Regular Meeting

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[43] Elisa Martinez: Are we live? Okay, thank you. Good evening and welcome to the Thursday, December 3rd, 2020 regular meeting of the Newark Unified Board of Education. We call this meeting to order at 6.01 p.m. And Ms. Gutierrez, roll call, please.

[69] SPEAKER_47: Member Zhang? Remember when. Sure. Member Rodriguez. And we just got noticed that he might be joining late and President Martinez.

[84] Elisa Martinez: Here. Thank you. Thank you. It's just having some technical issues, so we should. We do expect him to join. Okay. Thank you. Before I do ask for a motion in a second, we do have some changes that we need to make to tonight's agenda. Due to an Ed Code, California Ed Code 5017 change that occurred last January 2019, now the date of swearing in for the newly elected board members has to occur after the second Friday of December. So prior to that, when a couple of us were sworn in, it was still after the first Friday. So because of that, we are pulling the entire section nine, which is the annual organization of the board items, 9.1 through 9.15. Are there any other modifications to the agenda? Okay, well, with that, I do ask for a motion to approve the agenda with items 9.1 through 9.15 being removed.

[172] Bowen Zhang: I move that we approve the agenda with all section nine. Thank you. And new organization of the board.

[178] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. I'll second. Member Zhang moves, member Nguyen seconds. And so we will be voting on board docs, correct? I sent my vote. I know last time there was a delay. Please let me know if you've received mine.

[211] SPEAKER_47: Okay, I have received everybody's. And at this point, I will be also doing a roll call vote. So, Member Jean?

[222] Aiden Hill: Yes.

[223] SPEAKER_47: Member Nguyen? Yes. And President Martinez? Yes.

[231] Elisa Martinez: And Ms. Gutierrez, if you wanted to explain why we're doing both?

[236] SPEAKER_47: The board docs is to record the vote on our voting system that we use. And then after the vote's been recorded, per advice from legal as well as regarding the changes due to COVID and having virtual meetings, we have to do a roll call vote. Thank you. Thank you.

[262] Elisa Martinez: Okay, um. And no member Rodriguez has still not joined him.

[269] SPEAKER_47: No, he's just sent the link, and I think he should be working on receiving it soon.

[274] Elisa Martinez: Thanks. Um, we move on to item 2.2. Do we have any public comment on closed session items? None. Okay. Thank you.

[283] Bowen Zhang: So before we recessed, I think Ray is in the

[292] SPEAKER_47: Probably use the wrong link.

[294] SPEAKER_28: Okay.

[315] Elisa Martinez: Okay, there he is. There you are, Member Rodriguez. So let the record show Member Rodriguez joined at 6.06 p.m. Thank you. And so we were about to recess to closed session, but before we do so, I just wanted to review the items we will be discussing in closed session. 3.1, Public Employee Discipline Dismissal Release. 3.2, Conference with Labor Negotiator Employee Organizations, NTA and CSCA. 3.3 is Conference with Labor Negotiator NEWMA, Unrepresented Supervisors in Contracted Management. And 3.4 is Conference with Legal Counsel Regarding Anticipated Litigation. So we will now recess to closed session and we will rejoin at seven o'clock. Thank you.

[360] Ray Rodriguez: I have been trying to get on for the last 15 minutes in case anybody wants to know.

[365] Elisa Martinez: We did share that.

[367] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Now we go to the other link.

[377] Michael Milliken: Okay.

[409] Ray Rodriguez: Come on, leave.

[2083] SPEAKER_25: Okay, excellent.

[2242] Maria Huffer: Okay, that's good.

[3534] Ray Rodriguez: Come on. Come here. Come on. You papa baby.

[3586] SPEAKER_28: Baby.

[3594] Elisa Martinez: Okay, do we, seven o'clock, do we have everyone? Okay, we'll go ahead and, are we live now? Okay. Good evening to those of you just joining us now. It's 701 and we are reconvening to open session. Before we move to the Pledge of Allegiance, I just wanted to remind everyone that this meeting is being televised on the Newark Unified YouTube channel. And again, Given that I'm talking about the YouTube channel, there are two ways to observe the meeting. One is if you just want to observe and don't want to provide public comment, you would see the link on our website to our YouTube channel. If you want to provide public comment live, you will also find instructions for the Zoom link for each meeting. And then finally, you will also find instruction on how to submit written comment which is a comment that will not be read live, but would be submitted as part of the meeting record. So with that, I would like to ask everyone to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. And I've asked Member Rodriguez if he could please lead us in the pledge, and if everybody else could please mute your microphones.

[3701] Ray Rodriguez: Put your hand across your heart. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Last time I did that, I ended up in the Marine Corps. So I don't know.

[3730] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Thank you for that. Member Rodriguez. Okay, I actually wanted to miss Gutierrez. I think you made me aware. As we all know, member Rodriguez joined the the the initial opening of the meeting a few minutes late. Just some technology issues, but he did vote via BoardDocs. So his aye vote for the approval of the agenda is reflected. And I just wanted to, I know that you also did a roll call, so I just wanted to make sure I called that out. Okay, thank you. And I also wanted to make sure that the record shows that student member Salemi has joined us as well. Thank you and welcome. Okay, with that, we move to item five, which is reporting of closed session items. And there was no reportable action that was taken during closed session. Okay, and so with that, we move to item six, which is the student report.

[3794] SPEAKER_47: President Martinez, would you like to read the items that were discussed during closed session? Oh, I'm sorry.

[3798] Elisa Martinez: Yes, I did it before. So should we do it before and after? I know we traditionally do it before. Okay, so I will review. Closed session items, we discussed public employee discipline dismissal release, and that was 3.1. 3.2 is conference with labor negotiator, employee organizations, NTA and CSCA. 3.3 is conference with labor negotiator, NEWMA, unrepresented supervisors and contract management. And 3.4 is conference with legal counsel regarding anticipated litigation. Thank you, Ms. Gutierrez. Okay. So with that, we move to item six, which is the student report. And I'll hand that over to you, Superintendent Triplett.

[3844] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Martinez. Good evening, board members, community students and staff. I'm going to have Ms. Gutierrez introduce the student leaders to speak to the board.

[3859] SPEAKER_47: Thank you, Dr. Triplett. And for this, we have the junior high We have our two student leaders, Alyssa Torres and Rachel Restau. And Alyssa and Rachel, we are ready for you.

[3886] Elisa Martinez: Hello, welcome.

[3896] SPEAKER_50: Hello. Hello, staff, board members, and parents. My name is Alyssa Torres, and I am NGHS ASB president. I will be letting you all know about what happened this November. We continued our weekly quiz games, which is going really well. Next topic I would like to talk about is the canned food drive we held to support Biola of Life. We took the right precautions and had students drop off cans at the front of the school with masks on. Finally, my event committee hosted a movie noon. We watched the movie, The Sandlot, and asked trivia questions to go with it. Students who were the first to answer the question correctly won a gift card of their choice or apparel from our student store. This event went really well, and students who were there engaged, and they were participating lots, which went really well. And here's Rachel with her report.

[3962] SPEAKER_02: Hello, board members, parents, and staff. My name is Rachel Astute, and I'm Newark Junior High School's ASB vice president this year. And I'm going to tell you about the future plans that Newark Junior High School's ASB leadership class has for the month of November. Our activities committee, led by Alyssa, has decided to implement a second movie noon since the first one turned out so well, and in the holiday spirit, they chose Home Alone. Secondly, our ASB is getting lots of pictures for the yearbook, especially since Spirit Week, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the break just happened. Next, the junior high is continuing to collect unwrapped toys and cans for the Viola Blythe Foundation. Anyone can drop off cans and toys in the parking lot side of the junior high between 8 a.m. and 3.30 p.m. And our activities committee is also hoping to create an Among Us tournament, which is still in the works. And that's our report. Thank you for listening.

[4017] Elisa Martinez: Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Sorry, Ms. Gutierrez.

[4020] SPEAKER_47: No, it's OK. Thank you very much. And the next student is joining us from the Bridgepoint-McGregor campus. And it's Alexis Blanco-Barone. Alexis, you may talk.

[4043] SPEAKER_41: Good evening Superintendent, Dr. Triplett, board members, cabinet members. I'm Alexis Blanco-Baron and I'm in ninth grade at Crossroads. I serve on the school site council. Last month it was reported that Crossroads has a new mascot. However, there was an error. We are the Crossroads Coyotes. Our first quarter awards will be shared as a part of our principal's weekly video announcements. She will be sharing our honor roll and attendance award. The teachers took a part in a self-care bingo. Chef Roberts, Mrs. Hodges, Ms. Shepard, where the winners will be treated to the gift cards by Principal Carlton. Students and teachers will be taking part in Winter Break Countdown Week starting next Tuesday. There will be dress-up days and prizes. Thank you.

[4095] SPEAKER_39: Thank you so much.

[4097] Mark Triplett: Thank you, Ms. Peralta.

[4099] SPEAKER_47: Thank you, and then last but not least, our Newark Memorial High School student, student member Salemi.

[4107] SPEAKER_45: Thank you. Good evening, members of the board, executive cabinet, students, and community members. I'm happy to be here and share with you all what's happening at Newark Memorial. December 8th, PTSA will have a meeting. This week, the week of December 7th, will be NMHS's Winter Spirit Week. Dress-up days will include Ugly Sweater Day, which is Monday, Hibernation Day, which is Tuesday, Winter Wonderland, which is Wednesday, Christmas Light Day, which is Thursday, Santa's Helper's Day, which is Friday. Throughout that week, we will have many events and different things that we will be doing, such as a holiday playlist that we'll send out, Winter Kahoot, holiday vlog, gingerbread house competition, holiday bingo, and sending out information on Hanukkah, among other things. We had a successful canned food drive where we raised 800 cans PTSA was kind enough to donate prizes for a raffle, so we wanted to thank them here tonight. We'll be having our freshman game night on the 16th. We also wanted to share the hard work that NMHS Peer Tutoring Club is doing. They have been a very big help on our campus for all our students. And now for sports. This week we received word that the CIF and NCS, that the proposed fall sports season has been postponed until at least January 1st. However, no official start date has been given. The postponement also means that there will be no CIF state playoffs for football, cross country, water polo, or volleyball. We're expecting a statement from NCS on January 19th regarding the status of the NCS playoffs. The idea is by eliminating the playoffs, there will be more time in the calendar for a season when it is safe to do so. The fall gift card drive organized by Newark Memorial Athletics was a huge success. We received nearly $3,500 in donations to support our NUSD families in need. Thank you to all of our supporters and your continuous support to our community. NMHS Athletics is working with elementary school principals to bring back our Reading for Success program back to elementary students via Zoom. Our student-athletes will read stories to promote social and emotional health and allow for Q&A sessions. We're excited to bring back this program as it has been huge success in the past. Last month, we recognized three staff members for their hard work and dedication to Newark Memorial. And I would like to share their names here with you all tonight. They are Mr. Dominguez, Mrs. Burns, and Mrs. Nations. And that concludes my student report. Thank you.

[4262] Elisa Martinez: Thank you, Mr. Salemi, student member Salemi.

[4267] SPEAKER_47: And that's it for the students. Thank you. Thank you.

[4272] Elisa Martinez: Okay, and with that, we move to employee organizations. Ms. Gutierrez, do we have folks from NTA, CSCA, or NEWMA?

[4283] SPEAKER_47: We do, we have from NTA and NEWMA. So we have Ms. Wendy Castaneda, Dr. Wendy Castaneda for NEWMA. Actually, we started, it's okay, Mr. Rose, leave it as is. We have Mr. Abruzzi for NTA.

[4301] Sean Abruzzi: Hi, thank you.

[4302] Elisa Martinez: Good evening.

[4303] Sean Abruzzi: Welcome. NTA wanted to report on, we had about a social emotional curriculum. We all noticed this showed up on the distance learning plan. This curriculum was adopted, but how is SEL curriculum going to be taught? We're still working on that. NUSD is, Adopted a curriculum using the law, learning loss mediation funds, which will be lost in December. The two curriculum things that we're talking about is the character strong at the junior high level, and the second step at the elementary level sites. At the junior high level, we had some issues dealing with how communities were formed and how NT wasn't notified, but we have corrected that and we're moving forward and hopefully next week we'll be scheduling a meeting with the junior high on Tuesday with Ed Services and HR. One thing the NTA wants to bring up is that when committees are formed, they need to be brought to NTA leadership and not just to NTA members. The reason why is because NTA leadership knows a little bit more of what's going on, and we can somewhat get through these processes a little bit sooner. The other thing NTA wants to bring up is the second step for an elementary. NTA looks at this and realizes that for this program to be successful, we would need at least one coach per elementary site to have this SEL curriculum, the social emotional learning curriculum, to work. We don't know if that's going to be possible or not, if there's funds out there. We would like to know if this is going to other sites besides the Schilling and the Graham, how would that be funded? Is this going to be the learning loss mediation funds that we're going to be using? Or are we using another funds? And Taye would like to know a little bit about that. Schilling is using the Title I funds to have this program. Graham is using its CPSA. So it's used in many different ways. The district is best rolling out a paper company, which is a tutorial company to help out our students who are falling behind. And Tate would like to know, was there a committee formed to review this paper company? What extra work would the classroom teacher need to do to make this work, this tutoring thing? And how is this funded? for that reason too. Where's the funding coming to pay for this? Also, I got an email from the paper company before the district sent out an email telling me that the district even adopted this. I thought that was kind of weird and hopefully in the future, the district will communicate with NTA about what is being brought in and how that is being funded. And I also would like to remember and mention to the district that teachers have a duty-free lunch. And it brought to my attention that there was a meeting at the snow site to talk about the emergence during the duty-free lunch. So hopefully I'm not correct on that, but I wanted to bring that to the attention to the board. The other thing that I want to bring attention to the board and has come to my attention is our credit recovery programs. We have a site McGregor, which as I understood was a site that if a student is not on track to graduate high school, then they would be transferred to this site so they can make up these credits and then maybe able to come back to the high school. Also, we have summer school. The third program we have is APEX. The question would be is why was APEX brought in when we had these other two programs for credit recovery? And Kate would like to know how that's done. At the high school level, the APEX is funded through the CPSA, which depends on how much money is at the high school, depends on how much sections are offered through the APEX program. The other thing the district would like to know is, I know that we are working on the hybrid MOU. When we get done with that, will we be working on a pause period MOU? Because in the past, this pause period has been implemented at the high school without an MOU, and we would like to avoid that situation. Talking about pathways and reducing Fs in the secondary levels. One of the problems we run into is we do not have prerequisites in the math department, which means that a student who fails an Algebra I course can take a geometry course, which sometimes the student does pass, but does put a lot of pressure on that student. Same thing is happening in the modern language part at the high school. what so if someone does can take a French two without passing a French one that makes a little bit more difficult for that student to pass the second course and how successful would that student be. One of the other things we want to know is will the district be moving to online course registration for the high school and junior high since we are not in person and this process was done by paper would it be done online and Where are we at on that? The old process did a lot of interruption in instructional time, which we know that some of these students badly need. And lastly, NTA would like to wish Jessica Saavetra all luck in her new job. And that's all NTA has to say. Thank you.

[4665] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Mr. Bruese?

[4667] Aiden Hill: Yes.

[4668] Elisa Martinez: Okay, and Miss Gutierrez, who else will be joining?

[4674] SPEAKER_47: Thank you, Mr. Bruzee. Next one is Nneuma, and it's Dr. Wendy Castaneda.

[4691] SPEAKER_13: All right, good evening members of the board and executive cabinet members. On behalf of NEWMA, we want to take this opportunity to thank our colleagues in NTA and CSCA for their continued support during distance learning. Additionally, we continue to push ourselves in professional development, ensuring we are up to date with best practices and current hot button issues impacting the California educational system. Multiple members of NEWMA attended the CSCA Leadership Summit last month to increase our depth of knowledge in multiple areas of equity, including racial equality, equality during distance learning, and equality in disciplinary practices. Other members of NEWMA continued their professional development by attending AXA academics. We are proud to have such a hardworking, dedicated members in our NEWMA group and will continue to support our members, families, and community members that are impacted from the school consolidation decision. We want to end our update with a friendly reminder to the community. As we continue the school year, we want to ensure that we continue to lead with student-focused decisions in mind. We thank you all for your support and dedication to our community.

[4768] Elisa Martinez: Thank you very much, Ms. Castaneda.

[4773] SPEAKER_47: And that's it for employee organizations. Okay.

[4777] Elisa Martinez: Thank you, Tierras. And so we move to item eight, which is recognitions and celebrations. And Superintendent Triplett, we have a very special event occurring today.

[4791] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Martinez. Yes, this evening, we are celebrating someone who's here with us on the board, and in fact, who has been on this board for 20 years. Mr. Rodriguez, board member Rodriguez, is retiring after this term, which is ending effectively this evening. And so we just wanted to take a moment to appreciate you, member Rodriguez. Your 20 years of service to our community is unparalleled. And what I've been struck by ever since I came was your genuine love and care that you bring to every space. Genuine love and care for our students, for our staff, and for our families. And it just comes through in everything you say and everything you do. So we are planning on introducing to the board a resolution commemorating Member Rodriguez in the upcoming meeting, but this evening we really want to try to draw this celebration out as long as we can with Member Rodriguez. So this evening, it's going to be the first part, and then we'll have a second part at our next meeting. But at this point, I think we're going to invite anyone who wants to speak. Is that right, Ms. Gutierrez?

[4878] Elisa Martinez: Yeah, yes. And I actually skipped public comment. Um and in the spirit of starting the I forgot to ask Miss Gutierrez if there was public comment, and she just messaged me that there is a public comment. So I'm so sorry before we go ahead and open it up to the board members. Um and any other special guests? I'd like to make sure we listened from our from our public speaker. Go ahead.

[4905] SPEAKER_47: Okay Mr. Rose, if you could, thank you.

[4916] Cindy Parks: Thank you. I think it was appropriate, actually, that Dr. Triplett introduced this section, so I don't mind. I'm glad that he started it off. Mr. Rodriguez, I can't believe, I think it's been closer to 25 years that you've been on the board. I just wanna say that, first of all, Sue Eustace asked me to extend her thanks once again for all of your years of service. She said she had done it privately, but wanted me to convey that thanks once again publicly. I would like to thank you for your many years of service to the Newark community and especially to the Newark students. It's unfortunate that this didn't happen during normal times where you would have an in-person recognition celebration. And it's sad that we can't honor you that way this evening due to the pandemic. I hope that this pandemic ends soon so that you and Anna can enjoy this next chapter of your life, one without all of the school board commitments. Thank you again for all of your service and I wish you the best.

