Regular Meeting

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[126] Rachel Bloom: Member Marquez? Not here. Member Grindel? Is not here. Member Hill?

[134] SPEAKER_33: Here.

[135] Rachel Bloom: Vice President Nguyen? Here. President Zhang?

[139] Bowen Zhang: Here. I guess Member Marquez and Member Grindel will join us lately? Yes, I believe so. Moving on to the approval of the agenda. I move that we approve the agenda as it is.

[159] Phuong Nguyen: I second.

[162] Bowen Zhang: I guess let's wait for Member Grindel to land in and vote. So Member Grindel, we're on the approval of the agenda. And a motion is made. Member Nguyen has seconded. Member Grindel, how do you vote?

[180] Julienne Sumodobila: Yes.

[181] Bowen Zhang: Member Hill. Yes. Member Nguyen.

[184] SPEAKER_31: Yes.

[185] Bowen Zhang: My vote is yes. Motion carries with four ayes. Member Marquez will be joining us later. We're moving on to study session. We do have a public comment on 3.1. Ms. Cindy Parks.

[209] Cindy Parks: Good evening. Enlarging the font, eliminating mid-year measurable outcomes, and refining some year-end measurable outcomes does not change the quality of the product. A product which, according to the superintendent's contract evaluation timeline, was supposed to be reduced to writing no later than September 15th. You are three months past the deadline to set measurable outcomes for the one employee you evaluate, and it isn't even on the agenda tonight for approval. You've given your one lone employee ammunition to support his lack of achieving set goals during his evaluation based on the timeline afforded him. My concern with this new document is the same concerns I have had with the one presented last month. Goal number one, a positive certification doesn't address deficit spending, which continues, and position control projections in the first interim report don't show staffing decreases. Instead, NTA shows a staffing increase over last year, and CSCA shows an increase of 25 staff members this year due to COVID money. then returns to the same staffing level next year. The only one showing an annual drop is NEWMA, dropping 2.8 FTE from 42.7 last year to 39.9 next year. Goal two, board resolutions are just a piece of paper. As I said before, trying to enforce civility in order to support respectful and civil interaction and communication among community members is laughable. How about focusing on providing timely customer service, i.e. responding to emails within 48 hours. Address the gang, numerous fight, and high school students leaving campus during the day by enforcing Ed Code sections and board policies, making Newark Unified sites a safe place for staff members and students. Goal four, a facility improvement plan. Create a three-year plan for ongoing facility improvements, including deferred maintenance and bond feasibility. Hmm, do I need to remind you, Newark Unified paid almost a half a million dollars to Adis Architects out of Measure G for facility, for a master facility plan that already contains this information. Goal achieved. None of the focus area goals from last year have been completely fulfilled. You have yet to see a plan implementing the timeline to eliminate the structural deficit, nor a strategy to maintain or increase enrollment. Naming a few of the issues with the district website, there isn't an active link to the board meeting videos. The special ed page is lacking all of the helpful information it previously provided. The ed service page doesn't include this year's school site plans, nor do most of the sites. The staff directory still includes former employees. There's no consistency or accuracy with the weekly and monthly calendars, plus there's no uniformity of information on the individual school site pages. In fact, most of them lack basic information previously listed. I know I'm almost out of time. Let me conclude with the fact that this is a poorly contrived evaluation tool without true measurable objectives and a feasibility timeline that is three months late. Thank you.

[400] Bowen Zhang: Any other public comments online? OK. be starting our study session. So everybody will get onto the tables, I guess. Superintendent, you want to introduce the coach?

[415] Mark Triplett: Yes, thank you. Good evening to the board members and to staff and public. So first of all, I just want to say welcome. Also that Ms. Gutierrez had a family emergency. And so I wanted to appreciate Ms. Laura Johnson, who's going to be filling in with us this evening. So please, if everyone can just give her a little bit of grace. This is very new for her. And I also want to introduce Mr. Bill Hewitt, who some of you know from the process done with the superintendent search and selection, as well as the goal solidification last year in the fall. So Mr. Hewitt is returning to help facilitate this study session process for us, just as he did last year. And so we're going to move down to the main table here for this study session.

[492] SPEAKER_32: All right, my name is Tony Jones.

[542] Mark Triplett: Actually, let's, why don't we start with the, yeah, let's start with the accountability.

[553] Mark Triplett: And can you make it a little bit larger?

[558] Mark Triplett: We're not gonna stay on this for too long, but we'll have to start here. So, good evening Thank you, Mr. Hewitt for being with us. So per board request, we're coming back to the district goals and superintendent objectives and have had a chance to do some revisions to these based on what I understood as some of the feedback, but then also the board directive was to hold a study session rather than the vote on these so that we could have more time, the board could have more time, the governance team to go over these different district goals and objectives, superintendent objectives, and with the idea that then we could come back with hopefully a finished product on the 16th of December for a vote. So these, this is, hopefully you had a chance to look at these revisions. I'm gonna actually utilize the slide deck to go into more detail, just wanted to first start with this and that this was the document that we discussed last time with some changes and additions based on your feedback.

[633] Mark Triplett: Johnson. Yes, that one, perfect. All right, and next slide, please. So, what I thought we would do today, just do some introduction. Sorry, what?

[654] Bowen Zhang: Oh. Welcome, Member Marquez.

[681] Mark Triplett: So what I thought we'd do is, after a little bit of framing, we would actually dive into the district goals first, the left side of the document that we had up previously. And Mr. Hugh can take us through a process of just going goal by goal. so that we can get feedback from board members and determine whether board members feel comfortable with each goal. And after that, then we can go to the objectives and the measurable outcomes for each goal. So I thought it might be helpful to the conversation if we get some consensus from the board around each individual goal. And then if there is consensus, Then we can move to what are the measurable outcomes for each goal that there is consensus around.

[735] Aiden Hill: Does that sound okay to everybody? Okay. Only one modification. I mean, I think that one of the issues that we talked about last time, and one of the reasons that this has been pushed out, is we're not sure that this list of goals are the right goals. So I think that we ought to have the latitude to say, you know what, I think we either need to, you know, maybe need to modify, or maybe we need to add or delete, that that should

[761] Mark Triplett: going over each district goal, getting consensus from the group, making sure that these are the goals that in fact the board feels like are the priorities, are the ones, and then if for everyone that there is consensus, then we move on to other measurable outcomes.

[778] Mark Triplett: Sure, just so long as we we can talk about potential additions. Additions? All right, why don't we go to the next slide, please?

[788] Terrence Grindall: Actually, can I clarify, Member Hill, do you mean additions to the language or adding new goals?

[793] Aiden Hill: So potentially adding to goals.

[797] Bowen Zhang: Because I think that we expressed in the last time that we're not sure that these are actually the right goals. Well, I will say we add one goal, then that's delete one goal that we don't think is that important. That's what I was trying to say. That's focused on. Let's find out a really urgent goal, important goal for this year. Because I did hear some of the people who don't come to our board meeting at all telling me in private there is something that we need to address this year. I mean in this current year. So if we hit that point, I'll point it out, the issues. Thank you.

[827] Richelle Piechowski: Okay. Thanks.

[829] Mark Triplett: All right. So just wanted to start with It's this idea around SMARTY goals. And I know Member Hill has brought up this many times before, and so I wanted to just loop back to this, because the idea is that these goals and the objectives are specific enough that they can be measurable, or can be measured, rather, that they're achievable within this year, that they're relevant to what is most important, just as President Jung was just bringing up. And that they're time-bound, so that it happens during this year. And then lastly, I've added on equitable. So for this to be smarty goals, I know sometimes that they're called smart goals. But with the board's permission, I wanted to add on equitable, because that is such a high priority for us as a district that we're thinking about equitable outcomes for our students. And so I wanted to make sure that that was Also part of each of these goals is, is the goal really striving for that equitable outcomes for all students?

[900] Terrence Grindall: Just to clarify, this year means this school year. That's correct. June. Yes. We're almost halfway through. Exactly.

[908] Mark Triplett: Yes. Thank you. Next slide, Ms. Johnson. All right. And then I'll just go over these two and then turn it over to Mr. Hewitt. So I just want to bring this up for the board as a refresher. So this is within the superintendent contract regarding objectives and benchmarks. Each year of the agreement, the board and the superintendent shall establish by mutual agreement the superintendent's performance objectives and benchmarks for the next school year. And so that is what we're trying to achieve here. I have done some research around other districts superintendent objectives. And so I won't share those here, but I think there is, it's important to make a distinction between evaluation rubrics and things like that, which are important. And I think Mr. Hugh will discuss a little bit later and this idea of superintendent objectives aligned to district goals. Next slide, please. And so likewise in the, in the district superintendent contract with regarding to evaluations. Evaluations shall be based upon achievement of the mutually agreed upon performance goals for the year in question, the superintendent's effectiveness at discharging his duties as defined in this agreement and board policies and job description, if any. So this sort of gets at the two parts here. There is the effectiveness of my work and discharging my regular duties. And then there's this element of performance goals and superintendent objectives. And so what we're talking about within this is, this session today, is the performance goals and district objectives and the performance, sorry, the superintendent, sorry, the district goals and the superintendent objectives, that first part there.

[1023] Aiden Hill: And one question, and this harkens back to a comment that Member Grindel had made, So according to the contract that's been set up, my understanding is that this normally has to be done by September 15th. So what's kind of the impact given that we're a couple months late at this point?

[1042] Mark Triplett: It speaks to the urgency of getting these finalized, for sure, because we are behind schedule.

[1048] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, and one of the reasons this year that we are so behind was because we have a vacancy on the board. So I didn't want to schedule a meeting with only four board members to set up a district board. That's why we're a bit late. Thank you. And we did have a special meeting in October, right? So we're roughly a month late this year. And then it just dragged on.

[1067] Mark Triplett: Yes, yes. So we were close to being on track, but then it's taken a little bit longer than anticipated.

[1076] SPEAKER_20: I want to make just one comment on your point because I think it is an important one. In the SMART goals and also in the work that I did with the board before, one of the things that's really important is that the objectives are doable or attainable. And so from that standpoint, it is effective. It is effective. You can't really have year-long objectives at this point that are new. It may have been something that was ongoing and reasonably you know, reasonably say that you're going to do this in a year when there's only really six months left. So keep that in mind. Keep that in mind. You're really tonight looking at your goals are long-term, but your objectives are those pieces that you're expecting the superintendent and the district to make progress on incrementally. Those are the time-bound objectives. So yes, there is an effect of being late, and not to scold or anything like that, but that's why we like boards to get this done at the beginning of the school year. Thank you.

[1137] Mark Triplett: Next slide. All right. And, oh, I lied. I'm going to talk about this one before I turn it over to Mr. Peter, too. So I did put this in also just as a reference for the board members, because in terms of evaluation and a scoring rubric, I just wanted to share again, I think we shared this last year, but this is the rubric that is used for the rest of our NEWMA members, our management, and our management evaluation. So management, each NEWMA member has goals similarly, and they're supposed to be aligned to the district goals. And then each member both self-evaluates and then is evaluated using this rubric in terms of how they are reaching their yearly goals. So when we think about a possible scoring rubric, it's good to keep, for my own evaluation, it's good to keep in mind that this is one that's already All right, and I'll turn it over to Mr. Hewitt.

[1200] SPEAKER_20: Okay. And I know that we have until 6 tonight, not much past that, so I'm going to move us and focus us on the task, which is really to set these goal areas, but primarily to set the objectives that go with them. They're your goals, they're your objectives, and so most of it should be your dialogue, and I'll just help facilitate it. So the first area is fiscal vitality. And I know that when I was working with the superintendent search, we do quite an extensive work with your stakeholders to hear the issues that came up and there were a lot in this one. And certainly the county has had some, seems like some progress has been made, but certainly that's a big goal area. The second one is community engagement. And as well, there was a lot of feedback from your community about having a more engaged engagement, not only with the superintendent, but with the board as well for communicating and being able to move the district forward. The next one was instructional excellence. And this we find on every single set of goals and objectives for a superintendent and board. And that is to, this is almost a moral, what some educators call our moral imperative is that our core job is to improve instruction and especially to lessen those achievement gaps for equity. So this has a lot of dimensions to it and is an ongoing objective and goal area. And then finally is facilities and working on improving the environment at the school Interestingly enough, this oftentimes is simply a bricks and mortar, you know, and maintenance. But sometimes when you have that word environment in there, it's safety as well. And that can be student safety. It can be, you know, physical safety, all kinds of things. Okay. So I don't know. I heard some board members say we need to have a discussion about are these the goals that we're going to write objectives to. It's important. that your goals line up with his objectives, obviously. And it's important that you do establish the work, where the critical work is. Some of you remember that the last time that I was here, I stressed the need for focus. Focus is very, very important. We don't want to have 100 objectives. We try to have you have two or three objectives for each of your goal areas, and not more than that, because we find that educators oftentimes want to do it all, and none of it's done well enough. So think of this As the really important things, there's obviously more that the superintendent does in his regular duties. You will assess that too, as you'll see in the example of an evaluation form I'll give you at the end. But these are the things that you really think are important to move forward. And again, I like to emphasize that this is a collaborative discussion between the superintendent and you in establishing the goals and the objectives. Very important work.

[1404] Mark Triplett: And it's weird, I think the next slide gets into, since these are the goal areas, the next slide gets into the goals, or goal within each goal area.

[1413] SPEAKER_20: Okay. You want to go over that too, and so that the board.

[1416] Bowen Zhang: Let's go into individual goals, because that's the purpose of this meeting. Let's do it. Next one. Yeah, the fiscal vitality, I guess, the board actually needs to agree on what are the, given that the situation we face, and the action we indicated on March 15th, because the action we take before March 15th next year will be impacting the fiscal year 2022, and we have to do it before March 15th. So what should be the goal? Are we really maintaining that reserve 17% or we want to make it measurable about position control or because March 15th is the deadline that you want to do any position controls?

[1458] Mark Triplett: Yeah, and if I could just say, so there's two objectives there with the goal being positive certification. So the first objective is the position adjustments, which does involve March 15th, but then as I think Ms. Ingham-Watters can attest, then there's a lot of work that happens after the March 15th notice, of course, in terms of communicating and working through any changes in positions. And then the second objective there is the reserves and ongoing working towards increase in reserves We will see this later on this evening when we look at the first interim report, how the long-term goal, I believe it was by 2026, Ms. Delacruz? Yes. The long-term goal by 2026 has been and is articulated in a resolution that the board passed to achieve the 17% reserves. We fortunately, because of the one-time monies, this past year, we were able to get to a 17% reserve right off the bat. However, given the declining enrollment and also just the situation with the budget moving forward, we do anticipate, and you can see it in the first interim, that we will not necessarily be able to maintain 17% over the short term. And so I think it's really about trying to maintain this percentage on this year, so we could do that.

[1556] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, so one interesting thing about this is we're talking about a balanced budget through 2023. But by the time when we are doing evaluation next June, we wouldn't know really what the budget is going to look like for the budget 2020 to 2023. And speaking of positive certification, given our 17th reserve due to the one-time money, that seems to be a low bar to achieve. A positive qualification just means three years later, you're not going bankrupt. That's the definition. Does the rest of the board really want to put in some specific measurement of what we need to do for this fiscal year, preparing for the next year? Rather than, because we're not going to know what the budget deficit is going to be or surplus for the out year. We only know that what's going to happen for this year by the time when we evaluate the superintendent. Even that, June when we evaluate the superintendent, that's three months before the final audited result coming out for this current year.

[1606] Aiden Hill: So why can't we move toward, take one step further to your point, President Chung, and why don't we say that we're focusing on a balanced budget, right? Because what we're seeing right now in our resolutions is we're saying that we're going to have a $2.5 million deficit next year and then the following year. And at some point, we're not going to be able to do that anymore. And so can we say, you know, we're going to start it now?

[1635] Bowen Zhang: So we will be taking actions by March 15th. but that action will only affect the budget in 2022 to 2023. This is budget. There's no, we can't do anything. So I guess the point is that when we're evaluating this and we have no data put out here, the only thing we can measure is what kind of actions as a board we're taking before March 15th or even before June 30th to impact the budget for the next year.

[1660] Aiden Hill: Right. So could we, so could we say that we want to make sure that we have a plan in place that would address putting a balanced budget in, you know, in effect to deal with our current forecast for the following fiscal year?

