Regular Meeting

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[198] SPEAKER_38: Can we get anything?

[204] Richelle Piechowski: Recording in progress.

[207] Phuong Nguyen: Good evening, and welcome to the August 18th. Recording stopped. 2022 Newark Unified School District Board of Education meeting. I call the meeting to order at 6.01 PM. We are holding in-person board meetings at our district boardroom and are following the states and Alameda County's safety guidelines for public gatherings. Please refrain from attending in-person meetings if you have COVID-related symptoms. If you are not able to attend the meetings in person, you may observe the meeting via the NUSD YouTube channel, live transmission on Comcast Channel 26 and their Spanish translation available via Zoom. In regards to public comment, the public will have the opportunity to address the board regarding non agendized matters and agendized items with a live audio only comment via Zoom with advance notice requested by email at public comment at Newark unified dot org, a written comment by submitting a speaking card via email at public comment at Newark unified dot org or with live in person comments by submitting a speaking card with the executive assistant. With that, may we have roll call, please, Ms. Gutierrez?

[285] SPEAKER_27: Yes. Member Zhang?

[289] SPEAKER_38: Here. Member Zhang is logging on virtually. Member Marquez? Present. Member Hill?

[295] SPEAKER_27: Here.

[296] SPEAKER_38: Vice President Grindel?

[297] SPEAKER_27: Here.

[297] SPEAKER_38: President Nguyen? Here.

[298] Phuong Nguyen: All present? Thank you. With that, may I get approval? We're going to move on to approval of the agenda. May I get a motion to approve the agenda as is?

[307] Michael Milliken: I'll move approval.

[310] Phuong Nguyen: May I get a second? Second. Motion made by Member Grindel, seconded by Member Marquez. And we will be voting. Roll call. Roll call vote. No, you're going to, we're going to be voting through the board docs and Ms. Gutierrez will, will, will announce the results.

[340] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, I just loaded.

[344] Mark Triplett: Sorry, Madam President, but we do want to pull one item.

[348] Phuong Nguyen: Oh, OK. I apologize. Do we have to rescind the approval? Let me get a motion to rescind the approval.

[356] Terrence Grindall: I'll move to rescind the approval.

[360] SPEAKER_27: I second.

[361] Phuong Nguyen: OK. Motion made by member Grindel and seconded by member Marquez to rescind the approval so that staff can pull an item off the agenda.

[370] Mark Triplett: Thank you. I apologize.

[374] Guadalupe Lopez: Oh, I'm sorry. We have to vote.

[376] Phuong Nguyen: What's the item? To rescind the motion, the approval of the agenda.

[385] SPEAKER_38: The vote wasn't taking.

[386] Phuong Nguyen: Oh, we already took the vote to approve.

[389] SPEAKER_38: OK. Yeah, go ahead. We need to vote to rescind. Vote to rescind.

[392] Terrence Grindall: Can you send that through the board docs?

[397] SPEAKER_38: No. Can you do a roll call for that?

[398] Phuong Nguyen: OK, we will do a roll call for that. Member Zhang, how do you vote?

[402] SPEAKER_15: Yes.

[403] Phuong Nguyen: Member Marquez? Yes. Member Hill? Yes. Member Grindel? Yes. I'm also yes. Five ayes to rescind the approval of the agenda. Dr. Triplett?

[413] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Nguyen. We'd like to pull 12.3, the Newark Junior High 22-23 school site plan for student achievement. We plan on bringing that back the following meeting.

[426] Phuong Nguyen: OK. Thank you. OK. May get a motion to approve the agenda with item 12.3 removed and brought back for next meeting.

[437] Terrence Grindall: I will move to approve the agenda. Deja vu.

[442] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. May I get a second, please?

[446] Aiden Hill: I second.

[447] Phuong Nguyen: Motion made by Member Grindel, seconded by Member Hill. And then we'll be board doc voting.

[452] SPEAKER_38: All right. It's still open so you guys can adjust your vote as needed.

[458] Phuong Nguyen: OK. It didn't come up for me.

[466] Aiden Hill: You already voted.

[467] Phuong Nguyen: OK, got it. Thank you.

[470] SPEAKER_38: I got all five votes and five ayes.

[473] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Thank you, Member Hill. All right, on to closed session. Are there any public comments on closed session? There are no public comments on closed session. In closed session, we'll be discussing item 3.2, Public Employee Discipline Dismissal Release, item 3.3, Conference with Labor Negotiators, NTA and CSCA, item 3.4, Conference with Labor Negotiators, NEWMA, Unrepresented Supervisors and Contracted Management, item 3.5, Conference with Labor Negotiators. Is that on twice?

[522] SPEAKER_38: No. Okay. Yes, twice specifically. One is specific to the superintendent's contract.

[527] Phuong Nguyen: Oh, sorry. Item 3.5, conference with labor negotiators, employee group, NEWMA, contract employees, and unrepresented employees, assistant superintendent, and 3.6, ratification and approval of TK enrollment, 3.7, conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation, and 3.8, conference with legal counsel existing litigation. We move to recess to closed session. Thank you. And then we'll start the meeting. Thank you and we are back from closed session. I do have two items to report out. Closed session item 3.8, conference with legal counsel, existing litigation. In closed session, the board considered the claim of Kelly Burkhead, claim number 609447 and decided to accept the claim by a vote of 5-0 with a motion made by myself and seconded by member Hill. And our second item is 3.6, ratification and approval of TK enrollment. Motion made by member Grindel, seconded by myself to approve seven TK enrollments with a vote of five to zero. Thank you. On to Pledge of Allegiance. We have our new student board member tonight, Diego Torres. And Diego, would you like to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance tonight? Please stand. Please stand. And welcome.

[5845] SPEAKER_44: 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.

[5858] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, student board member Torres. OK, on to item 6.1, student report from Newark Junior High, Alternative Education, and Newark Memorial. Do we have any students from the junior high, Ms. Gutierrez? Only the high school. OK. We only have a report from the high school. So student board member, you have the floor.

[5887] Diego Torres: Push the button. Good evening, everyone. My name is Diego Torres, and I'm the newest school board member. I'm a current senior and a part of the Puente program at my school and a cross-country team. The first week of school was full of icebreakers, the syllabus, and getting back to the school schedule. It has been a smooth transition to this year with the new admin team of Dr. Rich, Mr. Murphy, who's in the back over there, and Coach Brown, who have been constantly engaging with the students. With the first full week of school starting, the lessons have begun and so have many fun events. Last week, we had our Black Light Assembly, where we had multiple performing clubs, such as the Cheerleaders, Creators, Cheer, and Indo-American. Thank you again, Superintendent Dr. Triplett, President Nguyen, and Member Guendel for attending. We have a ninth grade picnic tomorrow, where the upperclassmen, who decided to become link leaders to guide freshmen, will get to meet with their groups to discuss how their first days of high school have been. There is also a welcome back dance tomorrow from 7 to 10 to fundraise, as well as to get students involved. as well as a scrimmage at Newark Memorial with the football team. So far with the sports, the volleyball team hosted two Jamborees this week, playing multiple schools on one day. Last week, we had the annual cross-country alumni meet, where we had over 25 members of the community who have graduated from Newark Memorial come out and race with the current team, and then enjoy a nice barbecue afterward. What has also started this week is the Champions of Characters, which highlights the philosophy of highlighting champions for life. At Newark Memorial High School, we value community, which starts with the staff, which is why next Wednesday, the staff will all be getting together to have hot dogs. To close out this report, I would like to highlight how it's been going with the hiring. The school has been working very hard to close the gap in hiring and getting very close to having no vacancies. Newark Memorial has hired its second vice principal and is in the process of hiring its third. The school has also hired a physical science teacher and a ceramics teacher. Overall, it has been a successful start to the school year, which I know will continue as the year goes on. Thank you.

[6012] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, student board member. On to item 7.1, staff spotlight. Dr. Triplett.

[6022] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Nguyen, and good evening to the board. A very warm welcome to student board member Torres, and good evening to staff and to community and students. So we are delighted this evening to be doing a very special staff spotlight, and that is for one of our teachers, Ms. Anita Soule, who we want to recognize for becoming a nationally board certified teacher. So I want to ask her to come forward, and we're going to say a few words. Ms. Soule, if you can come on up. Yeah, there you go. We get to embarrass you for a moment. So we are thrilled to recognize and celebrate Ms. Anita Soule for her dedication to education and to becoming a nationally board certified teacher. Ms. Soule is a teacher at Schilling Elementary. She is part of the Dynamic Dual Language Immersion Program, teaching grades one students. Ms. Soule has her teaching credential and her BCLAD authorization. She is certified in English as a new language, which requires evidence of accomplished pedagogy and teaching around language acquisition. She had to demonstrate for this national board certification how she works with parents, colleagues, and the community to meet the needs of her students. She also had to demonstrate significant content knowledge of elementary subjects as well as language acquisition theories. As a nationally board certified teacher, Anita represents the top level of teachers throughout the country. Four components of this accreditation include an assessment, reflective practice focusing on student needs, submitting a teacher practice video, and writing commentary that analyzes, reflects, explains the impact on students, and demonstrates the ability to get to know students. National board certification involves a one to three year process in which candidates submit four components that show evidence of accomplished practice. This is a voluntary process created by teachers and assessed by teachers. There are 25 certificate areas and each certificate has a set of teaching standards that were written by accomplished teachers in that certificate area. They create a vivid picture of what accomplished teaching looks like in that certificate. So on behalf of the board and all of Newark Unified School District, Ms. Sowell, we're so proud of you. We're honored that you are one of our teachers. And if everyone could just please join me in recognizing and celebrating Ms. Anita Sowell.

[6183] SPEAKER_22: Thank you. Thank you.

[6204] SPEAKER_17: Thank you. It's an honor to work at Newark Unified School District and to be a part of the Chilean community. I appreciate your honor, and I serve with gratitude and appreciation. Thank you.

[6220] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Thank you so much.

[6227] SPEAKER_21: Thank you.

[6231] Phuong Nguyen: Onto item 8.1, public comment on non-agenda items. The first speaker is Ms. Park. Welcome, Ms. Park.

[6250] Cindy Parks: Good evening. I understand this is the Newark Unified School District board meeting in public. However, there are required measures for you, our elected or appointed officials, to listen to your constituents. These required measures exist in the Brown Act. Government Code 54950 says, in enacting this chapter, the legislature finds and declares that the public commissions, boards and councils, and other public agencies in the state exist to aid in the conduct of the people's business. It is the intent of the law that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly. The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people in delegating authority do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they've created. The board is not one single individual. It is a body. Yet the changes represented on the agenda this evening were not constructed by a body who collaborated to make these changes. I'm sure for some speakers it will be convenient to comment at the beginning of the meeting and leave. However, by restricting public comment for all items on the agenda to only the beginning of the meeting, the public will not be able to hear the staff report prior to speaking and now the board will have to remember the public's comments for when the agenda item is discussed. In the 25 years I've been attending board meetings, the public has always been allowed to speak when the board is considering the item. This action appears to be an effort to minimize and stifle public input. To prove it isn't a way to stifle public input, Later this evening, under board request, please request to offer two options. Allow the public the opportunity to speak in the beginning of the meeting or when the board is actually considering the item. Thank you.

[6373] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Ms. Parks. Our next speaker, Ms. Diana Castro. Welcome.

[6384] SPEAKER_36: Hola, muy buenas noches. Buenas noches, mis queridos miembros de la Junta Directiva. Me gustaría empezar dándole las gracias a nuestra Presidenta Nguyen por su gran trabajo y dedicación a nuestros estudiantes. Yo he sido testigo de su gran pasión y dedicación. Es incomparable. Su dedicación de ella, además, I would like to thank her because she has always been thinking about our students. I also want to thank our superintendent and her team for being aware that our children have a good return to class. Quiero invitar a esta mesa directiva, a esta junta, a que tengan en cuenta y piensen, más que nada, en que ellos forman un gran equipo para poderles dar estabilidad, seguridad y esa confianza que nuestros estudiantes necesitan. A pesar de estos dos años que han pasado, ellos han hecho un gran trabajo. Y más que nada, yo quiero darles las gracias por esa dedicación a nuestros estudiantes. Gracias y me gustaría que la Junta Directiva pensara un poquito en nuestros estudiantes y que no remuevan a nuestro querido superintendente. Gracias.

[6488] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Ms. Castro.

[6497] SPEAKER_38: Would you like me to translate? Yes, please. In summary, the statement was saying thank you to President Nguyen for her passion, her dedication, and would like to thank her for everything that she does for her students. She would also like to thank Dr. Triplett for having a proper and good back to school opening. And she invites the board and the rest of the team and asked the board and the rest of the team to be able to provide stability for the students. She thanks the staff for all they have done, their dedication to the students and implores to the board to please continue to keep Dr. Triplett on board.

[6539] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you so much. Our next speaker, Ms. Angela Silvera.

[6562] SPEAKER_37: Hello, members of the board and superintendent. I'm Angela Silvera, a parent of three in two different schools, Lincoln Elementary and Newark Middle School. I'm also the parent group president for Lincoln Elementary Pals Club. I have three issues today that I want to highlight on behalf of the students, because if all of you are here for the students, then these three issues, I think, should be a priority. So let's first start with this. If you could please humor me and can the last two people on each aisle and the last two people on each side of the board members' desks raise their hands. Thank you. OK, so now I'm going to ask all those people with their hands raised to give up their seats for the rest of the board meeting and sit on the ground. No, well, okay, of course not. Of course you're not gonna do that. But this is exactly what happened to dozens of middle school students on their first day of school. And they came to class and the basic right of a seat was denied to them because there was not enough seats. And although this was remedied, I would say that if you are truly about the kids, that their basic needs and rights would be taken care of from day one. Secondly, talking about our kids, I am very concerned that every school site is not equipped with emergency food and water supplies. This is something that Dr. Triplett said that our district would take care of two years ago for our students at a city liaison meeting. Before I started, I passed out and highlighted in the meeting minutes where this was stated. Given the current environmental and political climate, it only makes sense to be prepared. So let's be prepared and equip each school site with the emergency supplies they need. Third, volunteers. I am a volunteer at heart. I want to help my children's school. I want to volunteer. I would jump through basically any hoop to volunteer. And I have. I've had TB testing. I signed in. I got fingerprinted. I paid for myself. I signed up for scheduled times. I signed out. I wear a badge. I fill out a form every single year. And honestly, I think there's more, but I just couldn't remember everything I do. But I do it. And right now, you are not letting any volunteers on campus. The CDC has downgraded their COVID rules, but you have it. It's undeniable how much more teachers can do with volunteers helping them. Please allow volunteers back on campus today. Not sometime in September, we'll talk about it, but today. Because even if we volunteers have to jump through more hoops, masks, proof of vaccinations, I'm sure many, many of us would, because I know for sure I would. And although I have more I would like to say about electronic marquees, substitutes instead of full-time teachers, not having quality security cameras, et cetera, messed up schedules for the middle schools. For now, those three main points I brought up, student basic needs being met, emergency supplies for schools, and volunteers back in the classroom right now are what I want you to keep in mind. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Silvera.

[6768] Phuong Nguyen: Our next speaker, Mr. Eric Tam. Welcome.