[4985] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. this pandemic is over and we have an outside celebration, Ms. Parks has graciously decided, told me that she would emcee the event, so I'm very excited.

[4998] Elisa Martinez: Very good, very nice and generous. Well, Member Rodriguez, of course I know that the board members would like to weigh in and staff as well, but my understanding was that you were going to have a few guests Maybe some family members join and say a few words?

[5020] Ray Rodriguez: I'm not sure. Again, I told them, if they're not going to say anything nice, don't call.

[5026] Elisa Martinez: So maybe if we can just have them raise their hands. They're on the attendees. So Ms. Rodriguez-Gutierrez, if you can go ahead and kind of promote folks to speak.

[5037] SPEAKER_47: Yes, Mr. Rose, if you can help me with this. And for the sake of making it easier, Mr. Rose, could you please do the telephone line first? Can you, Mr. Rose, can you unmute them? I don't have it. If you can hear us, I don't have a name for you, but calling on the telephone for member Ray Rodriguez, if you could speak. Um, there's a certain muted. There's a certain, um, code that they need to press on their phone. I will get that. Um, if you can't unmute it, Mr. Rose, we will do with the, we'll start with the next one and then I'll get the code for, for this color. The next one is okay. Thank you. You already got a Tiffany Rodriguez. Tiffany, where do you get, where do you guys, you have the mic. Tiffany, you have the mic.

[5112] SPEAKER_18: Okay, thank you. I just wrote a little something. My dad has never thought that being a part of the school board was a job. It was a passion. From day one, he has put his heart and soul into serving the schools, parents, and students. He has always tried to make himself available to serve. If a parent came into his place of business, he never turned them away. He would listen to their concerns, even if he could not offer an immediate solution. He always found it important to try to attend as many school events as possible. Barbecues, reading in the classroom, DARE graduations, kindergarten promotions, high school graduations, plays, walk-a-thons, breakfast with Santa, the senior breakfast, and many more. Choosing to retire was a difficult decision for him. He was, is, and will forever be a Newark Cougar. Thank you.

[5170] Ray Rodriguez: She had me at hello. I'm going to start crying.

[5177] SPEAKER_47: Thank you very much, Tiffany. And the next one, um, if you, for the caller, if you can hear me, you have to press star nine. So we're going to, um, for try. Okay. So the caller star nine on your phone. Nothing? If you want to, if you can hear, can you hear us? Okay. We will try, we'll try with the next, the next person. And I have here Larissa. Larissa, you have the floor.

[5233] SPEAKER_39: Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Oh, okay. Hi, I'm Ray's granddaughter.

[5245] Elisa Martinez: Sorry. Oh, you're going to make us cry. Take a minute now.

[5253] Ray Rodriguez: She blessed me with my first great grandchild.

[5257] SPEAKER_39: Yes. I just want to say thank you for everything. Thank you for being able on the school board and supporting him throughout my entire school year, from kindergarten till I graduated in 2008. And I'll have wonderful memories to this day of him coming onto campus and seeing him. Excuse me. And I always remember, you know, my friends telling me, you know, your grandpa's here, you know, and he would always give them, you know, he would give us money, you know, when he would come on campus, and he would always give money to our friends too, regardless, you know, they're not family or not. So he treats everyone like family. And even till this day, people like ask me, oh, I know your grandpa, I remember him coming you know, to the campus of school and the graduations. And so, you know, it's an honor to have a grandfather that people, you know, recognize as, you know, someone that they, you know, see and will always remember being, you know, at graduations on school campus everywhere in Newark. So it's an honor for him, you know, to be on the school board. Um, so I just want to say thank you. And it's, it's going to be hard for, you know, my son who, um, is seven, he goes to snow school, you know, for him to grow up and, you know, for my grandpa to not, you know, be on the school board and walk, you know, and for Angelo to be him and, you know, come to all the school events. I mean, I'm sure he will, but like not the same. So, but I was going to say, thank you.

[5384] Elisa Martinez: Thank you so much.

[5386] Ray Rodriguez: It's time to retire when you got kids in school and their grandkids of somebody that I gave a diploma to get the kids. I gave the diploma, their children and other grandkids. So, you know, it's time to retire.

[5405] SPEAKER_47: And, uh, member Rodriguez, I'm going to double check these names with you. Uh, we have Angelo Legorio. Do you recognize?

[5412] Ray Rodriguez: Yeah, that's my good-looking son-in-law that takes care of my daughter.

[5416] SPEAKER_47: Perfect. The next one we have, Angelo Legorio, please. Angelo, you have the mic.

[5433] Elisa Martinez: Looks like you're on mute, though.

[5437] SPEAKER_47: Angelo, if you can hear us, you can just unmute yourself. Mr. Rose, can you help us unmute?

[5452] Ray Rodriguez: We can try again with Mr. Angelo's an attorney, so it takes a little longer to get.

[5459] SPEAKER_47: He's probably working on a case right now. We can try Mr. Rose, if you can help me with the next one. Diana Pino, remember Rodriguez? Do you know? Perfect. Diana Pino, please. Diana, you have the floor. You can unmute yourself. Mr. Rose, you wanna promote the other Diana as well? And then, okay. Diana, if you can hear us, you can unmute yourself.

[5516] Ray Rodriguez: I told you, I don't like Zoom. I'm just glad that my grandkids like it because they wouldn't be able to get their stuff done.

[5524] SPEAKER_47: President Martinez, sometimes we have audio failure because of older versions. Do you mind if we try opening video? Sure, go ahead. Mr. Rose, if you can help me.

[5537] Elisa Martinez: And I just wanted, sorry, I will say that because it's a special occasion. So I don't want I know that I don't want to sit to precedent. Okay, go ahead.

[5550] SPEAKER_47: Mr. Rose, if you can help me with this. Okay, we can move Diana. Oh, Diana, can you hear us? Okay, we can move Diana back and it looks like Angelo is ready. Angelo, can you hear us?

[5579] SPEAKER_25: Hi, this is actually, um, this is Monica, my, I use my husband's computer that we're watching on YouTube and weren't watching the zoom. So, sorry. No problem. Thank you. Yeah. So, um, I just want to congratulate my dad. Um, I think he was an incredible board member and I know it wasn't always easy and there's a lot of behind the scenes that people don't see or don't recognize but we saw it and it's just an honor to have someone so dedicated and committed. I mean he would come home with thick binders and read them until past midnight. He'd stay out at board meetings until past midnight and every free moment that wasn't spent working or with us was at some school function supporting kids and staff and teachers and it was a incredible experience to have my dad give me my diploma. It's something that you just never forget. So we are excited because, you know, I think it's time for my dad to have some free time, but incredibly honored and incredibly blessed to have someone like him as a board member and someone like him as my dad.

[5664] Ray Rodriguez: You know, when I went on school campuses to visit my kids, Their friends welcomed me, and my kids gave me this look like, what are you doing here? Why are you bugging us? But their friends were always there and welcomed me. And it's so much of a pleasure. 24 years, I never expected to be more than eight years. And I've served under six superintendents and Dr. Triplett. I was thinking of serving under you also. And then my wife told me that I would have to sleep in the garage if that happened. So, you know, it's just been a pleasure serving the kids of Newark. And my father was a school teacher and had so many educators in my family. And this was my way of giving back to my community. And I'd love serving and working with the kids of Newark and doing our best to make sure that they get every opportunity to be successful. But again, I never intended it to be 24 plus years. One of the new board members asked me, why are you leaving now? And for the first time since I got on the board over 24 years ago, we have one experienced board member and four new And I looked at the new board members and I saw that Newark was in good hands and we have a new superintendent and a new admin secretary, Ms. Gutierrez. And I'm just excited on, I know there's many challenges ahead of us and I just feel very, very, very relaxed that the people that are gonna be serving our kids moving forward are gonna do a great job. I'm just very proud to have given all the years and I'm not going anywhere. So I'm still going to be serving on different committees if you want me to and help out as much as possible. I'm very excited about our new board members and the makeup of the board moving forward.

[5803] SPEAKER_47: Thank you, Newark. Thank you. We actually have F. Rodriguez as well.

[5808] Ray Rodriguez: Oh, that's my daughter, Felicia.

[5810] SPEAKER_47: Oh, Felicia. Hi, Felicia. Oh, they moved the thing. Okay, Felicia, are you, can you hear us? Felicia, can you hear us? Okay, we can hear you.

[5835] Cindy Parks: Hello?

[5840] SPEAKER_46: Felicia, do you hear us?

[5847] Ray Rodriguez: I'm sorry, President Martinez, I didn't think that... Zoom is difficult.

[5856] SPEAKER_47: Okay, can we try? Okay, Diana, we got Larissa. Just looking down the list. Olga Borjon. Thank you, Mr. Paul.

[5869] SPEAKER_46: Olga, can you hear us? Yes.

[5875] SPEAKER_33: I just want to say thanks to Ray for being on the board for such a long time. I think Larissa was playing baseball with my youngest son and Ray was on the board and he said he will stay there until his last child was there. The tradition continues, but I am happy for you that you are taking the time for yourself and for Anna to enjoy the rest of the journey. have time to just be yourself and take care of all your grandkids from the outside and not be at the school. But I'm sure you will be at the school forever. And again, like everybody else, I just want to thank you for all the service that you have provided to the newer students and our families and the parents. So thank you and God bless you, Ray.

[5927] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you, Olga, for always being out there when we need somebody to serve on the committee. And thank you for raising wonderful kids and all your help with Avanzando when we started it. And I really appreciate you a whole bunch.

[5948] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. We have MC Rodriguez. MC Rodriguez, can you hear us?

[5959] SPEAKER_40: Yeah, I can hear you. Okay. Sorry, this is his daughter Magdalena. I just wanted to congratulate him on his retirement. Like my other sister said, this is a difficult decision for him. But unlike everybody else, I didn't go to school in Newark. But I'm thankful that my son, who's eight, has had a few years with him on the board. attending events. And I just always, I always admired the fact that he truly really cared about the community and the kids in the community. And you could tell because he would go to events at schools, random events, like, you know, like just some play or something at someone else's school that his kid wasn't in. And you'd be thinking, why are you here on a Thursday night, you know, but he really truly enjoyed it. He loves the kids in this community. And like Monica said, there's been some rough times behind the scenes and that's to be expected when you're on a board as you all I'm sure realized it's not as easy as it seems from the outside. And I just wanna say I appreciate him and I hope that people remember him in a positive light for all of the great things that he's done for this community.

[6052] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you for taking care of my grandbaby.

[6056] SPEAKER_47: Thank you.

[6057] Ray Rodriguez: Magdalena is a PTA president over at Snow Elementary, and she's really dedicated to the Snow staff and the kids of Snow, and I'm really proud of her. Thank you.

[6072] Elisa Martinez: You're on mute, Ms. Gutierrez. Thank you, Alison New.

[6082] SPEAKER_46: Alison, can you hear us?

[6089] SPEAKER_47: Alison? Okay, one more time. Alison, can you hear us? Okay, we have Ms. Sonia Torres.

[6107] SPEAKER_46: Sonia, can you hear us?

[6110] SPEAKER_14: I can. Can you hear me? Yes. Oh, I wasn't expecting to speak and I was just going through my email and I saw the invite and I'm glad I got it. Thank you, Ray, for everything. that you've done for our community. I want to sit here and think, you know, I was sitting here thinking, oh my God, 24 years. That's a long time. And then I counted my years in Newark and it's close. It doesn't match exactly, but I'm not far behind you. Of course, in my head, I still think I'm 22, which is when I started in Newark Unified. But I do want to say I do appreciate all of his advocacy for all the students. And I know a lot of times it's not popular to be, you know, do what's best for students. I know we say that a lot. But Ray, excuse me, I didn't think I was going to get emotional. But one thing that has always remained consistent with Ray since I've been here, and I did start in 1999, was that, you know, he has always been an advocate for the student and, you know, and for families, you know. And it's nice to know that throughout all of the changes in admin. and superintendents to have that consistency. I was actually fortunate to be Daniel's teacher. I don't know if he already spoke. That's how long ago I've been in the district. And he was, I think I taught Daniel, his son, my first or second year of teaching, and then had several of his children and then even grandchildren. So thank you, Ray. I know it's a thankless job. It's political and, you know, all of the work, a lot of work I'm sure goes unnoticed behind the scenes and at home. And so hats off to your family for that sacrifice. I know in education, a lot of people don't see a lot of that behind the scenes. And so thank you to your family for being so gracious with your time to be a public servant and for always having the best interests of our students and families. And you will be missed. I know you're still around. And so I find comfort in that. And I'll probably see you at school events, even though you're not on the board. Thank you for 24 wonderful years. And I know we've even disagreed on certain things, but at the end, we know that we've had the best interests of everyone. So thank you for your time and your service.

[6246] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you, Ms. Torres-Sonia. With all the changes at the high school over the years, and she's always been the standard bearer and helping new superintendents and new principals and being the counselor to so many kids over the years, and also running the Puente program, and she's really a godsend, and I'm so happy that she chose Newark to be the place where she taught our kids, and being a great counselor that she is.

[6281] Elisa Martinez: You're on mute, Ms. Gutierrez.

[6284] SPEAKER_47: We have T. Jackson, I believe. T. Jackson, can you hear us? T Jackson, can you unmute yourself?

[6296] SPEAKER_19: Can you hear me? Yes. Oh, sorry. I'm actually his other granddaughter, Marcellia. And sorry, I just wanted to say that I appreciate everything he's done while serving on the school board. I was fortunate enough to experience it, being that I went also to school in Newark from kindergarten through high school. And one of my greatest memories is him handing me my diploma on stage. And yeah, I just really appreciate all that he's done for the city, our community, the schools, and how he's been so supportive. And unfortunately, my daughter won't be able to have that same experience, but I'm glad that he'll have more time to spend with her outside of that. So thank you. I love you.

[6350] Ray Rodriguez: I love you. She gave me my first great granddaughter. And Jessica knows her very well because she worked at the elementary school where Jessica was a principal. And Marcella just finished her degree and hopefully she'll stay with special needs kids, but whatever she decides to do as a family, we're going to support her. And I'm so proud of her and what she's accomplished as, you know, just very proud of Marcella.

[6386] SPEAKER_47: And then we're just gonna try the phone number one more time. The caller, if you're able to press star nine to unmute yourself. And I apologize, member Rodriguez, if we were not able to get all your family members to speak tonight. With technology, it's not always as easy, but hopefully we tried. Mr. Rose, you can move that the color back. Thank you. President Martinez.

[6421] Elisa Martinez: Yes, thank you. Thank you. And, you know, I can only imagine how it feels. Member Rodriguez to hear your family and your longtime friends. So I know that I know, you know, at the end, we'll probably have some opportunities to speak again. But I did want to ask any of the board members or staff if you'd like to make a brief remark. to Mr., to member Rodriguez.

[6448] Bowen Zhang: I think I see the Mr. Knoop is raising his hand or he's not.

[6456] SPEAKER_47: Thank you.

[6459] Elisa Martinez: Okay. We'll do one more and then we'll come back to the board. Okay. Absolutely.

[6463] SPEAKER_17: Very good. Hello. Hello. Can you hear me?

[6473] Elisa Martinez: Yes, we can hear you. Hello, Mr. Knoop.

[6475] SPEAKER_17: Hello, and thanks for letting me in. I really appreciate that. When I heard that you went to the board members, I said, I'm going to raise my hand because I'm happy. I can say a couple of words to Mr. Rodriguez. Ray, thank you for all the service to the community. I think, you know, it's a wonderful job being on the board and The fact that you've been there for so long is just really wonderful. And, um, you know, everybody needs to be thankful for that. I'm going to miss the conversations we frequently had at your office. And, uh, of course we didn't always agree. Um, you know, I'm more the, uh, the person who likes to go through documents with a fine. tooth calm and you know, your strength is definitely that you are the heart of the board. You think of the kids, you think of the parents and you know, the way you lead meetings, you manage meetings is amazing. You always know when to say the thank yous and to appreciate people and you know, you've done a fantastic job in that field. So I wish you all the best and I hope you stay involved with Newark Unified.

[6549] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Newt.

[6550] Ray Rodriguez: Mr. Newt, I just wanted to say I appreciate you and coming up to the podium and and and serving on the bond committee. And I just you're a great dad. And I know not only do you love your own kids, but you love newer kids. And and I appreciate the fact that you're staying involved and and and, you know, and newer unified with our kids. Greatly appreciate everything you do for us. He's a great photographer, by the way.

[6588] Elisa Martinez: Okay, so just sorry about that. So I know that I had asked the the board or staff, you wanted to just make a brief comment. Or if you want to hold it toward the end of the meeting, I will leave it to you.

[6603] SPEAKER_47: I will start. Congratulations, member Rodriguez. You will now have more free time to dedicate to our community. So I'm sure we are all grateful for that time and dedication that we know you will continue to have to our community members. I was doing the math and I believe you also gave me my diploma as I walked in the stage at the high school. So thank you for that. Thank you for your time and service to our community and to our school board. Congratulations on your retirement.

[6638] Ray Rodriguez: I remember Ms. Gutierrez from the time she was at Schilling and then, you know, involved at the high school and with Mrs. Larson, with Vivian and her point, I mean, Camino Nuevo group. And when she decided to run, you know, to fill a vacancy that we had on the board, we were all excited. And now she's an admin secretary and Dr. Triplett, you got it made. You got somebody that's very, very dedicated, and that's going to do her best for the kids of Newark. So I appreciate you, Lucia, and thank you for serving our kids.

[6675] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Anyone else?

[6678] Phuong Nguyen: I'll go next. Remember when? Well, now I kind of feel jilted because I missed you giving me the diploma by three years. It's been a couple years. Yes. I'm too old. I just really want to say, Ray, what a legacy you have established here in the community. And you're so loved by the community members and also especially your family. And I have been able to witness it firsthand, especially the last several months. You have graciously also extended your generosity and kindness and advocated for me and helped encourage me. but with my election, and I just really wanted to say thank you personally for that. And then also, and also, you know, you, and I just wanna appreciate you for your guidance and your willingness to share your many years of experience with not just me, but with the rest of the new board members here and with staff. So I just wanna wish you a wonderful retirement. Enjoy your family. And I know that you will still be around for us. And that's just a big part of who you are. Just like other members of your family has said, and along with other speakers from earlier, you do have a huge heart and you show so much compassion and kindness to all of the students and families here in Newark. So thank you.