[1677] Bowen Zhang: I think that would make sense. I think we can say is that we need to take, in addition to that resolution, we'll need to vote on something before March 15th to really reduce the deficit for the next year up to 2.5 million, which is later we're going to be moving, we're going to be voting on later today. I think that, I mean positive surge again, I think that's Given our reserve, that's sort of a low bar, I think, because in three years, even if we don't do anything, we're not going to go bankrupt. So that's going to be a positive qualification anyway, without getting into the later agenda items. But what about the rest of the board think that, should we be more like, should we look at the action we need to take this fiscal year to prepare for the next fiscal year? Because this year, we're actually doing things to impact next fiscal year.

[1721] Terrence Grindall: Yeah, I'm not sure that's not in there already. The goal is to have a balanced budget through the 2022-23 year. That doesn't show up in the objective. I think the objective boils down that goal. So I have no problem with being more clear about that, but I think it's already incorporated. I think those are already actions that are being proposed that would deliver us a balanced budget.

[1754] Aiden Hill: can still do deficit spending.

[1756] Phuong Nguyen: Yes. So why don't we just change the objective? I mean, we can keep the first one and remove the increased reserves for right now, even because that is an ongoing goal in our resolution already. So I mean, it wouldn't make sense to keep it there. But in terms of action items that you want to achieve for an objective, we could change that.

[1780] Bowen Zhang: So I will recommend removing this positive qualification, just talking about the action. The action we need to take to have a balanced budget for the 2020 to 2023 year. The action we take in this year, the impact we'll see in the next year.

[1795] Terrence Grindall: But in the objectives, we don't have the positive certification. That's just in the goal. So in the objective, I understood, Member Nguyen, that you're looking, we would replace the increased reserves goal to have something more like have a plan for a balanced budget. Correct. Correct. Because in particularly given the, well, I got Ms.

[1817] Bowen Zhang: Del Cruz can chime in. For us, it's not having a plan. We need to do something before June 30th to make sure you have. It's not you have a plan.

[1825] Phuong Nguyen: The objective is to commit to making reductions to balance the budget for positive certification. that's the objective that you would replace for increased reserves.

[1835] Mark Triplett: Which is really reflected in the first objective, opposition adjustments.

[1840] Terrence Grindall: Right. That's how you get there. But we might as well explicitly state, and particularly given that in the next five or six months, we're not going to have, we're not going to really be able to deal with reserves very much because there's so many unknowns. It might be better to have this be a goal of doing what we need to do to have a balanced budget.

[1862] SPEAKER_20: One of the comments that I talked to the superintendent on the reserve, and this confirms what you've been saying, is actually your reserve is pretty high right now because of COVID. So you don't necessarily want that to be an objective. I don't think that's a high leverage. I think a balanced budget, though, is. So I would agree with your intent. about changing this so that it reflects more about the balanced budget necessity. I wanted to ask the superintendent how you felt about that and what you see the feasibility of that in the next six months is. Sometimes you have to spend down your reserve. You know, we had that huge crisis years and years ago. Districts had to spend down their reserve. In fact, the state forced you to do it. But that's not where we are right now. And with declining enrollment, you don't want to get into a deficit budget sort of situation. That's what gets you in real trouble.

[1914] Mark Triplett: So what do you think? Yeah, I mean, if the board wants to eliminate the second one, the increased reserves, I think that's fine. And I'd love to hear from Ms. Delacruz as well. But we will continue to try to maintain as high a reserve as we can. And I think what we're looking at right now, at the end of this year. But if the board wants to just take that off of there, I think that's fine too. Ms. Delacruz, did you want to add anything?

[1946] Marie dela Cruz: Yeah, they kind of go hand in hand. So I feel like you need to still maintain your reserve goal. And in order to achieve that, you have to have a balanced budget. So without a balanced budget, you're reducing your reserves. I think we need to figure out a way to keep them both in there, because if you lose sight of your reserve goal.

[1975] Terrence Grindall: They are still in there. We're not changing our resolution, our goals. The objectives are picking and choosing the important elements that we're focusing the superintendent on. It doesn't mean we're not going to continue with our goal. Our goal to have 17% reserves, that's already in our resolution. So we're not saying we abandon that, we're just saying, in the superintendent's objectives, the goal, the objective is to have a balanced budget.

[2001] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, I think I will agree with that. We'll take action this year to ensure a balanced budget for next year.

[2007] SPEAKER_20: And remember, brevity, focus is good, okay? Let's not confuse. Let's focus in on a balanced budget then.

[2014] Bowen Zhang: So I think we can take out the reserves, the reserve goal. Because remember, the reserve is computed as a percentage of the spending rate. Is that right? Not the whole objective. So what would happen is, you can have a balanced budget, but you have increased revenue, therefore increased spending. You can have a balanced budget after a year, but your reserve level actually goes up, because your spending goes up. So I wouldn't necessarily be so strict on that 17% number.

[2039] Terrence Grindall: No, and that's another conversation. Here, we're talking about the objectives. That's the critical piece. And I think balanced budget is, I hear consensus that, we would be focused on a balanced budget.

[2053] Mark Triplett: Okay. So we'd leave just some, I just want to make sure I'm clear. So we'd leave the goal 1A as is, we'd remove increased reserves, and the position adjustments would be the objective in this goal area in order to achieve the goal 1A?

[2067] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, and I want to go- A positive certification for me is not really a big deal given our reserve level, because that doesn't seem to be something we need to spend time working on. I mean, balanced budget is really the top choice.

[2080] Terrence Grindall: Right, but these goals roll over, too, so I don't think we have to. Right. I don't think we have to.

[2085] SPEAKER_20: I want to make sure that when we write the objective that, see, that's really the objective title, and then the objective is under the description. Correct. So when, you know, when you do this, certainly that's the title, but the description should say something about balanced budget in it. It seems to me.

[2105] SPEAKER_21: Because it says increase on one, and then it says maintain. So the increase in the maintain there. They're not in blocking or interweaving. So we need to find continuity. If we're going to put an objective, there needs to be continuity so that they occur.

[2121] SPEAKER_20: If I could make just a suggestion. Your objective would be to maintain a balanced budget. And your description would be to make the necessary position adjustments and other budget adjustments. Because there are other things. in order to maintain a balanced budget.

[2140] Marie dela Cruz: That's what I would have for this one.

[2144] SPEAKER_20: Now tonight, I don't think we'll have time to do the measurable, but there are several ways of measuring this. There are steps, there are different reports that come up, there's different committees and work that you have. So I usually ask the superintendent to come back to the board after you establish these and say, remember, measurable is very important. And obviously, we can measure it in the final. But I like to make sure you have a few checkpoints along the way. OK.

[2171] Mark Triplett: We do have them coming up. Good. OK.

[2175] Marie dela Cruz: I just want to say that maintaining positive certification also depends on your reserves. So I don't know that you want to totally remove that because had it not been for our 17% and we only maintained the 3%, we would not be able to certify. Right, because of the years out. Because of the years out. Because the test is, are you able to maintain the 3% in the years out? So if you only had 3% today, we would be qualified in terms of

[2203] Terrence Grindall: Indeed. So we want to keep the goal written the same. We just want to fine tune the objective to include a balanced budget, as you just said. Right. The language you used, particularly with and other actions, makes sense. It's not just positions. Yeah.

[2221] Bowen Zhang: Great. OK. Let's move on to the next one. Let's go to the next one. OK. This is the community engagement communication.

[2233] SPEAKER_20: So again, you have two parts to this here. One is to support positive community interaction and communication. And your objective is you have a resolution, you may have protocols on civility. And so your description of this objective is to develop and approve an active board resolution on civility in order to support respectful and civil interaction community along with students, staff, community members. You know, my reaction to this is it's a good goal. It's very broad, okay? It's very broad, and it's kind of spongy. So we'll talk about that. And the next one is the quality root cause analysis regarding enrollment, the impact on enrollment. And this is one that came up when I did the environmental scan. And it's tied to marketing. It's tied to why are kids leaving? And I think that it's, you know, this is an important thing to a lot of districts in the Bay Area. So this says conduct a school quality root cause analysis to determine why families enroll or don't enroll here. This is very clear and very specific. So you have two different objectives here for two different parts. One that I would lobby you to think if you're going to keep both of them, I would lobby you to focus it a little more. Say, what is it in there that you need to do or you need to show? Second one, I think you're right there. I mean, I think, you know, a cause analysis is very clear what you want the school district to do. You want them to be doing exit interviews. You want them to be finding out what are the reasons people are leaving. And that will require the superintendent and staff to come up with set procedures and set reports back to you, giving that.

[2345] Terrence Grindall: I had some concerns about this last time, and it really has to do with the fact that we have until June. This is really the first part of a marketing strategy development. I get it. I wish that was more explicitly in the role, in the description, that it's part of a marketing thing, but that is next year, right? So this, up to June, this is the description.

[2372] Mark Triplett: Sorry, I am realizing, if you could scroll to 16, Ms. Johnson, I'm realizing that that change was not reflected in the first part there, is reflected right there. So if you see the second one, conduct a school quality root cause analysis as phase one of a marketing strategy for determining why families... I apologize.

[2393] Terrence Grindall: No, it's okay. I mean, otherwise, that doesn't change the substance of what you're doing. That's where it caused me some angst at the last the last discussion, because I wanted to see it as a part of a coherent plan, not just to have a, oh, here's why they're leaving, and you put a staple on it in a drawer. I want it to be part of a program.

[2415] Phuong Nguyen: Good point. So you're clear on this one now? I'm good with that, yeah.

[2420] Bowen Zhang: But how about the first part? I mean, the first part actually looks like it's from a war to have a resolution. So that's not probably the heavy part. The heavy part is probably the second one. The second one, we've never done this in the district. So I would assume the second part is a very complicated and complex process. That's how we really require. So for me, the evaluation will probably primarily focus on the second one.

[2445] SPEAKER_20: Do you need the first objective right now?

[2448] Bowen Zhang: The first one generally is not to reduce or minimize criticism. It's just we need to have a good example for the children that are looking into it. So I think that's the primary motivation for that. It's not to stifle anybody's free speech or something. But again, like I said, when I evaluate the superintendent come June, the second part, I think, is a tough part.

[2467] SPEAKER_20: And frankly, the first part will be a big part. When you see the evaluation form that I like to have boards follow, you'll see that in there. Because this is a every year sort of thing for a superintendent. A superintendent's got to be, is judged partly on how they support civility and meaningful dialogue with the protocols that you give. the district.

[2491] Terrence Grindall: Right, and the superintendent may well, particularly if there's a model so we don't have to wordsmith something from the beginning, but if there's a model that makes sense, but that's something you may want to do, but why don't we remove it from this? Because this, it really isn't a big deal in terms of how we're going to evaluate the superintendent.

[2507] Mark Triplett: Well, could I just make one comment about that? I think that the actual board resolution, like drafting it, is something that doesn't, I don't think takes a lot of time. It's the engagement of community administrators, parents, staff, students, board members in the process of developing something like this that I think is the time consumption. And if we want to prioritize it, which I personally think is very important, I just think about, Member Hill has mentioned in the past how really wanting to make sure that resolutions come forth very thoughtfully and with a lot of deep engagement. And so that's why.

[2550] SPEAKER_20: So a more focused objective then would be to set up, you know, town hall meetings about stability, getting input from different stakeholders about the protocols and the resolutions that the board should do. And that's a more realistic thing than actually saying you're going to do a resolution if you want to keep it up here as a priority.

[2574] Aiden Hill: The problem with this is that it's not constitutional. And it's also not enforceable. And so it really is sort of, I mean, quite frankly, it's virtue signaling. And I think that it also puts us in opposition with the trend that is sweeping the country right now, where there are many people in the community that are unhappy with their school systems and unhappy with their boards. And they're coming and being vocal. And there have been attempts to shut them down. And it hasn't looked good. And we've ended up having, for example, somebody lost the governor's race because of this in Virginia. And so I don't think that this is a good approach. Because again, it starts to run afoul of the First Amendment, not only of our US Constitution, but also our state constitution. It's not enforceable at a board level. It's not enforceable at a community level. So I think we're gonna be spending a lot of time on something that's not enforceable.

[2635] SPEAKER_20: There are, I'll just give you a quick reaction, and I appreciate your point of view on it, and I do agree that times are difficult with all of this right now, so it's something the board has to consider. The board has an obligation to model behavior to students and to be able to conduct business, and there are things that a board can do. You're right, people have the right to speak, but they don't have the right to disrupt or to hijack So there are things that you can do and you can do legally in a board meeting. And they're not dire sort of things, you know. But I've written many protocols that address this that don't stifle free speech but just allow the board to do their job and to model behavior for students. But I go back again to say this is a big, if it is, You know, what you're describing, Mr. Hill, and what you've met, it's a lot. It is a big one. It does take a lot. And I would lobby you that if you want to leave this as an objective, that you don't do the whole thing within six months. That you get out there and start talking to people about this. Maybe have a few town hall meetings on discourse, and then have a workshop on it yourselves. and then move forward into next year with more resolution next year. That's just my feeling, but given the time.

[2729] Terrence Grindall: I agree. Having the objective, the measurement outcome being a resolution, it sounds It sounds squishy to say what's going on. If there's a description of a process where we're engaging the community and we're modeling behavior, that's fine. But I mean, that's also part of what you would do in your normal activities. So I'm fine with it being tweaked in that way, but I'm also fine with it just not being one of our key focus areas that we that we have as an objective. So how does the whole board feel on that point?

[2770] SPEAKER_21: The one thing that I wanted to add to is that, as mentioned by fellow board members, is that times have changed. And you can see it in the news or in the media that people have completely spun off and how instant everything is now with social media. I could see where also this could be somewhat of a taboo or almost a challenge for some people because then it sets a bar. It sets a tone because there's an expectation, because we're being asked, right, as public school board members to maintain a certain level of civility. With that said, then we're expected to hold ourselves accountable and then set the tone. So I can understand both sides. What I recommend is the wording. Early on, we discussed, or the school quality group, when we mentioned phases. Maybe an objective, instead of keeping it as large or squishy as you described, is still keeping the same idea of the objective, but shrinking down and changing our objective to where the objective says, where you mentioned board resolution, possibly One of the objectives might be is board reviews towards the facility or working towards the facility. And then the description be phases. We have the EEF, right? We have all of the professional development monies that are available. Why not have community engagement? Why not hold workshops for parents, right? Why not hold them for students during the school day? Different things so they can see the action. It's one thing to have it posted as a resolution, but then it's something where they see the phases and they see the baby steps, if you will, of what is it the board is doing to provide and demonstrate what civility looks like when it comes to our responsibility as board members.

[2893] SPEAKER_20: I want to see, thank you for that. Thank you. I wanted to see what other board members, whether you wanted to keep it in a round. I know we have quite a time constraint here.

[2903] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah, so in terms of what I was thinking more of an objective, I mean, instead of it's just a broad resolution on civility, maybe we do the objective is having workshops on civility. And then like member Marquez had mentioned that there are phases to it, like having the discussion amongst ourselves in a workshop and then also having the discussion with the students. at that level as another phase and then with our community in a town hall, right? So those are the objectives because I mean, that is the objectives is to have a cohesive understanding of how we should model, you know, in our community and be civil to one another and embrace that and also be inclusive and show that equity piece in terms of like learning it from the students' perspective, learning it from the community's perspective, and then also us engaging it ourselves at the end.

[2966] Bowen Zhang: Gentlemen? Yeah, I'm actually fine with either way on this. Either way? I think we have 10 minutes left, 11 minutes left. Yeah, yeah. That's more.

[2977] Mark Triplett: So I feel like I'm hearing A bit of variations, I'm hearing some people saying maybe it's not necessary to have this, and then some saying that maybe we adapt it a little bit to reflect more the specific engagements that we would have with community, which in my mind was the end result is a resolution, but the real richness of the goal is the process of engaging with students, staff, families, board, so that as a community, we can come together and define what it means to be civil.

[3015] SPEAKER_20: Well, I've heard enough board members say that it's OK to have this. It seems to be important, right? It seems to have an importance. But that slow is better. And to have this, again, maybe some workshops, maybe some work. So let's do a rewrite and give this back then to the board with a smaller scope and something that is to find or to find about exactly what we're going to do.

[3045] Terrence Grindall: Smaller but clear. But we know what it is, right?

[3047] SPEAKER_20: Yeah, clear, concise and clear.

