Special - Part 2 Meeting

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[4] Ray Rodriguez: Take a little extra time when we feel that you would want us to. That's very serious when you're talking about expulsions, when it involves our kids. So that being said, it's 7.35. I'd like to reconvene our special board meeting for October 2, 2019, Newark Unified School District. The closed session. Again, we talked about negotiations. We talked about pending litigation. And then we also talked about expulsions. Now we go to the pledge. Do we have anyone? Are there any young people? Young and mean, I'm not kidding. Any students that would like to lead us in the pledge? Do we have any students? If not, I'm going to ask Cesar to lead us, since he's a student, if that's OK. OK? OK, do we have anybody else? Any other students? OK, Cesar, go ahead. Do it.

[86] SPEAKER_30: and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[97] Ray Rodriguez: I understand that our spotlight is BGI, and those are the little kids. So I see why that wouldn't be. BGP. Oh, BGP. See, I'm still calling it bunker, OK? But no, bad, bad, OK? Anyway, we're looking forward to the spotlight on BGP. Student superintendent.

[129] SPEAKER_17: Student report. Student report. So let's begin with representatives from McGregor campus. Is anyone from McGregor here tonight? Maybe they'll show up. Let's go to the junior high. Welcome.

[152] SPEAKER_19: Hello, my name is Lily Kawabata, and I'm the Vice President of Leadership at NJHS. Here is the report for our school. We have noticed a positive change in behavior, such as less inappropriate language and bullying. We have also noticed a cleaner campus without as many seagulls after brunch and lunch. For this month, we have fun school-wide activities coming up. For example, we are preparing a fall festival that will be held on Halloween Day during lunch. that same week we will be holding a spirit week in which each day students will dress up using different themes for that day. The students are in the final week of fundraising for a new school marquee for outside of the school. We are also discussing and creating designs for a new school sweatshirt so we can show our Cougar pride. Thank you for your time.

[210] SPEAKER_59: Thank you, Superintendent. So Spirit Week is in full swing at Memorial. Today, the seniors dressed up. We had Wild West, so everybody was dressed up. Boots, jeans, flannels, cowboy hats. It was a lot of fun. I think the sophomores had Meme Day, so that was entertaining. Our homecoming assembly is this Friday, October 4th. It's going to start around 1145. So as you may know, every year, each class prepares a skit, and that skit is based on a certain theme, and that theme carries on through the whole year. So this is the culmination of work being done since August to demonstrate school spirit and to kick off the year right. Before the homecoming game, there will be a car show put on by ASB that's going to be at 6 p.m. in the student parking lot. That'll be in front of the event center. At 7 p.m. We have our homecoming football game against Kennedy. That'll be at 7 o'clock We'll also be announcing our homecoming king and queen and then our princes and our princesses our top five boys Christian Bakker, Jaden Calise, Angelo Becerra, Myles Brandon, and Lorenzo Weisch. Our top five girls are Gianna Carauta, Iza Cruz, Sam Gutierrez, Daisy Rodriguez, and Riley Sarasua. So we invite the public to come on and show their support. for our homecoming core, as well as our football team. Homecoming dance will be this Saturday, 7 to 10 PM. It's a casino theme, so it should be a fun time. ASB is planning Trunk or Treat. So it'll be a community event on Halloween, the day of Halloween. It'll be starting around 4 or 4.30 PM. It's really a thing for our elementary students to come out Interact with the high school students high school students will be having their trunks open and it's a fun community event Kids can come get candy from the kids from us high school students. We'll have our cars out there Going on to athletics our our follow-up will be the Saturday the October 19th at 6 p.m. It will not be at the pavilion this year to be at Swiss Park Tickets, as always, are $45. Buy tickets from myself or any of the coaches on campus. This weekend, the Water Polo team will be having its Crocker Martinez Invitational. It's co-hosted with James Logan and Mission San Jose. It's a girls-only tournament, so play will begin on Friday at 2.30 at Memorial. continue till 8 p.m., then Saturday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets are $5 per day. So again, we invite the public to come out and show their support for all of our water polo teams. It's a lot of fun, great water polo playing both days. The PSAT will be administered to sophomores and juniors on Wednesday, October 16th. So it's going to be a late start for freshmen and seniors that day. School will start at 11.05. The FAFSA opened yesterday. So seniors will be applying for federal student aid. I've already started on that. And senioritis is killing me. The CSU application also opened yesterday. So a lot of my classmates are going to be applying to CSU. So we hope for a good college admission season. That concludes my report this time. Thank you.

[437] Ray Rodriguez: So I had a quick question. seniors for financial aid, they know that they need to, you know, apply for that as quick as possible, right?

[450] SPEAKER_59: Yeah, so the College and Career Center posts announcements saying, you know, sooner rather than later, submit the FAFSA so that you get as much student aid as possible.

[458] Ray Rodriguez: And did you invite the board to come to the dance or?

[462] SPEAKER_59: No, that's just informational only, informational only.

[467] Ray Rodriguez: Last time I went to my granddaughter's dance at the junior high, I was not, they didn't want me there.

[478] SPEAKER_49: I had a quick question. I'm sorry. Can you just repeat the event at the Swiss Park? I'm sorry, I was writing down.

[482] SPEAKER_59: It was the Luau for Athletics, so it's our annual fundraiser to support the athletics program. It's at 6 p.m. And when is that? It's Saturday, October 19th. Okay, excellent.

[495] Ray Rodriguez: And how much are the tickets? $45. OK. We now go to Newark Days presentation. Ms. Ramona and Mr. Glenn. If you didn't see them there, those of you who went to Newark Days, they were out there trying not to get run over while they directed traffic. And we appreciate it. We've been doing it a long time. And thank you for your patience. It's on you.

[528] SPEAKER_37: But thank you very much for inviting us here. We appreciate it. Newark Days was a huge success this year. We had record attendance at the carnival, the grounds, and the parade. Probably the parade because we closed so many streets that people didn't have any place else to go. We really want to thank the school board and all of our schools, the teachers, the principals, the parents for coming out and joining us in the parade. They did a fantastic job of showing their school and community spirit and volunteerism. We had a lot of kids from the high school volunteering on the grounds and with the parade. We absolutely could not put on this parade without everybody and without the children. The children are the heart, soul, and the future of our community and this is a big community event. We appreciate it. One of the things that we do is each year we also give each of the schools a special community spirit award. And it's to thank them for every year coming out there and showing their spirit. I'd like for Glenn to read a letter that we do give to the schools with their awards. Just a quick little reading here.

[609] Guadalupe Lopez: Give it a shot.

[610] SPEAKER_20: All righty. Well, students, teachers, parents, administrators, and principal, on behalf of the 2019 Newark Day Celebration and Parade Committees, Newark Memorial High School is awarded the Community Spirit Award for the incomparable community and school spirit shown each year and every year as you march at the Newark Days Parade. The schools of Newark are or where our future leaders and educators will come from. We celebrate this fact every year. The parade and four-day celebration of the 64th anniversary of our town's birth would not be even possible without the support of the schools of the Newark Unified School District. Please accept our continued thanks and sincere appreciation. We look forward to seeing you again next year, next year's parade. And our theme next year is under the sea. So use your imagination.

[666] SPEAKER_37: What I also this year our theme was heroes are super and we I'm joined with the schools and asked them to have their children do essays on This theme and then each of the schools picked the best essay And it wasn't necessarily best in spelling or anything, but the thought and the heart behind it And we had some amazing essays. What I'd like to do first is, if we have time, to read off the winners from each of the schools. And then we'd just like to read just a little blurb of a few of the essays, so you get an idea. From John F. Kennedy Elementary, fifth grader Addis Mitiku. From A.J. Snow Elementary, fourth grader Liliana Mendoza. James Graham Elementary. Sixth grader, Haley Tuttle from Lincoln Elementary. Second grader, Alicia Ramirez from EL Music Preschool. Four-year-old, Jameson Benner, believe it or not, from Birch Grove Primary and Intermediate. Fourth grader, Alicia Valdez, Bridgepoint High School. Twelfth grader, Pedro Coronado Corona. AL Schilling Elementary was Princess Brackens, and I didn't See on there what her grade was. And Newark Junior High School, eighth grader, Hope Ringlein. So a big hand for all those winners. We gave each one of them a plaque with their name on it. And then we also were given a wristband so they could ride as many Carnival Rides as they wanted to. Before we go, what I'd like to do, like I said, is just read a couple of the essays. Not all of them. But one of them really stood out, and this was my absolute favorite, and it was from Jameson Benner, age four. He was succinct, he was to the point, and said how he felt. My hero is Ms. Marie. She plays and makes me sit.

[798] Nicole Izant: Wasn't that gorgeous?

[804] SPEAKER_37: Lynn's got one he'd like to read to you.

[808] SPEAKER_20: This is from a fourth grader. It says, my mom is my hero because whatever I am passionate about, she supports me. She always has my back. She's honest with me, and she works 12 hours a day so I can have a room for her in my head. Without my mom, I'd be lost. She's my hero because looking back, we've grown together so much. I think all she does, I think, And I think all she does makes her so important to me. My mom deserves the world.

[843] SPEAKER_37: What we found was the heroes for our children are their parents quite a bit and their teachers. So it was really eye opening. I'd like to give a copy of these to the school board.

[856] Ray Rodriguez: So there was no grandpas in there?

[859] SPEAKER_37: There were grandpas. It was parents. It was family a lot, and teachers. So it was really good to see, because our whole point in the theme was just that, that heroes are everyday people in our lives. And this just really brought it out, brought to the point. So we've got a copy of the letters for you. And then you have the list, these, that I'd like to give to you. And thank you so much for having us up here.

[889] Ray Rodriguez: Can you, before you go, Ramona, if you don't mind, could you kind of just share with us, and hopefully it doesn't take too long, when our schools win the trophy, or in the case of my friend that won the classic car, my understanding is you personally go out and deliver the trophy. Can you just share that with us real quick?

[907] SPEAKER_37: Sure, sure. Well, when I took over chairmanship, or co-chairmanship of the parade, One of the things that I saw was kind of lacking was the people who did not pick up their awards or weren't at the award ceremony. Not everybody is able to. And so the awards were getting a box and kind of sat there and nobody got them. So I made it a personal vendetta of mine that that would not happen. So after Newark Days, at the week after and sometimes a couple weeks after, I go make sure that I contact everybody and get their awards to them if I have to deliver them. I delivered one down to San Jose the first week. We also do the Boy Scouts. We attend their, either a meeting or... Like Troop 1A6 had a court of honors. Troop 1A6 had a court of honors so we go there, both Glenn and I, and present this because I just personally think it's very important for them to you get the word, and it is so, you know, everybody just really enjoys it, so.

[971] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you for that personal touch.

[972] SPEAKER_37: You're very welcome. Thank you very much. Thank you.

[981] Ray Rodriguez: It's time for a spotlight. Superintendent?

[986] SPEAKER_36: Yes, if I can have BGP come forward. This evening we are continuing with our second spotlight, and I know you've got some folks here also supporting you. And Ms. Ditto, if you want to also introduce them.

[999] SPEAKER_41: I'd be happy to. They're sticking through it with me. We have some classified and some certificated staff here tonight. So I'm going to start with my classified. We have Janelle Guzman, one of our aides. She works tirelessly with some of our students of high need. We have Mr. Jesus. is the absolute life of our campus. He's why all of our flowers are blooming, our campus is clean, potty accidents get cleaned up really fast, and he just makes all of us so comfortable to come to work and our campus so very beautiful. I also have a couple teachers here. We have Mrs. Jorgens from kindergarten, and I have Mrs. Calabada from kindergarten. Mrs. Nguyen, who is our first and second grade teacher, was also here, but she had to run. One, because of child care, and two, because the A's are playing, and that's her team. But I want to thank you all for coming and staying for our late start here.

