Regular Meeting

No content available.

[4] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. I didn't mean not to say. Thank you for being respectful. We really appreciate that. So we're back from closed session. So I'd like to do the pledge first before I report out. So I need one of the students that's back there to kind of tell us what to do and lead us in the pledge, if you don't mind.

[23] SPEAKER_43: There you go. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[53] Ray Rodriguez: OK. So even though it's Thursday night football and the Raiders hopefully are winning, we still have a board meeting. So I'd like to report out on closed session. that we're going to be able to do that. Under a public employee this plan dismissal. It's confidential naturally and we did were updated by. HR director Jessica. She also updated us as well miss del Cruz on conference with. It was listed correctly. It is anticipated litigation. And we had an update on that. Under the superintendent contract, there was no action taken. So that's my report based on what we talked about in the closed session. Jessica, would you like to say something, if you don't mind?

[116] SPEAKER_50: Yes, in listening to what Mr. Merritt was suggesting earlier, NUSD agrees to schedule a new date between November and December. I will be reaching out to the negotiator, Brian Plattel, to schedule the date for NTA negotiations.

[132] Ray Rodriguez: Excellent, thank you. Okay, as you see, we have the shirts. We went over to Graham Elementary and there was anti-bullying week. And so let's see. Can you read it for me? What's it say?

[154] Bowen Zhang: Don't be a bully, be a buddy.

[156] Ray Rodriguez: Don't be a bully, be a buddy. I personally was bullied when I first started school because I didn't speak any English. And it's a big thing for me, and it's a big thing for all of us. We don't want any of our kids, employees, parents, everybody should be treated with respect. And all my years I've been here, we've normally done that. It's very rare that people are being disrespectful to each other. Thank you, Principal Bird, for inviting us. Appreciate it. So OK, with that, we go to Student report. Superintendent, did you want to lead us in that, if you don't mind?

[207] SPEAKER_30: Sure. Let's start with if anyone's present from McGregor campus for a student report tonight. I'll let you guys work your way up. As you're coming up, just tell us your first name and what school you're at at McGregor. Come on up. McGregor campus representatives, right here to the podium.

[228] SPEAKER_14: Welcome. Yes, sir. Good evening, Superintendent Sanchez, board members, cabinet members. My name is Marilyn. We now have Bridgepoint Leadership. There are many members and we had our first fair week in five years.

[245] SPEAKER_04: The seniors won. 13 students saw Hamilton in San Francisco last month. Leadership will be hosting the next awards assembly. Please join our feast on the 22nd. Thank you.

[265] SPEAKER_30: Are there representatives from our junior high present tonight? Here we go. Come on up.

[271] Ray Rodriguez: Welcome.

[273] SPEAKER_30: Welcome again. OK.

[278] SPEAKER_45: Good evening, everyone. My name is Prajeet Jalamudi, and I'm the ASB president at NJHS. And this here is Lily Kawabata, and she is the vice president at NJHS. Last month, we hosted several things. We began the month with bullying videos, which explain the causes and effects of bullying. Near the middle of the month, we had a vaping assembly, explaining the negative effects of vaping and ways you can prevent yourself from vaping. At the end of October, we had Spirit Week, a week to show our school spirit and pride. These days included Pajama Day, Twin Day, Sports Day, Halloween Costume Day, and Cougar Spirit Day. On Halloween, we had games on the quad, including Mummy Wrap and Pick Your Poison. On the last Wednesday of the month, STEM students went to the Exploratorium in San Francisco, exploring the many exhibits and having a great time.

[327] SPEAKER_07: In the month of November, we plan on having thankful grams, which are similar to candy grams, but for someone you are thankful for. We are also having a canned food drive with Viola Blythe, helping the homeless and less fortunate. We will soon be starting a new three-bin program that includes trash, recycling, and compost. We are planning to have a fest on the quad with games and food. One last event we are planning this month is a movie night.

[353] SPEAKER_45: Thank you, everyone, for your time, and we hope you have a great night.

[356] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you.

[364] SPEAKER_18: I'll turn it over to Mr. Castillo. Thank you, Superintendent. So Newark Memorial's ASB attended the League of Leaders conference at Irvington on Wednesday. They began the day by listening to presentations from Herff Jones on leadership and event planning. They then met with the five Fremont schools, their ASBs over there, or the equivalent. They had a lot of discussions about event planning as well, what things are working well for them. They finished off with a working lunch in committees. So everybody, like clubs committees, athletic committee, on-campus activities, met from all six schools. And they had discussions about what events they're doing, the things that they're doing. to raise school spirit. ASB hosted Trunk or Treat on Halloween at the Blacktop from 5 to 7 p.m. There was a huge turnout there. We had about, I would say around 40 cars out there. The premise of the event is high school kids have got their trunks open, giving out candy to the kids, and it's a fun and safe way to celebrate Halloween. It was a much bigger turnout than last year. Last year there wasn't much advertising done, but this year we sent flyers home in the kids' weekly folders, so the parents and the students were able to see the event, were able to be more aware of what was going on, so we had a great turnout. ASB is organizing a canned food drive, so that'll be beginning next week in the third period classes in sports. Varsity Girls Water Polo. advance to the NCS Division 2 quarterfinals. They beat Bishop O'Dowd 8-2. So their quarterfinal fixture will be Saturday morning at Carondelet High School in Concord. JV Girls Water Polo finished up a few weeks ago. They went undefeated, 14 wins overall and 6 wins in MVAL. Varsity Boys Cross Country has been going strong. They are five and one behind Mission San Jose High School, and they just had their senior night, so last home meet of the season. Club Stuff, the rocketry team scrubbed its first launch on Saturday, so we'll not be hosting our launch. We are pushing back to the 23rd of November. We hope that all four teams will have our rockets built. Currently only one team is prepared to go. One of our two robotics teams, the Newark Memorial Row Buckets, is going to be competing in its first qualifying tournament at Saratoga High School on Sunday. So this is one of many qualifying tournaments held from November to January. And the purpose is to score high enough that you will qualify for a regional tournament with the hopes of making it to the world championships. So we're very excited for all of those things. That's all at this time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[546] SPEAKER_33: School spotlight Yes, good evening members of the community if I could have principal bird come forward She has a lot of folks here also supporting her. So I'll let her Welcome them also Graham Elementary and we have our spotlight this evening Can I um, there's Robert can I just Can I take a minute before you start if you don't mind?

[573] Ray Rodriguez: We We're going to be coming next to public comment on non-agenda items. And I just wanted to say something right from here. Veterans Day is Monday. And I know that we've always had a history of respecting each other. Like right now, Principal Bird is going to be doing a presentation. And public comment on non-agenda items is just a time where you can have three minutes to talk about just about anything you want. And I realized that student board member Castillo, he's got the same right as everybody else. And he fills out a form and then he can come up there. And some people were upset that he came up there a few meetings ago and he said things. And personally, I wish that he and I could have gotten together and talked about it. I might disagree with what he said, but being a Vietnam veteran, and that's what we fought for, and that's why we served, to make sure that everybody had the right to free speech, and especially veterans that fought in foreign wars, and some of them gave their lives. So I might disagree with any of you that come up here and talk, But I will fight to the end to make sure that you have the right to say whatever you want, which is what we do here. I'm sorry, Principal Byrd. It's on you.

[673] SPEAKER_13: OK. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I'm Akilah Byrd. I'm the principal of Graham Elementary School for President Rodriguez, Board of Education, and Executive Cabinet. We are so excited to have our spotlight this evening. So who are we at Graham? We have 365 diverse students. students are bilingual. We are a title one school with 61% of our students having free or reduced lunch. We are creative makers and creative artists. We are a PBIS school and we have lots of school pride. We appreciate you wearing our Unity Day shirts this year and supporting our school. In our classrooms, we actually have two grades in each kinder through fourth grade. We have one fifth grade class one fifth, sixth grade combination class, one sixth grade class, and we have two special day classes on our campus. So under strategic imperative one for Newark Unified School District, we'll provide academic excellence via equity and opportunities for all students. At Graham, we have professional learning communities. We know that we are all learners and it takes a village. Areas that we want to grow, is to continue to improve our student attendance rates, improve the reclassification of English language learners, and continue to improve the proficiency levels of our students in English language arts and mathematics alike on the CASP and as measured by the California dashboard. Our campus initiatives for this school year are similar to last year with a few new items. So we are in a first planning year for SEAL implementation, which is the Sobrato Early Academic Language. We continue to implement PBIS schoolwide. We are trying to reinforce our data tracking so we can advance to year two. We will continue the implementation of FlexTime schoolwide, which we are very proud of. We will continue to host our parent engagement and educational workshops, as well as utilize our STEM Makerspace. Our goal is to have classroom teachers actually take classes in the Makerspace outside of science time. We continue to maintain our strong partnership with the Think Together After School Program, who does a lot for our school, as well as the soccer mini-pitch that we just received this school year. They helped us get that, so we're appreciative of that. We have our professional learning communities, and we want to expand our progress monitoring of our students. We continue to go green. We are hoping to get our water bottle filling station installed soon, which we fundraised for. And thank you to people in the room, because some people in the room actually donated. And we are trying to go green. And to expand our art exploration. So if you look at the back wall from what you all can see, yes, students. Thank you. We want to thank our art volunteer docent, Susan and Tammy Via, because they actually volunteer their time. So you see samples of art from fourth, fifth, and sixth grade. And we are very grateful for them. And we hope to expand art exploration school-wide. PBIS at Graham. We have a PBIS store every other Friday. Our students use positive praise tickets that are given out, our scholar dollars, and you can see the picture right there in the bottom right. Positive praise tickets are for following the three school rules, being respectful, being responsible, or being safe. Scholar dollars are actually given out for an academic reward. If students receive a three or four on an assignment, which they don't know what it is prior, And both of these are used as currency for our PBIS store. The two buckets that you see are positive praise buckets that I use to do a drawing every week school wide at our Monday morning minute. And you must be present to win, so we're also trying to increase our attendance rates. And if all six students are present, three from primary, three from upper grade each, I actually have started drawing another winner. So kids like that. Unity Day was October 23rd of this school year and you can see our whole school is in our Unity Day shirts. Thank you to GPS who has purchased them school-wide for every student and staff member. We really want to promote a safe school environment for all of our scholars. Thank you to the board members as well as district employees that came out to support us and judge our yearly door decorating contest that we have. So you see a picture there at the upper right. That's one of the winning doors. And it says bullying is never OK. Rise up against bullying. You don't see the whole photograph, but those butterflies go all the way across the ceiling to the other side of the hallway.

[984] SPEAKER_30: Would you explain the wings?

[987] SPEAKER_13: Yes, our art docents, once again, actually created that backdrop with the wings that say to just fly, where we have the picture. We also want to thank the City of Newark Recreation Department because they support us as well and they gave out the prizes, which were piece of parties for the classes that won a door decorating contest. And they were in the bottom right. This was our first year participating in International Walk and Roll to School Day. Thank you, board member Gutierrez, because she came out as well as the mayor of Newark. It was his first visit to Graham since I've been principal and helped to give out stickers that calculate, did you walk to school, roll to school, carpool, or just drive in a car? It was actually the first time ever that we didn't have enough room on our bike rack. There was usually only three bikes, I want to say. and there was not enough room left. So it was a really good day and we hope to participate next year and we appreciate the support from Alameda County as well. Makerspace News, we are very proud of our makerspace. Shout out to Rachel Bloom, our science, our SRT. And Mobiles from Scratch, oh give it up for our SRT. Our second graders are learning about more than just balance. They are actually being creative at the same time and applying what they've learned. So here you can see pictures of them creating mobiles from scratch. English language learners. So, this year we will be utilizing the Lucy Calkins Integrated ELD Toolkit. So, we already used Readers and Writers Workshop with the units of study. So, that's something that's not new. Here I have more information about SEAL because SEAL is new. So, what is SEAL? It's a powerful English learner focused approach to education rooted at the intersection of research and educational equity. The research-based SEAL model is designed to provide high-quality education to all English learners and to prevent the development of long-term English learners. They provide professional development, curriculum support, and technical assistance to the school systems, which then bolsters learning for all children, but especially which is critical for our English learners. Flex time school wide, what is flex? Flex is flexible scheduling. We are in our third school year of shuffling our entire school based on the student's level. So each child actually has an opportunity to receive intervention during the school day or an opportunity of challenge as well. We do this three times a week for an hour. Our kinder and first grade classes go in the morning and second through sixth grade do this in the afternoon. So again, this is our third year doing this. We utilize our Friday PLCs in order to make database decisions about student progress. And the good thing about Flex is students can enter and exit at any time. Effective teaching interventions. I wanted to include this slide because looking at our data, I realized that our special education numbers had dropped. We have been exiting students from special education, which is the goal. So I wanted to share this data. And in March of 2017, we had 29 students who were resourced. August of 2018, we had 18 students. And as of last month, we had 16 students who were resourced. I also pulled out the data for speech, not including our moderate severe SDCs. So, these are general ed students that just have a speech IEP. In 2017, we have 40 students. In 2018, we had 31. And as of last month, we had 24. So, our teachers are definitely using effective teaching interventions in trying to meet the needs of students so that they progress. iReady is our district benchmark that we use. This is from last school year at the beginning of the year when we get a baseline for students. So in 2018-19, you can see the pyramid. And 29% of our students at the beginning of last year in reading were below grade level. They were in the red. And you can see that 27% were in the green. We call those Tier 1s. You can also see the data from the end of last school year. And you can see that we have 53% of our students, which is over half of our students, in the green. So they definitely progress. And we have lowered the red to 14 students. So the question of the day is, when we do our district benchmarks, is it really transferring to the CASP? Is it really transferring outside of the classroom? So I included a slide that has our CAF scores from 2017. We had 32.15% of our students who met or exceeded the goal. And as of last year, 43.39% of our students met or exceeded the goal. That is an increase of 11.24%. And I want to thank my staff, if you can just give it up for them. because we are moving in the right direction. We know that there is work to be done. But last year when I stood here and reported, our data did not reflect the same data. So I definitely want to recognize how hard my staff worked and how hard our scholars worked as well. This is the iReady district math benchmark. In the one online, there's an error because reading was also included. So this is updated. But you can see at the beginning of last year when we gave our baseline, we had 19% who were in the red. We had 29% in the green. At the end of the school year, we only had 9% of the students schoolwide who were in the red, and 55% of the students were in the green. So again, this is our district data. Thank you for clapping for us. So we know, again, we have to look at our CAF scores to see if the information is transferred over if our students are applying with their learning in class. In 2017, 2018, a little over 25% of our students met or exceeded the standard in mathematics. And as of last school year, 37.26 students met or exceeded the standard. So please give my staff a round of applause. Thank you for supporting us. That is an increase of 12.15% in mathematics. I would like to add that Graham is the only school in Newark Unified that had double digits percentage increase on CAS in both English language arts and mathematics. And parent participation matters. Our parents do so much for us and fund so much and give so much of their time each and every day at our school, including the one that happens to be seated here as well. We appreciate all of our parents. So please give it up for GPS, Graham parents and staff as well. And that is the end of Graham's spotlight. And my staff is here, if you can step forward, because we have teachers who have come out tonight, including the one over here, please. To just recognize, if you can come walk up front. We have Ms. Paxton, Mrs. McCarthy, Mrs. Basquez, Mrs. Sepulveda, Mrs. Zillow. We have Mr. Moreci and Ms. Bloom over here. Thank you very much. And we have two students in the front row as well. We appreciate them being here.

[1521] Ray Rodriguez: Don't go away.

[1521] SPEAKER_46: Remember John?

[1528] SPEAKER_43: Oh, stay, stay, stay.

[1538] Bowen Zhang: Well, congratulations on a great academic year. I want to add something that you didn't say which I think is even more impressive. That is the improvement among our core traditionally struggling student group. For example, Hispanic student at Grant went from 26% English to 41% English meeting standard. On math, Hispanic student went from 20% to 32%, both increased by double digit. Our low income student group at Grant Elementary went from 25% in English to 38% English meeting standard. On math, 20% of 34%. Both traditionally struggling groups are improving double digits for both math and English. A job well done.

[1580] SPEAKER_13: Thank you so much.

[1588] Phuong Nguyen: Well, I guess I'm the really lucky one because I have witnessed your staff the last, and I'm getting a little emotional because my kids do go there. But I have seen them work so hard. And congratulations. One last comment. I know that behind the scenes, Ms. Bird doesn't get enough credit. And I just wanted to say that she does work extremely hard for her staff and for the students and the family there at Grand

[1632] Ray Rodriguez: Have a good terrace.

[1633] SPEAKER_51: Thank you. Congratulations, and congratulations to your team as well. I went to Graham for sixth grade, so I'm really excited. I don't have anything that has to do with Graham. In regards to the international walk and roll, one question that I had is we had a large, that day, a large number of students walking. I'm in that neighborhood, so I see them all the time. But do you know if it increased that day more than normal, or is it? Is there a large number in general anyway that walk to that school?

[1667] SPEAKER_13: It increased on that day, for sure. A large number do walk, yes.

[1674] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. And I would like to say, where's your warrior shirt?

[1680] SPEAKER_51: It's Graham Day.

[1682] Ray Rodriguez: Oh, it's Graham Day. I'm sure even though they're not doing as well as we want them to, you will never ever Turn your back on the Warriors, like you would on Graham. So years ago, I had, let's see, three kids and two grandkids at Graham, all at one time. And they're all grown now, and they have their own kids. And that education that they had during those formative years, between second grade and sixth grade, really laid that foundation for them to do well. So a lot of history of Graham, and you're carrying on that history. And I am so amazed by what your staff and everybody else is doing there. And I know you have staff that's been there a while, and some new ones. And we really appreciate it. And we know that our kids are being taken care of, not only educationally, but personally. And you guys do a great job there. It's appreciated. Thank you. superintendent.

[1760] SPEAKER_30: Just thank you Miss Bird and thank you to all the teachers and staff at Graham. Those are incredible impressive stats that you're putting up there and certainly you've set the bar for the district and keep it up. Outstanding. Thank you.

[1774] Ray Rodriguez: So we go to public comment on non-agenda items. We have a few people that have turned in a form to speak. So we limit This, for the first part of it, it's limited to 30 minutes, and so we have a number of people, so each of you has three minutes. If you could make it a little quicker, then that'll be easier, and we can have everybody be able to speak. If we can, and we still, we've passed the 30-minute mark, then we take it over to the end of the meeting, and I'm hoping we can get it all done. Okay, so with that, Ms. Emery Wassertung. Welcome.