[3049] Bowen Zhang: For me, keeping this goal, for me, primarily is for a recruiting purpose. OK. I mean, Newark doesn't have the prestige or freedom on that, nor do we have the money to Palo Alto and Cupertino. So what do we offer special to attract the high talent? We offer that we say we're a friendly and nice community. And what is the first thing a potential director or principal, before applying to Newark, they look at? They look at our board meeting. Maybe after watching our board meeting, they say, hey, no thanks. I don't really want it. Sure. I mean, oftentimes in these days, given the shortage of labor, Rockstar has so many options. They don't need a company to work. Yeah. Yeah.

[3084] Aiden Hill: OK. All right. All right. Good feedback. So can we? to make a suggestion, and that is that in order to do this right, we need to hire an expert. We need to hire. It does help. We need to hire a marketing expert. And what I'd like to suggest is that we actually, given that this is so important for our district and therefore for our board, that we actually have a couple of, we do a search of a couple, and that we, the board, hear them make a presentation.

[3117] Bowen Zhang: We actually vote on who we think is best. I think we'll go through the request for proposals. Is that called RFE? Yes, that's right.

[3126] Aiden Hill: But we the board should be interviewing them. I agree. I think that's a very good suggestion.

[3131] Mark Triplett: Just to be clear, what Member Hills just said is that the board would actually be leading this process of selecting a company to do the school quality analysis versus?

[3145] Bowen Zhang: Well, no. Here's what I suggest. We do a RFE. I mean, just like when we did a search firm, where you got selected. And then, that'll make the presentation. I'm fine with the board voting on which firm to do it.

[3160] Aiden Hill: And then staff implements, staff supervises, but that we choose the vendor.

[3165] SPEAKER_20: Yeah. So I think in your role that you really want your chief administrator to be doing that. That doesn't mean you shouldn't give input, though. I think it's fine for you to have an RFP and for maybe a subcommittee or some of you being very close to the superintendent because it is important. But let the superintendent make a recommendation to you and then you deal with it as a board in your correct role. That would be my advice. And that doesn't mean you're not involved.

[3196] Bowen Zhang: Like you said, probably pick two board members to sit with the superintendent.

[3200] SPEAKER_20: Absolutely. But then remember, the superintendent's your head administrator. It is his job then to make a recommendation to the board as a whole. And the board either takes that or says, no, we think this would be better.

[3212] Terrence Grindall: Of course, it's also possible that he could make a recommendation that the board could choose either A or B. Right, exactly. you want that further direction, but that's up to you to propose.

[3223] Aiden Hill: Right. I'm fine with that. And if I could add a third goal here, and it's an important one because we've been hearing, we've been seeing a lot of chatter, I mean, we've been hearing people come to board meetings, we've been seeing a lot of emails, you know, so we have an issue, we have a transparency issue, we have an issue with adhering to our Public Records Request Act.

[3247] Aiden Hill: outstanding requests, many of them are sometimes 90, 100 days past, and so we're actually in violation of law. And so I'd like to put a goal on there that says that we need to actually identify how many outstanding requests we have, how much we're out of compliance, and then put a plan together for how we get into compliance with California law.

[3271] Mark Triplett: Is that something that's a priority to all board members as one of the top districts?

[3278] Terrence Grindall: I want you to be compliant with California law in any case. I don't think it needs to be an objection.

[3283] Phuong Nguyen: That's correct. I'm in agreement with him.

[3286] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, I mentioned last night. I guess we have. Six months ago for this year, this is really getting a lot of control. And I guess next year, early on, we can set up.

[3297] Terrence Grindall: And that's not to diminish it. I don't call it that. I don't think it rises to the level of objective. But we do want to be compliant with California law. Absolutely. We want to meet the, you know, you've heard that from the whole board. We'd like that to be tuned up.

[3311] SPEAKER_20: And another thing that the board can do, and I appreciate this issue. It's a tough issue and needs attention. But the board can always ask for a staff report on this and tell us what the status is and where it is. It doesn't rise to maybe the top five or six most focused important things right now. So I would suggest that. We've done that in the past.

[3335] Bowen Zhang: That's a better way of saying what I was trying to say. All right. Should we move on to goal three? Yes. OK.

[3346] Mark Triplett: Okay, so this is two, there's two slides to this one. And because there is four, if I'm not mistaken, there is.

[3357] Jodi Croce: Three.

[3358] Mark Triplett: Sorry, Ms. Johnson, will you scroll up actually to slide 11? There we go. So there's two goals and four objectives, sorry, five objectives. So this first goal, maintain a focus on college and career readiness grades K-12. The three main areas that we are proposing to focus on main objectives this year is one, the phase two of the dual language immersion program, which was started last year, or this current year, approved last year. The middle school design work, which again was a directive from the board last year, and so we're moving at a newly created middle school versus junior high. And then lastly, to continue to refine a plan with regard to both computer science, technology, and environmental literacy and outdoor education.

[3421] Terrence Grindall: I just have a clarifying question. I think we talked about this before, so sorry for rehashing, but what does middle school design mean? It's not buildings and architecture. It's not just that anyway.

[3433] Mark Triplett: That's right. It's designing the instructional program, the master schedules, the staffing. It also includes the facilities, but that's not the main focus.

[3445] SPEAKER_20: Are you 7-8 now? Currently 7-8. And you're going to go to 6-7-8. That's right. And is the timeline for that next year? That's right. So next August. So you very much, that's got to be a priority. It is, yes.

[3457] Terrence Grindall: No, it's just the word design, from some people reading it, are thinking architects.

[3462] Mark Triplett: Thank you, thank you. Yeah, no major, major facilities.

[3467] Terrence Grindall: And that's not the big issue, right? The issues you laid out are the big issues. The master schedule. Instructional program. Program. And yeah, so I just, I don't want the community to get hung up on that word like I was. Yeah, thank you.

[3488] SPEAKER_20: Well, these are very, clear three educational initiatives. And, you know, there's going to be products that come forward to the board on this. It's very ambitious to have all three of them going at one time. Can you handle all three? Although one of them is a continuation, the dual. That's probably well underway, I would imagine. But the other two, you know, are going to take quite a bit. Is that realistic to have all of that in the next six months?

[3523] Phuong Nguyen: I think the middle school design is definitely a necessity. That's a necessity, so it has to be completed. But the TK-12 STEM initiative, it will be like the dual immersion, where this is like the primary phase of it. And then there's going to be an actual phase.

[3539] SPEAKER_20: So you might put that in there, then. Yeah. If this is the primary phase, then do some defining about what the expectation is. Is this the first time this has been an objective? for the superintendent to be evaluated on? Yeah. So realistically, let's make this doable.

[3558] Terrence Grindall: Well, the first three words do it. It's refining the plan. It doesn't say deliver it. Yeah.

[3563] Phuong Nguyen: So it should be fine.

[3565] Mark Triplett: And you will notice later on in the measurable outcomes for this, it's complete the plan that delineates the curriculum, resources, classroom, and extracurricular activities.

[3574] SPEAKER_20: Is it underway now, the development of the plan?

[3576] Richelle Piechowski: Yes. OK.

[3577] SPEAKER_20: All right. I feel better.

[3581] Terrence Grindall: But I think we all know that the middle school implementation is more urgent. It's a hotter issue.

[3592] Bowen Zhang: We have one minute left.

[3598] Aiden Hill: I'd like to just make a comment. So the goal is maintain a focus on college and career readiness, K through 12. But obviously, the further along you get, the closer you get to college and career readiness. It seems to me that dual-language immersion, although it's a program that's starting, is this the most important focus, or should that be replaced with the issue that we had discovered earlier around APEX and around the fact that, you know, we do have potentially academic integrity issues going on at the high school. We put a plan in place to address those, but if we're going to really focus on getting that plan front and center

[3639] Bowen Zhang: executed, that that should be an objective for this year. So Superintendent, given that we're out of time, I think we might need to call for a special meeting on this again. This is probably not going to be voted on on December 16th.

[3653] Terrence Grindall: Maybe a few hours.

[3655] SPEAKER_20: Yeah, I would recommend that you give it more than an hour.

[3658] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, given that we have one and a half. There's plenty to do. Yeah, but given this is 6.01 p.m., this study session will have to end. Thank you, Bill, for

[3667] SPEAKER_20: Thank you. Yeah, I'd be glad to join you at another time if I'm available. Thank you.

[3673] Terrence Grindall: Well, we might work right.

[3676] Mark Triplett: Thanks. It's a pleasure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[3679] SPEAKER_20: Thank you to the board. Nice work. I just want to commend you as a board. Not enough boards do this type of work, and you're doing it, so good for you. Yep. I know there was a concerned that came forward about this, but at least you're tackling it and doing it. We'll keep working on making it more efficient, right? Thank you.

[3724] Bowen Zhang: So before we enter into closed session, is there a public comment on closed session items? Okay. So in closed session, we'll be discussing item 4.2, public employee discipline dismissal release. 4.3, conference with labor negotiators, NTA and CSCA. 4.4, conference with labor negotiator, NEWMA, unrepresented supervisor on contract and management. 4.5, conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation, and we'll be back to open session around seven. We'll see you in a bit.

[7160] SPEAKER_32: Thank you.

[7196] Bowen Zhang: Okay, it's seven o'clock right now. We're back to open session. First item, Pledge of Allegiance. Everybody please stand up.

[7202] SPEAKER_32: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[7227] Bowen Zhang: Next is report of closed session actions on item 4.5, conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation. The board voted 5-0 unanimously to approve a settlement amount of $48,000 to case number 2021-08-0439. Again, in closed session on item 4.5, conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation. The board voted 5-0 unanimously to approve a settlement among the 48,000 for case number 2021-080439. Moving on to employee organization. Any public speaker?

[7277] SPEAKER_14: This is NTA, right? Yeah, okay. I just want to make sure. I didn't overstep. Hi, good evening, Dr. Triplett and school board. I'm Lori Eddings, and I'll be giving the NTA report today. First, I want to hand this to the board. I can come up there, right?

[7296] SPEAKER_25: OK. Oh, sure. Sorry. Sorry, sorry.

[7331] Maria Huffer: Maybe.

[7351] SPEAKER_14: I'm Lori Eddings and I'll be representing NTA tonight. I would like to state to the school board that I filed a Williams Act complaint on September 15th, 2021. Here's the history of the class up to date that I filed for. An intern was hired in the class who stayed two days, stating she left due to lack of support from our principal. She was followed by several weeks of staff in-house subbing and rotating in with no lesson plans and no curriculum. The only materials supplied were markers. Subs even had to ask for paper. A long-term sub was hired. It has come to NTA's attention that the lesson plans stated in the response to the Williams Act were provided for one week only by the department chair. Over the course of a few weeks in class, the long-term sub repeatedly asked for support from the principal. He did not receive what he asked for. At one point, an instructional aide was pulled from a SPED class to help the long-term sub, but he needed administration help. On the long-term sub's last day, students were so unruly, he hit the emergency button in the classroom. Our long-term sub quit that day in the middle of third period. He was previously had been a sub for NUSD for many years, and now he will never come back. And that's really unfortunate due to the lack of sub shortages. Teachers are back to in-house subbing now in this class. For a brief time, there was an in-house sub and a regular sub in the same class trying to manage behavior. Teachers are continued to be asked to in-house sub again. NTA's concern is that the students in this class are not learning. At best, they are being looked after. There are no lesson plans provided by an administrator or any art teacher. One regular in-house sub is a part-time teacher at NJHS and is trying to create lesson plans on his own. NTA expects to see that a credentialed teacher is hired soon. And when they are hired, there is a plan of support that will be implemented by the principal and monitored by the school board. This is very important to both the art class and the computer class as they switch students at the semester. We have provided documentation via email. You have that? Okay. Pictures. And I just want the board to notice how much money this is not having a credentialed teacher in that class is costing the district. It is costing hundreds if not thousands of dollars in that class to replace what is being vandalized. Just yesterday or just Friday, Elmer's glue was put in the chrome cart in that classroom. and it has wrecked several of the computers. NTA would like to also request a meeting to talk about the safety concerns happening on the NJH campus. Thank you.

[7566] Bowen Zhang: Thank you. Do we have any virtual online speaker? I was told that we would, but they did not show up yet. OK. I think we can skip over if they come back Online we can always go back. Next public comment on non-agenda items. Any virtual public speakers? No online speaker for 8.1? Okay. Moving on to 9.1. Public Hearing on Educator Effectiveness Fund Grant. Public hearing is open, and we do have a public speaker, Ms. Cindy Parks.

[7624] SPEAKER_25: Good evening.

[7626] Cindy Parks: It's always wonderful to go for grants. This district has had grants come and go over the years. And of course, additional funding is always something that is desired. However, I would really wonder how much based on previous instances did NTA and CSCA participate and provide input in all of these items that are listed here. On page two of the document, it says that your system will focus on grade level and content collaboration and coaching, professional learning alignment to instructional needs and site instructional leadership team that monitors growth for all students specifically attention to those historically underserved, English learners, the social economic status and those with special education. The problem is, is the programs that these kids are being instructed with. It goes along with the bottom block here also where it talks about PBIS, the cost protocols and the tier one interventions. you where do you evaluate the instructional materials that are in the classroom? Where have you evaluated these positive school climates? I have not seen any in any evaluations of these programs. You hear principals come for their spotlight and they say, oh, well, we're doing it. But you just heard the incidences that are happening at the junior high and the destruction. Where is PBIS going on there? Where's PBS going on at the high school when there's all these fights? And from what I'm hearing, the kids that are just leaving campus. I was in this boardroom when the board voted to close the campus 20 years ago. My son attended there. He called me one day to say, when did the board reverse that? When did they open the campus? I said, they didn't. You aren't, you say you're going for all this stuff, but you're utilizing elements that you haven't even evaluated. Where have you evaluated the math program that you implemented last year or two years ago? Where is the implementation? Where, you know, the evaluating of the implementation? And so this is all good that you're getting all this money, but are you throwing money into programs that you haven't really evaluated, you haven't really looked at? And then really the number two boxed chart on here, which talks about the taboo or tableau, however you contract. You paid $7,000 last month. It was brought up during the warrant report. I really didn't even know what that was until I saw this. But where's the contract for that? That goes back to what we've said before is, you know, you seem to reverse order on how things happen. You're being asked to approve this item for apparently a contract that already exists, a check you've already written, for a grant you haven't even got. So that's my two cents. Thank you.

[7821] Bowen Zhang: Thank you. Any other public speaker online? Public hearing closed. Moving on to new business, 10.1 Educator Effectiveness Grant Plan. Any online public speaker for this one? Okay, Superintendent Triplett.

[7849] Mark Triplett: Thank you very much, President Jung. So for this item, we will have Ms. Abbey Keirns speak to this Educator Effectiveness Grant Fund Plan. We're very fortunate and excited to be receiving these grant dollars from the state, specifically focused on supporting educators to be their very best and to support their effectiveness. And as Ms. Kearns will discuss, the timeline on this is very short. We received this this fall, I believe, and the deadline for turning in a plan extremely short and needs to be improved before the end of this calendar year. And so Ms. Kearns will talk about, given the very short timeline and the guidelines for the grant, all of the measures that we took to engage stakeholders and then the plan that we're bringing forth. Ms. Kearns.