[6779] SPEAKER_10: Hello, board, Dr. Triplett, and staff. Don't worry, not talking about air conditioners tonight. Member Hill, I wanted to address two specific allegations you raised to the board. First, regarding conflict of interest laws. The state attorney's general guide states, and I quote, Conflicts arising out of matters other than a financial interest, such as friendship, family, or general sympathy for a particular viewpoint are outside the purview of the Act. Even though I agree with you, Member Aydin, or Member Hill, ethically hiring a friend at a no-bid contract with public dollars is a poor decision, it would be hard to prove with conflict of interest laws on a non-direct financial gain. Second, regarding business license requirements. For the City of Newark, or what I actually call the Newark Business License Office, I described the situation, his past contract, and his current contract for Jeff Vu. Per the clerk, he is required to have a license operating in Newark. And as of this afternoon, our City of Newark database still does not have Mr. Vu registered. The licensing clerk told me about the Newark Municipal Code, where Title V visits licenses. For 1.16.10, infraction penalties start at $100 for the first time, up to $500 for the third time. Section 5.04210, enforcement. If enforcement is necessary, then the penalty is a misdemeanor, which is a penalty of $1,000 and or six months in jail time. Dr. Triplett, I hope you can encourage your friend to properly license before enforcement. Board, you might not like what member Aiden or member Hill is saying. But for your own protection, has your legal counsel evaluated the situation under California's public contracting law? Violation of public contractor law is deemed a felony. Board, not sure if Dr. Triplett told you, but Jeff Vu started his contract in February of 2021, but somehow his liability insurance started end of May 2021. So this contractor worked in this district without the $1 million liability insurance for four months. With horrible procurement controls in place, board, why are you not asking common sense questions about these contracts? Lastly, I wanted to address the middle school merger. I think our previous speaker did a much better job. Multiple parents reported their kids had to sit on the floor because the first day had too many kids in class. We spent $20,000 or $30,000 for a consultant. I don't remember the final number. But we couldn't prepare enough chairs for kids. Board, I believe Member Hill asked for a technical project plan for the merger. I also filed a CPRA and emailed the board for help for this. I believe that night, Dr. Triplett also said the buck stops with him. So whose fault is it that kids didn't get basics of a chair for the first day? Board, I hope you can see that our team is not great at executional detail. How will you address this? Thank you.

[6957] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Mr. Tam. Our next speaker, Ms. Martinez. Welcome.

[6974] Elisa Martinez: Good evening, board, Dr. Triplett, and staff. My name is Elisa Martinez. I have two kids in our district schools, a junior, I can't believe a junior, and an eighth grader. So first of all, thank you for all the work that everyone on the Newark Unified School District staff, teachers, and all the support staff in all the schools. Thank you for getting us back safely to school. Again, I have a junior high schooler, and we all have different opinions. Yes, there were some glitches, but we actually, let me correct myself, we don't have a junior high, we have a middle school. Huge, huge effort undertaking with a lot of people working. Did we have glitches? Absolutely. Do I throw tomatoes at everyone because something didn't go right? No. I am very thankful. and appreciative. I picked up my son on the first day of school, and you could tell who the sixth graders were. They were just smiling and skipping. And so it seemed to me, yeah, there was some issues, but people were happy. Let's focus on that, for God's sake. On the high school, I think student member Torres spoke about the work that's being done. Again, great reports, at least from my daughter. I actually want to call out a special shout out to the new administrators and the team there. We've been getting a lot of communication, a lot of introductory memos, makes me feel pretty good about what's going on there. So I just really want to commend you for that. To the entire board, I respectfully ask that you all think about and remember why you're here. The dais is not your platform to continue to spew your general discontent, your personal grievances, and your conspiratory accusations. This is a place to solve problems for our students, for our teachers. And I absolutely, and I look at everybody here, Does anybody really believe that anybody around this dais is here to pull one over on us, to pull some shady business? Come on, let's get over that. Let's talk about how we're going to work together. I just want to say that I think that many of us in our community are ready to do the work to continue to make our district what it needs to be. To staff, I'm just going to remind you some of the negativity that continues to be spewed at the dais. It's an outlier. It does not represent the majority of us. Thank you very much.

[7151] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Ms. Martinez. Our next speaker, Lorena Alcorta. I apologize if I pronounced your last name wrong. Welcome.

[7173] SPEAKER_14: I was a former student at one of the schools in your district. And my story is on September 22, 2021, I was sexually assaulted on campus walking to my counselor. I said no multiple times, and it still happened. I experienced something no other female male should experience. I was and still am traumatized from what happened to me on that day. I will never forget that day or the date that it happened on. I can shower as many times after that, but I would still feel his touch on my body. I no longer feel safe on that campus. I made many excuses not to go to school because I felt low of myself, and I was scared to step foot on campus. I feel like the school did not do a good job with what happened, and I was alone the whole time. My mom couldn't be there when I was getting questioned. I couldn't have an adult with me and they told me not to say anything about my sexual assault. They made me feel like I didn't matter in this situation. They made me feel like it was my fault that it happened and that it didn't matter what he did and they didn't want to ruin his reputation because he's still a kid. I'm a victim of sexual abuse. Thank you.

[7268] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Ms. Alcorta. Our next speaker is Guadalupe Lopez.

[7283] Guadalupe Lopez: Welcome. Thank you. Good evening. I wasn't planning to speak, but after a lot of things that have, today was kind of a hard day. I'm a longtime resident here in Newark, and I also have a business in Newark for a lot of years, since 1993. And I had a few conversations with some of my customers, and I heard a lot of negative part towards the, leadership of the district and that really raised a lot of concerns for me. Like I said, I've been here for a lot of years, so I have witnessed great leadership, not so great leadership. But in the past few years, I feel that we have become so negative. It feels like we are against each other rather than trying to work cohesively as a community and loving each other again. So at what point are we going to give enough time to the leadership to really create results? I see Dr. Triplett as being a real participant of this community. He's visible almost in every event that I've gone through. He's there. Even during the pandemic, I'm not sure everybody's aware that there was a task created by the city, a COVID task, to see how do we make a difference to keep the infections to a minimum in Newark. He took part of time of his business schedule to be part of that task force. He was there at every meeting. That's commendable. Not too many superintendents do that. We haven't had a real participation between the city and the school, which in my opinion, it needs to happen. And yet he is trying to create that partnership. So I asked the community, I asked the parents, let's get behind him. Let's be part of the solution, not be part of the problem. Stop the negative comments. If you have a problem, let's create a forum. Let's get together, talk about the problem, see what the issues are. Let's try to solve those problems. But something needs to happen. We need to start getting back on our leadership. Let's be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Thank you.

[7444] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Ms. Lopez. Our last speaker on this item is Jacinta Arteaga. Welcome.

[7462] SPEAKER_15: Thank you. Good evening, superintendent, staff, and the board. I'm Jacinta Arteaga. I'm the president of Avanzando. We're a nonprofit since 2008, and we're focused on student scholarships and recognition. I anticipate that the superintendent's report will have lots of good things in it, and it will also reflect a lot of challenges that the Newark schools have had, let's be real, for years. It didn't develop in the last two years. My speaking today is to support the work of the superintendent and his staff and to urge them to not allow the negativity being expressed in social boards or in this forum to deter you from the difficult mission and tasks that you have ahead of you. To the board, I asked you to continue to support their efforts and understand that the type of issues impacting the district the district's performance are longstanding. Again, they didn't develop in two years. And I want you to take the time to resolve, to take the time that they were required to be resolved. We need to all work as a team because that's the only way we're going to get through this. And you know, I for one want to thank the superintendent. for his efforts and his professionalism through the veiled attacks that I see through the Zoom meetings, that negativity being expressed by those that speak here who are only in support of one of the board members who continues to seem like he's not doing the research he should be doing before coming on here and making personal attacks. So in closing, Let's give him and his staff the time he needs to resolve these issues. And I know for one, speaking to the parents of which we gave 26 scholarships, $1,500 each, they're all in support of him. So again, I urge the board, listen to those parents and don't be so focused on the negativity and whatever agenda is coming to you here. Thank you.

[7607] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Ms. Arteaga. Our next speaker, Luis Sanchez. Welcome.

[7618] SPEAKER_22: How are you? Good evening, board members. I'm Luis Sanchez.

[7631] Terrence Grindall: Mr. Sanchez, can you lift up the microphone? So we can hear you.

[7635] SPEAKER_22: Thank you. Good evening, board members. I'm Luis Sanchez. I currently go to Newark Junior High. I'm here to support Dr. Triplett since he began his job. I've seen him many times at my previous school. He takes notice and treats us with respect. He cares for the students. I would like to see more of the board members take the time to visit schools and get involved. more with our students to see that having stability helped us. Member Hill, the only thing I've seen in the past meeting is just negativity and intimidation. Thank you.

[7689] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Luis. Our next speaker, Nicholas Sanchez.

[7705] SPEAKER_21: Good evening, board members. I'm Nicholas Sanchez, a Newark Junior High student, and yes, I'm here to support Dr. Triplett. He has been visiting our schools. He cares for the students, and I know he can do better, better things for our students if you give him an opportunity. Thank you. Thank you so much.

[7739] Phuong Nguyen: Our next speaker, Ms. Lorena Talavera.

[7749] SPEAKER_23: Welcome. Thank you. Good evening, board members. I would like to start by thanking President Nguyen for her hard work and for the students and the passion and dedication that she has for the Newark students. Thank you so much. Thank you. In addition, I would like to also thank Dr. Triplett for all the effort that you have done and I have seen it that you made a lot of work for the schools and make sure that the kids started on time. Thank you so much for that. I would also like to let you know that I am very sad that Dr. Member Hill would like to get rid of you. I think you're a very great person and you care for the students. My sons recognize you and that's something that really makes me as a mother know that you care for the students. Before school started, Wonder if you were gonna come by the junior high and to their surprise and mine to you you were there I knew you were gonna be there and I have that Feeling that you were gonna be there and they felt more Welcome being in a new school as a sixth grader in the seventh grade and knowing that you were there supporting them They met you at Lincoln and now they saw you in the middle school. I I know that as a team, you guys, if you give him the opportunity, I know he's going to make great changes for the students. And I have trust in you, Dr. Triplett, that you're going to make very good positive things for the students. Thank you so much for your time.

[7842] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Ms. Talavera. OK, on to item 9.1, public comment on agenda items. Ms. Parks will be speaking on item 14.1, Newark Junior High School and Newark Memorial High School swimming pool reports. Welcome, Ms. Parks.

[7875] Cindy Parks: Can you please explain how this is going to work? Because I put in to speak on more than one item on the agenda. Regular agenda?

[7883] Phuong Nguyen: Yes. After you finish speaking on this item on 14.1, you will be able to speak on 14.2 and 15.2. OK.

[7894] Cindy Parks: Thank you. I wasn't sure how this was going to work, for sure. I understand that this is just a staff report, but please consider the following. In the junior high report under scope, midway down page three, it says, the following report includes a summary of existing condition, code violations, deficiencies, and proposed improvements of rehabilitation for the Newark Junior High School and its equipment. The scope of this report includes the swimming pools, pool deck areas, pool mechanical equipment. It excludes the structural integrity of the swimming pool shelves, the purportant and accessibility in the path of travel, remember that word, path of travel, or those words, path of travel, to the swimming pool area and within the adjacent buildings. It is likely that a facility of this age could have underlying issues that have gone unnoticed by staff and are not apparent to the visual inspections. Therefore, this report attempts to provide an accurate and realistic assessment of existing conditions. Our observations are based upon conditions we could observe and information provided by staff. The report should be read in full with no excerpts to be fully representative of the findings and has been prepared exclusively for the district. In 2017, the Bond Oversight Committee, accompanied by the then MOT Director Vince Bologna and Banner Construction, the project manager, toured various school sites. One of the sites was the junior high. We viewed and discussed the swimming pool situation. We were told about the lack of a functioning filtration system and how they drained the water down to a certain level, added chemicals, and then added the water back in, causing the chemicals to circulate a bit. The project manager explained the need went beyond just updating the equipment. Replacing the equipment prompts the need to replace everything in the travel path. meaning the locker rooms and bathrooms would also need to be brought up to code as they are in the travel path for students to access the pool. There are similar travel paths and a disclaimer language in the Newark Memorial School report. When you hear the report later this evening, please consider all that I have said and pay serious attention to the potential full cost of both projects. I say potential because the disclaimers in both reports carry a high price tag. While it is understandable to have a pool at the high school, is it a necessity for the junior high to have one? Please consider the full cost.

[8062] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Ms. Parks. You will have an additional three minutes to speak on item 14.2, preliminary data, 21-22 data. Go ahead.

[8076] Cindy Parks: Needless to say, I was quite shocked and appalled at the scores. The last time that pre-COVID was the 18-19 year, and then you just tested for this last school year. The third grade went up eight points. The fourth grade, down four. Fifth grade, down one. Sixth grade, down eight points. Seventh grade, down five. Eighth grade, plus two. And 11th grade, minus three. I want you to understand that the third grade was at 56% and the 11th grade was at 21%. In the spring of 2018, Big Ideas was adopted by the Newark Unified School District. Minimal PD took place before COVID. I hope with the increase in subpay, the district will be able to conduct more necessary PDs. Regarding the ELA numbers, Third grade, they went up eight. Down four in fourth grade, down four in fifth grade, down four in sixth grade, up one in seventh grade, up four in eighth grade, and down three in 11th grade. Going from 53% in third grade to 51% in 11th grade. Clearly, English language arts is better than math. Currently, though, the program that is being instructed at the elementary sites is Lucy Calkins. Lucy Calkins is not a state-adopted curriculum. You do have the option of adopting something if you have a curriculum council and they put it in place, and that's what happened here. It happened in 2014, the writing units of study, and in 2016, the reading units. Ed reports put out a study and it does not meet the current standards. Recent articles I have shared with Mr. Dolowich shows the teachers need to be provided and trained in a strong, comprehensive science-based program which emphasizes phonics, phonemic awareness, and reading techniques in kinder and first. You currently have $900,000 set aside from your capped reserve. On paper where you had to spend the money because you couldn't go above the 10%, you put $900,000 there. In the 45-day revise, there was money set aside for instructional materials. I respectfully request that you take a look at analyzing or consider adopting a new reading language arts program. One that is a sequential, comprehensive program, because what you have is not. And many of your teachers are adopting or are using their own materials and not even Lucy Calkins. So I would actually ask that you seriously consider doing so.

[8257] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. And then you have one more item, 15.2, increased daily rates for substitute teachers.

[8266] Cindy Parks: You know, this kind of sucks to be all up here all at once, but anyhow. Well, I didn't want to make you sit down. I don't want to sit down, but I mean, it's just, this is crazy. But anyhow, I just wanted to thank you for increasing the sub pay. Now you are competitive with Fremont, which has been far ahead of you for the last several years. And I just wanted to say, acknowledge that this was taking place and that I'm very thankful. Hopefully the teachers will be able to get the professional development when they need to. and that you'll be able to increase your guest teacher pool and teachers will not be having to give up their preps and going in and subbing. Thank you.

[8306] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you so much, Ms. Parks. Our next speaker, Ms. Elisa Martinez. She has two items. You'll be speaking on 14.1, the Newark Junior High and High School pool.

[8323] Elisa Martinez: Good evening board and executive staff. For those of you who have heard me speak on this item before, I think many folks think I'm nuts because I'm one of the few supporters for keeping the junior high poll. I know it's pricey and capital dollars are always hard to come by. But I come from a place of trying to understand what the needs of our kids are. And not all of our kids have the opportunity to learn how to swim early in life. And I'm now going to speak as a Latina, and I'm going to generalize. But a lot of our families, this is not something that we do. It just doesn't happen. And sometimes it's a resources issue, and sometimes it's just a, again, it's not part of something that we prioritize. And I think it's really important to make sure that our kids have that option. Because I think, and maybe the student member could weigh in, but as kids get older and in high school, it's a little harder when they have to go into the pool and they have to admit to their peers that they don't know how to swim. So I really want you to please consider that. If the money isn't there, if it's just going to be too much of a stretch and challenge to fund that, please consider options. Please consider summer school options and really get our kids started early if we, you know, revamp our high school. I know we use it for other purposes during the summer. But, you know, why not prioritize our own students early on? So that's where I'm coming from. I know it's a big price tag, but please consider. And I don't know if we've ever done a study on what percentage of our kids coming into the junior high or fifth grade or whatever actually know how to swim. So just something to consider as you make this decision.

[8439] Phuong Nguyen: That's it on this one. Thank you, Ms. Martinez. You also have item 14.2, preliminary CAS data.

