Study Session Meeting

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[6] Ray Rodriguez: Chairs will be here in a few minutes. So I'm calling the meeting for November the 7th, 2019. It's a regular board meeting of the Newark School Board of Education. Roll call. Ms. Aquino.

[28] SPEAKER_35: President Rodriguez. Here. Vice President Martinez.

[33] Leonor Rebosura: Here.

[34] SPEAKER_35: Member Gutierrez. Member John.

[36] Bowen Zhang: Here.

[37] SPEAKER_35: Member Nguyen.

[43] Ray Rodriguez: Here. OK, we go to the approval of the agenda. Anyone want to make any changes on the agenda?

[54] SPEAKER_09: I would like to pull an item, if I may. I'd like to pull item 17.10. Contractor just didn't work out, so we want to pull that item. 17.1. Minutes? The minutes? Sorry, 17.10. I had it wrong. Oh, that's okay. 17.10. 360-degree therapy.

[78] Ray Rodriguez: Independent contractor agreement between 360-degree therapy, Inc., and Nude Unified. Okay. So we're going to pull that. You're going to bring it back later, I guess?

[87] SPEAKER_09: I don't know. We may be going with a different contractor. Okay. Excellent.

[90] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Anyone else? Pulling items? Did you want to pull any items? So, the study session, what are we talking about, maybe 20 minutes and then we open it up? Okay, thank you. 15.3, maybe we could share this. Okay, 15.3, you don't want to, you want to pull that? Or you want to? We can, when we're there, we can open it up and then the board can bring it back another time. You want to do it that way? Okay, this way we can say something on it, if that's okay. Okay, anyone else? So the only, it's the superintendent, 17.10 I think it was? 17.10. Okay. Okay, so I need a motion and a second so we can approve the agenda other than the item the superintendent wants to pull.

[168] Elisa Martinez: I move to approve the agenda.

[169] Ray Rodriguez: Okay. Member Martinez moves, I need a second please. I move to second. Member Nguyen, thank you. I open it up. Everybody ready to go? Let's do hands. Thank you. It's approved. Next we go to public comment on board study session items. We have Ms. Parks first and then Mr. Newk. And the study session, again, is a report from Ada's Architects on Facilities Master Plan.

[217] Cindy Parks: Welcome. Good evening. Let me take a moment to state the obvious. $497,000 is a lot of money. One of the big selling points was community involvement. 174 people attended the stakeholder meetings, according to pages 7 and 25 of the document. the first draft was made available in May I spoke about Those same errors are still contained within this document. Has no one from Newark Unified proofread the document? I'm not an architect, nor am I in construction or a builder. I can't dig through the documents with the eye of an architect or a builder, nor can I determine if what is listed actually is necessary in the timeline and the cost provided. What I can do is read through the narrative and seek incorrect information. How am I supposed to believe the information in areas beyond my knowledge base when I can't even trust the accuracy of the information in the areas within my knowledge base? I'm going to list the ones that are just on the overview page. It says Newark Unified School District is bound by Highway 92. We are not bound by Highway 92. We are in the Highway 84 Dumbarton Corridor. as it states two paragraphs down. We did not get $83 million bond. We had a $63 million bond. We did not get matching funds from the state. Windows were not replaced. In fact, the windows are listed to be replaced at the sites when you're listing all the projects that need to be done. Finally, I want to once again stress the use of Fund 21 Measure G money to pay for this entire document is not in line with the ballot measure, nor with what the board's wishes were at the time they approved it, nor is it what the community voted for. The ballot measure did not authorize spending on anything pertaining to MOT, the district office in Area 3 or your sanctuary village. The Whiteford campus is no longer eligible for Measure G funds since there's no longer any students on the campus. Merging the McGregor campus with Whiteford as the master facilities plan does, does not eliminate that requirement. Thank you.

[396] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Mr. New. Welcome.

[408] Cary Knoop: Good evening, board, executive staff. superintendent. Yeah, just taking along with what Cindy said, you know, I, it's just my perception that there's a continuous disregard for the bond language. I see constantly that this board, you folks, are trying to tag along all kinds of expenses that are not valid for Measure G. And I hope this board changes its ways. It's a very bad advertisement for if you want to get a new bond. Because the citizens of Newark are going to say, can we trust the board with this money? And if you're going wishy-washy about, OK, we'll just allocate this all to Measure G. Yeah, some of them. Of course you can allocate to Measure G. But not everything, and especially the items that Cindy highlighted. So I think it's so important to be really, you know, truthful to it. You have a bond language. The voter said you can use it for this. Don't play around and say, oh, you know what? We'll just push this in. With respect to the ADIS presentation, so my big question is how to, consolidate the ADA's report about the signature projects and the regular projects on the one hand and the CME report on the other hand. They seem to be coming from a different universe. There's overlap there but the dollar amounts are very off and obviously that needs to be consolidated. You need to have one report about that. So I hope ADIS, I assume that's in the price to consolidate that to, you know, one action because right now we have the CME report. I just can't consolidate that with the current ADIS report and I hope, you know, ADIS can provide some updates on that. Thanks.