[6773] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you, Fong. And that's one of the reasons why I didn't run. I knew that you and Bowen were going to run and the other people that put their names in. And I knew that we were in good hands. And member Martinez, President Martinez, I mean, the three of you are at the forefront of with the new board members coming in and taking us to new beginnings with a new superintendent. And I know that you're all going to do a great job. And I appreciate your commitment to kids. You might have disagreements over the years, but if you refocus on children and what we're trying to do for kids, that'll get you through any disagreements you might have. And I just have every faith in my heart that you're going to be a strong board. And we need strong leadership now in Newark with all the different things going on. I feel very comfortable that Newark is in good hands.

[6835] Bowen Zhang: Thank you. So member Rodriguez, initially I always thought you've been on the board for 24 years, but it looks like it's more than 25 years. So could you tell, were you initially... You were just a baby, right?

[6846] Ray Rodriguez: You were just a baby, I guess.

[6848] Bowen Zhang: I was probably before grade school. Were you initially appointed or you won an election in an odd-numbered year or something?

[6857] Ray Rodriguez: No, I had to run twice. In 1994, then I ran again in 1996 and won.

[6862] Bowen Zhang: Oh, I see. I see. Yeah, so that's more than a quarter century of your service dedicated to the board. I think I've been on the board for almost two years. I think you've always being professional and gracious to all of us, whether it's in the public session or in closed session. Obviously, you welcome every new board member with open arms and I always appreciate your support and your camaraderie on the board and a quarter century of your life. That is a really, really long time for anybody to be dedicated to a cause that someone please deeply in and as you are on the board as an insider you know that we don't just spend 10 hours per month attending meetings, you spend way more than that. behind us and there are a lot of other things that we do. We still spend our times on that others don't know, but you you did it for 2020 for a quarter century. That's really, I think it's, it's easy for people to do something good for a brief period of time and, and but you did it with a quarter century. That's the hard part. So hope you still stay involved in the community. Hope you continue to support the board members and, and I congratulate you on a happy retirement.

[6938] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. I was only 20 years old, by the way, when I started.

[6944] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Anyone else? Oh, Miss Dela Cruz.

[6950] Marie dela Cruz: Okay, Mr. Rodriguez. I met you when I was at Mission Valley ROP. And who would have known that, I mean, 15 years later, that we're still working together. So as I'm sitting here, I'm thinking, I think I've worked with you the longest. I don't think people realize that, at least in this group anyway. And I mean, I'll always remember how you were the number one advocate for Newark Unified School District. You're always looking out for your kids. It's just amazing how your career and your dedication has really helped your community and helped the school district. I still remember the time when, I mean, you cared so much about the kids. You remember the cosmetology program? You were able to fill up our boardroom. I don't think our boardroom was ever so popular. And I mean, since that time, but I just want to appreciate you. And I'm really glad that we had this opportunity to to work together. I don't think people realize that Mr. Rodriguez actually served on two boards. I mean, that's how dedicated he was. And the other board was, they met once a month. So you know, he was meeting like three times a month. So congratulations on your retirement. I'm glad again that, you know, we've had this opportunity to work together for so many years and, you know, in a couple of places. So good luck. It was really nice to hear from your family and how much they love you and appreciate you and admire you. And congratulations.

[7070] Ray Rodriguez: And I appreciate you, Ms. Alacruz. When you decided to put your name in to become our new CBO. I was so excited because of all the great work you did with Mission Valley RRP. I knew it was going to be a steep learning curve for you and you've just knocked it, you know, hit a home run. And I know all the other board members appreciate you and answering our questions and your dedication to the kids of Newark. And we never want you to go back to RRP by the way. You can't go anywhere. You got to stay with us. And every time I look at that beautiful building on the corner of Blanco and Stevenson, and what it took to get that built, and the fact that our kids take advantage of all the different RLP classes that are available to them, it's a nice partnership that we have. And having you as our CBO makes me feel real good that, you know, Newark is going to continue to move forward. We want you to lobby more for Newark, by the way, to have more of our kids and more programs. But anyway, thank you, and I appreciate your whole budgets.

[7141] Marie dela Cruz: Thank you. You're one of the reasons why I came here, too. Thank you.

[7148] SPEAKER_31: Can I go next? Yes, Ms. Saavedra. Thank you. Thank you so much. Sorry. Well, I think I don't know if anybody noticed how he tends to turn the attention around back to you. And I think that's one of the best traits that Mr. Rodriguez has. It's truly been an honor, sir, to work along your side. You're an inspiration to a lot of young people, a lot of old people, a lot of us, really. Your leadership has taught us a lot in that dedication that you bring to the table every day. um even even in in your with you know dealing with health um um issues that in the past I I you know seeing you get there and make your make yourself um get to board meetings so that you can uh continue to provide the support that that you that you do so naturally uh bring with you it's been it's been a really a great honor to observe and and yes um I had the great opportunity to meet your granddaughter as you mentioned Marcelia And I worked together when I was a principal. And I can truly see that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. She's an amazing human being, a person, teacher. And I can see where she gets that from. And it's been truly an honor working next to you, sir. Happy retirement.

[7232] Ray Rodriguez: The first time I met you, I was dressed up in Santa Claus. And you didn't know who this guy was coming on your campus. I appreciate you. I know it's been a learning curve for you and you've done very well. And it's not easy being an HR director and all the other roads that you've had. And I know you're going elsewhere. And I've always, even though we've lost wonderful people that have gone to other school districts, I always appreciated the fact that we were able to hopefully give you a good foundation so that no matter where you go, they're going to say, man, you know, this person really has some stuff together. And it's going to be, hopefully, you'll think back of Newark and where you got your foundation. And thank you for serving our kids. And it's been a tough road the last few years. And, you know, but you've hung in there. And I appreciate you a whole bunch. Good luck in your new endeavors.

[7294] SPEAKER_31: Thank you, sir. You too. Happy retirement. Thank you.

[7299] Elisa Martinez: City Member Salemi, yes?

[7303] SPEAKER_45: I just want to thank you, Member Rodriguez, for all the hard work and time when it comes to serving our community. Not only have you dedicated your life to our schools and my peers, but Newark as a whole, and I appreciate that. Jobs like these obviously aren't easy, and it takes a lot, and it is inspiring to see how passionate you are, and I think I'm someone that can learn a lot from that. I've gone to school here and lived here my whole life, and you are always visiting our campuses and speaking to our school sites and different administrators. And I honestly truly appreciate that. You truly come to this with the intention to do great things for our community. And for the short time that I've been serving in this role, I've been able to witness firsthand your kindness, even in these long meetings, you are one of the first people to appreciate someone, whether it is a student representing their school or a principal presenting their school spotlight. So I just wanted to say thank you for that. And we all appreciate you.

[7360] Ray Rodriguez: And you're awesome. What you did with having that resolution with Black Lives Matter and when you decided to be the student board member. I was so excited and you made me so proud when you were able to put that together. And, uh, our kids are, um, should feel very grateful that they have somebody that, uh, that represents them as well as you do. And I see nothing but great things in your future. Um, whether you come back and be the mayor of Newark or, um, or, you know, uh, assembly member or whatever, um, whatever you decide to do, I know you'll do it well. And I appreciate your dedication to us. through the students of, you know, Newark, especially at the high school. Thank you.

[7410] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. And so, Superintendent Triplett, you already spoke, so I'm going to say I'm last unless you want to say something else.

[7418] Mark Triplett: Go ahead and I'll save up for the 17th.

[7422] Elisa Martinez: Yes. So member Rodriguez, obviously, you know, whether it's 24, a little bit more up for two members, Zhang's point, I mean, that's a tremendous career, you know, supporting our kids, our families. And that's just going to be, it's very difficult to replicate. So it's very unique. And thank you so much. Those of us that are on the board, this is hard work, right? It's hard work tactically, meaning the work that you do, but also just emotionally, because we do have to do a lot of work. And I know for you, because of those connections that you have with the community, I could imagine how those sometimes difficult decisions weigh on you. I've heard the word advocacy, from several folks. And, you know, I've met you, obviously, when I got on the board, but I've known people that have known you, you know, your whole career, if you will. And that's the one word that they keep talking about is how you are such an advocate, not only for kids, but their families, and staff. And I've seen that. And So that, I mean, it's just a really good role model for us to follow with that real connectivity to who we are serving. I think that, you know, personally for me, you've been so selfless in helping and offering up as you saw me struggling, figuring out how to run a meeting and just really tossing enough for me to learn to go fish on my own, you know, and that is just, I love that in terms of your style. So I really appreciate that. And the things I, as I was thinking about, what I want to really try to emulate is that connection that you do have with, when I see you, whether it's handing out lunches or just appearing at whatever event, you are there with such ease. You are there, you belong there, people know you and people gravitate to you. And that is something that I aspire to. So thank you for sharing that, for giving us that example. And it's so great to hear your family be so proud of you. And anyway, I've probably said too much already. Thank you so much. I know you're going to be around. So we will continue to tap your experience. And thank you so much. Thank you for everything.

[7578] Ray Rodriguez: I remember when you came on the board, and I was thinking, who is this person? going to come here and change everything, tell us what to do. But you have shown me so much growth in just the two years that you've been on the school board. And I know that your heart's in the right place as far as doing things for kids. And I know that you're going to keep growing as a board member. And whether you like it or not, you're the longest term board member. people are going to be looking for you for leadership and I know you're going to provide it. And I know it's been a tough year. A lot has happened in the last year since you've been president and you've handled it very well and professionally and, and I'm proud, you know, and I feel good when, when I look at what more potential you're going to have and the things you're going to be able to, you know, as you lead the new board, you know, moving forward and thank you for your dedication to our kids. President Martinez, appreciate you.

[7645] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. All right.

[7651] Ray Rodriguez: How long did we go? Did we go over a half hour? I'm in big trouble here. A little bit.

[7655] Elisa Martinez: A little bit. I know I was teasing that I was going to try to manage the time because you all know that I try to do that. So anyway, I hope that I didn't cut anybody off. But anyway, thank you.

[7668] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. You did very well. I appreciate it.

[7671] Elisa Martinez: more to come to Superintendent Triplett's comments, so about something at our next meeting. So with that, we will move forward with tonight's agenda. Thank you.

[7683] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you.

[7686] Elisa Martinez: Okay, and let's see, where were we? So we, for those of you who joined at the beginning of the meeting, we did amend the agenda. We removed all of section nine. So with that, we move to item 10, which is the superintendent report.

[7701] Mark Triplett: All right, thank you, President Martinez. And again, Board Member Rodriguez, thank you on behalf of the entire Newark Unified School District. And we're inviting you to come back on the 17th so we can commemorate you with the resolution. So that is certainly a hard act to follow, but I'll give it a shot. Let's see, let me put this up here. So this session's superintendent's report, we actually have some more things to celebrate. On December 9th, At 7 p.m. Alameda County Office of Education is going to be honoring the district Teachers of the Year. And they have instituted a new honor in addition to that called Bridging the Distance Awards. And this is for teachers who have demonstrated innovation, creativity, compassion, care, and a commitment to equity during the COVID-19 pandemic. So in September, during one of our celebrations, I think it was one of our first ones, I celebrated this teacher. And it's an honor to be able to celebrate her again. And that is Miss Raber, who is a second grade teacher at Schilling Elementary. She has been nominated. She's one of only seven awardees from across the county. There was, I believe, 261 nominations. And our very own Miss Raber has been awarded as one of the Bridging the Divide honorees for the year. So anyone can tune in on the 9th at 7 p.m. I invite everybody to join us to celebrate Miss Raber and just want to personally congratulate her. Tremendous, tremendous teacher. She's awesome. The next thing I wanted to speak on briefly is just an update around the COVID-19 situation. As you all know, we've been in the purple tier now for a number of weeks. And today, the governor actually announced a new stay at home order for certain counties. And there'll be more information coming I'm sure people are still trying to understand exactly what the details of the stay at stay at home order, but did want to communicate that we confirmed with the county and the the stay at home order does not. does not refer to K-12 schools in the sense of we will be continuing to go to work, to be supporting students, both in distance learning and continuing to support at sites. So there's no, there's nothing in the order that says that we will, that staff that have been coming into work will need to shelter in place. I also wanted to highlight that we have been partnering with BACH, and they are offering free COVID testing. They already had a number of free COVID testing opportunities. There are two days coming up, December 11th and 12th, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., that's at the Bridgepoint parking lot. Really wanna appreciate the Bridgepoint staff and leadership, Ms. Calderon, for welcoming the BACH into to be able to do that testing and that's available for anyone who wants to or feels like they need to be tested for COVID. Some other updates around COVID-19 and distance learning and also the reopening. So as Student Member Salemi alluded to our athletics are continuing at Newark Memorial, despite the shelter in place. And that's continuing to be strictly conditioning, but there's no contact with any of the in any of the athletic programs. We're continuing with Cadango Preschool. That's at Schilling and Graham Elementaries. And we also are continuing with the Think Together program. It's now open at Schilling. And so it's allowing some students to come and have a place where they can do distance learning in a setting with mentors. I also wanted to share that we are finalizing our agreement with Curative, and that's the company that is going to be offering us and other districts regular testing of staff members for COVID-19. So it'll offer the opportunity for staff members to be able to be tested on a regular basis, probably monthly. And I think that'll really help with peace of mind and safety and health. And then we plan on submitting our reopening plan to Alameda County before January. And of course, we are not intending to open. And we, of course, would not open while we're still in the purple tier for the state. But once we are in the red tier and we've concluded our agreements with our labor partners, then we'll be opening. But I definitely do not anticipate that that will be any time before January. And then, oh yeah, that's the last point on there, the last bullet. The board has asked me to do a little update on enrollment, so I wanted to provide this session's update. This is an enrollment snapshot as of the 2nd of December, so as of yesterday. And you can see the column of the green on the left is our projected numbers when we were budgeting for the year. And then you can see that the numbers on the right are our enrollment numbers as of yesterday. And so we are about, I believe, 74 students below our projections. And again, this is just to keep everybody updated. We continue to recruit and attract families and students. But we are a considerable number below our projections. That does not impact this year's ADA, but it will. We need to be very careful because when we next year, the state begins to utilize ADA again in that way, then it will be impacting our funding. Wanted to also give an update on the school consolidation process. So, since the board voted in the last session and voted to merge snow and Graham onto the Graham campus. voted to consolidate music elementary into two schools, two other schools in our district in 22-23 and also voted to move the sixth graders from all of our elementaries into the junior high on junior high campus to former middle school in 2022-23 as well. So since then, here's some of the things we've been doing. We know that this has caused a lot of anguish and pain for the community, for staff, for students, for families. As of the day after the board vote, we've been providing mental health supports for students and staff. I and my team have begun meeting with staff of all of the impacted schools and will continue to do that. Met this week with We had a number of meetings, and then again next week we'll do the same. And likewise, we'll be meeting with the families of impacted schools, and we've started that process as well. And that'll be ongoing, both meetings with staff and families from the impacted schools. We also conducted a Graham site walk today with Principal Byrd and different district staff to begin to get a sense of of the facilities and what's going to be needed for the merger. And then we're planning a joint staff meeting of Snow and Graham faculty on December 14th. And we hope at that point that we'll be kicking off a design team made up of members of both communities that will help to think about the merger process and and ensure that we are doing everything we can to create the very best merged new school that will be on the Graham campus. Then in just in terms of some of the things that that are coming up in the school consolidation process. So between January and February is going to be a really critical time, both for the the board decision around the snow and Graham merger. Also, the music consolidation decision. And likewise, even the the sixth grade transition to the junior high campus. Because all of those decisions, even the ones that are starting in a year, they have implications for this upcoming year's enrollment projections, staffing, and budgeting. And so this January and February is the time that we have to get started on all of those processes. It happens every year. but this year it's particularly important. So we'll be working on enrollment projections, and then from those enrollment projections, being able to project the staffing needs, and from that, then building the budgets for all our schools. And likewise, as I mentioned in the last slide, in January, we hope to be able to form the design team for the Snowgram merger. And then from February on, that'll really be the work of the design team to begin the process of building this new school identity. And then lastly, the facilities. In January, we will continue to assess the different facility needs. at the campus at Graham and then begin preparations for the merger. So I'll be giving updates every board meeting with regard to what's happening with this process. Also wanted to share out very excited that I believe it was board member Rodriguez that made the made a reference to the Black Lives Matter in the classroom resolution that student member Salemi and other student leaders brought forth earlier in this year. Part of that resolution, as you recall, was a call or request to begin implicit bias trainings for all staff. And so we have, I'm really delighted to say we've begun that process. Our first session of implicit bias trainings happened with principals on November 19th. And then we put in place the additional sessions that are gonna occur with all teachers and staff from January to May. So our goal is by the end of May, that all our staff are trained in these three sessions of implicit bias. And of course, we recognize that that is not something that we just finish and then check off the box, but the equity work is lifelong work. And so our plan is to continue to build what we're going to do once we have completed these three sessions and how that kind of work will continue for all of us. And then lastly, I wanted to just front load a little bit about as the new board comes on at our next session, we are planning board trainings for the board to come together as a new board and start to orient and norm. So Between the third or the fourth week of January, we'll have a session. It's of course a public meeting, one day for approximately four hours, either a weekday or a Saturday, where we'll come together and be facilitated by an outside facilitator around being oriented towards being a new board together. And that is my report for this evening. Any questions or things I can answer or elaborate on?

[8461] Bowen Zhang: So for the January 3rd and 4th, the board training, does that mean we need to book the entire day or at least one morning for the entire board to be in a session?

[8475] Mark Triplett: Yeah, thank you, members. And yeah, no, it's the week either the week of the third or the week of the third or fourth week. So the date hasn't been confirmed. And of course, we will be checking with all the new board members to make sure that availability and also availability of the facilitator. So more to come on that. I just wanted to just give a little prelude to the fact that that will be coming down the pike.

[8504] Elisa Martinez: But I think to answer his question, it's a four-hour session, Ms. Gutierrez or Superintendent Triplett. So I think those are the options that will get presented for those weeks. You could either do maybe an afternoon slash evening, or maybe, I think we did that prior, we did a Saturday session, right? So maybe those are the options, Member Shaw, that we'll have to explore.