[8445] Elisa Martinez: Yes. First of all, thank you for sharing that information. It's not easy information to share nor to digest. You know, unfortunately, I think most of us expected, you know, the significant hit we took on performance. But I also want to quote a previous speaker. Our problems aren't from last year or two years ago. We've had some significant issues here at Newark Unified. But I think that it's really important to remember, and I kind of paraphrase one of my dear friends that I've known since college, she's a teacher in a neighboring district. And I was talking about one day about results, and oh my God, what the tests are gonna show. And she says, why are we talking about kids failing? Or, you know, oh my God, their scores are gonna go, you know, in the negative territory. She said, she reminded me, she says, we need to remind everyone just how hard it's been, not only for our students, but for everybody that's serving our students. And if we really try to dwell on that, we're going to distract ourselves from all the work that needs to happen to overcome that gap and continue to grow. I am not an expert. I'm not gonna come here and tell you which curriculum you're using and what's right and what's not. That is for you and the educators to make that determination. But I just want to do ask that the board, exec cabinet commits to giving us more frequent updates on what are the initiatives at hand. What are we going to prioritize? I know you can't share everything, But it would be great to make me feel better as a parent if I have some visibility into some of those specific initiatives. I also want to say that there are a lot of negative Nancys out there. They're going to come out and just really zero in on the numbers and the hits and forget about all the good work. that's been done and that continues to be done right now. Again, please don't let that distract you from the good work. There's a lot of us in our community that are willing to do the work. So please feel free to, you know, let us know how we can get involved. Thank you.

[8596] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Ms. Martinez. With that, that concludes our public comments on both non-agenda items and agenda items. So on to 10.1, employee organizations. Ms. Gutierrez, do we have any representatives here tonight from our employee groups?

[8622] SPEAKER_38: Yes, we have NEWMA virtually. Ms. Ditto, you may begin.

[8629] Phuong Nguyen: Welcome, Ms. Ditto.

[8631] SPEAKER_40: Good evening, President Nguyen, Board of Trustees, and executive cabinet members. The Newark Management Association is back and prepared for another fantastic year of learning and leading. Our members spent the summer both recharging and working to get ready for students. We have spent time reconnecting with our families, traveling from Puerto Rico to Canada to the Pacific Islands, and also staying close to home. Campuses were spruced up, the middle school vision has taken another huge step in welcoming sixth graders, and many new projects have been jumped up. Both building principals and other department heads had the opportunity to attend breakthrough coaching training, which has rejuvenated how we work in order to maximize our opportunities to give feedback to those in our respective buildings and departments. This will allow us leaders more time, creating shared experiences with both kids and staff with the ultimate goal being to positively increase student achievement and employee satisfaction. I would like to take this opportunity to also highlight the NEWMA board for 22-23. I am happy to continue as president of NEWMA. Joining me are Vice President Lizaday Rancap-Perez, Principal of Lincoln Elementary, our Treasurer Ashley Acosta, Manager of Community Engagement and Wellness, and our Member-at-Large Olivia Rangel, our new Director of Special Education. On behalf of NEWMA, I want to wish everyone in NUSD a fantastic 22-23 school year and continued good health. Thank you.

[8730] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Ms. Ditto.

[8734] SPEAKER_38: We have NTA as well. OK, thank you.

[8744] Phuong Nguyen: Welcome, Ms. Villa.

[8746] SPEAKER_25: Good evening. My name is Cheri Villa. I am vice president of our Newark Teachers Association. I'd like to give a shout out to my fellow NTA members. For this past week, you have opened your classroom doors to teach a new bunch of kids regardless of what is going on outside of the classrooms. And USD is starting another school year with our teachers giving up their prep periods to cover multiple classrooms throughout the district that have no teacher hired. Teachers are giving up their time and support to long-term substitutes in our special education classrooms. So with that, thank you, NTA. Have a good night. Thank you.

[8783] Phuong Nguyen: Okay, on to item 11.2, personnel report. It's a consent item, so make it a motion to approve personnel report.

[8807] SPEAKER_27: Motion to approve personnel report.

[8810] Phuong Nguyen: Motion made by Member Marquez, seconded by Member Grindel. Student board member does not vote on personnel report, so just wanted to let our new student member know. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Gutierrez.

[8844] SPEAKER_38: Waiting on two votes from members Zhang and member Hill. All votes are in. Five ayes.

[8854] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Ms. Gutierrez. On to, oh, yes. Dr. Triplett has an announcement.

[8864] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Nguyen. So I'm delighted to introduce our new assistant principal at the high school. If Mr. Michael Murphy could come up to the stand. So we are very excited that Mr. Murphy has joined the team as one of the new assistant principals at the high school. I believe it was last time that we had a chance to meet the other new assistant principal. So Michael Murphy has taught and worked as an administrator at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Throughout his career, he served as a change agent to support districts and schools with their needs. Additionally, he has worked with undergraduate and graduate students seeking licensure as both an adjunct and full-time professor for several years. He most recently served as a high school principal with Acton Agua Dulce Unified School District, and he holds the following degrees. Okay, this is going to take a minute because he's got a lot of degrees. BA in history, philosophy, political science from Emory and Henry College. a Master's in Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Administration from Chapman University, and an Ed.D., a Doctorate in Educational Leadership at the University of Southern California. Mr. Murphy is excited to work with Newark Memorial High School stakeholders. He recognizes Newark Memorial's rich heritage and he looks forward to complementing his skills and talents to support students, staff, and parents in their continual pursuit to define the school's legacy. And I will say I had the honor of seeing him in action at the Black Light Assembly and just love the energy, Mr. Murphy, and we're all really delighted that you've joined the family. So please welcome Mr. Murphy.

[8986] SPEAKER_48: I'll very briefly, I know you have a lot of business to attend to, but in the short period of time I've been to the high school, You have an extremely, what I found very immediately, is you have an extremely dedicated staff and a very kind group of students. And you have such great potential. I look forward to the challenge, and I look forward to working with the team. I think this is going to be a great year for Newark. Thank you.

[9026] Mark Triplett: If I may, President Nguyen, I also just want to, in the Powell's report, I just want to highlight how many different people the Human Resources, in partnership with the principals and school staff, have been hiring across the board. Teachers, intervention teachers, office clerks, managers, custodians, et cetera. It's really, really been a challenge, and I'll speak a little bit more to that later on, but I just wanted to take a minute to appreciate the team for all that they're doing.

[9063] Phuong Nguyen: Great, thank you, Dr. Triplett, and welcome, Mr. Murphy. On to consent agenda, non-personal items. Are there any items that the board would like to pull? Member Marquez? Item 12.4, please. Member Hill?

[9082] Aiden Hill: I'd like to pull 12.2, 12.13, 12.14, 12.15, and 12.18, thank you.

[9094] Mark Triplett: Sorry, what was the last one, Member Hill?

[9097] Aiden Hill: So we have, we're going to pull 12.4, 12.2, 12.13, 12.14, 12.15, and 12.18, correct?

[9101] Phuong Nguyen: May I get a motion? We're going to pull item 12.4, 12.2, 12.13, 12.14, 12.15, 12.18. And to make it a motion to approve the remaining items on the consent agenda.

[9134] SPEAKER_26: Motion to approve the remaining items.

[9136] Phuong Nguyen: Motion made by member Marquez.

[9140] SPEAKER_30: I second.

[9141] Phuong Nguyen: Seconded by member Hill. Student board member, how do you vote? Thank you. And then the rest of the board will be voting online. Five ayes. Thank you so much. OK. On to item 12.4.

[9168] SPEAKER_38: President Nguyen? Yes. Sorry for a gentle reminder. At this point, we'll move on to 13.1. And in the polled items, we'll get discussed after new business. And 17.1.

[9187] Phuong Nguyen: Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you for the reminder. The reminder. Okay, on to item 13.1, superintendent report.

[9200] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Nguyen. So to kick off the superintendent report, Ms. Gutierrez, if you could put it on the screen. This evening we wanted to talk about enrollment, give a brief enrollment update, talk a little bit about the start of school and how we've kicked off, some of the challenges, and then a few other updates. So just starting with enrollment. Oops. I think this is the wrong slide. OK, there we go. Oh, you know what? This is the scrutineers. I think we have the wrong slide deck here. That was last year's update from the start of school. All right, I was having flashbacks there for a minute. So just starting with the enrollment updates. So as usual, we want to share out the current enrollment as of the 16th this week in comparison to our projections. So as you can see, in our elementary schools, we were projected at 2,243 students. We currently have 2,260. So that's exciting. Actually exceeded our projections the junior high we were projected at 1064 and we currently have 1084 so another point where we've exceeded expectations and then the memorial is the likewise we were projected at 1536 and we are currently at 1553 bridge point we always expect to start this the the year of slightly under enrolled at Bridgepoint because through that program, oftentimes the enrollment increases throughout the year. And so projected at 61, currently enrolled at 57. And then Crossroads, our virtual program, we did project at 161 based on our numbers from last year, but currently we are enrolled at 62 students at Crossroads virtual. So overall, you can see total projections for the year were 5,065, and we are currently at 5,016. And we will expect that these numbers will continue to fluctuate in the beginning of the year. We get new students as well as some students who move on, move out of the area or the state. Next slide, please. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what has been happening in our schools as we kick off the year. Student board member Torres referred to it a little bit about some of the things happening at Memorial. We are really prioritizing physical and emotional safety and well-being to start the year. And so there's a strong focus on social emotional learning and wellness in these first couple of weeks. All of our classes. TK through 12th grade. The teachers started by reviewing classroom and school expectations. A lot of icebreakers, community building, developing positive peer relationships. And then we've had assemblies to build school spirit and pride. It was mentioned the Black Lights Assembly Earlier, there's been assemblies at the junior high and at other schools. So all of these things and much more on the part of our teachers and our school staff, it's really to start the year strong with really clear expectations and also an opportunity for students to feel not just safe physically, but safe emotionally as well. And we're really working to build our students' self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, relationship skills, and social awareness. Next slide, please. Just some pictures from our schools. This is actually today at Schilling in the dual-language kinder. Had the opportunity to visit some classrooms. This is Ms. Munoz's class. They were learning about fruits and learning this was the Spanish The Spanish room, so they're learning fruits in Spanish. It was really fun. So a lot of great things happening there today at that program. And this is a picture from the first week of school at our junior high. This is one of our sixth grade classrooms. Students learning expectations and also learning about each other. You can see they all have name tags that they've created on their desks there. And they're learning about themselves and each other. Shifting gears a little bit, I know everyone is really concerned about the teacher shortage and so I wanted to speak a little bit about this. First of all, as you can see here, I just did a quick Google search and pulled out some of the hundreds and hundreds of news clippings with regard to this national challenge. So across the country right now, every district is really challenged with this teacher shortage. And so we're no exception here in Newark Unified. However, I will say that I really want to commend our Human Resources Department and our schools for all of the work to try to address this and to really do everything possible to make sure that we have all of our staff ready to go and hired for our schools. Unfortunately, we do still have some vacancies. And this puts a lot of strain on everyone. And so I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the things that we're trying to do to address this. Next slide, please. So as I said, these vacancies are challenged for every school district in the Bay Area and nationally. But Human Resource Department and principals are working collaboratively to continue to recruit and hire new staff. There are not a lot of new applicants at this point in the year, because at this point, most teachers have already been placed in a school setting. Some of the other strategies we're using, we're reaching out to retirees to see if there's any interest to fill current vacancies with consistent staff that know our system and know our students and community. We have also been working hard to get long-term substitutes with qualifications to be certified by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. So these are long-term substitutes who have this special credential. And when long-term substitutes are not possible or we do not have enough, then we also have day-to-day substitutes or guest teachers that we're utilizing. And you'll see later on in the agenda that we're putting forth a recommendation to increase the daily pay rate for our substitute teachers. Unfortunately, we are in situations where we do not have enough long-term nor day-to-day substitutes. And in those cases, unfortunately, we're having to ask teachers and administrators are having to actually substitute for periods or for the day when it's necessary. And I just want to, number one, call out and appreciate our teachers for this and also just recognize how hard, what a strain this is on our teachers. They have prep periods and for them to have to substitute during the prep period is really challenging. So we're trying to do everything we can to mitigate that. In addition, we have our department chairs, our grade level teams are supporting in the classes where there are vacancies And then finally, district office staff and school administration has also been covering classes. So we continue to hire. We are continuing to make offers to candidates and continuing to get folks in. But this is something that's going to require all of us to continue to really focus on this. And it is our current reality. Next slide, please. Lastly, I just wanted to remind everybody we are continuing with our more than a meal campaign. So a critical part of our funding stream is from when families fill out the more than a meal application. Although we are currently the country across the country providing free meals for students regardless of of any sort of criteria. We desperately need everyone to complete the more than a meal application because this is how we do get funding for our schools. And it also is a program that has a lot of different benefits. So benefits include discounts on home internet costs, college application fee discounts, like I said, increase in school funding, summer camp discounts or qualification for certain scholarships, including in the Parks and Recreation Department here in Newark, and also discounts on different fees for SATs or AP tests and things like that. So really want to, we need everybody's help to make sure that every family is filling out one of these applications. And I am going to ask Ms. Delacruz, did I forget anything about this?

[9815] Marie dela Cruz: I covered it. Hello, hello. Yeah, no, I think you covered everything. We did mail out applications to all our families. So you should have received an application in the mail as well, or you can apply online.

[9831] Mark Triplett: Terrific. And if you've already applied, please go to your neighbor and knock on their door and ask them if they've applied. Because it is going to take all of us just really encouraging everyone to turn in the form regardless of your socioeconomic level or however you want to say that. And that's all for the report this evening.

[9855] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Dr. Triplett. Any comments from the board? No? Student board member, do you have any comments for? No. Member Marquez?

[9869] SPEAKER_26: None at this time.

[9870] Phuong Nguyen: Member Hill?

[9872] Aiden Hill: Yes, thank you, Dr. Chirpa. Could you go back to the slide on enrollment, please? Thank you. So one of the things that I've mentioned in a number of meetings and even in the last one, and it has not only to do with numbers like this related to enrollment, but also financial numbers. It's really kind of a standard practice to, you know, not only have your forecast, right, which is your projection, but then to basically show basically the history of your results and kind of show your baseline and how you're moving from your baseline, because that's really important information. And so when we just have like a projections number and then we have the latest enrolled, it's a little bit challenging to see what's going on. So I've been taking notes, so I looked back at the last meeting because I wanted to see, well, what was the enrollment number from the last meeting? So what I wrote down for the enrollment number for the last meeting, so not the projection. So the projection is, and we're talking overall, is 5065. And we wrote down, I'm sorry here, it was 552. So 5052 from the last meeting. So we went, and now we're saying it's 5016, so 5016. So we've lost 36 students enrolled in two weeks. Do we have a sense of what's going on there?

[9978] Mark Triplett: Yeah, so as I mentioned before in my presentation, we are going to see these numbers fluctuate. In some cases, there are students who were enrolled from last year, and they are making a decision to disenroll, move out of the area, or what have you. And so these numbers will fluctuate. We hope that they go both up and down. If they only go down, which does happen, then, you know, that's why we're really trying to monitor this closely and analyze the direction that the numbers are going. We use these numbers also as we're balancing classes, as well as then really considering proper allocation of resources across the district.

[10025] Aiden Hill: So again, it would be great if going forward, maybe we could add a column that shows, so you have projections in your first column, your second column was enrollment as of the prior board meeting, and then our current status, because then at least we can see a trend. That would be great. I mean, it would be even better if we could see a whole spreadsheet. But again, it's hard to see what's going on with just those two columns. And that's it, thank you.

[10059] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Member Hill. Member Grindel?

[10062] Terrence Grindall: Yeah, just a couple of things. I keep seeing it being referred to as Newark Junior High School. At what point do we all start calling it middle school?

[10076] Mark Triplett: Yeah, thank you. So because the board really wanted to re-review the school naming process, We did not go through the school naming process last year. Instead, really wanted to have a chance for the board to discuss, which I believe happened in June. So our plan is for this year to have a thorough process of renaming, where we're really engaging the community, engaging students, families, staff, and community members in the renaming. So that's why we didn't change the Newark Junior High School yet. Because we want to make sure that we do a really inclusive process. So we are fluctuating by calling it the middle school. But technically, officially, it is still Newark Junior High until we've gone through that process.

[10128] Terrence Grindall: Sorry, one more thing. Can you send or make available on the website the graphic more than a meal, so that board members and other interested community members can share that on their social media feeds?

[10147] Mark Triplett: Absolutely. Thank you.