[558] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, so next on our agenda is the study session report for Maters Architects on Facilities Master Plan. Being that it's on the agenda, it's open for us to, if we want to ask questions before they start, as far as where the money came from and could you, Superintendent, do you have time to give us just a little history on that? Sure, I can. I know that... I know Barry's here, so... Okay.

[589] SPEAKER_09: Where were we paid for the ATIS contract, this question? Where were we paid from the funding stream?

[597] Joy Lee: Yes.

[600] Ray Rodriguez: The funding was from Measure G. And to pretend that that was, you have to look at that to make sure that conforms with what we told the voters when we had Measure G approved.

[614] SPEAKER_09: That's correct. And I think we also can revisit that. Check again to make sure if there's anything that was not within the language that we could look at that and adjust it. But we can double check that.

[627] Ray Rodriguez: That's not a problem. So I just have one more question. You can come up to the podium if you don't mind. Could you introduce yourself for me, if you don't mind?

[638] SPEAKER_10: Good evening, board members, Superintendent Sanchez. I am Thang Do. I'm the CEO of Aedes Architects.

[645] SPEAKER_20: And I'm Anna Harrison, the Educational Planning Director. And I'm not texting my husband. I'm actually taking notes.

[651] Ray Rodriguez: No, no, no. And along those lines, I wanted to ask you, I went to the meeting we had next door here, down the street at Whiteford. So the minutes for any meetings you have, you have those available to us. I'm sure you took minutes and everything.

[672] SPEAKER_10: Yes, all the records of all meetings are kept, and we share them with the district.

[679] Ray Rodriguez: OK, good. Just want to make sure. OK. You can start the study session. Thank you for being here. And hopefully, we'll have a better understanding of the report then as you finish your presentation. Thank you.

[700] SPEAKER_10: Okay. Very well. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for scheduling this review of the master plan. We intend to wrap up our presentation in about 10 minutes so that to give you a lot of time for Q&A. So today we will review, I guess my eyeglasses are not, I don't see very well. But so we will review the timeline and progress report of the entire master planning process. And we'll review the stakeholder engagement goals that the board had instructed us from the beginning. There were three key goals. Number one is to make sure that we engage stakeholders. Number two was to, through the process, build community support for the district's approach in facilities, in dealing with facilities. And number three was to, Number three was to look at embracing new instructional methodology, including project-based learning, and STEAM, and STEM, and all those things. And so those were our three key goals. And we'll get into that in greater detail during the presentation. We'll also review the cost estimate summaries with you in the five-year window, looking at the maintenance costs as well as looking at the signature projects, and then look at a longer-term vision. So the timeline of the project, we started over a year ago in August of 2018. And on this chart, as you can see, the line almost to the far right is how much we've completed. All the areas in the light green are all the steps that have taken place. And the sliver on the right are the steps that remain to be done. I do want to remind the board that when, at the beginning of this, the board wanted us to condense the stakeholder engagement process and to save costs, and we did that. We tried to balance reducing the engagement process, but while still keeping it robust enough to make sure that there was enough stakeholder engagement involved. The next two pages just show the tasks that we were under contract to complete and their status. And on the first category, it's called leadership engagement, which essentially is working with the board, working with Superintendent Sanchez and the leadership group. All of the tasks there have been completed with the exception of tonight, which is the study session and then a board meeting hopefully to approve the master plan. The stakeholder engagement has been all completed of all the sites of the high school, the junior high school, the elementary schools, and the other district facilities. And as well as our internal master planning work to look at look at the vision for each of the campuses, look at costing and scheduling and all those things. So all of those tasks are completed. The lines 10 and 11, which are the final report and the approval, the final presentation. We show that at 99% because if there are last minute type of issues, then we can still update those things. But they're very close to being completed. So with that, I'm going to turn over to Anna, and she will take you through the details of the master plan. And I'll come back and wrap up with a cost summary. Thank you.