[7914] Abbey Keirns: Good evening, Board of Trustees, Dr. Triplett, and the Executive Cabinet. I'm Abbey Keirns again. I've seen a few of you before, but I'm Director of Special Projects. I'm going to be presenting the draft plan. And I want to make sure they're going to go over five things today. So one is the overview of the fund and its purpose. Two is the timeline for development and for the approval. And the vision that drove the decision making behind the plan. the allowable use of funds, and lastly, the plan itself. So that's the five things we'll be going over today. Next slide, please. So, sorry for the small font. I'll speak to mostly what's on the slide if you can't read it. These funds came about out of Assembly Bill 130. The purpose of it is to support professional development and the promotion of equity, quality, and effectiveness. The target audience for this is a wide range of staff. focusing specifically on staff, not just certificated, but also classified, that interact with students. That was the phrasing from the guidance itself. These funds are available to spend over the next five years, and the amount that was allocated to us was determined based on our full-time staff last year, both certificated and classified. We'll be required to provide financial and program reports annually, and any unspent funds will have to be returned in 2026. The state requires that this plan be presented to the public for comment, which we're doing today, and then followed up by a board adoption in a subsequent meeting. The allocations that we were, the allocation of funds that we were given was $1,197,550. Next slide, please. So this is a brief overview of the timeline and engagements that followed the last two months. So we were notified six weeks ago about the opportunity. We quickly pulled together a team to unpack the requirements and the time that we had to get a strong plan together. Then we reached out to labor partners to consult with them about what they saw as the needs in the community. We then met and consolidated these needs and different perspectives together into the plan. So today we're here to gain additional insight from the community and revise the plan presenting to the board on the 16th of this month in hopes of a final adoption. It's important to note that if we do not complete the adoption by December 30th, we will have to forfeit the funds. So that is a contingency. Next slide, please. So this is a graphic representation of our vision for professional learning. I'm going to talk through a little bit of what this attempts to represent. So we based our decisions on the belief that school sites are the best place for site-embedded professional learning. We focused on leveraging these funds to support sites to strengthen their own internal system of learning. Research shows that these areas, collaboration and coaching, professional development, and teacher leadership, which is what the instructional leadership team is about, really help be transformative at school sites. Each circle pictured here links together. Each informs the other. For example, a teacher may learn about differentiated instruction in a professional development setting. Then they would collaborate around it, plan, get some coaching, And then the results of all of that work would then come back to the instructional leadership team that would then inform the professional development plan. So every teacher and staff member that serves students can be impacted by a system like this and the system ensures that there's responsive, we're responsive to the immediate needs at school sites. The level of monitoring though does require some additional resources in the form of really great content coaches as well as data. So next slide please. So this is an overview of the allowable use of funds, which is also at the end of the plan itself. So there's a broad base for how we can use the funds. The state recommends that the strategy is based on a focus area, meaning that we have a specific lens that we're looking at how we're using the funds. In our case, we believe that school sites, again, are the best place to really focus that professional learning under our broader umbrellas social and emotional learning, standards-based instruction and assessment. So just to add here, the state does not require that we meet all 10 of these criteria in order to have the plan approved. Okay, next slide. So action one in the plan, is really focused on being able to facilitate that professional learning at a school site. The one I previously described. We want schools to be able to focus on highly effective practices and we believe that by paying five TOSAs to allocate across sites in the district that we would be able to make sure that all teachers have access to a content expert and that this will then support their collaboration and improvement as you know in instruction. There's more description there, but I was trying to add my next slide. Action two is, in addition, we want to hope to use the fund to pay for a continued contract with Tableau to support easy use and understanding of data by teachers and administrators. The data in Tableau will support disaggregation specifically. So getting down to social, you know, special education students, English learners, specific other demographics that we're interested in and allow for cross-site comparisons so that we can easily support and see where are we being successful and build there and where do we need to strengthen our support. Action three recognizes the importance of paraeducators in our system and the unique learning of these teachers, of these educators. There's currently a self-paced program called PATH that we would like to use to serve these needs. The fund will be combined with a significant amount of money already allocated through the ELO, the Expanded Learning Opportunity Grant. And then lastly, action four, Action 4 acknowledges the importance of ongoing professional development on different levels as we promote positive school climates. We will continue to invest in that first level of support that students get every day in class and additional systems like costs that connect students to additional resources if needed. These dollars would be added to these significant investments already being made in the ESSER III and LCAP funds. And that is all I have to present and I'm open for your questions.

[8338] Bowen Zhang: Okay, bring back to the board. Thank you for the presentation. This is discussion information only. Any comments from the board? Member Hill.

[8354] Aiden Hill: Thank you, Ms. Carnes, for your presentation. So one question, it kind of goes back to our study session earlier with our facilitator, Mr. Hewlett. And one of the things that he was cautioning us about is having too many goals ends up basically dissipating resources. And so you've got to really be smart in terms of your priorities. And I guess my question about this program, I mean, I know it's always great to go after money, but sometimes that can be a curse and it can distract you. And my question is, what problem are we trying to solve with this program? And what concrete measurements are we going to have in place that are going to tell us that we've actually made progress on that problem or we've solved that problem?

[8406] Mark Triplett: Thank you, Member Hill. If I could just jump in here. Actually, I appreciate the question. And it does tie really well into our district goals and superintendent objectives. So one of the actually two of the objectives from earlier professional development and coaching and feedback are two areas that we've identified as some of the top priorities for our district, both this year and honestly, I think moving forward as well. And so these expenditures here and this proposal directly supports this idea of quality, professional development, as well as coaching and feedback for our teachers. Did you want to add anything, Ms. Cairns? No, thank you.

[8447] Aiden Hill: So how do we measure that?

[8453] Mark Triplett: Yeah, so we will talk about that when we get to get back to that section of our district goals and superintendent objectives. But on there, you see that there are certain ways that we are proposing to measure that, including the quantifying the number of professional development hours, as well as the quality of the professional development as measured by the staff and feedback forms and surveys from from teachers and likewise. We're measuring it through the coaching and feedback cycles that we engage in. And so seeing change in teacher practice based on coaching is the other way that we've articulated in the district superintendent objectives for how to measure both professional development and coaching and feedback.

[8510] Bowen Zhang: Member Nguyen.

[8512] Phuong Nguyen: So in terms of a taboo contract, Will you be capturing the data on the performance of the professional development through that data system to support outcomes on how well the professional development is going for teachers?

[8534] Mark Triplett: Ms. Kearns, feel free to jump in. But the Tableau system, which I believe is what you're referring to, is actually a system that can collect data around student outcomes as well as A number of different things, enrollment, even attendance. And do you want to speak more about some of the other possibilities for that?

[8559] Abbey Keirns: It's a data visualization, so just as long as we have the data, we can find a way to slice it and match it with other data. One of the interesting things may be to track teacher, either teacher satisfaction through general surveys, but also probably teacher qualifications and retention. So that would be a longer term data point, but one that's really valuable that would be able to be measured and then we can look at it from either a, specific sites are aggregated up to a district level.

[8591] Phuong Nguyen: So I guess my question is that what kind of data will you guys be capturing and what will be reported back to us in terms of any performance outcomes so that we know exactly what data points we have to go by in evaluating how we can best, you know, maybe provide different curriculum, like you said, or maybe give advice on different professional development for the teachers.

[8617] Abbey Keirns: I think the first tier where we see the results is probably with students. So we're hoping that by seeing some spikes in students, we'll be able to have an explanation about what's the story behind that data. And I think by having these rich professional learning systems in place will help us be able to explain why are we seeing this spike in fourth grade at this particular site, for example. Perfect.

[8638] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you.

[8642] Bowen Zhang: Member Marquez.

[8643] SPEAKER_21: Yes, I had a comment. Good evening. So my question was it it states that it's for five years. So every year will there be a new plan that's proposed with so if there's let's say if we divide by five the actual fund that's being received in the five years because it shows here that the annual audits will be conducted by the CDE and on what we turn in. So at that time, just like this evening, will we receive a new report or a new proposal as to what the funds are going to be spent on every calendar year or every school year? Or is this general, these are the goals that we'll be going with for the next five years?

[8676] Abbey Keirns: We don't have to revise. We don't have to create a new plan annually. That being said, the state does allow us to amend the plan if we find that we need a different strategy, for example.

[8687] SPEAKER_21: OK. Thank you for that.

[8691] Bowen Zhang: Any other comments? Final round of comments? This is discussion information for Member Nguyen?

[8696] Phuong Nguyen: I just have a follow-up in terms of what Member Marquez had commented on. So it is laid out as a five-year plan. So in terms of that, these are the goals for the five years. But within these goals, do we have distinction as to what is planned for year one, year two, year three, year four, year five of the program?

[8723] Abbey Keirns: I believe that plan is to have what's written down fully in place by the start of next school year. And then we'll carry that out, I believe, for at least the next following two school years, with the hope of finding additional funding, assuming it's working like we planned. OK. Thank you. Member Hill?

[8747] Aiden Hill: How often are we going to get reports?

[8752] Abbey Keirns: This board, but we can put it on an agenda for the future. The state requires us annually in September to give a report, so we can also schedule that as part of our... Can we do it monthly? I'm sorry?

[8766] Aiden Hill: Can we do it monthly?

[8771] Mark Triplett: What would you want to have reported out monthly, Member Hill?

[8774] Aiden Hill: Well, I think whatever we're tracking, I'd like to see monthly because, you know, a year is a long time. And again, you know, if we've got Tableau, we can just run a report. We could put it out on the website and make it available. It doesn't have to be a formal agenda item. But I think, again, if we're going to invest money, we want to see what the results are.

[8796] Mark Triplett: Welcome, Mother. Board member comments, but we'll just say so that the majority of you saw the proposal is is funds going towards teachers on special assignment And so part of their role is coaching providing professional development And also helping to lead Leadership teams at the site so I think it might be, well, if that's what the board wanted to see is a monthly progress on what those teachers on special assignment are doing and report out about their activities, please, by all means, if the board wishes that, please let us know.

[8840] Terrence Grindall: President Zhang, I think the annual report is adequate. with the stipulation that if there's an issue that comes up, of course, the superintendent and staff will bring up another report. But I believe the annual presentation to the board of the annual report and discussion at that time is adequate.

[8864] Bowen Zhang: Member Hill, final comment?

[8866] Aiden Hill: I think we need monthly, because when we've had projects before, like the website, and we haven't had monthly status reports, we end up not hitting our deliverables. So it's always good to be monitoring things as closely as possible.

[8885] Bowen Zhang: Any other board member that want to offer any compromise, like quarterly reports?

[8894] Terrence Grindall: I still believe in any reports adequately.

[8897] Phuong Nguyen: Any other comments? I'm in agreement with Member Rendell.

[8900] Bowen Zhang: Mobile Member Marquez.

[8901] SPEAKER_21: In this case, if you refer to page two, it actually says the investment that's being used is going to ensure that all schools have the access to content expert to support. Notice that the bullet point clearly states that the five TTOSAs will be allocated according to the need for every two consecutive years. So the fact that it's indicating yearly, We need to give the TOSAs the ample amount of time also to produce the information and demonstrate their abilities. And then not only demonstrate their abilities, but then they're evaluated, therefore it comes back through the normal channels.

[8936] Bowen Zhang: Okay. Thank you for the presentation.

[8938] SPEAKER_25: Thank you for your time.

[8939] Bowen Zhang: Have a great rest of the evening. Moving on to new business, 10.2, 2021 to 22 first interim budget report. We do have a public speaker, Ms. Cindy Parks.

[8962] Cindy Parks: Good evening. It is key to note that even though you have a positive certification on page four, it also notes that you're continuing to deficit spend. There is a typo on page six. It says the district is comprised of eight elementary schools when it should say seven. The report states that the position control is not independent from payroll. What does it mean to have a position control staff member independent from payroll? You might want to follow up on that. Their certificated and classified salaries and benefits is 70% of the total budget. Services and operating expenses is 22% of the budget. What is truly important to ask is what is the cost of salaries and benefits when you consider the professional services funding for contracted special ed and other positions you are unable to fill internally, which there are a lot of them. How does that figure compare with similar districts? The ADA projections show a continued 3% decrease each year through the next two years. Yet NTA remains at 297.8 FTE. CSCA increased 25 FTE this year due to ESSER III money, but essentially it remains at 143.4 FTE. NEWMA drops one FTE next year. The reserves were at 17.4%. Page 25 shows an ending balance of $204,000 for this year with a 15.8% reserve. The following two years shows a $2.5 million deficit and a reserve dropping to 14.1% and 10.5 in 23-24. The revenues and expenditures highlighted in the narrative show a significant fluctuation. Why don't any of the individual fund pages show a percentage difference in column F? I have never witnessed universal zeros in that column. For the last 21 months, essentially COVID money funded a lot of the staff, programs, and materials. Now it's time to face the music. Operating in the real world with a fixed and a structural deficit.

[9103] Bowen Zhang: Thank you. Any online speakers? Superintendent Triplett.

[9109] Mark Triplett: OK. Thank you, President Jung. So I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Dela Cruz to speak about this first interim budget report.

[9120] Marie dela Cruz: Thank you, Dr. Triplett. Good evening, board. I'm pleased to provide this report on the first interim budget. Next slide. The first interim report covers the period from July 1st through October 31st of each year. And each year we're required to submit the report to the Alameda County Office of Education by December 15th. And it's really a snapshot in time of the district's revenue and expenditures, plus forecasts for the current year and two subsequent years. It includes revisions since the adopted budget and provides you an update of where we are at this period in time. Next slide, please. So part of the requirement is to certify our report, either positive, qualified, or negative. A positive certification means that the district will be able to meet its financial obligations in the current year and the two subsequent years. A qualified certification means that the district may not be able to make its financial obligations in the current year or in the two subsequent years. And a negative certification means that the district will not be able to make its financial obligations for the remainder of the current year or the subsequent year. The main factor in our funding is based on enrollment and ADA. And ADA is average daily attendance. Our enrollment this year is 329 students below projections, and it's 336 below last year's. So we're continuing to decline in enrollment. Our funding is based on ADA and not enrollment, and that's a significant difference. Because our ADA to enrollment ratio is about 97%, or that's the opposite. Enrollment to ADA is 97%. For the last couple of years, the state has allowed us to use our 1920 ADA, which at that time was 5,483 ADA. But that ends this year. So starting next year, we have to use our actual ADA. And this year, our projected ADA is 5,045, which is 438 less than what the Hold Harmless ADA has been for the last couple of years. And this is going to significantly impact our funding in future years. Our total revenues are $78 million, and of that amount, 73% is unrestricted, and 27% are restricted funds. Our LCFF, which is the local control funding formula, is about $56 million, which represents 97% of our unrestricted funds. And this year, we received $9.4 million in federal funds, which includes $6.7, almost $7 million in one-time COVID-related funds, such as the ESSER funds and the ELO grant. $7.9 million is in state revenue, which includes $2.3 million in the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program and the Educator Effectiveness Funds, which Ms. Cairns has just discussed. Since our adopted budget, Our unrestricted revenues did decrease about 514,000. This is mostly due to lower unduplicated pupil percentage count, which does result in a decrease in our supplemental and concentration funds. We receive concentration funds only if we go over the 55% threshold for unduplicated pupil percentage. Our restricted revenue increased by about $10 million. This is mostly due to one-time COVID-related funds, such as our in-person instruction grant, our ELO program, and the educator effectiveness funds. We also contribute a significant amount to our special education program and the routine restricted maintenance account. We're required to contribute at least 3% of our total expenditures to the routine restricted maintenance account, which is used for school building maintenance. And our general fund contributes about $6.6 million to special education. And that amount has slightly gone down because we did have a net increase in the special ed self-allocation this year. On the expenditure side, our total expenditures is about $80 million, and 70% of the total expenditures are for salaries and benefits. The other big piece of our expenditures comes from services and other operating expenditures, such as our water and our electricity, legal services, software, and contract services. And it does include almost $11 million in one-time restricted COVID and grant-related expenditures. And again, from our ESSER funds, our EEF, our ELO program, and the ELO grant. In summary, the bottom line, looking at our unrestricted funds, There will be a net increase projected to our fund balance of $204,000 by the end of the year. Our total reserves will be at $12.7 million, which is about 15% to 16% of total expenditures. It's slightly less than the board goal of 17%, but it's still higher than the 3% minimum required by the state. And looking at our multi-year projection, in the assumptions we included COLA, cost of living adjustment of 3.48% in 22-23 and 3.11% in 23-24 in our revenue projections. It also includes the hold harmless ADA provision for this year, but that will end and starting next year, our ADA is going to be 438 less. than this year. And then in the following year, it will be $101.88 less. So this will significantly impact our revenues. And reserves will be down to 10.5% by the 23-24. We're projected to deficit spend $2.5 million next year and in the subsequent year. If we had only maintained a 3% minimum, which is about $2 million this year, our first interim certification would have been qualified. So just another point in how important it is to maintain reserves more than 3%. We have other funds other than our general fund. Just to point out, our Child Development Fund is projected to deficit spend this year about $224,000. Due to the pandemic, our service to students right now has gone down to 189 students compared to 340 students pre-pandemic. Fund 21 is our Measure G fund, and that is pretty much all spent. So as a final summary, this year we are projected to end with a net increase in our fund balance on the unrestricted side of $204,000. For the next two years, we are projected to deficit spend $2.5 million in each of the 22, 23, and 23, 24 for a total of $5 million. Our reserves will go down to 10% in the second out year, which is below the board's goal. We are presenting a resolution in another board item that commits us to balance our budget and find budget balancing solutions of at least $2.5 million in each of the two subsequent years. But with that, because we are able to meet our obligations this year and the following two years, we have a minimum 3% reserve required we recommend approval of a positive certification on this first interim budget report. The next report will be presented in March for the second interim report, and the governor comes out with his proposal for next year's budget in January. With that, I'm open to questions or comments.