[10149] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Member Grindel. That is a wonderful point. On to, and thank you, Dr. Triplett, for the superintendent report. On to item 14.2, preliminary 2021-22 CAHPS and CAHPS data overview. Dr. Triplett. Oh, I'm sorry. I skipped over the pool. Sorry, Ms. Martinez and Ms. Parks. Item 14.1, Newark Junior High School and Newark Memorial High School swimming pool reports. Thank you, Dr. Shiblett.

[10181] Mark Triplett: OK, thank you, President Nguyen. So we have a couple of people who I believe are going to be speaking on this item. Is that correct, Ms. Delacruz? But I did want to, first of all, invite up a very important person, Mr. Crosby, who is not only a social studies teacher at Newark Memorial, but has a longstanding coach of many of the different swim activities, and give him a chance to speak a little bit about his experience with the pool and some of the needs that exist at the pool. After that, we will have an opportunity, I believe we have the person who did the report, is that correct, Ms. Delacruz? And just to give a little framing before we start. Right from when I first started two years ago, I was hearing a lot of different opinions about what we should do with the junior high pool, as well as I am a swimmer, actually. I swim almost every day. OK, I'm bragging a little bit. I swim more like three to four times a week. So this was something near and dear to my heart, and initially really felt like, wow, a pool at a junior high, that sounds amazing. But since then, I've actually changed a little bit in my perspective based on some of the analysis happening here. And we'll talk more about that shortly. But I do want to say how important it is to have aquatics in our young people's lives. And it has been incredible for me personally. And I've loved swimming in the Memorial High School pool when I first came on. And I just think it's just a wonderful opportunity for young people. So anything that we can do to really make sure that we are providing the very best facility for our young people, I think is super important. And it comes with a price tag that we will discuss shortly. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Crosby just to say a few words about your experience with the pool and also the needs there.

[10308] SPEAKER_04: Absolutely. Thank you. Well, first of all, I am a product of Newark Unified School District. Graduated in 89. So when I graduated, there was only a junior high pool. So our high school meets were at the junior high. So when we talk about that, that place is near and dear to my heart, but I understand complexities of the issue as well. Our high school, built in 92, so happy birthday to our high school pool. It's 30 years old. And 30 years ago, our school board made some tough decisions with a bond issue. And thankfully so, because of the hard work, dedication of people putting into that bond, not only building the pool, but other facilities, we built a pool that stood the test of time. With that said, it's been 30 years. As I talk to people constantly about pools in the area, pools, I visit many of them during my swim and water polo seasons. They say that a pool needs this kind of a repair about every 10 years, around 30 years. So it's well overdue for many of the changes that need to be made to the pool. I do welcome any questions you might have about things that are happening at the pool. And we did meet several times with the aquatic design group and asked a ton of great questions, some that I didn't even think of. But it was a good experience overall.

[10398] SPEAKER_21: Thank you.

[10401] Mark Triplett: Do we have any questions? Thank you, Mr. Crosby. And I just want to appreciate Mr. Crosby for all his dedication to aquatics at the memorial. It's really, really amazing. Super inspiring for all our young people. So now I believe we have our speaker.

[10420] Marie dela Cruz: Yes, thank you, Dr. Triplett, and thank you, Mr. Crosby. We have Mr. Dennis Berkshire from the Aquatic Design Group to present the report. They spent a lot of time reviewing and looking at both polls at the high school and at the junior high, talked to staff, and have prepared this report for the board to look at. This is information only and discussion this evening. But they did provide an assessment as well as some cost estimates on what it would cost, like for example, the junior high to eliminate the pool and replace it with asphalt or eliminate it and prepare it for any new construction and whether to modernize it or replace the whole thing. And then same thing at the high school, what it would cost to replace the pool or modernize it. Mr. Berkshire, Ms. Gutierrez, is he here?

[10489] SPEAKER_06: Yes, good evening. Hi, this is Dennis Berkshire. Can you hear me? Can you turn it up a little? Excellent. Well, thank you. It's an honor to be here with you all this evening. Thank you for having me. And thank you for the opportunity to work with the project managers and the district on this. A bit of a background. Aquatic Design Group, my firm, is an architectural engineering firm that specializes in recreational water public swimming pools. We were founded in 1984. We've completed more than 5,000 public sector projects. We're doing public swimming pool projects in 42 states and 24 countries. And we've done more than 1,000 public sector projects in California alone. So we were asked to come in and do what we call a needs assessment study. And as a needs assessment study, we define that as coming in to evaluate the pool, the facility, and how it complies with current code standards and requirements. And then we itemize anything that doesn't meet the current code standards. We also get into maintenance and operations issues where something might be at the end of its life cycle or is failing. And give you itemized estimates to try to bring those back onto line. And then also would address any potential enhancements. And all of this is with a basis of understanding as to the programs. How are the pools or facilities being used? What are they being used for so that we can evaluate the built environment to see how it can support programming? Now, with that, I can start with the junior high or the high school. Do you have a preference as to where we start?

[10611] Marie dela Cruz: You want to start with the junior high?

[10614] SPEAKER_06: OK. Sure. Thank you. So with the junior high, we were first approached about identifying what it would take to eliminate the pool and eliminate the district's need to continue to try to maintain the pool to a degree that it's not a public nuisance. That we don't have mosquito larvae or grain water someone might fall in or drown or things like that. So with that said, we went into the junior high took a look at the facility and came up with some estimates as to how we might eliminate or remove the pool from the campus. And in those options, we looked at two. And one is that the existing swimming pool is out near the turf and the field area for the school. So we looked at it and said, we can remove the fences, have the fences removed, the pool removed, the underground piping and building and all of that. and simply fill this back in and have it set up so that we could have turf or something like that over it, which would be the least expensive. And that's listed in the report as our basic eliminate the pool, which we had the $375,000 of estimated construction costs plus the 24% soft costs on top of that for that type of an endeavor. The second was that, and to explain, to try to keep costs down, the easiest way to eliminate a pool is to cut the bonding, the top two or three feet of the pool wall, poke holes into the bottom or drill holes into the bottom of the pool so water doesn't collect, and then fill that existing, the remaining part of the shell up, and then we can have dirt or asphalt for, you know, play courts or something like that over the top. And that was the approach for that first estimate. In the second estimate, we looked at it and said, what if you wanted to build something? What if you wanted to put a portable classroom or other types of structures over the top? Then DSA is not going to let us abandon the pool in place and say we could simply build right over it. So in that second estimate, the estimate of eliminate the pool for construction, you can see then the cost went up another $100,000 to fully remove that shell. and then bring dirt back in with what we call an engineered fill, meaning we're putting it in in six to 12 inch lifts and compacting it so it's at least 90% compacted so that it would be suitable in the Division of State Architect, DSA's eyes, to be able to build something back over the top. So those were the two pieces in the report in terms of if we were to just simply eliminate the pool And then at the same time, we were also asked, what if we wanted to bring this pool back online? And so with that, we went in and found that we had a pool that, while it's been maintained well, it's really at the end of its life cycle. The pool has water leaks such that a fill line is operating 24-7 to keep it filled with water so that we wouldn't have someone jumping the fence and falling into a big hole. And then all of the mechanical equipment itself is no longer going to be operable and or doesn't meet code. In addition, we looked at it and said the way the junior high pool was originally configured, it was configured with eyeball inlets where the return filtered water is brought in just below the tile line of the pool, the way a backyard residential pool would be done. In today's code standards for County Environmental Health Code and California Building Code, it says a pool that's wider than 40 feet, which this one is, must have floor inlets so it can distribute chlorinated water evenly throughout the entire pool. The current code also requires that we have stairs so that our students could get out, not just climbing a vertical ladder, but actual stairs to walk out that this pool doesn't have. The deck itself was originally built to meet code where it would slope away from the pool, but it was originally designed years ago where we would have a 3% to 5% slope to ensure there wasn't standing water or puddles for people to trip and fall in. Unfortunately, today though, we also have to account for ADA accessibility that says that deck cannot have a slope, a cross slope greater than 2%, And so while the original deck met the original health code for public swimming pools at the time, it's no longer compliant with ADA accessibility. So that means if we were going to deal with this pool, we're going to have to remove all of that deck, and it has to be replaced, regraded at a slope that would be compliant. The pool also happens to lack hose bibs around for hosing off the deck, as code currently requires. And the perimeter fence, which is a chain link fence, is a large chain link mesh that's considered climbable. So by today's standards for health code, a chain link fence has to measure not greater than an inch and three quarter on the diagonal. Fence people would normally call this a one inch mesh to consider it non-climbable. So out of all of those items then, that meant if we were going to bring this back into operation, we were looking at this saying, we're going to have to cut up the floor to get piping underneath the floor. We're going to have to re-plaster and tile the pool. The stairs get added, the ADA accessibility around the pool, the hose bibs, the fence. This was just over $700,000 for the pool itself. We then put code issues. Then we got into the maintenance operation of the underground pipes that were originally cast iron pipes. So we know that that's probably one of the significant, if not the significant, sources of the leaks. So the underground piping, now that the decks have been removed, get replaced. We can address any other water leaks if there's anything through the shell itself. The electrical gear is rusted out, so new electrical panels and transformer. The pool heater, the filtration, the circulation pumps and motors, that was another $368,000 of estimated itemized construction costs. Then we have to put in all of the soft costs on top of that, which is where we came out that the repair to bring this pool back into operation, we're somewhere in the neighborhood of about a $1.8 million project. And to give you a reference, we also then did an estimate and said, if you were building that same pool today, basically the same size and the same place, that's roughly about a $2.5 million estimated project cost to be able to do that to replace what was already there. Any questions or thoughts on the Junior High project?

[11076] Phuong Nguyen: Student board member.

[11082] Diego Torres: I just had a question to know how long it would take for all of this to happen and what will be taking place during the school year or during the summer time.

[11089] SPEAKER_06: Great, great question. So if we were going to do something like this, we would have to have plans and specifications put together. This would have to go through the Division of State Architects. So I would say you're probably three to four months to have all the plans and engineering put together. This would then get submitted to DSA for review and approval. That's probably another three months for that process. So now we're out six to seven months. Then the district could put this out to bid. That would take a couple of months to advertise, to bid, and award a contract. So now we're in the eight to nine months. And then the construction itself to demolish and repair all of these pieces is probably about a five to six month process. So all said then, we're somewhere around a year to a year and four months from the day someone said, let's go, to the time that we can have water in it saying, let's have a grand opening.

[11166] Phuong Nguyen: Member Young?

[11168] SPEAKER_27: That was my question. We're on the same wavelength.

[11171] SPEAKER_26: Thank you.

[11175] Bowen Zhang: No, I'm fine. I think somebody else just said something.

[11178] Phuong Nguyen: Yes. Member Marquez commented that her question was similar to student board member Torres. Do you have a comment, Member Zhang?

[11189] Bowen Zhang: No.

[11190] Phuong Nguyen: OK. Member Hill?

[11193] Aiden Hill: So the presenter still isn't going to cover the memorial, the high school, correct? This is just for junior high?

[11200] Phuong Nguyen: Yeah.

[11200] Aiden Hill: Yeah, I don't have any questions for the junior high.

[11203] Phuong Nguyen: Member Grindell?

[11204] Terrence Grindall: I have no questions for the junior high either. Middle school, I mean.

[11211] Phuong Nguyen: I do have one question. I was just wondering what would your estimated cost for routine maintenance like on an annual basis?

[11222] SPEAKER_06: So, the routine maintenance on an annual basis, that's great to understand on, you know, what are we signing up for once we bring this back in. You know, at the current size of the junior high pool, I would tell you that we probably have utility costs, anticipated utility costs, assuming that we're going to run it 11 to 12 months a year. that the utility costs are probably going to be around $50,000 to $60,000 a year for electricity, gas to heat it, water, and chemicals for the pool. In addition, we would normally, most school districts would say that a campus pool probably gets assigned four hours a day of labor from the maintenance operations pool. So we'd have to go back and figure out that labor cost as well. on top of the operations utility costs.

[11281] SPEAKER_21: Thank you.

[11285] Marie dela Cruz: You want to go ahead and present the high school pool?

[11291] SPEAKER_06: Sure, absolutely. Thank you. So with Newark High School, we found a pool that's roughly almost 30 years old. But we did find a pool that's been very well maintained. a pool that's heavily used by the district and students. And again, we took this same approach where we came in not to eliminate the pool, but to look at it from code compliance, from maintenance operations, and then opportunities for enhancement. And probably the largest issue that we found out there was the pool deck and the the gutter around the pool deck itself. One thing I want to point out, when I talk about something being code compliant, this could be a factor of where it met code at the time it was built, but codes have changed over 30 years, and all of a sudden now we find something that doesn't meet code. There are times when we might look at something in a pool repair or a renovation project and say, this doesn't meet code, but we could meet with the county environmental health to see if they would allow us to continue to grandfather. Or if based on what we're doing with the pool, they're going to say, we're not going to allow it to continue to grandfather under that previous approval. We want it brought up to current codes and standards. Also, as we pointed out in the report, that's something for the district and the district risk manager to look at and say, do we have to do code compliance issues? Should we do code compliance issues? And that's something that can be discussed at times. So with the Newark High School, we found that the deck is cracking, it's spalling, it's got differential movement that's becoming a slip, trip, and fall issue, and to the point that the health department has started making comments about it. They haven't come in and declared it a public nuisance to the point that they would say, we're going to shut the pool down. But it is something that's going to continue to degradate and eventually is going to get to the point where someone's going to say, you've got to fix this or you're going to have to close the pool. The perimeter gutter for the pool, the stones are going through the same types of problems. They're degradating. And unfortunately, the rim flow gutter stones that were used for that pool is from a company out of Newark that is no longer having the stones available. So we would look at, as part of that deck, to say we really do need to remove the stones and reconfigure the gutter itself to something that's modern with materials and suppliers that are readily available. In all of that work, that also means that the plaster and tile of the pool is going to be damaged when the pool is drained to do all this other work. So we called out the pool plaster and tile, which is showing signs of aging and wearing now, but not to the point where we said, oh, we have to re-plaster, re-tile this year. The other things we found were that the Autofill isn't working for the pool, which is a code requirement. And there's some toe ledges, plastic steps that were put into the pool that are breaking and creating sharp abrasive edges that would be a code compliant issue. And once again, that perimeter fence on portions of the pool, again, are the large chain link that don't meet code. So if we went through all of those items out of that code compliance, we're just over a million dollars of estimated construction hard costs, not all of the soft costs included, but just over a million dollars in those hard costs to bring those items all back into code compliance. Also from a maintenance and operations, we heard from staff that the existing heating system struggles to keep the pool at the desired temperature in the coldest months. So we had a line item to add an additional heater The pool covers that are often used are falling apart and need to be replaced. We had a number for that. There is a reported leak in the pool, so we had money to figure out where that leak is coming from, that that could be addressed. Currently the swimming pool is being treated with a tabletized form of chlorine, a calcium hypochlorite, which does work. However, it is the most expensive and the highest labor requirement of the chlorine options we can use. The advantage is it's easily deliverable. and comes in 50 or 100 pound pails, but it is by the very name calcium hypochlorite, a calcium-based chlorine, which means it wants to scale things up. And unless we drain pool water, which in today's world, we're not looking to drain pools just arbitrarily every year, that poses an operational maintenance. So we showed a number to convert that tabletized chlorine to a liquid chlorine that could get delivered by many bulk trucks. anchoring the acid tanks. There's some underwater pool lights that aren't working, so we called those to be replaced. And recess steps in the pool that are starting to rust and crack for those to be replaced. That was another $142,000 of items there. So with all those, we also had then looked at enhancements, talking with coaches and staff about shade over the bleachers. You know, when this pool was built 30 years ago, I don't think we were still using the Coppertone sunscreen, but we weren't nearly as sun-sensitive as everyone is today in trying to protect everyone and their skin from the sun. The addition of shade over the bleachers would be a great accoutrement to the project. The lighting, sports lighting for the pool doesn't meet CIF standards for a competitive high school pool, so we had an item as an enhancement to add that lighting, new starting blocks, new PA system, carbon dioxide, pH depressant for the pool water, which is kind of the current standard of how pool water's being treated. a new ADA lift that would not stick into the pool and be an obstruction. And again, the walkout stairs were all things that we said we could add. So in doing all of these things from the code compliance, the maintenance operations, and these potential enhancements, and then putting in a soft cost estimate for probable cost, You can see we were just between, just a fraction over $2.1 million in an estimated project cost to bring all of this into compliance with code and then enhancements to try to use it to do all of the programs that we wanted to be able to do. The one thing I would point out with the pool is that in its configuration, one thing it doesn't support is a floating bowl water polo a field of play. And so one of the things we'd have to look at is under the water polo program and where our students are competing in other schools, is that important to us? Because if that were something important, then we would also want to investigate, well, what would it be if we just removed this and replaced it with a slightly larger, different configuration of pool that could support a floating water polo better? And what would be the delta of that as compared to doing these repairs and everything to the existing pool? The thing to point out is that in these shells, we didn't drain the shell, and we didn't conduct destructive testing, meaning to core holes through the walls and the floors and send them to a lab to have them tested for the concrete strength And we didn't do that because we didn't see any justification or reason to do it. And that is, these pools were built and then immediately filled with water, which means the plaster and the concrete was hydrating underwater. And so historically, these types of concrete structures tend to get stronger over the years as they're hydrating underwater. We didn't see any cracks or differential movements to indicate any kind of a failure of the shell. Had we seen something like that, then we would have come in saying, well, we really need to drain the pool, core through this crack and understand, are there structural issues that are apparent with the pool? But we didn't see any of those. So that idea of destructive testing was not anything that we came to recommend. With that, I'd like to open it. Any questions or comments?