[971] SPEAKER_20: Thank you. So this is a graphic that we've been using pretty consistently since the beginning. Just to explain the approach to the master plan, we have quantitative data collection, qualitative data collection, and then we bring those two together. Our quantitative data has produced outcomes, the aforementioned signature projects, long-term facility needs, infrastructure modernization. All of these are detailed in the final master plan document. We also have collected qualitative data, and the outcomes of those have been things like the guiding principles, conceptual education specifications. We have recaps for every single stakeholder engagement workshop we've done. The unveil workshop is pending. It had a little last minute tweaks that the superintendent was making to it, and that will be there. Everything's available, including videos of presentations made by various people in the stakeholders' workshops. The quantitative data is represented by the campus facilities architectural site assessments, the educational site assessments, and the infrastructure modernization site assessments. There are existing site plans and proposed site plans for every single campus. The qualitative data was gathered during stakeholder engagement, and as Thang mentioned, we had three objectives, and I'm just going to take a look at those briefly with you. One was to engage stakeholders and gather their input. So we did that with a series of workshops, and it culminated in a total of 25. These are some pictures of elementary school workshops, junior high school workshops, high school, McGregor Alternative, and then the two district-wide workshops, the Visioning Workshop and the Unveil Workshop. And there are more fabulous pictures of these in the recaps. So overall, we did have 62 attendees go to our district-wide workshops. a total of 174 total stakeholders. That's a conservative number. We wanted to make sure we weren't counting people twice. That's about the number of individual stakeholders that were involved. Our next objective was to build support, so community understanding where their shared needs were. And I've just grabbed a couple of samples of stakeholder comments, focusing on some of the ones that emerged that were consensus, so natural light, overarching goals and desires common to all, our ideas are becoming real, the understanding that changes affect everybody on the site, and a lot of comments like these. After the workshops, everybody was really amazed at how much we all felt the same ways about educational environments and what they needed. The last objective was really to form some common vocabulary about what it means to be a 21st century learning environment. What does it mean now versus the industrial age of learning, which many of our schools were built in that model. And so we looked at full steam ahead, the board resolution, we talked about the four Cs, and we talked about how the core values of the district, plus education environments, plus instructional delivery, all need to be considered together. And these yielded the guiding principles and the conceptual education specifications, your beautiful guiding principles matched with learner outcomes. And then these are the ed specs, the conceptual ed specs that came from the stakeholder engagement. And I'm just going to, you've seen these before. All of these are guides to what we do next. So whatever improvements are made to the campuses are done with these concepts in mind. They will deliver on the 21st century vision. The two last concepts, the primordial spaces, we all now have this common language which we can use that we understand how spaces, culture, and pedagogy all mixed together and ultimately we want to create small learning communities.

[1251] SPEAKER_10: So the last few slides, we would just take you through a very high level summary of the cost estimates that we prepared. The first one is one of the key questions that were asked of us toward the end of the master plan planning process was that what if the district doesn't have doesn't have much in terms of resources. In other words, there's no bond that's being passed or anything like that. What would we need to do in the first five years? And what are the immediate needs that need to be done to keep district facilities in operational conditions? So the cost of that is roughly $58 million. Again, that's across all campuses. And that's reflecting the current conditions of the facilities. then we took it a step further by asking that, what if we do some small, bite-size, high-impact, implementable projects at the campuses to make a significant improvement to their educational environment? And what would that look like? And so we worked with the stakeholders to identify what we call signature projects, which are I think that there are three projects per campus that, again, they're reasonably simple. They're manageable projects. And then the projects that the stakeholders came up with. So the cost is approximately $66, $67 million. And so those two categories combined bring to a total of about $125 million. And again, that's a need for the next five years if our goals are limited to doing just that. So in the longer term, if we also looked at a 20-year window, and if we were to look at the entire needs of the district and what it would take to bring I'm sorry, this chart essentially takes the same 125 million and break it down to campus by campus. So those are line items that show the cost of each of the campuses. The next step is to look at the 20-year needs and what it would take to transform the campuses into 21st century standards and again we're talking about status quo situation where the campuses remain as they are and they're simply getting upgraded. There will be mostly, this includes modernization, but there will be some new construction to replace portables and other minor needs. The cost for the entire cost is $588 million. Now, this includes the five-year needs as well. So this number is a total need for district-wide for the next 20 years. We realize that this is not necessarily the approach that the district may take because this hasn't dealt with a lot of the bigger issues that we understand that the district has been engaging in and will continue to be discussing in terms of whether whether there's going to be a bond, how big the bond is, whether there may be some realignment, right sizing of campuses. And that was not the purpose of the master plan. But the master plan, essentially, is a snapshot of the conditions of the school district at the current time and what the needs are just based on the status quo configuration of the school district. So with that, we thank you, and we are happy to receive questions and try to answer them.

[1498] SPEAKER_26: I have a question. And it's just more clarification. I'm looking at the numbers that you guys put on the one that start with the 58,000. So I believe it's the, it's, I can't see what slide it is, but it says, NDSU district-wide conceptual cost summary at five years?

[1518] Nancy Thomas: Right.

[1519] SPEAKER_26: So you might have it. OK. Yeah. So just wanted a clarification so I can understand what the 58, the 66, and the 124 are.

[1527] SPEAKER_10: So Anna, you chime in and correct me if I'm wrong. OK, so the 58 million is essentially those are deferred maintenance costs. Those are things In other words, it's what it takes to keep the facilities in operational conditions to make sure that we don't let them deteriorate beyond the useful prematurely, in a sense. The next column, which is a signature project, these are improvement projects. These are projects, for example, at the high school, we're talking about renovating the center quad area. At other schools, we're talking about creating a new entry experience, we're talking about qualitative type of improvements to the environment.