[8529] Ray Rodriguez: Yeah. Last question, if you don't mind, Superintendent. When we did the merger of Bunker and Malani and then we had a committee set up to look at the name change and we made it very exciting and ended up with Birch Grove, you know, primary and intermediate. Are we going to do something similar with Graham and Snow and is that something that's to look forward to?

[8560] Mark Triplett: Yes, exactly. Because we're merging two schools together, it's not one school closing or the other school closing, but really coming together so that the best of both schools can come together and create a new identity. And as part of that new identity, that will be a new name. But that's not something that I want to, that I will be doing. That's really something that we want to come from the community, have a process. I would expect students, staff, families to all be engaged in naming of the school.

[8597] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you.

[8599] Nancy Thomas: Thank you.

[8602] Elisa Martinez: Okay. Thank you, Superintendent, for your report.

[8605] Mark Triplett: Thank you.

[8608] Elisa Martinez: And with that, we move to item 11, which is public comment on non-agenda items. Ms. Gutierrez, do we have requests for, yep, okay.

[8615] SPEAKER_47: We have a request from Mr. Rosa, if you could please move Annabel Gutierrez.

[8636] Elisa Martinez: You're on mute, Ms. Gutierrez.

[8638] SPEAKER_47: Oh, okay, sorry. Actually, sorry, Carlos, the name is different. One second, Mr. Rose, I apologize. Carlos Zarate.

[8655] SPEAKER_24: Good evening. My name is Annabelle Zarate, and I'm a Graham School parent. The reason I'm here speaking to you tonight is to express my extreme frustrations over the lack of transparency, equity, and the disrespect towards the students and families of my community. Dr. Triplett, how dare you? How dare you continue to make Graham's parents and students feel less than others in this district? I have lived in this community for my entire life. I was a student in this district since kindergarten, and I've always felt that Graham is treated like an unwanted stepchild of the district. Today, I and other members of the community continue feeling bullied by you all, and we have had enough. We, the community of Graham School, were confident that Dr. Triplett, the board, and district leadership would take the time to value and acknowledge the diversity of our community, and more importantly, take care of our students. However, we have been deceived. On November 19th, the board of trustees voted to consolidate Graham and Snow in 2021-22, not to merge the schools, but to consolidate them. A merger for us means that Graham School will be closed and renamed as they did with Bunker and Milani. Is that the plan now? If so, what would the cost be and why did the board not vote for it? We appreciate the Board of Trustees for taking the time and reviewing the data and facts and deciding to keep our cohort of students together. We are also looking forward to joining the Snow families at our site. But Dr. Triplett, you have not yet acknowledged Graham School's parents, students, or staff since you became our superintendent, even though we have communicated with multiple news outlets and had hundreds of parents, students, staff, and community members peacefully protesting your discriminatory actions against us. Now I understand there will be a forum next week. Is this specifically to discuss the consolidation or the merger? We are concerned about the timeline allocation of resources, equipment to meet the needs of our special ed, English learners, and socially disadvantaged students, especially when we know that SNHU has approximately 50% of socially disadvantaged students and 23% second language learners. We are also wondering, would Dr. Triplett do the same to parents at Kennedy? Where is the equity across the board? Will we have the same resources? 20 seconds. Across the track have? We understand there is a deficit, but we would like to know how much money is allocated to each school based on the needs of our students and not on wealth. Let's start by having a conversation with all stakeholders involved. Thank you.

[8849] Elisa Martinez: Okay, thank you for your comments. Next speaker, Ms. Gutierrez. Sorry, I know you're having, maybe Mr. Rose, can you promote the second speaker?

[8858] SPEAKER_47: Okay, the next one, Mr. Rose is Monica Piedra. And this one will be in Spanish. So I will translate three minutes for the speaker in Spanish and then three minutes for me to translate. Thank you.

[8886] Elisa Martinez: Is there a reason we have video?

[8888] SPEAKER_46: Yes, it's an older version. Señora Piedra, por favor, puede apagar su video? Solamente su audio? Gracias. Okay, puede empezar a hablar. [Translated] Yes, it's an older version. Mrs. Stone, please, can you turn off your video? Just your audio? Thank you. Okay, you can start talking. [End] [Translated] Yes, it's an older version. Mrs. Stone, please, can you turn off your video? Just your audio? Thank you. Okay, you can start talking. [Translated] Yes, it's an older version. Mrs. Stone, please, can you turn off your video? Just your audio? Thank you. Okay, you can start talking. [End] [End]

[8898] SPEAKER_09: Buenas noches, miembro de la mesa directiva y superintendente triplet. Mi nombre es Monica Piedra Quiroz, soy madre de la escuela Graham y miembro de la mesa directiva de ELAC. Nosotros, la comunidad de la escuela Graham, estamos seguros de que el superintendente triplet, su equipo se tomaron su tiempo para valorar y reconocer la diversidad de nuestra comunidad. Lo que es más importante, las necesidades de todos nuestros hijos. El 19 de noviembre, la mesa directiva votó a favor de la consolidación de Graham y Snow para el año 2021 y 2022. No fusionar, lo cual para nosotros quiere decir la escuela Graham tendrá que ser cerrada y ponerle otro nombre, como lo hicieron con Bunker y Milan. ¿Ese es el plan ahora? Si lo es, ¿cuál sería el costo y por qué la mesa directiva no votó por eso? Apreciamos que la mesa directiva se tomó el tiempo para revisar los datos y hechos y decidió mantener juntos como equipo. También esperamos unirnos a las familias de Snow en nuestra localidad y ojalá discutir un plan firme donde todos los estudiantes se beneficien y no a los adultos. Los padres y los miembros de la comunidad de Graham, sentimos que hemos sido engañados, superintendente Triplett. ¿Cuándo usted ha tomado tiempo para comunicarse con nosotros? Los padres y la comunidad de Graham hasta ahora nunca A pesar de que hemos tenido protestas pacíficas, usted no ha tomado el tiempo. Sabemos que se necesita un pueblo para criar y educar a nuestros niños. Si trabajamos juntos, podemos crear Graham y Snow para convertirnos en uno de los mejores escuelas de Newark. Así que comencemos para involucrar a todas las personas de las partes interesadas. Gracias. [Translated] Good night, board member and superintendent triplet. My name is Monica Piedra Quiroz, I am a mother of the Graham school and a member of the ELAC board of directors. We, the Graham school community, are confident that the superintendent triplet, his team took their time to value and recognize the diversity of our community. What is more important, the needs of all our children. On November 19, the board of directors voted for the consolidation of Graham and Snow for the year 2021 and 2022. Not to merge, which for us means the Graham school will have to be closed and put another name, as they did with Bunker and Milan. Is that the plan now? If it is, what would be the cost and why didn't the board vote for that? We appreciate that the board took the time to review the data and facts and decided to keep it together as a team. We also hope to join Snow's families in our locality and hope to discuss a firm plan where all students benefit and not adults. The parents and members of the Graham community, we feel we have been deceived, superintendent Triplett. When have you taken time to communicate with us? The parents and the Graham community so far never Even though we have had peaceful protests, you have not taken the time. We know that a town is needed to raise and educate our children. If we work together, we can create Graham and Snow to become one of the best schools in Newark. So let's start to involve all the people from the stakeholders. Thank you. [End] [Translated] Good night, board member and superintendent triplet. My name is Monica Piedra Quiroz, I am a mother of the Graham school and a member of the ELAC board of directors. We, the Graham school community, are confident that the superintendent triplet, his team took their time to value and recognize the diversity of our community. What is more important, the needs of all our children. On November 19, the board of directors voted for the consolidation of Graham and Snow for the year 2021 and 2022. Not to merge, which for us means the Graham school will have to be closed and put another name, as they did with Bunker and Milan. Is that the plan now? If it is, what would be the cost and why didn't the board vote for that? We appreciate that the board took the time to review the data and facts and decided to keep it together as a team. We also hope to join Snow's families in our locality and hope to discuss a firm plan where all students benefit and not adults. The parents and members of the Graham community, we feel we have been deceived, superintendent Triplett. When have you taken time to communicate with us? The parents and the Graham community so far never Even though we have had peaceful protests, you have not taken the time. We know that a town is needed to raise and educate our children. If we work together, we can create Graham and Snow to become one of the best schools in Newark. So let's start to involve all the people from the stakeholders. Thank you. [Translated] Good night, board member and superintendent triplet. My name is Monica Piedra Quiroz, I am a mother of the Graham school and a member of the ELAC board of directors. We, the Graham school community, are confident that the superintendent triplet, his team took their time to value and recognize the diversity of our community. What is more important, the needs of all our children. On November 19, the board of directors voted for the consolidation of Graham and Snow for the year 2021 and 2022. Not to merge, which for us means the Graham school will have to be closed and put another name, as they did with Bunker and Milan. Is that the plan now? If it is, what would be the cost and why didn't the board vote for that? We appreciate that the board took the time to review the data and facts and decided to keep it together as a team. We also hope to join Snow's families in our locality and hope to discuss a firm plan where all students benefit and not adults. The parents and members of the Graham community, we feel we have been deceived, superintendent Triplett. When have you taken time to communicate with us? The parents and the Graham community so far never Even though we have had peaceful protests, you have not taken the time. We know that a town is needed to raise and educate our children. If we work together, we can create Graham and Snow to become one of the best schools in Newark. So let's start to involve all the people from the stakeholders. Thank you. [End] [End]

[9043] Elisa Martinez: Gracias. Miss Gutierrez. [Translated] Thank you. Miss Gutierrez. [End] [Translated] Thank you. Miss Gutierrez. [Translated] Thank you. Miss Gutierrez. [End] [End]

[9046] SPEAKER_47: I'm going to have to apologize. I will provide you a translation later. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to capture all that.

[9053] Elisa Martinez: Okay. And for the most part, I think just to be fair to our English speakers, it was almost verbatim translation of the first speaker. So the context is the same. But yes, thank you. If you could please add the transcript to the meeting minutes would be great. Thank you. Okay, and with that we move to old business, which is first item is 12.1 forefront power solar projects at Newark Memorial High and junior and Newark junior high superintendent.

[9091] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Martinez. So I'm excited about these next two agenda items, because I think it's really, really valuable that we are shifting to be a more green and environmentally conscious district. And so I'm going to invite Miss Dela Cruz to speak in more detail about this first item involving the power solar projects.

[9120] Marie dela Cruz: Thank you, Dr. Triplett. Ms. Gutierrez, do we have our guest panelists?

[9125] SPEAKER_47: Okay. Yes, they're being transferred over now.

[9127] Marie dela Cruz: All right. Yes. Good evening, President Martinez and board members. As you recall, last year, the board approved the solar projects at the junior high and the high school. So since then, we have been meeting with the forefront team to make sure that we stay on schedule. But unfortunately, we did get a little bit of a delay because of the pandemic. And I wanted to make sure that you received an update today. So I have Mr. Brian Taylor from Forefront as well as Ms. Lisa Payne here to give you an update. And also, we have an opportunity to increase our savings And Mr. Taylor will be talking to you about that as well.

[9187] Elisa Martinez: Mr. Taylor. Sorry, Ms. Adela Cruz. And Ms. Gutierrez, I did not ask if we had any public comment on this item. No public comment. Thank you. And so before we open discussion, may I have a motion and a second to open to approve the motion, the recommended action, sorry.

[9221] Bowen Zhang: I move to approve the amended and restated energy service agreement with four-pronged power.

[9229] Elisa Martinez: Thank you, Member Zhang. Thank you, Student Member Salami. Okay, thank you. All right, and so Um, go ahead, Miss that goes. You were going to introduce our guest speaker.

[9244] Marie dela Cruz: Yes. So Mr Brian Taylor and Miss Lisa Payne will give you an update on the progress of the solar project as well as the amended agreement proposal.

[9261] SPEAKER_10: Hi, folks. Brian Taylor here. Hi, uh, board of trustees and superintendent. Um, we wanted to give a brief update on, uh, the status of the projects and the solar option. So I think it may make sense to just turn to the storage project first. Um, so we have this, uh, storage, uh, solution that I believe is in the agenda. I don't, I don't see it on my screen, but I assume that you have it there. Um,

[9293] Marie dela Cruz: Did you want to share your screen, Brian, Mr. Taylor? Yeah, I can do that. OK.

[9300] Cindy Parks: One moment.

[9302] SPEAKER_10: Forgive me for the delay. Great. So as you may recall, we entered into a agreement for solar energy at the high school and the junior high school. The high school had a storage project, a battery storage project with the solar project. That was a, originally I was contracted a 250 kilowatt battery that was going to provide incremental savings to the district of about $14,000 in year one. We have continued to evaluate your load, your usage profile at the high school. and believe that there is a solution that will save you more money. And so that's what we're proposing now. We're proposing moving from a two-hour battery to a four-hour battery, which is a slightly bigger battery. Actually, it's double the size of the battery, and leading to more district savings. So this is better for you guys. It requires a slightly larger footprint and a couple other bells and whistles on the technology front, because it's a slightly larger system, but it gives you more money. So I believe that's up for approval tonight. And I'm happy to answer any questions about that, but that's it in a nutshell. If you recall, maybe I'll spend 30 seconds just as a reminder, because I know it's not something you deal with every day, a battery storage system intelligently discharges the energy to shave the demand spikes that you would see at the high school. So the utility charges you every month for the highest one moment, the highest 15-minute interval every month. And so depending on the height of how much you're drawing in from the utility on a particular moment, that's how much your bill is. What the battery does is it absorbs solar energy and then has a brain in it, an algorithm that senses when you're about to have one of those spikes and intelligently discharges the energy from the battery system to prevent the utility from seeing one of those spikes, allowing you to kind of control your load, particularly in the eyes of the utility. This portion of the bill, these demand charges, have been rising at a faster clip than every other portion of your PG&E bill. So historically, you have two big parts of your bill. One is your energy charges, and the other one is these demand charges. And these demand charges have been rising at about 8% to 9% a year. And so this bigger battery is going to allow us to attack that portion of your bill that's rising at a faster rate. give you more flexibility, and save you more money. So that is the update on the battery storage. And as I shift kind of to the remaining portion, which is essentially an update on the progress, I think in a nutshell, the status with the solar project is we signed this agreement in November of 2019. We had projected for a summer construction in summer of 2020, this past summer. That means that we hit the ground running. We were doing our diligence on the project and preparing to move through DSA, procure steel and get everything procured and starting to arrive right in March as COVID hit. I'm not sharing my screen. OK, great. Sorry about that. So in a nutshell, COVID hit at the exact wrong time, at the exact time that we were planning to procure and start spending serious money on the project. And we were being pulled off various projects, being told that we had to stop construction. If you recall, in March, things were very Topsy-turvy hindsight 2020 that, you know, we as a society have made it through okay, but we didn't know what was going to happen to a lot of these projects. So we had to make some difficult decisions at that point. We communicated those decisions to the district. We talked about whether we were going to try and build these systems as soon as possible, or if we missed our summer construction windows. So we were going to punt to the next summer for a construction window. The decision was made. after a conversation with the district to punt to summer 2021. And that is the decision. We are in a really good spot right now because we have interconnection approval from the utility. We have some time before we start construction, so we should have a very organized and orderly construction process. And it's unfortunate that this has had to have been delayed a year. But it was a year like no other. And we stand committed to the projects. And anyway, that's it in a nutshell. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

[9623] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, just a quick one. So when we were approving the two-hour battery, was that at the time the four-hour battery was not available?

[9636] SPEAKER_10: A couple of things happened at that time. So at the time that we were moving forward, we had submitted interconnection applications in December of 2017 on behalf of the district. So many, many, like two years before we actually approved the project. That got you grandfathered on the then existing time of use rates, which were, if you recall, the peak period in PG&E has now shifted from 12 to six, to four to nine. And so we got you grandfathered on those rates. And because you were on those rates, you had different rates at that time. And thus, the battery storage wasn't even saving you as much as it is now. So we collectively with the district continue to evaluate what it would look like to pair the battery with the solar and then take you off of that grandfathering option, basically changing your rate. And we continue to evaluate it. We saw that the savings would be greater to the district if we didn't grandfather you on the old time of use rates. So we pulled that old interconnection application, resubmitted this new interconnection application, have continued to evaluate it. And we see now that we're on this new thing that we weren't on when we signed the deal, that this four-hour battery is a better opportunity.

[9718] Elisa Martinez: So hopefully. Other questions? Um, so so I have a question. So with regards to impact, Miss Ella Cruz to the, um. To the expected cost. Um, clearly there is a benefit to going to this new model. If you will. What's the Is there an additional cost that we're incurring to go to this model?

[9750] SPEAKER_10: I'm happy to answer that if you'd like, but So if you recall, the district is moving forward is procuring solar and storage under something called the Power Purchase Agreement, aka an energy services agreement. There's no capital outlay on the part of the district. So you are paying for the solar energy generated by the system at a rate that is flat, below what you're paying your utility now. And we finance the systems and we get the revenue over time of you purchasing that energy. Same thing with the battery storage system. There's no capital outlay on the part of the district. And so the energy services payment, the service payment that you're paying for the battery is going up. But the bigger battery, it's because it's a bigger battery, and the bigger battery will be earning its keep, so to speak, by reducing your PG&E bill more than the other battery.

[9804] Marie dela Cruz: Just to add to that, President Martinez, Our commitment in terms of costs was about $100,000, if I remember. And that would be dependent upon if there were any conditions, DSA, that may require fees that are not covered by forefront. So in that regard, no, there is no increase either. And in terms of our district savings, it's an additional, is it $10,000 more? Brian?

[9839] SPEAKER_10: Yes. Mr. Taylor, yes. In year one. And that compounds over time as utility rates go up, you essentially are saving more as you're avoiding increases.

[9849] Marie dela Cruz: Yeah, so initially between the two schools, Newark Junior High and Newark Memorial, we were projecting a savings of about $145,000 a year. So now with this, it'll be more like 155. And the savings should increase every year, is my understanding. And then in terms of the design and the layout, I think that was attached to the agenda as well, just so you can see where the panels will be located at the two locations. And I don't know, Lisa, Ms. Payne, did you have anything to add in terms of the schedule, the timeline? You're muted.

[9903] Ray Rodriguez: I had a question when you have time.

[9909] Marie dela Cruz: Go ahead, Mr. Rodriguez.