[1062] Ray Rodriguez: Can you ask them to stand, if you don't mind?

[1065] SPEAKER_41: So we can applaud them? All right, so you heard from my sister school last meeting. And we're going to continue the BG theme for the first two meetings of the month. So I want to thank you for this time, Board President Rodriguez and board members, Superintendent Sanchez and our executive board. Thank you for this time so that I can spotlight the amazing things happening in Birch Grove Primary. So we have the same mission as Birch Grove Intermediate because this has been a work in progress as we are one school on two campuses. So we have our amazing team and co-principals down there at the management retreat at the beginning of the year and our amazing teaching and support staff picture as well from the school year. And our mission, we're working to provide a safe, inspiring, and innovative learning community. for students, staff, and our families. So what do we look like this year? We are about 416 students. We have had families coming in. We've unfortunately lost a few that have moved out of area, but we are continuing to welcome new enrollments. Ms. Ingham-Watters and I visited the developments that are starting to have move-ins in our attendance area, so we've seen families from those new developments coming in as well. We have the distinct pleasure of having the first two TK classrooms on our campus. This is the first time for us having two TKs on the same campus. Our teacher finally has a teammate. to do planning with, and they're very excited. Five kindergarten classes, five first grade classes, one combo class at first and second grade, and four second grade classrooms. And we are quite full. You can see our kiddos in science. You can see them in our kinder ABC boot camp fashion show. And we had Buttercup. Was it Buttercup the cow? Yes, come out and visit us already this year. So we've already started off with an exciting year. Our Little Bulldog programs are after school enrichment. We have three. We have Young Rembrandt's Art, Chess Scholars, and Let's Build It, which is an engineering program. Our during school enrichment, we have Music for Minors 2. We have three STEAM weeks. We have a maker space that I'll talk about a little bit later. And we're investigating visual and performing arts, as is outlined in our LCAP, and working with our BGI campus to see if there's something that we can do across both. And speaking of our BGI partnership, our academic data on the dashboard comes from our third graders. None of the BGP grades are state tested. But you can see from this that our amazing third graders had the foundational skills they needed to find quite a bit of success on their SBAC test. And this was three years ago. This is 17-18 data. 18-19 data will be coming out, I think, around December. And then we'll have those numbers for you as well. But to give you some indication of how we're doing at BGI, or BGP, I'm sorry. Now I'm doing it. Goodness. We do take the iREADY data as used in our CPSA goals as well. And so for our ELA K2, You can see that we showed 35% growth in our Tier 1 students. So our pyramid went from being a little bit out of sync to by the end of the year, right aligned with our MTSS model. So we're at 80% proficient. We're showing that significant growth. We had 17% in Tier 2. And our at-risk or Tier 3 students, we were minimized down to 3% in ELA. And in math, similarly, we showed 44% growth from first assessment to final, 37% reduction in Tier 2 students, and a reduction of 4%. So our at-risk students at Tier 3 was only 2% of our BGP kiddos by the final assessment. So that's a celebration for all of us. So our conditions and climate, so I'm going to go back to our dashboard because for conditions and climate, those are representative of the BGP numbers. So our suspension rate from two years ago was in the green. And because we don't have the current data, I just want to talk about some of the things that we have going on for culture building. So we have our PBIS systems, be safe, be responsible, be respectful. And we also have things that are building at the student level. So we have weekly message, which is a digital announcements that we do every Monday. Students get to submit a joke of the week if they want to write one. So there's a sample there for you. The irony was that the Monday that was done, because I try to record them either Friday or over the weekend, sent it out. Mrs. Ditto over swept? And so I was like running in the door and my staff was laughing because they had already heard the joke of the week and they went, you over swept. Oh man, I got caught. We also have character traits of the month and for September it was keeping a positive attitude. So a message again, the power of yet, that positive self-talk. I might not know yet. I might not be able to do that yet. I'm going to get there. So that positive self-talk. And then every week, I always wish them a wonderful week and remind everybody bulldogs are safe, bulldogs are responsible, bulldogs are respectful. So that messaging comes out from the top all the way down. And we encourage our students to use the same language with each other as well. We are considered ATSI Additional Target Support for Improvement for our subgroup of English learners in chronic absenteeism. So overall, our school was in the orange. And then specifically with our English learners, we were in the red. We had 24.4% of our EL students chronically absent. And over 20% of our entire student body was considered chronically absent two years ago. I have great news. Our chronic absenteeism whole school went from just over 20% down to 4.6%. Our students that are considered EL went from over 24% chronically absent to 4.5%. I credit this improvement to a few things. One is the district cleanup of data. We could not have made these numbers without really having those systems in place. And that's thanks to Pupil Services, through IT, and David Mellons. They all did an amazing job. We also had teacher-driven changes. And I want to recognize Mrs. Kawabata again. She didn't know I was going to do this. But when we started to look at our chronically absent students, she was the one that really pushed for, as classroom teachers, I need to make contact and had a conversation in the staff meeting of, we, as teachers, need to have contact with these families and to remind them how important it is to come to school every day and on time. And then the amazing work of my attendance clerk. She is not here tonight. Again, the A's are on. Sorry, guys. But she really made a concerted effort of reaching out to every family that she was starting to see a pattern with, scheduling conferences with me to meet with families, and then following through on the SARB process for the families that were really just not able to get their kiddos to school. So I credit all of those things to this amazing progress. And our BGP focus areas. We're looking at culture and community, both at the staff level and student level. So we had some activities that are continuing where we're building a team. So it's a lot of team building with our staff, but with a STEAM theme. So you can see pictures there of our staff doing some creative building and construction and engineering. We also have our PLC collaboration, worth looking at PLC with purpose this year. And I asked my teachers at the beginning of the year to do a quick survey so I could take a pulse of where they feel like they are after we started PLC work last year and before we started our PLC work this year. And some of the data that I collected from them was really telling. So about 76% of our staff are still identifying as novice or intermediate users of PLC. And so that gives us a place to grow from. In addition, what I found really significant was that 94% shared that they have received no formal training in PLCs. So we have these structures for them, and they are recognizing that there hasn't been a formal training in that. So I, as a leader, and I can take this back to our principals meeting as well, that they need more support in that. And then we can start to move them from novice and intermediate users to integrating users. And finally, our STEAM and Makerspace. Our space is up and going. It's colorful. It's fun. Now, we're going to work on getting the kids in there. So we have this here as an adjunct duty, a Makerspace committee. They're going to be presenting sample lessons in at least three staff meetings. Our goal is to get the students into the space and stimulating creativity as our first goal. So we aren't going to dive right into all of the design thinking principles. Our first is to get the kids in there and get them having some fun in creative ways in that space. All right. So Miss Martinez, you already know about this guy. She has an old hat at it, a young hat at it. But you are all invited to our school-wide walk-a-thon, Birch Grove Walk-a-thon. It is next week, October 11th, starting at 1.30. There are three different activities. The kids do a walk-a-thon where they're collecting pledges. We also have a carnival with games and food. And then we also have a raffle. One of the top prizes, just so you know, is a Disneyland trip. tickets to Disneyland, not to be taken on a school day. We are keeping that absentee rate down. And in case you're wondering what kind of carnival games, there is a nose picking game, which our kindergartners are great at. I really encourage everybody to come out and see it. It's amazing. But you are invited and we'd love to see you there. I thank you for this time, and I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

[1799] Maria Huffer: OK.

[1800] Ray Rodriguez: I have one. We all talk about the way the staff and the community has really gotten together on the merging of both schools. And it seems like that's going real well. And I know this is the start of your second year, is that correct? Correct. So can you just share with us, because you're new to us and your experience?

[1831] SPEAKER_41: My experience has been that there was still just a tiny bit of healing that needed to happen, which I think we did last year. There was some families that were still struggling with two drop-offs, two pickups. Now as those families have kind of gotten up and now they have junior high kids and they're realizing, oh wait, now I have, now I realize it's normal. That's helped a lot. We do common planning, so our teachers work together. We have a number of staff meetings and professional development Fridays where we join staff and do some vertical articulation, so that's really helped as well. Having the same messaging and the same tools at both campuses has been very powerful. The expectations of BGP, we learn them, we live them, and then when they get to BGI, they know them, and they're ready. So that's been really great. So I think that the healing part is done, and now we're ready to just roar forward.

[1886] SPEAKER_32: Thank you. Thank you much. Appreciate it. Go ahead.

[1888] SPEAKER_17: I just want to commend you and your staff. I know those kind of leaps in data don't happen on accident. I'm definitely proud of your team, and please carry that message back on our behalf. Good work.

[1900] SPEAKER_41: Keep it up. Thank you. And now I'm going to send them home, because they have to all be at work very early.

[1909] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, all the artwork at the back, is that from BGP? Is that yours, or BGP's, or BGI's?

[1922] SPEAKER_41: This is BGP work. I really do invite you to come back and take a look. There are vests from our ABC Boot Camp fashion show. G, R, and K. Oh, gosh. I remembered. Mrs. Jorgens was nice enough to donate those from her classroom. And then afterward, we both went, why didn't we grab a B, a G, and a P? But take a look. Some of them are multi-page. You have to open them up. The vests are two-sided because it was a coming and going fashion show. So take a look at both sides. And there are googly eyes. on the G vest, just putting that out there. But I am so in love with the work that they do, the smiles, and all the reminders every day of why I'm here. I walked into a classroom in my board presentation outfit in a kinder classroom and got told, Mrs. Ditto, you look so pretty today. And I went, oh, gosh, what do I look like the rest of the year? They will be so honest with you. But those smiles and voices make it worth it every single day.

[1989] Ray Rodriguez: Yeah, that's excellent. Thank you for sharing. Appreciate it. OK, with that, we're going to move to public comment on non-agenda items. This is an opportunity for the public to address the board on any item that you want to that's not on the agenda. When we have something on the agenda, then we ask people to address us on that particular item before we decide to talk about it. The time limit is three minutes. Ms. Aquino will Let you know when there's 30 seconds. We have quite a few, so if you want to keep it to two minutes, that's up to you. But you do past practices, you have three minutes. So I have a group of music parents and students that want to come up first. Now, normally when you have a group, We still have the three minutes, but we might allow a little bit more because it's a group. So did you want to come up now, please? How many are you? How many students?

[2070] SPEAKER_13: We have about, I'd say, 10 or 11 students and parents with us.

[2075] Ray Rodriguez: OK. So go ahead now. We have other people that put in their names before, but because it's a group of students and everything, we're allowing it for you to go first. OK?

[2086] SPEAKER_13: Thank you. OK. My name's Allison Sunomoto.

[2089] Ray Rodriguez: I'm here with- Excuse me. Somebody needs to do the timer. OK. OK, go ahead.

[2095] SPEAKER_13: I'm here with the music program, music alumni, and parents. And we'd like to address some concerns that we have with our administrators and our director. the main administrator being Ms. Foucault, as well as our director, Ms. Canavan. We've had some concerns over the past few months with how the program is being ran, and due to the events today during our class period has brought us to this point. We had a meeting with Ms. Foucault, which was supposed to be helping us come to terms on how to come to a middle ground with Ms. Catavon, how we were going to go about our program and what we were going to do in the future. But instead it turned into Ms. Foucault telling us about how she went on to say that our generation was a disgrace, how we were selfish and entitled, how our parents did not teach us proper respect towards our elders and other people around us. And overall that we were mean and we were the reason why this program is failing. She caused kids to hysterically cry. One of our students had gotten injured today because of pure frustration that he had to release. But I'm going to pass it to parents who want to express some concerns as well.

[2183] Diego Torres: President?