[1572] SPEAKER_26: And so then the last one is just a total of both?

[1575] SPEAKER_10: That's correct.

[1586] Bowen Zhang: So I remember a couple of study sessions ago when we were doing the facility planning. Member Martinez and I had the same question regarding the proposition or the premise of this $600 million because that was the basis that we had the discussion about whether it's general obligation bond or it's parcel tax, particularly the two general obligation bonds that we're talking about. We're saying those discussions must be based on that the $600 million number is actually correct and accurate. So today we look at your, this $588 million breakdown, so we're actually expecting a more specific breakdown to see these numbers on each side, and which item will really cost, add up together, costing $588 million, or like $600 million. Unfortunately, by looking at this slide, I think this one slide is definitely not the information that in that study session, both member Martinez and I were expecting to see from you coming forward. So speaking of specific regarding us, the specifics regarding each building and each item that need to, we need to spend on current maintenance, deferred maintenance in 5 year, 10 year and 20 year time frame. There was actually a report that came out just 3 months ago in August. It's done by the CME report. So in that report for each building site, they have a very specific scientific index called facility condition index. which measures, which is computed as the maintenance cost divided by the replacement value, which is an industry standard indicator about how good, what kind of condition your building are. And anything that's above 30% was really in the dire, the territory or dire need of replacement. And if you look at the, I brought, I briefly read about that 700 pages report. Only BGI actually qualify. as a building that's in Darnley, because BGI has an index that's above 30%. The other are generally all in the teams or low teams. And they also computed every building maintenance in the next five, 10, or 20-year time frame. For example, BGP is 8 million, BGI 11 million, Graham 11 million, Kennedy 10 million, Lincoln 11 million, Music 10 million, Schilling 13 million, Snow 10 million, Junior High 40 million, and Memorial High roughly 80 million, and up to roughly 200 million. For each building, they specify eight categories of items that the major item that we should be looking at replacing or maintenance. Namely, facade, roofing, interior, plumbing, fire suppressors, electrical, HVAC, and fire alarms. And in addition to each building for each site overall, there is an overall improvement when it comes to site development, sighting, lighting, landscaping, pavement, and accessibilities. So I think that's probably what the board in that previous study session that we really want to see what is the specific breakdown for each building maintenance. So let me just repeat the A category that I'm looking at for each building, which is facade, roofing, interior, plumbing, fire suppressors, electrical, HVAC, and fire alarm. That's for each specific building. And for each specific site, we're looking at site development, lighting, pavement, landscaping, and accessibilities. And just like one of the members in the community just mentioned about the CME report, it is the number, it is pretty, the gap is pretty big between your 588 million and that 200 million. So we would really want to see a somewhat a reconciliation between these two numbers before I think the board will be comfortable moving forward with the discussion of our general obligation bond. At least, me personally, seeing a 200 million and a 588 million from you, these two sources like have a factor of 3x differences, I am not comfortable moving forward with anything regarding this general obligation bond.

[1827] SPEAKER_20: Wow, thank you for it. It sounds like an exhaustive review of the EMG reports that are in the appendix on the share file. I'm not sure what the CME refers to, but our sub-consultant, EMG, prepared the facilities conditions index reports that you're talking about. That $220 million is within the $588 million. It's included inside of it. It's already been reconciled. So the $220 million, if you look in the facilities master plan in section 6, There's conceptual cost breakdowns. We wanted you to see if you did nothing but maintain the buildings on the campuses for 20 years, you would have the $220 million price tag. But it wouldn't get you maker spaces. It wouldn't get you flexible furniture. It wouldn't get you nature. It wouldn't get you outdoor learning environments. It wouldn't get you all of the conceptual specifications that the stakeholders have said are critical to delivering 21st century learning. So we took that base amount, the 220, that's kind of the nuts and bolts of taking care of the campuses for 20 years, and we added to that portable replacements, maker spaces, quad renovations, curb appeal, things that go beyond typical maintenance in order to deliver 21st century learning. is that they're not separate. The 588 actually includes the 220.

[1928] SPEAKER_10: If I could just kind of summarize it a little bit. So when we did this master plan, we attacked the identifying the needs on two prongs. On one prong, the EMG report, which you cited, which the five-year, 10-year, 20-year categories and the facility condition index and all of that, that's our report. That's from a consultant that we engage as part of our team. So there are kind of two pools of needs. On one pool, the EMG report addresses the simple deferred maintenance needs. How much life is left in your roofing system, in your HVAC system, and all of that. And it identifies a cost that is needed to keep those systems in operation. So parallel with that, Our architectural team looked at issues beyond that. How do we improve the educational environment qualitatively? And so that's the difference between the 588 and the 220. Thank you. Member Martínez.