[1834] SPEAKER_54: Tell me when to start. Hello, my name is Emery Wassertung. This is my 14th year working in the district, all of which has been at Newark Memorial. During my 14-year tenure, I've had to call 11 different people my principal. And in the last school year, there were four different principals on record. This year, we are still continuing to have unstable administration at the high school. Our district is in a financial crisis. We are experiencing declining enrollment, yet we can somehow budget a way to pay for the salaries of those put on administrative leave, hiring subs for them, and also hiring various experts and consultants to support the jobs of the district leaders. all while trying to balance the budget on the backs of certificated and classified staff salaries. How does district leadership expect the high school to perform successfully by removing the office manager for over a month to be used at the district office and having only one assistant principal for 1,700 students when in the past we've had up to three assistant principals? Since November 2018, exactly one year ago, the high school has already had three administrators be placed on paid leave for various reasons. I understand that the district is not in control over the situations that necessitated for employees to be disciplined. However, being a good judge of character or perhaps simply trusting the selected interview panel before any of these people were hired would have not cost the district a penny. Many school administrators that are new to the district were not necessarily the first pick of their respective interview panels. These candidates were hand-selected by district administrators who completely disregarded the prioritized list from the panel. Ultimately, their choices wasted taxpayer money on three separate occasions at the high school in a one-year span and, of course, created an unstable environment for students and staff. I hold the superintendent solely responsible for having caused good people who were invested in Newark schools and the community to leave. He has created a hostile environment that has made multiple employees that have dedicated their lives to serving Newark students into early retirement or to find jobs elsewhere. All the while, board members stood by and approved new administrators that did not have adequate experience and without questioning the superintendent's decisions. Since most of the board members have only served for a year or under, you may not be aware, but long-term employees across the district with varying job titles left to nearby districts. That is not a coincidence. We have people at the top who have shown themselves over and over again to make horrible decisions that are extremely detrimental to the students, schools, community and staff morale. It is clear as day where the problem lies and it is the responsibility of the board to identify the common link as to why so many of the beloved long-term Newark employees have left in the last three years. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I hope that you listen to my words carefully. It took a lot for me to stand up here and put myself on the line to say what I just did, but I cannot sit back in good conscience any longer. There is a fear of retaliation and intimidation tactics have been used on staff to keep us quiet and obedient. I also want to mention this because I am happy to see the student board member has not been replaced or removed as it has become known that district personnel are still determining a course of action. based off what was said at the last board meeting. I am a Newark alumni. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you.

[2051] SPEAKER_50: Thank you, everybody. Thank you, everybody.

[2055] Ray Rodriguez: OK, we started at 7.55, let's say. Could you keep the time for me? Ms. Sarah Lim.

[2070] SPEAKER_35: Thank you.

[2078] SPEAKER_34: Hi, I'm Sarah Lim, and I've been a student in the Newark Unified School District for 12 years of my school life, all of them. And I think I'm a pretty good student. I think Cesar can attest to that. And scoring high in my standardized testing and maintaining a high GPA, both of which I credit to the quality education from this district. So thank you guys all. But now that I've gotten your attention with something you actually care about, let's talk about something that you haven't seemed to care about much at all. Music, the other side of me. I split my class time between AP Calculus BC, which as Cesar can also tell you is a really hard class, with choir because it's something that means a lot to me. So I take time out of my instruction to go to choir class because it means, yeah. I'm a musician and have been for just about as long as I've been a student at this district. When I entered high school, I joined a music program that has traveled nationwide to Seattle, Nashville, and had won competitions against some of the greatest high school musicians in the country, even the world. Our students were taking the name of Newark not only nationwide, but also simply to the heart of our community. We sing for the Newark tree lighting and the Mayor's State of the City Address. The band plays in the Newark Days Parade. They're the ones who always makes the cover of the newspaper, not any other program at our school. Our band has also performed for an Olympic medalist, and our choir has sung for our house representative, Ro Khanna. Our choirs and bands were invited to sing at Carnegie Hall, the greatest modern music venue in the world. We represent Newark far beyond the bounds of any test scores or grades. Now, my part is done. My question to you is, what do you remember from what I just said? It's not a rhetorical question. I see. So here we demonstrate how little the board pays attention to the public when we try to speak. Remember one thing as my friends come up to speak after me. This music program carries influence not only to students but also to the community and the good name of the Newark Unified School District. Right now that name is being faded away with our music program and it's your duty to make sure that Newark stays on the map. Our band was selected to represent California in the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington DC, a televised event that the entire country can see. We were also chosen to perform at the Veterans Day Parade in San Francisco, which you like to mention about. But that didn't happen because our current music teacher, Anna Kadaba, has lacked the ability to lead or teach the band. If you want Newark Memorial High School to maintain any relevancy in this world, I ask you to support your students as they try to rebuild our music program by dismissing Anna Kadaba.

[2225] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Amanda Cordova and Katie Schwartz, and then Maya Diaz after, so we can kind of make this thing roll a little bit. The board does not respond to comments. We're just listening. Okay. Okay. Go ahead.

[2252] SPEAKER_19: I'm back. Hi. I'm Amanda Cordova, and I'm the president and teacher of the advanced choir at Newark Memorial High School at the moment. I've been fully instructing this class on my own, but with a lot of help from my board in the choir, which is a big shout out to them. They're fantastic. I'm here to talk about one out of the many issues, which is our grades. I haven't had the opportunity to fill out the weekly reflection assignments that have been assigned since our last board meeting. Because I'm packing up my instruction at the end of the period and I haven't been able to turn those in. Also out of pure spite and anger, I'll be honest about that. And I haven't signed the syllabus, which has been an open document the entire year and keeps continuing to change. And I haven't re-signed up for the band app, which is our way of communication that got shut down prior to the first time I came here to speak. And I've refused to sign up for that again. And those are the only things we've been graded on. So I have a D in this class that I am teaching. So. I'm going to let that resonate. As a senior, I should be doing and worrying about a bunch of other things. And instead, I'm worrying about creating lesson plans for this class period. And I'm worried about my grade, which is now far too low and not appropriate. Thank you.

[2333] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you.

[2334] SPEAKER_38: And I'm this one's mom.

[2336] Ray Rodriguez: Hi. Hi, mom.

[2338] SPEAKER_38: Hi. I think it's apparent that I have a very well-spoken, eloquent, delightful daughter who should be relishing in the joys of her senior year, who has been motivated to go to school, and let's face it, not for reading, not for math, not for those academics, it's for music. It's her passion, her love, and her talent, and it's breaking my heart to see how stressed out and anxiety-provoking environment she's coming from every day, which used to bring her joy. So she's doing a good job teaching the class, She's a paid person at the Silliman Activity Center to teach dance class. And I'm here not only as her mom, but maybe her agent to get her a 1-6 contract with the school district. So I urge you to please listen to these young people's voices. I had the pleasure of having all the kids at my house for the choir camp right before school started. And they are such dedicated, amazing kids who are all having a nervous breakdown at this point. So please. act quickly. Thank you.

[2418] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you for all you do for our kids. Miss Maya Diaz. Hi.

[2424] SPEAKER_09: All right. Hi everybody. So I'd like to begin today by saying that it's a very important day. It's my birthday today. I'm turning 17. But instead of celebrating, I'm here asking you for a change. That is how important this is to me. I truly hope that my one wish this year to be heard can be granted by you all. So I'd like to begin by giving you, the board, a visual representation of the people that your decisions are affecting right this minute. If I could have everybody in the music program sit down. Thank you. All right. Please stand if you have learned anything about music in the last three months. Please stand if you feel safe and valued in your music classroom. Please stand if you are happy with the way things are. Now, please stand up if you have cried in the past week regarding the current state of the music program. Thank you. Please stand if you are concerned with you or your student's education in music class. Please stand if you are unhappy and are seeking change today. It's about everyone, right? We demand action regarding not only our mental health and safety in and out of the classroom, but our quality of education and the future of our success as students and soon-to-be adults. Our entire semester has been wasted. We, the students, have not received an ounce of music education in the last three months. We have been cheated, disrespected, written off, and pushed away as if we do not matter. We deserve a music teacher who is qualified to teach and lead. We deserve a guarantee of mental and emotional security for both the students and parents of the music program. In every facet, we deserve an education and an educator we can be proud of. It is the duty of you, the school board, to ensure us these things, and we expect that of you. Due to your very minimal action, we are here again, calling upon you to do the things you promised in your ad campaigns and in your mission statement. We will not back off, we will not refrain from speaking our truths, and the issue of Anna Kadabah's employment as director of our music program will only grow and grow and grow. The feelings will only intensify, the headlines will only get bigger. We demand the immediate dismissal of Anna Kadabah and the careful recruitment of a qualified leader, not only on paper, but in the way of decision making and respect before the end of this semester. I beg the question, how far will you go to protect the employment of a single insufficient leader against scores of angry students and parents? How much more time and money will go into the preservation of her job when she is failing all of us, including you who hired her in the first place? I urge you to carefully consider your options, board members, because no matter how far you're willing to go, I promise you we are willing to go farther.

[2608] Ray Rodriguez: Mr. RJ Santiago, and then after Lynette Aquino, and then after that, Kelly Hopkins. Welcome.

[2619] SPEAKER_26: Hi, RJ. The students and staff behind me may be here to constitute and state facts to ask for your consideration. But now I'm different. I'm here to be blunt and take a stand for something I believe in. The opinions I state on this podium are me demanding that action be taken. Anna Kadava must be dismissed of her duties. The fact that nothing drastic has been done since the last board meeting sickens me. The only response we got was a last minute lunchtime parent meeting with students not even considered in the matter. You're really going to deny the voice of over 100 students? You're going to deny the pleas of the parents and the judgment of the staff? There's no consideration needed. Anacataba must be let go. I have taught three out of six classes. Where's my pay? Many students behind me have taken their own time to teach their own classes. Where's their pay? All classes have been student-led, taught, and governed. So if you're paying her to sit in her office and assign meaningless assignments, pay me. I work two jobs. I do football and have college apps. I should be enjoying my senior year. But the fact that I have to go home and make lesson plans, that's absurd. No, no. Actually, actually, what's absurd is that students are planning to actually transfer to different districts to escape this toxic shell of a former glory program. How do I know? Because I'm one of them. You may think I'm just some hot-headed teenager looking to blow off some steam, but this is my passion. I moved all the way to Nevada and worked two jobs to get back here, to this district, to this school, to this home, this program. I don't care if this meeting specifically does anything, because we're passionate out there, all right? I'll do a thousand lesson plans. I'll break my back a million times. I will run. I will put up a thousand picket signs, protest till I die. This is my passion. This is my home. This is my blood, sweat, and tears. This is my program. Anacataba needs to be fired.

[2795] Ray Rodriguez: And then Ms. Hopkins after Ms. Aquino.

[2798] SPEAKER_46: It's hard to follow that. My name is Lynette Aquino, and I have been in this district for 20 years as a parent. But before that, I was in choir at Newton Memorial High School as a student. Five of my six children have gone through the music program in band or in choir. I teach choir at the elementary school, and I've been doing so for eight years. It pains me to see what is happening to the music program at our high school. It is something, music is meant to be positive, enriching, and it should bless your lives. Band and Choir at New Memorial High School used to be a place where students wanted to come, increase their self-esteem, and left better than they were when they entered. Through music, they have not only enriched their own lives, but the lives of others. The program has grown immensely over the years, drawing even new kids to experience the joy of music. But if left under the current direction of Ms. Catabaugh, all that Mr. Hernandez and Mrs. Hong and all the other choir teachers, Mr. Walla, who is mine, all those who have worked so tirelessly to grow this program, it will be destroyed if you let her stay. She is not meant, she is not a good fit for here at Newark Memorial. If you truly, truly care, about the music program, and more importantly, the safety and well-being of the students who you have promised to care about and take care of. That is your responsibility. That is your job. And you need to do that. You will do the right thing. I know that you will, and I implore you to do the right thing.

[2896] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you.

[2898] Ray Rodriguez: Hopkins. Ms. Hopkins, Kelly Hopkins. Marisha. Oh, OK. Hi. I was just dropping back. No, that's OK.

[2913] SPEAKER_53: Welcome. So it seems that tonight is the night of visual aid, so I brought some, too. And I want to let everyone know these are actually, I'm here to speak in regards to your former, or I guess out on leave, Assistant Vice President, Vice Principal Fuggo. And I'm glad that you guys are all wearing your anti-bullying shirts, because I really would like you guys to know that it she's truly being moved, which is that the rumor is that you guys are moving her to the junior high. And if that's true, I don't know what you guys are wearing those bullying shorts for, because it seems like she does a lot of bullying. I brought some examples of what Ms. Bucco has been saying on her Facebook page, just in case I'm a very visual learner. And I brought you guys back there. I just feel like if you see it, sometimes it sinks in a little bit more. And I'm feeling like maybe as board members and superintendent and whoever else is here needs to see what she's been saying. about our students and our parents. So starting off, I'll start off with this one. Now these are coming directly from her and I did not, this is her words. These people here are crying about being hot in their 75 degree classroom. Get the F out of here. Now keep in mind, this was on a day that it was 98 degrees outside and there's no AC going on in the buildings. So this is what she says about the staff and that's teaching at the high school, okay? The next one I'd like to present to you is, and I apologize, it's kind of falling off in this little crack back there. The inappropriate stuff these parents let their kids wear to school. I wish my daughters would try to walk out the door wearing a tube top, no bra, and nipple stickers. What the MF? I wanna beat these parents' ass. Now this is the administrator at the high school saying this. about us parents, like she wants to beat her ass, and then on top of it, she just called out a student, instead of taking a learning moment to go up and say, hey, you know what, that doesn't fit the dress code of the high school. Instead, what she chose to do is just put her out on social media in front of everyone, that maybe her clothing was inappropriate. And you guys should be concerned. My understanding is that you guys have kids at the junior high. If she's going to the junior high, this right here is who is going to be around your kids. This is what you guys want? You guys talk about Newark Pride and all these other things. And I want to tell you that she actually put for the Newark Days Parade. Oh, not my contract. Here I am again with a picture of her Newark Days Parade. How does that say anything about Newark Pride? And again, her final moment that she puts out there is to all my haters. And if you can't see it, it's her flipping us off. This is what she puts on her social media for us. I really hope that you guys are going to rethink a few things. Clearly, the band has had issues with their instructor and with her. You've got teachers that are clearly upset about numerous different things. You guys got a mess. But moving people around who do bad things, this is what you want for our kids? I don't understand it.

[3099] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. We've got about 10 minutes left, so hopefully we got Marie Shivers, Ms. Doot, and Mr. Castillo. Hi.

[3123] SPEAKER_57: Hi there. Well, I can't say it any better than some of these folks that are here, the parents and the students. And I'm pretty proud about how some of the students have spoken up. What I do want to say is that I do have three children in the school district. One has graduated. The child that I have in this music program is heavily invested in this school program, in this district, and has been since junior high and has been very proud to be a part of it. Puts in extra days, extra hours. I couldn't be more proud of him and how he has handled himself. He has gone from being at a school that is used to winning awards and being proud to win those awards. to one that is now embarrassed to show up at programs. And I'm not speaking just of him. I'm speaking of all the students there. There's been changes in syllabus. There's been a lot of stress, emotional duress put on these children. to the point where you've heard some mention their grades. My son's grades have been fluctuating. Not a good thing. I'm a parent. My child is here. This is his job. This is what he is here for, to better himself, to get an education so he can do better in life. The third thing, students teaching. That's shameful. That's shameful. So I hope something is done about that. What I'd like to say last, I'm going to keep this short. I'm not here to tell you what to do, but I do expect you to fix it. And I do expect it to be communicated out. I hope to be able to read whatever is published from that first meeting and this meeting and to get some communication from this school and its leadership.

[3237] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you. And then after that, student board member Castillo.

[3258] SPEAKER_31: With great respect, as the wife of a veteran and the mom of a student, alumni here from Newark Memorial, who teaches music in Los Angeles, But I would like to thank Member Zhang for his comments in recent weeks regarding the trust and transparency within this community. It took courage and integrity. Twenty-six years ago, I was substituting in special education class hoping for a permanent position. Directly following some critical remarks I had made at a school board meeting, the calls for me to work stopped. Someone employed at the district informed me that I had been placed on a do not call list even though teachers were requesting me. Member Rodriguez will remember the late and greatly respected Superintendent Jerry Trout, who upon hearing this made it right, and weeks later I was hired permanently. So bullying. Washington's antics seem to have trickled down to little old Newark. Fear and retribution still prevail. Whether it is passing over an alumni who is teaching and hopes to advance, intimidating members of a bargaining unit by email, students being railroaded or nepotism. This is ugly, unprofessional, intimidating, and thriving behavior. On the flip side, Newark Unified Schools reinstates an administrator after they have posted crude and inflammatory comments on a social media site instead of a principal who has been completely clear of charges. The reason that you typically see in this audience about seven people may include apathy, prior commitments, or just being tired at the end of the day, but also concern over our jobs or fallout for our children or grandchildren who either work in this district or endeavor to learn here. NUSD's activity should include making well-considered strategic decisions instead of doing damage control. This district purports to be tough on bullies in the classroom, but I submit to you tonight that the bullies may very well be in your own backyard. Thank you.

[3427] SPEAKER_43: Thank you.

[3431] Ray Rodriguez: Student board member Castillo, Mr. Cesar. We're past the time, but we're going to extend it so he can speak. Welcome, Cesar.

[3441] SPEAKER_18: Thank you, Board President Rodriguez, members of the board, superintendent, executive cabinet. If you may notice, I don't have a prepared statement this time. I would like to comment on a couple of things. The first one is an apology. My seniors in the room will know what I'm talking about. At the last board meeting, I made a comment about one of the government teachers at Newark Memorial who had made some negative statements about mental health. After further consideration and talking to my peers, I realized that I had misjudged the situation. I am someone who has suffered from mental health issues for a long time, and in his comments, I misinterpreted the value of them, the academic point that he was trying to make. And for that, I do apologize for misinforming the board and the public. But now that I've got two minutes left, I'm gonna talk about essentially what everybody else has been talking about here. And that is the fact that there's a problem in this district. There are multiple problems actually, but one overarching problem is that there's no accountability. There's no respect for the students here. There's no respect for staff here. You see, I don't usually see this many staff members here. But the fact that there are so many of them here means there's a problem. I don't know what the problem is. I'm not a staff member. I don't experience them. But the fact that they're here means that there is one. Whatever it is, you need to figure it out. There are students here, especially from the music program. There's a problem because they're not usually here. I'm usually the only student here at these things. The fact that there are so many people here, all my friends, there's a problem, all right? It needs to be addressed. And if it's not going to get addressed, I'm going to keep coming up here, and we're going to keep talking about this until it does get fixed. All right? So I'm not in the music program. I'm not a staff member. But I'm going to keep defending those who are having problems until they get fixed, because that's kind of my role as a community member here, in addition to my student board member role. which I understand there may be some blurred lines in whether I'm speaking as a student board member or as a member of the public. I don't care about that. What I care about is that the problems in this district are fixed, because it seems there's not enough being done about it. There may be three times that I've seen this room be filled. The first one was when you guys tried to cut counselors. The next time was the first time the music program came to speak about Kataba. And now we're here again today. It's the same issue. So I have a strong feeling that this room is going to continue to be packed. And President Rodriguez is going to have to do a spiel about 30 minutes, and then we're going to move on. But I don't think anybody cares about that, because what we want has changed. If it's not going to happen, then this room is going to continue to be full. So I just want to make that clear that we're all on the same page. This room is going to be full, and people are going to be speaking. And they're going to say a lot of things they're just not going to like. And you're either going to deal with it, or you're going to make some change. Thank you.

[3623] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. That ends the public comment. Superintendent's report.

