you have- Yeah, we have Kim Lola. She lives and worked with the city, with Newark Unified School District. We have Ramon and we have- Zolila. Zolila. I'm sorry, I can't pronounce your name. Zola. Zola, thank you. And so with that, I'm going to start. And Michelle Padilla, Nicole Isaac, and some other, Jennifer. But there was quite a bit of, Wendy Stacy. There were quite a bit of teachers, parents that were involved in this revenue enhancement committee. We met about five times. We also had students part of the committee as well. And they gave some really good ideas on how to generate revenues for the school district. We were looking at the educational foundation. And I'm going to speak a little bit more about that later on. Solar, whether we do a purchase power agreement or direct purchase. But if we do a solar investment with a direct purchase, that means we have to come up a large sum of dollar to purchase an outright purchase of solar investment. Or we can do a purchase power agreement where a vendor will come in and they would install solar, but we would have to purchase power from, utility power from the solar company at a fixed rate. We'll also look at other avenues such as YouTube.com. Unfortunately with YouTube.com, We don't have that many heads during board meetings. We probably have about 10 or 12 heads. So we probably won't be able to generate a lot of money for that. We also looked about parking stations where we're renting out a parking area at our school site where Google or Facebook can pick up technology staff and bus them to their headquarters. as a way to generate revenues. We also talked about general obligation bonds, partial tax, also average atelier attendance, how we can increase students' average atelier attendance by having them attend school and not by having them ditching class or skipping classes. And also about ongoing revenues to be more competitive for our teacher providing competitive wage, because I'll talk a little bit more about that later, We did a comparison with other school districts. Our district ranked very low compared to salary-wise to New Haven, Fremont Unified. We also spoke about expanding the STEAM program, looking at robotics, providing intervention to our students as a way to increase our enrollment. and also class size reductions. And we also discussed about Area 3, modernizing our school, because we did a bond initiative several years ago. But the request that we wanted was like about $200 million, but we only seeked about $63 million in general obligation bond. We have issues with our plumbing infrastructure district-wide, right? So the maintenance and operations department consistently has to come out and fix the plumbing, but also there's a lot of outsourcing to plumbing companies to fix our plumbing infrastructure. So with that, on April 11th, based on the information that we gathered from our first initial meeting, regarding some community members want to know more about the Education Foundation, how they can generate revenues for the school district, and then also about average daily attendance. So we had guest speakers from our former staff member, Bill Witton. He's the former people service coordinator, as well as Larry Simon. He spoke about where our student went to when they left our district, why they left our district. Mr. Chance Grindahl, he was the assistant senior manager, a former assistant senior manager for Newark Unified School District, but also the president of Newark Educational Foundation. He informed us that their educational foundation can do more, but they don't have the manpower to seek donations from organizations. He did try that in the past where he sent, he would not, he would visit IT companies asking for donations, but the most he would get is a letter, a nice letter from those IT companies and say that thank you for seeking out for donation to organizations. But that was the most, that most organization would do for our school district. I'm assuming other school districts, nonprofit organization also seeked out donation from IT companies in the Bay Area. He also mentioned to us that for Area 3 in the new residential area that's being built right now, he stated that the Area 3 is designated for an education school site. And that if we do not build a school there, there's a possibility that a charter or a private school can be built there. If that comes to fruition, then our district will lose a lot more enrollment because most of the students, a lot of the parents will want to send their students to a brand new school. But that is from the word from Mr. Terrence Crandall. So we also talked about the use of facilities as a way to generate revenues.

[2563] SPEAKER_49: Kai, if I may. Sure. Just to expedite a little bit, I'd like to hear a little bit from some of the committee members. Sure. And I think we can kind of go through the slides at a little better pace. But I wanted to kind of maybe some takeaway from the committee members. And I know there was some conversation when I was at the meeting recently. about how some people came in with one perception and kind of now have a different perception. But I would suggest if any committee members want to just share some of their items, I think we should, let's go through the slides, but also let's get to the recommendations at the end.

[2597] Ray Rodriguez: Can I say introduce them also, if that's okay?

[2599] SPEAKER_38: Yes. So, Ramon, I'm going to have you speak some of these, or do you want me?

[2607] SPEAKER_39: Okay. So, we also, to make this, We also had a financial advisor come in to talk about a possibility of looking at a partial tax as well as a general litigation bond. These are the four entities that we looked at that can generate ongoing revenues, right? Possible ongoing revenues, which is the educational foundation, the use of facilities, which the board approved in changing the fee schedule, actually attendance, and then the general obligation and partial tax. Give you another example, Berkeley Unified School District, they passed a partial tax overwhelmingly back in 2016. They focused on class size reduction, school libraries, teacher training, student support, music program, et cetera, et cetera. Oakland Unified School District, another example. They passed three partial tax back in 2008, 2014, as well as 2016. And I can't read that. It states that provide more educational enrichment opportunities for district and charter schools to enrich them with music, art, and rural languages, but also pay teachers and educational staff of district schools and charter schools more so they can better afford to live in Oakland where they work. And we also had Mr. Sanchez, Superintendent Sanchez, spoke about the facility master plan. Ada's architect came out and spoke about what's going on with their findings. And then we also spoke about the campaign team, the financial advisor, political consultant, polling firm. And these are roughly the timeline of how, if we were to go for a parts tax or a general obligation bonds. These are the dates.

[2718] SPEAKER_49: So Kai, now I'd like you to just read the conclusion, then I'd like to see just the committee members make a comment about it, then we can wrap up.

[2725] SPEAKER_39: Right. So in conclusion, based on our findings as a committee, I'm going to have Ramon speak about this.

[2740] SPEAKER_48: The conclusion, based on the conversations held during our meeting, the Revenue Enhancement Committee recognized that our current methods of obtaining ongoing revenues are not sufficient to provide for the future goals of our district. If the board determines there is a need for increased salaries and or programs that require ongoing revenue, a parcel tax is an efficient way to achieve that. If the board determines there is a need for improved and or new facilities over time, a bond is an efficient way to achieve that. To that end, we suggest that the governing board discuss and considers the feasibility of a parcel tax or a general obligation bond. Want to read the last one?

[2787] SPEAKER_15: We request the government board begin by initially pulling for our community by professionals, campaign managers. To this end, the community will be represented to a partial tax in the government obligation bond.

[2804] SPEAKER_49: Thank you. I don't know if the board has any questions of the committee or anyone that's presented.

[2808] Ray Rodriguez: Well, I'd like to see all the committee members if they're here.

[2811] SPEAKER_39: Robin was part of this. I'd like to say that there was a united front on Monday.

[2843] SPEAKER_48: Even though it showed a different stage during our last meeting, but there was a very united front on Monday regarding a parcel tax. At least the conversation and what we say here in this conclusion. We voted again, and hands went up again. And so it was clearly Nancy, she was there, the mayor was there. So it was a great meeting. I think that was one of the best meetings we had, but What ended up happening is that as a community, we feel that it takes a village to solve problems. And I think what we need to do nowadays is definitely work together. And if we can pitch in 50 bucks a year for property taxes and do the things that other districts are doing to ensure that we maintain our teachers, give them proper salary, maintain our classifies. make sure that they get proper salaries and they're compensated correctly. Put programs in places for our kids. And this money will go towards them. That doesn't go to any of the staff or any of the board or the superintendent or anything. You know, we have to, the parcel only goes for them, for those specific details that we would write up a plan for. But I think what happens is that no matter what, If we need to compete, we need to compete. We need to compete with some of those districts that are taking away some of our teachers, some of our staff, because we can't keep them.

[2948] SPEAKER_49: It's sad to see some of our- Mr. Medina, would you mind speaking into the microphone, because we want it to be on the record? No, I just wanted to make sure that they- Okay, I know.

[2959] Elisa Martinez: It is a point of order. The meeting is to speak to us.

[2963] SPEAKER_48: It's the board's meeting. Thank you. But I really think that there's a time and place that we all got to come together. And no matter what, we all have to put our part into contributing to the deficit. It doesn't have to be people with already fixed incomes or elderly people. It doesn't have to be members of communities that cannot afford it, but it could be community members and businesses. Because a partial tax, from what I've been looking at, it also could be a hybrid form where we can actually get help from the businesses that are here. And if you guys know the business world that is here in Newark, They're very pro-education and they actually want to hire from their local communities because it takes a lot of money as people might think that, oh, you know, H1 visas and all this, all these tech companies are hiring out, you know, coming from other, getting people from other countries. Well, the reason why is because we're not preparing our kids to be at that level. We need to do that. But it takes a lot of money and legal fees for them to have all those visas. And that could actually be put into hiring local people, local pipeline, students coming out, having internships for them. So the district and the city need to work together to establish those relationships with those businesses. That way they can create a pipeline a pipeline of our workforce that's going to stay here in Newark. We want parents to stay. We want kids to stay. I've talked to some of the community members that have been here for 30, 40 years, that they went to school here, and they were successful.

[3072] SPEAKER_49: OK. Board, is there questions for the board at this time? No, I think for staff. All right. Mr. Johnson.

[3083] Bowen Zhang: My question for the parcel taxes, is there any legal boundary that prevent us from imposing parcel taxes on commercial buildings? Because generally when I hear about parcel taxes in other school districts, generally just residential buildings. I've never heard any parcel taxes on commercial buildings.

[3104] SPEAKER_49: I think we'll have to provide that for you at this tonight. It's just information only for the board to take into consideration and then later I think the board can give us direction on Next steps. But I'm curious about that as well. I don't have that answer, but we would have to find out. OK. Well, thank you, and thank the committee. Thank you.

[3124] Ray Rodriguez: Appreciate it. Excuse me. Mr. Nguyen? Yes. I know that we tried to do this earlier, and we brought it back. And I appreciate you hanging in there. And Mr. Medina, to committee members. The parcel tax, it's difficult as it is. And in the past, we've passed a bond by 80%. But it takes the partnership between the schools, the city, our union members. If we don't get together, because you've got to get two thirds. So it's very difficult. But it can be done if everybody gets together and we have a chance to put in what we want, lowering class size, so many other wonderful things that we could do. So that being said, it's something that the community can do, but it requires everybody to get together on this, in my opinion. Did you want to say something before?

[3190] SPEAKER_39: Yeah, that is correct. Mr. Merritt, the NTA president, he said that he would support looking at the parcel tax, I think what we need to do is get a campaign advisor to come in to look during a polling to determine if the community would be receptive to a parcel tax, whether it's by parcel or by square footage.

[3218] Ray Rodriguez: Okay. Anyone else? Thank you. Thank you very much for your presentation. Thank you. Employee organizations, CSCA, then NTA, then NEWMA. Good evening, Ms. Eustis.