[2188] Ray Rodriguez: OK. The only person that works for us, for the board, is the superintendent. Everyone else works for him. So since it involves a sensitive issue, if you can, superintendent, could you? Yes. And then we do have meetings occasionally at the high school with students. So if you can get with the superintendent, he'll get with you and give you information to Mr. Kino so we can set up a little meeting. If that's okay.

[2222] SPEAKER_32: Go ahead.

[2223] SPEAKER_17: Point of order. Just kind of for the students benefit and for the audience benefit. The meeting we're having tonight is the board's meeting in public. So we generally will not go into a back-and-forth discussion with you about a topic especially if it involves an employee. So just know that that's not, that's by design and we generally don't make comments on employees in this forum. I definitely would be glad to step out with you for a moment in the hall and talk to you a little bit about how we can look into this.

[2256] SPEAKER_13: Yes, I would appreciate that.

[2257] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, thank you for taking the time to come out and when it involves employees it is very sensitive, so that's why the superintendent, so you step out. Thank you. Thank you everybody, appreciate it. Okay, Mr. Newk.

[2290] Cary Knoop: Good evening. You've got three minutes. Good evening. On March 21st, this board approved board policy administrative regulation 5.1.2.1. And that's all about grades and evaluations. When that happened, I was very happy because right now in the elementary schools, the grades is from 1 to 4. And this administrative regulation that this board approved said, no, let's do 1 to 5. And I think that's a great thing. I think our parents deserve to know how our kids are doing. So now I hear that apparently totally independent of this board, the district started to act differently. and they started grading kids from 1 to 3. So there's two comments I want to make. First of all, from an administrative perspective, this is just totally unacceptable. I mean, why do we need a board here? Why do we have board members coming here every month if the district just got its own way? You approve something on March 21st, an administrative regulation. You're saying we're going to go grade 1 to 5. And now the reports come, cards come out, and it's one to three. I mean, that doesn't make any sense to me. It's like this board is just totally dysfunctional. How can you let this happen? Apart from that, there's a second part. And that's, should we really tell our parents, well, your kid's got a one, a two, or a three? Is that enough? I think not. It's a disservice to our students and to the parents to grade on such a completely rough scale. And I hope that board members stand up and publicly. I don't care about what board members in the back rooms talk about with the superintendent. So that's the public doesn't know about that. Board members also need to speak publicly about these things. But board members think about that. How are they going to change this? If you care for academic excellence, Then you need to speak up, not in the back rooms, because the public doesn't know what happens in the back rooms. Speak up and say, how can that be? We approved five grade levels, and now, independently, this district says, OK, we're going to make report cards with three. How can you let that be? It's a disservice to our parents. I want to know how my elementary student kids are doing. I don't want to get, what are we going to do next year? We just give them all A's and make everybody happy and get a world with rose-colored glasses and everybody's an A student? Is that really helping our kids? Is that really helping the parents? So, again, I think I really want this board to act, to speak publicly about these things instead of maybe in the back rooms or whatever, but it doesn't make any difference. Thank you very much.

[2469] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. New. So, again, doing public comment, the board does not respond We're just here to listen. And then occasionally, we'll direct staff or a superintendent to speak to a parent or someone. Mr. Sagehorn, Michael.

[2491] SPEAKER_30: Welcome.

[2494] SPEAKER_16: Thank you. Good evening, board. My name is Michael Sagehorn. And I own property residential and commercial in Newark and have interest all by commercial and success Newark School District. Roughly 15 months ago, I was offered a position here at Newark High School to teach US history, and I declined it for a mix of reasons. And 13 months ago, you put the principal who offered me the job attempted to terminate him. And more recently, it's come to my attention through that process that your superintendent has attempted to remove his credentials as an educator and as administrator from the California Teaching Credential Commission. And upon looking at the findings of that board, they have sent back, there is no evidence, there are no statements, there is nothing within the record that indicates that Paul Bretz did anything wrong at Newark Memorial High School. The issue really is, is you have a superintendent and staff that lead by fear and intimidation and essentially do not fit the leadership qualities when I had a rifle company as a captain in the Gulf and the Marines, where I know Paul distantly from. You need, the decision in front of you is, you need to go back into executive session after public comments. You need to terminate the contract of Superintendent Sanchez. You need to pay him through December. And you need to take his keys, his laptop, and say thank you very much for your service. He has created litigation for you unnecessarily. He's creating hate and discontent within the newer community. And as an educator, you got the wrong guy, folks. You have the wrong man leading your school district. Thank you very much.

[2633] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Ms. Parks. Ms. Mary Bretz. Are you coming up? I'm sorry. Go ahead. Ms. Bretz.

[2663] SPEAKER_02: Thank you. In May, my husband, Newark Memorial High School Principal Paul Bretz, appeared before this board asking you to review the actions of Director of Human Resources Jessica Saavedra and Superintendent Patrick Sanchez related to his to my husband's administrative leave issues. I'm here again tonight to explain to the board and to the newer community how the members of the executive cabinet continue to fail the district's mission and demonstrate lack of ethics in their actions. In June, we were notified, as Michael was saying, that the California Teachers Commission was at the CTC had asked, or pardon me, We were notified that they were in an investigation, that my husband's actions were stating that the... Sorry, let me start over again. In June, we were notified by the California Teaching Commission that the district asked the CTC to investigate my husband's actions, and that the CTC had started a preliminary investigation. On September 18th, the CTC submitted their findings, as Michael said. The Committee of Credentials, after careful review and consideration of materials in your file, determined to close the investigation and recommend no adverse action at this time. This is the third time an official has reviewed the information and has stated that my husband has done no acts of wrongdoing. Your lawyers have done it back in January. The Scully officer said so back in March. Prior to the CTC's review of the case, Jessica Saavedra submitted supplemental findings to the CTC via email. We believe the submission was in response to a request from the CTC to supply all the names, witnesses, and statements for everybody involved. In her response, Mrs. Saavedra only supplied four of the witnesses involved, two teachers and two assistant principals. Two of those four are currently working for the district. What I want to know is why were all those names, contact information of the school psychologist, trauma therapist, police officer, students, and parents admitted in that supplemental submission from the district? Why, again, is the district providing no witnesses, no witness statements, from any other people that are directly involved. In her email, Ms. Saavedra informed the CTC that the Newark Police Department were called to the board meetings, quote, for fear that Bretz can do, because of his very emotional actions, wait, sorry, for fear what Bretz can do because he acts very emotional when he addresses the board. He usually comes with the company of other people not related to the board, former colleagues from his district, and military friends, each one of us addressing the board. On his behalf. Thank you, ma'am.

[2865] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you.

[2866] SPEAKER_02: OK. Thank you.

[2867] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Again, this is public comment on non-agenda items, which I think I mentioned before, but just to reiterate. the meeting we set aside a half hour 30 minutes. If there are still speakers that want to address the board on public comment, then it would go toward the end of the meeting. So, okay, Ms. Parks. And then Mr. Mulholland after you.

[2899] Cindy Parks: Good evening. A year and a half ago during an LCAP meeting, there was a discussion about the substitute teacher rate, and the reason that Newark wasn't able to get subs for various different events, whether it be teachers sick or whether it be professional development days. At the time, the LCAP committee considered some of their funds, and it was included in last year's LCAP, $300,000 to bridge but the district currently had allotted for subpay to make it more competitive so that they could have substitutes because some people were just discarding any calls they were getting from Newark because it wasn't a competitive wage. Through the LCAP meetings last spring when they were writing the plan for this year, never got an actual determination of how much money, how much of that $300,000 was spent. But they did say that it wasn't close to that amount. So the amount of money that was allotted for this year's LCAP was $140,000. And someone had brought to my attention something about the subpay. And I recalled all of this because, I don't know, some of you weren't here, but I was very much a proponent of this and was very happy that we were being more competitive listening to people, teachers that I know, to talk about how they weren't able to get subs and how the teachers at the high school were having to give up their preps because they were having to fill in because there were no subs. So I was kind of shocked to get on our website and see that in August of this year, I guess I hadn't really paid that attention, that you just adjusted the rates. And you adjusted the rates to $165 a day. Yet I remembered in the LCAP the dollar amount of $180. So I went back and I researched and found the minutes. And that is what the committee thought was being paid. And it reflected in the minutes that it says that keeping it at the $180 rate, keeping it at the $180 rate. So that's what people thought was being paid last year. And what you approved in August of this year was just $165. The current Fremont rate is $16 more. It is $5 more than what New Haven pays. And that's just for a short-term sub. For a long-term sub, it's a difference of $31 in Fremont. So I would ask you to reconsider what you approved in August and have that more competitive rate. Be closer to what Fremont is paying, because I think that is your largest competitor. And if you want to have subs, that's what you're going to have to pay is closer to what they are. Thank you.

[3074] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Mr. Mulholland, welcome.

[3081] SPEAKER_24: Thank you. Mi Presidente, Superintendencia, Miembros de la Mesa Directiva, muchisimas gracias por el honor hablar enfrente de ustedes. Yo soy un portavoz. En realidad, I am a spokesman for Paul Gretz. Es un amigo muy estrechamente por muchos años de la Infantería Marinero. arbitó en la cancha de fútbol y lo metió en las aulas de la clase. Entonces, es un honor para mí. Como un capitán de Fuerzas Especiales, me fui a Guatemala. Allá construimos una escuela magnífica, una obra en tres partes, militares, civiles, y mi destacamento, todo de la comunidad. Yo aprendí allá la palabra familia, humilde, la habilidad a aprender. Y lo más importante, lazos de amistad. Eso es la cosa más importante para nosotros. Lazos de amistad. Half of this crowd has no idea what I just said. And the other half is wondering, why is the white guy speaking Spanish? And it's because we're humans, and we don't listen. We don't listen. We hear, we have ears, but we do not listen, we do not hear. So we didn't hear the problem, and we didn't listen to the police, and we didn't listen to our own counsel. But we did listen to our fears. And if I were in your shoes, even though I love Paul Bretz, I may have been the same decision you did. Out of fear. Miedo. You have a responsibility. Everybody in this entire room agrees with you. Ni una alma aquí that disagrees with the idea of We need right people at the right places at the right time to care for our children. Unidos somos. Valores, intereses, lazos de amistad hay. Como familias tenemos. We all have families. We all understand Thanksgiving. That uncle, and the other guy come in. How do we heal? How do we accept a grave wound? Una herida grave. Echa. It happens. Paul got hurt. He's ready to come back. Everybody, all the people that you pay to give you opinions about the truth, all of them say he did nothing wrong. He followed the law, regulación, la política, and more importantly, he followed his heart for his familia. We are his family. Todos familiares. Somos familiares. Bring him back. All you need to do is say, bienvenidos. Andres, pues. There will be no recrimination. Put him back in his vocacion. A ver la familia. Gracias.

[3277] Ray Rodriguez: Based on time, we only have time for four more if everybody sticks to the three minutes. Ms. Silvera.

[3290] SPEAKER_30: Welcome.

[3294] SPEAKER_52: Hey, everyone. I'm Angela Silvera.