[9723] Bowen Zhang: Back to the rest of the board. Member Grindel.

[9727] Terrence Grindall: Thank you for the excellent report. I appreciate the conservative approach to this plan. I do want to ask the enrollment drops. My understanding is that's actually, there's been a drop in enrollment that's really statewide, even nationally. Is that your understanding as well?

[9754] Marie dela Cruz: Yes. My understanding is the average drop in enrollment has been about 3 to 5 percent.

[9761] Terrence Grindall: Right. And so there is our our lobbying organizations are working with the state to try to to to instead of going to the instead of going directly to our existing enrollment to step that down to create a slope rather than a cliff and and if something like that were to be proposed, that would make this plan even better. It would help our situation. Is that correct?

[9791] Marie dela Cruz: Yes, that is correct.

[9792] Terrence Grindall: Thank you.

[9800] Aiden Hill: Thank you, Ms.dela Cruz. Two questions. Just so I understand, it looks like we're we're believing that we have a structural deficit. And that structural deficit at this point is projected to be $2.5 million per year for the next couple of years. If it's structural, that means that it's probably going to continue unless we change something. So the first question is, given our existing reserves, if we didn't make any changes, how many years out would we be when we start to hit that 3% kind of threshold when we have to start reporting our finances as qualified. So that's the first question. And then the second question is, I know that part of our efforts to deal with the structural deficit has been to do things like our consolidation of Snow and Graham, and then also our closure of music. And I don't know if it's captured in this report or where, But what exactly are we seeing as the impact of what we're saving through those actions? So those are my two questions.

[9877] Marie dela Cruz: So the first one regarding the structural deficit, I would project that maybe one more out year, because for each interim report, you have to show that you can meet your obligations in the current year plus two out years. So if we continue with this pattern, I would project that by that third out year that we would be presenting a qualified report if we did nothing. So your next question was about the consolidations. Yeah. So the assumptions are incorporated in here, which we had estimated about $500,000 for each consolidation. in terms of savings.

[9930] Aiden Hill: Have we achieved it?

[9932] Marie dela Cruz: Yes, they're incorporated in here. And we have not gone over or under that estimate. It hasn't impacted our budget negatively in terms of our projections.

[9951] Aiden Hill: So if we hadn't done it, we would be at a $3 million a year Deficit yes Because the million dollars were estimated to be savings for both of the schools Okay, um and if and I'm you don't need to send it to me now But just if it is contained in here like the detail I would just like to know where that is so I could Understand the details that would be great, but we don't have to do it right now Yeah, it was presented in I think the second interim report.

[9980] Marie dela Cruz: I had the detail in there and in executive summary in this report. It does show where we had budget balancing solutions in the last couple of years that got us to this point.

[9998] Bowen Zhang: Member Nguyen.

[9999] Phuong Nguyen: So I just want to thank Ms. Delacruz for the presentation. And then also, just a comment on what Member Hill had brought up in terms of the consolidation and the cost savings. I think that, unfortunately, due to the pandemic and the enrollment issue that we're facing with the additional 300 students, that wasn't really calculated in or projected when we were initially thinking about consolidating schools. That's just an additional impact to what this first interim looks like. So if we didn't have the declining, the continued declining enrollment with the additional 300 students, I think that we would, our outlook would have been a lot different in that sense. But with the pandemic and a current outlook of our low enrollment, your conservative estimates for the 2.5 million, deficit for the next two out years does already include the $500,000 savings per school site for the consolidation. Yes, that's correct. Yeah, thank you. And then my second question or thought was on the unduplicated people count. I know last year we had that campaign to reach out to families. Are we going to be doing that this year to see if we can offset that 500,000?

[10099] Marie dela Cruz: Yeah, so unfortunately the state has not given us the extension this year. Last year, we had that opportunity because the state gave us an extension to December 31st for us to capture some of those unduplicated pupil counts. Yes. Recognizing that a lot of the families are not completing those forms because of the free meals for all program.

[10126] SPEAKER_25: Correct.

[10127] Marie dela Cruz: Okay. Thank you.

[10128] Bowen Zhang: So I have two comments on the report. Number one is responding to member Hill's question about we don't do anything. Delacruz, Mr. Delacruz, you were saying in the two-hour year, we'll be voting for a qualified budget. I think, yeah, that's voting for a qualified budget, but that doesn't mean we have only 3% reserve. Based on your projection, we'll probably still have 10% reserve if we don't do anything. By 2024, we'll be voting looking at all year in 2026. So by that point, there will be down to 3% resulting in the qualified voting. So that's number one. Number two, there are actually two quite big consumptions. I mean, two big assumptions in the budget. One is conservative. The other might be a bit too aggressive. The conservative part is we're projecting next two years COLA with zero for special act. That's likely to be more than that. But the second thing is we need to take into account is we're also presuming there will be no result from that. There will be no increase in collective bargaining because we haven't, we have yet to negotiate the next three-year budget. So we're using today's salary and benefit to project the next two years of 2.5 million. As we have any pay increases after the next round of collective bargaining, this 2.5 million may very well be 3.5 or 4 million. So that's the aggressive part of all the projections. So there are two comments I want to point out. Any other comments from the rest of the board?

[10213] Marie dela Cruz: Can I just add that although there's no cost of living salary increases in the assumptions, we did assume step and column, which is the natural increase based on the salary schedule.

[10229] SPEAKER_21: I just had one more comment. Yes, please. Thank you very much. In regards to the Hold Harmless with the ADA, is there any indication that the state is leaning towards allowing an additional year of Hold Harmless, possibly two?

[10242] Marie dela Cruz: That question has been asked several times. And unfortunately, at this time, it sounds like the state's not interested in that. Although they are looking at other solutions, such as increasing the base or possibly reducing this impact of the declining enrollment throughout the state.

[10261] SPEAKER_21: Ms. Delacruz, when you say base, is that the base for the actual ADA formula itself, what they're providing per student? Yes. Okay, thank you.

[10269] Phuong Nguyen: One last question. Member Nguyen. Ms. Delacruz, do you think that in the governor's proposal in January that they will address those alternative solutions?

[10280] Marie dela Cruz: It does sound like that's a high probability, especially since the forecast right now in revenues in the state is a lot higher than what they had anticipated. Okay, great. Thank you.

[10293] Bowen Zhang: Okay, I move that we certify the first interim report with positive certification. May I get a second? I second. Seconded by Member Marquez. Member Marquez, how do you vote?

[10304] SPEAKER_31: Yes.

[10306] Bowen Zhang: Member Grindel?

[10307] Jodi Croce: Yes.

[10308] Bowen Zhang: Member Hill? Yes. Member Nguyen? Yes. My vote is this as well. Motion carries unanimously. First interim report has positive certification. Thank you, Ms. Dela Cruz and the hard work done by your team. Moving on to 10.3 resolution 2021.22.14 to commit to budget balancing solutions for 2022 to 23 and 2023 to 2024 fiscal years. I believe I believe we don't have, do we have public commenter online for this? Superintendent Triplett.

[10342] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Hsuan. So obviously this resolution is in coordination with the first interim budget report and does make a statement around committing to budget balancing solutions. And I'll turn it over to Ms. Del Cruz if she wants to add anything.

[10360] Marie dela Cruz: Yes, so if nothing changes with the governor's proposal and We don't get any additional adjustments to our revenue projections. We will need to provide budget balancing solutions of up to $2.5 million for the next two years. So that could be a series of expenditure reductions and Just like the past, we've had study sessions to kind of go over some of those reductions, and that's what we kind of foresee in the future, if this is something that doesn't change in the Governor's January budget.

[10401] Bowen Zhang: Okay. Any comments on the board? Member Hill?

[10407] Aiden Hill: Yeah, I'm just curious who drafted this resolution.

[10413] Marie dela Cruz: This is a resolution that we've been using for the last couple of years. And it's been a sample provided by the county office.

[10423] Aiden Hill: Alameda County.

[10425] Marie dela Cruz: Alameda County Office of Education.

[10427] Aiden Hill: OK. And we put in the details.

[10430] Bowen Zhang: OK. OK. I move that we adopt Resolution 2021.22.14 to commit. Actually, before I made a motion, Before I move that, I want to point out that budget balancing solutions are, so I just want to clarify. When the board votes on balancing the budget, we're talking about not using one-time money or reserve to pay that year instead of, because sometimes you can use one-time money or reserve to put into a budget, and then you have a balanced budget, even though your reserve is going down. So that just needs to be clarified. Okay, so I move that we adopt Resolution 2021.22.14 to commit to budget balancing solutions for the 2022-23 and 2023-2024 fiscal years. May I get a second? I'll second that. Seconded by Member Grundahl. Member Marcus, how do you vote?

[10485] SPEAKER_31: Yes.

[10486] Bowen Zhang: Member Grundahl?

[10488] SPEAKER_31: Yes.

[10488] Bowen Zhang: Member Hill? Yes. Member Nguyen?

[10491] SPEAKER_31: Yes.

[10492] Bowen Zhang: My vote is yes. Motion carries with five ayes. I don't believe we need to read this, right? Moving on to consent calendar, I would like to pull item 11.3. So we'll be voting on 11.2 personnel report. And seeing no public comment, I move that we ratify the personnel report as presented. OK, member Hill.

[10522] Aiden Hill: Yeah, so I just have one comment, because I did notice on the personnel report that There is a resignation there of a teacher, and I know that that was related to a prior public comment. And I want us to take this really seriously because it does seem like we're having safety issues and that there's a number of things occurring. And if we can't get a hold of this, it's not only going to affect our teachers staying, it's going to affect parents wanting to keep their kids in class and enrollment, et cetera. So I just want us to take this very seriously.

[10559] Bowen Zhang: So, Mario, I actually share the same concern with you. That's why I sort of mentioned that, you know, goal setting, but we didn't get time. But once we, the follow-up session, I'll be bringing an issue like that as well. Similar, in addition, there are other related things about this. Superintendent?

[10576] Mark Triplett: Sorry, if I may, just a clarification. It sounds like an assumption is being made about who and the employees that are resigning. I think it's a very problematic assumption to be made and is actually inaccurate.

[10591] Aiden Hill: So that's fine. Again, I don't know the details. All I know is that we had a public comment about this, and that I've heard also from the community on the same situation. So whether this particular item is different or not, I'm just speaking to the fact that apparently we're having issues of safety. It's impacting not only our students, but our teachers, and I want us to take it seriously.

[10615] Bowen Zhang: OK. I move that we will ratify the personnel report as presented. Can I get a second?

[10622] SPEAKER_21: I second the motion.

[10625] Bowen Zhang: Motion made by myself, seconded by Member Marquez. Member Marquez, how do you vote? Yes. Member Grindel? Yes. Member Hill? Yes. Member Nguyen? Yes. My vote is yes as well. Motion carries with five ayes. 11.3, we do have public comment on this. We have Dr. Wendy Castaneda.

[10658] SPEAKER_26: Good evening, board members and members of the executive cabinet. My name is Dr. Wendy Castaneda-Leal, and you might know me as the principal of Schilling or a NEWMA board member, but most importantly, my job is a mother. As a mother, I look at my child's education and I wonder how is the district that is supposed to serve her educational needs and the needs of all the students at her school being equitable? When I saw this item, 11.3 for a 1.0 FTE English Language Arts teacher on special assignment specifically designated for one school, I wondered, how is this equitable across all schools for all of our children? I want you to think about that as you make this decision tonight and wonder what funds are being used and Is it being used in a way where all students will receive the benefit of what this ELA TOSA is supposed to benefit Coyote Hills Elementary? Is it based on low socioeconomic students? Is it based on our English learner students? And how is that number being divided into all the students and all the schools that are in Newark? Thank you.

[10750] Bowen Zhang: OK. Do we have online comment for this? No, we do not. OK. Anybody ready to make a motion?

[10765] Terrence Grindall: I'll move approval.

[10767] Bowen Zhang: Motion. Sorry, can we have a discussion about this? Yes, I mean, given the items being polled.

[10777] Aiden Hill: Yeah, so, I mean, I just have a problem with this because, you know, in one breath, we're talking about how we have a structural deficit and that we don't want to count on one-time money. And then in the very next agenda item, we're doing exactly that. We're ignoring the structural deficit and we're counting on putting this person in place with one-time money. And it's just not a fiscally prudent, you know, action. And, you know, and per the earlier public speaker, you know, is it equitable, you know, as well? And I mean, granted, there are needs everywhere. But I think that we need to start getting into the point of being fiscally prudent and tightening our belt. And that's a habit, and we need to start forming that habit. And so I think we should consider that as we vote on this item.

[10825] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, so before the board meeting, I did ask a question about this one-time money. And I guess the answer we got is, if we think this is very effective and once we don't, let's say after a year we don't have this grant anymore, we'll just need to find additional other funding resources. Is that right, Superintendent?

[10845] Mark Triplett: That's correct, President Jun. This is very specifically a one-time till the end of this year funding proposal to create this position. It would end at the end of this year. If it is deemed to be something effective, then we would look into other means of funding this. For example, out of the Educator Effectiveness Grant, we just spoke about the TOSAs. And so if this position after at the end of this year seems to be something that is really having a positive impact, then that would be one area where we could continue to fund this. But again, this is one-time funds. and then if we were going to continue to fund it through something like the Educator Effectiveness Grant, those likewise are specific funds specifically for this type of purchase or allocation, rather.

[10901] Bowen Zhang: So, motion made by Member Gundahl. Anybody want to?

[10905] Terrence Grindall: I want to clarify the reason I made the motion is as just was discussed by Superintendent Mark Triplett. If we're going to have goals like we're talking about with improving our educators, we need people to do that. So we can't come up with programs that we want to implement and not actually bring the people on board to do so. So that's why I moved approval of this item.

[10934] Bowen Zhang: Anybody wants to second?

[10936] Phuong Nguyen: I second.

[10937] Bowen Zhang: Seconded by Member Nguyen. Member Marquez, how do you vote?

[10940] SPEAKER_31: Yes.

[10941] Bowen Zhang: Member Grindel? Yes. Member Hill? No. Member Nguyen?

[10945] SPEAKER_31: Yes.

[10946] Bowen Zhang: I vote yes as well. Motion carries with four ayes. Member Hill voted no. Moving on to consent agenda, non-personnel items. I would like to pull item 12.3. So I move that we'll be approving consent agenda 12.2, contrast and purchase order authorized under resolution 2020.21-025. to provide distance and or in-person learning for staff, teachers, and students who mitigate the effects of COVID-19. 12.4, resolution number 2021.22.13, annual report of developer fees for 2020 to 2021. 12.5, Mission Valley ROP agreement addendum 3. 12.6, minutes of the November 18th, 2021, regular meeting of the Board of Education. And 12.7, meeting of the Board of Education and the Board of Education. Minutes of November 22nd, 2021. Special meeting of the Board of Education. May I get a second? Can we vote 12.2? Okay. So we'll be voting on 12.4 and 12 points. 12.4 through 12.7. May I get a second? I second. Seconded by Member Marquez. Member Marquez, how do you vote? Yes. Member Grindel, how do you vote?

[11026] Julienne Sumodobila: Yes.

[11027] Bowen Zhang: Member Hill, how do you vote? Yes. Member Nguyen, how do you vote? Yes. My vote is yes. Motion carries with five ayes. Back to 12.2. So given this period, I guess, Superintendent, there's nothing to report, I guess, for this period.

[11042] Mark Triplett: That's correct. We committed to bringing this to the board on a regular basis. But in this period, there's nothing to report here.

[11052] Bowen Zhang: Member Hill?

[11053] Aiden Hill: I guess my question is that we've been made aware of contracts by the public, interestingly enough, that still haven't met board ratification. And so we had one that was the special ed sort of master agreement. We still haven't brought that forward. And now we've got the Tableau contract. And so how come it seems like there are contracts that need to be brought before the board, and yet we're saying that they don't need to be brought before the board. So I'm confused.

[11080] Marie dela Cruz: This particular item is only with regards to the emergency resolution. So this only applies to any contracts or POs that we approved under that resolution. And we have not approved any under that resolution.