[3245] SPEAKER_18: Good evening, board members. I don't have really a lot to say. Pretty much what we have coming up for us at the end of July, the beginning of August, is California School Employees Association is having its state conference. And we are sending two of our members here from Newark as well as myself. I'll be a third one coming from a life membership that I have been able to attend conference. So it is something that we look forward to every year. professional growth that goes on during the week. And so those things we look forward to. Our executive board is meeting on the Monday, on the 24th, and we'll be taking and planning out our year. And so we're going to be setting all of our meeting dates. We'll set our event dates. We will be doing all of that on the 24th. And then our negotiating team for the next negotiations is meeting on the 27th, and we are preparing for that. So with that being said I'd like to kind of say a couple of other things. It's during the summer most of our employees are on vacation. A lot of our employees that work in the maintenance gardening custodial areas are working this summer. This is going to be a short summer and they're going to do their very best. I've heard that from all of them including the supervisor down at the corporation yard that they will do their very best. But we are shorthanded. We don't have enough of maintenance people to do a lot of the work. We have a lot of repairs that need to be done on our building. So it may not be exactly as you would like it because of the short summer, but they're going to do their very best. So when you're talking about doing a parcel tax, I did not really hear except for the gentleman mentioning classified. We are like the teachers. We are underpaid. We are so underpaid that it's hard to get anybody such as an HVAC employee here in the district. We can't get a plumber. But you're paying out money, contracting it out, much more than if you've hired somebody at a decent pay. So if you want classified lives here in Newark, you want support, you're going to have to include us. And we're going to have to see it on the paper. in order to get the support. We live here. So, I just thought I would mention that I was on that committee as well.

[3404] Sean Abruzzi: Thank you.

[3410] SPEAKER_39: That is correct. Sue was on the committee. Thank you, Sue.

[3415] Ray Rodriguez: Anyone from Newark Teachers Association and TA? How about anyone from NEWMA? I don't think so. OK. So we move to new business, item 11.1.

[3433] SPEAKER_16: Yes, good evening. I'm going to ask our Director of Special Projects, Ms. Robin Sert, to come forward. She will be speaking to our newly updated English Language Learner Master Plan. And I think she's got a few folks with her also to highlight.

[3448] SPEAKER_28: Hi, good evening, Board President Rodriguez, board members, Superintendent Sanchez, and Executive Cabinet. I have the honor and privilege to stand before you one last time tonight. Oh, that made me a little. Tonight, I'm excited to share with you the English learner master plan that hasn't been updated for at least 10 years. So, we have a comprehensive plan here that entails everything that I shared with you in the presentation a few weeks ago about assessments, initial identification. program services. In addition, we have also updated all of the ELD report cards, and we have also updated all of the forms. So everything is up to current practice. But I did not do this in isolation. So I want to recognize the truly dedicated and hardworking teachers that spent hours and hours with me, making sure that this really reflected all of the work that we do here in Newark. So I would like to ask Ms. Jessica Tomasini Corey Cruz and Jeannie Chung to all stand up and let's give them a huge round of applause. They are a truly dynamic team and I will miss working with them as well. But we have this plan to share with you tonight.

[3540] Jodi Croce: Questions?

[3547] SPEAKER_16: So this is an action item so. Thank you.

[3552] Ray Rodriguez: I need a motion and a second. Discussion.

[3556] Nancy Thomas: I move that we approve this plan.

[3561] Elisa Martinez: I second.

[3566] Ray Rodriguez: Please vote. Member Gutierrez being absent. Motion passes unanimously. We now go to 11.2, contract with Sobrato Early Academic Language Program.

[3596] SPEAKER_16: Yes, President Rodriguez, we bring forward a three-year contract with Sobrato Early Academic Language Program. If you recall during the year, our director CERT and teachers have shared that we investigated, we looked at the EL roadmap that is new with the California Department of Ed as to best practices. And we're available here for questions, but we were able to, I should say Ms. Surd was able to take teams of teachers and principals to go see this in action in dual immersion classrooms, in structured English immersion classrooms, in English only classrooms to really see how this SEAL model would work for our district. We have targeted Title III federal funds that are required to be used to support English learners. in professional development. So if there are any questions, we are here to answer them. Thank you.

[3651] Ray Rodriguez: So the item before the board is to approve the contract with Sobrato Early Academic Language Program. The total dollar amount is $250,000. And staff is recommending the board to approve the contract for Sobrato Early Academic Language Program. Member Thomas, did you want to?

[3669] Nancy Thomas: Yes. In looking at this, it's very expensive, and it's over three years. What's not included in it is the entire cost of the program and the implementation plan. I'd feel more comfortable with staff coming and giving us a complete cost analysis over that time, and especially paying attention to several of the things that might conflict with getting enough cost or enough time to do the work as it's pointed out in the MOU. So, for example, we've asked, we've said at some time that part of our problem with the budget is, you know, or one of the items we may want to negotiate is fewer days for professional development. Yet, this calls for two days, two full days each year K3 to begin with, and then, or pre-K2, and then 3. Anyway, so I'm adding that up in my head. Then I'm reading the various, the LCAP, and I'm reading the various CPSAs, and I'm seeing that they had very much difficulty doing the professional development in the past because they couldn't get substitutes. So, I mean, I think it's really important that we have the full cost of the program before us, before we approve this one big chunk.

[3765] SPEAKER_16: So if we'd like, we have some of the information, maybe all of the information. I do want to be able to address your concerns and also underline the fact that these are federal funds that are carried over and we have projected out. But I'm going to ask our Director Cert to maybe speak to professional development, cost of subs, and also the site investment

[3790] SPEAKER_28: So two pieces, also to address the guest teacher shortage, as part of the LCAP we are also increasing, we'll be bringing to the board an additional increase for guest teachers to help with the shortage. So that should be something that will help with our professional development. So really the goal of the SEAL, that's their acronym, is sustainability and that we train our teachers on the support of what's going to happen for our EL students in the classroom. And then they fade away and we are now able to do all of the work within our own district. So there are additional coaches that are part of the SPSA and the LCAP. Just two coaches, and those coaches will be part of the professional development, and then they will take on the training. So it's the trainer of the trainer. So we will no longer need that contracted service, but it takes that three full years to do the full implementation.

[3852] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you.

[3854] Nancy Thomas: Member... Well, maybe a follow-on question. What about the two full days of training? How will that happen?

[3863] SPEAKER_28: So this first year, it's TK through first grade teachers, and then it'll be second and third grade. And so what we've done is worked with human resources and our ed services, teaching and learning. And those will be our prioritized days for professional development, just as we did this year with our West Coast literacy. So those will be our prioritized days for professional development. And we've already placed those on the calendar. So we know that those days are shut off for additional training.

[3892] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. We'll come back to you, Member Thomas, if you have something else. Member Martinez and then student board member.

[3898] Elisa Martinez: So, thank you for explaining the plan. That was my question was the how do we plan to cover for the professional development and the fact that you've got them scheduled out makes me feel much better. The one thing that I think that wasn't clear in my mind is how are we measuring. So this is a three-year program and obviously we're looking at you know, supporting the new program, if you will. How frequently are we getting a measure? I don't, you know, so that it's not three years later, right?

[3930] SPEAKER_28: Right. So we have, we'll have internal measures as well for our EL students. In addition, we'll have the California dashboard because it'll be a new indicator for us next year. In addition, part of the MOU is that we are part of their data collection. So they are going to be working with us on assessments because they're also part, they want to show that they're, this is working as well. And so they have data points along the year. that we are going to be working with them to collect the data as well. So it's part of the relationship and the partnership.

[3960] SPEAKER_16: Right, and I think back to also on your point, we will schedule those presentations. If you recall this year, we, member CERT, I mean, excuse me, Director CERT, was able to calendar out updates on the LCAP. We would do the same thing with the implementation of this work. But I think first and foremost will be that new indicator on meeting the needs of English learners. That will be a public review where this December, we will get the baseline of that.

[3990] SPEAKER_54: So my main question is when we say the federal funding, is this exclusively from federal funding or is it being, is it a combination? So it's designated specifically for English learners is what I'm asking. It is. Okay.

[4004] Ray Rodriguez: Yes, Title III.

[4005] SPEAKER_28: Title III. Right. Title III funding.

[4007] Ray Rodriguez: Okay.

[4010] Nancy Thomas: I just have another follow-on question. I noticed one of the requirements is that we have a .5 FTE person at each school and they are prefer that it be a full person. Is that Title III funds as well?

[4025] SPEAKER_28: So those are the two coaches that I spoke to about just a few minutes ago. And so we are going to have two ELD TOSAs coaches, and they'll be 50% at two schools. So we'll have two that will cover four of our Title I schools.

[4043] Nancy Thomas: And so we're only doing that for Title I schools?

[4045] SPEAKER_28: We're only doing that with our Title I schools as part of our EL Master Plan. So for our third, for second and up this year, but as it phases through, for the upper grades, we're also looking at some additional training of strategies for ELD students in the classroom. So those are additional things that we're doing.

[4065] Nancy Thomas: So all of the additional costs for the program will come out of Our federal funds or our supplemental or concentration funds, there will be no general fund.

[4076] SPEAKER_28: No general funds. And also, it will not be any supplemental and concentration right now. Right now, it's the comprehensive support and improvement grant. And so this is for the first year. So Title III funds as well as the CSI dollars.

[4092] SPEAKER_16: So if you recall, we were able to leverage two grants. The first one was for low-performing students. And that's for the math TOSA and the ELA TOSA for all schools. These comprehensive school support funds are primarily targeted for this ideal type of student. And that will be the other grant.

[4112] Ray Rodriguez: So the goal is to provide academic excellence via equity and opportunities for all students. Can I need a motion and a second?

[4124] Carina Plancarte: I move to approve.

[4126] Ray Rodriguez: I second. Please vote. Member Gutierrez, again, absent. OK, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Associate Superintendent Salinas and Ms. Sert for answering all our questions. Oh, you thought I wouldn't know. Thank you. I was just complimenting you. Okay, next we go to 11.3, which is approval of the local control accountability plan. Associate Superintendent Salinas.

[4172] SPEAKER_16: Thank you, President Rodriguez. In this item, we have identified the meeting dates when Ms. Assert and the whole LCAP committee met starting on October 17th. If you recall, at our last Board of Education meeting on June 6, we held a public hearing for the 19-20 LCAP. What we come forward for you today is to review and approve the LCAP. Ms. Surd is here also to answer any questions, but I also would like to publicly thank her for all of her work. I know I also would like to thank our committee. There was a lot of nights spent here working through data and working through the work, so a big thank you to our committee as well.

[4219] Ray Rodriguez: Any questions? If not, I need a motion and a second.

[4224] Nancy Thomas: I move approval.

[4226] Ray Rodriguez: Member Thomas moves. I need a second.

[4230] Elisa Martinez: I'll second.

[4231] Ray Rodriguez: Member Martinez seconds. Please vote. Motion passes unanimously. Member Gutierrez absent. Thank you. Thank you very much. 11.4, adoption of the 2019-2020 budget. Mr. Nguyen, did you want to?

[4258] SPEAKER_39: Based on the information that was presented on June 6, I asked the governing board to approve the 2019-2020 adopted budget.