[3628] SPEAKER_30: Thank you, President Rodriguez, ladies and gentlemen, members of the board. I have a few items tonight. The first item is that we do have a tentative agreement on a date for a board training called New Beginnings as well as Parliamentary Procedure that was requested by a board majority. We're looking at the date of December 20th. That seems to be the date that works for most board members. But we need to schedule a time of when it would occur. We've had some requests to start early and end. Tentatively, I would propose that's the day after a board meeting. I'd propose maybe 9 AM to 2 PM as a possible window for the trainer to come in. While you're thinking about that time frame, the trainer will be calling each of you individually to make sure She hears what you would like to get out of the training, besides what I've shared with her, on orienting a new board team, as well as understanding parliamentary procedure and how to professionally run meetings. But I just wanted to open that conversation with you about the time frame. She can do anything from four to six hours, up to what the board wants to do. But on the table, I wanted to start at least with 9 AM to 2 PM option on that Friday. December 20th, December 20th.

[3714] SPEAKER_51: Just to confirm, one date only?

[3716] SPEAKER_30: So far, we just want to schedule the first one, and then if you like that, we can schedule others later. So does that seem to work, 9 to 2, or everybody's OK with that? Any conflicts? Because we're going to call her tomorrow and let her know what she told us.

[3734] SPEAKER_51: December 20th. December 20th, 9 to 2.

[3735] SPEAKER_30: It's the Friday before we go to break, December 20th.

[3738] SPEAKER_51: December 20th, 9 to 2, 9 AM, 2 PM. Friday.

[3743] SPEAKER_30: It looks like we have the majority of agreement. Char, would you note that? 9 to 2. And Char will send out the invites for you for that as well. Thank you very much for that. We'd also like to have the board save the date for November 15 for the ribbon cutting ceremonies at Graham and Schilling of the US soccer mini pitches, which are the donated fields that we got at Graham and that we got at Schilling. So on November 15, from 2 to 3 PM, it will be at Graham, and then from 5 to 6 PM at Schilling before their Harvest Festival. So they're both that evening. If you can be there for ribbon cutting, let us know who's attending. And if there's more of you, then two or three will have to agendize that appropriately.

[3791] SPEAKER_51: I want to say already that I won't be able to attend, so I'm sorry.

[3794] SPEAKER_30: So just write the date down. Let Char know if it works for you. It's going to be cool that we have those. I know the kids are enjoying them. And I know at Graham, I've seen a lot of debate about who's winning. So November 15, 2 to 3 at Graham, 5 to 6 at Schilling. The last one is think together. Together with site principals, think together at MOT. Donated, they got these donated and helped get these donated. Associate Superintendent Salinas had a big role in getting these donations to our district. So I thank Leti for her lead in that. MOT helped get them installed. And it was 100% donated by US Soccer Foundation and Target. So thank you to US Soccer Foundation and Target for their generous donation of the mini pitches soccer field. It doesn't roll off the tongue. But very, very happy for Graham and Schilling. And that concludes my report at this time.

[3863] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you, Superintendent. So with that, we go to staff reports. Associate Superintendent Salinas. Or Ms. Dela Cruz. Thank you.

[3875] Marie dela Cruz: Yes. Good evening. So we have School Works here tonight to give us a presentation on the demographic study that they have completed. I'll have them introduce themselves.

[3890] Ray Rodriguez: Can I interrupt just for one second? We've allocated, we got three items. We normally have two, so we're pretty sure we can get it done in an hour. So just to let you know that we're hoping that, you know, you can give us a little time to ask questions. I appreciate it. Thank you.

[3913] SPEAKER_08: Hello, my name is Ken Reynolds. I'm president of School Works, and it's an honor to be here this evening to share with you our demographic study. We've worked with the district in the past on a developer fee study. This is our first time looking at the demographics, so I'll give you a little bit of information as we go through here. Basically, the process we go through, we collected information on your students about what school they're enrolled in, what grade level they are. and of course where they live. So we generate a GIS, geographic information system map, and this here shows you red dots where all the students in your district live in comparison to your school boundaries. So by loading in four years of data, we're able to do a great study of the mobility and the growth or decline that's happening in each individual school attendance area. So that's the main basis of our analysis. the historic trends doesn't always tell us all the information we need to know. One of those key factors is birth information, right? Those children that have been born that are one year, two years old, three years old, right, they'll be coming into the school system. So we have this chart where we look at the historic data of the number of births compared to the number of students enrolled five years later so we can understand what that capture rate is and what those trends are. And there's a fairly good correlation when we look at the historic data. Off on the right-hand side of this chart in yellow, it shows our projected number of incoming kindergarten students just due to the birth data. It doesn't account those that will be enrolled that perhaps will be buying the new homes from the residential development that's planned. But we do see the blue line on the right side of the chart shows that the numbers of births is actually increasing within your area. And when we look at the overall state trends, those numbers are declining. So we are seeing a different trend here than we are seeing statewide. So this is the results. I like showing you this so you can see the overall district perspective before we show you the individual schools. As you can see, this chart color codes the historic enrollment. This is from the first week of October each school year. In orange, we have the elementary grades. In green, the junior high grades. And in blue, the high school grades. So we can see over the last 10 years, there's been a decline. When we look at the next six years, we show two more years of a slight decline. And then those numbers starting to rebound. Again, partly due to the bursts increasing, partly due to development impacts and all the data that we looked at. We do provide in our report all the numbers by school. This shows it by school over the next six years. And so we're able to see, again, real quick at the bottom line there, it shows our annual change. So that's what our projected enrollment difference is from year to year. And so if we... Look for next year, we're anticipating a total of 5,600 students, which is a decline of 58 from this school year. The following year is a decline of 26. And then the years after that are showing growth of 43, 83, 34, and 55. So not significant numbers, but they are, again, two more years of slight drops, and then several years of some slight increases. This next chart shows, again, some more historic information. What we can see here is the enrollment by grade level for this school year shown on the green bars in comparison to back when those students started kindergarten, how many kids were in that class. So obviously, it's not the exact same students because of mobility. But it just shows us how things change over time. And what this is showing us is the current number of students enrolled at each grade level is currently less when that grade started kindergarten several years ago. And so again, that's indicating that there's been a decline in overall enrollment. So again, that's all part of the data that we analyze and factor into our trend analysis. And finally, what we show next for each individual school, and there's even more details in our reports, when you look at these charts, we're trying to illustrate three items. The red line here shows us our historic enrollment for four years and our projected enrollment for six years. We also show a blue line on these charts. That represents how many students live in the neighborhood for that school attendance area. And then the black line shows us our estimated classroom capacity. And again, that's just looking at the classroom counts we reviewed. how those rooms are being utilized. And I know that when there's extra space at a campus, rooms get used for all sorts of different purposes. So we've tried to factor in those programs that are necessary for your educational programs. But sometimes space just gets filled because it's available. And so we're showing you what your real potential capacity is should more students show up so we can see if we have room for those areas that are anticipating growth. So we do have a chart like this for each school. Again, we're seeing some growth. I think this is Birch Grove Primary. Sorry, my vision's a little challenging right now. I need to turn the page here so I can see it up close. Yeah, so that was Birch Grove Primary. We also see some growth anticipated at Birch Grove Intermediate, and it's just within their capacity, so they are projected to be a bit impacted on that campus. Several of the other schools are showing relatively stable enrollment projections. That was because there was some development planned in the Birch Grove area. But here at Graham, it's very stable enrollment. We do see a slight increase at Kennedy and just reaching their capacity. So again, another impacted campus. At Lincoln, relatively stable enrollment. And again, a nearly full campus. Then when we see music, we're seeing a slight decline in enrollment and lots of available space there. And then next is Schilling. That's where we're seeing the majority of the impacts of the new development projects. And so we're seeing a significant increase from 375 students this year to over 500 students within six years. Still within their capacity, but some significant growth. When we get to Snow, again, very stable enrollment, even though they've seen some declines the last couple of years. Now we're on to the junior high. And we're actually seeing a decline the next two years, and then a couple of years of increase, and then stable. So overall, it's relatively stable. dip it's going to run through, again, as a small grade moves through the school. And then at the high school, again, it looks relatively stable, just a slight decline overall. Again, with four grade levels at a campus, some of those smaller or larger classes balance out with each other versus the more stark differences we would see at a campus that's only serving two grades. And then finally, we also show you projections for the other district programs. These projections obviously do not have a blue line because it's not analyzing a boundary. What we're looking at is the percentage of the population that is attending these programs. And again, that's a program basis. You could be trying to increase or decrease enrollment in a particular program. This does not take that into account. It only takes into account the current attendance ratios. So again, we're seeing relatively stable numbers at these programs as the district enrollment is relatively stable. There's a few ups and downs, but overall it's pretty stable. And finally, we have a slide that shows the new development information. These are the assumptions we have to build into our projections. So we look at the information, we contact the developers and the planning departments, work with the district staff trying to get our understanding from all different perspectives of what is the most likely impact as the marketing of these projects continues and their approval processes continue. And so, again, we don't control development. We try, we just have to be reactive and prepared for it. So we do our best job to try to do our best accurate projections so that you understand what is the most likely scenario. Obviously, it's driven by the economy and several other factors. So overall, we were aware of a total of over 3,200 planned housing units within your school district. of which we anticipate about 1,451 would be built in the next six years. So again, we're not taking everything on the books and just cramming it in just for a study like perhaps we might do in a developer fee study. These are trying to accurately project what we think is going to be reality for your enrollments. We do have that broken down on the next slide on which schools are impacting. And of course, that's why we saw a lot of the enrollment growth at Schilling.

[4551] SPEAKER_51: Can I ask, sorry, just for clarification on your prior slide? Yes. Because I think I might have confused some of the numbers. So you're saying the remaining units, that's just area four. You have remaining units, 469, but you're projecting in six years 160 will be built?

[4571] SPEAKER_08: Correct. OK, thank you. Right, the remaining is the total. units planned for that development, or if it's already under construction, is this unit still remaining to be built and occupied? And then finally, the last page here, we like to take the information and summarize it. It's nice to know whether you're growing or declining for budget and staffing and issues like that. But this one, we compare where we're at currently and where we're going to be in six years in comparison to our capacities so we can understand. What we do on this page is we highlight in red any schools that are projected to be overcapacity, because those are issues that have to be addressed, either by building new classrooms or perhaps a boundary change. We highlight in yellow if we're slightly underutilized, and we highlight in blue if we're even more underutilized. So again, it just provides an overall snapshot of where we're at today, where we're at in six years, and so that we can be prepared and have the information you need for decision-making purposes. And I think that's our last one. If you have any questions, I'd love to answer any questions. Members, go ahead.

[4645] Bowen Zhang: Thank you for your presentation. Two questions. Number one, I'm a bit puzzled by the gap between BGP and BGI projections. So on your chart, you showed BGI, which is our K3 to 6, will have slight increase in enrollment in the coming years. And BGP has a little bit dipping, even though they're in the same attendance area. So can you explain what caused the divergence in the next two or three years for BGP and BGI?

[4676] SPEAKER_08: Yes, obviously, we're looking at the grade levels and the incoming kindergarten is the biggest factor. And of course, there is also development impacts in this area. So at the primary, I think I have to go back one more. So at the primary where we're serving grades K-2, So, we're anticipating a slight drop before there's an increase. And we're also showing that they have grown slightly over the, between this current year and where they were at three years ago. Most of the increase in those last three years is development related.

[4728] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, so what could new development possibly cost BGI to increase, but BGP to dip a little bit in the next two years? So I guess that's right.

[4736] SPEAKER_08: Yeah, so now I'm forwarding to the intermediate, and we'll show you the correlation. So here at the intermediate, we're serving grades three through six. And so we're seeing an increase the next couple of years. That increase we're seeing. is partly due to the growth that's previously happened that already is at the primary is moving into the intermediate. In addition, when we look at the out years, that's where we would expect to see a corresponding drop in enrollment. But that drop that would have happened in years four, five, and six is being offset by the impact of development. And so that's why we're not seeing it drop, whereas right now we're seeing that drop occurring at the primary this next two years. So by the time that drop would have coincided with a drop at the intermediate, it's being offset by the development impacts.

[4801] Bowen Zhang: Okay, I guess my second question I think has more to do with the terminology because maybe I'm missing your report. I see you talk about yield rate and capture rate. And then obviously your report showed you should see a lot more increase in enrollment due to the new development area too. So how did you compute your capture rate? Because I think capture rate was something that's kind of really hard to get. So far in the Schilling area, like what we've seen in the past three, four years, we have like 1,600 units already built, and we see hardly any increasing enrollment in Schilling. I guess probably, I think the yield rate is already low, which means the yielding of the children, of school-age children, but the capture rate seems to be really low in Schilling. And how did you come up with a way to compute the capture? Because our previous demographer, they used a Hayward model, and it turned out to be pretty awful for our district.

[4855] SPEAKER_08: Right. We look at the yield rate by looking at actually homes within your school district. So we're not using any of your neighbors. But there's also different types of development can have different yield rates. And so we look at the size of homes being built, the types of homes being built. And then, of course, the other factor is we're looking at the yield rate by grade level. When we're analyzing that, the one challenge that comes into play is we don't always see the impact of development in the same year that the home is built. First it's built, then it's occupied. And then at some point, those students will get enrolled in the school district. A lot of times it takes time for some of the homes to actually generate students because if someone buys a home and their child's only three, right, it's two years later before they start kindergarten. So all of these factors come into play. We do our best to factor all of that into our calculations, but it really depends on both the marketing of these developments and what their demographic is.

[4941] Bowen Zhang: Let me clarify. I'm actually asking for the capture rate because for our district, when we are projecting enrollment capture rate, It's what matters, not necessarily the yield rate. And did the services department ever, did we work with them to provide the current capture rate in the year or two? Because that capture rate in the year or two might be much more predictable, a much better indicator for us to project the next three or four years. Because just like I said, the 1,600 units we built in the past three or four years, we see hardly any number increasing and showing.

[4978] SPEAKER_08: Right. When I use the word capture rate, I'm usually referring to the kindergarten information of how many kindergarten students are born versus how many show up in your schools five years later. I think by capture rate, you are referring to a yield rate.

[4993] Bowen Zhang: So I guess the yield rates for every four single family home, you have two school age children, but two of them, maybe only one of them actually attend our school district. The other one goes to private school. So in that case, your yield rate is twice as high as your capture rate. Your yield rate might be one-eighth because, let's say, two kids per, I mean, one-eighth. And then your capture rate might be one-sixteenth because that's only half of them go to the school district.

[5019] SPEAKER_08: When we calculate our yield rate, it's based on just your students. We're not looking at the yield rate of a home in terms of total population. We're looking at the yield rate in terms of how many NUSD students are generated by new development. So we're not calculating total population. We're looking at just NUSD students.

[5040] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Member Gutierrez.

[5043] SPEAKER_51: Thank you. I think you do have this slide on there, which is the one where, again, yes, you do, talking about the units and projection years. So can you explain what numbers you get from, for example, Sanctuary Village, where those are I believe they're four or five bedroom homes, compared to ID number six, which is New Park, which I believe are supposed to be single room apartments. So what numbers did you get, or do you expect to get, of students being captured from, for example, apartment units compared to homes? Just so I can understand this slide.

[5095] SPEAKER_08: I'd have to go back and look at all of our records. But generally, we normally see a higher yield rate in single family units than we do in apartments. And so it'll vary. And obviously, if we have any affordable housing units, they generate a higher yield rate than market rate units. So again, every type of unit is different. But we have tried our best to factor what those likely yield rates are going to be based on the research that we did.

[5125] SPEAKER_51: that we're building. We're also getting an expectancy number of students from there. to go to Newark. Is that correct?

[5157] SPEAKER_08: We look at all the factors when we do our projections. So we try to share all the various data with you in our report so you can understand the type of information for your own information.

[5170] Bowen Zhang: OK.

[5171] SPEAKER_08: OK. Just one last quick point.

[5172] Bowen Zhang: I'm sorry.

[5174] Ray Rodriguez: So the Area 4. We have two other items. And I apologize, Bowen, but we really need to move on. We have 3 items on here and we need to get moving. Can you have a seat for just for a second and I'll ask Ms. Parks to come up and I apologize. Because I did have a question for you. Ms. Parks.

[5205] Cindy Parks: I wasn't going to be forgotten this time last week, last meeting. No, I'm glad you stood up. I had put in a card and didn't get to speak. So now I'm going to stand if I don't get called on. I just have a couple of things that I'd like to to bring forward is the fact that school works is the organization that did as they said that developer fee justification study in February of 2018. One thing I would like to bring to your attention and I did talk to Mr. Reynolds prior to the meeting beginning. I want to bring that to your attention. Another inconsistency 6, 58, and yet in your October 15 enrollment numbers that you got from your PowerPoint presentation said that you were at 57, 35. So what is your actual enrollment here? Do you even have a consistency of knowing what you're really dealing with? I really have to say that I do appreciate their maps. I felt that compared to Davis demographics, having these maps were very helpful to be able to delineate which houses have and see all those pretty, I mean, I'm more of a visual person, so I felt that that was very helpful. To know that in the Willow area, I mean, one thing that was really good, which you could able to see, is in the Willow area, in the Schilling area, whatever you want to call it, Willow, Bay Shores, Glass Shores, whatever you want to call that development, there were 16 students that you garnered from all of those new houses. From Area 3, Sanctuary Village? Three. Three. So when they're talking about capture rate, yeah, Mr. Zhang, you're trying to look at how many students do you have the potential of getting in this district? You didn't get that. You didn't pay for that study. That was the box that wasn't checked when you approved the contract with School Works. With Davis Demographics, you got that because you checked that box and paid for that. You did not get the capture rate here. You don't know your potential of students in this city. You only know, based on their math, is how many students you have in NUSD that should be at Lincoln, but they're going to Graham, or should be at Graham, and they're going to Schilling. So you don't know what your potential is. You didn't get that report. And even Mr. Reynolds said, it is hard, unless you knock on doors, to know what your potential is. But we all know the people that have their kids going to private school, home school, charter school, somewhere else, they're going somewhere else, and your enrollment is declining. And I think what you heard earlier today from the parents and the students is an indication of trouble, and you need to figure out how you're going to deal with it, because these numbers continue to deflate.

[5395] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you, Ms. Clark. Mr. Reynolds? I just have one quick, because we have to move on to the On page 42 in your enrollment projection summary by school, I don't agree with these numbers, by the way, but I do appreciate the report. In the elementary side, you're showing that we're going to have an increase of over 200 students. But yet, on all the secondary schools, there's a declining. So, can you share with us, what information did you get that leads you to believe that all our kids are not going to go from 6th grade and continue at our schools? I'm just curious, that's all.

[5450] SPEAKER_08: Yeah, and again, the numbers we're looking at are a point in time in each year. I don't think it's fair to say that everyone leaves after 6th grade. What we're showing in that six-year projection, if you're just looking at that snapshot, is there's been an increase in enrollment that's impacted the elementary schools, partly due to development, but partly because we're anticipating an increasing number as the births have grown in those years. And those four-year-olds that are out there and those one-year-olds that are out there right now, in our six-year projection, they're still in elementary school. They haven't moved on to impact the junior high or the high school yet.