[3296] SPEAKER_51: I am a parent of three Lincoln students, fifth grader, second grader, and a kindergartner. And I'm also the parent group president, PALS there. And I'm also now on the CBOC, which does the oversight of how we're spending, right, at the district. So I'm seeing a lot more in the world of the district. But in that, I'm also seeing when I watched last meeting, I got very disheartened. And so I felt like I needed to come up tonight and speak on that because you guys are all supposed to be here for the kids. The interim CBO, Mr. Schimel, said, well, if the kids had two years without AC, why would it matter? I grew up in California. I dealt with it. And I'm watching at home because I didn't have child care to be able to be here that night. And I'm going, are you kidding me? It's been very, very hot. Ms. Gutierrez, you said, my young child, you know, if it was him in that classroom without air conditioning, I would be so upset. I'd be really, really bothered. But I'm going to put on my board member hat. And I thought to myself, yes, she's going to put on her board member hat and say, now I have 5,700 children. But instead, it was $1,700, $17,000 is too much. It broke my heart because to me that's why you guys are here. You're here for the 5700 kids. They're all your kids now. They are your child in that class without air conditioning. My oldest son didn't have air conditioning in the beginning of the school year. Now I'm finding out that two more of the classrooms at Lincoln don't have air conditioning and I'm just going How are these kids learning? So then I went online and I said, OK, let me look, because Newark is about test scores. Let's make sure we have those awesome test scores, because we want people to come here. We want to draw them in. And higher temperatures decrease test scores. There's lots of scientific studies that show that. And so I know that it was approved. The money was put there. But I just felt I needed to say, those 5,700 kids, approximately, are all of your children. And yes, I understood the financial aspect of putting the board member hat on. I get that, because we do need to think holistically. But I also think of my kids, and it makes me sad to know that my kid is coming home sweaty, beet red, because he's been in a classroom that was extremely hot, and then to hear that maybe the people that could change that aren't wanting to. So please spend the money on the kids. Thank you. Thank you.

[3482] Ray Rodriguez: O'Leary, Weiner, or? Did I? OK, thank you.

[3497] SPEAKER_05: Welcome. Thank you. My name is Alan Weiner. I've been a resident of Newark for over 35 years. Recently, I had occasion to read the charter for the school board. As of this writing, two of my grandchildren are attending Newark Memorial High School. And after much trauma in their young lives, they are both flowering in your care. Through the years, I've been involved with the Tri-City Ministerial Council learning how our different approaches to living a good life integrate and expand our connection with our creator. They seem to all agree that compassionate words and deeds resonate, uplift, and heal the world. I'm impressed with how well your charter echoes this realization, striving for the best in all students, as stated in your organizational vision, your mission statement, and your core beliefs. I quote that you will be a model of world-class education that develops the unique abilities of every student, inspire and educate all students to achieve their full potential, and will always operate with the highest ethical standards and fairness in our dealings with our students.

[3581] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ms. White and then Mr. Medina. Ms. White left. She left? OK. Mr. Medina. And that's all we have that have put in to speak for probably common knowledge and items. Welcome.

[3610] SPEAKER_06: Buenas noches.

[3611] Ray Rodriguez: Buenas noches.

[3612] SPEAKER_06: Buenas noches. Good evening, everyone, board members. I'm getting better at this, I think. You know, I've been doing this for about a year and a half now. And I think one of the biggest things I'm learning, it's all the red tape that you guys have to put up with and how much things don't get done as fast as I would like to get things done. So I'm learning. And I think at the beginning, I said I'm here to learn, too. But I do think that some things need to be urgently done. And I think there's urgency that needs to be placed on some action items. One of the biggest dilemma that we have is that we don't have enough students to get more money. That's a problem that we have. And then the other problem is test scores. So there's two things. And one of the other issues that we talked about over the last couple months, over the last year, is how do we get more students in here? Well, better marketing, better process, better community interaction, And I think one of the biggest part that you have to know, and for everyone sitting in front of me, is that in order to get things done and be positive, we have to urgently take care of things that need to take care of and not have them linger. When you linger things, things get worse. And so some actions need to be taken care of right away. And yeah, and I think that's something that I've talked to Mr. Sanchez about. constantly And I think that's what I like to kind of urge you today is that there's issues in the community There's bad things that are happening. There's things that we need to address really quickly when it's an HR issue I mean as an adult and as someone that manages quite a bit of people and has some experience and understanding problem solving. It's I think the biggest part is that we need to solve the problems that are right in front of us with your staff, with issues that can hurt the marketing of our community. It can hurt teachers, good teachers coming on board, good administrators to stay here. Those are things that need to be addressed really quickly. And I think we have the right people to do it. But They need to get done and you need to get followed up every single day. And communication has to improve. I think there's a huge number one thing that I see over the last year and a half is completely ignorance and communication. And if you guys need to train your staff, your faculty, your administrators, everyone in communication, there's a lot of organizations that will do it for free. So I hope that you guys think of that. And take care of the HR issue right away.

[3813] Ray Rodriguez: OK. Thank you. OK. So we allotted 30 minutes, and we got finished early. That's great. So we pride ourselves on being courteous. Everybody that came up and spoke was courteous, thinking about the three minutes. And the board did not respond as we normally do. So we appreciate all that. And so moving forward, we have the superintendent's report.

[3852] SPEAKER_17: You might have, I don't know if it's on this or another.

[3858] SPEAKER_32: Okay. Thank you. Okay.

[3861] Ray Rodriguez: Superintendent.

[3862] SPEAKER_17: Thank you President Rodriguez, members of the board, ladies and gentlemen. I want to start with a couple of things. First of all, could you?

[3872] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you Mr. Medina.

[3875] SPEAKER_17: First of all, I want to update since this was kind of brought up earlier in public comment. We are looking into the carpet issue at the high school. We've had the area tested. We're looking to replacing flooring and actually upgrading some of the hallways in the 700 room. Would you mind sharing a little bit about status where we are with that? Marie?

[3893] Marie dela Cruz: Yes, so we've been working on getting quotes from several vendors. We finally got our last quote today and we will be reviewing the bids tomorrow and make a decision and award a contract so that we can get the floors replaced in the 700 building.

[3914] SPEAKER_17: So I just wanted to share that with the board. I know we heard prior public comment from the earlier, from last board meeting and I wanted to make sure you heard us follow up on that. And I would also reiterate we're not going to discuss HR issues in this forum. We can't and we're not going to begin that practice now. In fact, that opens up our district to vulnerable litigation and we're not going to get engaged in that. And I'm glad we weren't going to take time here to engage with that in a public forum. But we do take those things seriously and we will handle it appropriately. I do want to share with you that we'll be bringing back an enrollment update on the 17th. Today is CBEDS day. We've kind of crunched the preliminary data, but we're going to bring that back with a more comprehensive, more accurate report on October 17th. And know that we'll be making sure we do a thorough count of today's data as it is our CBEDS day. Anything on CBIT today you want to add? I do like, I would like to request a special study session to begin looking at some of the items that we've been looking at for some longer term, not only budgetary resolution, but also we've been having a little bit of a conversation and study around general obligation bond, parcel tax, and just some longer term solutions of where do we want to be in 20 years. I have some potential dates for you to consider at whatever time of day works for you, if it's 6 to 8 p.m. or whatever works for the board. But the first dates I would offer is October 8th and October 16th. We'd like to have this first study session prior to September, I'm sorry, prior to October 17th if possible. But we can do it later in the evening if that allows us to have the board here to do a study session hour, hour and a half would be ideal. But I don't know if any of those dates of the 8th or 16th would work for you.

[4037] SPEAKER_44: Sorry, Superintendent, what time frame did you suggest?

[4039] SPEAKER_17: They could be 6 to 8 p.m. if you like. It really is at the pleasure of the board, whatever you guys want to do.

[4047] Bowen Zhang: Would the study session be about master facility plans?

[4051] SPEAKER_17: This is best facility planning. This is continuing the theme that we used. One of the three study sessions?

[4056] Bowen Zhang: Yes.

[4056] Ray Rodriguez: Correct. Correct. So are you asking us to choose one or two?

[4061] SPEAKER_17: If you give us some options or just either tell me now or email Char what you prefer, which of those you would prefer to do and then after the 17th, I am suggesting, I don't know if we could do one on October 30th. We'll send out the dates to you to look at your calendar and just get back to Char on those dates.

[4081] SPEAKER_32: But how many are you asking us to pick? Two total.

[4084] SPEAKER_17: One before the 17th and one after the 17th. Okay. That we can continue our series that we started with you. Okay. The next one is for November. I did reach out at the request of, actually a couple of board members were asking for some new board member team training and parliamentary procedure. I reached out to CSBA and I was put in contact with one of their trainers. The woman's name escapes me for the moment, but she gave us potential dates in November to do a board training. The training is called New Beginnings. It's a standard training for new board members and setting a new board team. But we certainly can customize it to add whatever elements you'd like to add. So we're looking at potential dates that she's available are November 13, 14, or 15. That's a Wednesday through Friday. Or November 18, 19, 20, which is a Monday through Wednesday. So again, if you'd like, we'd send those dates to you, and then you could let Char know what works best. And wherever we find most agreement, we'll try to go forward with that. Once we identify the date, I will have the trainer reach out to each board member individually to make sure each of you is getting kind of what are your top deliverables you'd like to see happen in that training. So it could just be a quick phone call or even an email so that you can have input into the contents. But this was a CSBA trainer. Very nice lady. So she's cleared some time for us. And I think the opinion was to do something like that sooner than later to kind of keep momentum of a new board team. And number four, I have a reminder. Tomorrow night we'll be at the Teacher of the Year of Adams Alameda County Office of Education. Tomorrow night at Castro Valley Performing Arts Center. If you need any more information, I know some of us have switched tickets around, but we are honoring our teacher, Ms. Joanne Hong, tomorrow night, and we'll be there, and it's quite a nice gala. I know Mr. Rodriguez has been several years, and it's a really beautiful event. So we'll be there tomorrow night. And I think that concludes my report for this time. Is there anything else that I forgot? Sure.

[4229] Ray Rodriguez: Okay. Thank you. Thank you much. OK, employee organizations, NTA.

[4244] SPEAKER_21: Welcome, Mr. Merritt. Thank you for the warm welcome. I appreciate it. So I want to start with that Monday, October 7, is the kickoff for Bully Awareness Month by an organization called STAMP. stompstompoutbullying.org. And we're asking everybody to kindly wear blue so that we can wear blue to celebrate the World Day of Bully Prevention and that we can together have a kinder, gentler place to live and work. The students of Newark deserve the best. You're going to hear me say that a lot. And what does that mean? Well, we need quality teachers. We need qualified teachers. There's several. I'm taking liberty with that word. There are several positions within the district that are teaching positions. They're not filled with a full time credentialed teacher. Some of those positions are filled by people who are working on their credential. Some of those positions are filled with people who are not working on a credential. Some of those people are, some of those positions are filled by a long-term substitute. Some of those long-term substitutes have held long-term substitute positions for excess of two years. Test scores are directly related to the quality of the instruction which the students can get. And I fully believe that many of these people who are filling these positions are doing so wonderfully and valiantly. But those positions should still be posted on EdJoin. They should not be filled permanently by a long-term substitute without the job being posted and continue to be posted, continue to be sought after. We need quality teachers. We need qualified teachers. We need, the students need a quality curriculum in every subject area. Later in the agenda, you're going to be talking about, I think you call it sufficiency. And that's really sad that we have to talk about do we have the bare minimum for our students. And somebody gets to define that. I don't know who it is, but it's not me. But anyway. And thirdly, I think that our students deserve a safe and happy place to learn both academically and socially, emotionally. Although we're worried about those test scores and we focus on teaching them the right material, the test scores are going to be going up immediately if every student that comes to school feels like they're needed and loved and cared for and that they have a safe place to go to school. It doesn't matter what you teach them academically. But if they know that they belong our test scores are going to go up a lot more than teaching them another 15 minutes of math. A simple hello to every student by name will increase our test scores. I believe that. I've seen it happen. I'm really sad, and I'm speaking for all NTA members that we've lost our director of IT. If there's a single employee at the Newark Unified School District that helped teachers and students more, it was our director of IT. And that's a very, very huge loss for us and very sad for many of us. When we hire somebody new, We try to give them some supports so that they can do their job better. We try to offer professional development that will continue to help them improve. We need to do that. New teachers get a support person. The new CBO hopefully gets a little interim to help them out a little bit. But we're going on a second year now of paying more than one person to do one person's job. And yet, you're framing the message that we have no money for increases to pay teachers, to provide the necessary aids. We can't attract enough special ed teachers. But you're going to pay somebody $1,000 a day? That's ridiculous. There's another person that we pay $300 an hour to sit and negotiate. They don't know who we are and they don't provide us anything that's productive in getting our job done. The experts should be the people sitting up here. We don't need to bring somebody in at $300 an hour to sit and talk about a contract. Can they review it? Yeah, but do they need to be in the room negotiating with us? That is a waste of money. My dear board members, did you know that there are several CTA members that are also board members? They would be happy to reach out to you and offer you just as much training for free. So if you reach out to me, I can put you in contact with a CTA member, a teacher who's also a board member. Oh my gosh, how can that happen? Because nobody teaches. I mean, I drive, well, it's 13 miles, but it's 45 minutes to an hour and a half every day to come here. I don't live in Newark. So there's actually quite a few people that are teachers and school board members. So they're a school board member in the district they live, and then they go to work in another district. We have trainings, too. So if you want to know about another perspective, feel free to reach out. Let's see. What else do I have to say? I'm running thin. I'm running thin. I really am. Fear and intimidation does not work. Board members, you can talk to me. You can't all come to my house, but two of you can come talk to me. I promise we're not going to negotiate, because I don't negotiate with you guys. There's nothing to negotiate. But it's OK to talk to me. It's OK to talk to teachers. It's OK to talk to parents. And you've been told differently. And I shouldn't say it, but I'm going to. Yeah, I had a conversation with somebody earlier and said, I tell my students I'm 108 and I act like an eight-year-old because eight-year-olds have a conscience. They know the difference between right and wrong. And this is probably wrong, but I'm going to say it. I did some genealogy over the summer, and I found two really interesting discoveries. Number one, seven generations back in the Merritt family, Jerome Merritt was the first teacher of Duluth, Minnesota. And so I never knew that anybody in my family went to school beyond high school. And then more recently, I learned that another family member on the other side was the first person to make the accusations.