[2000] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. So as I try to understand the numbers, and I did, I think I was gleaning that there's other we'll call the design, the softer redesigns or the additional costs. I get that. But I think now, thank you for explaining that. So what I'm hearing is the 58 million is a subset of the 220 million. All right? Because that's really referencing five years. So if I really look at that, I mean, I guess one of the things that we need to think about is, you've referenced the status quo within the existing structure. So if just to operate existing buildings, it's going to cost us $220 million, I think we need to be thinking about, do we want to remain in the status quo versus taking that money and investing in new structures? Because when we're talking about building new portables, that doesn't strike me as the best investment to make. So I think it's important for us to understand that we really are looking at not the $58 million, but really the $220 million across 20 years for just maintenance. The other $300,000, so wouldn't we theoretically get that when we design and buy a new school? We get it all in one bang. It's something that we need to be thinking about. So it just doesn't strike me like a logical way to go down this path. Thank you.

[2096] SPEAKER_10: Right, and I did neglect to mention one important issue, which is that these costs are all unescalated costs. And the reason for that is because at this point, we don't have a project schedule. We don't know how long we're going to implement these projects. Usually, with most bond programs, But we would only make that projection once the board makes a decision to go after a bond. And we know how big the bond is. We know what the bond sale increments are. We know how much cash flow there is. And so we can make some projections as to when these projects would happen. And with all school districts, typically most master plans, when you identify the needs, you know that those needs are beyond the resources of a school district. to handle at least within one bond or two bonds. And so there will always be a process to prioritize these needs after that. So once you know the cost, once you know how much a bond you're likely going to go out and get, and whatever other funding sources, whether they're state funds, whether they are other developer fee funds, and things like that, you put that together, and then you know what the limitations are, and then you have to prioritize.

[2177] Ray Rodriguez: I wanted to, just for clarification, looking at your timeline, when we started, I was the only board member at the time. So now we have four new board members. So the more information we can get from you, so we have a better understanding. So for instance, for me, when you describe your task descriptions and when it's completed, It's a lot easier to understand if I have a date on it. It just makes it easier for me if there's a date. It's easier for me to kind of roll along. No, I don't need that now.

[2220] SPEAKER_10: On the chart at the beginning of the presentation, it didn't list the exact date, but it lists the month or which part of the process it occurred in.

[2231] Ray Rodriguez: It's just easier for me if you put a date on there. And the other thing is... Each board member will be asking questions, as we are right now. So if you can kind of come back with some, like a report of what the questions were asked and what the answers are. I don't know if you have to review the tape. It just makes it easier. We can get it on a, like a Friday update or something where, you know, so we can review.

[2263] Sean Abruzzi: We do have access.

[2264] Ray Rodriguez: We've been taking notes. Right. Thank you. Good. Member Kacharis?

[2270] SPEAKER_26: I think this question goes more to the superintendent. As I'm looking at some of the pictures that you guys put on the slide, thank you for it. I can understand a leaky roof, that over time it's an older building. But I'm looking at the lines on the door. And I hear, I'm just thinking of some of the comments that some of the community members have told us. And I am concerned as to, how something as simple as changing a blind doesn't happen. What leads to that? What are we not doing that we can't properly maintain the simple things like a window blind?

[2318] SPEAKER_09: Let me respond to that. I know that Marie's been working on some of this, and I'll have her describe the process that we were asked to do by this board, which has put together must have list I think was the way we called it last time. So, but I'm not trying to avoid the question. Let me answer the question. I think we do need to restructure how we operate at MOT. And I think we have to look at that very seriously to be more responsive and to get some of these pretty simple things that just as a homeowner you probably could take care of. So, we're looking at that. But I do want Marie to share kind of, we've been drafting a list of items that is more based on what the sites feel that they needed. I don't know if you want to describe the process you've had. That somewhere between the first column here on this slide that is on the screen here, the five-year first column, somewhere between that and where we are at zero, that maybe is a lesser number that the board can act on. I think this is kind of a conversation we've been having. I know Ms. Martinez brought some of this, you know, what do we need to do right now to maintain and to improve curb appeal? And in the categories the member Jean referenced, those generally aren't curb appeal items. Those eight categories don't tend to be curb appeal. They can be if they get to extreme levels. But would you describe kind of what you've been doing with principles and sites to try to get a handle on what we have to have?

[2414] Marie dela Cruz: Yeah, knowing that there are a lot of maintenance issues at our schools, we surveyed our school principals as to what were their top five immediate needs in terms of maintenance and facilities. And what we got back was, in general, issues that were related to HVAC, the irrigation and landscaping, the plumbing, the fields, playgrounds, the flooring, paving issues, door locks and security, painting, lighting, electrical, and security, portables, and miscellaneous others. So just based on these immediate needs, if we were to address some of these items at the schools, even if you were to estimate $500,000 per school, it comes out to about $5.9 million. And again, knowing that this master plan also exists, trying to incorporate some of these needs and maintenance issues is something that we have to consider in light of this master plan as well. So how do we address these immediate needs? And some of them are actually in the master plan, because I tried to reconcile some of the requests to what was in the master plan. And most of them are already in the deferred maintenance plan.