[5492] Ray Rodriguez: I really hope your numbers are correct as far as the elementary side and we can work to make sure that the kids actually stay in our schools. Can you make sure, if you don't mind, that we have your phone number in case anyone of us wants to get with you and ask you more questions. Maybe you can give it to Ms. Aquino. She probably already has it, but just in case. Thank you for hanging in there with us and for your report. Mr. Knoop, can you get ready to come up, please? Thank you, Mr. Reynolds. I appreciate it. This is the update on maintenance. Did you want to address us for a quick minute?

[5540] Cary Knoop: I will address you quickly. I just want to continue to say that allocating money for maintenance is against the law for general obligation bonds. I think every CBO should know that. You can't spend money on maintenance for general obligation bonds. It's in the Constitution of California. And this board is still doing it. And now this board wants to go for another bond. In my opinion, you're breaking the law. If the grand jury watches this video now, they have something to look at. You can't spend money for maintenance on general obligation bonds. Call a lawyer, ask them to confirm it. Thank you.

[5591] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Superintendent, update on maintenance, operations, and transportation. I'm going to have Ms. Dela Cruz report on that.

[5603] Marie dela Cruz: So at our September meeting, we had a board member, I believe it was Martinez, who requested an update on our maintenance work orders. So we've provided you three updates, some reports that show the work orders specifically, especially with relation to the HVAC. And we had an updated work order report also that was given out tonight that showed we have nine outstanding HVAC work orders. We started out at 80. and we're down to nine. So most of the issues have been dealt with and completed. We're continuing to do preventative maintenance and also whatever outstanding work orders we have are being performed by an outside contractor. We do have a permanent person that has just recently been hired that's going to start on Tuesday for our HVAC maintenance. And of the 100,000 that was allocated, we've spent about 61,000 so far on the HVAC. Thank you.

[5704] Ray Rodriguez: Member Gutierrez and then Member Martinez.

[5707] SPEAKER_51: Thank you. A couple of questions. I'm looking at the document that has the list of work orders by trade, January, I'm sorry, July 1st through October 30th. If it's a typo, I really don't mean to point it out as a typo. I apologize, but I was, I did have a question about something here, property. Okay. Page, this must have changed. OK. I can ask my question. Go for it. Yes, please. Sorry, I apologize.

[5752] Elisa Martinez: Thank you for bringing this information. I was just trying to figure out the work order updates, so normally, when I'm looking at, you know, I think one is the inventory, the one that I think member Gutierrez was referencing, but if I look at the work in progress, the document, what does work in progress mean? It just, it's concerning to me that there's so many open and if I look at the aging, and I'm not sure how to reconcile that with then the last update where the I think my concern is if I look at the sheer numbers of work orders being generated. And if that and if this is how we're tracking where we're just constantly starting without completing then I can see where 3 months 6 months later. I think it just really is concerning to me. And I know, Superintendent Sanchez, you referenced that we need to look at MOT or how the system is run. I absolutely agree, because as I look at this document, it's very concerning to me. How do I make heads or tails? I mean, I'm just one individual. But if I look at the way we're managing the system, I can see where that delay where those concerns from staff, students, community members are constantly surfacing. So I guess in general, sorry for my long-windedness, but it just doesn't instill a lot of confidence that we have a process under control.

[5866] Marie dela Cruz: So I'm assuming you're referring to the work order report that shows status of work in progress on the very right column. So these are open work orders, which means that if they're not on this list, they've already been completed. So when a work order is received, it's opened, and the status is in progress. And once it's been completed, then it's no longer on this list.

[5892] Elisa Martinez: I agree. I'm sorry. And as I look at the aging, when it was received, my assumption as I read this document is that the last item is aged from August the 15th. And it tells me it's still in progress. The way I'm understanding is, this is a work order that's been open for you know, three or four months, right? Yes.

[5916] Marie dela Cruz: So sometimes that's due to, could be parts that are on order or it was fixed and then something else came up and it wasn't, it was reopened again.

[5933] SPEAKER_51: So I was looking at the one that just has the list down the side and then numbers and then it's The first page, second part, it says work orders by status for the school year. We have one new request? It just seems odd that we have one new request of a work order, or maybe you can explain what I'm not understanding there.

[5958] Marie dela Cruz: It's as of the date the report was printed, so maybe that particular day.

[5962] SPEAKER_51: OK. And then going to work order by property, Newark Memorial is on there twice. So Newark Memorial has 222 and then 224. On the second page. Oh, by property? Again, if it's, I don't mean, I don't, and then we have all sites and it says only two. So I'm just, maybe I'm not understanding what the numbers were or why.

[5997] Marie dela Cruz: The work order by property? Correct. Yeah, these are all the work orders by school. And I see what you're saying. I'm not sure why Newark Memorial is listed twice.

[6006] SPEAKER_51: And then when it says all sites, there's only two work orders. OK. So maybe just for later, for more clarification. And then when it says something is work in progress, does that mean someone's already assigned to that? to that project? Yes. OK. Work in progress. And then my next question, and again, it could either be to your superintendent. Maybe you can explain this, because my understanding currently is that the school sites each are assigned a day of maintenance. So if Shilling, for example, has maintenance work, they have a day assigned to them, and the maintenance crew goes and does what needs to be fixed on that day. Is that correct? Superintendent?

[6052] SPEAKER_30: No. Actually, they don't schedule a full day at each site. They schedule work. They try to sequence the work depending on the nature of whatever work it is. So let's say there's a sprinkler issue at a few schools that are close to each other. So internal staff will probably schedule those schools that are close to each other to do them in a day where they won't swarm. That could happen in sometimes larger districts where they have enough staff to swarm and try to resolve all issues at one site. It doesn't really work that way as far as how they schedule the work. They're trying to schedule work with a handful of people, so that makes it more challenging. I think what really is telling in the reports in front of you here is the third one that we have here, HVAC update, the last one on the right, Western Allied, that's pretty detail-specific and it's getting done. But it's costing us a contract. And that's work that's being contracted outside of the district. That does happen quicker. I think that our, generally speaking, our MOT department will look at trying to stagger and schedule and group the work that makes sense together, but it's not by sight, it's kind of by what's going on that day in the district.

[6125] SPEAKER_51: Okay, so then to that end then I'm thinking maybe we might need some clarification within our district because there are some folks out there that are under the understanding that certain schools are assigned certain days of maintenance and currently the scenario is that if school A is assigned on Monday, if the maintenance crew is not going, then they're just being skipped. And that's why a lot of the work is getting pushed back and pushed back.

[6151] SPEAKER_30: So maybe we need to clarify that. Yeah, no, I definitely look at that.

[6155] Elisa Martinez: Sorry, I just have one more question. I apologize.

[6157] Ray Rodriguez: OK, let me just quickly. Because of time, normally what we do is we'll have a board member speak, and then we normally can't. Go back, but I'll do it in this time. That's okay, Martinez, go ahead.

[6176] Elisa Martinez: I could also ask it as a request, but I just wanted to know if we track mean time to repair.

[6186] SPEAKER_30: I don't think we do, but I can check.

[6189] Elisa Martinez: I think that if we don't, that would be huge, because again, if I look at the total list, good or bad, I don't know, but if we And this is more for the benefit of the system. Do we understand how long it's taking? And there can be multiple reasons, but at least it helps us begin to prioritize. Thank you.

[6209] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. That's OK. You haven't said anything yet. Go ahead.

[6217] Phuong Nguyen: Now you put me on the spot. I was wondering, how often do we have maintenance staff go out and walk the sites to make sure that, you know, to check the buildings and see like. Member Gutierrez mentioned earlier about you know. The lines are out of place or needs repair. I think that's really important to have someone walk the schools and make note of like things that need to be fixed. And then also the other question I had was on here on the work in progress on the work order by status. I know that you guys read for the date range of July 1st to October 30th. But that number, I guess what I'm saying is that when you guys present a report to us, it needs to be up to date. And I don't want to see numbers that are already completed because this number, work in progress number at 250, is for that date range. And I just want to know what hasn't been completed so that we can address it and what has been completed. It's nice to have the work orders numbers presented by, I mean, that were requested by the property. But if you can do it, I mean, based on a monthly report, that would be great. I mean, this is a quarterly report, I guess. But yeah, if we can have it on a monthly report, that would be great. And I also wanted to ask, Ms. Bloom, are your babies OK now? They're chilling?

[6318] SPEAKER_57: We are not now, ma'am.

[6320] Phuong Nguyen: OK, great. Thank you.

[6322] Ray Rodriguez: Good. Thank you. OK. Next, we go to elementary report card update. Associate Supervisor Salinas. Yes.

[6339] SPEAKER_33: Good evening. This evening, we have our Director of Teaching and Learning, Mr. Dolovich. As you recall, he was here at the last board meeting to give an update, and we felt that it was important to share some of the next steps. We heard you, and we also heard our community and our teachers, and so Mr. Dolovich is here along with some of our teachers to present an update.

[6362] SPEAKER_27: Good evening, members of the board. I promise to keep this brief and concise. So this is to provide context and an overview from the first conversation we had October 17th. First and foremost, I want to acknowledge teachers that stayed for this presentation. Christy Palomino from Snow, she's on the report card committee. Chris Sheving from Music to Light. Evans Vasquez from Graham. And we also had Lena Yep from BGP, but she had to go put her babies to sleep. So in a moment, they'll come up here and speak from the teacher perspective. So I want to start just by acknowledging the concerns that were raised both by the board and the community. We heard community members loud and clear. We heard board concerns, specifically around going from a one to four to one to three. I want to say loudly, this is a pilot program. This is not set in stone. We're working to get it right with input and feedback, and so we convened a number of things since October 17th. October 18th, there was a site-coordinated elementary PD. There were over 130 staff feedback forms. A number of those forms mentioned and gave feedback on the report card. October 28th, we convened an emergency report card meeting, and three of those members are here this evening. And of course, just from conversations, site visits, and emails since that time, We've heard a number of comments, and a number of themes have emerged. We discussed going from a one to four to one to three, but the reality is that would be problematic for our teachers at this point. Tomorrow's the end of the trimester, and so for grades to be changed, for the rubric to be altered, that would be a huge challenge for our teachers. Also, teachers appreciated the communication responsiveness from the district, and they asked for more training. And specifically, they asked for an FAQ, frequently asked questions, for our parents and guardians. That is provided to you tonight, and it's in process of being translated into Spanish. Our translator was ill, and so she's gonna have that for us tomorrow. For those that weren't with us October 17th, just to provide some background and context. Teachers have been talking for years about making sure that the report card is updated to reflect the standards that they're actually teaching in the elementary classrooms. That's the purpose. The reality is the committee met last year. It worked for some changes. And clearly, communication needs to be improved. And so before Thanksgiving break, I intend, whether it's here at the district or at an elementary site, to hold a town hall meeting, provide a presentation to parents, and also get their input. We mentioned this before, but in school districts and also counties nearby, there's a number that have moved forward in terms of standard to base grading. Whether that includes a four or a three, we can be open to that feedback. But the point is we want to support our teachers in making sure that their priority standards being taught in the classroom are reflected on the report card that parents and teachers are receiving. And I'll speak to our next steps at the very end of this, but I'd like to ask our teachers to come on up here and speak a little bit about the teacher perspective and if there are any questions from the board for the teachers specifically.

[6597] Ray Rodriguez: OK, you're on the spot.

[6598] SPEAKER_58: So I was on the report card committee last year, and we met. We had representatives from all of the schools. I think most of them were there. And we discussed the Common Core standards and the need for standards-based reporting at this point with the standards. Also, we talked about the essential standards. We looked at the report cards from the surrounding districts and discussed pros and cons. And we also, as we were working on this whole project last year, we were gathering. We were taking all the information we had spoken about at one meeting and shared it with the staff and gathered feedback from them. So at this point, to change any of the specific grading would be impossible. Also, we do need more training for grading on rubrics. We need rubric base for all of these areas. that we have on a report card. So we need some more training with that. And we need to also inform the parents about this change, because grading based on the standards, it's a progression. It's not parents think of grading as letter grades. It's a completely different ballgame. So any questions in particular for me?

[6680] Bowen Zhang: So I actually have a question for the ad services, not necessarily the teachers.

[6685] Ray Rodriguez: OK. Go ahead. Go ahead, Mr. Jarrett.

[6689] SPEAKER_51: I did have a teacher perspective. As I'm getting more information on this standard space, I felt as if teachers were in favor of this because at least you get a general idea of your students as a whole, your classroom as a whole, and their progression. Correct. Is that correct? Yes. OK. So you're not, at this point, you're not looking at individual students. You're looking at whether I'm teaching this lesson. Is the majority of my class understanding? Yes. How, if a parent then wants to know if their student is excelling in that subject, can you distinguish that?

[6729] SPEAKER_58: It depends on the subject and their standards and the rubrics we have in place.

[6733] SPEAKER_51: I think just focus on the ones. I think with the attachment that was included, I think it was there are certain subjects. There's two subjects that are standard based, and there's other subjects that you guys have like a grade. Isn't that correct?

[6751] SPEAKER_18: It says for grades K to 6, teachers use a 3-2-1 scale for English and math. For grades 6, teachers use A to D in social studies, science, and physical education.

[6765] SPEAKER_51: So like English and math. Go ahead.

[6767] SPEAKER_28: OK.

[6768] SPEAKER_27: So my understanding from the previous work, the A through D, the letter grades, was an ask specifically by sixth grade teachers as well as junior high teachers to better prepare them for the junior high traditional letter grades, A through F. And so sixth grade, A through D, making those transitions, again, as a pilot, not set in stone with those three subjects that our student board member just reported, piloting those specifically with respect to the letter grades. But ELA and math, standards based. So the priority standards that the teachers are teaching in sixth grade, and that could correspond to any grade level, but sixth grade specifically. Right now it's a one, two, and three. And I'll speak to that element of exceeding or deepen understanding in just a minute.

[6823] SPEAKER_58: I'm going to add to that. In terms of exceeding, like if my second graders right now are supposed to be a level 18 and they're already reading at a DRE level above 18, that would be noted in the comments. OK. So something like reading, that would definitely be noted in the comments so the parents have that information.

[6840] SPEAKER_46: Thank you.

[6846] SPEAKER_28: I just wanted to reiterate that it is a work in progress. There were a lot of things discussed last year. We were talking about making even broader changes as far as identifying standards in math. But if you compare what we had last year to what we had this year as far as the standards, the bullet points, they have remained at least my grade level, I don't know for sure, pretty much the same. So there's still a lot of work to do, not just in building a better report card, but also in how it is calibrated from site to site, how teachers all understand it, and how it's communicated, hopefully, well to parents.

[6900] SPEAKER_27: So that's good. That's a good segue to next steps. So to reiterate, this is a pilot. There's frequently asked questions. It's two pages. It'll be in English and Spanish for all parents. Obviously, parent-teacher conferences start next week, November 14th. There'll also be an information sheet provided on the district website, presentation provided for principals. And then specifically, we want to allow report card committee members to have air time at staff meetings. not only to provide updates in real time, but to also get feedback. And as we continue talking about this notion of a four and three, for us, you can have a standard space and include a four. So for instance, we're open to exploring this notion of a four for students who demonstrate deeper understanding. And that can be reflected on the report card. At the end of the conferences, we're going to have surveys for all parents and guardians. And then when trimester one ends, for trimester two, we're going to have all staff have the opportunity to give us the feedback as well. So we'll have parents and guardians as well as staff district-wide compiled that. And then the idea, we had a plan of action presented to you. Like I said, I'm going to have a town hall type meeting. We have our next report card committee meeting on December 2nd. But this idea is that ed services would go out to each of the sites, provide the rationale with respect to standards-based, with the training, but also the tech side, because it affects how they enter grades. And then ultimately, since this is a pilot, we would take an updated version to you, and the idea being for next year, for 2020, 2021, that we would look to have board approval in the spring, May of 2020, so that when we come together in August, that there's clarity, there's some calibration, and all the work that needs to be done has happened up to that point.

[7024] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Did you want to go, Bon?

[7028] Bowen Zhang: Can I ask a question for Ed Services? So, I actually did look at the old video from March. So, on March 21st, school board meeting item 14.4. the school board voted unanimously 6-0 to adopt a standard-based grading from 1 to 5. So I'm wondering what happened to that vote because it looks like we voted for 1 to 5 and suddenly we're told right now we're going to 1 to 3.

[7056] SPEAKER_33: Yes. So to give some clarity around that. So at that time we were bringing forward updating certain sections of the report card. If you recall there was a lot of question for our new members. There were questions around grading as it related to absences, particularly at the secondary level. And so it was a very outdated section of Ed Code that needed kind of an emergency update. And so at that time we did that, knowing that we were still working through the pilot. I think we definitely need to have done a better job for the elementary side of it, but the purpose of that first update, that language wasn't changed because we only changed the area around the absences where students at the secondary level were being penalized for absences and tardies. So that's the context I can give or background for that. In terms of this pilot, we had at some of the study sessions mentioned that we were working on a pilot, but we did not do a clear enough job last year about talking about how this was a work in progress. Teachers were meeting for almost the majority of last year working on this. and we were looking to anticipate it as a phase in, a phase one and a phase two. After the last board meeting, we heard from you all, we heard from the public as well, and we understood that we had not done a good enough job about the pilot. That's why we had all of these quick meetings with our staff. So what we anticipate now is phasing it in, but getting some more structures in place to have some real concrete feedback What we found, for example, is that although all schools were represented at the report card committee, it is also important to ensure that teachers, when they go back to their sites, can really have some air time at staff meetings and so forth so they can hear from all classroom teachers. So our expectation is that we will be able to bring forward a revised board policy in May for the implementation out of the pilot for next year.

[7181] Bowen Zhang: Is there a chance that we can Go back to the 1 to 5 numeric system that we approved in March.

[7189] SPEAKER_33: Well certainly I mean I think the reason for this item tonight was to update you with the work that we've done with our teachers and really kind of present the picture as to where we are right now. Certainly that is you know we would listen to the board and follow directives but our hope is that with better communication now and also presenting the background as to the work that's happened so far we would respectfully ask to continue in this pilot.

[7221] SPEAKER_18: Thank you. So this is my 13th year in the district and I went to elementary school here. So I'm familiar of the time when it was 1 to 5 on the report card. And now that we're going from 1 to 5 to 1 to 4 and now 1 to 3, I'm just a bit confused on what the purpose is of going from, and I've got my 6th grade report card here. So we're going from... Can we see that? Do you want to? Pass it around. Let's see. But it goes from far below basic to below basic to basic to proficient to advanced. So I think what I'm definitely trying to understand and what I believe member Jeong might be trying to understand is why we're eliminating those indicators of advanced success. Success that is, you know, above grade level and what that means in terms of encouraging students who are at that level to continue excelling at that level.