[4777] SPEAKER_21: She's there in Salem. She made the first accusations which caused the Salem witch trials. So, watch out for me. Watch out for me. I'm looking at you. All right, it's in my blood. So, I've got the, how many more months do we have? It feels like we've been in school for six months. We've been in school for almost two months now, right? Two months, two months, a month and a half. I can survive until June 4th. Is that when we get out now, June 4th? I can survive until June 4th. But I'll tell you that I've already joined the CTA NEA pre-retired organization. And so I'm getting close to passing the reign soon. So enjoy me while you can. Thank you.

[4834] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you much. Anyone from CSCA? NEWMA? We just saw you just a few minutes ago.

[4852] SPEAKER_41: It's how I was nominated to present. OK. So very briefly, Amanda, our principal at Music, she wanted to make sure that everybody knew that our team is working collaboratively with our special education program. to procure supplemental funding through Medi-Cal and effectively and efficiently utilize those funds to support the diverse needs of students in our district. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending the Northern California iReady User Summit in San Jose. Topics I'm going to be bringing back to our DLT meetings in the next couple of weeks include building culturally responsive classrooms, change leadership, and using data with powerful incentives. And of course, NEWMA wishes our dear Larry Simons the very best on his new adventure. We are definitely, definitely going to miss him dearly. Thank you.

[4910] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you much. OK, next item. I'm opening up a public hearing on sufficiency of instructional materials. Does anyone want to approach the board on the public hearing at this time? OK, seeing none. We close the public hearing. All business, agreement with stage one, superintendent?

[4937] SPEAKER_17: We've reached agreement. I know stage one is here tonight. I don't know if you would like to speak to the agreement or how you feel about it. Would you guys, one of you, like to say anything about what we're voting on tonight, what the board's voting on tonight?

[4950] Ray Rodriguez: You can come as a group, and we'll give you three minutes. It's not enough. No, come on.

[4963] SPEAKER_17: We've reached agreement is the short report from my behalf, I believe. So we'll find out.

[4968] Ray Rodriguez: It's Ada Stetter, who my kids and her kids went to preschool together a long time ago.

[4975] SPEAKER_54: I think that the agreement that we've come to with working with the district and I really appreciate all their help is excellent for both sides and I really encourage you guys to approve it. We do have a couple of parents who I think want to stand up and speak if you wouldn't mind about their experiences during the youth production this summer.

[4994] SPEAKER_17: Sure. How do we put cards in?

[5000] Ray Rodriguez: Oh okay. Anytime somebody wants to talk about kids It's a yes.

[5007] SPEAKER_46: Good evening. My name is Jen Exley. I live in Newark. I have two daughters. My oldest is an eighth grader at the junior high. My youngest is in fourth grade at Kennedy Elementary. We discovered Stage One Youth Theater five years ago. Neither of my girls had ever been in a musical before, and Stage One welcomed them with open arms. They have performed in four musicals over the past five years. They look forward to the summer when they can see old friends make new friends and sing and dance on stage. They've learned what it takes to be in a musical and be part of a team that works together. Stage One's youth theater program has made it possible for my girls to discover that they love musical theater. Other programs I looked into when they were younger were too expensive, too far, or required previous experience. Stage One gave them a space to try something new without any judgment. Not only do they thoroughly enjoy themselves at every rehearsal and performance, but they have improved on their own skills and talents over the years with the help of the directors and the choreographers and vocal directors. Sorry, I'm getting really nervous. We love our stage one family and cannot imagine not having it around, not only for my own kids, but I also think about other kids who would not have the experience that my kids did. They wouldn't be able to be in a musical and that's what they would be missing out on if this program does not continue. Stage 1 Youth Theater is an amazing opportunity for kids of all ages and talents, and our community is a better place because of it.

[5102] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you much. Ms. Wendy Stacey?

[5113] SPEAKER_07: Hi there, I'm Wendy Stacy. I'm a mom of two. I have a son at the high school, and he's a sophomore this year, and a daughter in eighth grade. And I'm not as prepared as Jen, but I'm speaking from the heart. My son, he doesn't have a kidney, and he couldn't do boys' sports, and those kinds of things. And we found theater. and found a home there. And he has through stage one and now through the high school drama department, he has found his home there and his family. And it's been just a tremendous thing for him to be able to just speak out and be confident and have a place and an identity, especially at the high school. I think that's so important. And for my daughter, she is an extreme introvert. She is an artist. But the stage one experience is giving her a voice and through direction. She really came out of her shell this summer being Chef E and really just bringing a little bit of fear to Little Mermaid. So it was fun. And I'm going to speak even beyond that. My husband, who is also an extreme introvert but an artist, has become very involved in set making with Stage One and helped with costumes this summer. And I've also come into the group and done whatever little things I can possibly do. And then Judy encouraged me to audition, so I'm actually So all that to say that it is just the best fun community out there and our family lives far away. We have people in North Carolina and Minnesota. So this has really been our family and just a tremendous opportunity for us to make community experiences for ourselves and also for others and then reaching out beyond that as a teacher. just sharing that with other kids that I see at school. Hey, you know, families try this. So, you know, it's spreading in with our schools and our communities as well, trying to reach out to kids beyond just the family. So again, stage one is a tremendous experience for all. And I'm very grateful that you're coming up with a plan that's going to be supportive for everybody.

[5274] Ray Rodriguez: So thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. With that board we have 13.1 which is a five-year lease in agreement with Stage 1 and Newark Unified School District. I need a motion and a second and discussion if anybody wants. Anybody want to make a motion?

[5300] SPEAKER_44: I move that we vote on item 13.1.

[5302] Ray Rodriguez: Okay. Move that we vote on 13.1 by Member Gutierrez. Need a second? I second. Member Martina seconds discussion anyone. Okay. Hold on. Let me open this for voting Okay, please vote Okay, I didn't pass it unanimously. Yeah, I To love stage one over the years and the partnership we've had and I'm so glad and I to have it for five years. I know that sits well with a lot of people. And I appreciate it. Thank you, staff, for working with stage one, putting this together. Superintendent, did you want to say anything?

[5351] SPEAKER_17: I knew we would sort it out. I wasn't worried. We just had to. It was a long overdue conversation. And I think that the MOU is a good symbolic way to go forward so that, as we talked about, having a good prenup on the front end just gets it all lined out. There's no guessing. So I'm really glad and I'm glad you guys were willing to meet with us and just work through some of those challenges. And I think we struck a good balance. So I'm happy about this. Thank you.

[5378] Ray Rodriguez: So if you can share your calendar with us when you have time. I know it's on your website, but I'm sure. But so everybody knows what's coming up or.

[5388] SPEAKER_54: Sure. Well, we have 42nd Street that's running right now. Come see Wendy. We actually have a Thursday night performance which is a pay what you can so the community can donate what they can afford to. Then shows Friday, Saturday nights at 8 o'clock, Sunday at 2.30, following weekend also Friday, Saturday nights and a Sunday matinee. Next March, we'll be doing Sister Act. And then we'll be doing a summer youth production again in June. That's not on our contract today, so we're going to have to add that in as a special. And also, we'll be doing Matilda in July.

[5424] Ray Rodriguez: Oh, that's exciting. Which involves more children. Right. Very exciting. Thank you. Thank you much. OK. Thank you. Thank you for being patient. 13.2, I wanted this on there since we have a new board member, member Nguyen. So right now in December when we have our change, then we'll also be choosing different committees that we want to be on. So we're going to do this and then do it again in December. Did you get a chance to look at any that you might want to be on? Not to interrupt you, but sometimes a new board member will, if you want, will just be the alternate to get you a feel of everything. And you're welcome to come to any of the meetings, naturally. But is there anyone that you really would like to be part of?

[5502] Phuong Nguyen: I'm interested in being part of the redevelopment committee.

[5506] Ray Rodriguez: OK. That's great. We don't have anybody. Do we have? Redevelopment? We don't have that anymore?

[5518] SPEAKER_43: Do we have that anymore? Oh, OK. I don't believe so. Just point of order. We are needing someone to become another member of the audit committee.

[5527] SPEAKER_30: Okay.

[5528] SPEAKER_43: That one we have a vacancy and need to fill.

[5529] Ray Rodriguez: You want to do that?

[5531] Phuong Nguyen: I can be an alternate with... The audit committee?

[5534] Ray Rodriguez: Sure. Okay. Excellent. And redevelopment, we're not doing that anymore, is that correct?

[5543] SPEAKER_36: We aren't because redevelopment money went away. So I'm going to guess that this was from a bit ago.

[5548] Ray Rodriguez: Right. It was the board president and the superintendent. That's what I'm guessing. So if we open it up again, then you can be on there.

[5555] Phuong Nguyen: Any other one that you... I think that would be it for right now, but I wouldn't mind shadowing you guys on a couple of things.

[5563] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, so on mine, on the ROP, member Martinez, are you my alternate on the ROP? I am. Okay. Did you want to... stay there or have... Well, hold on a second. You're also with me on the SELPA.

[5593] Elisa Martinez: I'm sorry, I thought we had, I'm not sure if this is an older version, I thought for SELPA we had switched?

[5601] Ray Rodriguez: Yeah, on both we have switched, right? Yeah, this is an older version.

[5607] SPEAKER_49: So if you wanted to take an alternate to either of those, I'm totally open to it.

[5613] Ray Rodriguez: The SELPA wishes us special ed.

[5616] Phuong Nguyen: When are those meetings?

[5618] Ray Rodriguez: The SELPA normally is around 3 o'clock every two or three months, I think. And the ROPs every month around the same time. On Thursdays? Is it the last Thursday of the month? Third Thursday.