[2524] SPEAKER_09: But we do need to restructure MOT and how we respond to things that are so basic.

[2529] SPEAKER_26: And again, maybe just to make sure Just to make sure I'm understanding what you had said, Ms. Delacruz. You guys surveyed the principals, and they gave you a list of what they thought was immediate needs. And with that, you came up with the number. You guys calculated the number of 5.9 million, right?

[2550] Marie dela Cruz: It's a ballpark. Yes. I'm not an estimator. Again, it's just- I understand.

[2556] SPEAKER_26: Roughly. Yeah. And then you guys, in your research and inspections of the buildings, came up with the immediate needs would be the first line of $58 million. Is that correct?

[2566] SPEAKER_10: That's correct. Yes. The $58 million, again, was a component of the $220 million. That's the first five-year needs of that. That is correct. And the way our consultants did it was that we did a very comprehensive analysis of all the facilities, regardless of whether something was brought to our attention or not.

[2587] Marie dela Cruz: Theirs is very extensive. I mean, for example, the junior high mentioned that they wanted their parking lot redone. Well, redone could mean, is that paving? Is that just painting the stripes? But when you look at the master plan, redone is almost $3 million. Because that, I believe, incorporates replacing and redoing the traffic and the flow of that whole parking lot.

[2617] SPEAKER_26: And I guess the reason why I was asking is, I can go, I, non-professional, can go in a building and say, oh, I know, this light needs to get fixed, this wall needs to get painted. But you guys did the thorough, so you guys know within what we don't see, what actually needs to get fixed. So I'm just asking more to consider both, and we as board are going to have to look at what's on your list and as well as what you guys on your list as well.

[2645] Marie dela Cruz: Yes, and the architects also included soft costs. So anytime, even if it's a simple project, you think you're just replacing or repairing bleachers. You need specs, you need drawings, and you need all of the DSA process. All that is incorporated in the master plan. And what we're looking at are, again, the simple things. It's just there's no drawings involved, there's no specs, and possibly no formal bidding. It's basically

[2678] Ray Rodriguez: that we're looking at. Again, thank you for the report. We're hoping to get more information, naturally, as we move forward with this. One of the things that I, since you brought up MOT, superintendent, was it's, and I've got this before, and it's always good to update, especially with a new board, the process when one of the bathrooms is not working, for instance. Something that, you know, so somebody reports it to the principal, then the principal, I would imagine, fits out a form, goes to the MOT. So that whole process would be good to have that. And then the timeline that's involved in that. Because as board members, when somebody approaches us at, you know, Meeting or and and they they say that that Water faucet has hasn't been working. You know the you know at XYC school for the last you know three months, you know just just so we have a better understanding and and I know that You know We're limited, you know, sometimes I mean it isn't like we have you know, a hundred maintenance people so But there is a process in place in how to feed back to the principal so that the principal has a better understanding on when this particular issue will be taken care of. That always helps, having that. Go ahead.

[2780] SPEAKER_26: Just one more for clarification, because I'm looking at your timeline. You guys are to the point where you present to us, and the next step here is, You basically need a vote from us, whether we move forward or not. Is that correct?

[2797] SPEAKER_10: I'm sorry, could you repeat that?

[2798] SPEAKER_26: The timeline that you have, I'm looking at it, and we're at the part where you guys are presenting to us, but the next step, is it just to get a vote from us to approve your work or not? Is that the timeline?

[2810] SPEAKER_20: No. That's it. Just to accept it.

[2812] SPEAKER_09: Accept it. If I may clarify, there is no action required this evening. No, not today. And even if it was tomorrow. I think there's no vote on this by the board, it's just accepting the report from the contractor that we did to create this report. I think the next step, what I'm hearing, is the board wants to sort through, okay, where do all these three things come together and what makes the most sense, knowing the community and the district and, you know, how do we reconcile the must-have list with the CMG, CME, ADIS report. And that number that we gave, whatever it was, 5.7 million, And the $58 million, where's the truth fall in the middle of what really makes sense? So there's no action or voting to do anything there at the end of their contract. This is one of their final deliverables to the board. I do recommend we make those edits that were mentioned in public comment and look at it again, because those definitely are not edits that we need to ignore to be accurate. there's no voting to do anything other than to accept them and probably direct staff to take those other steps that you want us to take.

[2885] Bowen Zhang: Well, I do think it's helpful for us to really see the, in addition to the $220 million, when you reach the $580 million, that $360 million plus the gap, what will be the breakdown for that $360 million in addition to the $220 million already specified in the CMG report? I think in that way we have a much clearer picture about If we want to go for the big one, does the cost make sense? And if we really want to go for the complete transformation, whatever you call it, 21st century learning environment, whether that will be a viable option for the board. I want all options on the table with every single option that we know, 100% of the information, accurate information that we know to make the decision.