[11836] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Student board member, any questions or comments? Member Zhang, any comments or questions?

[11843] Bowen Zhang: Well, I mean, the comment I want to make is for something like this, regardless what kind of decision we're going to make, it's going to be, in a certain way, difficult and painful. But I think eventually, we'll need to make a decision rather than just kicking the can down the road. So that's my only comment.

[11863] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Member Zhang. Member Marquez?

[11868] SPEAKER_26: Thank you, Madam President. So the one item that I was thinking of immediately was the funding, right? How can we reach out? What are the grants available, both federal and state, as well as private donations? What can we do as a district to see how we can meet where we can even start the talk, start big, and then from there whittle our way down if we have to. getting the best that we can for so their students can both be competitive as athletes, as well as representing the school and enjoying the facility that they have on hand, and why not both? Think big and work from there.

[11905] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Member Hill?

[11908] Aiden Hill: Yeah, I want to thank the presenter for a very detailed study. I think, though, that the question is really kind of bigger here. So I think everybody knows that I teach business.

[11924] Aiden Hill: And part of the curriculum is I teach economics. And one of the things I teach my kids at standard economic theory is that human beings have infinite wants, but we have limited resources. And so at the end of the day, it's all about we have to make choices. We can't have everything. So we have to make what economists call trade-offs. And the thing that you don't choose, the thing that you give up, is called an opportunity cost. And I think the challenge here is we're kind of looking at this in isolation. And it's unfortunate that in 2019, we did a very comprehensive master facilities plan where we really had a lot of community engagement. And we said that we wanted to do an update to that this past year, but we really didn't get the community involved in this. And for me, like I don't particularly have a dog in this fight. I don't really have an opinion one way or the other, but I think that, I don't think that there's any rush on this. And I think that what we really ought to do is to engage the community and really get feedback because is this something that really the community wants and they really think that they're going to use it? And if so, we'll figure out how to get the money. But it's a substantial amount, right? We're talking about, you know, six, $7 million. But if the community says, you know, this isn't really our top priority, maybe there's other priorities, then that's sort of the guidance. But I really think that we ought to make this decision based on community input. And I think we have time to collect that versus to kind of, you know, do a shoot from the hip. So that's my comment. Thank you.

[12027] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Member Hill.

[12030] Terrence Grindall: Yes, echoing some of my fellow board members. I don't think we have a direct urgency here. I would like to see us start to think outside of the box on these kinds of questions. I'd like to know what the opportunities for a public-private partnership are. Because I can, despite the cost, I'm pretty certain that if a private entity that wanted to build a pool and have swim classes, like we have many such schools, that the cost would be much higher than the cost of replacing the junior high pool. So I really would like to see outside-of-the-box way of finding out what revenue sources we would have and how we can leverage those sources to use the thing. So one quick question I have of staff is, is there any use for the junior high school pool going on right now at all?

[12093] Marie dela Cruz: No, there is not.

[12095] Terrence Grindall: Thank you.

[12097] Mark Triplett: If I could just add, it's inoperable right now. But the Memorial High School pool, in addition to all of the student uses, there is outside uses. And I wonder if maybe Mr. Crosby wants to chime in here about some of the different groups that do use the Memorial High School pool.

[12118] SPEAKER_04: Currently, there are two club teams that are using, actually three club teams that are using off and on throughout the last several years. Newark Blue Fins, SOAC, Water Polo Club, as well as Cal Fin.

[12130] Terrence Grindall: Aquatics have all made use of the pool both in the wintertime as well as summer Based on where they can fit in with our existing programs Thank you So I'd like to in addition to the public interaction that member Hill was indicating I'd like to see some more analysis of what what we could potentially get for from the public sector private sector and you know the best way to do that is to actually send out an RFP and see if people are willing to, would an entity be willing to renovate the junior high school pool in exchange for use of the pool and you know maybe not. But maybe there's a way to cobble that together with grants or other things. So I really think that having swimming education as part of our community is very important. It's not just for health and and recreation, but it's also a safety issue. So I think it's something we want to try to dig into and really think outside of the box, look for grant opportunities, look for ways for the public sector, private sector to help and dig in deeper. That said, we ought to think about what the cost of maintaining the junior high school pool is versus the cost of putting asphalt over the top of it. If within two years we're, you know, breaking even on that regard, then, and also the risk management, you know, it's a fence that could be climbed. So I think some, in terms of the junior high school pool, we may want to think about if there's a, you know, what the actual costs, what the opportunity costs are of waiting, what it costs us to maintain, you know, to maintain the status quo versus, you know, asphalting that over, and maybe even with a more limited. a more limited treatment, the proposal looked at basically scraping the locker rooms and the bathrooms and so on and so forth. Maybe there's an even cheaper way of just getting the risk down and the maintenance cost down to zero. So those are my concerns. Those are my thoughts at this point. And I hope we can have further discussion about this and public input. And to, because this is an important asset for our community. One more thing. Sorry, I told you I was done, but I'm not. I'd be also interested in what the opportunities are in partnership with the city in terms of the indoor aquatic center that they have. Are there opportunities for our students to be able to use that in times that are not highly utilized by the city? Are there ways for us to, instead of Instead of making major investments, is there a way to transport our kids to get classes or have after-school classes? I don't really know what the level of utilization is with the city, but I think it's an opportunity to think about how we can work together.

[12335] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Member Grindel. I'm also in agreement with Member Grindel in terms of the of us being able to see if we can have a public-private partnership in possibly building a new pool at the high school. And also, one quick question, in the estimate for the new pool, are the, because you had mentioned water polo, like right now, the way that the pool is set up, it's not fit for a true water polo facility. competition. So does this estimate include if we were to rebuild the pool, will that include water polo?

[12384] SPEAKER_04: So currently, we go with a 25-yard course, which is wall-to-wall in our current field with wall cages. The suggestion to go to a floating goal system, which is, I guess, the state of the art for water polo, would be a 35-meter course. If you measure our pool the long ways, it measures 25 yards short, but it measures about 30, three yards long, which is about 15 feet short of a true water polo field. So in the suggestion that you see there with the $4.9 million cost, it would call for reconfiguring the pool to fit that larger or the deeper water for more of a field. We currently play water polo, and it's, according to CIF rules, it is acceptable for us. It's completely within the rules book. Okay, great. To play with a 25-yard course.

[12444] Phuong Nguyen: Great. Thank you so much, Coach. All right.

[12451] SPEAKER_21: Thank you.

[12453] Marie dela Cruz: Thank you, Mr. Berger.

[12462] Phuong Nguyen: Member Hill?

[12464] Aiden Hill: I hate to do this, but since we've had a really packed agenda, and it's 925.

[12471] Phuong Nguyen: Oh, would you like to take a recess?

[12474] Aiden Hill: Is that an option? Yes. So I wasn't thinking that. I mean, I'll leave that to everybody else. But I was wondering, I would like to recommend that we extend our time. And I know everybody's going to be mad, but I think we're going Let's err on the safe side. Could we say midnight and then focus on getting done earlier than that?

[12495] Phuong Nguyen: Yes. Motion made by Member Hill to extend the meeting till midnight. May I get a second? I'll second. Seconded by Member Grindel. We'll just do a roll call vote. Is that OK, Ms. Gutierrez? Student Board Member, you, of course, can leave.

[12513] Diego Torres: OK, yeah.

[12514] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Member Zhang? Member Marquez?

[12523] Chery Villa: Yes.

[12523] Phuong Nguyen: Member Hill? Yes. Member Grindel?

[12527] Terrence Grindall: Yes.

[12528] Phuong Nguyen: I'm also yes. Six ayes. Thank you. Do you need a recess? Okay, we'll take a five-minute recess. to preliminary 2021-22 CAS and CAS data overview. Dr. Triplett.

[13090] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Nguyen. So, Ms. Pierce-Davis is going to present on this item. I did want to just say a few words. One is that what you're going to see is preliminary results. So, we have not gotten our official results yet, and those will come in in November. But since we did have these preliminary results, we really wanted to make sure that we were sharing out what we do have. So they're very high level. And I also wanted to say, you know, going into the assessments at the end of last year, Given the pandemic, the amount of time students were at home, on screens, the amount of time that students were not learning the last two years, we really anticipated that we would see a significant drop in our academic scores from 2017-18 when it was at pre-pandemic levels. And instead, we see an overall improvement from 2017-18. And nonetheless, these results are the baseline. We haven't, students haven't done these assessments in multiple years. And we're really looking at this as the baseline for then how we move forward. And I'll also say that despite the growth from pre-pandemic levels in 2017-18, we know that these scores are insufficient. and that our kids are capable of much, much more and that it's really up to us to figure out how to support them. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Miss Pierce-Davis.

[13192] Nicole Pierce-Davis: Thank you, Dr. Triplett. Again, you sort of took the words right out of my, so I won't repeat them because I do know it is getting late. So, I do want to get us started though. We did, oftentimes in Ed Services, we look at formative assessment. It is one of our priority instructional areas, assessment for learning. We look at assessment for the purpose of creating groups, differentiating within the classroom, and supporting students in real time. Oftentimes, us in educational services, summative assessments feel a little bit behind the game, right? We use it to sort of demonstrate progress over time, but I really want to caution the public to look at one year to the next because that group of third graders is a whole different group of students, right? So, you can look at cohort data, you want to look over time, and those are all the things that we do do in educational services, again, with a focus on formative assessments. We did share this with our NEWMA, our management folks, our principals, our teachers and staff during a host of back to school events that we held here at the district office before school even started. And as Dr. Triplett asked, we asked for predictions before we shared the data. We said, what do you think? You're going to see and I want to be clear that our staff was kind of hard on themselves. They kind of said it was a challenging year. They were a little bit worried. And when they got a chance to see the data, there was sort of a release of breath, a kind of a little bit of like, okay, this is our new baseline. Now let's move, let's go. And I was really excited to kind of get that response from our teachers and staff who worked so hard, who worked so hard despite the challenges that we had coming back. from a year of distance learning. So I'm not going to go ahead. I'm not going to read out sort of exact numbers. The public and yourselves can absolutely read these basic bar graphs yourselves. As you can see, though, the light green there on the far left is from 2017-18, 2018-19. We did not administer the CASP in the two years during COVID. So that's 2021 and 1920. So you do not see those years represented there. So again, we caution you from looking at just one bar graph to the next. We want to look at trends over time when we're looking at some summative data. So this first graph you're looking at is preliminary data for mathematics. Third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and 11th grade years. Those are the years we test. The next one is in English language arts. Again, with the light blue being 2017-18, the two years missing from the two years we did not take the SBAC, and then the final one in 21 and 22. As you can see, we're doing a little bit better in ELA than we are in math. That is common in most schools across the district. We're seeing as we shift to Common Core standards that students are struggling more in math than they are in ELA. And the final one is our science test. You only see two years for this one because in 2017-18, it was a pilot year. So it did not count. We've only been giving this test now for two years. And so again, you're going to see quite a bit of fluctuations. You see a huge fluctuation there with our 12th grade in particular. And this really demonstrates summative data because they're not testing every year, right? They're testing fifth, and then when they test in eighth, they're actually testing for all of the material before that. So that's not just their eighth grade year, that's fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grade material. Same thing there for 11th grade, they're testing all of the material that came forth. So when we look at this data, we really do own it as a collective district. This is not a particular grade level or school, we all own this data. So what does this mean? What are the implications for ed services team? First, as we start to sort of desegregate the data, we want to look at which groups are performing, which groups aren't. We want to really analyze that data. We want to get to the drill down, which obviously we will not share with you all. That's a little too much in the weeds. As we really start to put faces to the data, we want to know exactly which students are performing so that we can, in our classrooms, differentiate as needed. So this will happen with different groups over time, whether it's ed services team, our principals, counselors, or teachers, and they'll use this for different things. So our counselors may use this to support students in choosing classes. Teachers may use this to differentiate within the classroom. And again, you're going to see this look different at your high school than you will at your elementary. We also want to strengthen the use of our formative assessment. This is an instructional priority. You can see there our umbrella. We've held the same umbrella now for a couple years. Our three instructional priorities really are assessment for learning, student engagement for rigorous standard-based instruction, as well as social-emotional learning and wellness. So when we talk about strengthening our formative assessment, we talk about how are we using those other data pieces, not the summative assessments that you get once a year, but the things that we have reported on in the years past, things like iReady data, Illuminate data, classroom-based assessments, And then coming together for our special education, we also have Imagine Learning and Read 180 as supports as well. So we use these sort of formative assessments to say, okay, this is right where we are. I believe Member Hill talked about zone of proximal development. How do we now move the student from where they are, challenge them just enough so that we can move them to the next bar? And that's when we start to see real progress happening. We're also considering, and actually some classrooms are already piloting IABs. This is an SBAC-like free assessment that you can find online. And it also serves, again, as a formative assessment leading up to our SBAC or our CAS. When we think about the math data in particular, we want to really focus in on our science and mathematics, but we want to do so in such a way that it's engaging for students, right? If we teach the test, we sort of lost the point of education. So, when we think about really engaging students in math, we are doing it in ways such as the STAR Initiative, which we talked about last year, really pushing computational thinking as early as TK. And so, we're developing out makerspaces in TK5, robotics in our middle school, junior high, and then a STAR Academy in our ninth and twelfth grades. So as we think about those skills at each level, how are we using that to sort of push our understanding and our conceptual understanding of mathematics? And we hope to see those results come through in our summative assessments. We also have TOSA and coordinator roles that support this work. Whether they're helping with the computational thinking or they're helping some of our other teachers. We also have our Bayside partnership, which you approved in the LCAP as part of our planning for this year. We also did change sort of assess and monitor. We want to look at that now, our 6-12 progression sequence. So last year, we really finalized a new mathematics sequence for sixth grade 6-12. We're hoping that that flexible opportunity for students to engage or disengage, depending on their levels in math, will help students understand that they can be successful in math, right? So that if for some, I can challenge myself and I can maybe pull back as a, depending on what's needed. So we do feel like that's a major component as well. In terms of our language development, we're really specifically looking at our bilingual students and our English learners. Although we want to support all of our students, by doing so with that lens, we're hoping that it actually pushes all of our students. So we talked a lot last year about SEAL. I'm not gonna go into that again, but that is something we presented on last year. And we're continuing to expand our SEAL as part of our LCAP plan. We also are planning some EL professional development this year for all staff. We've set up our EL liaisons at each site. Obviously, we have our dual language immersion expansion program. We know from data that students that are bilingual actually outperform English only and English learners. So again, we wanna continue to promote our dual language immersion program. And then we are bolstering our reclassification efforts as well. And we're hoping to have a report out of that reclassification data soon. as we start looking at that, and then obviously continuing to celebrate that success. So we do have a fair amount of implications for this year. We have some action statements. This is just a summary. Obviously, we're doing much, much more, but wanted to provide you, again, a very brief overview of some of the work that's happening in Ed Services.