[9912] Ray Rodriguez: No, I was just wondering what the board has already approved and the difference. I realize that's going to be more savings, but I'm just looking at the actual. Because if we're going from a two hour to a four hour So I'm just looking at the additional amount of money that you're asking for. I know it's in there somewhere. I just haven't had a chance to really go through it now. Just trying to get an idea of the additional money you're asking for.

[9946] Marie dela Cruz: Yeah, Mr. Rodriguez, there is no additional cost to the district.

[9951] Ray Rodriguez: Okay. That works out real well. Thank you. So then the question is, If there's no additional costs and we already approved it, then what?

[9964] Elisa Martinez: The modification to the contract, correct? Correct, yeah.

[9968] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, and the modification does not increase, there's no increase of commitment from the district money-wise then?

[9975] Marie dela Cruz: Correct.

[9976] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, that's great. I wish we had more of these. Okay.

[9980] Elisa Martinez: Sorry, go ahead, Member Nguyen.

[9987] Phuong Nguyen: And we've had our legal team look at over the contract and everything is sufficient. Mr. Cruz.

[9994] Marie dela Cruz: Yes, I did send the amendment to our legal for review. And there was nothing in the contract, per se, that was what they would say a deal breaker. There might be a couple of items that I will review with Mr. Taylor and Ms. Payne.

[10017] Phuong Nguyen: So my second question is, I know it took us a long time to get here, but is there a reason why, I may have missed it earlier, why it took us so long to evaluate this process and finally, I mean, it's a year out, but we can move forward now, so that's good. So my question is, why couldn't we move sooner?

[10042] Marie dela Cruz: Yeah, no, they've been moving all along. This particular amendment with the battery just came up about a month ago. But in terms of the progress, that's why I wanted Lisa, Ms. Payne, to actually give you a little bit more information on that because we have done a lot of work in the last several months. And just to give you an idea of when we expect to have a groundbreaking ceremony and when the project is actually projected to be completed and when the plans are going to DSA, et cetera.

[10077] SPEAKER_10: Yeah, it looks like Lisa's having some technical difficulties and is not able to be heard. We can't hear you, Lisa.

[10082] Marie dela Cruz: Yeah, I don't know what's going on. But I don't know, Brian, do you want to fill in?

[10087] SPEAKER_10: Yeah, Lisa and I spoke about this, and we had prepared for the meeting so I can review some of the things that we spoke about, which is that we are moving through the process. If you recall, these are DSA pre-check designs, DSA over-the-counter designs. And I believe we have a DSA submittal date planned for January, February timeframe. Lisa, you can just nod if that's right, yes. We have interconnection agreements already approved from the utility. And so that means that the utility has already said that, you know, we can install these things and you're not gonna, you're blessed to install these things. And then we are targeting summer construction. Lisa, if you could just nod. That's indeed true. So I believe we're planning to start construction in the May, June timeframe. And the construction process for these projects is heavy construction takes, you know, about, I would say about six to eight weeks here. So we're going to hit these projects will be actually a lot quicker. Probably four to six weeks during the summer when we can get all the heavy construction and try and get mechanically complete before the end of summer. And then you're going to have a couple of closeout items into the fall. And if everything goes well, we should by this time next year or earlier have completed project. So the long pole in the tent is, these days, our bankrupt utility. And that issue has been solved. So Marie, forgive me for not knowing a little bit more about the schedule and the technical difficulties. But if there's anything that you wanted to add to that, given your proximity to the project, I'm happy to support. or I'm allowed, go for it.

[10187] Marie dela Cruz: Yeah, I think you covered the main points. We have been meeting every other week, so I'm familiar with the progress. And as Mr. Taylor said, the construction should begin around, we're hoping April, May, and then be completed by August of next year.

[10211] Ray Rodriguez: You know, we've been talking about solar for at least going back probably more than 10 years. I remember Ms. Schaefer at the time was a board member and it was one of her big things. And the fact that at this time next year, we're gonna, you know, it's gonna look like we're basically done and getting everything together is so exciting and it's really appreciated. Thank you.

[10234] Elisa Martinez: Thank you.

[10235] Marie dela Cruz: And again, if this is successful, then we are thinking about the next phase and add more to our other schools.

[10245] Elisa Martinez: All right, thank you for that. Any additional questions? I think we've kind of quite a bit of discussion on here. If there are no burning, additional burning questions, I'm gonna ask Ms. Gutierrez to repeat the motion, please.

[10257] SPEAKER_47: Staff recommends, sorry, let me extend my screen.

[10271] SPEAKER_31: I couldn't see the entire motion, my apologies.

[10277] SPEAKER_47: Okay. Staff recommends the board approve the amended and restated energy services agreement, energy storage and front forefront power to upgrade the battery at Newark Memorial High School from a two hour to a four hour to increase savings and energy storage capacity. Motion made by member Zhang and second by member Salameh. just waiting for two additional votes, which in the meantime that I'll make the roll call. They could come in. Okay.

[10307] Elisa Martinez: Sorry. I'm sorry. I apologize. I do need to ask us to remember. So let me for his vote first. Yeah. Okay.

[10315] SPEAKER_28: Thank you.

[10317] SPEAKER_47: So roll call roll call vote would be from member Rodriguez. I'm reading your lips. You said yes. Yes. Thank you.

[10331] Michael Milliken: Yes.

[10332] SPEAKER_47: Member Nguyen?

[10332] Michael Milliken: Yes.

[10333] SPEAKER_47: President Martinez?

[10335] Elisa Martinez: Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Very good. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Ms. Alecruz and Ms. Payne for the presentation. Thank you so much. Thank you.

[10352] Marie dela Cruz: Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Ms. Payne.

[10356] Mark Triplett: Thank you.

[10358] Elisa Martinez: Okay, so with that, we move to item 12.2, which is the grants for electric buses and charging station. We'll go ahead and ask for a motion and a second on the staff recommendation to approve the, am I looking at the right, sorry, on the commitment to purchase the two electronic electric buses. May I have a motion and a second? Thank you. Member Rodriguez. I'll second. Member Nguyen seconds. Ms. Gutierrez, do we have any public comment on this item?

[10398] SPEAKER_47: No public comment, and there's actually no public comment for the rest of the items on the agenda. Thank you.

[10403] Elisa Martinez: Thank you for letting me know. Okay, so Superintendent, will this be?

[10410] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Martinez. Yeah, so as I said before, another really exciting opportunity for us to become more ecological. This is around shifting to have our buses be electric. It won't currently be a full, complete transition, but that's what we're working towards. And I'd also just add that a really amazing opportunity to take advantage of some very large grants that are being provided by different entities to support the transition from diesel or gas buses into electric buses. So I'll turn it over to Ms. Delacruz to explain and answer any questions.

[10458] Marie dela Cruz: Thank you, Dr. Triplett. Ms. Gutierrez, is Ms. Yvonne here?

[10465] SPEAKER_47: Yes, she's on the screen now. Great, thank you.

[10469] Marie dela Cruz: Yes, so this is under old business because back in September of 2019, there was a presentation by our consultant with an opportunity for these grants that are worth the amount of $808,000. So I wanted to give Miss Tom the opportunity to explain where we're at in terms of the application. The board had given the go ahead to apply for these grants and Miss Tom will give you an update on where we're at.

[10513] SPEAKER_30: Hello board, Dr. Trippett and the staff at Newark Unified School District who have always been very wonderful working with us. I have a PowerPoint. It cannot be accessed. Can you hear me?

[10532] Mark Triplett: Yes, one minute. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Tom. We're giving you access.

[10538] SPEAKER_30: OK, thank you. OK, so why don't we go to the second slide? You have four buses that are working at Newark Unified School District. Two are compressed natural gas buses, and they were to, the tanks were going to expire last year, and you paid $431 for a $40,000 grant to have two buses refitted, and those expiration dates will last for 15 years. Oh, can you go back to the other one? I'm sorry. Thank you. The ones that I would like your approval on are the two electric buses to replace one diesel and one CNG bus. The diesel bus was out of filter compliance, and it cost almost $20,000 to replace it. If you did not do the filter change out, you would not be eligible for the grants. So that work has been done. And it's sort of like going down and taking your car for a smog check. Line Electric, who is the bus manufacturer who I will be buying the buses from on your behalf, reduced their cost by $17,845 to try and cover some of the costs of the filter. Next slide, please. Okay, so what we're looking at, because I wanted to put all four buses here, is you will have one 125-mile range bus, and that will get you to Sacramento. And then you could supercharge in Sacramento, and you can come back, because that was the distance that your MOT people wanted. You will get $271,000, 250, sorry, I can't say it, $271,000, and you would have to pay $156,000 for that bus. Then you will have a second bus, which will replace your CNG bus for 100 miles, and the grant will cover $272,000 and leaves you $128,000. I recommend GPS and cameras. And the cameras are really for everyone's safety in this day of litigiousness. And GPS will just help your drivers get around better. There is no grant for that. If you choose not to have that, I could always delete that from the cost. Then there's a charging station. which is complicated, but it is estimated at $265,000. And there are two grants, well, there are actually three grants to cover that. One will be Bay Area Air Quality District will pay for some of it. And they are supposed to pay 100% of the charging costs under their agreement. And I've been fighting with them since January on that. But in the meantime, PG&E has another grant that will, between the two grants, Bay Area Air Quality and PG&E, will cover for sure 100% of your grants. But in that, you have to agree to have three additional electric vehicles in the future. You have five years from the date of that grant to select those electric vehicles. So for example, Susan, your director, and I have been looking at your vehicle portfolio and you have two refrigerated diesel trucks and you have dump trucks and other construction vehicles or whatever else may come along and you know we can pick and choose depending on which brands will give you the best amount of bang for your dollar and which trucks are old and need to be repaired or replaced. Your four buses are between 14 and 18 years old. So they're quite old. And as they get older and older, there's going to be more maintenance costs for you. And so that's another consideration. Because I want to make sure that not only to reduce your operating costs by having newer buses in your fleet, your share of The total cost of this is 30%, 31%. So basically, you're getting these buses for $0.30 on the dollar, OK? And the rest is being paid for by the grant from two or three, well, actually three grants that is providing this money. The other thing that I want to comment on, and this is, and I'll probably get down to it later, but I might as well cover it now, is one of the board members asked, if we got a regular fuel bus instead of an electric bus, what is the cost differential? And basically, without the grants, an electric bus is 400,000, and a regular gas, which would be diesel also, is about $200,000. And with the grants, they cover the difference between an electric bus versus a regular diesel bus. And as you well know, California is trying to get rid of diesel bus. It is the most polluting of all our fuels and really is bad for our children and our communities because of the particulate factor. Next, please. So I updated the board, as Marie mentioned, in September of 2019. And at that time, I had estimated the cost to the district at $373,280. This updated board request is for $356,304. And I must complete the purchase and acquisition of these buses by December 31st, this month, or we will lose the 400,000 of HVIP grants. Next, please. So for the charging station, I would reapply to Bay Area Air Quality for a larger infrastructure grant And then with your permission, once you say yes, I can take the Bay Area Air Quality Grant to PG&E. I must have the Bay Area Air Quality Grant approved before I can take it to PG&E. And then that would definitely cover 100% of the infrastructure costs for five stations. And again, it's a commitment to get three additional electric vehicles In the future and I, you know, whatever you want. I mean, they could be smaller vehicles. There is a real push and there's a lot of money out there now to get us electrified. Next. So, um, let's see. I also in general would like to have Permission from you. to apply for other grants that may come up. For example, I tried to get a $65,000 grant per bus from the EPA, which would have then cut our costs by 130, but it interfered with the timing of the HVIP grant. So I never know what comes up, but I'm always out there hunting for you, because I view my job is to find money for you to help you reduce your costs. The other thing I did want to mention is that we finished the interior lighting project at Schilling, where we had $100,000 grant from Wells Fargo. And they would like to do a press release on this. And I also used one of your students from your high school students as a high school intern. And I thought it was a really great story. It happened all during the summer while we were all locked down. But we keep moving along to try and improve your infrastructure. So I wanted to answer the questions that the board had asked us. One of them is, how much does it cost to purchase fossil fuel buses? As I mentioned, it's $403,000. versus 156, I'm sorry. Basically an electric bus is 400,000, a fossil fuel bus is 200,000. By HVIP paying you 200,000, that makes them equivalent. And by paying 100% of the infrastructure costs, it makes it still equivalent, okay? Does that make sense? Ms. Tom?

[11126] Marie dela Cruz: Yes. Yes. If you wouldn't mind, just give us a summary because I think what we would like to do is just kind of go over the main point of the grants and what the additional cost is. So basically, in summary, what we got approval for at the last board meeting in September was for Ms. Tom to apply for these grants. So we got approved for the grants, and there's a commitment from the district of about $356,000. And in order for us to get these grants, that would be our match. And that match, what we're recommending is it come from our special reserve for capital outlay. But this is a really great opportunity. We're talking about 1.2 million and our match being 356,000. If there are any other comments or questions, I think this is the time that we can address them.

[11196] Bowen Zhang: Yeah.

[11198] Elisa Martinez: Yeah. So hang on, hang on one second. I'm not Ms. Gutierrez, but Ms.dela Cruz. So just again, I think, thank you for clearing that up. Cause I think for, there was a lot of information. So just for folks who were listening, I think just that background is really important. is if you look at the background, we did give that permission. So this is really now you coming back and saying, yep, we did get the grants. We did talk about the cost. And so maybe there's some questions specifically about the actual units if we're going to go ahead and move forward. Okay.

[11237] Marie dela Cruz: So what we're looking at are two electric buses and then the infrastructure, which is the charging station with five chargers.

[11248] Elisa Martinez: Gotcha. Thank you. Thank you for kind of just summarizing that. Member Zhang.

[11254] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, so before me now I asked a question about the charging charging option, you understand we'll have a charging station here and we also mentioned I look at data in the past two three years we have trips in Sacramento and you also. Mrs. Tong, you also mentioned Sacramento, even though it's 100 mile, but we can supercharge in Sacramento. So I guess in Sacramento, there's similar charging infrastructure in Sacramento. But the thing is that we've also made some trips to Santa Cruz or some other places that's over 100 mile, that what will happen that if there's no charging station, will we be limited by the availability of the charging station?

[11293] SPEAKER_30: There are actually many charging stations that are showing up throughout the state. And part of the reason PG&E is trying to pay for these charging stations is so that other schools can use other schools when they're not being used. So we will have a whole network of charging stations.

[11314] Bowen Zhang: Oh, I see. I see. So in this case, we can supercharge our buses in another school's property.

[11321] SPEAKER_30: Right, or other places.

[11323] Bowen Zhang: I see. And another point I do want to make is, we are obligated to buy three additional electric vehicles after this agreement. That's correct.

[11334] SPEAKER_30: That is correct. And we have already identified at least three vehicles that we would change out.

[11342] Bowen Zhang: Yes. So any estimate about what will be the additional cost? Well, I'm trying to understand. Considering we are having grants that we need to pay for three additional vehicles.

[11352] SPEAKER_30: I have no idea at this point. I do know that the money is really good now because the VW diesel grant money is out there now. That was from when the cheating of VW. And so there's a lot of money because in the beginning, you get more money and you get less money later on. So now is the time to strike. But I would always come back to you to tell the board what it would be.

[11384] Elisa Martinez: Thank you, Member Zhang. Any other questions?

[11386] Phuong Nguyen: I have one. Yes, Member Wen. Is this an allowable expense for a capital outlay project?

[11398] Marie dela Cruz: Yes, Ms. Nguyen. The special reserve is for any capital over $5,000 in capital purchase.

[11410] Phuong Nguyen: How do we qualify to be able to purchase the electrical buses with capital outlay money? Is it because of the charging stations that you are putting into the facility?

[11423] Marie dela Cruz: No, the capital outlay is defined as equipment or facility. Oh, equipment. Yeah, any equipment over $5,000 or any facilities projects over $5,000.

[11432] Elisa Martinez: OK, great. Yeah, the buses themselves are considered equipment. Yeah, I'm just I think a little question a little bit similar to member member Zhang, you know, meaning that we know the current ranges to Sacramento, but we know we've got, you know, and these are onesie Tuesdays a year, right, that the trip to to Disneyland, for example, let's say we wanted to, we're going to stop and charge, what's the charge time, if you will, like the supercharge time? Do we have an estimate for that? It's two hours. So likely, and Ms. Delacruz, this might be a question to you, when MOT was looking at the use of these buses, was the thought that, and I think I remember it from the first presentation, that we would use charter, we continue to use charter buses for any long distance trips. Was that the thought?

[11487] Marie dela Cruz: It would depend. We try to use our own buses whenever possible. So I, don't know that we could totally avoid using charters, but yeah, I guess it would depend.

[11502] Elisa Martinez: I vaguely remember that coming up. I just don't remember the particulars of it back. It's been like a year, right? So, okay.

[11511] Ray Rodriguez: If you don't mind, I can envision, you know, driving and stopping at Cap Poly and having the kids kind of do a tour of the college there while the bus is being charged and on the way down to Disneyland. My concern is with with the commitment for the three additional. And so, if we approve this, then my hope is that we will, and I, I love Miss Tom she just is one of those people that is good at getting grants and everything which we need so many, you know, a whole bunch of more people like you. The fact that you could put it together and on the three additional and get that going. So we can get some grant money for that and And I'm sure that's your intent and that'd be great.

[11563] SPEAKER_30: The other thing that I'm considering is since you have solar at your sites. If we can put solar with the PG&E grant for the infrastructure that it would really reduce the cost of charging your vehicles at nighttime.

[11583] Elisa Martinez: Okay, thank you. Any other questions?

[11589] Bowen Zhang: Just a quick comment on Member Rodriguez. We wouldn't be able to make a trip from Newark to Cal Poly on the electric bus, so it will probably be charter bus.

[11599] Elisa Martinez: We'll have multiple stops in between. Or at least a stop. Okay, very good. Ms. Gutierrez, if you can please repeat the motion before us, please.

[11617] SPEAKER_47: Motion states that staff recommends the board commit to purchasing two electric buses and a charging station infrastructure for a district match of $356,304 through the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, California Air Resources Board, and PG&E grants. Staff also recommends approval for the future electric vehicles and infrastructure grants application. motion made by Member Rodriguez and second by Member Nguyen.

[11651] Elisa Martinez: Okay, thank you. If you could please bring up the vote. And Student Member Salemi, how do you vote?