[4267] Ray Rodriguez: OK. And the states already passed their budget. It has been signed by Governor Newsom.

[4278] SPEAKER_39: No, not yet. OK. There may be a revision in July.

[4284] Ray Rodriguez: Right. Got it. Thank you. Thank you much. Let me close this out. OK. Any motion and a second? Or discussion? Questions?

[4302] Sean Abruzzi: Go ahead.

[4305] Bowen Zhang: I just want to ask, any information about how the state, whether the state is planning to have any special carve-out for the LAUSD? Because I guess the rumor on the street is given 40% of the California legislature come from LAUSD, so there will be a special bailout for LAUSD at the expense of everybody else.

[4329] SPEAKER_39: Yeah. Yeah, they went and tried to pass a parcel tax about two weeks ago, and it failed. I think this is just a run up to next year's March Super Tuesday election, as well as the November election. So they're hoping that the community in the city of Los Angeles will approve the parcel tax. There's going to be more voter turnout in March of 2020, as well as November 2020. OK.

[4360] Ray Rodriguez: Any other questions? OK, we need a motion.

[4365] Bowen Zhang: I move to approve the adopted budget.

[4368] Ray Rodriguez: I second. Please vote. Motion passes, again, unanimously. Remember, the chair is absent. 11.5, ratification of tentative agreement between Newark Unified School District and the California School Employees Association, CSCA Local 208. Staff recommends the board ratify the tentative agreement between Newark Unified School District and California School Employees Association Local 208.

[4411] Bowen Zhang: So I move to ratify the agreement.

[4415] Nancy Thomas: I'll second that.

[4420] Ray Rodriguez: members. John member Thomas seconds please vote. Motion passes unanimously. This is on behalf of the we appreciate. or the individuals that serve on your committee. Do you want to come up real quick, if you don't mind? Thank you.

[4461] SPEAKER_18: I just would like to say that it was, to my way of thinking and to a lot of our members, it was a step in the right direction. It doesn't solve all of our problems and we really do need to work together in the future in resolving the issues that we have, which is a fair salary, a competitive salary here in Newark. And we understand and recognize the complications that you face in trying to do that for the teachers, for us, for taking care of the things here in the district and taking care of the students. But somehow we really do need to work together and try to accomplish the goals, even if it's over a period of time. Thank you.

[4507] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Spend a lot of time with your bargaining team and also our administration bargaining team for the school district. And it's all appreciated. 11.6, agreement with Zoom Services, Inc., for district-wide special ed transportation. Ms. Willis, did you want to address this? Director Willis.

[4541] SPEAKER_29: Yes, so I'm actually really pleased to bring this forward. We contracted with Zoom last year after going out to bid and getting several bids and doing a lot of research. And Zoom has done a really good job for us this year. I think that they are presenting a fair contract. They are requesting a 3% increase. It's a three-year contract, so 3% each year. But that still leaves their costs far below our next lowest bid last year, which was with Durham, which was for double that cost, or almost double, $1.4 million. I've got some statistics from them. But before I say anything about their statistics, I wanted to say that parents tell us all the time that they absolutely love Zoom. I think that one of the things that I love most is that it really destigmatizes the ride because they're in cars versus the more identifiable buses. And Zoom reported that they provided 23,471 individual rides for our students this year. And they have a parent rating system. So the parents rate every single ride. And of those, 23,345 had four stars or above. So they're very much beloved by our parents. And they've really helped my department in feeling very comfortable that we know where kids are. We have an app that we can track all the rides and see where the kids are. Parents do, too. So I really encourage you to. agree to this contract.

[4644] Ray Rodriguez: Member Thomas.

[4645] Nancy Thomas: Well I would like to thank you for the good information you've given us leading up to understanding the costs and the savings. I'm glad to see the program worked out well this year and I'd like to make a motion that we approve this contract.

[4660] Ray Rodriguez: I'll second. Before we vote I want to also to thank you and Transportation, it's very important. We don't have transportation for our regular kids here in Newark, but we do for special ed children. And it's so important, and it's always very difficult to make sure that we have the right people taking care of our kids. So I appreciate all the time that you spent putting this together. So we have a motion and a second. Any more discussion? OK. Please vote. motion passes thank you for sharing. Unanimously member chair. 11.7. Categorical exemption for stadium lighting. Memorial High School. Did you want to address it Oh, there you are. So good to have you back.

[4736] SPEAKER_46: Yes, I am having a regular meeting with you all.

[4739] Ray Rodriguez: No, every time you come, you talk about giving us money, so I appreciate that.

[4742] SPEAKER_46: OK, well, this one is to follow up on the stadium lights that were approved, the bid last, as I understand, the last meeting. And because the lights at the stadium area affect the neighborhood, we are required by California Environmental Quality Act laws to notify people that something is going to change. Now, I think it changes for the better because the lighting will be less. There will be no acoustical noise created by the lights themselves. We will have blockers that will be able to directionally put the lights in a direct way away from the neighbors, et cetera. So, I think it's an improvement, okay. But I never know what people think. So we do have a notice requirement by CEQA, which is that because there are existing stadium lights on existing poles, and we're doing repair and maintenance, you can get a categorical exemption. So we need to have, ask the board to agree with the finding from our environmentalist, the company David J. Powers, so that we will then post this notice in public at the county of Alameda, which is right down the block from me. So if you approve this, I will take it down to the county office, give them their 50 bucks, and then the 35-day period will tick along. And if there are not any protests or litigation, then we will be able to proceed with the stadium-like projects. And I know that our superintendent will be very happy then. So, the law is very arcane. I can go through with it because I have been through many of these. I don't want to make everyone fall asleep. Are there any questions?

[4860] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you for not, you know, letting us fall asleep. I appreciate that. Any questions? Don't go away. Stay there. So, we need a motion and a second to accept 11.

[4876] Nancy Thomas: I move approval.

[4878] Ray Rodriguez: OK, thank you. Member Thomas moves, Member John seconds. Please vote. Motion passes. Thank you.

[4888] SPEAKER_46: I will be down to the county tomorrow.

[4890] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you very much. Thank you. We can clap, everybody. Yay, lights. We need lights, better lights.

[4901] SPEAKER_46: OK, so the second one, do you want to go through?

[4905] Ray Rodriguez: Yeah, hold on. Let me announce it. 11.8, Bay Area Air Quality Management District Grants.

[4914] SPEAKER_46: Do you want to put it on the PowerPoint or not? Oh, you don't have the PowerPoint? No. Okay. Well, then I'll just discuss it. Okay. Did the members get the PowerPoint and all the discussion material? Okay. So, okay. It's arcane also. But when you want money and they're going to give it to you, you should do what they want.

[4942] SPEAKER_36: Yes, I agree.

[4958] SPEAKER_46: OK. Well, then we'll just talk about it.

[4960] Ray Rodriguez: Staff requests the board approve the bus grant application for five buses and the related electric vehicle charging stations and infrastructure.

[4971] SPEAKER_46: OK. However, I just want to tell you that there are many things that Bay Area Air Quality is giving to Newark. We are going to get two mowers, OK? So you don't have to replace your mowers. You're going to get them for free. I don't even charge for my time, OK? I just give them to you. because I'm getting really good at garden equipment. Not that I could drive it, OK? So the second, as I've been working closer with Bay Area Air Quality, they also are trying to encourage diesel bussels to be removed because they're really bad for asthma, everyone breathing, et cetera. So there's a big push by the state to replace them. So I have put your five buses in the hopper. I already got a conversation back from initial conversation back in this round that they would really only like to replace two of our buses. But they would also replace the CNG. You have compressed natural gas in some of them. They will also replace the tanks, because they're going to expire this year. And they said, and put the other buses into the hopper for the following year, because another $50 million is coming down. It is a very complex project. I can't do it for free because I have been beating my brains out trying to work through this. And I have to dig your ground up. And I'm unwilling to dig your ground up unless I have a specific contract. Because if we get the two EV buses, I have to put in new EV charging stations. I've got to bring power from PG&E. It's very, very complex. I've tried to include all the costs that I can in the grant, but their grant is not as broad as some of the other ones where they include our costs. So I've tried to put all of the costs, as much as I could legally, into the grant, but sometimes I can't. So I threw in a number for what I think it may cost me. I have no idea what it's going to cost, OK? But I always forget a lot of hours. I get holes in my head when I do my bills, OK? So you are for getting five buses or three buses or two buses for relatively little, and they are really in bad shape. I don't know if you know how bad those buses are. They're really being held together with bailing wire. So you're going to have to replace them. You might as well use their money. So what I would like is for you, the Bay Area Air Quality people require a letter from you all. that you will allow us to proceed, because they want to make sure you're serious, OK? And that you say, yes, you're going to let Susan and myself crank through all this stuff for whatever we can do over the next couple of years. And that if we're successful with these buses, then I'm going to add your refrigerated diesel trucks where you take the food around. And Susan has a whole line of other stuff. It's unbelievable how much equipment you have. But a lot of this is starting to open up because the VW diesel scandal money is coming. That's already been delivered to California. And then PG&E has some pilot programs also. And so I would pursue all of these to supplement your funds. And so I just ask if you would sign the letter for Bay Area Air Quality or approve it.

[5179] Nancy Thomas: Does that mean you're coming to us with a proposal for your cost? In the future, then, or how does that work? What's the next step?

[5187] SPEAKER_46: The next step is that I will be in negotiations with Bay Area Air Quality on your behalf. And depending on what they approve, then we will take let's say they approve two or three, then I will take that allotment and we will execute, because they want to make sure we execute, okay? Because many, many people, if you give them free stuff, they don't necessarily execute. And I've had many schools and cities not finish, okay? So they want to know that you're in. Then we will do whatever it is that they give us in this initial pilot. And then I will apply for a second load because they just released another $50 million for this next fiscal year. And then I'll be in that pile for the next pot. So I don't know. I just put a number because I don't know what the number is going to be. But I do do a time sheet for you for my costs. And I hope that I've been a bargain. What is that number? I don't see it. I put in, I think, $100,000 if I do five of your buses. I think it's this one. I think it's what I put in.

[5259] SPEAKER_43: OK. Oh, there you go.

[5261] SPEAKER_46: But I don't know. You know, that's just a wild guess. I have no idea, because I don't know what they're going to do to me to get these things, how much negotiations I have to go through, how much data. I mean, already, I probably put in like 1,000 hours. I'm not going to charge you for 1,000 hours.

[5276] Nancy Thomas: Well, I think it's a bargain, considering everything we're getting. It's just that I just want to make sure we do it correctly for the approvals. Anything over $50,000 in a contract has to be approved by the board.

[5289] SPEAKER_46: Oh, well, I have to review. If you approve me doing this, I would revise my MOU, and then that would come to the board.

[5296] Nancy Thomas: OK.

[5296] SPEAKER_46: But what I really need is I need to get these buses into this fiscal year. Right. Otherwise, we're in another pile, and your buses are not going to last. I move approval.