[7281] SPEAKER_30: So let me try to answer, and if I do it wrong, please correct me, teachers. So part of the challenge of standards-based education, in the first premise that's the big shift from grades to standards, is in the standards reference system, you're giving grades based on an individual teacher's opinion on how they do on a particular lesson. In a standards-based system, they're giving grades based on the standard the student needs to achieve to be able to be at grade level. So that's kind of one of the nuances and differences. Now, you heard the teachers talk about rubrics. This whole idea of a rubric is a way to say third grade writing, I'm not an elementary, so let me pick a different grade. Ninth grade, language arts, one of the standards is short constructed response. So for a teacher in classroom A that's teaching 9th grade language arts short constructed response standard and a teacher in another 9th grade teaching the same standard, the whole idea of having a rubric helps the teachers to calibrate what it means to achieve 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, however many you want to have. But having fewer gives less variables to be able to approximate the calibration where they are relative to the goal, which is reaching the standard degree level. I don't know how I did, but how am I doing?

[7365] SPEAKER_27: Do you have any follow-up?

[7368] SPEAKER_30: So I guess the answer is it adds that other level of complexity. And then the progression of when most states and districts and schools are rolling out standards-based education, One of the things that you can't do is rush the process with teachers, because there's a lot of value in this process of how they're coming to that agreement of the most valuable part of this conversation is when you have a group of teachers that teach a common subject and say, well, I don't know if that's a three. Is that a three, or is it a four, or is it a two? And getting that inter-rater reliability really becomes powerful when a student now, same scenario, goes into classroom A, a three means a three. Classroom B, a three means a three, it kind of starts standardizing the system so that it's challenging. But one of the challenges is managing all that data. So the more levels you have, the more you add levels of complexity. But that's how I would describe it. But I would certainly defer if I misspoke or misrepresented that.

[7430] SPEAKER_33: And I would add, we now are with the common core state standards. And so Ghana went away, the no child left behind, with a far below basic. Now it's more of a shift of growth mindset and with the California dashboard that we're moving, and I think Principal Bird showed us a really good example as to how her school is really kind of moving that way. So it's different from even when I was.

[7452] SPEAKER_18: Yeah, from what I remember, yeah.

[7454] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, thank you. I'm sorry, Member Gutierrez, but Member Nguyen and Member Martinez, but before, I, the fact that the board voted to have it one to five and then it was changed, And I know there was a communication issue. I'm glad you brought this forward to us. But it just gets frustrating sometimes, you know, when that happens. But so hopefully we'll be on the same page moving forward. And you said you were going to bring it back in May. My preference would be to bring it back sooner if that's possible. Okay. Member Nguyen.

[7490] Phuong Nguyen: I just want to add to what President Rodriguez was saying is that we see this one particular issue, but across the board and I think We want to really support staff, the teachers, who are working hard on these issues to improve for our students. But if we can't connect and communicate transparently between staff and you guys, executive admin staff, then we can't be supportive of what they're doing and their work. And that is not OK. And we need to change that.

[7527] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Member Martinez.

[7530] Elisa Martinez: I will just echo, and I said this before, I am not the expert. I definitely trust our educational staff to make the best recommendation. It's unfortunate that all this noise was caused because of the poor communication. But I totally support the fact that here we are. We're in the middle of it. We didn't kick off as well as we would like to. But I do look forward to the recommendations from the committee. Thank you.

[7559] SPEAKER_33: I do recognize that and I appreciate your support of that. And I think what I'll do is I'll speak with the superintendent. I think what I would like to do for Ed Services is kind of continue with the Friday updates that we used to do, particularly for educational services because there is so much going on. So you have that pledge from me that we are going to start to send those and be more public and transparent.

[7584] SPEAKER_51: Questions quickly one of as I'm reading the attachments. It said that a standard space Focuses less on homework. What's our current homework policy?

[7595] SPEAKER_33: So we can certainly bring that back. It is fairly, just as background also for our new board members, I will say that educational services has taken, we need to update a lot of policies and so that's going to be coming next. But again, it just can't be me and Mr. Dolovich in my office talking about it. It will be something that we can certainly bring to Curriculum Council and speak with our teachers. But right now, it is an outdated policy and it's on our website and we can certainly.

[7622] SPEAKER_51: No, I guess not specific. What I was trying to, We still send homework home, and it still gets graded. Oh, yes. Okay, because there are schools that are moving to just a no homework policy.

[7634] SPEAKER_33: There are some school districts doing that. We have not adopted that policy, but that, I think, is a great. I mean, that's what happens when you start to update policies and update work like a standards-based report card. It's going to open up other things that are connected. So that certainly will be a topic for, I think, Curriculum Council to look at.

[7652] SPEAKER_51: And then the next thing that I was looking at, which I did have in my report cards and I saw it in Cesar's, is, is this any different, one, two, three, to an excellent needs improvement, satisfactory needs improvement? How would that differ?

[7667] SPEAKER_27: So satisfactory needs improvement in terms of effort, in terms of identifying?

[7671] SPEAKER_51: I'm looking at the report card. Can I see your report card?

[7675] SPEAKER_43: Effort.

[7676] SPEAKER_14: It was effort, and then math, right? Effort.

[7680] SPEAKER_51: It was, yeah, effort, skills, and it says well in reading, writing, mathematics. So excellent satisfactory needs improvement. It's under what? It says effort, and then it has each subject. And then study skills and social skills.

[7695] SPEAKER_27: under effort. That, yeah, that is not, can I see that?

[7703] Ray Rodriguez: I don't know, we have to ask Cesar.

[7707] SPEAKER_30: But shout out to Mr. Poon on that report card.

[7709] Ray Rodriguez: Right.

[7716] SPEAKER_30: One is a general broad thing.

[7717] SPEAKER_58: I think those were the F. There's academic grades and those were the F for grades in that particular subject area. We still have on the report card, be safe, be respectful, be responsible to time with our PBS expectations. Thank you.

[7734] Ray Rodriguez: OK, so teachers, thank you so much. Ms. Palomino graduated from Newark Memorial High School. I won't say when. I messed up, my daughter was here with my grandson who just turned 7 and they were over at snow and they were here and I had no idea they were here. That means I was very focused on what you guys are doing. So I just want you to know that we support teachers and we like teachers being involved putting things together. So if the board comes up with something and the teachers feel that they want to go in a different direction, the sooner we know about that so we can talk about it, the better it is. So thank you for coming back. And thank you, Ms. Salinas. Thank you. OK. Thank you. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. And by the way, Cesar got just about all fives. OK? And it was because of Mr. Poon, everybody knows. Mr. Master P. Right. OK. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. OK, so now we're going to employee organizations. Mr. Hernandez, I'm confused with your request. You said public comment? Because we already passed public comment. OK, so this is normally the time, as you probably well know, that we ask the representatives. OK, so did you want to speak with him, or you want to speak separately? OK, so you have three minutes, because you're commenting on an agenda item. So you would have three minutes. Now, Mr. Merritt doesn't, okay? He can speak. Oh, okay. Okay, go ahead. You want to speak on his behalf? He needs help. No, I'm kidding.

[7869] SPEAKER_40: I'm David Hernandez. I'm the executive director of the Newark Teachers Association. Thank you for being here. Speaking on behalf of the Newark Teachers Association. Good evening, board members. I spoke earlier and superintendent and cabinet. Earlier, we heard from some articulate dedicated, amazing, passionate, bright students who spoke to you about an issue they have. It became very obvious to me that they're not happy with the way the instruction is going in their particular program. And it's obvious to me that they don't particularly care about the way the instructor is teaching compared to the previous educator who may have been in that particular program. And I just think it's really important that administration has the responsibility, has the responsibility to provide a safe working environment for the educator, even when students are not happy on how they're teaching. It's the responsibility of administration to make sure that they feel safe in the workplace. I want to also remind you that in the preamble of the collective bargaining agreement under section A.1.2, it says within the bonds of board rights and administrative regulations, adopted district curriculum, curriculum prescribed by the state of California, and other legal requirement, unit members shall have discretion on their teaching methodologies. That's important, teaching methodologies. And I also want to remind you that under the collective bargaining agreement in section A4, employee discipline shall not be used to deny individuals his or her academic freedom rights. Now, I'm not in the classroom. I don't know what this individual does. But there needs to be some type of articulation. Minimum support to solve the issue is not enough. And it's my understanding there's minimum support. There needs to be more support in order to mitigate this situation. And I think it's really important that we understand that administration has to be responsible because if it's not this particular teacher now, who's going to be next? Who's going to be the next person up here talking about Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. about their particular job? And I think it's really important that not only as professionals, but also as employees of the district that An employee has to feel comfortable in their workplace. And if they're not doing something right, we need to work on it. And we need to find out what that problem is. So with that, I want to remind you that we have an individual who credibility, livelihood, everything that you can think of is at stake. When you have people coming here, making strong statements, We have to be very careful about that. And I would just want to say that also that NTA wants to make sure that the district is aware that you are going to provide that person all the due process that is guaranteed to them by not only the law, but by the collective bargaining agreement. And I know you're going to do the right thing. I just want to bring it to your attention. I think Megan also wanted to say something on behalf of NTA.

[8127] Megan McMillan: Good evening. This is slightly on a different topic. I really felt the need to make just a simple statement tonight. Noelle Doot, when she spoke earlier, she made a really good point about the feeling that there's a little bit of Washington trickling down to a little Newark. And I would agree. See, the educators here, we steadfastly believe that all Newark students deserve the best. And so therefore, we make sure that our decisions every day, we ask ourselves, how is this going to give our students the best? We face resistance and challenges in providing the best, but nevertheless, just like in Washington, we persist. We as educators are highly trained. We're deeply committed. We are collaborative professionals and worthy of being trusted with our time, with knowing how to make the best use of it, and to provide the best for our students. And so in the spirit of Maxine Waters, we are working to reclaim our time. And that job will continue as we continue in negotiations.

[8196] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you. CSCA, anyone from CSCA? NEWMA? Welcome, Ms. Burke.

[8212] SPEAKER_13: Good evening, again, I'm here representing NEWMA. So we just have two short updates. So one is yesterday, site administrators had a training with Dora Dohm, Dohm, the attorney, on the new bullying laws and harassment and all of those things we need to stay updated with with California Ed Code and in reference to suspension. Another thing is we have, I believe, three principals right now who are attending an AXA leadership institute today as well as tomorrow. And that's just the updates we have for NEWMA.

[8244] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you much. Okay, 13.1. I'd like to open the public hearing on solar facilities project for Front Power. Mr. Newt.

[8262] Cary Knoop: What a meeting. So, you know, everybody, of course, is in favor of solar. Who can be possibly not in favor of solar? But that doesn't mean that you have to be diligent in looking at the contract. And, you know, I did my own kind of diligence. I just looked around and it looks like forefront is a pretty good company they're doing a lot of stuff so I'm not particularly worried about it but if I wonder if your board has actually looked at this contract I can say it's totally over my head it's like a derivative instrument so you can say okay solar solar is good let's just sign at the dotted line but I think what this board should do is to get an independent financial analyst to get some risk analysis. Now I know that Lozano looked at it, but Lozano is an, I don't want to say something wrong, but he's a general lawyer, right? He's not an expert in derivative contracts and things like that. So please get an independent financial advisor to do a risk analysis. There are penalty clauses in there that you don't know the ramification if something happens. You're putting the district on the line. And so, again, I think it's a wonderful idea, but get an independent risk analysis who understands these instruments because they're very complex. And, you know, it's probably going to cost you maybe $500 or $1,000, but it's worth the money if you look at how much money it is. I don't think anybody in this room is capable of really signing this document and say, I understand everything that's in there. So, please get that advisor. Thank you.

[8369] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Okay. Before we move to business, oh, I'm closing the public hearing. Thank you. Before we do that, again, I appreciate my daughter, Magdalena, who's the PTA president over at Snow and my grandson, Joaquin, for being here supporting teachers. I think that's why they were here. So before we move to voting, I know there's an item, the vote. 15.9. Student board member could steal so. On the vote. We're going to ask you to. The vote first. Sure is that. So. Agreement

[8436] Marie dela Cruz: This is the agreement that was carried forward from our last board meeting. It is the proposal to get a survey out to our community to find out what the interest is on bond measure.

[8451] Ray Rodriguez: OK. So this is the survey for the bond measure.

[8456] SPEAKER_30: Representatives are here.

[8457] Ray Rodriguez: OK. So staff recommends the board approve contracting with Gulbee Research Bond and Parcel Tax Survey Consultant. and to establish financial stability as we always say. Discussion? Were you going to ask them to come up or? They're here to provide questions. Only if we want to ask questions, right? Is that correct?

[8481] Marie dela Cruz: Yeah, they're here in case you have any questions or have anything that you want them to address.

[8488] Ray Rodriguez: Did you want to, since you're here, did you want to come up if you don't mind? Did you want to come up, please? I'm sorry.

[8497] Marie dela Cruz: I thought there was a representative here.

[8499] Ray Rodriguez: Oh, there's not. So Barry, come on. Go ahead. Mr. Schimel, come on. Oh, OK. I'm sorry. The solar.

[8506] Marie dela Cruz: No. Forefront is here. I know that.

[8508] Ray Rodriguez: Keep it brief, Barry.

[8510] SPEAKER_30: OK.

[8511] Ray Rodriguez: Member Martinez. Hold on. No. Member Martinez, did you have a question?

[8517] SPEAKER_49: Go ahead.

[8518] SPEAKER_35: Go ahead. This is a carryover item from October 17. And the recommended action is to hire the Godfrey firm to poll the community for support of a parcel tax and or bond that would build new schools by consolidating two existing schools into one with larger capacity. Before the board begins discussion, I'd like to thank two board members who called me to suggest that it's the September 5th board meeting that I need to show the whole plan. We've been chunking it, bringing a community along. And I took that as a great suggestion because I don't think they see the end. The end is December of 2028. And so we've talked about process. We're going to talk about what will you have in Newark in 2028 if the board should choose to do that. And I will do that on December 5th. But a key element of a plan Whether you choose to keep your 60-year-old schools band-aided and you think that'll be competitive for the next generation, that's a board decision. Or you want new schools for students that aren't here. We're going to have to find out what the citizens are willing to pay. Because if you don't have that information, you can't make a decision. So that's the reason for this, and I'll to take the liberty, you asked a question about homes and all this demographics. And I don't know if our presenters were clear enough. And I want to make this, when you build a new home today in Newark, you're going to get 0.20 of a student. So it takes five homes to get one student. Another way to look at that is the 160 homes that were being discussed, that produces 32 kids. And I heard a comment about, well, this is a really large house. I don't know why, but statistically, the larger the house, the fewer the students. And so you see these new homes going up in Sanctionary with four or five bedrooms? You're going to be lucky if you get a quarter of a kid out of those. And so that is information. It was pretty clear tonight. You're going to be flat in enrollment for the future years. And Newark's fortunate. It looks like our birth rates are higher than the rest of California. And so that was part of the information we wanted to do, step one. Are things going to stay the same? Yes, in terms of the number of kids. Now, do you want those kids going to schools that look like the way our schools look? That's your decision and your community's decision. And so that's why we're asking you have research. Also, it will teach you, and you'll learn, what is the community at large? Not the people that come to your board meeting constantly, those 10. They have very valid opinions. But you have 12,000 people. And you might want to expand on that.

[8717] Ray Rodriguez: OK. Before I go to Member Martinez, Member Gutierrez, I just wanted to ask Mr. Schimel. I know you met with them. What's on the agenda is for us to approve this particular firm doing a survey. And I think as discussed previously, it was 400 approximately. Correct. Right. The survey based. Right. And then would one of the questions then be whether they want to improve our current schools or move to new schools like you've suggested?

[8748] SPEAKER_35: What they're going to do is recommend to the board, and the board may choose to have a couple of board members or the whole board, design the survey. This is a board survey, not a staff survey. So the board could select two people, they could select all five. They'll give you a prototype because they do this in all kinds of districts.

[8772] Ray Rodriguez: And how many questions normally would it be?

[8775] SPEAKER_35: I don't know the answer to that. I'm thinking about 15. They try to keep the survey to approximately 15 minutes, 15 to 20.

[8784] SPEAKER_51: If I can just add. Go ahead. I believe I was reading, depending on whether we do bond and partial, whether you just bond, it could go, range anywhere from 18 to 22.

[8796] Ray Rodriguez: Okay. Member Martinez.

[8800] Elisa Martinez: Thank you, Barry. I actually wanted to just comment that I'm really glad we waited from the last meeting. I know this topic was up. As we see the ATIS projections and as we try to also see, not try, but as we saw the enrollment projections. we will continue or remain flat from an enrollment perspective. So we will continue to struggle financially, I think, unfortunately. And then when you overlay on that the ATIS detailed report where we are now looking at $220 million over the or $200 million over the next 20 years. Regardless, we need to go look at how we're going to fund, whether it's status quo, which doesn't make a ton of sense, versus new buildings. So anyway, I just wanted to say that I am much more comfortable today than I was two weeks ago with moving forward on this. I do have a question, though, on the agenda. It does say that we budgeted the cost. And did we budget? And under what item? Because I don't think, I don't remember this being a budgeted item.

[8877] SPEAKER_35: It is not a budgeted item. It will have to be on top. And I don't know if this is Delacruz's switch something around, but we could do that. When we started, it was not at that time a budgeted item because there was no need to budget it if the board hadn't desired to go in that direction. It's a small enough amount. We can live with it within our budget.

[8906] Elisa Martinez: Except to other comments from other board members, it's all these little ones, death by 1,000 cuts. So anyhow, if we could just make sure we make the adjustment if needed so that we understand it's a variance. Because now it's a different, we have to go find the money somewhere else. Thank you.

[8928] Ray Rodriguez: It does say general fund, which means that you have to find the money.

[8932] Sean Abruzzi: Yes, sir.

[8936] SPEAKER_51: I do have to echo with member Martinez that I am more comfortable voting on this after our conversation. You did explain a lot of what they do and I'm wondering if you could just take a couple seconds to explain a little bit of that which is it's not just phone calls, you know, it's the meetings and things of that sort because When I first saw this and I'm thinking they're just going to go call people or send emails, as I say, email or phone calls and say, are you going to vote for this? My immediate response is the community is going to say no, no, no, no. So can you just briefly give us an idea of what it's going to look like?

[8976] SPEAKER_35: Excellent point.

[8977] SPEAKER_30: Point of order. Point of order. Mayor Martinez, do you want to?

[8980] Elisa Martinez: Sorry, I'm just wondering if we should take a vote now because, yeah.

[8984] Ray Rodriguez: Yeah, we need to extend the time, I suggest, to 11 o'clock.

[8988] Elisa Martinez: I actually know we could only extend once. I suggest we go to 1130. I would suspect it would be done before then.

[8997] Bowen Zhang: I'll probably go for 1130 because I think one hour is enough. We have this solar stuff coming up.

[9002] Ray Rodriguez: Based on my experience, if you're just going to do it once, it's better to go to midnight.

[9006] Bowen Zhang: OK, then let's go. I move that we extend the meeting to midnight. Second.

[9014] Ray Rodriguez: Please vote. Show of hands.

[9016] SPEAKER_30: No penalty if it's sooner. Okay.

[9019] SPEAKER_51: All right. Sorry.

[9021] Ray Rodriguez: I had to be dramatic. Very sorry. Oh, no. Thank you. Oh, I was supposed to ask this.

[9027] Elisa Martinez: I'm sorry.

[9028] SPEAKER_51: Show of hands again. So sorry. Says our first.

[9032] Ray Rodriguez: Says our first.