[2931] SPEAKER_10: I mean, the cost is actually fully broken down in the report itself, the cost The 588 million is broken down campus by campus, and within each campus it lists all the items of work. For example, like redo a parking lot. It lists how much that costs. It lists if you replace a portable building with a new structure, it lists how much that costs. So it's already broken down. I think that the issue is that what we realize, though, is that that we are dealing with a status quo only. We're dealing with the campuses as they are, and we're not dealing with any larger board decisions that the board may entertain in the coming months. So that would have a big influence on how you deal with these calls.

[2986] SPEAKER_09: And if I may point out to the board and the public, on our front page of our website, Underneath the category of recent news, there's an ADIS draft facility master plan. And that takes you to the link where there's, it's a very large document. It's over 600 pages, I think. So it's in that link. It's called a share file. And there's a lot of the depth of what you're asking, I think, is in there. What you're referring to. That's what you were referring to.

[3016] Ray Rodriguez: I just had a quick question before we end. community engagement, and you have the screen that shows number of stakeholders involved in facilities master planning. As you put this together and you decide and you approach the school district and now you're getting ready to put on meetings, what is your feeling on the number that we had? Was it something that you thought we should have more? And if you feel that, let's say, We should have 150, 200 people based on the size of our elementary schools, and we only have 90. How do you approach that from your side as far as getting more community engagement in your different get-togethers that you had?

[3068] SPEAKER_10: So overall, we felt that we had a pretty good cross-section of representatives of stakeholders involved at each of the campuses. We think that, yes, there may be more of an emphasis on staff and on parents than on just community members at large. Nonetheless, at every campus, there were stakeholders that represented various key areas in the at that school and within the district. I think that what sort of governs it in a sense is the number of stakeholder events that we were, that we could afford to do within the contract that we ended up with, with the board that when this project was first approved. As I mentioned at the beginning, that the board did ask us to condense the engagement. The board asked us to condense, to save cost on the entire process. And so there was some squeezing of some of those events. We still felt that there was pretty robust stakeholder engagement, and there was a lot There were, and it varies from campus to campus, but some of the campuses, there was a lot of involvement. There was a lot of people speaking up and offering ideas. So we felt overall, we felt that we got a lot of good feedback. Anything you'd like to add?

[3172] Ray Rodriguez: Anyone else before we? Okay. Thank you, and we're looking forward to getting more information before the next meeting. Okay, thank you. Thank you. OK. Before we go to closed session, OK, so in closed session, we're going to be discussing 4.1 Public Employee Discipline Dismissal Release, 4.2 Conference with Labor Negotiator, Employee Organizations, we have NTA, CSCA, Conference with Legal Counsel Regarding Litigation, Anticipated Litigation, and 4.4 public employment. Ms. Bloom, did you want to address us on this?

[3226] Rachel Bloom: Thank you. I used to come up here. Remember the good old days, Ray, when I'd come up here and yell and get all mad? And now Phuong is on the board, and I cannot do that. Hey, if we'd have known that, we would have met her a long time ago. So I can't do that. So I have two thoughts. So the first thing is about class size and compensation for the teachers. Just to keep in mind, how many applicants are we getting per position, like an opening? And do we want to choose who we hire or do we want to get stuck with someone? And let's say we get lucky and we find someone good, what are we doing to keep them? So that's what's on my mind. And again, so now because I can't yell, and tell everyone what to do. Now I'm just going to maybe suggest questions to ask when you're listening to everyone up here, when you're in closed session. How do you know that? What makes you say that? What do you think contributed to that positive or negative outcome? Are those conditions still in place? Have they changed? If they have changed, how? How do you think those new conditions will affect future outcomes? What are you sharing? Why are you sharing this particular data? What relevant information do you know that you're not sharing? So, thank you very much.

[3307] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Appreciate that. Mr. Newt.

[3320] Cary Knoop: Good evening again, and I'll promise I won't yell either.

[3324] SPEAKER_26: Thank you.

[3326] Ray Rodriguez: Yeah, we don't want somebody to take her place, right?

[3328] Cary Knoop: You just want some drama, sometimes, yeah.

[3330] Ray Rodriguez: It's not a problem.