[11095] Aiden Hill: OK. But what about the other ones? When are they going to be brought before us?

[11100] Marie dela Cruz: The ones that are under the threshold that the superintendent and I have signature authority, those are brought to you quarterly.

[11111] Aiden Hill: OK, but the bigger one, when is it?

[11114] Marie dela Cruz: Anything above that goes to you as separate agenda items.

[11118] Aiden Hill: OK, and that special ed contract, when is that going to come before us, the transportation one? I think it's like more than a half a million bucks.

[11126] Marie dela Cruz: Oh, the Zoom contract that came up last? Correct. OK, so that one, there was a three-year contract that was approved in June of 2019. That was part of a three-year contract.

[11136] Aiden Hill: All right, so that whole contract was approved at that point. Yes, it was. OK. All right, thank you.

[11143] Bowen Zhang: So I move that we accept the update. May I get a second?

[11147] Terrence Grindall: I'll second.

[11147] Bowen Zhang: Seconded by Member Grundahl. Member Marquez, how do you vote? Yes. Member Grundahl? Yes. Member Hill? Yes. Member Nguyen? Yes. My vote is yes as well. Motion carries with five ayes. Moving on to 12.3, contract for mental health support with Wellness Together and HearYou.org. We have a public speaker, Ms. Amanda Goldher.

[11182] SPEAKER_29: Good evening. My name is Amanda Gallaher. You may know me as a principal of music or a NEWMA board member, but my most important professional title is simply educator. Tonight, I am here to speak to you as an educator concerned with the mental health and wellness of not our students, but of my fellow educators. To say education is a politically charged field is an understatement. The tension surrounding public education today is palpable. As educators, we feel the pendulum swing between appreciation to degradation constantly. Add to that the pressure of addressing our students' current academic and emotional needs, and educators are exhausted. We are drowning. This, the will is there, the dedication to our students and our community is there, but at what cost? We need support. We need to invest in our mental health and wellness as much as we need to for our students. The stress and secondary trauma being experienced today by educators is only compounding the stress and possible trauma the pandemic has placed on our educators personally. Tonight you have the opportunity to offer educators a lifeline, an opportunity to find balance, When you debate the cost of providing services for our students and staff tonight, please also the cost of not providing those services. I hope tonight you choose to tell our community that not only do you understand the need for mental health and wellness services, but you also care enough to provide support for those that need it as well. Thank you for your time, consideration, and hopefully your support.

[11279] Bowen Zhang: Thank you. We believe we have a virtual speaker for this item as well, right?

[11284] Rachel Bloom: Yes we do. Vicenta Ditto is waiting to speak.

[11297] SPEAKER_16: Good evening President Schoen board members executive cabinet and community. I'm Vicenta Ditto the principal of Birch Grove Primary School and NEWMA board member. In my time at BGP, I have been continually frustrated and heartbroken that we haven't been able to provide mental health services to our students. At a school that has, pre-pandemic, served over 400 students, there has been missed opportunities for school-based mental health support. Every year, funds have been allocated to provide, at minimum, a halftime mental health professional. And every year, this position has been unfilled. BGP has not been selected to participate in the partnership with EBAC to support students with Medi-Cal benefits. During my tenure at Birch Grove students have experienced the loss of a parent. Loss of sibling to due to gun violence. Separation anxiety. Diagnosis of chronic illness. Suicidal ideation. Panic disorders. And many other struggles all before the pandemic. Since returning to in-person instruction We have been experiencing an increase in the number of students with separation anxiety, pandemic-related trauma, lack of social skills and peer relations, and increased behaviors affecting students' ability to attend to their learning. Our teachers and staff have become frontline service providers for our students. This is in addition to their regular duties and responsibilities. We are woefully untrained to provide the kind of help and support our students need in the areas of mental health. I am hopeful that a district partnership with Wellness Together will bring much needed services to our students and school community as a whole. Their ability to provide services in the areas of social skills decision making grief and loss and anxiety are exactly what our students need. I urge you to recognize what we at the school sites already have. That we need consistent reliable and accessible mental health providers at the school sites. This is the first viable partnership that has been vetted and brought to the board. Please do what is right for our students and bring this partnership to NUSD and our amazing students. Thank you.

[11446] Bowen Zhang: Any comments from the board?

[11451] SPEAKER_21: OK, thank you. I'll go ahead and start on this side. First and foremost, I want to go ahead and give recognition, follow the same chord of music that we're listening to this evening. I, too, feel it's extremely crucial that we recognize the ability and the needs to have mental health. start with staff. Why? Because if you think when you are on an airplane, that's the first thing they tell you, you need to put your face mask, you need to put on your oxygen mask first. That's crucial before you can take care of someone else. 18 years in alternative education, 14 of which were served now in the county office of education. I find that if we as educators are not taken care of, we start to melt. We start to become weak. We don't have the resilience and that quick wit to go ahead and take care of issues, especially within an alternative education setting. And I'd like to tip my hat to Mrs. Galler-Hurt because I had the opportunity of actually attending music elementary school in the morning visit. And I found that once I arrived on campus, it was so welcoming. More so the fact that the staff, to see that the staff is engaging with the students and taking care of their needs. As a fellow educator, for me, it's crucial to always ask myself, who's taking care of their needs? So I wanted to give a shout out to the staff at Music Elementary, and at the same time, recognize that PBIS is a program and it does work. I, myself, have used PBIS for going on five years in my classroom in alternative education and found it to be very effective. When you went to talk about it, it's one thing. But when you have someone come into your classroom or your students speak on it, that's when you receive the actual result. That's when you know whether or not PBIS is working. So I just wanted to give a shout out to the staff at Music Elementary.

[11567] Bowen Zhang: Any other comments from the board? Anybody ready to make a motion?

[11572] Terrence Grindall: I'll move approval. I second.

[11574] Bowen Zhang: Motion made by member Grundell. Seconded by member Nguyen. Member Marquez, how do you vote?

[11579] SPEAKER_31: Yes.

[11580] Bowen Zhang: Member Grundahl, how do you vote? Yes. Member Hill, how do you vote? Yes. Member Nguyen, how do you vote? Yes. My vote is yes. Motion carries with five ayes. Moving on to Board of Education Recognition and Announcement, Member Marquez.

[11598] SPEAKER_21: I went ahead and started just a little bit early, but I do, again, the PE teacher. His name is beside for some reason, I can't remember the top of my head, but the PE teacher at Music Elementary School. I was able to actually interact with some of the students right after their PE class. And it was amazing to see how resilient and how quickly they were able to respond and let you know how engaged they were because asking four to five questions and they were standing in line wanting to tell me what they had actually participated in and done during their PE class. So it starts at, in the trenches, right? And so I just want to give a high recognition to the staff at Music Elementary and thank you for the opportunity of spending the morning with you.

[11646] Terrence Grindall: Similarly, although I didn't get to talk about it, we've had a couple meetings since then. I really want to thank Lincoln School for allowing me to, well, the superintendent for allowing me to tag along with his visit to Lincoln School. It was I was able to observe two of our wonderful teachers and meet with Principal Rancap-Perez. Our teachers and students are truly inspiring and I really appreciate the opportunity to observe our schools. I was also very happy to attend the California School Board Association Annual Education Conference last week. It was very informative. I was able to attend sessions. Most important were sessions on school finance and revenue projections. where the news was hopeful given the constitutionally mandated Prop 98 school funding increases that are coming our way, we hope. The session on monetization of real estate provided good examples of how we might be able to provide ongoing revenue from our excess property without losing long-term control of our property. The session on developing workforce housing contained good information and some major cautions about the pitfalls that you could, and some districts have stepped into in that regard. I was also to hear directly from our governor via video, also from State Board Equalization President Tony Thurmond, and California State Treasurer Fiona Ma. It was very informative training and I believe will help me to improve our district and continue to serve our students. Thank you.

[11745] Aiden Hill: I just want to thank everybody in the district. I mean it's our first semester of full-time in-person instruction and everybody that supports that. And I think that it's easy to underestimate how much work there is coming back after being remote. And so we're almost finished with our first semester. And I just want to thank everybody for all their hard work.

[11775] Bowen Zhang: Member Nguyen.

[11777] Phuong Nguyen: I, too, have the same sentiments as Member Hill. And I just want to appreciate staff for all their hard work, especially our teachers and our administrative staff for supporting them. And more importantly, all the students who have been back in school this first semester. Yes, there are definitely some challenges, but I know that they're still resilient and so are the teachers. tonight being able to prove the support that we can give our staff and our teachers and also along with the students in terms of their any mental health needs that they need. I think that's really good that we're on the right track to helping and facilitating some of the processes that are needed moving forward into the school year and into the next. And then lastly, I also too was able to attend just one day for the president's workshop for the CSBA annual training and I would highly recommend to my other fellow board members who haven't had the opportunity yet to take a training session and go through the Masters of Governance courses and also any additional training through the annual event. To do so, like member Grendel had mentioned, there's definitely a lot of information and a lot of opportunities for us to learn and improve and learn how to be a better cohesive unit in terms of working together as board members, along with staff and along with the superintendent. So thank you.

[11888] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, I want to echo the comments and the rhetoric of both member Hill and member Nguyen. And in addition, I actually I do want to depart from tradition a little bit and talk directly to the superintendent and his executive cabinet members. So I want to appreciate all of you for doing the hard work during such an unusual year. And for most of you, except for I guess Mr. Delacroix, this is your first year, first time sitting at this position in a board meeting. And with all honesty, this will not be your last job in your career to be at this position. I do anticipate many years to come. So dealing with mental health, rather passively dealing with mental health will not be an option for you anymore. You will need to learn to actively manage the tradeoff between your personal life and your professional life. Once you reach a certain level in your career, There's never going to be a good time to take vacations. You just need to manage them actively every single day. Particularly, you will need to develop skills to unplug yourself on a regular basis, particularly unplug yourself quickly before you go to bed after a long school board meeting. This is a skill you all need to learn. So that's my remark. Moving on to the committee report. Actually, I mean that with all seriousness, because I have, just like my conversation with the superintendent, I have long developed a habit and a skill to fall asleep within 15 minutes after a long and stressful day. You have to do that. You just need to deal with that. OK. Committee reports. Mission Valley ROP will have a meeting come next week. So far, I don't think we have any meeting after the last one. Any induction meeting? I mean, EVIC, Induction Advisory Council meeting? Remember when?

[12005] Phuong Nguyen: I don't. Did we sign up for that?

[12011] Bowen Zhang: OK.

[12012] Phuong Nguyen: Sorry. Sorry. I apologize for that comment. But I don't remember us signing up for. I know that member Hill and I are on the, Audit Committee, but I don't remember if we were assigned to the Teacher Induction Advisory Council.

[12032] Bowen Zhang: Any Audit Committee meeting coming up?

[12035] Aiden Hill: We... There's a clarification we need to make there. So in our last meeting, we had questions about how contracts are being pulled together, how POs are being pulled together, how checks are being vouchered, et cetera. And we talked about how we need to get clarity around how that works. And there are policies and procedures that govern all that. And in technical language and accounting language, it's called a delegation of authority. And it has to do with procure to pay. So from the time that you're actually either creating a contract or you're creating a requisition to the time it turns into a PO, and then it goes in and gets paid and vouchered. And there are documents that govern that, and there are internal controls. And so we talked about how, given some of the issues that have been raised, that we need to get clarity because it sounds like there might be some things that are not working. And this has an impact in a lot of areas, but it can be very serious, including potentially affecting your bond rating if you're not following these issues. So my understanding of the direction that we had and that President Dijon, that you had mentioned, was that we were going to hold a special audit committee meeting to discuss this and that we were also going to get copies of the delegation of authority policies and procedures to review. I've since made that request of Dr. Triplett, but there seems to be a misunderstanding around the direction that the board has been, is providing, but that was my understanding. Is that understanding incorrect?

[12127] Bowen Zhang: So without going over the agenda, because this is the agenda item of our community report, I remember in that board meeting, we're saying you and member Wynn, be going to that audit committee, the next audit committee, working with our auditors. And if there's any special finding or some problems, you will be reporting back to the board. So that will happen in your next regularly scheduled audit meeting. Is that going to happen in December or January?

[12156] Aiden Hill: I don't think that we have regularly scheduled meetings. There's like one that's regularly scheduled. But other than that, we don't. And I think that the challenge is that that's basically almost at kind of the end where you're putting the cherry on top. We have an issue right now that we have to investigate, and I think that it merits a special meeting. And even if we don't have that special meeting, we need to get access to these documents, which should be fairly easily producible.

[12189] Bowen Zhang: I think the board direction last time is that when you have that audit report meeting with

[12195] Aiden Hill: Financial so 2020 to 2021 year you work with the auditing So I I remember that I specifically requested the delegation of authority policies and procedures So, can we make sure that we get those in advance of the meeting?

[12210] Mark Triplett: If I just if I may present and so my recollection was the same as yours If there that is different than the direction the board wants us to take please board Let us know but that was my understanding

[12221] Aiden Hill: So since I was the one that made the request for the delegation of authority policies and procedures, I have a very clear recollection and thankfully we have YouTube if we need to go back and verify that. So this is a very important issue. It has to do with making sure that we're following proper accounting procedures which potentially are set up to avoid any issues, any potential fraud, and also any potential audit findings. And we don't want to wait until we meet with the auditors to discuss that. And so I'd like to request that we have that document in advance because it is something that is already policy.

[12262] Marie dela Cruz: Can I just add, our auditors have a set of protocols that they go through and if there's something specific that you want to discuss with them, we can bring that up at the next meeting or they can provide you with those protocols and the processes that they ask from us and then share with you what those guidelines are. Because then they can share with you what it is they're looking for and if there's any concerns, they normally will bring that up to us. So rather than, I think starting from scratch, because they've already done all that legwork.

[12300] Aiden Hill: But what I'm looking for, right, and again, this is a pretty standard protocol, and this happens with publicly traded companies, you know, as well as I'm sure government as well, it's pretty much the same thing. There are standard documents that govern procedures. So policies and procedures, it's called delegation of authority, and all I'm asking for is a copy of our policies and procedures in that area with the associated internal controls.

[12329] Mark Triplett: Again, if the board wishes to give a different direction than the one that we understood, then please, by all means, our understanding currently is the same as what President Jeon has articulated, that we would be referring this to the Audit Committee and talking with the auditors to answer any questions that either Member Nguyen or Member Hill had related to policies and procedures, and that then that could be reported back to the entire board. Yeah, that's correct.

[12362] Bowen Zhang: I mean, I think, I thought the two of you, like, go work with the auditor and ask for the information.

[12370] Aiden Hill: So we're asking, right? And we don't want to wait, right? We need time to review it. And so, and it should be a very simple thing.

[12378] Bowen Zhang: I mean, can you gather, can they gather before the, Auditor given before the scheduled audit meeting? I mean, if there's any chance? It's a policy and procedure.

[12389] Mark Triplett: Ms. Zell-Cruz, I think you just articulated we could ask the auditor for the processes that they use in order to do their audit, if that would be helpful?

[12398] Bowen Zhang: No, I would suggest just schedule a one-on-one meeting with Member Hill and the auditor, and with the superintendent present, and ask whether or maybe the entire audit committee.

[12411] Phuong Nguyen: Point of order. This agendized item is for us to report back on committee reports, not to make requests of staff. And we did make a request of staff in the previous board meeting. So for protocols and procedures delivered to us at a committee meeting, that was also my understanding. So, but if the committee, if the auditors do have those list of protocols and if we are able to get them prior to the scheduled meeting in January so that we can review it, that would be great.

[12446] Bowen Zhang: Okay, bond parcel tax committee, I guess there's none.

[12453] Marie dela Cruz: Yeah, just to make sure I understand, we were planning on scheduling a meeting in January, either the first week or second week in January. So at that time, When we set the agenda, you can let me know what you want on there.

[12471] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah, because I mean, specifically, because I do believe that once, you know, every annually we get a report from the auditors, they go through the process of auditing what has transpired, you know, your processes for purchasing, payments, and everything like that, and making sure that all of those are in alignment. If they aren't, it is in the report, and it tells us that these are the corrections that we have to make. So in prior years, we haven't had any issues, and I don't foresee any additional, any issues this year, hopefully. But yes, in terms of that, I think that would be fine. Thank you.

[12512] Aiden Hill: So I've worked, so not only do I have an MBA, I've worked. Point of order.