[9032] SPEAKER_51: My hand's down. Nice try. And then the board. Show of hands for the board. Please.

[9045] Ray Rodriguez: Did you want to say anything on your vote? On my vote? Okay, it's a no, right? Okay, so we have three yeses, four yeses, and two noes. Okay, that's for the extension, that's not the item that's on the agenda.

[9068] SPEAKER_35: So the question was totally appropriate because it is not we vote for a bond or not vote for a bond, or what do you think of board member X or staff member X. That's not the kind of question you need to get. They indicate in those kinds of questions, what do you think about the condition of our schools? They're totally fine. I went to school there 60 years ago, and it's totally fine. That's going to give you some information about, have they been in a school? Have they not? Do you think our schools prepare students for 2030, 2040. You'll know what they think. If you want new schools, how will you pay for those? And it'll help educate them. For example, your tax bill is this. Would you be willing to pay $50 more, $100 more, $500 more? We know from what you saw tonight from ADIS and when I chunked this, there isn't any way this community is going to spend $67,000 to get $600 million to fix up the schools. I kind of say that now that I'm not sitting up here. You're paying me for advice. And so that's part of it. Nor will they pay $4,500 a year when I showed you that chart. So we've got to bring something to the voters that will make sense financially in terms of a few hundred dollars. And then we have to show them what they're going to get for it, and when they're going to get it, and what it's going to look like. And to promise them you're going to build them eight new schools, you can't do that.

[9189] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you.

[9189] SPEAKER_51: Student. Sorry, it was in my last point. I was looking at the references. A lot of these, they helped pass bonds and parcels, but it was never on the same year.

[9204] SPEAKER_43: Correct.

[9205] SPEAKER_51: So I know that we don't know yet, it's probably too soon, but we talk about bonds and parcels, but we haven't clarified whether we're going to try to go for both or one, but that'll be part of the study then.

[9217] SPEAKER_35: It will be part of the study, and professional people can disagree. We talked about, doing both in the district. Because many of your community people from your finance group about raising funds wanted to do parcel tax. Why? Because they think it can go into teacher salaries. And it can't. But the facts of the matter are $100 parcel tax is going to get you $1.2 million. And my bias, and we've talked about this among us, and that's what we want to find out. Would the community do both? or no way, or they just want to do teacher salaries and keep it the way it is. That's the kind of information you need to hear.

[9264] Ray Rodriguez: And the reason we want to do this now is because we want to get ready for the next year's election.

[9271] SPEAKER_35: The board needs to make a decision by January, because if you do this by January, then you need to put a committee together, as we talked a couple study sessions ago, a finance committee, for raising funds for whatever the ballot measure is, a publications information committee to talk to Rotary and Chamber and the city, get out the vote committee. And you have some great people that come to these meetings that I think ought to step up and lead something like this.

[9307] Ray Rodriguez: They don't help you with putting the committee together. This is just them doing the survey. That's the board's decision. And this is the same firm we used before.

[9321] SPEAKER_35: This firm did do your survey for your bond in 2012, was it? Is that the right year? Right, exactly. The 63 million?

[9332] Ray Rodriguez: Right. I think it was earlier than that. 2011. OK, so it was an odd year. OK, I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, student board member.

[9342] SPEAKER_18: Thank you. So my primary question or my only question is how the results are going to be delivered essentially. So when you talk about qualitative response or qualitative questions like what do you think of the condition of our schools or would you pay X dollars for this measure that's going to be on the ballot. How is that data going to be reported back to us? Do we see the responses? Do we see a summary of the responses? Do we see some generalization of the responses?

[9373] SPEAKER_35: You'll see the exact data, and Guy B will come here and present that for what was the response on this question. What was the response on that question? 50% of the people said that they trust the district and would pay. They would pay $150, it might drop to 40%. They pay $100, it would go up to 55%. Usually the lower the amount of money, the more support you get. So you will get the detail of all of the questions that they ask.

[9413] SPEAKER_18: Right. So in reference to specific, and I assume this is a question that will be asked, is what do you think of the quality of our schools? That's not something that you can easily quantify. So my question is, how is that going to be represented to us when we get the final data, if we do pursue this?

[9429] SPEAKER_35: We're not going to ask about the educational program. It's not a question of, do we think we have a very good program for whatever subject you want to talk about. We're talking about condition of the schools, the learning environment.

[9445] SPEAKER_18: Right. But that's not something that we can quantify, per se. So my question is, do we see, like, you're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own.

[9455] SPEAKER_35: You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to do it on your own. You're going to that there's a survey between this period and that time. They do it over a two-week period. And we would not do it now. As I mentioned to you last time, it's too late. You're into the holiday season. We'd wait until after the first of the year, probably the second, third week in January to do that. They would bring the results back to you within 30 days, so by February. And they would present that. You can ask questions.

[9509] Ray Rodriguez: Remember, are you OK? Yeah, I'm done. Remember John, and then we move to the vote.

[9515] Bowen Zhang: I just have one question about, so the timeline November 2020 is likely that we'll have a tax measure from the city, the utility usage tax renewal. So if we place the parcel tax and the bond onto the ballot, our citizens are going to see three tax measures on the same ballot. So the conventional wisdom generally suggests the more tax measure you put onto the same ballot, the less likely that any of that will be passed. So I guess my concern is, yeah, you're doing a survey, we heard people might say, say 70% that, yeah, we support a partisan tax. But on the election day, when they go to the ballot, they see two tax measure, one from the school board, the other from the city. Is there a way that we know that, that we can sort of quantify to see What could be the negative impact of competing tax measure on the same ballot? Because we're very likely to have a utility usage tax renewal on the same ballot, which might very well negatively impact our chance of passing our own bond and tax.

[9582] SPEAKER_35: That is one of the questions that they will ask. I did talk to our city manager, and there is an intention he wouldn't tell me when or where it was going to come, but there is a renewal for the utility in Newark. tax, and he was indicating that they look like they're going to do it in November of 20. But he said no action, no vote, no discussion. So he wasn't committing. But the questions you asked would be, there will be one, and the board can, your question was on target. Would your opinion change about the money you would spend for the condition of Newark schools if you had to also vote for utility tax for the city at the same time, renewing it. Now, the advantage of a renewal is most of the time they get renewed. Opinion, and I'm venturing out here since I'm only going to be here one more time. I don't think you, I don't know too many school districts that put both a parcel tax and a bond on the ballot. Although I've been proven wrong, I worked for a district in Greenfield. We didn't have enough to assess valuation, and we put two part. You can only go $60 per 100,000. We didn't have enough money. It only created $10 million. We needed 20. We took two bonds on the same ballot, and one passed by 63% and one by 59. We told the community what we were going to do and why, and they passed both of them. I never thought that would happen. OK.

[9687] SPEAKER_51: Thank you. Can I just give one slight recommendation? Yes, go ahead. I just wanted to give a recommendation. If this does move forward in the midst of doing the research and campaigning, can we try to maybe find companies that can try and reimburse this amount?

[9702] SPEAKER_35: Actually, this is totally legal. Where the line is drawn in sand is the minute you as a board put it on the ballot, notify this Alameda County registered voters, then it becomes a political campaign. This is legal to be out of the general fund because it's just information. It's a survey. OK.

[9727] Ray Rodriguez: OK. Thank you. You're welcome. So student board member first, you want to cast your vote?

[9734] SPEAKER_18: Sure. Do I raise my hand or?

[9736] Ray Rodriguez: You can. Let's see if you can. I don't know how to.

[9739] SPEAKER_51: You do what you do. So cast your vote there, and then you display it because we won't.

[9744] Ray Rodriguez: OK. Go ahead.

[9746] SPEAKER_51: Let's see.

[9751] SPEAKER_43: OK.

[9752] SPEAKER_51: Good.

[9754] Ray Rodriguez: Oh, we need a motion and a second. So I'm taking back your vote.

[9760] SPEAKER_51: I move that we vote on item 15.5.

[9761] Ray Rodriguez: Sorry, 14.1. I second. OK, student board member again? He said yes? It's already in there. I couldn't get it off.

[9776] Elisa Martinez: So we open voting? Can I open voting?

[9784] Ray Rodriguez: There you go.

[9794] SPEAKER_35: OK, passes. I'll see you on December 5th.

[9798] Carina Plancarte: Thank you. Thank you, Barry.

[9801] SPEAKER_30: Thanks, Barry.

[9805] SPEAKER_18: I do have a request as we move along through the agenda. Would it be possible if we could consider 15.9 in the midst of this? Yeah, moving that forward.

[9814] Ray Rodriguez: OK, after 14.2. And then we'll put it offshore on new business. Yeah, that works. Yeah. OK, 14.2. Amendment to Amendment to agreement with AC Transit for the student transit pass program. Staff recommends the board approve this amendment to the agreement.

[9842] SPEAKER_51: I move that we vote on item 14.2. I second. Motion.

[9844] Jodi Croce: Go ahead. Sorry. I second. Second.

[9850] Ray Rodriguez: OK. Student board member? Uh-uh. Hold on.

[9856] Phuong Nguyen: I missed you.

[9858] Ray Rodriguez: OK. Hold on. We'll open for boarding again. OK, student board member, you're first.

[9868] SPEAKER_51: OK.

[9870] Ray Rodriguez: Right?

[9871] SPEAKER_51: No, no, you have to display his vote.

[9873] Ray Rodriguez: Oh, display it first. OK, hold on. Let me close it. Try it again.

[9877] SPEAKER_14: Go ahead, vote, Caesar.

[9879] Ray Rodriguez: OK, go ahead.

[9885] SPEAKER_51: There we go. OK. OK.

[9891] Ray Rodriguez: We got a motion and a second. Please vote.

[9901] Ray Rodriguez: OK, so request has been made to move 15.9 to the front. Is that OK with everybody?

[9907] SPEAKER_42: OK. Point of order, President. So we'll need to make a motion to reorder the agenda and vote on it before we can move it up.

[9915] Ray Rodriguez: OK.

[9915] Elisa Martinez: Do we need a motion? I move that we move. 15.9 to the beginning of the new business.

[9927] Ray Rodriguez: OK. Second?

[9929] SPEAKER_51: I'll second it.

[9931] Ray Rodriguez: OK. All right. OK, student board members, you've got to vote first.

[9936] SPEAKER_51: OK. I just wanted a point of order to state that this is the first reading. Do we want to vote on it now or do any of the board members want to bring it back?

[9953] Ray Rodriguez: No, this is just to move it up.

[9955] Elisa Martinez: OK, we got to sit down.

[9957] Ray Rodriguez: Yeah. OK, so let me close it. Open for voting. OK. We had a motion and a second to move 15.9 to the front. OK. Sorry. Okay, student first. It's a learning experience, right? Okay, good, displaying. Okay, so yes, please vote. Okay, motion passed unanimously. Okay, 15.9. Okay. Board policy 15.9. Staff recommends the board approve as presented or move to bring back for a second reading, first reading, recommended revisions. This is the first reading with board policy. The language is sanctioned by the California School Board Association. The administration has reviewed these documents for accuracy and made revisions to reflect district practice. You want to bring it back for a second reading, or we're going to move on this? Oh, I'm sorry.

[10039] Cary Knoop: Did you? I definitely feel this way. Oh.

[10044] Nancy Thomas: We're all falling asleep here. OK.

[10047] Cary Knoop: Go ahead. And the wind is half out of my sails, because I was going to say, don't forget that the student should cast his vote first. But I see it's already happening, so.

[10057] Ray Rodriguez: OK. Let me follow those policies, Mr. Newman.

[10064] Cary Knoop: So, great, you know, I think that that's wonderful because the legislative, the intent is that, you know, it's important to listen to what the student body has to say about certain items and then, you know, so that the students can do a preferential vote first. Now, there's two other things in that board bylaw, right, bylaws, board bylaw. That is, one thing is that the student member is basically a full-fledged member. So, you know, in my view, Friday updates or pretty much any documents unless it's something that's, you know, confidential, closed session based, should also be provided to the student member. And the last one is that the student member should be able to cast his preferential, his or her preferential vote. on all matters except for closed session. I know traditionally here it has been like when you have the employee report that the student members can't. I think actually the student member can cast a preferential vote because it's not per se a closed session matter. One thing I would like to say about the student member, you know, the student member, I think we have to be very careful because the student member is a minor and I don't mean that in a, you know, derogatory way or so. A student member is a minor, so it is very important that we be very careful. For adults, it's very easy to say something to a student, and the student might feel intimidated. The student might interpret things in a different way as two adults would do. And I think it is extremely important that we allow that liberty for the student member to speak. I think in general terms, I can say that students are sometimes a little bit more direct and outspoken about things. But that's how the legislator wanted it. The legislator wanted a student member aboard to speak so that we can understand where the students are coming from. And I would be surprised if the students would be always taking the party line, to put it that way. So it is OK if the student member voices opinion. But I think we have to be extremely careful not to give an impression that we kind of kind of run over a student member because, you know, a student member is a minor and we have to be extremely careful that we don't, you know, nobody feels like intimidated or so. Okay? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[10212] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, so you want to bring it back for a second reading or are we ready to vote?

[10217] SPEAKER_30: If I may, President Rodriguez, we brought this as a first reading of potential adoption. I think it's good to leave it for a second vote later on. I think these, what we've included here is edits that are recommended edits from CSBA. and we had our attorney review it and make those edits for us. There's not an urgency to vote tonight. You certainly can if you want to, but I think that part of the impact of this, there might be things that people have questions about. I don't think there's any harm in letting it go another round. Okay.

[10249] SPEAKER_18: Student? Board member? Thank you. I'm examining the The last page, there's a line that reads, a student board member will not be obligated to remain in board meetings if they extend beyond 9 PM. So is that an implied requirement that they do remain until 9 PM? I'm wondering the implications of that line.

[10272] SPEAKER_30: I don't think there's any implications other than the idea that we want you to be rested for school. And we can't force you to stay till 10, 30, 10, 20. Yeah. OK. OK. Thank you.

[10284] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, board, we want to vote on this now or bring it back for a second reading? If you want to vote on it now, I need a motion and a second.

[10292] Bowen Zhang: Bring it back for a second reading? How do you guys feel?

[10297] Ray Rodriguez: Bring it back? How do you ladies, how do you feel?

[10299] SPEAKER_51: I'm ready to vote on it. I'm ready to vote on it.

[10300] Ray Rodriguez: I'm ready to vote on it. Are you? Okay. Okay.

[10305] SPEAKER_51: I move that we vote on item 15.9. I second.

[10312] Ray Rodriguez: OK, student board member, you vote first, please. OK. Say yes. OK, all the votes are in. Bowen? Thank you. All right, motion passes. Now, in case you're wondering, student board member, it's only 9 o'clock right now, OK?

[10342] SPEAKER_30: Well, the reality is we've never extended beyond 9 because we only do an extension at 10. Right. It's kind of moot, actually.

[10348] Ray Rodriguez: Are you going to stay, or? Because I think about it.

[10353] SPEAKER_18: No. Oh, OK. OK.

[10354] Ray Rodriguez: That's why I asked. You didn't have to think about that at all. OK. Thank you. Appreciate it, Cesar. Good night. So we move to 15.1. 15.1.

[10361] Diego Torres: Ms. Parks.

[10370] SPEAKER_30: If I may. Point of order. If I have a point of privilege Cesar before you leave. Yes Cesar. I wanted to congratulate you before you leave. It takes a lot of courage to stand up and apologize for something and I want to commend you for that.

[10383] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you.

[10384] SPEAKER_42: President Rodriguez, I'm sorry we skipped over 14.2. No.

[10389] Ray Rodriguez: No.

[10390] SPEAKER_42: We didn't?

[10391] SPEAKER_51: They voted on it before. We got them all. The passes?

[10395] Ray Rodriguez: Yeah all yeses. That's okay. Watch the video. We didn't go back and forth.

[10401] SPEAKER_51: Watch the video. Yeah, we did.

[10402] Ray Rodriguez: OK. Yes, Ms. Parks.

[10404] Cindy Parks: Hi. Hi. I pulled this item to speak on this item because this also shows the financial impact was budgeted. And I don't know where I've ever seen that solar was budgeted. And it also says that the budget source is going to be Measure G and capital outlay funds. There are three capital outlay funds. Measure G is one of them. I was wondering if we could get, could hear tonight what their, I mean, I would hope that you would attach a specific number to that or, I mean, what you would think that would, what would be applied to that. On October 16 of 2018, the board approved a list of items for Measure G. And solar was not a part of that. So now you're saying you're going to use Measure G. It just concerns me that it seems like that list was approved. And it's almost like the Russian money, where you had it sit in there, and it's been pecked at and pecked at and pecked at. You never really approved a budget for how all of it was supposed to be done. You have projects, wish list projects that have not been spent out of it. And I just kind of feel like that's what's happening with Measure G, because again, you're all of a sudden now saying that solar's coming out of there. Anyhow, and also, I'm sorry, the other thing is that there, I would think that you could put those 3 options on there so that when the public for this particular item.

[10533] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Okay, thank you.

[10535] Cindy Parks: Point of order?

[10540] SPEAKER_51: If I can just make a... I want to ask you if I can make a comment in regards to our system, the way it works?

[10547] Ray Rodriguez: Let me read it first, if you don't mind. Okay. Is it about forefront or, I mean, this item or something?

[10553] SPEAKER_51: Our agenda item, the way it works.

[10556] Sean Abruzzi: Go ahead.

[10558] SPEAKER_51: We can't put that many numbers. So just for clarification purposes, because they are on the bottom, the system does not allow for three different numbers.

[10569] Ray Rodriguez: But that's it. OK. So 15.1, agreement with forefront power for solar project. Measure G bond and capital outlay fund, are those the only two options we have? Yeah, have them come up, but as you come up, I'll read the recommended action Thank you staff recommends the board approve the power purchase agreement PPA between Newark Unified School District and forefront power for solar facilities and battery energy storage systems at Newark Memorial High School and Newark junior high and including the option for the district to incorporate costs such as, but not limited to, inspector fees, DCA fees, PG&E upgrades, and ADA compliance requirements, currently estimated at 100,000 for both sites. Okay.

[10631] Marie dela Cruz: So, Rachel Laughlin is here from Forefront. Thank you for staying and your patience. Forefront had originally presented back in May 2017 and again in August of 2019. And we thought we would bring them back to give you an update and just more information for I think one or two board members that may not have been here during this presentation before we actually make a motion.

[10667] Ray Rodriguez: Well, let me just say we've been talking about solar for a long time. When Mrs. Jan Schaefer was here ten years ago, we were talking about solar, and I don't know why it's taken so long, and I know that you presented a couple of years ago. So, questions for any board member? I have one.

[10694] SPEAKER_51: Do you guys have a presentation?