[5308] Elisa Martinez: I second.

[5309] Ray Rodriguez: Member Thomas moves. Member Martinez seconds. Discussion? Please vote. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you again. We normally don't take breaks. You can just come right back if you want. We'll probably discuss this for a little bit. Before we go to item 11.9, this was a board decision to bring this forward. We were going to do a board workshop, but we've done those as part of our budget workshops, and discuss different ways that we can save money. consensus was by the board that we bring this forward so we can have the discussion in open session. And that's why it's there. In my opinion, closing a school is the last thing we should ever do. But we have five board members, and it's up to the majority of the board to decide whether we're going to move forward on this or not. And the board has not had any discussion we're not going to be able to do that. We're not going to be able to do that. On any school as far as closing down the school. This is. In in what the savings would in different items that the superintendents going to bring forward. Miss parks if you want to address us on this.

[5422] Cindy Parks: that says $30,000 or $40,000, and I was just wondering what the funding source was. This item did not have, whether it was budgeted or not, it didn't have account codes with it, so it's lacking some information that some of the other items do when you're bringing forward a proposal for expense. So I was just wondering if you could outline when you were having the discussion how you're going to pay for the consulting fee. And I am kind of glad that you're finally having the discussion after sitting through these meetings and bantering back and forth. Let's get it all out there. I'm sad that it's done when a lot of people are on vacation. You had a packed house at your last meeting. And unfortunately, it wasn't on the agenda. And I'm just disappointed that a lot of people are gone and weren't able to hear firsthand this discussion. But again, I would really like to know how you're going to pay for this. Thank you.

[5475] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you, Mr. Medina.

[5493] SPEAKER_48: Good evening again, board members. I'm not the type to sugarcoat anything, so I'd like to tell you right now that I know that you might have not discussed it about closing music school, but I feel it around. There's just this feeling that happens, right? So I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm pretty sure you guys, because music school is low enrollment and all this other stuff that you guys have on your checklist. But I really think that closing a school, any school, in this district will damage the entire district. And as much as you can think you're saving, you might be saving $250,000. I'll give you $500,000. And that's not enough to actually take care of this deficit we're in. So there's other avenues to do that. And like Mr. Ray said, it should be the last thing. But it shouldn't even be on the table. So I hope you guys vote on it. and get it off the table because there's other avenues that we can work together as a community, as a board, as a city to make sure that that land is dedicated to schools and understand to have a plan, a marketing plan to increase our enrollment because we could compete against the private schools. There is ways to do it. But you guys got to reach out. And don't be shy if you don't know. I think the biggest part that some people in leadership don't do is admit that they don't know. They think they have to know everything. And you don't have to know everything. You reach out. And there's a lot of experts in the community that can help you. But you've got to reach out. Don't think you're alone in this problem. The minute that you think you're alone is the minute you're going to lose. So you're not alone. You have a community. to back you up. You have three new members. You have two senior members. And I think together with the community and some communication, some good dialogue, there's other avenues. There's definitely other avenues to do that. So don't even take it off the table for any school to get close.

[5630] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Superintendent.

[5638] SPEAKER_49: What you have here in front of you this evening is a proposal from cooperative services. I believe that's the title. Cooperative strategies. And this would be the first step if the board decides to go forward and explore this. This is not recommending a school closure, but it does study the possibility and feasibility of it. So depending on board direction this evening, it would hopefully put this to rest once and for all. I think that that's part of the discussion that you have in front of you. As far as funding source, I don't know if we've looked that far until we hear board direction, this is something you want to do. We would have to identify a funding source. We've not done that until the board gives us direction to do so. So that's to be determined tonight. And it might even be the question of, is this even the company we want to use? I don't know. Or is this something you'd want to do? This is the discussion tonight, but I wanted to bring it back as I was asked to do, and hopefully have a healthy discussion about it tonight.

[5704] Bowen Zhang: Member John. Oh, so, speaking of this discussion about school closure, there are three big question marks for me at this time that I think, personally, I think is premature for us to move forward on this. Number one is that this year, this summer, we adopted a new registration system so we don't really know next year's enrollment regarding our district whether we're going to have flat enrollment or we continue to have further decline in enrollment. So that's a big question mark that we don't have the answer. Number two is we have this revenue enhancement committee and we have yet to hammer out the following steps and going forward what will be the strategy and plan for us to bringing more revenue for the district. So that's a big question mark. We might be able to bring in new grants or new revenue into the school district. And number three is, if you remember that the question I asked regarding the budget incumbrance in the last board meeting. So given our restricted fund or unrestricted fund budget incumbrance, I know we're projecting a 1.8 million deficit ending this year. But given the answer to the incompetence question, it should be very clear to everyone that the budget deficit for the ending year will probably be a lot lower than $1.8 million, probably lower than $1 million. So we don't really know the real deficit of our closing year. We'll probably know that number after we close the book in September. So given these three big question marks, I just think at this time it's premature to move forward. So at this time tonight, I cannot support moving forward and spending $40,000 given the three big item question marks that we just don't know the answer yet.

[5813] Ray Rodriguez: Superintendent, you're the person that the board has brought in to lead our district. What are your feelings on this?

[5820] Elisa Martinez: I would like to hear from you. Sorry, I've requested to speak.

[5823] Ray Rodriguez: OK, I'm sorry. OK, Member Martinez, go ahead.

[5825] Nancy Thomas: And then I have an answer.

[5828] Elisa Martinez: OK. So this is a tough subject. And so I just wanted to clarify, I think, the ask, first and foremost, because I will say that the contract, it's almost like I wanted to, I guess I'd like to amend the ask. I think what we had talked about, and we've talked about this topic a lot, at least since I've been on the board, and we talk about it very casually. I think that we need to, what I was looking for is for us as a board to make a decision as to whether we want to explore this as a cost savings opportunity. We were elected, though it was a tough, it's a tough subject, but we have to look at not only the revenue opportunities, but we also have to look at the cost side. And to your, member Zhang, to your comment, yes, we don't know the enrollment for this year, but we need to understand trends, and we need to understand, and so we need to do our due diligence. And so I think that the only question on the table was, do we as a board want to do due diligence about understanding the opportunity, the challenges that are associated? We're not naive to the fact that You know, by exploring this, that it could open up the opportunity for charter schools. None of us are naive about that. But I think it's doing the due diligence. We need to be fiscally responsible. Today, from the Revenue Enhancement Committee, there are a lot of good ideas. They're ideas, right? We still need to bring them to fruition. We need to look at the fiscal responsibility side. We can't ignore the fact that our footprint is much larger than our enrollment. I'm not saying First of all, and I want to clarify, there is not one school that's been discussed. I know that there's a lot of folks that have come up and said, hey, it's my school, it's my school. This is exactly why I think it's the responsible thing to do. That if we were going to look at this as an option, what makes sense for Newark? Look at not only the current enrollment, but the geography of the current footprint. And if we needed to go down, what would be the recommendation? So, that was, at least in my mind, the ask. I cannot support a specific contract that's here. If you read it, it's all about facilitation. I don't think that there's, you know, you all are welcome, the public is welcome to comment and comment and express. I think in fairness to the community, we need to bring the facts so that then we could bring, have a conversation around the table with full transparency, and we collectively make a decision whether this is an option, whether we like it or not. So having said that, if we were to vote on something, I'd like to amend the action. I don't want to vote. I would have to vote no to the contract. I would like us to have a vote as a board whether we want to pursue the due diligence process where we, the board, would identify what are the data the data components that we would want to hire someone to go do this due diligence around. And that's it. No decision around a recommendation at this point.

[6028] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Member Thomas.

[6030] Nancy Thomas: I agree in principle with that. I was not prepared to approve a contract right now at all. I agree with Member Martinez that if we could just say what kind of data do we want to collect so that we know what the potential savings would be, what the impact would be, all those things. And I think maybe to do that, it would be a good idea to have a subcommittee of the board. Two of us just talk about what kind of data would we need and whether we should go and ask for a call for proposals, maybe see if we can get a grant from an organization that would do the data and just take our time. If we take our time between now and September, by September, we'll know if we've met some of the targets for reduction in the current budget. We'll know what our enrollment is. We'll know if there's movement toward a parcel tax. But I think going both ways, looking cost reductions, as well as looking at revenue enhancements, is doing our due diligence.

[6110] Ray Rodriguez: OK, thank you. If you want to make a motion, get a second, I'm OK. But I personally think that we just need to just move on and look at ways to increase revenue. We have a marketing plan that we just started. We need to bring in more kids. we're trying to get together and move forward and whether it's a parcel tax or or just get everybody on board. We do the challenge of So I would like to hear what the superintendent feels. Because the amount of savings, in my opinion, from the history of looking at this, and we've been talking about this on and off for a while, I think it's minimal. I think it's... But we don't know. No, I understand. You had a chance to speak, if you don't mind. Superintendent?

[6184] SPEAKER_49: A couple of things. I think, first of all, the whole, on the topic of the purpose of this, this evening and the agendizing, I think that I do believe that in my ideal world, I would like it to have read more like, does the board want to pursue school closure, yes or no? That would have been cleaner. I think it would have been a better question to ask. And then that would be my suggestion for an amendment. But I would also say that even though there might be savings in school closure, there's also a cost. And I think the cost comes into play when you, factor the cost of lost enrollment, you factor the cost of parents that are angry that you closed their school, you factor the cost of that they might go to Fremont. There's a bigger cost to this. I think that studying it, I think in the climate right now is it's starting to escalate our community in a way that probably is not necessary. And I've made my opinion about it very clear several times. I don't need to restate that. I think that Really, my advice to the councils and the board is don't prolong this any longer. I think you have to make a decision and you can do analysis until you have paralysis and eventually by then the community is going to be more frustrated. I think the sooner we can make a decision on this, I'm not saying it has to be tonight, I think the sooner we have the right agenda item to vote on and we're going to put this to rest or not. So now let me switch to the goals. I think what would help me and staff more tremendously kind of related to our conversation about goals is Or we have a strategic imperative number three that says we're going to increase our enrollment. It'd be nice to have a number. Is it 100? Is it 50? Is it 10? Is it 400? I mean, that might help us formulate more of an action plan to really go after it and fill schools and not close if we could avoid that. I think we want to build that community. I think that whatever the solution here is, it's going to be somewhere along the lines of how do we get the community to work with us to fight for something? and not have a continual disagreement about should we be talking about that. So I think that this is really the board decision. I know you guys have dilemmas. I know there's no easy answers. But I do believe that there's costs that are not numbers in closing the school. It's emotional. It's something that districts generally don't recover from. And I think that the timing of it probably could be better but I think that at this point I really would only say let's put it to rest sooner than later is my advice. Member Martinez.

[6346] Elisa Martinez: I guess I'd like to make a motion I'd like to amend the item on the agenda and I'd like to amend for it to basically as simple as Superintendent Sanchez stated does the board approve moving forward on setting up a subcommittee to identify the due diligence requirements to explore a school closure.