[13722] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Ms. Nicole Pierce. Any comments or questions, student board member? Member Zhang?

[13733] Bowen Zhang: So I guess next month or maybe in October, once the results fully... Yeah, what I'm saying is next month or maybe I guess in October, once the results fully officially released, we're going to see the school by school result and four category breakdown of each grade assessment. You're going to have exceeded math mostly men and not meeting these four categories and by each school size and by each ethnicity and by each English learner and economic status, right?

[13771] Marie dela Cruz: We're going to see the full breakdown from the state, right?

[13783] SPEAKER_38: Members, if it's okay with you, you can type your question in And then I can read it out loud to the board. It seems like our microphone is a little bit low right now. It could be due to the fans. But if that's OK with you. And then we can go on to member Marquez for now.

[13801] Phuong Nguyen: Member Marquez.

[13802] SPEAKER_26: Thank you. I will be touching on some of the questions and information that I have when we go back to the items poll, but I did want to share that how important it is to also include the EOs or the ELOs, which are the English language only or EOs or English only for the mere fact that the tools and the assessments that are being implemented for the EL, the ELLs, okay, are just as significant if not more effective when it comes to measuring because they get to see the growth as well and because the amount effort and time and focus is placed on developing the students' linguistical skills, so using the same tools across the board I think is extremely beneficial.

[13844] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Member Marquez. Member Hill?

[13847] Aiden Hill: Thank you, Ms. Pierce. So prior to me making a career change into education, I spent 26 years in the business world, and much of it was on an international basis and working with very large companies in a very competitive environment. And one of the spurs for me to go into education is I saw the challenges that we as a country face these days. We're no longer the sole superpower in the world, and we, Now, here in Newark, our kids are not competing against kids in Fremont or kids in San Francisco or kids in Cupertino or L.A. or Newark. They're competing with the world. And this performance right now, does not bode well for the future. And we really need to take it seriously, and we should not be making excuses for it. So by comparison, I've started my teacher prep days where I teach, and my principal just gave a rundown of our test scores for the past year for our high school. For ELO, we had 87% needs to exceed state standards on CASP. And we had 77% meet or exceed on math. And an important thing to understand is that in the community that goes to my school, there is a very, very large immigrant population. Many of the parents are first generation immigrants. Even many of the kids actually were not born here. But I think that, and there's certainly socioeconomic factors that influence this, but I think one of the key things is from a cultural perspective, there's an expectation that it's a competitive world and that we need to be the best, we need to do our best. And in education these days, there's a lot of talk about equity, But real equity is about having high expectations for everybody. It's not lowering, it's not making excuses. And so we are where we are, but I really want to encourage us that there's nothing standing in the way for us to set high goals and to push and to try to be the best. It may take time, there may be setbacks, but we need to set those goals. We can't low ball because if we do, We're not going to be competitive. So I really think that this should be a wake-up call to all of us that we need to figure out how to solve this problem.

[14014] Phuong Nguyen: Member Grindel.

[14016] Terrence Grindall: Yes. So first, the good news. I'm really impressed with how little learning loss there was overall during the COVID time. The numbers are not, as Member Hill indicated, and other members as well, the numbers are not good. But just looking at the learning loss element, that means to me that our dedication to getting back to in-person learning as soon as it was safe to do so, and that teachers and flexibility and ability to work with online learning was able to mitigate some of that learning loss. And that is a very positive thing. That said, as member Hill.

[14067] Bowen Zhang: Can the speaker speak closer to the microphone? Because I think on the Zoom, even the translator agreed with me. We can't really hear what the members are saying. I can hear 60% of members without saying. I can hear 30% of members saying. Spanish translator is saying the same thing on the chat. They couldn't translate what you were saying because they couldn't hear you.

[14088] SPEAKER_38: Yes, board members, if it's okay with you, please speak into the mic. It is making it difficult for member Zhang and our translator to be able to provide adequate translation. Thank you, member Zhang.

[14103] Terrence Grindall: All right. So, as I was saying, The numbers of students, particularly in math and science, that are at grade level is very, very troubling. We should be very concerned. Now, we've made some major progress in our school district. Our budgets are in a much better place. Our board is functioning in a more professional way. We've transitioned to a middle school. We've made a lot of progress, but it is time it is time for us to really dedicate ourselves to improving the actual, the education. And I understand scores are used to help us teach children. It's not, that's not the goal, but it would just be, I'd be, I would really feel like I wasn't living up to my responsibility to point out that this level, 20% of mathematics 20% of mathematics. I'm sorry 20% of our of our 11th graders are meeting this 11th grade standard that is unacceptable. We need to really dedicate ourselves all the way from all the way from the board down to our maintenance workers. We need to dedicate ourselves to fix that.

[14201] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Thank you Member Grindel. Thank you.

[14208] SPEAKER_38: Members on this question yes please. Members on this question is once the state fully releases its results. Well we see the school breakdown economic status breakdown and ethnicity breakdown of the results.

[14227] Mark Triplett: Yeah I can answer that. So you have a state actually we're just being the state is going to go back to their. their platform from prior to COVID, and they provide all of those different breakdowns, everything from ethnicity, socioeconomic status, school, grade, classroom, gender, and all sorts of things.

[14253] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, thank you. So I just have two comments to make as I look into the report. I guess I'm speaking, you guys can hear me, right? So. If you can be a little bit louder. Yeah, I'm actually almost shouting. So the first comment I'm going to make is regarding the cohort. So if you look at the current 6th, 7th, 8th grade that tested this year, they're the same cohort three years ago as the 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade for year 2018 and 2019. I think when it comes to English language arts, They're actually holding up pretty well across the pandemic. But I think for math, it's really the troubling side started. It looks like we're undergoing some difficulty and struggle among our students that we need to emphasize more to get back to recover the learning loss in mathematics. That's my first comment. Second comment is, if you look at our current third grader, the youngest grade that's just tested right now, I guess they're entering their fourth grade. I mean, by most of the objective measure, it looks like this is a pretty talented cohort. And I look at the third grade result from our neighboring district, like New Haven, which is not released yet for this year. But even before the pandemic three years ago, our current third grader performed better than the third grader in New Haven Unified District, even before the pandemic. So our post-pandemic result for the third grader is better than their pre-pandemic results. That proves that we do have a very promising, rising elementary generation to come in New Orleans. So just hope that we can continue the good work so they don't regress to mediocrity come future years. So that's my two comments.

[14365] Mark Triplett: I believe, sorry, Member Zhen, it was difficult to hear, but I believe I appreciated the the comparison of cohort groups across years. And I think you bring up a really good point about the kind of analysis that we're going to need to do when you point out any given cohort in 2017-18 is then you can see their results in 2018-19 in the next grade level and start to compare what kind of growth you're actually seeing by cohort across grade levels. So, thank you.

[14401] Bowen Zhang: Yeah, like I said, if I follow up on my second comment about the third grader, the current third grader, like I said, it's not a straight apple to apple comparison, but this third grader in many ways is performing better than the equivalent third grader in our neighboring district in New Haven. And I think this is probably a first in recent decades. I guess we do have a historic opportunity to really move our performance past New Haven, which has allowed you to move to this district.

[14438] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Member Zhang. Lastly, I just wanted to put my two cents in. Just looking over the last several years, I feel like You know, everybody, including our, especially our students, and especially our teachers, you know, having to adjust to distance learning and then coming back into school and in-person learning, all these adjustments, all these you know, us having to adapt to new different environments and our students suffering and our teachers, myself personally too, our whole social emotional well-being has been very traumatizing. And to see the numbers, yes, of course, you know, our district over time hasn't had tremendous performance in terms of any of our, in terms of our test scores, but to see that, After picking up after two years, after the two years without testing and having those challenges and to see these numbers, I'm okay with seeing the progress and understanding that there's still definitely work to do. And I know that our teachers and our administrators are very committed to making those improvements and to making those adjustments and to really supporting our students and continuing to build on these high expectations that we're setting. But I just wanted to really emphasize and for us to be able to really look at that it's not always outcomes that are really important. It's really the effort that everybody puts in and the time and hard work and sometimes You know, even when you put in the effort, your outcomes may be a little short, but to recognize that the effort that has been put in by our teachers and our students to really, you know, come back and recover from the pandemic and to be in person, I think they did a tremendous job. So I would just like to thank our staff and our teachers and our students for really persevering and really working hard through these last two years. And no, I'm not making an excuse for them, because they are back in school, and they're excited this year, and they're willing to work hard. Right, Diego? Yeah. Thank you, student board member.

[14594] Diego Torres: Yes. Yeah, I would like to agree on that, because I know no one expected COVID to happen. And so when teachers went online, it was very difficult for them to adapt. And I think it's easy to say, like, the test scores didn't come out the way, but we went a whole year online, where I know a lot of students just slept through class, hardly attended, and then now we're asked to go back in school, take tests again, take essays upon essays. Like, I took a three-hour test for AP test, and I did not do that for so long. So I think it's very hard task that we ask our teachers to do, and I'm glad that they went through that. They changed all their lessons to online, learned how to do, and I know for some of the older generations, it was very difficult for them to manage online school because they didn't know even how to open like an email or something like that, like the simple, yeah, navigate it. I try to help my grandpa and I know it's very difficult and I know for some of the teachers it was a very difficult task so for them to go through that and then come back to in-person school it's a very difficult task and I'm glad that they did it because it really shows that they care for the students which I'm proud of because going to school every day is very difficult and for these teachers to do it is wonderful to adapt the way that they did and so I don't think we should just put all of our eggs into these one test scores, because I don't think they really show the true strength of the students, because we could all have a bad test day. We've all had those days where we just don't have a good test day. So I don't think it's fair to just say that these test scores are the all's means, like we did bad on this one test, so therefore it's a failure of our school. We should definitely show appreciation to our teachers and show that we care for them, and maybe come up with a better plan to support them. Thank you.

[14697] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you so much. Okay, with that, we will be moving on to item, to new business, item 15.1, Citizen Bond Oversight Committee. Dr. Triplett.

[14712] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Nguyen. And do we still have our... Oh, he's on Zoom. Okay, great. Before we get started, if I could just say, Student Board Member Torres, if you need to go home to get ready for school and everything, please do. Don't feel like you need to... And it's wonderful to have you with us. Thank you so much. Great. So it sounds like Mr. Waters is on Zoom. Is that correct? So I'll turn it over to Ms.dela Cruz in a moment. But this is the report of the Citizens Bond Oversight Committee for 2020-21. And just want to highlight, I think sometimes it's easy for folks to get a little confused, because this is a report not from last year, but the year prior. I just want to clarify that. Ms. Delacruz?

[14776] SPEAKER_13: Hello, are you able to hear me? Yes. Okay. I can't hear you all very well, so. Okay.

[14784] Marie dela Cruz: This is Mr. Waters. He is going to be presenting the report for the CBOC committee, which is part of the Measure G bond. And as Dr. Triplett said, this is for 2021. It's always like a year in arrears. So Mr. Waters, I'll go ahead and turn it over to you.

[14809] SPEAKER_13: Thank you. I was there in person and stayed almost two hours, and I realized that I didn't want to leave my son home alone any longer. So that's why I moved to the Zoom. So just as a quick and dirty version, I'm happy to report that based on the CBOC's review for this year, the fiscal year references 2020-2021, that the Newark Unified School District has been in compliance with the requirements of Article 13A, Section 1B, Subsection 3 of the California Constitution and finds that the funds that have been spent for the purposes specified in the ballot language. So that is a good thing. I do want to point out that some of the facts and findings that you will see, there were six items there. In particular, the one through five were concerns that the committee felt that they needed to reiterate that keep being repetitive from year after year. One being that the number of members that we've had on the CBOC has dwindled. And for this next year, we're down to two. And there is a minimum requirement. So I'm a little concerned in how we're going to be able to conduct business this next year. We put forward again the fact that the master plan that was funded by the bond to ADIS was not formally accepted by the board. and the fact that there is no clear deferred maintenance plan that the district is working from. The last two items, number six, will obviously be corrected since most of the money has been expended at this point for this next fiscal year. But number five is a major concern that was brought up before, and that's the electronic key system, in particular with the site visit for Kennedy. We discovered that the control system is through the facilities office rather than each school site. And if there is, God willing, God forbid that something happened, if there's an active shooter or intruder, the school site would have to communicate with the district office to then lock down the school or to open up certain rooms. And we think that that process needs to be reviewed to make sure that all of our kids are safe. The other item was Newark Junior High School, the Gates. They're at the front entrance from the parking lot. The buzzer is not ADA compliant. And one thing that wasn't mentioned here that we did bring up, too, was the intercom system is faulty, and it works sometimes, and it doesn't work. And so those are just six findings that we have. But again, as I reiterated, the CBOC did confirm that the district is in compliance with expending funds from the bond. So that is my report.

[14993] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you so much, Mr. Waters. Any comments from the board? Member Marquez?

[15000] SPEAKER_26: The only comment I have is whether or not we have updated status of the bond as far as its balance remaining, if that balance was met.

[15013] Phuong Nguyen: Ms. Delacruz?

[15014] Marie dela Cruz: So, as of now, all of the Measure G bond has been spent.

[15018] Julienne Sumodobila: Thank you.

[15019] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Member Hill?

[15023] Aiden Hill: No questions. Thank you, Mr. Waters.

[15025] Phuong Nguyen: Member Grindel?

[15027] Terrence Grindall: Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Waters and the rest of your committee. I appreciate this report.

[15033] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Mr. Waters. I do have a question for staff in regards to the finding with the electronic key system. Do we have a secondary door lock mechanism for the doors at Kennedy? Or is there ability for us to be able to put in a secondary door lock mechanism if in a case where a key card has been compromised?

[15061] Marie dela Cruz: Yes, so our current process right now, if there is a lost card or somebody is missing a card, if you report it immediately to our maintenance department, they can deactivate it at that time.

[15075] Phuong Nguyen: So in an emergency where there is an active shooter case, hopefully none of that will happen. But if the school has to go on lockdown, do we, because their campus doors are open, they're not a closed campus as like, you know, other school sites. So if those doors are locked, closed, but, you know, if the intruder comes upon a key card, is there a secondary door mechanism, a locked door mechanism that we can currently, or do we have one in place, or can we put one in place?

[15118] Mark Triplett: I don't think we have something like that in place. I think the, maybe the confusion there is that if there is a lost card or misplaced or stolen, then we keep it centralized in terms of deactivating that card for security purposes. So if there were, any time that there's a lost card, then MOT, The protocol is that they need to be notified immediately and then it's deactivated so that someone wouldn't be able to open the door. If all those security cards are, you know, it's like a regular, it's the responsibility of the owner to be keeping that on their person. So I think that the situation of an intruder somehow getting a card seems, I don't know, it seems less likely than a car being stolen and then the school not knowing or not being able to act on it. So that's the current thinking, but we're definitely open to continuing to explore the most, you know, all the best security measures. And in fact, we have been working with Newark Police Department. They're coming in this next month to do trainings with all of our schools and to review all of our safety protocols. So we can certainly bring it up to them and see if there's something that we're, you know, that we're not thinking about.

[15216] Phuong Nguyen: Okay. Thank you. Actually, I don't think you guys understood my question. My question, but basically what I'm saying is that I understand the protocol for misplaced or lost stolen cards. We deal with key cards all the time at my work, so I understand that. But when there's an active emergency or active shooter situation, since Kennedy's campus is open and just like if it was music and we had key cards there, if somebody went into the front office and, you know, demanded their key card to give them up or they get hurt, if they give it up, the safety of our kids in the classrooms, even though the doors are closed, they may not be safe at that point. So how do we disarm the key cards at that time? Is there a secondary door lock mechanism for those doors? So that's my question.