[5634] Phuong Nguyen: If I can get a list of all of the times, then I can give you guys a definite. But right now, it's hard for me if it's midday.

[5641] Ray Rodriguez: OK. Got it. Yeah. OK. I'll be there. Thank you. So we'll let you know in case you want to come. OK. OK. So let's see. So Mr. Quino, you got that? Please. Thank you. Thank you much. Okay, new business. Designation of California Interscholastic Federation representative. 14, no, she's 14.5, okay. So I don't have anybody that wants to speak on this, so.

[5678] SPEAKER_59: I do have a question. Okay, go ahead. The fourth item here says the name of representative is assistant principal. I'm wondering which one will be representing.

[5688] SPEAKER_44: I had that question and I know Char answered it for me, but anybody?

[5695] SPEAKER_32: Yeah, could you answer?

[5700] SPEAKER_43: Coach K wanted to just leave it as a generic so that anybody that is in attendance can represent and it doesn't have to be the exact named person. So that was just to give more flexibility for the coverage.

[5712] SPEAKER_59: Okay, thank you.

[5716] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, the administration recommends approval of the suggested representatives to the CIF, so Superintendent Sanchez may sign the designation form so I need a motion and a second place I Move that we vote on item 14.1. Okay. I second please vote Okay item passes unanimously, thank you 14 Point two, Resolution 2153, Sufficiency of Instructional Materials. Ms. Dela Cruz. Superintendent. Or, Associate Superintendent Salinas.

[5765] SPEAKER_36: So this is an annual event. The California Department of Education actually sets the definition of sufficiency of materials along with the Alameda County Office of Education per the Williams Act.

[5786] Ray Rodriguez: OK, thank you. Give me one second. OK, staff recommends adoption of Resolution 2153, declaring sufficiency of instructional materials for students. I need a motion and a second.

[5815] SPEAKER_49: I move to approve resolution 2153, declaring sufficiency of instructional materials for students.

[5821] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. I'll second. Please vote. OK, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. 14.3, surplus equipment. Need a motion and a second.

[5847] SPEAKER_44: I move that we vote on item 14.3, surplus equipment.

[5851] Ray Rodriguez: OK, need a second. Member Nguyen seconds. Please vote. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Donations report. Need a motion and a second, please.

[5871] SPEAKER_44: I move that we vote on item 14.4, the donation report.

[5875] Ray Rodriguez: Okay. Need a second? I second. Member Gutierrez makes a motion. Member Nguyen seconds. Please vote. Okay, motion passes unanimously. Okay, so let's look at the report.

[5894] SPEAKER_43: Point of order, President Rodriguez and our apologies. There was a mix-up. In the description, the 350 backpacks went to Snow Elementary for school-wide usage, and the other donation was for the first and second grade. It got transposed in the report itself. I just wanted to put that on the record correctly.

[5917] Ray Rodriguez: Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, Cheryl, would you read it, please, if you don't mind? Ms. Aquino.

[5931] SPEAKER_43: $180 for Graham Elementary for Kona ice, shaved ice. In-kind donation of 350 backpacks for Snow Elementary from Telugu Association of North America. I'm sorry, it did get fixed. For school use, an in-kind donation of art supplies, games, toys, rugs, cubbies, bicycles for Snow Elementary, for kindergarten and first grade classrooms. My apologies, I didn't realize it was fixed before.

[5957] Ray Rodriguez: No, thank you. And so, Contendent, would you be so kind as to Invite I know you sent a letter out. So if they want to come to the next board meeting Yes.

[5969] SPEAKER_36: Yes, we can and we did invite them for this evening, but they had a conflict.

[5972] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, so any future board meeting Maybe under your report. That's okay. Of course. Okay. Thank you. Thank you much Okay fourteen point five Before we talk about this, we have someone who wants to speak on it from our community, Ms. Parks. And then Ms.

[6003] Mark Triplett: Angela Silvera.

[6016] Cindy Parks: Good evening. First of all, I'm very happy that We were able to actually see the contract for the interim CBO. I was quite shocked to see with the current financial situation for the district and everything that we went through last year with the CBO at the just under $160,000 mark that he would be paying somebody $1,265 a day to exceed his $35,000 gross. You take the 1265 and you multiply it by that position's work week or work year, it would be 224, put that person slightly over $280,000 a year. I understand you're not paying their retirement and everything, but that still was an astronomical amount. Not only is that person making $1265 a day, but the mileage reimbursement from his home to here and back home again. along with his meals that he incurred during his work day, which I thought was quite shocking. Perhaps if you'd seen this, you would have caught some of the typos, or the fact that when it was signed, it was signed by that individual as the interim assistant superintendent. You hired, very lovely, They look loose like the last meeting. She's your CBO. Why do you need to incur another $1,265 a day for additional services? You have a fully capable person. This is what we did last year. You had a CBO and you had Ryland. You now have someone that you're paying good money. You saved money on the last one because he was new. Now, the whole thought was, OK, now we're going to pay somebody, and we're going to get somebody good. And you're still going back, and you're having somebody else. Why? You hired somebody at the last meeting. I would please ask you to reconsider this, and trust Ms.dela Cruz.

[6159] Ray Rodriguez: Ms. Sever? Thank you again.

[6163] SPEAKER_51: Hello again. I'm coming because I'm concerned that last year we were talking about a $3.1 million that we had to cut. Now I've heard that we are talking about that again. And then seeing that he would be paid $1,275 a day plus, as was mentioned by Mrs. Parks, the meals and the gas, it adds up very quickly. And so I compared it actually to our teachers, because to me, I'm thinking about the kids and the teachers, the most veteran teacher a day of 186 days makes $577 a day. So comparatively, this person would be making 600 and some odd dollars more than a teacher. I recognize that our teachers, are helping all of these kids, and they are getting less than half. And to me, that does not seem right. To me, if our focus is our children and the future and what we are doing in Newark, then the focus needs to be not on paying someone. Right now, that as Ms. Parks brought up, we have someone who has been hired who I met. seemed very capable to do this job. And you hired her, so she must be. So I just feel I needed to come up here and say that I feel like that would be a waste of the funds that Newark Unified has. Thank you.

[6267] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. OK, so this item is before us. First, I wanted to just say something. The amount of money that we're talking about here, it's under the superintendent's threshold. And he could have easily just approved it. And we asked that, you know, that we bring this out so we can in transparency and we can talk about this. Superintendent, did you want to address this if you don't mind?

[6312] SPEAKER_17: Certainly. First of all, the reason we brought in an interim superintendent or an interim CBO in this way was actually in a conversation I had with Member Thomas. She said, maybe you could call school services and see who they could offer to help us because we're in a really tough situation. And we need a level of expertise to help us get through this. And we didn't want to have our new CBO walk into a situation where they had to get caught up. The going rate for a CBO in the state of California, that's about the ballpark what they go for now. It's almost as difficult as finding a special ed teacher or a science teacher. And for expertise in the capacity that Mr. Schimel has, He would have got that rate somewhere else. He didn't have to come here. He had options. But we were fortunate to have two people that we interviewed, and he was the one we picked out of the two that were recommended from school services. The contract has been completed. The work's been done. What I'm asking in the amendment is to, as it says in the amendment, to help finish these workshops that are relative to the GO bond, parcel tax, which is an area of expertise that Mr. Schimel has. And I think that his experience as a prior superintendent as well as CBO and a long career as a retired CBO and superintendent brings the level of expertise that we need right now in this transition. And as we get into this conversation about what are we going to do for the long term vision of our school district, are we considering a GO bond, are we considering a parcel tax? Getting back to some of the comments tonight about our kids deserve better, I agree. Our kids deserve better schools. Our kids deserve a nice environment where AC works. Our teachers deserve a place where the AC works. And we don't have that. We need expertise like Mr. Schimel to help us with that. And what the amendment is asking for is to, it ends up working out to be about nine days of work. It'll all be complete before the end of November. to finish the workshops that are in front of us that I need his help with because we are on a unique timeline if we're going to consider a bond or parcel in January. We've got to look at bringing in an expert to do polling before we get to December so the board can make a decision that's informed based on data by January. We have an opportunity to look at matching funds from the state and the 60-40 kind of proposal that Mr. Schimel shared last time we were on the dais, which could be up to potentially $30 million that could help us towards new construction. We don't know if the community would support a bond or parcel. We don't know that yet. But those are some of the things that he's been helping us with with his area of expertise. And I think that certainly I have faith in and Miss Dela Cruz being able to do the job. But she also has to focus her time and effort on fixing the deficit that's in front of us. And I didn't want to distract her time away from that because we still need to look at reducing the budget before we have other conversations about $2 million. So it's complex. It's a lot of money. I understand that. But I know that finding CBOs that are available, number one, and that'll come work here, is not as easy as you would think. And I know that we are trying to bring people in to help get us on the right track and stay and get to a positive interim by December. So that's really where my head has been as far as the direction I've gotten from the board is to we've got to get to a positive recommendation for the board to vote on and a couple options. So I do need some expert help in that arena. So that's kind of what the amendment is about.

[6545] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Member John, just give me one second. I appreciated the fact that Mr. Schimel, expensive as he is, he brought a different perspective. I felt that he gave us enough information through his contract time, which just ended September 30th. And one of the things that he helped us with was hiring a new CBO. And I've known Ms. Delacruz for a lot of years, with RRP, and I'm very, very confident in her ability to do this. Now, at some point in the future, if we decide that we're going to move in that direction that Mr. Schimel has been sharing, then we can go out for a request for proposal, because there are other people that do it besides him. So, and I always felt that it would be an unfair advantage and maybe a little conflict of interest if he did if we did hire him, knowing that we had him as a CBO before. So it just makes it cleaner for me if we do a request for proposal, if the board decides to move in the direction that Mr. Schimel is moving us in. OK. Mr. John?

[6623] Bowen Zhang: Got two questions. Number one, so on the contract, his title is still going to be interim CBO. So given we have Dela Cruz, as the CBO right now, what would be Mr. Schimel's title while assisting our work here?

[6641] SPEAKER_17: And I think that's just because it's written that way because that's how the contract was written. We're trying to extend the contract 9.5 days, I believe is the equivalent in the dollars that are different. But his capacity would be just in the consultant capacity with me and the board to finish the workshops that I described. So truly, he would be a consultant to the organization. He wouldn't be acting interim any further. In fact, all the signatures have already been transferred to Mr. LaCruz. He doesn't have that authority.

[6673] Bowen Zhang: And second thing is, so the $35,000, that's already been paid for the work that's been done already. That's correct. So what we're really authorizing today is $11,000 more, right? Correct.

[6687] SPEAKER_17: Because technically, with the amendment, I felt it was important to bring it forward because it does go over my threshold.

[6694] Ray Rodriguez: OK, thank you. Student member?

[6698] SPEAKER_59: I distinctly remember commenting on this the last time we had this issue arise, that we were essentially paying two people to do the job of one person. Members of the community have echoed it, or have mentioned it today. And I have essentially the same sentiment, that we have a CBO in front of us who is ready, willing, and able to discharge her duties. Simply put at this time. I don't think we need mr. Schimmel I Granted mr. Schimmel has been an excellent interim CBO. I think he's been very candid in his reports to the board He has provided a lot of expertise, but now is the time to move forward with our CBO. Mr. Cruz now is the time for us to take our recommendations from ADIS and move forward and should the Should the necessity arise that we need to bring in a consultant then maybe we can go that route But we also need to consider our financial status The long and short of it is that we don't have money to spend on things that are non-essential Consultant isn't really as essential as our CBO herself So no, I don't think this this amendment is worth is worth approving at this time. That's essentially what I have to say.

[6787] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, member Gutierrez and then member Martinez.