[3331] Cary Knoop: It's not a problem. So this is about litigation. I have a, you know, sort of like I'm wondering that if somebody sues the district, that it gets served with papers, is there a policy or process in place that the first step will be that the board will be informed formally in the first following closed session Because, you know, I'm not saying anything secret. It's a public fact that Paul Bretz decided to sue NUSD. And so I'm very surprised that I don't see litigation, you know, current litigation there. It only says anticipated litigation. And obviously, unless the district hasn't been served, it is no pending litigation. And so if you are true to the Brown Act, You can't discuss this in this closed session because the idea is that the public is becoming aware about what matters to discuss in closed session. Now, if you have anticipated litigation, there's obviously no information available for the public. There's no case number. But as soon as you have a litigation, you're obliged by the Brown Act to put a case number so that if Somebody who's interested wants to say, I'm just going to look up that case number. I'm interested in it for whatever reason. They have the right to do that. So conform the Brown Act, I don't think you can discuss the Paul Bretz case unless you formally haven't been served and it's still anticipated. Second is that in case of, I don't know if there's a policy as well with respect to when somebody sues the district, is there a policy that the administration says, okay, well, we'll handle it first. We deal with the lawyers or is there a process in place where this is first brought to the board and say, you know, through the lawyers and the lawyers say, what do you want to do? You want us to negotiate? You want us to, what do you want to do as a next step? Fine detail is that sometimes, you know, when somebody sues the district, they also sue people on their personal account as well. So it's so much the more it's important to know that you have a process that you're comfortable with. And definitely if there's closed session, you know, this case, I can't possibly see how you could discuss this. And even if the lawyer said, well, you know what, nobody knows, I would highly advise every single board member to say, that's OK, I'll step out. Let me know when you guys are done, because I don't want to be contributing to that.

[3492] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you. Mister Merritt.

[3510] SPEAKER_13: Good evening board. Superintendent cabinet. I can't promise that I won't yell. I probably won't. I can't promise that I won't cry. It's possible that I will. I have a few things to talk about on many of these agenda of the four agenda items. that I'd like you to consider. Did you know that in 2015-2016 we spent $1.96 million on professional services and consultants? Our budget for the 2019-20 year is $3.2 million. That's a $1.16 million increase in professional services and consulting. It went from being 2.79% of your budget to 4.62% of your budget. It's an average of $300,000 a year increase, if I did my math correctly. Dates. I have instructed my negotiation team to go back to the district January is too late to continue the discussions about our employment. January is too late. Let me propose some dates. November 11th and 12th, 15th and 22nd are all good dates. There's no parent-teacher conferences. There's no finals. The first two weeks of December are good dates. There's no parent-teacher conferences. There's no finals, Monday through Friday. We need to hire quality educators. That's teachers and administrators. We need to support those new hires 110% so that they can be successful and not blame them for their failures. We need to support them. We need to reduce our legal risk. With our employees, with our students, with our parents, we need to stop the chaos. Albert Einstein said, few are those that see with their own eyes and feel with their own heart. It was a poster that I got in high school. Yesterday, we had 99 NTA members meet. As a general meeting, I felt like I was going to throw up, honest. I did. My members are not happy, and they want a vote of no confidence for Superintendent Sanchez, and they've been talking about this for a long time. I did not take the vote because one site was not represented sufficiently. We will be organizing a vote.

[3694] Ray Rodriguez: I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor, but you'll have a chance when you come up later if you want to continue your thoughts.

[3699] SPEAKER_13: You're going to be talking about the employment of the superintendent. So I wanted to make sure that you knew where I was at.

[3707] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. I appreciate that. Mr. Hernandez.

[3718] SPEAKER_17: Thank you. David Hernandez, executive director of the Newark Teaching Association. I want to share with you a really quick story. A year ago, there was a local chapter that was told that they were going to be given a 0% increase on their salary schedule with a declining enrollment in that particular school district, which irritated not only the community, but irritated the teachers in that particular local. It was a 14-day strike, and you know what I'm talking about. That's the pathway that I feel we're going down right now in this particular district. When you go to the bargaining table and you share with your professionals, and you are offering them a 0%, that is a slap in the face. When you are telling your personnel that they are not a priority, The mere people who are teaching the children of your school district, your employees in general that work with the students in the school district, when you honor them with a 0%, you're telling them that they are of no value. You're not validating them. I'm seeing everything happening here that I witnessed in New Haven, the district, coming out with a 0%, the district claiming their enrollment's going down, the priorities of spending going in the wrong direction. You heard about consultation fees going up or whatever the cost. There's a lot of money that could be redirected. And unless this board looks at your budget closely, and I know I'm being told, well, but it's already been budgeted. You look at your budgets every now and then and you adjust your budgets. And it's always a funny thing that every single year, money falls out of the budget. That is a common practice in school districts across the state. Over budget, under spend. And at the end of the year, guess what? We found more money. I would strongly urge you to look at your budgets and see what you're going to be bringing to the table. because a 0% is going to cause your own employees to walk the streets of Newark. Thank you.

[3883] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Okay, so I am personally, since I've been doing this a while, I have utmost confidence in the negotiating team that we have and also in the negotiating team for the and TA and also for CSCA. I know these are hard times, but good people normally get together and come up with excellent results. So that's my hope. It's having, you know, five grandkids in this district. I know it's tough, but, you know, I appreciate all the time and effort that everybody that's on the negotiating teams puts in for our kids, okay, on both sides. Okay. With that, we'll go to closed session. And we'll be back, hopefully, about 7 o'clock.

No minutes available.