[15276] Marie dela Cruz: Yeah, I think I understand now. It's kind of like a lockdown system? Correct. So currently, no, we do not have that lockdown function. So it's like a- A fail-safe? It's a button. With what I've been familiar with, actually, Mission Valley ROP has one. It's located in the front. It's a button. If there's an intruder, somebody could push that button and it locks everything down. Okay. So I think that's what you're referring to as an alternate kind of a safety guard locking down. The standard practice is that all doors should be locked, but I see what you're saying. If somebody gets a hold of a key unknowingly and then they're entering, there needs to be some sort of a security kind of a measure so that it will lock the school down and nobody can go in or out. Correct. Thank you. We can look into that.

[15340] Phuong Nguyen: Member Ho?

[15342] Aiden Hill: Yeah, if I could build on your question. So that just prompts me to think, are we doing active shooter training for these schools? Yeah, that's what I was just saying. OK. All right. So because as you're pointing out, I mean, the first thing is you want to have the door locked and secure. But there's sort of all these levels of defense. Yeah. So, OK. Yeah.

[15366] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Thank you, Member Hill. And thank you, staff, for the, oh, thank you, Mr. Waters, for the report. On to item 15.2, increased daily rates for substitute teachers. Dr. Triplett.

[15382] Mark Triplett: Is there a action item for the, does there need to be a vote?

[15385] SPEAKER_38: Yeah, that needs to accept the report.

[15388] Phuong Nguyen: Oh, I'm sorry. We do have to accept the report. May I get a motion to accept the report? Thank you. Second. Motion made by Member Grindel, seconded by Member Marquez. Member Zhang has had to leave the meeting, so we will be vote.

[15417] SPEAKER_38: All votes are in. We have four yeas with member Zhang absent.

[15422] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Item 15.2, increase daily rates for substitute teachers. This is also an action item.

[15429] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Wendt. And if I may, I did want to just say one last appreciation for Chairperson Waters, all his time and energy, as well as the entire committee, including Ms. Parks, who's with us tonight. Thank you for all of your service on that committee. This next item, 15.2, so we've made a little bit of reference to this earlier. This is a recommendation to increase our substitute teacher rate based on wanting to make sure that we are competitive with surrounding districts and considering the real importance, always important to have our guest teachers, but now more than ever with teacher shortage, our guest teachers are so important for us. And so the proposal is to increase the rate to $220 per day and 250 per day for long-term positions. Sorry, did I take all your... Oh, you had it written out. I'm sorry, Ms. Ingham-Watters. Do you want to add anything?

[15495] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Any comments by the board or ready to make a motion?

[15498] SPEAKER_26: I'm ready. Make a motion for these teachers.

[15500] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Motion made by Member Marquez. May I get a second, Member Hill?

[15505] Aiden Hill: I second.

[15506] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Motion made by Member Marquez, seconded by Member Hill. Thank you.

[15524] SPEAKER_38: We have four ayes, with member Zhang not present.

[15528] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Okay, on to item 15.3, approval of addendum to assistant superintendent's employment agreement.

[15536] Mark Triplett: Dr. Shiplett. Thank you, President Nguyen. So this item is for the approval of addendum. It's part of the contract for the assistant superintendent, Ms. Pierce-Davis, that with a satisfactory or better evaluation that she will receive a two percent salary increase. So we're asking the board to to approve that that addendum. And if I if I may say so, I just want to commend Miss Pierce-Davis for her incredible leadership and her amazing work that she's done since she's been with us.

[15571] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you so much. Any comments from the board? Member Grindel is ready to speak.

[15579] Terrence Grindall: Yes, I want to thank Miss Pierce-Davis for all the work that you do and I move approval of this item.

[15585] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you.

[15587] SPEAKER_27: Second the motion.

[15588] Phuong Nguyen: Motion made by Member Grindel, seconded by Member Marquez.

[15607] SPEAKER_38: I have four yeas with members all not present.

[15610] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Thank you, Miss Pierce-Davis for your amazing hard work. We really appreciate you. On to item 15.4. Approval of Executive Cabinet's salary schedule. Dr. Striplett.

[15632] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Nguyen. So this, I just want to be clear, this is not to approve any salaries. This is merely in the interest of transparency that we will be publishing this on our website and just making it public so that the public is aware of the current Executive Cabinet salary schedule.

[15654] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. With that, may I get a motion to approve?

[15658] SPEAKER_27: Motion to approve.

[15660] Phuong Nguyen: Motion made by Member Marquez. May I get a second?

[15663] Terrence Grindall: I'll second.

[15664] Phuong Nguyen: Second by Member Grindel.

[15681] SPEAKER_38: All votes are in for Ye. Member Zhang, not present.

[15685] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. On to item 16.1, CSBA training. Dr. Striplett.

[15692] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Nguyen. So the board made a request to bring forth some information with regard to the different CSBA training options. And I'm actually going to turn it over to Ms. Gutierrez to speak a little. She did some investigation of the different options, and we have a recommendation that we wanted to offer. I don't believe there's any vote tonight, but we did want to just make a suggestion there at the end. So I'll turn it over to Ms. Gutierrez.

[15724] SPEAKER_38: The information that I'm going to be going over here is just an overview of the different training options available or classes available by CSBA. One of the first ones I'm going to start off with is orientation for new trustees. On here, I provided an overview of what the class is, the course is, and the fees. So this is one of the ones that is recommended that all board members take when they first become a board member, so orientation for new trustees. And registration fee is 425. The next one is the Brown Act. This is a class provided as well by CSBA and reviews all the ins and outs about the Brown Act and the requirements that are required for board members. This registration fee is $250. This is a master's in governance course. This is a certificate program where it consists of five courses. Each course is roughly about $3.99. A total for a board member who does take all five courses is $1,995. This course can be taken over multiple years or within a year. It really does depend on the availability of the board member. But it does provide all the overview topics that are needed for a board member. And at the end of the five courses, the board member is provided a certificate of master's in governance. The other training option is the annual education conference that is provided by CSBA every year. This is a conference that is provided provided in various cities. The last one I believe was in San Diego. Usually they tend to trade every other year, one in Northern California and one in Southern California. This is a three-day event that also includes Pre-conference classes such as orientation for board members and then three days of conference courses or classes with a magnitude of subjects for the board members to choose from. This other one is the board's president's workshop. And this is one that is recommended that the board members take prior to becoming a board president. It does go over all the ins and outs of what it would be required of a school board president. This is $425. And then the CSBA's online learning center. I have provided the catalog of courses that are provided. The registration for one person is $300. The registration for six people, which includes the board members and a superintendent, is $1,500. This learning center and the course catalog, as you can tell, has a variety of courses that the board members can take, but they do not duplicate what is provided in the Masters in Governance. These are different courses. And finally, one of the other training options that we do have for our board members is governance retreat. There are two options for this retreat, which is to have an attorney provide the training, or it can be provided by CSBA staff. We did notice that depending on the attorney that the district chooses, this is a little bit on the lower end, which does provide training for the full board and executive staff. And this is roughly 2,600, where it could go up depending on the attorney or as well as CSBA leadership. The other training that is provided by CSBA is the board self-evaluation. And we did this last year. This is pending for, sorry, two years ago, this is pending for last year. And this is also facilitated by CSBA. In this situation, we have provided the fee for an attorney, a district law firm to facilitate this board training. If we do go with this attorney, it would be 1040, $1,040, as compared to a CSBA, which would be higher. I believe they're roughly around $4,000. And finally, this is information that was provided here just to provide information for the board to provide some discussion. But as staff, we have reviewed the courses that are provided by CSBA. And the recommendation that we suggest is that we do include the online training center as a supplement to the master's in governance and board orientation. But if so, they would need a budget increase to the board's training budget.

[16034] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Ms. Gutierrez. With that, I'll open up for discussion. Member Marquez, any comments?

[16041] SPEAKER_26: Thank you for the presentation. I just wanted to say that I appreciate the opportunity of being able to take the mid-courses and the flexibility of the different days that we could choose from. And I found that the expertise that was offered in the actual MIG training was very effective because of the real life. And then with your manual and receiving the information ahead of time, you're able to go through it as if you were in a college course. So I just want to thank you for that opportunity.

[16069] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Member Marquez. Member Hill.

[16074] Aiden Hill: Thank you, Ms. Gutierrez, for putting this together, and thank you for doing the research. And since this was my request, I mean, one thing that I just want to kind of emphasize is, so in education, right, the current, you know, I guess, viewpoint on learning is, Again, I'm not going to get into all the methodology, but they talk about multiple means of engagement and multiple means of expression. And what that means is that students, we have a variety of students, they all learn differently, and we have to use different tools. And so long as they're able to get access to important, you know, whether it's you know, reading a book or whether it is listening to a book on tape or whether it's getting scaffolds to help with you, whatever it is that that individual student needs. These days we're trying to provide these as we, as we, you know, as educators. And I think that we should apply the same standard to the board and recognize that different people learn different ways. And so I think that we can definitely consider all of these, but I think that the board, you know, individuals should be making decisions about what's appropriate for them. And my request was, for me, I saw a lot of interesting... basically online videos and resources through the training center. And given that it's only costing $1,900, I was really hoping that we would make a decision on that today so that we could access that. And so that's really my request is that we vote on this today and then we can consider, you know, alternate additional training opportunities going forward. And again, I think it just depends on what people want to do. So that's my input.

[16186] Phuong Nguyen: Member Grindel.

[16188] Terrence Grindall: Yes, thank you very much for this information. I just want to clarify that the, and I agree with the staff recommendation, but I want to clarify just that I understand that the online learning center isn't the same curriculum as the more robust courses, that it can be useful and helpful and sort of continuing education sort of support for that, but there is a need for members to go through the more formalized process. Is that your understanding? Is that part of the staff's recommendation?

[16224] SPEAKER_38: That is correct.

[16227] Terrence Grindall: Great. Excuse me. I am supportive. I don't believe we can. This wasn't agendized that way. I don't believe we can we can adjust the budget at this point.

[16238] Aiden Hill: But I requested that last. I mean and that's that was the whole point of having this agenda item is so that we could discuss it and that we could vote. You know if we agreed we vote to approve it.

[16251] SPEAKER_38: So the process that is recommended here is that the board discuss how you guys wanted to proceed with instruction to staff. So in this situation, if you guys did go with the recommendation, then it would be agendized in the next board meeting with an action. But right now, it's just an information and discussion item.

[16275] Terrence Grindall: Madam President, can I ask if in our budget we have a line for board education and there isn't room in that line, you think, for funding this right now? There has been, because of COVID restrictions, I think there hasn't been as much utilization of traveling and so on and so forth. So is it not possible that there's enough that there's $1,500 in that line item anyway, and a budget change wouldn't be required?

[16313] SPEAKER_38: Budget currently has been encumbered for various trainings. So we do take into consideration new board members coming in, student board members, and what would be the required trainings for the year. So based on the year, we have budgeted a set amount that if the board in this situation would change the requirements of of the training in this situation requiring the orientation, a president's training. The current budget is not allocated to have everybody do everything. It's to spread out the training throughout the years. Could you make some changes to allow a $1,500 course? I would probably defer that question to Ms. Delacruz.

[16373] Terrence Grindall: Well, it may be faster to simply bring it back at the next meeting. But I agree with Member Hill. I was hoping that we would have the ability to act on this tonight. But I do see the way it's agendized. that we're gonna have to have that budget adjustment. And it's occurring to me that it's possible you'd need to have a text amendment to the budget anyway, even if there was enough money to make it clear that this was permitted. But maybe I'll just shut up and let Ms. dela Cruz inform me.

[16407] Marie dela Cruz: Yeah, so within the superintendent and the board budget, there may be line items that could be transferred within the program. But we would need some direction on which of these trainings are you interested in so that we could align it with that. Is it just the online? Are you wanting to do a couple of the other conferences so that we know?

[16431] Mark Triplett: If I can just jump in there as well. So, you know, given that we have There's things that we don't know about this year with board trainings. So depending on during the election what happens, that if there's people that do need the certain trainings because they're new or versus people that don't need them because they're not new, all of that. If there's a new president versus a old president. So all those things we try to do our very best based on sort of the possible scenarios. But essentially what we've budgeted for would not be sufficient to, wouldn't be sufficient for everybody to take all of those anyway. And that's why we're saying if the board wants to add this supplemental thing that it would require, you know, additional, additional resources, and that's what we're recommending that we do. But we just wanted to make sure that that's what the board was interested in.

[16494] Aiden Hill: And I think it's really important to understand the context here. I mean, quite frankly, we're an executive body, and we should be making big decisions. And I'm kind of amazed that we're We were spending so much time on a $1,900 expense. And I spoke with Dr. Tripa during my one-on-one this past Tuesday. And he told me that there were budget issues. And I asked him, well, how much is the budget? And he said, the budget for training for the board is $6,500.

[16523] Mark Triplett: Now, that seems to me to be a basic... Just to be clear, sorry to interrupt, but I said I wasn't sure of the budget, but I thought it was approximately 2065. And I said, please don't quote me because I'm not sure if that's the budget or not.

[16535] Aiden Hill: Okay. So, all right. So, I mean, I don't know, but all I'm saying is I looked at our warrants, which we're going to talk about shortly, and we've spent more this past month in catering on food than our entire budget for training. And so I really don't think we should be spending much more time on this. If we can spend $500,000 on the Star Academy, and we haven't even approved a formal budget there, and a variety of other things, I think that we can carve out, hey, let's err on the side of extreme and say, all right, we need to kick in another $30,000. We've just gotten a big windfall from the state. I don't think that there's any issue. But if the board feels that we need to have three or four meetings to analyze this level of spending to this detail, can go ahead and do it. But I don't think it's the best use of our time or the public's time.

[16589] SPEAKER_26: I have one last comment. Yes. So my concern is this. We have professional development for our staff. And I think as a board, we should uphold ourselves to professional development as well. I don't understand why we don't have masters in governance mandatory so that we can become educated and better represent our board in Newark Unified. It's one thing to have supplemental, but why isn't it mandated? That should be an automatic.

[16616] Aiden Hill: Yes. Because you can't make an elected official do that.

[16620] SPEAKER_26: To become trained?

[16623] Terrence Grindall: I'm sorry, wasn't there a board requested item to consider revising our governance handbook to do just that thing? Yes.

[16634] Aiden Hill: But you can't compel it. Only the voters can compel it.

[16642] Phuong Nguyen: I would like to take staff's recommendation in increasing the budget to accommodate the supplemental training, but with that in mind, I am in agreement with Member Marquez. I feel that It is very important for all of us to go through Masters in Governance training. That should be the priority of the board, to have that certification and have that understanding of how a collective board works. Going through it myself, I really valued it. So I would highly recommend that. I am in support of the supplemental online learning that Member Hill has suggested. But Member Hill, I would also recommend that you take Masters in Governance too. Thank you.

[16700] SPEAKER_38: Thank you. So at this point, this agenda item would be agenda. Is that a future agenda with an action for the board?

[16706] Phuong Nguyen: Yes, thank you.

[16709] Terrence Grindall: And probably on consent. Yes. OK, thank you.

[16716] Phuong Nguyen: OK, with that, we will be going on to item 16.2, public release of legal memos.

[16725] Mark Triplett: Thank you, President Nguyen. So as the board knows, this was a request from the board. These legal memos that were were shared with the board with regard to allegations about any sort of inappropriate contact or inappropriate conduct with independent contract agreements and conflict of interest claims. We did go back to the attorneys just to check in with them about this. And their recommendation is that if the board really wants to release information about their legal opinion, that they write a summary that then could be released to the public. So I just wanted to share that with the board, that that was what the attorneys are recommending.

[16779] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Dr. Strickland. Member Marquez, any comments?

[16784] SPEAKER_27: And then at this time, Member Hill.