[11661] SPEAKER_45: Yes.

[11662] Elisa Martinez: Thank you.

[11665] SPEAKER_47: Okay, roll call vote. Member Rodriguez? Yes. Thank you. Member Nguyen? Yes. Member Jean?

[11676] Michael Milliken: Yes.

[11677] SPEAKER_47: you. Thank you. Thank you, President Martinez.

[11679] Elisa Martinez: Yes. So the motion carries unanimously. Thank you so much, Miss Tom and Miss Dela Cruz for bringing this forward again. It's been a long time coming in. You know, we didn't really talk about this. Besides, of course, the grant and the value of the brand, but Grant, but we in that initial Now that the money is available, we know it's a matter of time that we need to go in this direction to be compliant. So thank you again for that and trying to get us a little bit of a head start.

[11718] SPEAKER_30: Thank you for your time and your support.

[11722] SPEAKER_45: Thank you.

[11723] Marie dela Cruz: Thank you, Miss Tom.

[11727] Elisa Martinez: Okay, let's see. And with that, we move to new business. How are we doing on time here? It's 9.15. We'll keep going and we'll see where if we need to extend. So the next item is 13.1, LCFF budget overview for parents. Recommended action is forced the board to adopt the 2021 local control funding formula budget overview for parents. May I have a motion and a second, please?

[11767] Phuong Nguyen: I move to approve.

[11768] Elisa Martinez: I second. Member Nguyen moves, Mr. Rodriguez seconds. Okay and I know we don't have public comment on any remaining items so superintendent.

[11782] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Martinez. So, our Director of Special Projects, Ms. Cervantes-Falk is here to answer any questions. I will say that this year's LCFF, or rather, And LCAP is slightly different because of the pandemic and the additional funds through CARES and the LCP, just a slightly different acronym. But nonetheless, through LCFF, we did need to engage families in the use of those funds and update on how those funds are being utilized, and then also reporting that to the board. So I'll turn it over to Ms. Cervantes-Falk to explain more.

[11832] SPEAKER_43: Good evening and thank you Dr. Triplett and board president as well as board members. Ms.dela Cruz and I will be tag-teaming with this presentation. So the purpose really is to come forward and provide you with the 2021 LCAP budget overview and also provide you with an update on where we stand with respect to future years with the LCAP. Also, it's important to note, as I'll explain in a little bit, that per statute, we are required to approve this report along with our first interim. So that in which I see in the agenda that our first interim report is following this presentation. So what we're seeing here is actually a copy of the presentation that we shared with our LCAP Parent Advisory Committee on November 17 and we thought we would just use the same presentation. So we're going to quickly cover is go over a quick review of the suspension of the 2021 LCAP and the implications, how that brought about the LCAP budget overview report, and then I'll just give you a quick recap of what's expected of us for the coming years. So very quickly, just as an overview, as we finished up the year last year, spring of 2020, We ended the year where LCAP was not suspended, but the deadline was moved to December 15th. So we ended the year with providing the board with just what we call the operationals plan, saying what we were doing to support our students during the school closure in the spring. And they said, wait on LCAP and the new deadline is December 15th. Yet over the summer, we had Senate Bill SB 98, and then that bill, when it came about, suspended the LCAP entirely and said there was no LCAP for 2021, but yet they said it was being replaced with the new LCAP, which was the Learning Continuity Plan, and that's what we presented to you in September. So again, we were following the new regulations. The other thing that the Senate bill also did is it separated the budget overview from the actual LCAP process, the former LCAP process. Before, even though they're two separate items, before we brought them to you together at the end of the year, usually approved by you before June 30th, along with our budget, and then that was submitted to the county office. Well, now they were saying, because we suspended the LCAP, now we were left with no means of holding the LEAs accountable or giving the LEAs an opportunity to share with its stakeholders the funding piece, because that had been part of the LCAP. So for those reasons, they separated those two. And then they said that while they were suspending the LCAP completely for 2021, they were still asking us to continue with the budget overview report in that deadline. was extended to December 15th, which is why we're here today. So very quickly on the budget overview, this isn't something new. However, 2019-2020 was the first year that we were asked to submit it. So if you were to look at our LCAP from last year, you would have seen these three pages, which is the budget overview for parents, And there were, again, there were the first three pages found of the LCAP. So it was required of us to have this document also created or completed. It was actually a spreadsheet that then developed into a report. And we were asked to put it in front of the LCAP as our cover sheet.

[12097] Mark Triplett: Sorry to interrupt, but did you want to have the slides visible?

[12102] SPEAKER_43: I'm so sorry.

[12103] Mark Triplett: Am I not presenting? Right. Yeah, we can't see the slide.

[12106] SPEAKER_43: I'm so sorry. Okay. Hello.

[12110] Marie dela Cruz: I didn't realize it because I have it on my screen, so I didn't.

[12118] SPEAKER_43: It's not funny. It's been a long day.

[12120] SPEAKER_41: I apologize. No problem.

[12122] SPEAKER_43: I'm so sorry. Um, so I just talked to you.

[12126] Mark Triplett: You can start right where you left off. You don't need to. It's fine.

[12130] SPEAKER_43: Okay, perfect. Sorry. My apologies. No problem. So as I was sharing, um, like I said, so this, uh, 2019 2020 was the first year that they had actually asked us to to report the budget in this manner. And so if you were to look at our LCAP from 2019 2020, you would have seen this report right at the start of the LCAP because that's what statute, excuse me, asked of us that we use that report and we have it as the cover of our 19-20 LCAP. So we're the first three pages. In this report, what you see is you're gonna see the projective general funds for 2021. You're gonna see the budgeted expenditures for our unduplicated students. And then they do ask at the last section for an expenditure for unduplicated for the 19-20. So the first two sections are really related to this year. And then the last section is about our actual expenditures from the LCFFs in 2019-20. And as Marie's gonna go over this in a few minutes, you're gonna see what all the state is asking us to report for 2021. So with that, I'm going to pass it over to Marie who can then explain what the different sections are.

[12223] Marie dela Cruz: So I'm going to go over a summary of our general fund revenues for 2021. Again, this was the same presentation that we shared with our parents a few weeks ago. So total revenues for the district is $69.2 million. And of that amount, the total local control funding formula is 53.6 million. And then within the local control funding formula, we have funds that are generated by high needs students, such as our English learners, foster youth, and low income students. And there's 5.1 million in revenues for that. We also have other LCFF funds of $48 million. Our other state funding, such as lottery, is about $5 million. And then local funds, which includes local grants and other funds, it's about $4 million. And federal funds is $6.5. And that does include our CARES Act funding of about $4.2 million. Next. Okay, so on the expenditure side for this year, we have a total of 71,808,000 in total expenditures. And of that, there's the 4.2 million that's in our LCAP, which is the same amount that we received in our Federal CARES Act money. And the amount that we have budgeted for the high needs students in the LCAP is 1.9 million. So total expenditures that are not in the LCAP is about six to seven and a half million. And the expenses that are in that amount include employee salaries and benefits, Our contribution to the special education program, we have routine and restricted maintenance, technology support, instructional materials and supplies, professional development, our utilities, our gas, water, and sewage is part of that, custodial services, textbooks, property and liability insurance, and staff development. So next. So in 1920, our LCAP expenditures for unduplicated students was budgeted at 5.6 million. That was the original budget. And what was actually expended for the high needs students in our LCAP was about 4.8 million. So the difference represents, part of it was because if you recall, We did not receive concentration funds. So initially we had projected that we would receive about $370,000 in concentration funds and that was reduced. The other thing is because of the pandemic, there were a lot of programs that we couldn't implement or that got canceled midterm. such as our science camps, we had to cancel those trips. Some of the community partnerships, those agreements that, for example, the Ohlone for Kids, they were canceled midterm or interrupted because of COVID-19.

[12458] SPEAKER_43: So this just shows then the summary of the three charts that we were working with per the directions. And then attached, you also saw the actual report that is print out and that we share with our community. So in terms of what's next, the state is still moving forward with going back to our LCAP, our local control and accountability plan, and they're still moving forward with starting the new three-year cycle. So as we start working and planning for that, we will be looking at a three-year cycle starting the 21-22 school year, and then going on to the 23 school year. The one couple of changes that they've made or that they're looking into is that they will be asking for an annual update. And so they're they're modifying that template. And as far as I know, the last time what was mentioned to us is that they were going to be asking for us to provide information on how we spent the 1920 LCFF funds as well as how we are spending or foreseeing to spend the 2021 LCP funds that we got for relief of COVID-19 and school closure. Our next steps would be that at present, we're providing you with the 2021 budget overview. we're going to be working on that. Um internally, we're going to begin, um, working on the annual update, so it's starting to gather all of the information that we need. Then we're going to establish, um. You know our out cap apparent Advisory Committee, which you know my recommendation and I can bring this back to the board with actual names, but my the three year cycle. Um, things got interrupted and several of the committee members were actually new to the committee. So we just kind of believe that if we keep them for at least one more year. Um and starting the three year cycle would be beneficial for all. Um but again more to discuss that with Dr Tribble it and then once that's determined, then we are going to go ahead and get spring. So that's that's our internal next steps, you know, for that. And so with that, um, you know, we're here to answer any questions.

[12629] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Thank you, Miss Adventist folk and Miss Della Cruz. Any questions from our from our board?

[12640] Bowen Zhang: I mean, just a quick comment. I remember several months ago when we're looking at the this current New Year funding, we talk about 55%, we're a little below 55% when it comes to concentration grant. And I remember the goal was limited to 58%. And at that time, we think it's a pretty rosy projection. And I guess this is not materializing this year. And do we think this probably will never materialize? Is that correct?

[12671] Marie dela Cruz: I wouldn't say that. I'm still hopeful and optimistic that we can reach our percentage. It's just that because of the current situation, obviously providing free meals and the, I guess the motivation or incentive to fill out those meal applications right now is not as, is not as important to some families, but we still have some opportunity to get back to above that 55%.

[12710] Mark Triplett: If I could just add, we do have, as Ms. Delacruz is alluding to, some opportunities, some slight changes in the regulations that will enable us to to do some additional outreach to families, but it is going to take all of us. And we really we really want to ask the board for support and all our communities for support, because this if we're going to be able to get to that percentage, It has to be a full community effort. We need as many people as possible to be filling out that form. And we just can't count on just having people come forward and do it. We really need to be reminding people, doing outreach, talking it up any place we can because it's so critical to our funding. So more to come on that in the upcoming board meetings.

[12771] Elisa Martinez: Thank you, Superintendent. And I actually had a question coming into the first interim, just because, again, where we are and how close we keep missing that number. Because I think the question really is, right, it's not, it's the, what do we really believe our true, you know, our true rate of need of unduplicated is, right? It's, to your point, Superintendent, you know, if we keep hitting it, we're at 54, 50 something, you know, do we believe it's 60? Do we believe there's opportunity? Then it's then it's on all of us to close the gap, right? Because I think that is that is the key. And I think all of us did think 58 was aggressive based on where we were. But if we believe that's what it's at what's out there, then we do need to hold our own feet to the fire to go figure out how to go reach those folks. Because we know we have our kids that really do need these support systems. So, okay, that was more a comment than a question, so.

[12836] Marie dela Cruz: Yeah, no, I just wanna say that historically, I think we've been as high as above 58%, almost 60%. And so I do believe there is an opportunity. And I just want the community to understand how important this is to our funding. We've received, I mean, back in 13, 14, it was over a million dollars. And so, I mean, there's an opportunity for the district to receive additional funding for our high needs students. Thank you.

[12873] Mark Triplett: And if I could just add one more thing is, unfortunately, with with the pandemic, we all know that the financial situation of many of our families has gotten worse. And that's a that's a terrible thing. And all the more reason why we possibly could get more forms filled out so that we have more funding to support those families who may have lost income, may have a significant reduction in income right now and need that support.

[12906] Elisa Martinez: Thank you, very good. Okay, Ms.dela Cruz, I'm sorry, Ms. Gutierrez, can you please repeat the motion? And to, can you hear me? Yes, now I can.

[12928] SPEAKER_47: Okay. So recommendation is that staff recommends that the board adopt the 2020-2021 local control funding formula, LCFF, budget overview for parents to be submitted with the first interim financial report. Motion made by member Nguyen and second by member Rodriguez.

[12951] Elisa Martinez: Thank you, students. Member Salemi, how do you vote?

[12956] SPEAKER_45: Yes.

[12958] SPEAKER_47: Member Rodriguez? That was a yes. I see that out of the head, yes. Member Nguyen? Yes. Member Zhang?

[12972] Michael Milliken: Yes.

[12973] SPEAKER_47: And President Martinez?

[12976] Elisa Martinez: Yes. So the motion carries unanimously. Thank you so much, Ms. Cervantes-Falk. The entire team.

[12986] Mark Triplett: Thank you both for all of your work on this.

[12988] Elisa Martinez: Good night. Thank you. Good night.

[12991] SPEAKER_28: Thank you.

[12992] Elisa Martinez: Okay, got a thick book company in the next item. Okay, so it is 9.37. We're about to hit the Like I said, the first interim report that tends to have quite a bit of questions accompanying. Ms. Superintendent or Ms.dela Cruz, what are we thinking? Maybe if we extend an hour?

[13025] SPEAKER_28: That would be sufficient.

[13027] Marie dela Cruz: Okay. Yeah, that should be fine.

[13031] Elisa Martinez: Okay. All right. So may I have a motion in a second to extend the meeting by an hour, please? We'll just do a roll call. I move to approve.

[13042] SPEAKER_13: Second.

[13044] Elisa Martinez: Member Nguyen moves. Member Rodriguez seconds. And we'll just do a roll. Student member Salemi?

[13050] SPEAKER_45: Yes.

[13052] Elisa Martinez: Member Nguyen? Yes. Member Rodriguez? Yes. Member Zhang?

[13056] Michael Milliken: Yes.

[13057] Elisa Martinez: And my vote is yes. So we extend the meeting to 10.30. By an hour, or I'm sorry, by an hour. So not about 1040, 1038.

[13068] Bowen Zhang: We're extending to 11, because we're, we're extending from 10 to 11.

[13077] Elisa Martinez: Oh, well, yeah, that's true. That's true. Let's do it to 11. I was doing it from from this minute, but I'm assuming we would only need one more hour. But let's do 11 to play it safe. Okay, very good. Thank you for that clarification. Member Zhang. Okay, so with regards to the first interim report, may I have a motion and a second to approve staff recommendation?

[13103] Bowen Zhang: I move to approve a positive qualification and positive certification of our first interim report.

[13111] Elisa Martinez: Second. Member Zhang moves, member Nguyen seconds. Okay, with that, superintendent.

[13119] Mark Triplett: Thank you. So, um, thank you, President, we will, I'm going to turn it over to Miss Della Cruz in a moment. As you know, board and and and community. Every year there's interim reports throughout the year and just want to iterate that these are moments in time. So this really helps us to understand where we are in those spot checks almost around our budget so that we can ensure that we are being fiscally responsible. So Ms. Delacruz will take us through what is always a tremendous amount of work to be doing these reports and in this level of detail.

[13162] Marie dela Cruz: Thank you, Dr. Triplett. I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen.

[13167] Bowen Zhang: Pick the right one.

[13182] Marie dela Cruz: Do you see it?

[13184] Mark Triplett: Yes. Yep, we can see it.