[10696] SPEAKER_21: We do. We can breeze through it. It might answer some questions and then we can... Sure. Let's do it that way. We can do that or we can move to questions. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. We'll get through it fast. Okay. Go ahead. You guys have had a really long night. Breeze. Breeze on. Breeze on. My name is Rachel McLaughlin. I'm the head of sales at Forefront Power. And then we also have Kevin Flanagan here from SPUR. Okay. I need to use this clicker. There we go. So what we're presenting tonight is an opportunity for Newark to position yourselves as a leader in sustainability among California school districts. So our proposal that you all are voting on tonight includes on-site solar as well as at the high school battery storage. It also includes EV charging stations, solar workstations where students can plug in their phone and it's charged by solar and is off-grid. It provides immediate energy savings, as well as a hedge against rising utility costs. You benefit from a statewide RFP that was conducted by SPUR, a joint powers authority. And that gets you best-in-class terms in the contract, because it's a pre-negotiated contract from SPUR, and the best terms when it comes to school district solar contracts. And then there's also a solar curriculum that we work with our school district partners to implement that takes the data from the systems and brings that into the classroom. So all of this is what you're getting, and that will position you as a leader in sustainability among California school districts. Who are we? We're Forefront Power. We're a best-in-class development group and a leader in California. So California public sector is our largest customer group and our biggest focus from my team's perspective. We won the SPUR RFP, which I'll talk Kevin will talk a little bit about it in a second. What really makes us stand apart from others is our project financing experience. So we bring low cost of capital into these projects, which then we pass on to you in the lowest rate possible for solar energy. And when it comes to our development group, we have done 70 megawatts of DSA projects. That means we're bringing a design that we can immediately get started on without having to wait to go through the DSA permit process. Next. So one benefit of our agreement is it's a power purchase agreement, so there's no upfront or ongoing cost with our agreement. And I know that you all were talking about the budget item, including some budget for certain items like inspector of record. to the district to implement these energy savings measures. So delivers your one savings. It's a in that our rate stays the same. You're able to budget for our rate. It's very predictable. Through the Power Purchase Agreement, we're monetizing the 30% investment tax credit. So that's a federal incentive that you as a public entity cannot leverage because you do not have tax appetite. You do not pay a tax bill. So what we do is through our investment in the project, we take the tax credit, and then we pass that on to you in a lower PPA rate. So the Power Purchase Agreement is really how the public sector procures solar so that you can benefit from these tax credits. Under the Power Purchase Agreement, you only pay for the energy the system produces. So we have an aligned partnership where if the system's not producing electricity, we're not making money, which means we're not recouping our upfront investment. And if it's not producing electricity, we also provide a guaranteed performance. So we reimburse you for lost savings. So not only is there no upfront costs and no ongoing costs, because we've included the operations and maintenance, but we're also guaranteeing for you all that if the system isn't producing the amount of energy that we said it's going to, we're going to make you whole for the more expensive PG&E electricity that you're there for buying. Okay. Benefit of moving forward with us on this portfolio projects is that in 2017 or you all mentioned some past presentations we've given in 2017 we took the initiative along with your staff to Grandfather all of your projects under what we called to you 1.0 What's important is that PG&E is moving to new electricity costs that shift and your shift the highest rates instead of those being in the middle of the day to more of the evening, which decreases the value of solar. But because we took the initiative to make sure that your interconnection applications were in in 2017, you all are grandfathered under TOU1, which means that you're benefiting from not only 30% investment tax credit, which is set to step down at the end of this year. So you're going to get in right before that steps down, but you're also capturing the added savings from the TOU 1.0 grandfathering. So just to summarize your renewable energy strategy, I think last time we came and presented, we presented option two, which includes 2.3 megawatts of solar and storage across most of your sites. And then we left with the need to look at only doing it at the high school and the middle school. So that's option one, includes Newark Memorial and then Newark Junior. And that's 1.1 million. What's nice is you've got option one, that's going to deliver immediate year one savings, 25%. And over the next 20 years, when we assume a really conservative utility escalation rate of 2.5%, that's going to get you to 4.6 million. If you decide to move forward with all your schools, then we're at 7.4 million. As I mentioned, this includes DSA designs. And because we've already been through the DSA process, we can get these projects done for you as early as second quarter 2020. Or if you want to wait till the summer, we can do that too. In terms of the savings that you're going to see, I mentioned that it's a flat rate agreement. So one of the benefits of this is that you save immediately. But then as utility rates rise, your savings grow. This assumes a conservative 2.5% rate. And with no capital outlay, you are able to save $4.6 million by the end of the 20-year term. And then once again, this is just the whole portfolio of projects. And we understand that there's a little bit of uncertainty about the future of some schools. So that's why we have presented the option to utilize the TOU 1.0 grandfathering plus take advantage of the 30% tax credit for the whole portfolio of systems. But because there's some uncertainty, we also have option one, which is just the middle school and the high school. I'm not going to go into the cash flows. This is in the presentation if you would like to review it in more detail. But basically we use a very conservative savings model where we're assuming 2.5% on utility rate increases, 5% on demand. What we've seen is that historically rates have gone up more than that. So the 2.5% gets you to, you know, a little bit more than inflation. So that's a pretty conservative amount. If utility rates rise, your savings only grow. And we've talked a lot about the PPA. A lot of people are curious about why. PPAs work best for the public sector, so we put together an analysis also of how it would work if you purchased the systems or if you bought out the system in year six, which is after the tax credits have been monetized. And you see the most savings with the PPA because we're able to really leverage those tax credits for you all. Storage at the high school, there's a storage system. What storage does is it reduces your peaks, so we install the storage and it has this smart software that recognizes when electricity is most expensive and and discharges the battery when it's most expensive. So that way it's shifting your energy usage from when it's most expensive to when it's least expensive. So you see savings in not only demand charges, but also what we call energy arbitrage, the ability to shift into lower cost time periods. Kevin, do you want to talk quickly about SPUR? Yes, I will.

[11258] SPEAKER_24: I will breeze. We're breezing. So I represent SPUR. SPUR is a joint powers authority of hundreds of school districts. We are essentially a buying consortium. We put out statewide requests for proposals on behalf of school districts. One of the programs that we have is for solar and energy storage. We ran a statewide RFP. As a part of that RFP, we ultimately selected Forefront Power. We, the SPUR, entered into a master contract with them. You, the district, are piggybacking off of that master contract, off of the RFP that we ran. The RFP has been piggybacked by over two dozen school districts as well as cities, counties across the state. It's a very popular procurement delivery method. Go to the next slide. and then just advantages of using the reprogram, you're getting pre-negotiated contracts. So we've negotiated these contracts. They have very favorable terms and conditions for the school district. You're getting really great pricing. You're accelerating these projects so that you can get them built sooner and saving you money sooner. And ultimately, you're reducing your risk because we've negotiated these contracts on your behalf and we've kind of gone through the details to make sure that the contracts are a good deal for the district. That was breezy. That was pretty breezy.

[11329] SPEAKER_21: Good job. Thank you. Keep going. Keep going. Just in terms of what else is included here, I think this is really neat. In addition to the schools having solar on site and the students being able to see the energy production from those storage systems via kiosks that we put in your buildings that show the production and the STEM curriculum that we can help implement at the school district. They'll be able to see the data, utilize it in the classroom. In addition to that, we also have included EV charging stations. And for a more visceral experience with solar, students will have the solar workstations where they get to sit down and plug their devices and see that it's charged from solar. And then we also work with you all to make sure that you're amplifying your message and that everyone sees what you're doing here, both in terms of cost savings and sustainability. So we have a marketing team that does job fairs. We come into the classroom, do presentations on our own careers in solar and how we got them. And we do ribbon cuttings and press releases. Of course, we only do what you all want. We can offer the whole suite of services and you tell us what you want. And then finally, in terms of assumptions, what's great is since last board meeting, we've been able to spend a lot of time with your staff to make Susan, Barry, and Marie to make sure that we're refining the scope and really including everything. So when we're presenting this pricing, there's no gotchas later. So once again, we talked about how we include the inspector of record and special testing fees, and we'll reimburse you for those once you've paid them. have included the right canopy height and made sure that we're looking at the right conduit size. The one thing that it says is not included is ADA upgrade requirements. So we install the system so that it complies with ADA. Sometimes when we go in to do parking lot Projects we discover that the parking lot is not ADA compliant. And so we because we're the next project We have to bring it up to code That is not something that we can really ascertain till we're out there with the architect of record So what we did is we include that we included in that savings analysis. I showed you $30,000 per site of ADA upgrades and If these upgrades are not needed, then your savings go up from what I just showed you. So we've already budgeted for it in the savings, but it's not included in the PPA rate. And what's nice about the SPUR contract is that they know this ADA thing existed, exists, and they've negotiated on behalf of the school districts a very clear calculation for if there are ADA expenses, how the PPA rate changes. And I think that's it. OK. I don't know. That was really fast, but I may have still talked too long. Sorry, guys.

[11511] Ray Rodriguez: Member Zhang.

[11515] Bowen Zhang: Thank you for your presentation. I have a question actually both for you and for our district leadership. When a couple of days ago, I first got this contract, I'm a bit confused about the inspection, I mean the early termination cost. But I guess on this one, it seems to be pretty clear. So I just want to confirm that if I compute that correctly, say if, for example, after a year, we decide to have early termination, based on your formula, we will be using $2.55 multiplied by 1,000 and multiplied by 250, arriving at 670,000. 670,000 that's roughly the cost for the first early termination say we only use one year, right?

[11561] SPEAKER_21: Yeah, so Central part of the contract is because we're paying for 100% of the upfront cost of the system And then we're also leveraging the tax benefits. There's IRS rules in the first one to seven years that you know, basically if you guys terminated we would have to take back the total upfront cost of the system plus all these damages to the IRS for recapture of that tax benefit. So there is an early termination fee schedule, and it's higher in those first few years and then goes down pretty significantly after that. In the beginning, it's because there's that 30% investment tax credit that's recaptured by the IRS.

[11606] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, so second question for you, I want to follow up on that federal tax incentives. Yeah. Because during the previous study session, I remember there is this timeline that we have to approve the contract before I believe December or something for the reason of the federal tax incentive. Yeah. And why is the December must be the, December should be the deadline or like, is that December 31st must be the deadline?

[11630] Nancy Thomas: They said it because of the deadline.

[11632] SPEAKER_21: Yeah, sure. So there's a 30% investment tax credit. Next year, it steps down to 26%. So the nice thing is we want it to be as high for you all as possible, because then you get the lowest rate. What we can do is, if we know that you're committed to the contract and you've got it signed, is that we procure all the materials now so that they qualify for the 30% investment tax credit. And then when we install next year, you still qualify for the 30% investment tax credit. So that's why we've got the December timeline now.

[11662] Bowen Zhang: Oh, so the timeline for the 30% tax credit is not an installation time. It's actually the approval.

[11671] SPEAKER_21: It's we've got to buy the stuff deadline. Yeah.

[11675] Bowen Zhang: And the other thing I want to confirm is the three potential costs for the district, so far we know is distribution upgrade is not needed, right? So we don't need to pay that one based on whatever the contract we got sent. Yeah, and it's possible that we need to upgrade the ADA, but it's not guaranteed. There's no way we know where we're going to spend that. And speaking of the inspection costs, is this right that below 20k, we don't pay anything, but above 20k, we'll be paying the additional, the part beyond 20k, or that's the... The 20k is what's built into the current PPA.

[11716] Marie dela Cruz: But if it goes up, then they could also incorporate that in there. But right now, all of the numbers are based on 20.

[11723] SPEAKER_21: And our experience is that we would like our district partners to have no upfront cost. So usually, if we run into the ADA upgrades, or if there is a higher inspector of record fee, we would build that into the PPA rate. So you guys wouldn't be paying for it upfront.

[11741] Bowen Zhang: So I guess if we agree with this PPA, Given that I just said one tool, the discipline upgrade, ADA upgrade, probably no cost, inspection cost, building the PPA. So when we listed the funding source, Measure G and the capital outlay fund, if there is no upfront cost to us, I mean, what could still be potentially the money we pull out of the Measure G and the capital outlay fund? And even member Gutierrez mentioned there can be three possible numbers. what could be the 3 possible numbers?

[11775] SPEAKER_51: No, I mentioned 3 possible numbers because of Ms. Parks. Ms. Parks, so I'll clarify. Ms. Parks was saying why isn't the number on here, so what the cost would be, and I was just saying, she's like, you could have the 3 numbers on there. I was just clarifying that as the program, the way the program works, we can't have the number here that says we're going to spend $20,000, $30,000, $50,000. So not because I'm saying that there's three numbers that we could potentially pay.

[11810] Bowen Zhang: Then I guess the question is, what could possibly be paid out of the capital if there's no upfront cost?

[11817] Marie dela Cruz: Yes. So initially, if you decide, well, the district has to pay for the inspector record, and then Forefront will reimburse us. So we have to take it out of one of those two budgets first, and then we will get reimbursed.

[11833] Bowen Zhang: That's what we're going to be in all 20 days, right?

[11835] Marie dela Cruz: Yes.

[11837] Bowen Zhang: OK. That's it?

[11840] SPEAKER_51: OK, and I have a couple of questions, so a few, actually. And at any time, President, if you need to stop me, feel free. I believe this is some of these questions are in relation to the contract. If we decide to purchase outright, there's potentially still a termination fee, even though we purchased, right?

[11871] SPEAKER_21: No. So in the schedule, you'll see that there's two values. One is if you take title to the system, and the other one is if you don't take title to the system. So by purchasing, you're taking title to the system. And termination fee goes out. So you pay that fee, and then you take title to the system.

[11893] SPEAKER_51: OK. There's discussion in the contract in regards to removal. If for whatever reason we, whatever, needs to get removed, you guys have to repair the building as was prior. When the example was, if it's in a roof, it potential leaks. I know that you guys would make sure that there's no leaks, but I'm just thinking scenario here, it's summer, it hasn't rained, we won't know. Pretty much, how long is your work guaranteed? Because then winter comes, we get rain, we notice that there's a leak that actually relates to the work that you guys did. Would that be something that you guys would cover?

[11926] SPEAKER_21: Yeah. So we have a 20-year agreement with you all. And if we find that there's something that happened to your property that's a result of the solar installation, then under the contract, we're responsible for that.

[11939] SPEAKER_51: OK. If there's any vandalism that happened to the equipment, who would be responsible for that?

[11944] SPEAKER_21: So for vandalism, we have an insurance policy on the system. We haven't had that situation. We did have a situation at CSU where a kid drove a U-Haul into the system. But then we replaced it with our insurance policy.

[11961] Ray Rodriguez: So you'll have two insurance because the district will have theirs also.

[11965] SPEAKER_38: Yes, exactly.

[11965] Ray Rodriguez: Because it's on our property. Yes. So maybe with both policies, they can waive the deductible if something comes up.

[11972] SPEAKER_21: Yes. You all will have insurance and we will have insurance.

[11974] Ray Rodriguez: I apologize. I have some issues with my legs right now. But member Martinez will take over. Thank you again.

[11986] SPEAKER_51: Why can we not heat a pool with the energy that we

[11990] SPEAKER_21: Yeah, I'm so thankful you read the contract. That's a random thing. So the IRS does not allow you to take the tax credit if you're heating a pool. So if you're like a resident, or if you're at your house, you've got a pool, and you install a solar water heating system for your pool, that does not qualify for the 30% investment tax credit. OK. Very random.

[12013] SPEAKER_51: Oh, OK.

[12014] SPEAKER_30: Do you have a minute?

[12015] SPEAKER_51: No, it's OK. I believe the usage of the storage system, you guys could potentially sell to third parties, the energy that we save in the storage system.

[12029] SPEAKER_21: Oh, so with the storage array, we are, I think I know the part of the language you're referring to.

[12039] Marie dela Cruz: I think that's where we could potentially generate revenue.

[12043] SPEAKER_21: Yes. So I think the section you're talking about, so with storage, it's a new thing. So we know that there are certain revenue streams today that you can benefit from, and that's saving money on your demand charges and energy arbitrage. But there's this whole idea that there might be another marketplace in the future where you can participate, where your storage, your stored electricity can participate in other unique ways in the California wholesale energy markets. And that is meant to make it clear to you that you are able to benefit from that in the future.

[12075] SPEAKER_51: So we have priority as to what we do. Perfect. Can you give us an example of what our system-based incentives

[12084] SPEAKER_21: So system-based incentives would be any additional incentive that we're using to drive down the cost of the system. So in the case of storage, there's something called the self-generation incentive program that we apply for. We take that, and then we've used that to reduce the price of your storage.

[12101] SPEAKER_51: Thank you. And then, like in this case of inspector fees, you guys would cover it, but that would also mean that our energy rate goes up.

[12111] SPEAKER_21: We've included $20,000 of inspector of record fees, and that's what we normally see. So you shouldn't see a PPA rate increase from that.

[12118] SPEAKER_51: OK. And just in case they do go over that $20,000, then that's when they would go up. I mean, based on your experience, $20,000 is reasonable. Yeah. Then you shouldn't be paying over that rate. Because the reason where I was going at is, if for whatever reason the rate did go up, How can we get an idea of what the bill might look like to make sure that we're actually saving?

[12142] SPEAKER_21: Yeah, and one advantage of the SPUR contract.

[12144] SPEAKER_24: So we've got a transparent formula built into the contract that deals with those kinds of things, right? Because you want to know the cost isn't going to go up where you're not saving money. And so that's good. There's transparency there. I think just to answer your question about like, OK, let's say another $20,000 for whatever reason, inspector's fees went up another $20,000. You have the choice. to move forward with this. It means that the contract

[12197] Marie dela Cruz: Actually, let me. The storage actually is in the layout with the solar panels. So it wasn't included with the storage agreement. It's included in the solar. So that's the diagram is there. Yeah, that was one thing that I was asking Brian about, and they clarified it. We were looking for it under the storage agreement, but it's actually included in the other agreement. So the location is in the diagram.

[12240] Elisa Martinez: So I'm next. Ms. Delacruz, this question is for you. As I read the document and then I hear you present, and I keep hearing that this conversation has been going on forever, but I don't see any reason not to move forward. So I think there's a couple of questions that it's now to you, which is obviously there's a lot of numbers, a lot of big dollars. You know, have you had the opportunity to really pressure test those numbers? And are there any of those streams, I suppose, of opportunity for savings for us? Is there one area that you would be concerned that's most risky for us? And the reason I ask that is as I look at the map of schools or systems that are participating, there's not a lot around us. So I'm curious as to why not? What would the risk be that others are assessing that we may not be?

[12301] Marie dela Cruz: I've had a chance to look at the cash flow projections and kind of compared it to what I've seen before. what Spur and Forefront have come up with actually makes sense. I mean, it's like a lease agreement. And having the savings in the first year, whereas some other leases, you don't see your break-even point for sometimes in 10, 15 years, where you're not even realizing any savings. So knowing that they've also gone through process where the RFP was sent out statewide and it's gone through the whole vetting, I'm pretty comfortable.

[12349] SPEAKER_24: I can just add the reason so the map you saw was a list of all the school districts that have used our program. The reason there aren't a lot of Bay Area schools on that map is because a lot of those Bay Area schools already have done solar in our program and they did solar before our program was created and that's And really, I mean, honestly, you know, you guys have waited, but the waiting has been good. You're getting a really good deal. You're getting your project done right before the tax credits decline.

[12379] SPEAKER_24: And sometimes, you know, there's the press release. Sometimes these things work out, because a lot of other school districts did sign deals that weren't as favorable as this and are not cash flowing like the way they wanted.

[12392] Marie dela Cruz: and if in the sixth year, there's an opportunity to buy it outright, there might be, that would be another potential to increase our savings. Sure.