[6370] Ray Rodriguez: Do you have a second?

[6371] Nancy Thomas: I'll second that.

[6372] Ray Rodriguez: Discussion? I am going to vote no on this. I just feel we need to put this to rest and I don't want to talk about school closure.

[6381] Bowen Zhang: And I will not support this either.

[6383] Ray Rodriguez: Well, can we vote? Yeah, okay. Well, we've had discussion, so let's vote.

[6391] SPEAKER_42: Point of order, my apologies. May I ask again who motioned and who seconded, please?

[6395] Nancy Thomas: I motioned, yeah.

[6399] Ray Rodriguez: So we're voting on the motion made by member Martinez and seconded by member Thomas. OK. OK. Motion fails. OK. You've already had a chance to speak. So let's move. Did you want to address it some more?

[6431] Nancy Thomas: I don't have a request to speak.

[6434] Ray Rodriguez: No, what I'm saying is that normally if a motion is defeated then as courtesy you get the option to speak.

[6444] Elisa Martinez: You don't want to speak. I guess my only question is, does the student have a vote in a topic, a policy topic like this?

[6453] SPEAKER_49: Typically, no. It's a symbolic vote. And maybe what it means is we need to wait till we have a full board to vote on it. To bring it back?

[6459] Marie dela Cruz: No. It's a 2-2 vote.

[6462] Ray Rodriguez: A 2-2 vote loses. I don't really want to bring it back.

[6465] Nancy Thomas: A 2-2 vote is a no vote.

[6468] Ray Rodriguez: It's a no vote. It's a no vote. So it's no. OK. Thank you. 11.10 updated school lunch prices for 2019-2020.

[6485] SPEAKER_16: Yes, this evening I bring forth our Director of Child Nutrition brings forth this update. Per regulations, we must increase the cost. This increase will not affect the free or reduced price lunch. It does have a higher increase for the high school as there are bigger portions and more fruits and vegetables. And this is a mandate that we must comply with. And it's typically annual. Thank you.

[6515] SPEAKER_49: Just for point of order, let's allow people time to exit for a minute.

[6521] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you for attending. If you could just thank you. Thank you. The administration, the staff recommends approval of the updated fees for school meals effective 2019-2020. I need a motion and a second. Discussion?

[6541] Nancy Thomas: I move approval.

[6543] Elisa Martinez: I second.

[6550] Ray Rodriguez: Member Thomas moves. Member Martinez seconds. Please vote. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Next item is 11.11, agreement with Kidango for the 2019-2020 leases. Superintendent, can you address this?

[6574] SPEAKER_49: If I may, just a point of privilege. We did have staff here ready to speak to that last one. I just want to thank them for being here and waiting through the meeting. Thank you. So thank you for being here for the forced federal mandate of raising prices. Thank you. OK, sorry about that. Thank you for that indulgence.

[6593] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Appreciate it.

[6598] SPEAKER_49: Superintendent? Kodango, this is a renew of the current agreement. We are still trying to negotiate some expansion with Kodango. Ms. Salinas and I have been struggling to reschedule that but we are going to continue to do that. This is keeping what we have with Kodango. So it's kind of a status quo recommendation.

[6620] Nancy Thomas: I move approval.

[6622] Ray Rodriguez: Member Thomas moves. I second. Member Martinez seconds. I'd like to say something. We've had a good partnership with Kidango, and I know it's been difficult and a challenge. But we really need to, we have an opportunity to expand. Just having, we only have two schools. And superintendent and I were at the SELPA meeting the other day, and Kidango is a new city serving special needs kids. So they're open to, it looks like to, you know, open other facilities here and it would help us with, in my opinion, with recruitment or, you know, having kids go from preschool and start kindergarten. So with that, anybody else? Okay. We have a motion and a second. Please vote. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you again. The next three agreements are all agreements with our legal firms. First one is 11.12, Dennis, Oliver Kelly, attorneys of law. Need a motion and a second. Financial impact under, superintendent?

[6710] SPEAKER_40: Good.

[6711] SPEAKER_42: I can answer. Basically, they are, there's nothing outstanding major that I saw. Some of the attorney's fees per hour may go up, but they did not specifically specify which ones. But there was, the item number 11.14, their increases travel to the Los Angeles area, but that doesn't affect us.

[6733] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, it's just an extension basically. Right, renewal. Okay. Okay, do you need a motion and a second?

[6739] Nancy Thomas: I move approval of 11.12.

[6744] Elisa Martinez: I'll second.

[6746] Ray Rodriguez: Member Thomas moves. Member Martinez seconds. Member John stepped out for a minute, and member Gutierrez is not here. So when we have, it's got to pass unanimously. It's got to be three votes for the yes, OK?

[6768] SPEAKER_40: OK, good.

[6768] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Motion passes, four ayes. Member John and member Gutierrez absent. OK, next one is 11.13, Lozano-Smith Attorneys. Same thing, renewal.

[6783] Nancy Thomas: I move approval.

[6784] Ray Rodriguez: Member Thomas moves.

[6787] Elisa Martinez: I'll second.

[6787] Ray Rodriguez: Member Martinez seconds. Please vote. Motion passes. Four ayes. Member Gutierrez and Member John absent. I mean, not here right now. I think we're good. Thank you. One more. 1114 door don't law agreement for professional services. Again approval member Thomas moves. Member Gutierrez is not here unanimously. Thank you. Thank you Member Jones for coming back. 11.15 agreement with AC Transit for the student transit pass program.

[6858] SPEAKER_16: May I highlight this? President Rodriguez.

[6861] Ray Rodriguez: Yes, Associate Superintendent Salinas.

[6863] SPEAKER_16: Thank you. So last year I had the opportunity to meet with Councilmember Freitas who's the appointed member on the Alameda County CTC and also alternate member Callasos who shared, hey Newark Unified has not participated in this pilot where students can get free AC transit passes and reduced cost BART tickets. And so we looked into it, and this year we were part of the pilot project. So we had the junior high and the high school students who were able to participate. I'm very happy to bring forward, we've already met with AC Transit. representatives from the Alameda County Transportation Commission and the Safe Routes to School folks and I saw some members in the audience who had participated recently and also our board members with Safe Routes to School with this three-way partnership. So a five-year program for students at Newark Junior High School for the next 5 years through an application process I'm very happy to bring and I know our board has been very supportive of the pilot project and I'm very happy to share that this evening.

[6949] Ray Rodriguez: I second. I just want to say something before we vote on this. We've always had an excellent partnership with AC Transit. We have someone that's on the board that really connects with us, and we're their area. So anytime we can save our kids money, and I know they You know, they use bus transportation for different reasons, and RFP also is involved in this, so it's really appreciated. Thank you for, and thank the city council members for encouraging us to get more involved in this. Appreciate it. Okay. Okay. Please vote. Motion passes. Next item on the agenda is the superintendent's contract. The attorney gave me a small script to say before we move. tonight the board is considering the superintendent's contract. In advance of doing so, or during so, the board is required to provide an oral summary of the employment agreement recommended for final action this evening. And basically we're asking to increase, I mean not increase, what's the term? Extend. Extend his contract one year. The superintendent makes close to $239,000 a year. the superintendent shall work and have a work year of 225 days without and all board members here. So if you want to pull this or table it, I would be, that would be my recommendation. So we can have all five members participate. Did you want to pull it or?

[7105] SPEAKER_49: I'd like to know what the other board members feel about that.

[7107] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, so, Superintendent, I remember privately we talked about that you want some performance metrics to give you one year so we can have clearly defined and measurable metrics. And so far, right now, I look at the contract, there's no metric. I think we probably want to take some time and come out with metrics agreed by both parties, whether the majority of the board and you, and then we'll go from there. So I would recommend we work on the metrics first, and then we vote on the contract.

[7134] Elisa Martinez: I agree. Otherwise, I'd have to vote no. So I'd like us to pull it and add some goals. And I agree.

[7143] SPEAKER_49: So I'm willing to pull it. I just would like to have that occur at August 2nd meeting and not delay it any longer. If that's agreeable to the board, I think we can do the work between now and August 2nd. Did I give you enough time? So I would like to pull it at this time. OK. Thank you.

[7158] Ray Rodriguez: Next is 11.17. Mrs. Park, since it was pulled, then we're not going to call you up.

[7172] SPEAKER_49: 11.17 has no I'm talking about 11.6.

[7175] Ray Rodriguez: Okay. All right. Thank you. Anyone want to speak to 11.17? I don't see anything.

[7181] SPEAKER_49: Okay. Mr. Member Rodriguez. Sorry, President Rodriguez. I would like to pull this item. Just new light that's been shed on that for me. I would like to pull that item at this time.

[7192] Ray Rodriguez: Okay. 11.17 has been pulled 11.18 donations report superintendent. Oh, no, we need a motion and a second first.

[7200] Nancy Thomas: I move acceptance of the donations report.

[7205] Ray Rodriguez: I second. Please vote. Member Thomas, thank you. OK, passes unanimously. Superintendent?

[7225] SPEAKER_49: Here we go. It's a short one. I don't mind. OK. In-kind donation of mural painting for Graham Elementary, Susan Villa for mural painting with 6th grade students. In-kind donation of mural painting for Graham Elementary, Tammy Villa for mural painting with 6th grade students. $750 donation for DeSoto Elementary, Newark Rotary Foundation for summer reading program. $3,000 for Lincoln Elementary from Raley Supermarkets for a water station and an in-kind donation of floor materials, carpet tiles, floor seating, lap trays for Newark Memorial High School, special ed, various donors through DonorsChoose.org for Ms. Alyssa Johnson's classroom, totaling $3,750 in donations.

[7274] Ray Rodriguez: We always appreciate when our community supports our schools, and the need is there. And Superintendent, do we send letters out, or are we just?

[7287] Diego Torres: We do.

[7289] SPEAKER_42: We have a process so letters will go out as soon as it gets approved.

[7306] Ray Rodriguez: We have a public hearing. I'd like to open the public hearing on joint initial proposal for reopeners between the California School Employees Association, CSCA, and the Newark Unified School District. Anyone want to address this public hearing before we close it? OK. Seeing none, we close the public hearing. We go to old business. Class size, superintendent.

[7339] SPEAKER_49: Something that we brought back per legal advice and the recommendation is approve the item, which would give flexibility, but it would maintain the prior agreement from the board that if we went over the number that the board identified in the prior meeting as, I think we referred to it as an overage, that the district would pay for that. So we're still going to cover, if we go over the, I think it was 26, is that the correct ratio, that we would pay the individual teacher for that, but staff was given direction by the board to keep those to a minimum, but that the board would pay. But we still want to maintain the flexibility for negotiation purposes.

[7375] Ray Rodriguez: Okay.