[6796] SPEAKER_44: My concerns are more along the lines of what is our vision and what is our plan as a district. Just as I heard member Rodriguez, our president here, he stated that maybe this is something that we can look later on. Again, with that in mind, I want to know what is our vision? Because if our vision is to possibly build new schools, reconstruct, or close off and then build, and we are looking at this bond, then we do need to look at a time frame. And when it comes to to having deadlines, then we can't delay certain things because we have to move forward and figure out what are the steps we need to follow. So I think just more importantly, we have to, as a board, figure out what is the vision and our plan that we want to move forward with, which is, do we want to do this study in regards to closing schools and rebuilding? Because if so, then we are going to need funds, which is going to be either through a bond or a parcel tax. And then if we are going to move forward in that direction, then we do need to move quickly. So yeah, that's just, that's it for now.

[6880] Ray Rodriguez: Member Martinez. And then Superintendent Sanchez.

[6885] Elisa Martinez: Yes, thank you. So, you know, as I think about when we make statements about we need to, you know, maybe decide later whether we need to go understand this. We need to make a decision about how we're going to use our money, our capital, basically our capital funds and also are we going to go look at some options out in the community. As many of you know, I have not been historically a big supporter of a bond or a parcel tax. But as I look at the financial gap that we have We need to understand what is the path and we need to make that educated decision. You know, is $11,000, it's not necessarily at all a question about our new CBO whether you're able to do it. I think that it's an $11,000 investment in somebody that does have the experience to get us to that decision sooner rather than later. I know it's, you know, it's, we should be protecting every dollar, I get that. But I think this is one of those difficult situations in terms of where do we spend the money? One of the areas I have been pushing on is this AIDIS recommendations. We need to make a decision one way or the other. So anyhow, I believe that this is something we should support.

[6980] SPEAKER_17: I defer to Member Zhang if he wants to go first.

[6983] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, I just want to follow up on my first question. Is there a way that we can reconstruct a separate contract and making each title consultant? So in that way, we officially in that community is that we don't have two CBOs.

[6996] SPEAKER_17: I'm open to approving it with an amendment.

[6998] Bowen Zhang: We don't have two CBOs at the same time. Yeah, that's fine. That's an easy amendment. By looking at an internal CBO, it really just creates the perception that we have two CBOs at the same time.

[7007] SPEAKER_17: We would just strike out interim on this amendment and say consultant. That's easy to amend. What I was going to share, if I may, is kind of to the point brought up so far. We pay $500,000 to ATIS to give us their expertise. We're paying Mr. Schimel more than $1,000 a day to pay for his expertise. And at some point, we probably need to pay and trust the experts that we're paying for the recommendations. And I do know that certainly I have no doubt that Marie could get up to speed to understand how to do all these pieces, but we'll miss the window. We have a window of opportunity now. If we pull the community before December and find out if there's support or not, that would allow the board the opportunity to take action in January to move forward towards a bond or parcel or both, which would allow us to open doors on potentially new schools by fall of 2024 and upgrades to other parts of the campus. That's the larger conversation we're having. And when we know we're spending $800 million or potentially the cost of $800 million roughly to fix the schools we have that are beyond their useful life, and even though that's capital expenditure, and I know it's complicated and sometimes people need to be reminded that we can't use that for salaries, we have to look at what are we doing to right size the district to have long-term sustainable plan going forward and I think that it would be nice to have some agreement around that but we have to invest now so we don't miss this window of opportunity but if the board says you know what we're not going to pay Mr. Schimel today and we can we're going to wait and figure it out that waiting is going to cost us this window so that pushes it back to the next window and I think that we've also heard action comments from the community to say Take action. Let's be decisive. Let's go, let's look at a parcel. Let's look, at minimum, I do believe, in my professional opinion, at minimum, we need to consider a parcel. We have to pay our teachers more. We have to pay our employees more. We have to stabilize that, because we are losing good employees because of that. I know many of those things, I do agree with what Tim said. How, we probably disagree on some things, We do need to have a standard of paying teachers so we can be competitive. So I will tell you, I'm cautiously worried that we have momentum now. Mr. Schimel has brought a new perspective to the table. I think we have to flesh out and see where it goes. If the board wants to set this aside and wait, that waiting will cost us to wait till the next window. I just want to be honest with you about that.

[7182] Ray Rodriguez: So everybody's got a chance to speak.

[7188] Bowen Zhang: So when you're saying next window, what is the time frame you're saying? We don't take action tonight.

[7194] SPEAKER_17: It would have to be waiting for an off-cycle election and take longer to do RFPs. And just it will miss this window of a general election to be able to pass a bond or parcel, which improves our probability generally.

[7208] Ray Rodriguez: OK. So Superintendent, you brought this to us. You wanted to make a change?

[7214] SPEAKER_17: I would like to amend it to read Barry Schimel

[7217] Bowen Zhang: consultant consultant and Contract time is October 1st and November 10th with the member member John you can make a motion and Okay so I offer to make amendment that we change the title from interim CBO to consultant for our master facility planning and The contract day will be from October the 1st and November the 10th to November 10th of 2019 in the among up to eleven thousand four hundred fifty one dollar okay We need a second.

[7251] SPEAKER_47: I second.

[7252] Ray Rodriguez: Member Martinez seconds. OK, please vote. OK, motion passes. And I've already stated why I feel that I couldn't vote on this. Again, I feel that Mr. Schimel has given us enough and where we can move forward with Ms. Delacruz. Okay, that being said, we go to the next item. Personnel report, Ms. Parks.

[7305] Cindy Parks: I feel like we've got this thing going on tonight. Earlier, Mr. Merritt discussed the personnel and having certificated teachers. And to be honest with you, this is something that I've kind of been following since last year. As people have come on the report, I did do quite an extensive investigation myself last year and looked at some of the people that you were hiring as teachers. And through the CTC, you can actually look to see who's credentialed. It was kind of a grand learning experience for me. Before you this evening, you have four individuals, and I won't name them. Underemployment of Certificated Teachers in a Temporary Position. Of those four individuals, one just has a 30-day emergency credential. One I couldn't find anywhere on the CTC site. Another one is fine. And the last one, who was also a teacher last year, is now on here again. And the status that they have is Certificate of Clearance, which means that they've just done the initial steps. Your strategic imperative says Newark Unified School District will provide an academic excellence via equality and opportunities for all students. How are you providing academic excellence? If you have teachers that don't have, if you have people teaching that don't have the credentials, you had students here earlier today that were talking, and I happened to really quickly look up that woman's name when some people were talking about it, and that person doesn't have their credential in use. So I think that it's very important and I would ask you, beg you, to ask for some type of a report. Find out how many people you have teaching here that are teaching outside their credential. I know that there's a report that comes out and says, oh, we have this many percentage, but you never see the numbers. Ask how many people are teaching that do not have a credential. How many are teaching that are outside the area in which they are credentialed to teach in? How many people do you have in a temporary position that is actually not for what you're thinking maybe a week, a month, a day? It's for the rest of the school year. It's for the whole year. You have people that are teaching students that don't have credentials. You know what? I can remember back when my kids were in school, they would always say, don't put your kids in private school. They don't have credentialed teachers. Well, you know what? That's what's happening here. You have people teaching the kids in this district that aren't credentialed. Madam, I've got 30 seconds left and I'm done. Please, please, please, please, please ask for information, detail, not overview. You want information down to the nuts and bolts, please.

[7473] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. So this is our... Personnel report. Staff recommends the board approve the personnel report as presented. I need a motion and a second. I move that we vote on item 15.1. 15.1. Member Gutierrez moves. Do we have a second? Member Nguyen seconds. Please vote. Student members, thank you. Motion passes unanimously. We go to consent agenda. We have 16.1 master contract between Clarinda Academy and Newark Unified School District. 16.2, Individual Service Agreement within Clarinda Academy ISA. 16.3, Curricular Overnight Trip for Schilling 6th Grade Class to Travel to Scotts Valley. 16.4, Curricular Overnight Trip for Birch Grove Intermediate 6th Grade Class to Travel to Boulder Creek. And that's Science Camp, I would imagine. Okay. Anyone want to pull any one of these? Okay, I need a motion and a second, please.

[7578] Bowen Zhang: I move to approve 16.1 to 16.4.

[7581] SPEAKER_47: I second.

[7585] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, member Jean moves, member Martinez seconds, please vote. A motion passes, thank you. Okay, the next item, the next is expulsions. So the first one is 17.1, confirmation of expulsion from prior district and rehabilitation plan E1920-04. The board talked about the expulsions in closed session and this is our time to vote. Yes vote would be to go with the administration, what they're recommending. And a no vote would be to say no. And then we'll have to decide where we're going to go from there.

[7646] SPEAKER_44: So let me clear it. I move that we vote on item 17.1. Thank you. I second.

[7661] Ray Rodriguez: Member of the Chair's vote moves. Member Martinez seconds. Please vote. Okay. The staff recommendation is not being approved. So, Associate Salinas, you've come up with something for us?

[7690] SPEAKER_36: Yes, so in the event that this is not passed, then the board can go ahead and make a motion that the board would like to recommend a suspended expulsion and that the student stays at Newark Memorial High School. If there is any infraction, the expulsion will be in place and the student will go to the community day school.

[7711] Ray Rodriguez: Right. Now, can I ask something? Can we stipulate that we want a agreement between us and the student and parent as part of the motion?

[7732] SPEAKER_36: No, so at this point, because the recommendation was not agreed to, and that's fine, you would actually have to suspend the expulsion. and then give the condition about if there is any infraction, the expulsion then would stay in place. So by suspending it, it stops it. If there's any infraction, it revives again and then the replacement would go to community day.

[7757] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, thank you. I need a motion based on what Associate Superintendent Salinas stated. Can you restate on your motion if you don't mind?

[7772] SPEAKER_44: I would like it if Ms. Salinas can restate it and then I can request a motion.

[7781] SPEAKER_36: So, per the board's direction, the board would like to recommend a suspended expulsion with the student remaining at the current placement of the high school, Newark Memorial High School. If there is any infraction, the expulsion will be in place and the student will go to community day school.

[7800] SPEAKER_44: I move that we vote on Is it an amendment?

[7805] Elisa Martinez: No, it's a direction.

[7806] SPEAKER_44: I move that we vote on the new motion that was just stated.

[7810] Ray Rodriguez: I need a second. I wanted to ask something. You don't have to do a second. You can go ahead. No, we'll second it. No, no, no.

[7822] SPEAKER_44: She seconded it, and you still have a question.

[7823] Ray Rodriguez: Who seconded it? Remember when we were. You did? OK. OK, I wanted to say something on that. I'm hoping you'll decide to amend the last part. Do we have to say the location? Because we're suspending the expulsion. Do we have to say that if there's any infractions, then the location? Or can we say that? Can we change the location? Or leave it open?

[7857] SPEAKER_36: So I'm happy to go back into closed session to talk more specifics. But what I can say is what the board votes on is the placement. So we would need to state the placement. And as was shared previously with certain infractions, there is a specific placement that we go to, that we send students to.

[7885] Elisa Martinez: I wanted to comment that I think that is a fair recommendation.

[7890] Ray Rodriguez: OK. OK. So we don't need to go back and close. So we have a motion by Member Gutierrez and seconded by Member Nguyen. OK. Please vote.

[7911] SPEAKER_30: OK.

[7913] Ray Rodriguez: Member Gutierrez abstains. Did you abstain? Yes, I abstained. OK. Member Johns, it's a no. And we have three yeses, so motion passes. So this is a time where we allow, I mean, we ask the board member if they want to explain their no vote if they want to.

[7934] SPEAKER_44: Due to the sensitivity of the matter, I'd rather not.