[12403] Phuong Nguyen: Member Nguyen, I just have two questions. So I know that you guys mentioned that there's no upfront cost, but what is, and I didn't see it in the contract, or I may have missed it, but for annual support and maintenance, it's not included in there? Is there? And yeah, it's important.

[12421] SPEAKER_21: So the cost of operations and maintenance is included in our rate. OK. So we're the owner of the system, and we're responsible for operating and maintaining it for 20 years.

[12431] Phuong Nguyen: OK. And then the second question is, after the fifth year into the sixth year, what is the total cost to buy outright?

[12441] SPEAKER_21: I don't know that off the top of my head, but you can see in the contract that there's a schedule of.

[12448] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah, but I have to calculate it.

[12450] Toni Stone: I don't want to. I want to see a number.

[12452] SPEAKER_21: I don't know it off the top of my head, but it's that value times the system size in kilowatts times 1,000. OK. Yeah. Do you know it off the top of your head? I wish I did. OK. I was like, maybe Kevin has skills I don't have.

[12466] SPEAKER_24: But we can certainly get back to you on that question. Yeah, we can.

[12469] Phuong Nguyen: That's OK. I can figure it out. Give me the calculation again.

[12473] SPEAKER_21: Oh, yeah. So it's that amount in the schedule. OK. That's a per watt figure. So then you multiply it by the system size. OK. So let's say it's a 250 kilowatt system. It would be that amount times 250, and then times 1,000 in order to convert from kilowatts to watts. OK. Perfect. Thank you.

[12496] Marie dela Cruz: Make it less confusing.

[12500] Elisa Martinez: All right. Any other questions?

[12504] Bowen Zhang: What is the DSA fees? So on the summary, it says, will you incorporate costs such as but not limited to inspector fees? We talk about that. DSA fees, I don't know about that. BG&E upgrade, we talk about that. ADA compliance, we talk about that. But yeah, I didn't capture what the DSA fees really is. It's included in the contract. What does DSA stand for? Can you just tell us what it stands for?

[12533] SPEAKER_21: Estimated. Sorry. DSA is the Division of State Architect. State Architect. Yeah. And so they have special fees in reviewing the design that we've included in our PPA price. So I'm not sure in your budget what that is.

[12552] Marie dela Cruz: What is your estimated cost for that normally?

[12556] SPEAKER_21: I don't know that off the top of my head, but. You? I don't.

[12562] Elisa Martinez: Okay, well if there aren't any more questions, the staff recommendation is that we approve the PPA between NUSD and Forefront Power. So, can I get a motion to vote?

[12579] SPEAKER_51: I move that we vote on item 15.1.

[12584] Elisa Martinez: I second. Okay, so this is my, I'm going to try to figure this out.

[12593] SPEAKER_21: we're really really looking forward to this partnership. Thank you for

[12621] SPEAKER_51: Thank you. Thank you so much. I want to apologize to the board, but my little one's not fallen asleep yet, so I have to go.

[12626] SPEAKER_43: Sorry.

[12627] SPEAKER_51: OK. These guys still have form.

[12631] Elisa Martinez: All right. Well, moving right along then.

[12635] SPEAKER_30: We start bundling soon.

[12636] Elisa Martinez: OK. Next item is 15.2, Resolution 2156, the Energy Service Agreement with Forefront. So here, the staff recommends the Board resolution number 2156 on making findings for energy savings and determining other matters in connection with energy service agreements. Are there any questions?

[12665] Bowen Zhang: So is this just we're trying to instruct the staff to figure out the exact saving numbers?

[12673] Marie dela Cruz: This is part of the government code requirements in that we have to show the savings.

[12681] Bowen Zhang: So I move to approve resolution number 2156.

[12684] Phuong Nguyen: I second.

[12687] Elisa Martinez: OK. Let's open for voting. Oops. Clicking. Unanimous with three votes. Positive votes. Do we need to read it? Or can we skip? We don't need to.

[12711] Penny DeLeon: We'll read it later.

[12712] Elisa Martinez: Go home. OK, we will read it. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

[12717] Marie dela Cruz: Thank you so much.

[12721] Elisa Martinez: OK, moving right along. Item 15.4, grant for garden equipment.

[12730] Bowen Zhang: No, we're talking about we should be 15.1. 15.3, that's the committee for school culture.

[12735] SPEAKER_51: Oh, sorry, sorry. Did I accidentally skip that?

[12740] Elisa Martinez: I I'm going to sorry so that I skipped item 15.3 resolution number 2051 to authorize formation of a district advisory board advisory I'm sorry. 7.11 committee. We could have some So superintendent, it's not here, but my recommendation would be to pull the item and bring it back to the next meeting.

[12778] Bowen Zhang: Okay. Given the public sensitivity for this issue, I would say probably we want a full house here before we can act on this item.

[12789] Elisa Martinez: And have the entire board weigh in on this particular one. So in this case, do we need a motion to I second. So we need a motion to item 15.3 to the next meeting.

[12807] Bowen Zhang: I move that we pull item 15.3 and put it into the next school board meeting.

[12814] Phuong Nguyen: I second.

[12814] Elisa Martinez: Okay. We will continue this to next meeting in two weeks. Item 15.4, Grant for Garden Equipment. Who on the staff will be speaking to this?

[12847] Bowen Zhang: This grant provides $59,704.

[12857] Marie dela Cruz: to replace our diesel equipment. And as part of the process, the district will actually pay up front, and then the Bay Area Quality will reimburse us as part of the grant.

[12872] Elisa Martinez: Are there any questions? Can I get a motion to vote on item 15.4?

[12881] Phuong Nguyen: I move to approve item 15.4. second. Grant for garden equipment.

[12889] Elisa Martinez: I second.

[12890] SPEAKER_49: 3 eyes.

[12918] Elisa Martinez: I believe this is also as a first reading. I myself did read it. In this particular, I would like to request that this be first reading and we'd bring it back. Is that okay with everyone?

[12941] Bowen Zhang: For all of them? Yeah, we don't really have a complete one.

[12943] SPEAKER_30: And you could bundle all of those together. If you chose to, you could bundle that group of first readings and group improvement at once. And then leave the others standalone. That'll help you move quicker.

[12953] Elisa Martinez: So if we could bundle, then the motion would be to take item 15.5 through 15.8 as first reading. And we'd bring it back for second reading at the next meeting in two weeks.

[12968] Bowen Zhang: I second it.

[12979] SPEAKER_30: So there's not an action required for first reading only, correct? No, I didn't think so.

[12984] Elisa Martinez: We're OK. Thank you. Three ayes.

[12989] SPEAKER_30: Now you're at 15.10.

[12991] Elisa Martinez: 15.10. Item 15.10 is surplus equipment. Who will be reviewing this one?

[13000] SPEAKER_30: This is largely outdated computer equipment that we need to dispose of. And there's also some vehicles that we're trying to dispose of that are beyond their use for life, a turbo mower and a Hustler diesel riding mower.

[13019] Elisa Martinez: Any questions for staff on this item? If not, can I get a motion to vote on item 15.10, surplus equipment?

[13030] Bowen Zhang: I move to approve resolution number 2159, which lists items we declare as surplus to the needs of the district.

[13037] Phuong Nguyen: I second.

[13048] Elisa Martinez: Three ayes. Item 15.11, donations report. Superintendent?

[13060] SPEAKER_30: I would like to read the donations report at this time. $3,235 for Newark Junior High from Newark Junior High ASB for science classes. $25 for Birch Grove Intermediate from Mohammad Abu-Shar for school uses determined by the principal. $2,000 for Graham Elementary from Newark Educational Foundation for sixth grade science camp. $2,000 for Schilling Elementary from Newark Education Foundation for sixth grade science camp fund. In-kind donation of desks and filing cabinets for Newark Memorial High School, for Fremont Bank. Ms. Ciel Santos for Newark Memorial High School staff. And an in-kind donation of a refrigerator to the McGregor Senator from Leslie Tomodong for use by the McGregor Senator totaling $7,260.

[13110] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Are there any questions or comments to staff? If not, can I get a motion to approve the donations report?

[13118] Bowen Zhang: I move to accept the donation report as presented.

[13121] Phuong Nguyen: I second.

[13131] SPEAKER_49: Three ayes.

[13134] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Item 16.1, personnel report. Staff recommends the board approve the personnel report as presented. Speaker. Sorry.

[13146] Bowen Zhang: We have a speaker.

[13148] Elisa Martinez: The card, okay. Mr. Knoop, I'm sorry, we didn't have the cards in front of me.

[13153] Cary Knoop: Hi. Yes, about the employee report. First of all, maybe I just don't read it well, but I'm getting the impression that there's an additional job created, and I don't know, in the current light of cuts and labor negotiations, that I don't know if there's some kind of a freeze, It seems to me that, you know, just creating, I don't know, maybe it's not a new job, but I thought that there was something new created. I just wanted to, I know I'm harping on this, but I actually checked. So I checked Fremont, I checked New Haven, and I checked Hayward. And all of these districts, when there is a termination for whatever reason, the full name is provided. So both Hayward, New Haven, Fremont, they have that practice. I have no reason to believe their other districts don't have that either. So I'm really surprised why for termination we have these IDs. I can understand in an exceptional case if there's a, you know, a dispute or something that you almost have to put an ID. But in most cases, you wouldn't. Then you would want to inform the board who's leaving. You know, sometimes people retire and that's, you know, hopefully a pleasant, you know, and a cheering event. And people would like to know that. So I would really ask to revisit that thought and see if we can put the names back on even in case of terminations. Of course, there will always be exceptions when there's a special situation. But again, surrounding districts do it too. So I don't see any reason why we don't do it. And we need to be transparent and we need to tell. I'll share the, anybody who wants to know, I share my findings and I'll send the employee reports from the last two board meetings so everybody can see what it says.

[13282] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Newk.

[13287] Bowen Zhang: So I got a question, Laval, for this. Yeah, I did see a lot of employment of classified, substitute classified employees. Is it just people left who are filling in the position or we're really creating new positions?

[13305] SPEAKER_50: We're not creating any new positions at this time.

[13313] Bowen Zhang: So all those are just filling in positions that people left?

[13319] SPEAKER_50: And as you notice, the substitute pool is still open. We try to recruit substitute teachers all the time.

[13329] Elisa Martinez: OK. Any other questions or comments? If not, can I get a motion to vote on item 16.1, personnel report?

[13341] Phuong Nguyen: I move to vote on item 16.1, personnel report.

[13347] Elisa Martinez: I second.

[13360] SPEAKER_49: Three ayes.

[13366] Elisa Martinez: Okay. So consent agenda, non-personnel items. We could group these as well.

[13376] Bowen Zhang: Yes? I got a question about 17.9. Sorry.

[13378] Penny DeLeon: Okay.

[13379] Bowen Zhang: So just to confirm, 17.9 is still falling into the category of professional services and consulting for special ed, right?

[13389] SPEAKER_33: Yes, that is, and that's actually a placement for a student. Okay.

[13396] Elisa Martinez: And we had already pulled item 17.10, so in this case, sorry, Mr. Zhang, sorry, did you want us to pull 17.9 then for discussion?

[13405] Bowen Zhang: Yes, we can include it into the same poll. I just want to confirm 17.9 is the professional services consulting.

[13413] SPEAKER_49: Okay, so, sorry.

[13415] SPEAKER_33: And it was a student who moved into the area that was already at this placement. So we have to, we continue with the placement. Okay, I see.

[13424] Elisa Martinez: So can I get a motion to approve item 17.1 through 17.9? I move to approve item 17.1 to 17.9. I second.

[13446] SPEAKER_49: Three ayes.

[13450] Elisa Martinez: Okay, item 18. This is our Board of Education Committee Reports, Announcements, Requests.

[13459] Bowen Zhang: So, I think today we voted on a lot of issues that have some concern about Measure G-Bond. And I think a couple of meetings ago, I did ask for a I think the board agreed we wanted a study session on the measure G-bound, like what can be spent on measure G-bound, what cannot be spent on measure G-bound, how much money we have left, and how much interest the taxpayer of the city are paying for the left over unused money, and how much we're getting back interest by putting that into the county account. So I believe for each day we don't spend the money, we're actually essentially losing the money because we are paying a higher interest the taxpayer are paying a higher interest rate. So I guess given that we have really a lot of a sequence of voting or items that are somewhat related to measure D where people in the community are really concerned about what is the border, what is the boundary on measure G bond, whether we're violating any potential law about using measure G bond or something else. So can we sort of like put a deadline on when we can get this study session?

[13529] SPEAKER_30: Whatever you would like. Part of why it's gotten delayed is we've had other requests for study sessions. So we can schedule it at the next.

[13536] Bowen Zhang: Does the board feel comfortable that we've got this study session by the end of this year for the Master GBA? Or you don't think this is not that urgent?

[13546] Phuong Nguyen: No, it's very important.

[13548] SPEAKER_30: We can do something in December if you'd like.

[13555] Elisa Martinez: Yes, I think we all agree. And I don't know that it has to be you know, an entire session, maybe we can combine it with something else. Maybe a staff report. Maybe a quick staff report, yeah, but I think, yeah.

[13566] Bowen Zhang: No, I think last time I asked about whether it's going to be study session or staff report, your particular said you don't want a staff report. Well. You want a study session that's interactive so we can ask questions.

[13576] Elisa Martinez: Okay, that's true. So, no, so I think that's a good point. So, you know, part of, I think, this particular item is that we want to be educated on it. agree on from that comment I agree it should be a study session again you know do we need an entire hour again if I know we have packed schedules coming up so maybe we can combine it with another topic for a study session does that make sense so I just have a quick comment I know that when we get reports and stuff and we ask for itemized systems

[13617] Phuong Nguyen: itemized reporting and list reports. My main concern is that I want you guys to show us that the work is being done and also that so that you guys get the credit for the work being done. So the reports that are given to us, it doesn't, it gives us the numbers that there are requests coming in and that Yes, you guys are doing the work, but it doesn't solidify that the work is being done. And it is very so important, because the last report that you guys gave us with the work in progress, there's only nine items left. But on the report that you guys showed us from July to October, it says 250. So when people look at it outside from, in the public, they're thinking, oh my gosh, they're not getting anything done, because they don't understand.

[13674] SPEAKER_30: That's a good point. Yeah, thank you.

[13677] Marie dela Cruz: On that report that you have, it's only the HVAC.

[13680] SPEAKER_14: Right.

[13680] Marie dela Cruz: Right? And I just, I hear what you're saying. So in the other report, it's total work orders completed and not completed. That's correct.

[13688] Phuong Nguyen: But I mean, I want the detail.

[13690] SPEAKER_30: You want the detail.

[13690] Phuong Nguyen: A monthly status report. Yeah, a monthly status report that has details so that they understand. I mean, like when we put out, whole numbers like that, they can't decipher exactly, you know, and then it gets confusing a little bit. So we want to be exact, and we want to make sure that you guys get credit for the work that you guys do. Good point. Yeah.

[13711] Elisa Martinez: No. Just piggybacking on this, the maintenance item. So first of all, thank you for sharing that information. You know, it wasn't Maybe kind of what I was expecting, but it's a start. And I think part of it is exactly that. It's just the correlation of all those numbers versus kind of the HVAC report. And I think that we are a microcosm of the community. So how long did it take us to get visibility to that? So then my question is, or I wonder, how much visibility do our staff at the schools have to where their particular request is on the list. So, you know, and it goes a little bit down, you know, I asked a pretty technical question earlier, do we have any time to repair data? I mean, that's just in terms of how we are developing our system of tracking, but also reporting. I think that's important. Just something for you to explore. I know even if we can just start reporting at this level, that's a big win. But I think the next step would be to evolve into more meaningful analytical data of maintenance operations. So thank you for that. Of course, I have to ask about my counselor data.

[13796] SPEAKER_33: So yes, we have that as part of our study session for our next board meeting.

[13800] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. I appreciate that. I think about, we were joking about what a packed agenda this was. I think we need to look at the process of agenda setting. When we have such heavy topics, big decisions, we need to make some determinations about things that need to go on hold. Of course we want to decide on everything, but I can speak for myself, other members as well. Many of us are working, and to truly do the due diligence that we would want to, to be able to come back to you and ask questions so that we're not having so much discussion during the meeting, I just don't think it's as productive. So, Superintendent, I think maybe at the next agenda setting meeting, we really should discuss how are items getting on the agenda and figuring out a process to make some decisions about how to cut on items that we can. So that was just a comment.

[13868] Bowen Zhang: So, speaking of that agenda setting, what I heard is there used to be a time that the president and the vice president would be both sitting in the agenda session, I mean agenda setting session. So, what happened to that tradition that right now we sort of have a second board member alternate to go with the president?

[13885] SPEAKER_30: It generally serves the style of the president. That's one of the things that the president's able to do is to say I want one board member, I want the VP, It depends on how the president wants to run the agenda setting. But we're open to whatever. I think there's lots of ways to be able to get to the depth you want without being exhausted. I think that's part of the challenge too.

[13908] Bowen Zhang: What I heard is that VP and president together, that rule is sort of a board rule. Either it's a single-handedly changed by the president or

[13918] SPEAKER_30: I don't believe it's in the handbook. I don't believe that's in the handbook. And that's the other governance tool for the board is the handbook. So that could be a potential edit for the handbook, or we could review that. But I think that's part of the answer is we could do whatever the board wants, but you have to agree. That's all. That's all.

[13938] Elisa Martinez: Right, and I think that's even just the process of getting items on the agenda, you know, I keep hearing so I think both, you know Bowen as you're talking we're all learning about this and You know, I'm reminded that this is our meeting as a board and we should have some decision over what we are willing to bring in front, you know, just because again, there's so many things to be had so There's a lot of work to be done, I think, in terms of improving our process, but we'll get to it. Oh, sorry. I was about to skip over you, Superintendent. Item 19.1.

[13978] SPEAKER_30: One thing we can do is, just to kind of continue on the same theme, that I've seen that I've done before that's helpful, is we could map out study sessions for the remainder of the year and have Maybe have the board even help sequence that in an open session, where all of us weigh in on, all of you weigh in on what should go first. Because that's part of the challenge. We have so many things that we have to compete for. We have to do that. But no, I think we definitely could look at how we could streamline that. The only other comment I had was for the board to consider a rule that if you extend the meeting and vote yes, that you have to stay for the meeting. That's just, that's for Ray. I hope you're still watching, Ray. But no, that's all I have. Thank you. Oh, sure.

[14023] SPEAKER_33: And just a reminder, tomorrow at Schilling Elementary, there will be a breakfast celebration in honor of veterans at 8.30 a.m. at Schilling Elementary. And I did message Mr. Rodriguez before he left, so he could have that as a reminder.

[14037] Elisa Martinez: And sorry, just to clarify again, I believe we do need a motion to adjourn. I know that we don't normally do that, so I can ask for a motion to adjourn. Okay. Open voting. Please vote.

[14057] SPEAKER_49: All right.

[14062] Elisa Martinez: Three ayes. Do you want to hit that?

[14066] SPEAKER_30: 39 minutes early.

[14067] Elisa Martinez: Meeting adjourned.

No minutes available.