[7376] Bowen Zhang: Member John, you're the one that... Yeah, so I'm the one that's asked to bring this back, because I think last time when we voted on this issue, there are definitely confusions among the community, among the public, and even among our board members. So I actually had a simple table, so can anybody project that one? So I want the public to to not get confused about what we're voting on.

[7403] Nancy Thomas: We don't have a way to project it.

[7406] Ray Rodriguez: OK. You can announce it, Superintendent. You can read it.

[7408] Elisa Martinez: Jessica, can you read that for us?

[7414] Nancy Thomas: What's that? Thank you.

[7428] Ray Rodriguez: OK. He's got the money.

[7434] Bowen Zhang: Well, so if you think it's not very convenient to read, we can just say this time we're going to be voting on max 26, flexibility going to 29, and paying overages. I think that should be enough. Would that be enough?

[7450] Nancy Thomas: Maximum 29 with the option 2.

[7453] SPEAKER_39: Right.

[7453] Nancy Thomas: So the class, I'm sorry, go ahead. with the goal of 26 and overages for anything over 26. Okay.

[7463] Bowen Zhang: I'm ready to make the motion.

[7465] Ray Rodriguez: Go ahead.

[7466] Bowen Zhang: Make the motion.

[7466] Sean Abruzzi: Do you have a speaker? Oh, I see.

[7475] Ray Rodriguez: Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. Ms. Jones. And then Ms. Chen.

[7485] Kat Jones: Thank you. Good evening. My name is Katherine Jones and I've been in the district since 1988. I have seen many financial difficulties through that throughout that period of time with the district going up and down and having money and not having money and being a witness as a teacher and a parent of children who went through the school district. and experiencing what kind of cutbacks and then when things loosened up and what was available. I've had class sizes of anywhere in primary from 20 to 32. This year I currently had 26 as a third grade teacher and there were other classes in the district of third graders that were of 15 and 16. And I think one of the reasons that I am up here is because The equality across the board, across the district, which somewhat has to do with how we register our students in the district and the fact that there are six elementary schools on this side and two, basically, on the other side of the tracks. And I hate saying it that way, but that is kind of the distinguishing line. And it's really difficult. Because I've been in the district for so long and I've had so much experience in primary, first, second, and third grades, It's difficult when you have more than 20 to 24 students in your classroom. When I started teaching, we didn't have near as many IEPs and kids with 405s, which are usually behavior issues, in our classrooms. Those students, I love them. They are the ones that pull at my heartstrings, but they are also the ones that take all the time. And those kids that need to be challenged, those kids who are quiet, It's gotten to the point when we get over 24 squeaking to 26, we can't create that bond with our students to be able to reach them in the ways that they need to be able to be reached so that they can learn. Because we're not just educating the child. We're responsible for every part of their life, their psychological, their emotional, their physical, educational developments. And because we are who we are as teachers, we do it and work our hineys off, pardon my language, but we work really hard to make it a good situation for every student in our class. But when you give us more than, I really want to say 24 at primary, when you give us more than that, it is really hard to meet the needs of every child in the class. And that's very disheartening for me, as well as I know a number of my colleagues. So I just, you know, as you get ready to revote on something that you voted on two weeks ago, I really want you to think about, I know that there are financial impacts, but you also are not thinking about the students and what is best for them. and how you're going to retain teachers like myself who have been here this long. It's important to me to be able to stay in the district, but it's also hard. It makes me think, even after 31 years, it makes me think, where am I going to be treated better and have a better opportunity to work in the classroom with the students and provide them the education that they all deserve? So please reconsider I'm not hearing about another 3rd grade teacher who's got 15 kids in their class and I've you're going to have to work hard on us. You need to retain good teachers. Thank you. Thank you.

[7745] SPEAKER_50: Good evening. I apologize. I missed the start of the meeting. So I don't know if there was an explanation to that. The date change. But I hope you all are doing Thank you for bringing this item back to the agenda for clarification as I'm still unclear on exactly what's being approved. I keep hearing that the class size this past year was at 26 to 1 or maybe even 24 to 1, but on my roster, I've had 28 students the majority of the year. How can you tell incoming parents that our class size is 26 to 1 And then they find out that their child is in a classroom with 29. That's like buying a box of 24 pencils and then finding out that it only has 20. That's misleading. Justifying that number by saying, well, it's an average across the district, that's misleading too. Parents know that their child is going to get more attention in a smaller class size. with less children. And as a parent, I want that for my child. And as a teacher, I want that for all children.

[7832] Ray Rodriguez: Anyone else? Board discussion?

[7840] Bowen Zhang: I can go. Is there any still, is there still any confusion?

[7846] Ray Rodriguez: The confusion is, in my opinion, Mr., I mean, member John, is that it's my understanding that we voted at a prior meeting to go 26 to 1. Now, Mr. Nguyen, can you address the different sizes throughout the school district for me, if you don't mind?

[7866] SPEAKER_39: All right. So currently, right now, for TK through 3rd grade, we are at 23.8 to 1 on average. There's only about 10 classes that are at 27 to 1, and there are three classes that are at 28 to 1. Our goal is to have the class size to be at 26 to 1 for 19-20. The flexibility will give, by increasing the class size limit, class size maximum, will give us the flexibility to have some classes to be at 28 or 29. Our goal is not to have 28, 29, our goal is to have it The class size limit at 26.

[7908] Ray Rodriguez: OK. So this is always difficult. When we first started, we put in for K-3 class size years ago. We were getting a lot of funding from the state, and that has gone away. It was my understanding that we would what I would be more comfortable with is a cap of 26 to 1. I don't want the flexibility. I don't want any classes at 28 to 1. No, no, no, no. Hold on. Thank you. You know, I didn't do that to get an applause. I just, having, you know, daughters that are teachers and everything and being in the classroom, in my opinion, it's, I mean, I'd like it to be 20 to 1 if we could, but we can't. I think we already had an agreement of 26 to 1, and I don't want the flexibility. So I would be voting no if the motion is to have flexibility of 29 to 1.

[7970] Bowen Zhang: So my question is, if we don't have the flexibility going over 26, then we will have overflow of kids, right? Then that will mean splitting siblings. One go to this school, the other goes to the other school, right?

[7984] SPEAKER_49: Let me clarify what the board took action on, just because I believe this is the case. The board took action prior to say that if we exceed 26 to 1, that we would pay you the overage. That's all they took action on. There was not agreement on using the flexibility. So the idea of a hard, fast commitment to 24 is negotiated. So we haven't negotiated that yet, but it's not in the agreement. This is only asking, does the board want to exercise this for next year's negotiations or not? And if it's voted down, that's not something we use in that capacity. If it's voted forward, we would use it in that capacity. So I think that that's the best of my understanding of what we voted on. And I think what it was was a commitment to pay for overages, but also to keep the number of those classrooms that are over 26 to a minimum as much as possible without having to overflow families and cause disruption from a school. Keeping siblings together was another factor. That's what I recall.

[8049] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, so my opinion about this is last night, I mean, for this hard cap at 26 is the overflow about separating siblings, for me, that is a deal breaker because just like previously I voted against starting the discussion about school closure is because many people assume in the community is when you talk about school closure, you tear down the family, you sort of create a community blight. And for me, the issue of overflow really Because I did hear from some members from the community, they were saying that they were concerned about that one sibling being overflowed to another school. The psychology is for a seven-year-old, eight-year-old child is, there must be something wrong with me or like something different about me. So I was the only one that go to the other school, not the other people. So I wanted to prevent the overflow situation. So I would be in favor of flexibility going up to 29 and preventing overflow. And we pay overages over 26.

[8115] Ray Rodriguez: So Mr. Nguyen, I just had a question. If there is a hard cap of 26 to 1, then my understanding is that we look at, rather than having the kids go to another school, we look at combo classes and different ways to keep the child, to keep the kids in the school. Isn't that basically what we've done in the past?

[8133] SPEAKER_49: Well, there's almost, without renegotiating the whole portion of the agreement, and I'm trying to walk the line carefully here, in any scenario currently under the contract, there will be overflows. It's hard to avoid it. We do try to minimize it. We try to keep it as low as possible. So that would take a new negotiation philosophy, but it would have to be negotiated. So I think that That's probably the best I could answer this without entering in negotiations in a public setting. But I would say that it's really up to the board if they want to exercise this or not. That's really what it comes down to. Do you want to exercise flexibility or not? You've already agreed to pay for anything over 26 as an overage, not an overflow. And I think sometimes the words get us confused as well. But I'm glad we brought it back for clarification, because ultimately this is the board's decision. I think that it's up to you guys how you want to proceed.

[8192] Ray Rodriguez: Member Martinez.

[8196] Elisa Martinez: Yes, I'm glad we're having more discussion. This is a tough one because, you know, we are looking at the potential impact to some families. As I hear the teachers and we tour the classrooms and you see that there's hardly any space for the kids to move, you also look at the broader impact. of the broader community. I mean, again, it's like that other topic that I was talking, it's not easy, it's not an easy topic. And somebody, you know, earlier comments, you know, it's not just money. And I know that, you know, we talked about compensating the teacher, you know, if there is an outrage. But that doesn't take away the impact to the kids. Yeah, at this point, you know, I need to understand the potential fiscal impact. But like, member Rodriguez, I'd have to support a cap as well. So I would vote no to this, yes.

[8270] SPEAKER_39: So can the class size max, because there's a class size limit, there's a class size maximum. So currently the collective bargaining agreement states that Class size limit is at 24 to 1. And then the class size maximum is at 28 to 1. In the past, the governing board has approved to increase the class size limit, class size maximum to 29 slash 31. So what we're trying to do is to give the district the flexibility to increase the class size from class size limit 29, class size maximum at 231 But our intention is never to go up to 29, 28. Our intention is to properly staff and properly size the class at a maximum of 26 students. However, there may be some overflow over just in some of the classes, like what Mr. Jung was saying, where we don't want to separate the families. So we may have to keep families together.

[8333] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. A student member?

[8337] SPEAKER_54: Yeah, I think that the board as well, the board generally understands the fact that the district's intention is not to raise class sizes above 26. But the problem is that as you increase class sizes, as you increase the hypothetical probability that a class size will increase, you deteriorate the quality of education, even more so at a lower level. Candidly, the fact The fact of the matter is, the board feels that the district shouldn't have the possibility at all of raising class sizes. And with respect to prioritizing the quality of education over not separating families, I think that the quality of education, no matter where you get it, is more important in the long run. Because deteriorating that, deteriorating the quality of education, and then putting students forward to higher grades, increases the probability that you're going to have students who are deficient later on. So making sure that we have good education early on is essential to having higher performance going forward.

[8405] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Member Martinez, did you want to make a motion?

[8411] Elisa Martinez: I got to read it again. I'm sorry.

[8413] Ray Rodriguez: Well, I can do it. My motion would be to have a hard cap at 26 to 1.

[8421] SPEAKER_39: Class size limit or class size maximum? The max.