[12517] Bowen Zhang: Sir, this is actually, this is actually the committee reports. I mean, this is not a time to request. So anything about the CD liaison committee? Member Grindel?

[12528] Terrence Grindall: Well, Member Duen is the chair of that committee.

[12532] Phuong Nguyen: I believe our meeting, we do have a scheduled meeting coming up in January.

[12538] Terrence Grindall: I would point out that Member Nguyen is amazing, and she sometimes can be in two places at the same time, but she's listed as both the representative and the alternate in this.

[12554] SPEAKER_21: Thank you.

[12555] Mark Triplett: We'll get on that.

[12557] Bowen Zhang: Thank you for noticing that. OK, Board of Education request, Member Marquez.

[12563] SPEAKER_21: None at this time.

[12564] Bowen Zhang: Member Grindel? Not at this time. Member Hill?

[12571] Aiden Hill: Except for what I just requested, nothing at this time.

[12573] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, you know, I would strongly encourage that. Have a pre-meeting with the auditor. I mean, that will help quite a bit. I'm happy to do that. Who should I work with?

[12584] Aiden Hill: Well, you have an audit committee, right? Right, so you're saying in advance of the audit committee meeting.

[12589] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, work with the superintendent and the Ms. Dela Cruz. OK, perfect. Because there is an offer to meet with you.

[12594] Terrence Grindall: OK, will do. President Zheng, Would it be helpful for the audit committee to review the most recent audit that was done to understand those documents? Those are public documents. If I'm not understanding.

[12613] Marie dela Cruz: The review of the audit report will be in January.

[12616] Terrence Grindall: No, I mean the past year. He's talking about 2019 and 2020. Just to understand the procedures and policies. Since that's a public document, I was just thinking that might help I might help accomplish some of what Member Hill is looking for.

[12631] Marie dela Cruz: Sure. We can share that report.

[12632] Aiden Hill: The challenge is that given that we've put together a special resolution which has actually changed delegation of authority as it relates to COVID-related contracts, and that change has happened since the last audit report, there are potentially material changes. And so that's why, and it should be a very simple thing, right? Every company has it. You have policies and procedures that govern these. All I would like to do is to look at a copy of these.

[12664] Phuong Nguyen: No requests at this time.

[12666] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, I don't have a request, but I just want to ask for a timeline from the superintendent because we'll talk about the elementary school report and the math pathway. Any update on that? Because I think several months ago or earlier this year, we talked about we're going to revisit later this year, right?

[12684] Mark Triplett: Yes, thank you, President Chun. So yeah, we, as you recall, last, I believe it was last meeting or a recent meeting, we discussed the history adoption in a report. And our intention is to bring back the other two topics, both a report card and the math pathways.

[12700] Bowen Zhang: And it will be that? It will be?

[12704] Mark Triplett: Do we, Ms. Pierce-Davis, do you recall, is it the report card conversation that we're planning to bring back on the 16th, or is it the math pathways?

[12719] SPEAKER_25: I believe the plan was to bring report card. options, but both are in queue.

[12725] Bowen Zhang: OK, OK. I guess it will be the first quarter of next year, right? Yeah, exactly. OK. OK. Superintendent, concluding comments.

[12734] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Chen and board members. Just want to conclude with some appreciations of my own. One is wanted to appreciate the Newark Memorial High School and in particular, Principal Rangel, who just completed the WASC process. incredibly rigorous process around accreditation. So I really want to applaud them and all that hard work. I also wanted to appreciate the board members, both member Grindel and member Nguyen, for joining me at the conference and member Marquez, who's going to be doing some of the trainings this week, I believe, virtually. It was really beneficial, I think, to be there, experience all of the different trainings, workshops, presentations, as well as the chance to engage with board members and other districts across the state and superintendents as well. So I really want to appreciate that. Two other appreciations. One is to Ms. Delacruz and her team, in particular Ms. Lola, who have done amazing work to do this first interim. It's such a big lift. And I just really appreciate the attention to detail and the amazing work. And then last, I wanted to appreciate our seniors because they are in the throes of applying to colleges right now, extremely stressful, while also doing finals and other things as well. And I think our student board member can attest to all of this level of stress. And so we just, we want to be there to support them and appreciate everything they're doing. And that concludes my comments. Thank you.

[12827] Bowen Zhang: I move to adjourn the meeting. May I get a second?

[12830] Phuong Nguyen: I second.

[12832] Bowen Zhang: Member Marquez, how do you vote?

[12833] SPEAKER_31: Yes.

[12834] Bowen Zhang: Member Grundahl? Yes. Member Hill? Yes. Member Nguyen? Yes. My vote is as well. Motion carries unanimously. Meeting is adjourned at 8.34 p.m. Thank you everybody. Good night.

1. CALL TO ORDER

Meeting Practices and Information

Type Information, Procedural IN-PERSON MEETING INFORMATION

NUSD has opened its boardroom for in-person meetings and will follow the State's and Alameda County's safety guidelines for public gatherings. Please refrain from attending in-person meetings if you have any of the following symptoms: Loss of taste/smell Difficulty breathing Vomiting Diarrhea Fever Cough Headache Sore Throat Runny Nose

For additional COVID-19 information please go to https://www.newarkunified.org/covid-19 or https://www.acoe.org/guidance

OBSERVE THE BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING

Members of the public may observe the meeting via the NUSD YouTube Channel, live transmission on Comcast Channel 26, or in- person at the NUSD Boardroom. Spanish translation will be available via Zoom.

PUBLIC COMMENT

The public will have the opportunity to address the Board of Education regarding non-agendized matters and agendized items with a live audio-only comment via Zoom with advance notice requested by email at PUBLICCOMMENT@newarkunified.org, a written comment by submitting a speaking card via email at PUBLICCOMMENT@newarkunified.org, or with live in-person comments by submitting a speaker-card with the Executive Assistant.

Roll Call

Type Procedural TRUSTEES:

President Bowen Zhang Vice President/Clerk Phuong Nguyen Member Aiden Hill Member Terrence Grindall Member Alicia Marquez

STUDENT BOARD MEMBER:

Member Estaina Resendiz Ortiz

2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA

Approval of the Agenda

Type Action

Recommended It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the agenda for this meeting. Action PURPOSE:

Members of the Governance Team may request that the agenda be amended or approved as presented.

Motion & Voting It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the agenda for this meeting.

Motion by Bowen Zhang, second by Phuong Nguyen.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yea: Bowen Zhang, Phuong Nguyen, Terrence Grindall, Aiden Hill
Not Present at Vote: Alicia Marquez, Estaina Resendiz-Ortiz

3. STUDY SESSION

2021-22 District Goals and Superintendent Objectives

Type Discussion, Information PURPOSE:

For the board to review, provide input, and finalize the district goals and superintendent objectives as articulated in the NUSD Accountability Framework for Implementation of Initiatives.

BACKGROUND:

"Each year of the agreement, the Board and the Superintendent shall establish by mutual agreement the Superintendent's performance and benchmarks for the next school year. Evaluations shall be based upon the achievement of the mutually agreed upon performance goals for the year in question, the Superintendent's effectiveness at discharging his duties as defined in this Agreement and Board Policies, and job description, if any." (Superintendent Contract)

"Evaluation criteria shall be agreed upon by the Board and Superintendent prior to the evaluation and shall include, but not be limited to, district goals and success indicators; educational, management, and community leadership skills; and the Superintendent's professional relationship with the Board. The Board and Superintendent shall jointly determine the evaluation method(s) and schedule that will best serve the district and the structure and format of the instrument to be used." BP 2140

At the November 18, 2021, meeting the Board provided direction to have a study session to discuss the 2021-22 District Goals and Superintendent Objectives. At the October 27 Board meeting, the Board reviewed the prior year's goals and objectives and identified the areas of focus which the District should either start, stop, or continue for the 2021-2022 school year. The Board provided valuable feedback and input into the direction for this current school year. Per the direction of the Board, the Superintendent created the document titled, "NUSD Accountability Framework for Implementation of Initiatives," which provides a SMARTE goal accountability framework in order to track the level of implementation and impact of desired outcomes. During the school year, there are thousands of actions the administration takes in order to serve our students and families. The purpose of this document is to name the top priority areas for the year and the means to measure progress in these priority areas, in order to collectively stay focused on those areas with the highest leverage potential and the greatest academic return on investment for our students, families, and district.

File Attachments District Goal-Setting Process 2021-22.pdf (418 KB) District Goals & Supt Objectives 2021-22.pdf (1,960 KB) NUSD Accountability Framework for Implementation of Initiatives 12.6.21 - NUSD Goals & Objectives.pdf (66 KB)

4. CLOSED SESSION

Public Comment on Closed Session Items

Type Information PURPOSE:

The Board of Education encourages the community's participation in its deliberations and has tried to make it convenient to express their views to the Board. If a constituent wishes to address the Board on any agenda item, please fill out a virtual speaker card via email at PUBLICCOMMENT@newarkunified.org.

PUBLIC EMPLOYEE DISCIPLINE/DISMISSAL/RELEASE (Gov. Code, � 54957, subd. (b)(1))

Type Action, Information, Procedural PURPOSE:

Information will be provided by the Superintendent and Executive Director of Human Resources.

CONFERENCE WITH LABOR NEGOTIATORS (Gov. Code, � 54957.6, subd. (a): Employee Organizations - NTA and CSEA

Type Action, Information, Procedural PURPOSE:

Information may be provided by the agency negotiator, Executive Director of Human Resources. Assistance from the District's legal team may be provided.

The employee organizations include NTA & CSEA.

CONFERENCE WITH LABOR NEGOTIATORS (Gov. Code, � 54957.6, subd. (a)): Employee Group - NEWMA, Unrepresented Supervisors, and Contracted Management

Type Action, Information, Procedural PURPOSE:

Information may be provided by the agency negotiator, the Executive Director of Human Resources, and the Superintendent. Assistance from the District's legal team may be provided.

The employee organizations include NEWMA, Unrepresented Supervisors, and Contracted Management

CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL � ANTICIPATED LITIGATION Significant exposure to litigation pursuant to Gov. Code, � 54956.9, subd. (d)[(2) or (3)]

Type Action, Information, Procedural PURPOSE:

Information may be provided regarding significant exposure to litigation pursuant to paragraph (2) of subdivision (d) of Section 54956.9: One case

Recess to Closed Session

Type Procedural PURPOSE:

The Board will recess to Closed Session, and reconvene to Open Session on or about 7:00 p.m.

5. RECONVENE TO OPEN SESSION

Pledge of Allegiance

Type Procedural PURPOSE:

The Governance Team will recite the Pledge of Allegiance

6. REPORT OF CLOSED SESSION ACTIONS

Report of Closed Session Actions

Type Action, Procedural PURPOSE:

If available, a report of the closed session will be provided by the Board President.

7. EMPLOYEE ORGANIZATIONS

Employee Organizations

Type Information PURPOSE:

At regular Board meetings, a single spokesperson of each recognized employee organization (NTA, CSEA, NEWMA) may make a brief presentation.

BACKGROUND:

Discussion items are limited to updates, celebrations, and upcoming events.

1. NTA: Sean Abruzzi

2. CSEA: Sue Eustice

3. NEWMA: Vicenta Ditto

8. PUBLIC COMMENT ON NON-AGENDA ITEMS

Public Comment on Non-Agenda Items

Type Procedural PURPOSE:

The Board of Education encourages the community's participation in its deliberations and has tried to make it convenient to express their views to the Board.

BACKGROUND:

Please see the instructions on the link below for public comment information on non-agenda items and agenda items.

http://go.boarddocs.com/ca/nusd/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=C4Q2D4019F40

9. PUBLIC HEARINGS

Public Hearing on Educator Effectiveness Fund Grant

Type Information PURPOSE:

According to California Education Code Section 41480(a), NUSD is required to present its plan for the use of the Educator Effectiveness Funds (EEF) in a public hearing prior to Board adoption. Board adoption must be on or before December 30, 2021.

BACKGROUND:

Newark Unified School District (NUSD) will be the recipient of a one-time funding opportunity to provide professional learning for teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals, and classified staff in order to promote educator equity, quality, and effectiveness. EEF grant monies will be distributed annually for the next 5 years and the funds must be fully expended by September 20, 2026. We are required to submit an annual report to the CDE by September 20th each funding year.

The current plan represents a collaboration with labor union leadership, Ed Services, Business Services, and Human Resources.

File Attachments EFF Public Hearing Notice 2021-22.pdf (221 KB)

10. NEW BUSINESS

Educator Effectiveness Fund Grant Plan

Type Discussion, Information PURPOSE:

According to California Education Code Section 41480(a), NUSD is required to present its plan for the use of the Educator Effectiveness Funds (EEF) in a public hearing prior to Board adoption. Board adoption must be on or before December 30, 2021.

BACKGROUND:

Newark Unified School District (NUSD) will be the recipient of a one-time funding opportunity to provide professional learning for teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals, and classified staff in order to promote educator equity, quality, and effectiveness. EEF grant monies will be distributed annually for the next 5 years and the funds must be fully expended by September 20, 2026. We are required to submit an annual report to the CDE by September 20th each funding year.

The current plan represents a collaboration with labor union leadership, Ed Services, Business Services, and Human Resources.

File Attachments 2021 Educator Effectiveness Block Grant Plan .pdf (88 KB) 2021-2026 Educator Effectiveness Block Grant - PUBLIC HEARING .pdf (1,212 KB)

2021-22 First Interim Budget Report

Type Action

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the 2021-22 First Interim Report Action with Positive Certification. PURPOSE:

The purpose of the Interim Report is to advise the Board of Education, administrators, the public and other interested agencies of the District's financial condition at periodic intervals during the fiscal year.

At each interim reporting period, the District must make a certification as to its fiscal health for the current and upcoming two years.

A POSITIVE certification indicates that the District WILL be able to meet its financial obligations for the current and upcoming two years. A QUALIFIED certification indicates the District MAY NOT be able to meet its financial obligations for the current and upcoming two years. A NEGATIVE certification indicates the District WILL NOT be able to meet its financial obligations in the current or upcoming two years.

BACKGROUND:

The First Interim Budget Report is a "snapshot" in time of the District's revenue and expenditure forecasts for the current fiscal year as well as a projection of the two subsequent fiscal years. It is a good time to adjust the budget based upon any known changes. The First Interim Budget Report covers the period of time from July 1 through October 31 each fiscal year.

AB 1200 requires all California school districts to submit two interim reports to their County Office of Education. This year, the First Interim Report is due to the Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE) by December 15, 2021.

File Attachments Full Book_1st Interim Report 21-22.pdf (4,242 KB)

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the 2021-22 First Interim Report with Positive Certification.

Motion by Bowen Zhang, second by Alicia Marquez.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yea: Bowen Zhang, Phuong Nguyen, Terrence Grindall, Aiden Hill, Alicia Marquez

Resolution 2021.22.14 to Commit to Budget Balancing Solutions for the 2022- 23 and 2023-24 Fiscal Years

Type Action

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education adopt Resolution 2021.22.14 to Commit Action to Budget Balancing Solutions for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 fiscal years. PURPOSE:

To address the deficit projected in the 2021-22 First Interim Budget Report.

BACKGROUND: The Board and staff continue to work together to maintain the fiscal stability of the district. On October 17, 2019, the Board approved Resolution #2158 committing to $1,850,000, and $668,000, in expenditure reductions for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 fiscal years respectively. The District filed a Qualified certification of its 2019-20 First Interim and Second Interim Financial Reports. The Board held a study session on February 20, 2020, to discuss additional budget balancing solutions and subsequently approved Resolution #2061 on March 5, 2020, committing to additional budget reductions of $2,500,000 in 2020-21 and $1,000,000 in 2021-22. On December 3, 2020, based on the First Interim Report, the Board approved Resolution 2020.21-014 committing to $742,000, and $3,200,000, in expenditure reductions for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 fiscal years respectively. On March 4, 2021, based on the Second Interim Report, the Board approved Resolution 2020.21-022 committing to $819,000 in expenditure reductions for the 2022-23 fiscal year. In the 2021-22 First Interim Budget Report, the district projects a deficit of $2.5 million in the 2022-23 fiscal year and $2.5 million in the 2023-24 fiscal year.

File Attachments Resolution 2021.22.14 First Interim Budget Balancing Solutions.pdf (15 KB)

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education adopt Resolution 2021.22.14 to Commit to Budget Balancing Solutions for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 fiscal years.