[13187] Marie dela Cruz: Right screen? OK. All right. So thank you, Dr. Triplett and President Martinez and the board. As Dr. Triplett mentioned, this is a snapshot in time. It's our first interim report for the year. The last time we talked about our budget was the 45-day budget revision, and then before that, it was the adopted budget. So this report covers the period from July 1st through October 31st. and it needs to be submitted to the Alameda County Office of Education by December 15. It does include a multi-year projection for the current year and the two subsequent years, so it's 2021 through 22-23, and it provides the board an update of where we're at financially since the 45-day budget revision and the adopted budget. As part of this report, we have to certify whether we are positive, qualified, or negative. And just for review, a positive certification means that our district will be able to meet our financial obligations in the current year and the two subsequent years. And to be qualified means that our district may not be able to make our financial obligations in the current or in any of the two subsequent years. And to certify negative means that the district will not be able to make its financial obligations for the remainder of the current year or the subsequent years. So first, enrollment in ADA. It's really important that we understand how critical enrollment in ADA is to our funding. It's directly tied to our funding. The local control funding formula is funded based on ADA, which is the average daily attendance. And that is calculated by the number of days that students are in on a daily basis. So we always emphasize how important it is for students to be in school. And that's one of the reasons, I mean, other than, you know, if you're not in school, you're not learning, but we also receive funding for every day that the students are in school. We don't receive funding when they're absent unless, anyway. So our historical ratio to enrollment has always been about 97%. So 97% of the time, I guess our students are in school. And our enrollment has been declining for over 10 years. So if you think about ADA, since 13-14, we had 6,137 in average daily attendance. And we are down to 5,483. That's 655 less ADA. which at 10,000 per ADA on the average, it's about six and a half million dollars. So if we were able to increase our ADA even by 1%, that's 55 additional ADA, which is equivalent to 550,000. And obviously if we had perfect attendance, we would get even more funding. So you can see the difference between the enrollment and ADA. It's about 200 students, 200. So there's plenty of opportunity there to increase our funding. And as of CBEDS day, our enrollment was 5,465, which is 166 less than last year. So unfortunately we're continuing the trend of declining enrollment. And in our revenues, The local control funding formula represents 77% of our funding. And this year it's at 53.6 million. Our federal revenue is 10% and that six and a half million does include the 4.2 million from the CARES Act funding. So next year that federal revenue will not be as high. And other state is at 5 million and other local revenue is at 4 million. So total revenues for our district is at 69.2 million. Just going back to revenue, just keep in mind that this includes contributions to our restricted programs. So there's about $9 million that's contributed from our General fund unrestricted funds going into the restricted programs to support our special education And our routine restricted maintenance account So in our expenditures There's a total of 71.8 million and 76 of this is in salaries and benefits and um The other big piece of the pie is under services and operating expenses, which is about 17%. And that includes our utilities costs, our contracted services, and other operating expenses. So what were some of the changes since our 45 day revise? We had a decrease in our local control funding formula because we updated it to not include concentration funds. And also we had to update our ADA and enrollment. And there was a slight increase in our local revenue and we increased our contributions to restricted programs. in special education and the routine restricted maintenance account. The RRMA, the routine restricted maintenance account, is based on 3% of our total expenditures. So there was an increase of $232,000 for both of those contributions. So our total change in revenues is minus 216,000. And then when we're looking at our expenditures, we did have a slight increase in our salaries and benefits. And we did have some contracted services that were converted into regular employee positions. And also we had some carryover expenses from last year that was moved into the budget and some legal expenses of 297,000. And again, the increase in the contributions is both on the revenue and the expenditure side. So a total change in expenditures of 791,000. So when you put all that together compared to where we were at the 45-day revise, at the 45-day budget, we were projecting a surplus of 753,000. But with the changes that we've made since that time, we're now looking at a decrease in our fund balance of 253,000. So that decrease brings our reserve, which started out at $6,169,000, will end in $5,915,000, which still represents 8% reserve for economic uncertainties. And this is a summary of the revenues and expenditures and our fund balance in both the unrestricted and restricted funds. So this just breaks it down to where you can see the unrestricted and restricted, the total revenues are at 69 million. And then you can see the contributions that go from the unrestricted to the restricted accounts of 9 million. And the surplus on the, I mean, the deficit on the unrestricted side is the 253,000. The restricted shows a deficit of a 2.3, but it's really not a true deficit. It really represents the fund balance that was carried over from last year. So what happens is the money that we don't spend last year falls into our fund balance. And then we have to move it back to the budget so that we can spend it. And that's what we've done. And that was one of the recommendations from FCMAT that we do it earlier rather than later. So we've updated our first interim report so that we can budget last year's carryover into this year's funds. So again, our fund balance started out as 8.6 million in total, that includes the restricted funding as well. And then with a total deficit of two and a half million, we have 6 million in our net ending fund balance. And when you're looking at what that 6 million is made up of, the components of the ending fund balance, 126,000 of that is from restricted funds. And then we do have a non-spendable component, which is our revolving cash and stores inventory. It's about 100,000, which leaves us a reserve for economic uncertainties of 5.8 million. So moving on to our multi-year projections, there's a lot of assumptions that go into our multi-year and First of all, in terms of the revenues, the cost of living adjustment is projected at 0% for this year and the next two years. And if you recall before the pandemic, the COLA was actually projected at 3% and 2.8% in 21, 22 and 22, 23. Our STRS rates and PERS rates continue to go up. Although we do have a slight decrease next year for the STRS rate, the lottery pretty much stays the same. And the step in column, that's the salary schedule adjustments for our employees. And for certificated, it's at 1.64%. And for classified CSCA, it's at 0.89. And then our management group is at 1.68%. We do have health and welfare benefits for our classified employees, and that's projected to increase about 2% a year. And then we also have a salary increase that was settled with our labor partners, which included a 1% increase this year. And then it's a 2.5% increase for 21-22. However, because the way that we split it to where the 2.5% will be given 1% in July of 2021, and then 1.5% in February of 2022, that's equivalent to 1.75% for that year. So the other 0.75 actually needs to be applied for the following year. So I hope you're following me. And again, when we had settled this agreement, our cost of living adjustment was higher than what we had settled. And unfortunately, because of the pandemic now, we do have an increase that is above COLA, which is now at zero. So that's just an added burden on our expenditures. We have a one-time CARES Act funds of 4.2 million. That's one time. So it's only showing up in this year's budget. It's not going to show up in the next two years. And then the ADA, this is another critical piece. So the state has given us this hold harmless provision to where we can apply the ADA from last year to this year. and also next year. So if you're looking at our actual ADA for 2021, right now it's 5,482 because it's based on last year's. But for next year, because we're projecting enrollment to stay flat, which is the 5,465, 97% of that, which has been our historical trend for ADA, it's about 97% of enrollment. That's what that 5,318 represents. So as you can see, the funded ADA is higher than what our actual ADA would be. So that's where that hold harmless provision is really helping us because we're getting funded for 5,482 ADA next year instead of the 5,318. But in the following year, that's when the change will really hit our district. Because now we're looking at 164 less ADA in 22-23. And we've also included the estimated savings from school consolidation. So with this consolidation for this coming year, the 21-22, it's estimated at 500,000. And then the following year with the other school music being consolidated, then the estimated savings would be 1 million. It's really important that we understand all of those assumptions, because those assumptions is what I put into our multi-year. So if you look at our revenues in our multi-year, and this is focusing on our unrestricted funds, because the unrestricted is what really counts as our reserve. And our revenues will pretty much remain the same between this year and next year because of the hold harmless. So you can see it's about $45.7 million. But the following year is when it drops dramatically. It's about $1.5 million less, going down to $44.2 million. And again, that's because our funded ADA is projected at $5,318. and not the hold harmless at 5,482. And again, keep in mind, this is almost a best case scenario because of 5,465 enrollment remaining flat because we're not really sure of the true impact of the pandemic, whether we'll be able to go back up to normal or go down even further, not sure. So at this point, I'm just assuming it's going to stay the same. And our expenditures, on the other hand, those will continue to go up, because we still have to deal with our rising cost of the employer's contribution to the retirement programs, the salary agreements, the stepping column, and health and welfare benefits. So our expenditures continue to go up. Our revenues are flat and will actually go down. So you have your one and a half million less in revenues. Plus you have your one and a half million increase in expenditures in the next two years. It's going to result in a deficit of about 3.2 million by 2223. So in 2021, what that does to our fund balance is, you know, you starting out with the 6.2 million that this year, we're looking at a $250,000, 250, 250, 253,000 deficit. So we're ending with a fund balance of 5.9. So that you carry that over to the next year. That's your beginning balance, but then you have to reduce it by that surplus of 742. And now our ending balance is at 5.1 million, almost 5.2. So that's your beginning balance for the next year. But then you're looking at your deficit of the 3.2 million. So now we're down to 1.9 million. So between this year and the next two years, we're looking at a $4 million reduction in our fund balance. So in terms of our reserves, in the general fund, we're looking at an 8% reserve in 2021. With Fund 17, we do have special reserves for emergency purposes there also. We have 2.3 million there, which is 3.2% of our total expenditures. So our total reserves available for this year is 8.1 million. So that gives us 11% of our total expenditures this year. So when you're looking at what the minimum is, it's based on 3% or 2.1 million, we do meet it this year. And then next year, same thing. So our reserves for general fund is at 7.7%. And then our special reserves is at 3.6. We've added interest. That's why it grows a little bit every year. So we earn about $40,000 in interest in our special reserves every year. So now we're looking at 11%. It's about the same because the expenditures we'll go down next year because of the federal money that we won't receive. So the 3% minimum required there is 1.9 million, almost 2 million again. So we will be able to meet it next year as well. And the following year, I just wanna make note of our general fund reserves will be down to 2.7%, just under 3%. So in 22-23, the special reserves is what's really getting us over the 3% minimum required. Because in 22-23, now we're looking at a 6% reserve for economic uncertainties. And we do meet our minimum that year as well. We have other funds such as adult education or child development, our cafeteria fund, the special reserve for emergency purposes, the building fund, which is where we collect developer fees, the capital facilities fund. And I'm sorry, I had it backwards. Building fund is our measure G and capital facilities is the developer fees. And then the special reserve for capital outlay, also known as the Russian fund, the bond interest and the self-insurance fund. So if you're looking at the total of all those funds, we have about an ending fund balance of 50 million. What we're looking at in the near future is the governor's state budget will be coming out in January, on or around January 10th, 2021. and that's when the governor presents his proposals for next year. We have our second interim report, which ends January 31st. It's just around the corner. And that report will be presented in March. But before that, we are planning to do a study session with the board in January 21. 2021 so that we can address the deficits and identify some budget balance and solutions for 21, 22 and 22, 23. We also are working on the plan to increase our reserves to 17%. And we also need to address the inner fund transfers from the fund 17 reserves to the general fund that needs to be resolved by second interim. We either need to declare it as a permanent transfer and or transfer funds back to 117. So all in all, just to summarize our current year, we are estimating a deficit of 253,000. Our multi-year projection is projecting deficits of 742 in 21-22 and then 3.2 million in 22-23. We will schedule a study session so we can address these deficits and then we will be able to meet our 3% minimum and we recommend a positive certification. With that, I'm open to questions, comments, any discussion.

[14593] Elisa Martinez: Sure. Board members, any questions from you?

[14598] Bowen Zhang: So if we vote positive certification today, there will be no third interim report anymore, right? Come May or June, right?

[14614] Mark Triplett: Ms.

[14615] Elisa Martinez: Delacruz, can you answer that? I think if we have two two qualifieds, then it requires Ms. Dela Cruz, or just one, or one of them is qualified?

[14633] Mark Triplett: I think Ms. Dela Cruz's mic is muted.

[14636] Elisa Martinez: Oh, she's taking it.

[14638] Marie dela Cruz: Hello? Okay.

[14641] Leonor Rebosura: Oh, there we go.

[14642] Marie dela Cruz: You're back on. Okay.

[14645] Mark Triplett: Could you hear, did you hear members?

[14647] Marie dela Cruz: I did not, I'm sorry. Well, I was saying,

[14651] Bowen Zhang: We're planning to vote on positive today, so that just eliminated the need for a third interim report or count made, right?

[14658] Marie dela Cruz: It will depend on second interim. So if second interim is qualified, then we may have to do a third interim.

[14667] SPEAKER_14: I see.

[14670] Elisa Martinez: OK, thank you, Member Zhang. Any other questions? Board? Um, no, I mean, first of all, um, you know, Miss Della Cruz, um, um, you know, this was, uh, I'd mentioned to, to superintendent triplet. Um, I mean, the news isn't great. Um, what we have before us, but with regards to not only this presentation, but if you really read through the inter to the first interim real, you've done a really nice job at linking everything so we can see where the changes. and why your estimates are what they are. You know, I think it's very, very concerning that, you know, this whole enrollment component of it. And I did, I wanted to circle back because you showed a couple of pages with regards to the decrease in enrollment. And obviously we've gone through some very difficult weeks where we heard a lot of public comment about the mismanagement of funds, right? And I know that we've referenced that, but I wanna say that very clear, this document is out there, right? Both presentations, this is an enrollment issue, right? And yeah, we can say there's some performance issues, but there's a lot of different dynamics with regards to the exodus of just school age children in our district. And just in the last, just the last 10 years, forget 15 to 20 years, the last 15 years, the last seven years, right? We have lost millions and millions of dollars in funding. And so obviously that is really what's at stake. And I think it's just really important for all of us to understand that because it's not a superintendent, how are you gonna fix it? It's all of us, right? How are we really looking to understand what are those drivers, because it's not just, you know, how are schools academically doing, but in our community, what is really happening that's impacting the number of school-age children that are even here versus 10 years ago. So anyway, I think that you did a really good job with that. I think I had already submitted some questions. I I think another thing to call out that's really important for the numbers is the COLA, the assumption that it's flat. That's huge. That's huge, huge, huge for us to really be concerned about. So really looking into the governor's update early in the year and hoping that there's some relief there. So I think just all of us should be aware that these are all the dynamics. And please take the time to reach out and ask questions. And I'm speaking to all of us, to our community, because there are a lot of moving pieces, right? And so please, please feel free to reach out with questions to staff. Many of you all have access to our email. Feel free to do that because this isn't, it's not a great condition that we're in. And I think it's important that we all just say that out loud and start thinking about how we're going to manage through it. Any other questions or comments?

[14891] Phuong Nguyen: Yes, I just have one question. In regards to the CARES money, I know that a lot of it has to be spent or it has to be spent by the end of this month. And the question is, what happens to the money if it isn't spent?

[14911] Marie dela Cruz: So that's a good question. The money that isn't spent goes back to the state. So we've had to report to the state every month since September to let them know where we were in terms of spending the first part of the CARES Act money that needed to be spent by December 30th. And we've been able to spend it all. We've been working really hard to get all those money spent and not have to return it to the state or the feds because it goes back to the state and then the state has to return it to the feds. And then there's a couple other buckets of money. There's some that's due the end of June, June 30th, 2021. And then another set that's due September of 2022. So for the December 30th part, we're good. We are not returning any money.

[14972] Phuong Nguyen: That's good. And I also just wanted to echo what President Martinez has said. I think a lot of it is Us as a community, we do have to educate our families on how schools and districts in general are funded. And it is so important that we're not the only voice and that our parents and our students also know how districts and how their education is being paid for. So I think it's really important for students to also know and to advocate for their right to have an education and for families and parents to support our students also. And, and so we as a district has to do, we have to do a better job of educating our families and students here in regards to how, how we're funded, so that we can get additional money if possible.

[15031] Elisa Martinez: Yeah, that that's, I'm gonna kind of piggyback on that, member Nguyen, because, you know, in terms of just understanding not only how we're funded, but then these definitions around structural deficits versus, you know, a snapshot picture. And I wanted to make reference to that because I know given the CARES Act monies that you referenced as well, it actually makes it look like we're in a better situation that we really are. I mean, it's kind of, you know, this tragedy called COVID kind of really put us, it kind of saved us financially, if you will, right? Or kind of brought on this, maybe the reduction in the COLA. But the point is that that is one-time money. And so if you think about the definition of structural, structural is ongoing. Do I have an ongoing source of fund? to pay for my ongoing expenses. And so therefore, when we look at this snapshot right now from CARES money, the answer is no, because that money is not coming back, right? So I just wanted to say that out loud again, because I know I've heard from folks out in our community that this year, we're actually not that bad. you know, when we, that number is etched, I'm actually looking at right now, 22, 23, and the significant drop to our reserves, right? It really is that Fund 17 will call that keeps us at this point, a lot of things can change and hopefully for the better in the next year and some time, but right now that's the only thing, you know, it is a grim outlook. And so we really need to start thinking about, you know, how do we start looking at and preparing for some possible challenges in funding. So thank you for that.

[15145] Mark Triplett: If I may, President Martinez, I think it's worthwhile. I know Ms. Dela Cruz embedded it in her presentation, but it's worthwhile repeating because it's easy to miss. And that is that all of the projections that she put forth is assuming that we've made the hard decision that the board just made last session to consolidate or merge schools. So that is built in. to the report that's just been presented. If the board had not chosen, had not made that decision, then the outlook would be even worse, significantly worse. So it's worth just repeating because those are really, really hard, painful decisions that have been made, and it would be way, way worse without them.

[15198] Elisa Martinez: And so thank you for that. The other thing, maybe it's worth You may want to mention, Ms.dela Cruz, is regarding cash deferrals, because that's another challenge. And I know that a few of us had attended some of the CSBA, like the board organization, will bring in the financial advisors. And that was the one thing we kept hearing is cash, cash, cash is going to be a huge issue going into the next year and a half. So can you just maybe quickly review that point again?

[15234] Marie dela Cruz: Yes, yes, thank you. So as part of the state's budget balancing solution, they are going to implement cash deferrals in February of 2021, March, April, May, and June, which means that the cash that we would normally receive in those months are being deferred to the following year. So fortunately, um, we do have the cash available, um, to get us through those months, but, you know, by the end of June, we'll have about, uh, 1.8 million in cash left. And if, if we needed to, we could borrow from those other funds that I mentioned to you earlier. And in those other funds, there's about $35 million available. Because it's not all of it. We can't borrow from our Measure G fund, obviously, and some of the other funds. But we do have available, if needed, $35 million to borrow from our other funds. So that is significant, because other school districts Unfortunately, we don't have that luxury, but it will impact us this year.

[15327] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Any other questions from the board? Okay. If not, I will ask Ms. Gutierrez to please repeat the motion.

[15349] SPEAKER_47: The motion is that staff recommends approval of the 2020-21 first interim report with positive certification. And the motion was made by Member Zhang and second by Member Nguyen.

[15364] Elisa Martinez: Student Member Salemi, how do you vote?

[15367] SPEAKER_45: Yes.

[15368] SPEAKER_50: Thank you.

[15374] SPEAKER_47: And the roll call vote, Member Rodriguez?

[15377] Ray Rodriguez: Yes.

[15379] SPEAKER_47: Member Nguyen? Yes. Member Zhang?

[15384] Michael Milliken: Yes.

[15385] SPEAKER_47: And President Martinez?

[15387] Elisa Martinez: My vote is yes as well. So the motion carries unanimously. Board dog vote? No board dog vote. Yeah, I did send it. I didn't get it either. I just assumed that you were having problems and that's why you were asking for the... It's open.

[15403] SPEAKER_47: Yeah, it's open right now if you guys want to... Do you guys see it?

[15408] Phuong Nguyen: No, we know. I didn't see it for the last vote either.

[15412] SPEAKER_47: Except for the last one. So I can manually input them anyway, so they do get recorded on board ducks. Okay. Okay.

[15423] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, members on for that. Thank you. Okay. And with that, we move to the next item, which is the resolution that accompanies this miss. So if I can have a motion and a second to accept staff recommendation to adopt resolution 2020.21-014. I move to approve the resolution. Thank you.

[15454] Ray Rodriguez: Second.

[15455] Elisa Martinez: Member Nguyen moves. Member Rodriguez seconds. OK. And Ms.dela Cruz.

[15463] Marie dela Cruz: Yes, so this resolution is a commitment to address the deficits in 21-22 and 22-23. It's tied to our first interim report based on the multi-year projection in that we're looking at the deficit of 700,000 and 3.2 million in the subsequent year. So this is, committing the board and staff to address those two deficits and identify budget balance and solutions.

[15497] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Any questions from our board? Student member Salemi?

[15506] SPEAKER_45: I just wanted to clarify, I guess, if we don't make this commitment that the county would come in and they would do it themselves, right? like in terms of?

[15520] Marie dela Cruz: Oh, that would take time. If we continue with this deficit pattern, yes, the county could take over. That's why we're getting ahead of it and letting the county know that we are going to address this issue.

[15536] SPEAKER_45: Exactly. And I think if something like this is necessary, it's best if it stays within our own district, because we know how to best make those decisions if they have to be made. Exactly. Okay, thank you.

[15552] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, Ms. Gutierrez, can you please repeat the motion?

[15568] SPEAKER_47: Staff recommends the Board adopt Resolution 2020.21-014 to commit to budget balancing solutions for the 2021 and 2022 school year and the 2022-2023 fiscal years. Sorry, fiscal years. Thank you. And the motion was made by member Nguyen and second by member Rodriguez. Voting has been sent.

[15593] Elisa Martinez: Okay. And student member Salemi, how do you vote?

[15597] Diego Torres: Yes.