[8425] Ray Rodriguez: If you do class size maximum to 26, that means that any additional students, that means you have to hire a new teacher to... Well, no, there's other things that, and we've done it before, there's combo classes, you're looking at a worst case scenario. And in my opinion, there's other things, you know, you get you know, wherever the school is, you give everybody together and come up with a solution.

[8451] SPEAKER_33: Just a word of caution, when we have combination classrooms, it's two students less. So if we're talking about 26, in regards to a combination classroom, it would be 24.

[8461] Ray Rodriguez: But the combo classes, it's an option where we can keep the kids in the same school. So that's my motion. I'll second that. Mayor Martinez seconds.

[8478] Nancy Thomas: I just want to say that I I really want to give the district the flexibility knowing everything that I'm hearing from the student board member and and from Mister Zhang and everybody it pains me to to. And I would just implore, I will vote no, but because I think we need to give the district that flexibility, but I just implore the district to do everything it can with every tool that it has to not go over 26 to 1. Or they can't, but I mean, if this passes, but.

[8529] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, but we need to vote. Did you want to say something else before we?

[8533] SPEAKER_54: Yeah, I just want to clarify that a yes vote means that we support a class size maximum of 26?

[8537] Ray Rodriguez: No, a yes vote would be that we have a cap of 26. Maximum. Right, is that what you said? Yeah, maximum. That's correct. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Please vote.

[8551] Bowen Zhang: Yeah.

[8554] Ray Rodriguez: The motion is to... Oh, I made the motion to cap it at 26. The maximum would be 26 to 1.

[8562] SPEAKER_49: So there will be financial implications to that, and there will be an increase in combo classes. Right. Exactly.

[8567] SPEAKER_39: Yeah. I mean, that 13 position that we reduced.

[8572] Elisa Martinez: Potentially impacted.

[8573] SPEAKER_39: Yeah.

[8574] Elisa Martinez: I mean, we're going to be in more debt. Potentially impacted.

[8579] Bowen Zhang: So what could be the potential impact on the 13 positions?

[8582] SPEAKER_39: So again, again, if we do a scenario with combo classes and everything, and then we got Another class, say, has 20, 30 students. And our limit is, our maximum is 26, right? Those three students, where are we going to put them? Does that mean we're going to have to hire another teacher for those three students or an overflow?

[8606] Ray Rodriguez: OK. We have a motion and a second. Please vote. OK. The measure fails. So now we're back at square one as far as we're going to bring it back when member Gutierrez is here.

[8628] SPEAKER_49: We'll probably have to discuss it with legal counsel as well. We'll try to provide more clarity.

[8638] SPEAKER_33: Unfortunately, we do have a timeline of June 30th.

[8642] Nancy Thomas: So we can... Can we find out if the motion that was made last time was clear enough so that we can maintain the flexibility of 29 from legal counsel? I mean... Sure. Yeah, we will do that.

[8657] Megan McMillan: Okay.

[8661] Ray Rodriguez: So we can check with the board's availability and bring it back before June 30th with Member Gutierrez here?

[8668] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, we can definitely do that. I mean, if necessary, we should just add a new special meeting and then clear it up.

[8675] Nancy Thomas: You're going to be gone? I'm gone next week.

[8679] Ray Rodriguez: OK. So you won't be here between now and the 30th? You're going to be gone?

[8685] Nancy Thomas: I'll be gone all next week.

[8688] Ray Rodriguez: But that still leaves us a little bit of time. Is there a suggestion, team?

[8692] SPEAKER_42: I was just going to mention that staff has put in, we have quite a bit of staff that's going to be on vacation as well. So, I don't know with special meetings. We also have to find out what can be brought to the special meeting through legal guidelines as well.

[8709] Ray Rodriguez: It's got to be done before June 30th.

[8712] Bowen Zhang: Is there a slight possibility that you can contact Member Gutierrez now?

[8717] Ray Rodriguez: Oh, no, no. We couldn't do that. She's got to be here.

[8721] SPEAKER_49: What I would suggest is let me get a legal opinion tomorrow. right away on what they would recommend and what the real impact is, and I'll get you a legal briefing in a confidential folder.

[8732] Nancy Thomas: OK. What we did last time was on video, so maybe they would look at the video.

[8737] SPEAKER_49: Well, there's another solution as well that I could add to that. They watch the video. I'll have them review the video, as you suggest. I think that's a great idea. And in negotiations, we can have a series meeting. We don't have to pull everyone together. It can be done by phone. So let me bring it back to Mr. Danis tomorrow. and have him review all the evidence, the prior video, what did they decide, what does he recommend, and talk with you each individually in a series meeting to be able to come to some conclusion on this. That's one way to handle it before June 30th.

[8767] Ray Rodriguez: My understanding is that when you, and anybody that does a yes vote can bring an item back, and that's what Mr. John did, okay? So this would be the vote, I would think. That would be my understanding. a yes vote. So it was it was a lot last yes vote right. Yeah, he's the one who brought it back it was a yes vote. Okay. Next item. Consent agenda we have 14.1. Adopt a new unified school district initial proposal to see us here for 14.3 personnel report. 14.4 appointment of director of teaching and learning. And 14.5 appointment of director for special projects. So we need a motion and a second discussion.

[8834] Bowen Zhang: I move to approve 14.1 to 14.5. I second that. Please vote.

[8851] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, motion passes.

[8853] Nancy Thomas: I have a question. Usually we have a revised panel on our dais so we know exactly what we're voting on. For 14.4 and 14.5. 14.4. I mean 14, yeah, 14.4. the revised PEL with the names of the people that were hiring on it.

[8887] SPEAKER_33: As far as I know, the only names that were removed and that we're using is people that resigned. And I didn't get directions from them.

[8896] Nancy Thomas: No, but I mean, we are voting on the appointment of the director, and there's no documentation that says who that is when we hire someone.

[8906] SPEAKER_33: Oh, I'm sorry. I would say the assumption because Mister Sanchez had introduced him earlier, but I can make the recommendation now. Okay. Staff recommends Ariel Dolowitz as the new director of teaching and learning.

[8925] Nancy Thomas: Okay. So then I think we need to re-vote on 14.4. And 14.5. And 14.5. Are you okay with that? Yeah. I recommend that we accept the staff appointment of that individual.

[8944] SPEAKER_33: Ariel Dolowich.

[8947] Ray Rodriguez: Please vote. Who seconds?

[8951] SPEAKER_36: I second.

[8953] Ray Rodriguez: Member Jones seconds. Please vote.

[8961] Elisa Martinez: Sorry, I didn't get in there.

[8962] Ray Rodriguez: That's okay. Let's open it up again. Okay, motion passes. Member Gutierrez, a student member does not vote. Member Gutierrez not here. Okay, 14.5.

[8981] SPEAKER_33: Thank you for the clarification, Member Thomas. Staff would also like to recommend Isabel Cervantes-Folk as our new Director of Special Projects.

[8991] Nancy Thomas: I move that we approve that appointment. I second.

[8996] Ray Rodriguez: Member Thomas moves, Member Martinez seconds. Please vote. Motion passes with member Gutierrez not here and student members are voting on personnel issues. Okay, consent calendar 15.

[9013] Bowen Zhang: I move to approve 15.1 to 15.12. I need to pull 15.11. Ms. Parks?

[9016] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, well I'll pull 15.11. because it was requested so if you can amend that okay other than 15 point can you make the motion member John okay I need a motion for nobody seconded his motion okay so another motion for 15.1 through 15.12 pulling 15.11 do you want to make that motion mr. John Everything except fifteen point eleven.

[9060] Bowen Zhang: Okay. I move to approve fifteen point one to fifteen point twelve except fifteen point eleven.

[9066] Ray Rodriguez: And I second that. Okay. Please vote. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Motion passes unanimously. Uh member Gutierrez not here. Fifteen point I'm going to call the meeting to order. 11 contract addendum and final payment to right in school business consulting miss parks.

[9096] Cindy Parks: In June of 2018 you are without a CBO. At that time you hired to be a positive or whether it's going to be qualified. When the board finally approved the qualified. Designation. The board decided that they wanted to get help. For the CBO. In January 2019 you brought you. In May. You tabled a $116,000 proposal that was before you. You have a proposal for $20,120. I bring all of this to your attention in the There was a warrant issued for $20,960 in February. There was a warrant issued to Ryland for $35,440 in March, for $35,640 in April, for $28,020 in May. And before you tonight are two invoices for the month of May and June, which total $21,120. That's a total of $139,360. I'm at a loss. You approved a contract again, let me restate, in January for $20,000. Before you tonight is a final contract for $21,120. The other warrants that were paid. I don't understand how you're approving what totals $41,000, in essence, this year for Ryland, when the total is at the $139,000 mark. The warrants do specify that they are for business services, consulting services for the deficit reduction. So I don't understand why all of these warrants have been paid beyond what you have authorized. And I'm looking to get some understanding.

[9250] SPEAKER_49: Oh, this is not a Q&A portion.

[9252] Nancy Thomas: No, but I would like to ask the CBO to. It's on the agenda. I know, but I would like to, as a board member, before we make a motion on this, I would like the CBO to describe what's happened here.

[9268] SPEAKER_39: There were several requests by the governing board in regards to a study session regarding our district's budget. There was a request for a budget reduction There was a request for do a fiscal recovery plan. District's budgets. Enrollment projections. Second opinions. Reviewing the FCMAT report. And addressing the findings. Second opinions. In regards to the findings from what I showed. As well as a reduction, a list of reduction. And also trying to making sure that the district to be solvent and to be no deficit spending in the outer years. So these were some of the requests from, these were some of the requests. And it was asked, so we proceeded with second opinions from Rhode Island Services.

[9337] SPEAKER_49: So these were all costs that were accrued beyond the contract and I think it's stated clearly in the actual contract from Rhode Island outside of the scope of what we contracted them for that they would charge us for additional costs outside the scope of their initial contract.

[9352] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, it's 955. I need a motion to extend the meeting by an hour. I don't think we're going to need more than an hour.

[9356] Nancy Thomas: I move that we extend the meeting to 1030. I second.

[9362] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, please vote. Motion passes. OK, I pulled this item. So I'd like to make a motion that we accept 15.11.

[9383] Elisa Martinez: Sorry, I had a request.

[9384] Ray Rodriguez: Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I apologize. And then student board member.

[9391] Elisa Martinez: Maybe more of a comment, right? If the warrants have been issued. you know to member Thomas's question and the response I need to be frank that I you know we know we make requests but also if we I would expect district staff that if we are expecting cost to be beyond what we have what the board has approved that that would be surface to us so that we understand. I say that in the context of my concern about, we can't only fix the revenue side, we have to fix the cost control side. So, it is what it is that we've issued, but going forward, if we approve a contract, I think that, you know, the role of the board is clear, is we approve additional funds beyond, if needed.

[9448] Nancy Thomas: And I think this speaks to the internal controls on our contracts. I brought items to the attention of staff before on contracts that were not dated or that were the work was done before the contract was signed and things like that. I think this is a worrisome trend that's only escalated with this particular item, of course, They did the work. We'll pay them. But it's not a very good reflection on the internal controls in our business office.