Motion by Bowen Zhang, second by Terrence Grindall.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yea: Bowen Zhang, Phuong Nguyen, Terrence Grindall, Aiden Hill, Alicia Marquez

11. CONSENT AGENDA: PERSONNEL ITEMS

PLACEHOLDER - One Consented Vote

Type Action

Recommended It is recommended that the Board of Education approve, under one consented vote, the Action agenda items under Consent-Personnel, except for agenda items: PURPOSE:

(This is specifically a placeholder, and will only be used if multiple agenda items are approved under a consented vote.)

BACKGROUND:

Items within the Consent Agenda are considered routine and will be approved, adopted, or ratified by a single motion and action. There will not be a separate discussion of these items; however, any item may be pulled from the Consent Agenda upon the request of any member of the Board and acted upon separately.

Personnel Report

Type Action

Preferred Date Dec 06, 2021

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education ratify the personnel report as presented. Action PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board to review and ratify that attached personnel report.

BACKGROUND:

All personnel activities including new hires, changes in status, resignation, leaves, and retirements are routinely submitted to the Board for ratification.

File Attachments HR PAL 12-06-2021.pdf (363 KB)

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education ratify the personnel report as presented.

Motion by Bowen Zhang, second by Alicia Marquez.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yea: Bowen Zhang, Phuong Nguyen, Terrence Grindall, Aiden Hill, Alicia Marquez

1.0 FTE English Language Arts Teacher on Special Assignment (ELA TOSA) at Coyote Hills Elementary

Type Action

Absolute Date Dec 06, 2021

Fiscal Impact Yes

Dollar Amount $74,000.00

Budgeted Yes

Budget Source Expanded Learning Opportunities Grant

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board approve the 1.0 FTE English Language Arts Teacher on Action Special Assignment (ELA TOSA) for Coyote Hills Elementary for the remainder of the school year, in order to provide instructional support for staff. PURPOSE:

The purpose is to approve a 1.0 FTE English Language Arts Teacher on Special Assignment (ELA TOSA) for Coyote Hills Elementary for the remainder of the school year in order to provide instructional support for staff.

BACKGROUND:

Coyote Hills Elementary is the largest elementary school and in its first year after the merge of Snow and Graham Elementary. There is currently one TOSA supporting Kindergarten to third grade. This additional position is necessary for Coyote Hills Elementary due to the large enrollment and support needed for Grades 4-6. The TOSA will work directly with teachers providing classroom-based demonstrations, collaborative and one-to-one support, and facilitating teacher inquiry and related professional development. The TOSA will focus on enhancing teachers' ability to provide instruction that builds students' sense of engagement in the ownership of learning. The TOSA will also work with administrators and teachers to collect and analyze data, interpret, and use it to guide instructional decisions.

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board approve the 1.0 FTE English Language Arts Teacher on Special Assignment (ELA TOSA) for Coyote Hills Elementary for the remainder of the school year, in order to provide instructional support for staff.

Motion by Terrence Grindall, second by Phuong Nguyen.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yea: Bowen Zhang, Phuong Nguyen, Terrence Grindall, Alicia Marquez
Nay: Aiden Hill

12. CONSENT AGENDA: NON-PERSONNEL ITEMS

PLACEHOLDER - One Consented Vote

Type Action

Recommended It is recommended that the Board of Education approve, under one consented vote, the Action agenda items under Consent Non-Personnel, except for agenda items: PURPOSE:

(This is specifically a placeholder, and will only be used if multiple agenda items are approved under a consented vote.)

BACKGROUND:

Items within the Consent Agenda are considered routine and will be approved, adopted, or ratified by a single motion and action. There will not be a separate discussion of these items; however, any item may be pulled from the Consent Agenda upon the request of any member of the Board and acted upon separately.

Motion & Voting It is recommended that the Board of Education approve, under one consented vote, the agenda items under Consent Non- Personnel, except for agenda items: 12.2 and 12.3.

Motion by Bowen Zhang, second by Alicia Marquez.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yea: Bowen Zhang, Phuong Nguyen, Terrence Grindall, Aiden Hill, Alicia Marquez

Contracts and Purchase Orders Authorized under Resolution 2020.21-025 (Delegate Authority to Procure Necessary Materials, Equipment and Services to Provide Distance and/or In-Person Learning for Staff, Teachers, and Students to Mitigate the Effects of Covid-19)

Type Action

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education accept the update on costs associated Action with the implementation of Resolution 2020.21-025 (Resolution of the Board of Education of the Newark Unified School District to Delegate Authority to Procure Necessary Materials, Equipment and Services to Provide Distance and/or In-Person Learning for Staff, Teachers, and Students to Mitigate the Effects of Covid-19) PURPOSE:

To update the Board on costs associated with the implementation of Resolution 2020.21-025 (Resolution of the Board of Education of the Newark Unified School District to Delegate Authority to Procure Necessary Materials, Equipment and Services to Provide Distance and/or In-Person Learning for Staff, Teachers, and Students to Mitigate the Effects of Covid-19) from November 1, 2021, through November 30, 2021.

BACKGROUND:

On April 1, 2021, the Newark Unified School District Board approved Resolution 2020.21-025 delegating authority to the Superintendent or designee to procure necessary materials, equipment, and services that are needed to provide distance and/or in-person learning to mitigate the effects of Covid-19. Language in the resolution states "the Superintendent/Designee shall make periodic reports to the Board of Education and the public regarding implementation of this resolution and the costs associated therewith"; requiring the update provided here.

On September 16, 2021, Amended Resolution 2020.21-025 was approved. The amendment extends it to on or around June 30, 2022, and states that updates will be presented at the first Board meeting of each month.

Updates have been provided to the Board June 17, 2021, for contracts and purchase orders between April 2, 2021, and May 31, 2021 October 7, 2021, for contracts and purchase orders between June 1, 2021, and September 30, 2021 November 4, 2021, for contracts and purchase orders between October 1, 2021, and October 31, 2021

VENDOR DATE PO NUMBER DESCRIPTION AMOUNT N/A*

*There are no contracts or purchase orders to report for the period of November 1, 2021 through November 30, 2021.

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education accept the update on costs associated with the implementation of Resolution 2020.21-025 (Resolution of the Board of Education of the Newark Unified School District to Delegate Authority to Procure Necessary Materials, Equipment and Services to Provide Distance and/or In-Person Learning for Staff, Teachers, and Students to Mitigate the Effects of Covid-19)

Motion by Bowen Zhang, second by Terrence Grindall.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yea: Bowen Zhang, Phuong Nguyen, Terrence Grindall, Aiden Hill, Alicia Marquez

Contract for Mental Health Support with Wellness Together and HearYou.org

Type Action

Preferred Date Nov 18, 2021

Fiscal Impact Yes

Dollar Amount $138,520.00

Budgeted Yes

Budget Source ESSER III

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the Wellness Together and Action HearYou.org Contract. PURPOSE:

We are seeking the approval of Wellness Together contracts in order to execute the ESSER III plan.

The District is dedicated to carrying out the Board approved plan for using Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER III) funds. These funds have been directed in a way that will directly impact students, staff, and families and mitigate learning loss and other social and emotional impacts that were a result of school closures and the pandemic.

BACKGROUND:

One of the key strategies identified by the NUSD community is to strengthen services for mental health. This strategy has 2 parts: 1) to hire additional staff for Mental Health Clinician roles, and 2) to partner with an external provider to provide additional resources at school sites, including families that are uninsured.

We have identified Wellness Together and their sub-organization HearYou.org to provide these services. If approved, services will begin in January and carry through to June. The contract includes 3 Clinicians serving 5 schools. Additionally, the contract includes a component of telehealth support for all NUSD staff members that are experiencing a crisis. The telehealth component will be provided by HearYou.org.

File Attachments Newark USD Wellness Together Agreement 2021-2022.pdf (101 KB) Newark USD HearYou.org Agreement 2021-2022.pdf (99 KB) Newark USD - Wellness Together Overview Slides.pdf (5,517 KB)

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the Wellness Together and HearYou.org Contract.

Motion by Terrence Grindall, second by Phuong Nguyen.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yea: Bowen Zhang, Phuong Nguyen, Terrence Grindall, Aiden Hill, Alicia Marquez

Resolution No. 2021.22.13 Annual Report of Developer Fees for 2020-2021

Type Action

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve Resolution No. 2020.21.13, the Action Annual Report of Developer Fees (Fund 25) for 2020-2021. PURPOSE:

The purpose of this item is to seek Board approval of the 2020-21 Annual Report of Developer Fees (Fund 25 Capital Facilities Fund).

BACKGROUND:

Districts that maintain a developer fee fund are required to prepare an annual accounting of that fund. The Board of Education enacted developer fees to provide for the reconstruction and/or modernization of existing facilities. Under Government Code Section 66006(b), each school district that imposes developer fees is required to annually review the income and the amount of expenditures from developer fees.

Three fee schedules were used when collecting developer fees for FY 2020-21 (July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021): residential development, commercial & industrial devolvement, and mini-storage development.

Board Approved Fees in Effect Residential Commercial Mini-Storage March 20, 2018 5/19/18 - 10/4/20 3.79 0.61 0.14 August 6, 2020 10/5/20 - present 4.08 0.66 0.08

The total amount in Fund 25, Capital Facilities Fund, was $20,043,187.76 as of June 30, 2021.

File Attachments Resolution 2021.22.13 Accounting of Developer Fees 20-21 with accounting.pdf (195 KB)

Mission Valley ROP Agreement Addendum III

Type Action

Absolute Date Dec 06, 2021

Fiscal Impact Yes

Dollar Amount $969,359.00

Budgeted Yes

Budget Source LCAP

Recommended It is recommended that the Board of Education approve Addendum III to the Joint Powers Action Agreement (JPA) of Mission Valley Regional Occupational Center/Program. PURPOSE:

The purpose of this item is to seek Board approval for the Mission Valley ROP JPA Agreement, Addendum III, to set the funding level for 2022-23, 2023-24, and 2024-25 triennium. The proposal is to continue funding the JPA at the 2021-22 level for the next three years.

BACKGROUND:

Newark Unified School District has been a member of the Mission Valley Regional Occupational Program (MVROP) JPA along with Fremont Unified School District since June 26, 1989. New Haven Unified School District joined the JPA on July 1, 1991.

On February 18, 2016, the Mission Valley ROP board set its projected funding level for the purposes of budget projection and documentation of matching requirements for the Career Technical Education Incentive Grant (CTEIG). They requested the three member school district boards to agree to the same level of funding provided during the 2015/16 school year.

When the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) replaced the old revenue limit and categorical funding model, the funding for ROP was transferred into the LCFF base. Since the board is given flexibility as to using LCFF base funding, an action of the board was needed to set ROP funding levels. Under our current agreement, the District has continued to transfer the amount calculated under the old ROP categorical funding model each year to the Mission Valley ROP to continue our partnership.

As part of the application for the CTEIG funding, the ROP must be able to show a source of funds for matching the grant. They ask the board to commit to flat funding as a backup for applying for the matching grant from the State.

Addendum I set the funding level for 2016-17 through 2018-19 and was approved by the Board on March 15, 2016.

Addendum II set the funding level for 2019-20 through 2021-22 and was approved by the Board on January 31, 2019.

Addendum III agrees to pass-thru/transfer the same level of funding as 2021-22, $969,359, for each year in 2022-23, 2023-24, and 2024-25. This transfer of LCFF funding is based on the old ROP categorical funding level and is already included in the budget for the current year and reflected in the multi-year projections going forward.

File Attachments Addendum III_JPA Funding_2022-23 to 2024-25.pdf (69 KB) MVROP JPA Agreement_w addenda 1 and 2.pdf (9,252 KB)

Minutes of the November 18, 2021 Regular Meeting of the Board of Education

Type Action, Minutes

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the minutes of November 18, Action 2021, Regular Meeting of the Board of Education. PURPOSE:

For the board to review and approve the minutes

BACKGROUND:

The attached minutes are reflective of the November 18, 2021, Regular Meeting of the Board of Education. The meeting may be viewed on the NUSD YouTube Channel HERE

Minutes of the November 22, 2021 Special Meeting of the Board of Education

Type Action, Minutes

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the minutes of November 22, Action 2021, Special Meeting of the Board of Education.

PURPOSE:

For the board to review and approve the minutes

BACKGROUND:

The attached minutes are reflective of the November 22, 2021, Special Meeting of the Board of Education. The meeting may be viewed on the NUSD YouTube Channel HERE

13. BOARD OF EDUCATION: COMMITTEE REPORTS, REQUESTS, AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

Board of Education Recognitions and Announcements

Type Information PURPOSE:

The Trustees may acknowledge or recognize specific programs, activities, or personnel at this time.

Board of Education Committee Reports

Type Information PURPOSE:

The Trustees will provide an update, if available, on the committees of which they are members.

BACKGROUND:

Each year the Board of Education members liaise with schools and committees in order to build relationships, hear from staff, students, and families, and act as a conduit for information to and from the schools.

Board Committees 2020-21

Board Adopted on 11/04/21 Representative Alternate

Mission Valley Regional Occupational Center/Program (ROC/P) 1. Bowen Zhang 1. Terrence Grindall Executive Board

Regional Policy Board of Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA) 1. Bowen Zhang 1. Alicia Marquez

Newark Teacher Induction Advisory Council (Formally EBIC) 1. Phuong Nguyen 1. Aiden Hill

                                               1. Phuong Nguyen

Audit Committee 2. Aiden Hill 1. ________________

                                               1. Terrence Grindall

Bond/Parcel Tax Committee 2. Phuong Nguyen 1. Bowen Zhang

City of Newark � NUSD Liaison 1. Phuong Nguyen Committee 2. Terrence Grindall 1. Phuong Nguyen

Board of Education Requests

Type Action, Discussion, Information PURPOSE:

This is an opportunity for the Board of Education to suggest items for placement on future agendas and to review Board requests.

Approval from the majority of the Board will be required for direction to be provided to the Superintendent.

BACKGROUND:

The following derives directly from the Board approved "Governance Team Handbook"

Authority is Collective, Not Individual: The only authority to direct action rests with the Board as a whole when seated at a regular or special board meeting. Outside of this meeting, there is no authority. A majority Board vote provides direction to the Superintendent. Board members will not undermine the ability of staff to carry out Board direction.

Bringing New Ideas Forward The Board will be open to having "brainstorming" discussions, or study sessions, around any idea that a Trustee may feel merits exploratory consideration. "New Ideas" are defined as any proposal brought forward by a Trustee, at their initiative or at the request of a constituent, which was previously discussed during a board meeting. Trustees will first notify the Board President and Superintendent of their interest in bringing forward a new idea at a board meeting. When initially agendized, the preliminary discussion of a new idea will not require staff research time. Initially, staff will be expected to respond to new ideas based on current knowledge. Only a majority of the Board may direct the Superintendent to conduct research regarding the exploration of a new idea. The Superintendent will decide on the delegation of assignments to District staff. The new idea may be agendized for discussion only. The Board majority will decide if the new idea should be further developed and studied by staff. The Board majority will decide if staff time should be invested in the "fleshing out" of new ideas. Individual Trustees, in the course of interactions with constituents, will be careful not to make or imply the commitment of the full Board to explore or proceed with implementing new ideas.

14. SUPERINTENDENT'S CONCLUDING COMMENTS, UPDATES FOR THE BOARD AND FUTURE AGENDA REQUESTS

Superintendent's Concluding Comments, Updates, and Future Agenda Items

                       AGENDA REQUESTS

Type Information PURPOSE:

This is an opportunity for the Superintendent to make any concluding comments, updates, agenda requests, or provide information of future meetings.

15. ADJOURNMENT

PLACEHOLDER - Extend Meeting

Type Action

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education extends the meeting to ____P.M. Action PURPOSE:

This is a placeholder, only to be used if the Board adds a motion and action to extend the meeting.

Adjournment

Type Action, Procedural

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education adjourns this meeting. Action PURPOSE:

No items will be considered after 10:00 p.m. unless it is determined by a majority of the Board to extend to a specific time.

This action will conclude the meeting.

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education adjourns this meeting at 8:34 pm.

Motion by Bowen Zhang, second by Phuong Nguyen.
Final Resolution: Motion Carries
Yea: Bowen Zhang, Phuong Nguyen, Terrence Grindall, Aiden Hill, Alicia Marquez

No minutes available.