[15599] SPEAKER_47: Thank you. Roll call vote. Member Rodriguez?

[15603] Ray Rodriguez: Yes.

[15604] SPEAKER_47: Member Nguyen? Yes. members. John Yes, President Martinez. Yes.

[15611] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Okay, so the motion carries unanimously. Thank you so much. Thank you for preparing, um, this resolution. Miss Dela Cruz. This is just beginning of the work beginning of all the work. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right. And with that, we moved to item 14, which is consent agenda. Personnel items may have a motion in the second to approve

[15639] Bowen Zhang: I move to approve the personnel report as presented. Second.

[15644] Elisa Martinez: Member Jean-Louis, Member Rodriguez, seconds.

[15658] Diego Torres: OK.

[15664] SPEAKER_47: No student vote on this one, so Member Rodriguez?

[15668] Ray Rodriguez: Yes.

[15668] SPEAKER_47: Member Nguyen? Yes. Member Zhang? Yes. President Martinez? Yes. Thank you.

[15676] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Motion carries unanimously. Okay, next item is consent agenda non-personnel items. May I have a motion and a second to approve 15.1 and 15.2? So moved. I second. Member Rodriguez moves and member Nguyen seconds. And student member Salemi, how do you vote?

[15710] Maria Huffer: Yes.

[15711] Joy Lee: Thank you.

[15711] SPEAKER_47: Okay, roll call vote, member Rodriguez. You're on mute.

[15723] Ray Rodriguez: I was doing board docs, yes.

[15725] SPEAKER_47: Both, you can do both are fine, thank you. And member Nguyen? Yes. Member Zhang?

[15731] Michael Milliken: Yes.

[15732] SPEAKER_47: President Martinez? Yes.

[15735] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Okay, thank you. The motion carries unanimously as well.

[15741] Ray Rodriguez: I finally know how to do board docs.

[15745] Marie dela Cruz: Yeah, after 25 years.

[15749] Elisa Martinez: Oh, man. Okay. So with that, we move to, um, are there any, uh, board committee reports? I believe, uh, member Rodriguez, did you have a committee report regarding mission Valley ROP? Member Rodriguez. Did you have an update on Mission Valley ROP? I believe I saw an email. Did you want to share?

[15778] Ray Rodriguez: Yeah, I shared my email with you guys. We got approved for some additional funding that we've been applying for with the state. So it's exciting. And next board meeting would be on the Thursday, two weeks from today. So question. Would I still be the member then? Because we haven't transitioned yet until our meeting, right? So I should be able to attend that meeting, I would imagine.

[15814] Elisa Martinez: That's a good question. Can we go ahead and get back to you? Or unless you have the answer.

[15820] SPEAKER_47: I actually have an answer. And yes, we do need the current sitting members. We thought, I did speak to them. We thought this was going to be your last meeting. member Rodriguez, so that was required that President Martinez attend. But since you still will be available, the meeting is on the 10th, I believe. So yes, we do require you or President Martinez to attend, please.

[15843] Ray Rodriguez: Okay, maybe we'll both attend, that'd be nice.

[15847] Elisa Martinez: Okay, very good. Thank you, member Rodriguez.

[15852] Ray Rodriguez: Oh, I have member John was talking about the electric bus. not being able to make it to Cal Poly. And I was thinking maybe I would drive behind it with a supercharger, you know, get it going. But the high school has a history of using tour buses when it comes to going to Disneyland. But to get back on the electric bus, I think I'm so glad you guys approved that. It's an excellent way to go.

[15883] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Um, okay. I think that was the only, um, committee that met between meetings. Um, so we'll move to item 16.2, which is, um, announcements or requests. And, um, we'll go to you student members.

[15900] SPEAKER_45: So let me, um, nothing much. I just had a idea actually, because I know that Dr. Triplett is doing these town halls in terms of returning to school and, um, it gets a lot of people to come and join. And we're always talking about how do we get more people educated on certain things and how do we get more people coming involved. And I think that's something that we could continue or even now do things like that on top of the ones that are for returning to school and even have board members and stuff and question and answer because I think that's an aspect that has been missing. And we finally found a way to do it. So yeah, that's just what I have.

[15943] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. And that's, I think that's a really good idea. And it could maybe, you know, superintendent can make it happen. Pull us in as needed. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Let's see. Member Nguyen. Member Nguyen. Yes, Member Nguyen first. Go ahead, Andy.

[15964] Phuong Nguyen: Before I start, I would also like to nominate student members. So let me to be part of the communication committee. Absolutely, you know and actually that's like we would we actually should have a student um our student um board member be a part of absolutely community so I would love it if you would join that.

[15984] Elisa Martinez: Yeah I'll chime in too I might go ahead member number one please go ahead.

[15989] Phuong Nguyen: Okay thank you so um I took some time over the Thanksgiving break to reflect on all that has happened in the past year and especially the last few months with the added weight of school consolidation and closure during a pandemic. Our community has been through a lot. It is a decision that we had to make in order to move our district forward. There was a tremendous amount of work that was tasked and completed by our School Consolidation Advisory Committee to bring forth a recommendation to the board for consideration. I wanted to thank the committee members for their dedication and commitment to the process, even though at times it was very difficult and overwhelming with so much information being put forth for analysis. We appreciate the hard work that you all put into it, and we couldn't have come to a united decision at the last board meeting without your input and perseverance. So thank you. I also want to thank my fellow board members, President Martinez, Member Zhang, Student Board Member Salemi, for actively listening and speaking honestly so that we can openly deliberate our points, point of views, coming together and voting to make the final and hard decision, committing to the consolidation and a path forward for the district. Even though it was not an ideal situation that we found ourselves in as a board, we made the decision. I know that we will honor that process of decision-making by continuing to work together along with our newly elected board members to bring our community together as we move forward so the healing from the decision we made as a board can begin to mend and work, and the work for supporting our students, teachers, staff, and families can be properly planned out and executed. In the days that followed the decision, I received several positive emails from our community members in regards to our decision. They were gracious and kind, and they understood the degree of our decision. It put me at ease a bit, so I want to thank them for that. And in one of the communications, Mr. David Largusa and his family shared with me that he was a SNO alumni and that his kids also both attended SNO. He highlighted a very special teacher from SNO, and I'm happy to share what he wrote. So he said, end quote, I wanted to highlight a particularly fantastic teacher at SNO, Helena Souza has made a huge positive impact in both my kids, Layla and Logan. She did a fine job at teaching my children the curriculum, but she transcended her job when building their academic confidence. She instilled the belief that they were good students. My kids graduated her class believing that they are good students and their own self expectations are still showing dividends. Helena is of Newark, he quotes, As you are, her investment in our community is evident. I truly hope the Newark Education School System can retain her. She is a gem. And I just want to personally thank you, Mr. Largusa, for sharing your appreciation of Ms. Souza with us. And I want to personally thank you, Ms. Helena Souza, for all that you have done for our students and families at Snow. Your hard work and dedication have and continue to make positive impact, and it is not going unnoticed. We appreciate you and all that you have done for both the snow and your communities. So I just wanted to basically, you know, extend and acknowledge that this process has been very difficult and that we have worked together collectively to make this really, really hard decision. And moving forward, I know that we will work together to help mend and rebuild our community in a way that is much more positive and enriching for all of our students and families. So I hope that our community recognizes that and sees that as we move forward. So thank you. And then lastly, congratulations again, member Rodriguez on your retirement. You are definitely the heart of this board and we will definitely miss you. Thank you for your contribution, and thank you for your kindness and graciousness in helping all of us, President Martinez, myself, and Member Zhang, in guiding us and sharing your knowledge over the last 24 plus years. So thank you for that.

[16279] Elisa Martinez: Thank you, Member Nguyen. It has been a tough time, for sure. Let's see, Member Zhang.

[16288] Bowen Zhang: I think we skipped member Rodriguez.

[16296] Elisa Martinez: I was trying to get member Rodriguez close to the last word. Go ahead, member Zhang.

[16304] Bowen Zhang: So I'll make the same request I did last time. I think it's been more than three months since we closed our book. And I'm not sure how much our auditor has been looking at our numbers and our budget. So I think it's also been almost a year since we had an audit committee meeting. So I want to ask the superintendent that, how is our auditing process? Because by our governing rule, we are supposed to meet more often than this, I mean, the audit committee.

[16336] Elisa Martinez: Yeah, actually, either Ms. Dela Cruz or, have we met this year? I mean, right? Right? I think there was a meeting.

[16346] Marie dela Cruz: So the audit committee, the last time it met was in January. So we have another one scheduled for the first week in January, because we just received our audit report, the draft. And it should be finalized this month. And then we'll review it with the audit committee next month. But I understand what you're saying, member Zhang, that maybe we should have it more often than once a year.

[16377] Elisa Martinez: And yeah, so recommendation is the next time. And we'll see who ends up on the audit committee at the next organization meeting, member Zhang. And I think it's hard not to get it scheduled right then and there. So that would be the recommendation is at the next January meeting that whoever's on the committee is set the date for the following meeting, whether it's quarterly, especially where we're at. Um, you know, uh, it might be Maybe a frequent either twice a year or every quarter recommendation. Thank you any other um requests members on No Thank you Uh Member rodriguez I just um want to say that you got two new board members that are going to be coming on, uh in a couple weeks and

[16434] Ray Rodriguez: they're gonna be looking at the three of you and also our student board member and our superintendent and our staff, you know, to try to find their way as they maneuver through very difficult times that we have. And I commend the committee that on school closure, I know it was a long process and it went back and forth and the commitment was there and I appreciate every one of them. You know, moving forward, it's going to be difficult. But I have complete faith in the new board that you guys are going to make the decisions that need to be made to move the district forward. It's not easy being on the school board and having to make tough decisions. And one of the things that happens sometimes is we're so engrossed in the business part of our board meeting that when we do make a decision that affects kids, whether in this case it was school closure, it could be the canceling of a program at the high school, people are looking at us sometimes, and we are on TV, and they're looking for compassion, empathy. And sometimes we're so engrossed in what we got to do that we forget that. And there's no doubt that the decision that was made hurt all of us. And because when our kids hurt, no matter what school they're at, we hurt. And so it's just something that moving forward that, you know, seeing that we are on TV and everything, and even if we weren't, the fact is, I know that a decision like that hurts us. And as far as the merging of the schools, when Malani and Bunker merged, initially it wasn't looked it just wasn't very popular because people were engrossed in those names and not changing them. So moving forward, if the staff at both Graham and Snow get together, like the staffs got together with Malani and Bunker, they're the ones that drove it. And because of them, they made the whole merger stronger and it was, you know, the community eventually accepted it. That's where I hope Dr. Triplett zooms in on is the two staffs at both schools. They're very great people, excellent experience at both schools, and I'm sure they'll get together and support Dr. Triplett as he maneuvers through those very heavy waters. So that's all I have to say. I appreciate all of you, and I'm always going to be available. You know, you tell me what committee you want me to be on and I'll serve. And I just, it's good to allow people to kind of get in on what we do so that they know how difficult it is for us when we do have to make tough decisions. And it isn't an easy job. It's, you know, we're getting 250 a month and we definitely, And it's nothing. And it basically does a little stipend that we get. And people think that sometimes that we're staff and we make all the big monies like Dr. Triplett. But the board and the superintendent together as a governance team, as you move forward and you have your individual, your classes and everything and your seminars, just make sure that's strong. And you're going to need it as you move forward. Thank you for all of you. You're great. Appreciate it.

[16676] Elisa Martinez: Thank you, Senor and Member Rodriguez. So I wanted to, you know, kind of circle back and echo a lot of what Member Nguyen said. I mean, it's been tough. It's been a really tough time. for us making the decision. But obviously, our families and our kids, you know, have have received that tougher end, right, that having to process this. So, you know, we're here and and it's all about us now focusing in all of our energy on supporting this this transition for the Graham and the Snow families, and obviously for our families in music, right? So there's a lot of moving pieces here. And yes, we're gonna look at that staff and Dr. Triplett to head the charge. This is a community effort. It's all of us, right? And to your comment earlier, remember when about you hearing from community members and recognizing the difficulty and acknowledging that there's some going to be some good things to come out of it. And I also wanted to acknowledge it, families that have reached out to me that have said, how can we help? Right? How can we what can we do? Is there a committee to join to start to help in the process? So I think that's also encouraging. Obviously, a lot of work to do to get there. But we're student members. So let me did he leave because I have your face in my head thinking, you know, you know, we're always in the weeds of the business. And it's time, you know, we got over this huge hump. Let's get moving. Let's get moving forward. Because now we got to focus on our, our academic achievement of our kids. That's what we got to do. Right. And Now we have to really start engaging in that conversation every meeting, which is flip this agenda on its head, just like all the training tells us. 60% of your agenda, academic achievement, everything else, less. Right now we're in the opposite, right? So that is, this is the time to get laser focused. Laser focused on what are we doing to increase our academic achievement And at the end of the day, you know, how are we empowering, encouraging, enabling, whatever the words are. And, you know, we're, we're our kids, we're, you, student members of me are showing us and telling us, yep, our kids are, are my, my, my fellow students are attaining, we're succeeding. Right. So, Just really, I'm sorry, I kind of get in a soapbox, but there's so much to do. And I know to your point, member Rodriguez, sometimes I get overwhelmed in the urgency and in getting things going. But I am so confident that we can do this. And this is behind us. The horrible, difficult decision is behind us. We're moving forward. And we're going to make this happen. I have absolutely no doubt. I'm very, very confident in that. And to that end, you know, I wanted to commend a lot of folks on the board, on staff that have been spending a ton of time training in the training that CSBA provides. I remember when you and I spent a full day on Monday, I believe, And I'm reminded of how much wealth of information is out there for us as leaders. Because if we're not learning and we're not taking the roadblocks, we're part of the problem. So just to continue to encourage all of us staff and the rest of the board and our new board to really, any chance you can, I learned so much every time. Um, anyway, I have a lot of energy. We're going to get this going and student members. So let me I keep looking at you because I am so excited that you're on this board because you hold our feet to the fire. And, um, and I, uh, as to why didn't want to circle back on that point before I forget, um, watching the clock, uh, that, you know, I think we need to leverage you more and superintendent, you know, how do we make sure we are giving you the time to help us, um, help educate, um, everybody, not just your fellow, but for yourself, right? And you can ask, continue to ask us this question. So we are here to support you and I'll stop talking.

[16974] Phuong Nguyen: And- But not only that, we can definitely, there's a lot that we recognize that we can learn from you. So we do really appreciate you being on the board. So thank you.

[16984] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. Thank you for that. Okay. And with that, let's see, superintendent, closing, concluding comments.

[16995] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Martinez, and thank you all for all of those words. Member Rodriguez, we look forward to having you return next time as a citizen so that we can celebrate you some more and commemorate you with a resolution. And I do want to end with another appreciation's last announcement, and that is Mr. Abruzzi, president of NTA, alluded to it earlier, as did Member Rodriguez, but We are losing one of our other really fantastic staff members and that is Ms. Saavedra. our Executive Director of HR. She's going to be leaving us at the end of this month. She's going on to, I don't want to say greener pastures, because our pastures are as green as they get. But she's moving on to San Lorenzo. And Ms. Saavedra, we want to congratulate you on your new role and wish you all the best. We're sad to be losing you, but we really appreciate all you've done. for the Newark community, for our students and staff throughout many, many years. So Ms. Saavedra is not leaving until the end of the month, but I did wanna acknowledge her publicly here. And just so that the board knows, we do have a plan in place. Ms. Saavedra has been really helpful in helping to set up a transition plan. And I'll be happy to share more about that at the next meeting. Thank you, Ms. Saavedra.

[17092] SPEAKER_31: Thank you, Dr. Triplett, and thank you, Board.

[17095] SPEAKER_50: Thank you. Thank you.

[17098] Elisa Martinez: OK. And with that, I will ask for a motion and a second to adjourn.

[17106] Ray Rodriguez: Make a motion, but I have a question. Normally, the first meeting for the new members when they get sworn in is a transition meeting. So I don't know how you're going to proceed, because normally, it would start with the sitting board and then it would transition to the new board. So if that's what you do, then I will be there initially and then I'll transition over and the new board members get sworn in. And then if you decide to go that route, it's up to you.

[17143] Phuong Nguyen: Ray, you're coming back because you're going to swear me in. Okay.

[17149] Mark Triplett: Okay. Did you want to speak to that at all? Just a little bit about our process.

[17154] SPEAKER_47: Sorry, I know the, well, any details specifically you wanted me to add?

[17162] Mark Triplett: Just the transition and how that's gonna, is member Rodriguez returning to us next time as board member Rodriguez or citizen Rodriguez?

[17174] SPEAKER_47: It's open to, it's flexible regarding the board, the current board. So I think it would be wise to speak to member Rodriguez who has experienced these transitions and come back with the exact steps for the remainder of the board.

[17194] Ray Rodriguez: Normally we open it and then we transition over to the new board. That's been best practice.

[17201] Mark Triplett: We'll check in member Rodriguez in this upcoming week. Yeah, because I think there has been some updates to the to the process that we've heard from the California School Board Association and so love your guidance on it. We'll, we'll, we'll check in about that.

[17218] Elisa Martinez: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, I think Yeah, let's let's kind of I know there's there's been some changes. So let's make sure that we're consistent with also our own policies and then just guidance. So thank you. Thank you for that. Thanks for the question. Member Rodriguez. Okay. And with that, um, wait, did I did I need a second? Okay.

[17241] SPEAKER_45: Second.

[17243] Elisa Martinez: Okay. Was that member Rodriguez? Yes. That moved and still remember. So let me second. Okay. So remember, so let me, how do you vote?

[17252] SPEAKER_45: Yes.

[17255] SPEAKER_47: And, and this one's not going to get a board docs. It's, it's not, um, it's not, it's not going out. So yeah.

[17262] Elisa Martinez: Yeah. Remember when? Yes. Uh, members young.

[17267] Bowen Zhang: Yes.

[17269] Elisa Martinez: Member Rodriguez.

[17270] Ray Rodriguez: Yes.

[17272] Elisa Martinez: And my vote is yes as well. So a motion carries. Meeting is adjourned 10 48 PM. Thank you so much, everyone. Thanks for the hard work.

[17281] Ray Rodriguez: Do you guys have someone's energy? Maybe next time you start the meeting at 10 o'clock.

[17287] Elisa Martinez: Good night. Thank you.

No minutes available.