[7938] SPEAKER_30: OK, good.

[7940] Ray Rodriguez: That's excellent. So because this is an expulsion, then we normally wouldn't share. Okay, so good, thank you. Okay, next we have expulsion 17.2, expulsion stipulation and rehabilitation plan E1920-02. I need a motion and a second, please.

[7971] SPEAKER_44: I move that we vote on item 17.2.

[7973] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, hold on, let me clear this. Member Gutierrez moves. I need a second, please. Okay, so we need a, in this case, we need a motion that we're accepting staff recommendation. Is that what you're, that's what it is? Okay. Correct. Okay, good. Thank you. Need a second, please. Member Nguyen seconds. Please vote. OK, so again, we have four ayes and member could cherish now. OK, so we move on to, OK, we only have 10 minutes left before we have to extend it. Now, Mr. Vendino, this is when we talk about Committee reports and stuff. I've never had anybody ask me to speak on this. Did you still want to speak on this? It's 18.1 is Board of Education. It's when we talk about what we've done. And then we ask the superintendent for different requests and committee reports. You want to speak on this? No, no, no. Yes, it's just I've never had anybody ask. So that's fine. Come on up. Because it's not anything we vote yes or no on, OK? But it is an agenda item, and you can speak to it if you want.

[8079] SPEAKER_06: I thought this was a good item to bring up something that I had in my mind for quite a while and, you know, almost end up actually, you know, I talked to my wife about this. Like, you know what? I think we should move from here. I don't think this is a place that wants us to be here. And the reason why I brought it up during this time is because I was in a study session about finances last year, finances, and we decided, the committee brought in, we did a presentation. We said you guys should go for a partial tax. I believe that right now, you guys are at a very critical moment, and you have to decide, and you don't need to spend an additional bunch of money or someone to tell you, you need to have two choices, partial tax or bond, or you need to go both. But you still need someone to come and service the community and survey the community and tell you that. So after you do that, then you obviously can go and figure out how much money we need to figure out. And I don't think the next nine days that our consultant, that's not enough time to actually teach you guys if that's the case, you know. And that's not enough time for committees to be formed. And I don't think he's doing a study session with the community. Correct me if I'm wrong. But I think there's quite a bit of, you know, again, urgency that's not being taken care of. That could have been brought up by any of you guys. Put the agenda, vote on it, decide on it. We could have taken care of this a long time. Your holidays are coming. People are not going to want to get served. People are not going to want to get, you know, come in January comes. It's not a true plan that's going to be effective for the community, too, that you're looking at. You know, people leave their homes. They go on vacations. You've got to think about the whole thing. You guys go on vacation, too. So I think sometimes I understand that there's a lot of process, but I got taught by a teacher in seventh grade about KISS. Keep it simple, stupid. I think we're not doing that. We keep making things more complicated and more complicated. It doesn't have to be complicated. But you guys do make it complicated by prolonging decision making. It's pretty simple. You need to serve in the community. Get it done. You guys voted on it already. Get it done. You don't need a brain surgeon.

[8234] Ray Rodriguez: OK. Thank you. Thank you much. OK, Boyd. We need a motion to extend it at least 15 minutes to 10.15. I don't think we're going to need that long, but it's obvious we're going to go past 10.

[8251] Elisa Martinez: I move that we extend the meeting by 15 minutes. OK.

[8255] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. To 10.15. I need a second.

[8261] SPEAKER_44: I'll second it.

[8262] Ray Rodriguez: OK, good. Thank you. Please vote. OK, we're good. OK, community reports. Student member first. Do you want to go first or last, student member? I'll go last. You'll go last? Member Martinez first. Go to the other side.

[8296] Elisa Martinez: All righty. I do have a request with regards to one of our community members around the grading. direction I don't know I don't know if I'll call it policy but I did pull up the the document from March of earlier this year and it does say at least K through 6 it does read 5 scale 1 to 5 I personally was surprised when my when my kids told me we're at 1 to 3 so I somehow either somehow missed it if it was made official so if you can please report to on that.

[8337] SPEAKER_36: And it is currently a pilot per the assessment committee so we have not yet revised the policy but I can bring more information forward.

[8344] Elisa Martinez: I think it's important that we all hear this the same message yes. Thank you. I would like also a little similar to the to the report that we had asked regarding overages where it's a very detailed report It's two folks talked about credentialing. I know that it's not necessarily, or I don't know, I suppose. I don't know how difficult it is to find folks that are credentialed. So, you know, is it a huge problem? Is it a small problem? I don't know. But I think, again, transparency and just getting the real numbers of, and there's, so to be specific, I think that there is, well, I think there's two. One is how many folks are just not credentialed overall, so percentage overall. And then there I think is very interesting and important to see is of those that are credentialed, how many of them are not credentialed in what they're teaching. I think that will be very interesting. This is not, I want to be clear, this is not punitive and this is not in any way accusatory of that we're doing anything wrong. I think it's just important that we understand that where the gaps are. And if it's just a difficulty in finding folks that are credentialed in those subjects, I think it's just important that we are educated to that effect. Sorry that I'm going really long. I also wanted to reiterate because I would be in trouble by a lot of community members if I didn't repeat how disappointed that we are losing Larry. I think we all agree that he is absolutely amazing and one day we'll get him back. And then finally, I would like to now formally ask that we have a presentation on the counseling data. I think I've been patient enough, so I would like a specific date when we will have a study session to review that data. If you are okay with that, President Rodriguez.

[8486] Ray Rodriguez: You can skip and then go later. You want to do that? Member Gutierrez?

[8491] SPEAKER_44: Skip? OK. I want to congratulate, first of all, Ms. Bird and Graham Elementary for their Walk and Roll Day. I think it was a great success. I know, I went there and I helped out, give some of the stickers, so it was exciting, it was fun. And I know that a lot of the students were excited to ride their skateboards, which is not something that they always ride, and their bikes, and just sharing how they got to school. I know it was a little bit of a colder morning, but there was a lot of people walking, so it was great. So congratulations, Ms. Bird, on that. In regards to the training that we're going to have hopefully soon, I would just want to request if we could have some kind of emphasis on Brown Act training. Yes. And maybe a report. I know I had requested this before. At this point, I'm OK with the report, but some kind of report or analysis on our AP program. Something specifically, again, just I'm interested in what the requirements are to be taking AP classes and then ultimately some statistics in regards to performance of the students. Please.

[8578] SPEAKER_32: Thank you.

[8582] Bowen Zhang: So great New World Day celebration and parade and great cake cutting event. That's number one. Number two is I still want to work with the superintendent regarding the literature that we want to distribute to the new residents because this month, there are events coming up that the city is organizing to deliver package to the new residents. It's a great time for us to sell our district to the new parents.

[8605] Ray Rodriguez: Let me know. I'll go with you. Can I say something that I forgot?

[8608] SPEAKER_44: Yeah, go ahead. I apologize. Sorry, superintendent, I forgot to also request. Some community members came up to me and said that we have previously approved a, give me one second, I'm looking at this, a district advisory committee composed of stakeholders and various members of the community in regards to the discussion about the school closure. So if we can just get that started and at least have the community involvement and their opinions and their voices heard. along with the work that's currently being done.

[8647] Ray Rodriguez: Okay. Student board member.

[8651] SPEAKER_59: I did not make it to Newark Days, unfortunately. We missed you. Yeah, I did not participate in anything this year and it saddens me because Newark Days is one of my favorite things growing up. I have one sort of imperative and then one comment that I'd like to make. The first one is the very first comment that the board heard during the public comment on non-agenda items is something that needs to be looked at. Because as you might imagine, students hear things from other students who are involved in the program. And we start to develop ideas about what's going on over there. And I think that now that this is out in a public forum, in a board meeting, that it needs to be looked at and investigated and treated seriously. I want to say that right off the bat. My other comment is, as the board well knows, rocketry comes and we do our thing. We are designing our rockets. My team will be having meetings tomorrow to work on a design. So we're in full swing. And we hope that this year we'll go back to nationals and we'll take it this time. We're working on that. Yeah, we're working on it.

[8735] Ray Rodriguez: Hopefully we'll do it this year. So since you didn't make Newark Days this year, even though next year you're going to be in college and you might be far away, we expect you to come back next year for Newark Days. I'll do my best. OK.

[8745] Phuong Nguyen: I would like to just echo what Member Martinez said about. I'd just like to echo what Member Martinez had I think it's really important. I think I mentioned about the grading for K through 6. I'm not a big fan of it and I'm parent. I don't you know it's really disheartening when your student comes home and tells me that she got a 3 and it's actually you know 70. See and she doesn't understand that there needs to be work done. So for me it That was not my understanding, and I did not like it. And as far as everything else, I'm pretty still quiet. I'm still observing, so more comments will be coming soon. But thank you, everyone.

[8811] Ray Rodriguez: Superintendent, when Mr. Newb came up, you and Associate Salinas had left for a few minutes. I guess Char can give you the notes. I have notes. Okay, excellent. Good. On the, you know, whether it's 1 to 3 or 1 to 5.

[8830] SPEAKER_17: And I think Associate Superintendent Salinas said she'll bring back. Okay, good. Yes, definitely. I'm pretty sure I can speak to that at the next meeting.

[8836] SPEAKER_36: Absolutely. Okay. And we met with principals about it today, so there's actually a letter going home soon to parents. We were just waiting on a translation. Okay. But we will bring back a more detailed report. Excellent.

[8847] Ray Rodriguez: So before we go to Superintendent, thank you everyone for Newark Days. On Saturday and also Sunday, the cake cutting, all board members were there, which was great. Thank you for the Newark-Dakes committee and all the work they did. A lot of the schools got trophies. I know Snow got second place. And my daughter, Magdalena, doesn't take no for an answer. She's running the PTA over at Snow now. So I couldn't take the kids away from Snow to be in our float. So I wasn't happy with that. So anyway, the only thing I have is as far as Mr. Simon. Larry is leaving us for San Leandro Unified. And he's one of our kids. He graduated from Newark Memorial. And he's given us, what, 12 excellent years. And we're going to miss him. And he said that he's willing to help with the It's the election at no cost, which is nice. The only reason I have superintendent is part of what we approved for Mr. Schimel is to help the transition. If you can just keep us abreast of maybe in a Friday update and let us know how that's going with Ms. Delacruz. I'm sure it's going to help her a whole bunch. Okay, I have, it's up to you, I mean it's on you, Superintendent, the last piece.

[8947] SPEAKER_59: I have one more. Yeah, go ahead. I forgot, sorry. I want to thank Superintendent Sanchez and Member Martinez for visiting Memorial and getting a chance to speak to them about what Rocketry wants to do with the various spaces that we have available to us on campus. As for that old woodshop room, I think it's a great place that we can use and I'm looking forward to hearing about when we can start using it or how far out that may be. All of us are really anxious to get in there and we want to start working. So I thank you for taking the first steps.

[8983] Ray Rodriguez: Yeah. And when you go to DC, I want to go with you. My nephew is a principal there at one of the high schools. So I've been telling him I'm going to go visit. So that will give me a chance to go with you. Yeah, go ahead.

[8998] Phuong Nguyen: I would like to request data from all the school sites regarding classroom sizes and what the capacity of the schools can hold.

[9014] Ray Rodriguez: Excellent, thank you. Superintendent?

[9018] SPEAKER_17: I'm gonna start by responding to Cesar, by Thanksgiving or sooner we will have that space cleared and when we have it available we'll Maybe Member Martinez and I can come back and we can walk in there together and take a look at it. If it's not, if I don't see that it's not happening by that time frame, I will do it personally. You have my word. That concludes my comments. Excellent.

[9048] Ray Rodriguez: We got early. 10.07 adjourned.

No minutes available.