[9485] Ray Rodriguez: OK. So I make a motion that we accept 15.11.

[9487] SPEAKER_54: I had a question.

[9490] Ray Rodriguez: Oh, I'm sorry.

[9491] SPEAKER_54: So when we talk about these additional warrants past the $20,000 that were originally approved in the contract in January, essentially my question is, is the board aware of the fact that we're incurring extra costs, or that the board is incurring extra costs when we make additional requests. You know, is it explicitly stated in the contract that the board is on the hook for these additional requests? And I assume it is, because that's the way business works. But essentially, is the board aware that they're incurring additional costs when we make these additional requests? I mean, it's all good and well to research these things, but at the same time we need to be aware of our costs. I think that's what Member Martinez is saying, is that we need to be cognizant of how we're spending our money.

[9539] Megan McMillan: Got it.

[9540] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you much. So my motion is to accept 15.11. Do I have a second?

[9548] SPEAKER_36: I second.

[9549] Ray Rodriguez: Member John seconds. Please vote. Okay, motion passes and the student member, board member no and he's already expressed the reason why. Okay, next on the agenda is student expulsions. So, I'll start with 16.1. I need a motion and a second. These items have already, we've already discussed them in closed session.

[9587] Bowen Zhang: Can we go through that with just one motion?

[9589] Ray Rodriguez: You have to go through one by one. I think we do it one by one. That's been the norm. So I need a motion for 16.1.

[9595] Nancy Thomas: I move approval of 16.1.

[9599] Ray Rodriguez: I second it. Member Thomas moves. Member John seconds. Please vote.

[9604] SPEAKER_54: I have a question real quick. Do I not vote at all or do I abstain? Just no vote.

[9611] Ray Rodriguez: No vote. OK, so motion passes, four ayes. second. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[9628] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[9629] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, motion passes, four ayes, 16.3. Need a motion and a second, please.

[9655] Nancy Thomas: I move approval of 16.3.

[9656] Ray Rodriguez: Member Thomas moves. Member Johns seconds. Please vote. Okay, four ayes. Thank you. 16.4. Motion and a second, please.

[9678] Elisa Martinez: I move to approve 16.4. I second it.

[9689] SPEAKER_43: Oops, you blocked. I hit the wrong button.

[9692] Ray Rodriguez: OK, so let's do it again, please. OK, motion passes, four ayes. 16.5. I move approval of 16.5.

[9708] SPEAKER_36: I second it.

[9710] Nancy Thomas: OK.

[9711] Ray Rodriguez: Member Thomas, Mr. John seconds. Please vote. Thank you. OK, four ayes. 16.6.

[9721] Bowen Zhang: I move to accept 16.6.

[9728] Ray Rodriguez: Member John moves. I second. Member Martinez seconds. Wait a minute. I didn't open it. Thank you. I'm a little behind here. Okay, there you go. Okay, motion passes. 16.7.

[9753] Nancy Thomas: I move approval of 16.7.

[9754] Ray Rodriguez: I'll second that. Please vote. I second. That's okay. Member Johns seconds. Please vote. Okay, motion passes. 16.8. I move to approve 16.8. Member John, move to approve 16.8.

[9775] Elisa Martinez: I second.

[9777] Ray Rodriguez: There you go. Member Martinez second. Oops, wait a minute. Let me close out the prior one. I'm sorry. Closes out. Vote again, please. Thank you. Motion passes. Four ayes. Close it again. Open. And the last one, right? 16.9.

[9805] Nancy Thomas: I move we accept the staff recommendation on the 16.9.

[9810] SPEAKER_36: I second it.

[9811] Nancy Thomas: OK.

[9812] Ray Rodriguez: Excellent. Thank you. OK. We did it. Okay, Board of Education reports, announcements, requests, debrief. We'll start with student board member. This is the end of the year. Last week was a busy week. Went to promotions and graduations. And did you want to share how your week was the last few weeks? The end of school?

[9843] SPEAKER_54: Yeah, you know, it was, I got to say it was a pretty easy last month, mainly because all my classes were AP classes. So, you know, not too much going on after AP exams. Yeah, no, yeah, it was pretty busy, obviously, with AP exams, but, you know, nearing the end of the year, it was a very chill, very laid back, a time to relax and, you know, enjoy the fruits of the year. I think I can speak for, you know, my class and pretty much everyone in Newark Memorial. It was definitely a challenge throughout the year, but we all came together. We faced our challenges, and I hope that we can, ride this energy into next year and that the class of 2020 will have a very prosperous year as our final year at Newark Memorial. Yeah, that's pretty much all I have to say.

[9895] Ray Rodriguez: I had a question. Yes. When do you start or did you already pick in your classes for your senior year?

[9901] SPEAKER_54: So we've already, that process usually happens around March and our counselors meet with us usually one-on-one and go over briefly what classes we've selected, how they fit with our educational goals going past high school, if they're a good fit for us, some other recommendations based on what we've selected and how we've done in the past. Behind the course selection sheet is a copy of our transcript so we can see how we've done in the past and kind of as a good estimator of how we might do in the future. Yeah, so that process happened in March, and I think most people are satisfied with what they've picked. And are you going to be with us next year as a student? I will be, yeah. I will be. So I believe the election that we went through in January was effective for this next year. And then the election that we have this January will be for the 2020-2021 school year. And at that point, I'll be meeting with, or probably as soon as we get back to school, I'll be meeting with the activities director, Ms. Canales, to discuss who I might like to train as our next student board member. Excellent. I also would like to mention one thing while I have the floor here. From the Rocketry Club, we've met with the junior high, the rising freshmen, and we will be having a summer workshop that's going to be held at the Newark Library. We don't have the exact date set yet, but I actually did speak with the library manager today. And he said that he was open to letting us use the space. So I can forward the dates to Ms. Aquino. And if any board members would like to attend and observe what we're doing.

[10007] Ray Rodriguez: Excellent. Thank you for doing that. Thank you.

[10011] Bowen Zhang: I really enjoyed the high school graduation ceremony. I enjoyed shaking 395 hands. Member Thomas.

[10027] Nancy Thomas: Yeah, it was a busy couple weeks, all the promotion ceremonies and graduations. It was very enjoyable, and I'm looking forward to a relaxing summer, and I hope the rest of you have a relaxing summer as well, as well as staff.

[10041] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Member Martinez.

[10044] Elisa Martinez: You guys are so light. I'm going to bring some serious topics. So, no, it was so awesome to be, for sure, the high school one. just the energy and just how happy the kids were. But I mean, we got a chance to go to, you know, the graduations at the continuation and independent study. Oh, my God, just how rewarding that is. And likewise, the promotions, right, for the sixth graders and the junior highs. Just very energizing in the sense of really reminding us why we're here. Again, not a comfortable chair sometimes to be in, but just really, really energized me from that perspective. On looking forward into the short near term, I was reminded about the condition of our schools. And it happened to be the hottest week. But just really the facilities, our gyms, and the lack of air circulation, just the structure. So I am going to be, I mean, not just me, I'm sure I hope as a board, we're going to be looking very actively at meeting the basic needs of our capital structure. I'll call it that, right? Because I know that we tend to, and we all want to be talking about, you know, ideally what we would want, but we first need to meet the basic needs of our kids. I appreciate the community member who brought the information about our high school swimming pool. You know, I don't think it's either or. I think we need to figure out how we do both. And especially our high school, because we see so many competitions. I have, you know, friends and family from in the vicinity that are always talking about the competition competitions at Newark, and we are definitely not putting our best foot forward. So thank you for the images. I think that needs to be seared into our brain. So I think more of an expectation management, at least from this board member, I'm going to be having a lot of questions around what is our plan in the short term to alleviate some of the big gaps that we have. And then finally, I can't go beyond tonight without asking the data that I've asked for since I sat on this board, I think, or in the chair, which is the data around counselors touching, again, touch points to students, and again, the populations and their performance. So I'd still like to ask for that. I believe I saw that it's going to come our way. But I've also seen it a couple of times. So I'd like to urge you guys to please forward that on to us. Thank you.

[10223] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. So all I have is I want to wish everybody a wonderful summer. Last week, I think when the temperature got to 100, it was like we weren't in the Bay Area. It was like a mirage. But I appreciate everything that that everyone does, having superintendent, having staff go to the different promotions. And I think it's so important that whether it's, you know, to have the superintendent and staff attend these promotions so the community knows that, you know, who we are and that we value everything that's going on in our schools. Not saying that we don't value it if we're not there, but it's just, you know, having a presence there I think is so important. I want to publicly thank Mr. Mark Neal for not only the junior high, but for going in at the high school and for the last couple of weeks. I thought the graduations at the alternative schools were excellent. And we're very well done there. And I'm losing it. Julie Calderon. And she did an excellent job in her staff in putting those together. for the three different schools. And then the high school, naturally, having close to 400 kids, it's just great. They were well-behaved, and they were excited. And it was a wonderful moment, as was the junior high. So the only thing I have is we have summer school. So I don't know how many kids do we have enrolled for the high school summer school program.

[10330] SPEAKER_42: I believe I was told it's a little over 600. OK.

[10333] Ray Rodriguez: No, no, no. What I'm talking about is the, thank you for telling that. That's excellent. What I'm asking is for the seniors that couldn't walk, that were lacking some credits.

[10347] SPEAKER_49: Right. I don't know that number. We'd have to find out.

[10350] Ray Rodriguez: Right. But that graduation is probably going to be the end of July, I would imagine. The sooner we know that, because we're making plans on summer so we can be there.

[10360] SPEAKER_49: last week in July. Let me find out.

[10362] Ray Rodriguez: OK, so we can get that information. That's great. And our prayers go out to Lucia and Gutierrez and her family. So that's all I have. Superintendent?

[10376] SPEAKER_49: I do want to share with you a copy of a legal briefing from Mr. Danis. I'll be following up with him first thing tomorrow, as soon as I can, on the question that was brought up earlier relative to K-3 class size. You probably already have that, but I want to just make sure that you do. I think the second thing I want to touch on is, again, thanking staff for another year. Our staff works hard. I know it's been hard with the budget cuts. And that takes its toll on morale. And we still have people showing up and doing the work that we ask. And I really want to thank our staff. And I do wish them some rest this summer. I think the other couple of things are, I want to thank the board for adhering to their guns about metrics. I'm so glad to hear that. It's very much a relief to me. And I want to thank you for that. And I appreciate you holding on to try to hammer that out. I know it's not easy, but I appreciate you guys continuing to work through that. So I want you to hear that from me. I welcome the metrics. And I think that gives me the clarity and focus that I need. So thank you for that as a board. And I think what I want to close with is I love the acronym tonight of Families, Achievement, Newark Pride. Thank you. 10-12.

[10459] Ray Rodriguez: Adjourned. Meeting adjourned.

No minutes available.