[16787] Aiden Hill: Yeah, I have a comment. So in our June 7th meeting, I brought evidence to the board indicating that the district had awarded over $84,000 in no-bid vendor contracts to individuals whose only qualifications were they were Superintendent Triplett's personal friends. As I've indicated earlier, not only were these actions unethical and corrupt, but they violate numerous state statutes and associated case law. Given that we were limited on time, I did not cover all the evidence during the meeting, but left behind a written statement providing the supporting details. At that time, I also requested that we agendize a discussion of this issue in the next board meeting and that we bring in an independent state investigative agency, FICMAC, also known as Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, to assess the validity of my findings and provide recommendations to the board regarding the appropriate next steps. My request on June 7th was not seconded by anyone on the board. Dr. Triplett then stated, quote, I just want to be clear, there was not a majority interested in revisiting this, end quote. President Nguyen said no, and the board moved on to other business. Yet despite instructions from the board that they were not interested in revisiting this issue, Nor calling in a truly independent organization like FITMAC to investigate these illegal contracting practices, Dr. Triplett, on his own recognizance, decided to launch his own secret investigation into himself using district money during the month of July while the board was in recess. It also appears that he had problems finding just one law firm he could manipulate into doing his bidding. So instead, he hired two. each looking at separate issues in a very selective manner. And at the end of July, Superintendent Triplett then sent these findings in the form of two confidential memos to the board via email, hoping this self-investigation would exonerate him. But as anyone who follows government knows, agencies do not have the ability to investigate themselves, nor can we trust outside investigators who have been personally directed by those they are investigating. The public has a right to see these phony memos in their entirety and how their hard-earned tax dollars are being spent covering up additional waste, fraud, and abuse. Consequently, we need to authorize the release of these memos in totality immediately. More importantly, however, the public and the board have a right to a truly independent investigation into these corrupt contracting practices. So I'm again calling for the board to take this matter away from Superintendent Triplett and put it in the hands of FCMAC, who will be reporting directly to the board regarding their findings. If the board wants the public to have faith in our integrity, then we need to act with integrity and not become complicit in a cover-up.

[16977] Phuong Nguyen: Member Grindel?

[16981] Terrence Grindall: Again, we're hearing unsubstantiated, inflammatory statements that are not supported by facts. We had these issues come forward. Our legal advisors have done an analysis and determined that there is nothing, essentially nothing to them. I do want to take our lawyers' advice. If they believe that it needs to be, if they advise that it should be summarized, then I'm inclined to agree with them. It's at this board's peril when we ignore our legal advisors. But I otherwise have no problem with the documents put out. I do have a problem with continual hyperbole, calling things illegal, accusing, dealing with personal friends, which, by the way, I have a number of Facebook friends that are not exactly close friends. This characterization of our legal advisors who are professionally to investigate and provide the truth. Our legal advice to characterize this as a secret and self investigation is inflammatory and irresponsible.

[17061] Aiden Hill: We have never authorized that investigation.

[17065] Terrence Grindall: So if there's a motion to release, to direct that a summary, if there's a motion to direct that a summary be produced, I'd be supporting it, but I won't be making that motion.

[17078] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. And for the record, these are the views and opinions of Member Hill and not members of the board as a whole. I am in agreement with Member Grindell and what he had stated. These are definitely unfounded and inflammatory, and it's very unfortunate that Member Hill has to continue to make these comments. Thank you. On to item 17.1. We are moving on now.

[17111] Aiden Hill: Hold on. I made a motion. I said I'm moving that we release these memos in their entirety.

[17121] SPEAKER_38: Point of order. At this point, there is no motion on the agenda. Therefore, a motion cannot be made. I made it during my speech. Thank you. However, the board can direct the superintendent to act or bring this back with an action for an agenda item.

[17145] SPEAKER_26: Miss Gutierrez, correct me if I'm mistaken, that would take a majority as well. So if someone makes a request to act upon, then it would require the rest of us to be in majority. Thank you.

[17156] Diego Torres: Correct.

[17159] Aiden Hill: I've made the request.

[17161] Phuong Nguyen: I don't. There is no majority at this time. Thank you. On to item 17.1.

[17169] Mark Triplett: I'm sorry, President, just to be clear. So it sounds like there's no no majority with the specific request that Member Hill made in his statement. Correct. Is the board interested in us having attorneys bring back a summary? If so, I think we would bring that back as an agenda item to be approved. Is that correct, Ms. Gutierrez?

[17193] SPEAKER_38: We need majority direction as well for that.

[17200] Phuong Nguyen: I don't see a request. Oh, I'm wrong?

[17204] Terrence Grindall: No, you're not wrong. I won't, I don't support the release of these memos in their entirety as opposed to our council. I am fine with a summary, but I'm not going to, and I'll second a motion that is made, but I'm not going to be the lead motion on that.

[17223] Mark Triplett: This might be breaking protocol, but if I may, I just say, and I know I'm not a voting member here, I personally would be happy to have the attorneys release a summary.

[17235] Aiden Hill: I think that's completely inappropriate. And so again, Dr. Trippett, I don't think that this is your role to be coaching the board on our actions. In essence, number one, you are not authorized to conduct those investigations and spend that money. That is something that we the board.

[17252] Phuong Nguyen: Point of order. We have already moved on to item 17.1.

[17256] Aiden Hill: I think we just leave it as is. We're going to continue the cover up. But let's not put out some phony memos that have no details. It's useless for the public.

[17265] Phuong Nguyen: Again, for the record, these are the views and opinions of member Hill and not members of the board as a whole. Thank you. On to item 17.1. We are going to revisit.

[17276] SPEAKER_38: I can rephrase those for you, Mr. President.

[17282] Phuong Nguyen: Oh, yes. 12.2. 12.4. 12.4. 12.13, 12.14, 12.15, and 12.18. Member Hill, you have the floor with 12.2. Thank you.

[17303] Aiden Hill: Hold on a second, I got to find it. So, 12.2, revision of the reclassification criteria for English learners. So, I wrote this quickly, but could whoever is responsible for this, could you just give us kind of the reader's digest summary of what's going on here?

[17326] Mark Triplett: Yeah, Ms. Cairns is happy to explain what this is all about. Thank you, Ms. Cairns.

[17332] Abbey Keirns: Good evening, everyone. So there's just a couple of things to highlight. The previous version of the criteria was separated from Kinder to 6th, and then from 7th to 12th. And now with the change in the schools, it's now Kinder to 5th and 6th to 12th. The other adjustment is to include the alternative LPAC, which was last year just field tested by the state and is now an official part of the state's CASP system. So that language has been added to criteria one. And then the criteria for the addition in the sixth to 12th grade column, adds I-Ready scores for the 6th to 12th grade. And these I-Ready scores would only be given, or the I-Ready assessment would only be given to English learners in those grade levels. I can explain more about why, if that's helpful.

[17398] Aiden Hill: Could you do it briefly?

[17399] Abbey Keirns: Yes. The current setup with the testing basically made it impossible for anyone in ninth or 12th grade to be reclassified or meet any of criteria number four because they don't get SBAC and they don't take the PSAT. So we want to make sure they all have an opportunity to reclassify.

[17418] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you for the explanation. Thank you, Ms. Kearns. With that, are there any other comments or questions on item 12.2?

[17428] SPEAKER_26: non 12.2 but 12.4 is going to go right back to you so you want to stay there.

[17434] Phuong Nguyen: Okay with that can I get a motion to approve 12.2? I move to approve. Thank you Member Hill. Second. Motion made by Member Hill seconded by Member Marquez.

[17462] SPEAKER_38: I have four yeas with member Zhang not present.

[17466] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Item 12.4, member Marquez, you have the floor.

[17470] SPEAKER_26: Yes, thank you. I appreciate your time for staying later this evening. So on the report for the Kennedy School, I just over looking at information right when it comes to detail. This is on item 12.4 and I'm looking at page 14 of 64. So this is based on the school and student performance data.

[17494] SPEAKER_38: And member Marquez, I do apologize if you can put the microphone closer. Oh, of course.

[17498] SPEAKER_26: Thank you. Is that better? OK. All right. So number one, the one item that I did not see that I'm interested in, and this is just the teacher, right, looking at all the data, is initials. So we're talking about English learners in the RFEPs and the FEPs, right? But we don't have a marker for the initials. So how many students were initial? Right? So the first coming into our population at Kennedy. And this could go for any of the schools, just a matter of designating and identifying that we have initials coming into our school district. Right? And then we can also progressively over the years, like what we saw earlier, right, with English and math, and see their progression as they move forward if they stay enrolled. Secondly, information with regards to actual, the variety of languages spoken. It's just not Spanish and English, right? There's other, especially in our rich cultures that we have here in Newark, we have various representations, right? So we want to make sure that we identify and that we don't allow for who's reading this to assume, oh, it's only Spanish, right? And then when it comes to the decline of the REFEPs on point two on your conclusion lines, REFEP declined by 37% from 2018, it said, to 2020. In my mindset, right, and I mention this to my students, it's how you read or interpret the information. If it says something like RFEP declined by 37% or the decline was due to, right, or what we recognize is there was a decline in refeps in our students, well, it could be a positive. Because we had a huge group of students that were refebs, we didn't have the next cohort or group of students, they're only one year in maybe, or it's their second year versus third or fourth. So having that variance or having some type of glossary that describes that, would allow fellow board members and those who maybe do not have the background when it comes to reading this type of information say, oh, OK, I understand, versus saying, wow, it declined. And then they see a big number, and then their mindset takes them to the negative. So just looking at points that when we present this information, because it's so detailed, is taking away the assumption from the person who's reading the information. and being as clear as possible, because a lot of work goes into ELL, right? And I hate the term tracking, but just following that student and seeing their progress. So that fluctuation could be, yeah, we had a big group of students. They refactored, like at the high school last year, the celebration. Those are the things that we want to celebrate and add those in our conclusions. Kind of the icing on the cake. Yes, I agree. Thank you, Member Marquez. More informational than questions.

[17682] Mark Triplett: I appreciate that feedback.

[17685] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Member Marquez. Member Ho?

[17688] Aiden Hill: Thank you, Member Marquez. I agree with you. More data is always better.

[17693] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Member Grindel?

[17697] Terrence Grindall: I'll make a motion to approve it.

[17698] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. May I get a second, please? Second. Motion made by Member Grindel, seconded by Member Marquez. Please vote.

[17717] SPEAKER_38: I didn't get mine. All votes are in. Four yeas, Member Zhang not present.

[17736] Phuong Nguyen: Okay, on to item 12.13, Member Hill.

[17741] Aiden Hill: Sorry, in the interest of time, I mean, we could lump 12.13, 12.14, and 12.15 together, but if we want to do them separately, that's fine too. But I see that they're all but they're all amendments to contracts. And the question I have is the same for all of them, which is why are we having these amendments to contracts?

[17772] Mark Triplett: All right. Thank you. So for the first two, well, I guess it is a, we can speak each one individually. Is that the preference, Ms. Gutierrez?

[17784] SPEAKER_38: Because it's okay to have the discussion for all three. However, we'll have to take different votes individually.

[17791] Mark Triplett: Okay, great. So, we have our new special education director, Ms. Olivia Rangel, here. And she can speak on the 12.13 and 12.14. And that's it. 12.15, although I'm sure she could speak on it, is not actually a special education item.

[17816] Olivia Rangel: So, candidly, when we were working with these companies, we were trying to reduce costs, and thus we did offer for the 7.5 hours. Unfortunately, they balked back that we would lose the candidates if we did not offer the full eight hours. That being said, there was an error on the initial contract that still continued to say the 7.5. But in a good faith effort, they wanted us to be able to start these two employees because we didn't want to impact our NTA unit members. We needed to provide services. So they agreed to the 7.5 while we fixed the contract.

[17855] SPEAKER_30: Okay.

[17856] Aiden Hill: Thank you. And the reason I raise this is, so we had an audit committee meeting last week. And the auditors have been going through their process. And they haven't fully completed it, but they shared some preliminary findings. And one of the things that they found was that they did a sampling in procurement. How many times did we have situations where we had invoices come in that were dated before the purchase orders were in place? And obviously, you can't have a purchase order until you have a contract. although that has happened too. But it was a fairly high percentage. Again, this is a sample, but it's roughly 12%. And I can tell you, I've spent significant time in my career working in the procurative pay cycle. That's a very significant amount. And what it indicates right is that as you're going through purchasing that people are going and talking with vendors and authorizing agreements, and vendors are going out and doing work without the proper approvals in place, the proper contracts in place, and then the proper POs in place. And there's a reason why you actually have this process. Some of it is is financial control, some of it is to prevent fraud, but some of it is to prevent mistakes. And so the idea is that if you have multiple eyes looking at things, you iron out these things before you get to a point where you put something in place, and then you've got to go back and amend it because there weren't enough people looking at it. And one of the recommendations that came out of the audit committee, or these are from the auditors, was that they felt that there's a number of potential issues. Why? But one is that we're understaffed. We don't even have a purchasing person. We don't even have a buyer. And that would be a key role that a buyer would play, would be to actually, to make sure that approvals were coming into place first, but then also to actually take a look at these contracts, have a lot of discussions, make sure there's clarifications before something gets put into place. understand that there were negotiations going on, but again, we really shouldn't be finalizing something until, you know, the negotiations have concluded. And it would be different if there were just one, but since we're seeing multiple, it seems like it's a more systemic issue. And so I think it's something that we need to pay attention to, especially as we go into the next budget cycle and that we potentially talk about, you know, do we need to increase the budget for purchasing personnel, et cetera, so we can make sure that we have these kinds of checks and balances. So that's my comment on this.

[18029] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Member Hill. Member Grindel?

[18032] Terrence Grindall: Yeah. I want to applaud you for the flexibility and being able to bring the services to our students on board, even if it did require this amendment. I understand that you were trying to work within budgets and save money, but that you needed to sort of change that on the fly in order to bring these services to our students. So I applaud you for the flexibility. I'm ready to move to approve this.

[18058] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Motion made by Member Grindel. May I get a second, please?

[18063] SPEAKER_27: Second the motion.

[18064] Phuong Nguyen: Seconded by Member Marquez. Please vote on item 12.13. Okay. Does that also answer your question for item 12.14?

[18078] Aiden Hill: If it's the same situation, but again... Yes, it is. A key part of this is contract review. It's a very important step. And the fact that we're having these amendments means that there's a great deal.

[18095] SPEAKER_38: OK, great.

[18096] SPEAKER_21: Thank you.

[18096] SPEAKER_38: We have four ayes and member Zhang not present to vote.

[18101] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Item 12.14, are we ready to make a motion for approval? May I get a motion to approve?

[18110] SPEAKER_27: Motion to approve.

[18112] Phuong Nguyen: Motion made by member Marquez. May I get a second, please?

[18117] Terrence Grindall: I'll second.

[18118] Phuong Nguyen: Seconded by member Grindel. Please vote. Thank you.

[18132] SPEAKER_38: Four yeas, member Zong not present.

[18136] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. On to item 12.15, member Hill.

[18143] Aiden Hill: Again, it's the same question. So why the amendment?

[18148] Mark Triplett: Great. Ms. Delacruz can respond to this, but I will say we always have, for a variety of different reasons, amendments that come up for different contracts. It's just standard business. But I'll let Ms. Delacruz explain in this particular case why we're doing that.

[18170] Marie dela Cruz: This particular contract had an increase in the hourly rate from The last time we changed it was in 2021. So, the new hourly rate was increased to $56 per hour. So, consequently, the contract amount is also increasing.

[18193] Aiden Hill: In this situation, this is simply a contract that needs to be renewed? Yes. Right. So, it's gone a year and rates have changed? Yes. Okay. Thank you.

[18206] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. With that, may I get a motion to approve? I move to approve. Thank you, Member Hill. Motion made by Member Hill.

[18217] SPEAKER_27: Second.

[18218] Phuong Nguyen: Seconded by Member Marquez. Thank you, Ms. Rangel. Thank you. Thank you, Ms.dela Cruz. Thank you. Okay, last item. Sorry, president.

[18236] SPEAKER_38: Oh, sorry. We're still waiting. Oh, it doesn't come through. I opened it again, so I'm going to have to ask everybody to vote. My apologies.

[18250] Phuong Nguyen: Do I have to hit the change vote button?

[18260] SPEAKER_38: Remember, we're going to need you to vote again. My apologies. Okay. Four yeas. Member Hill. Member Zhang, not present.

[18272] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Item 12.18, Warrant Report. Member Hill.

[18278] Aiden Hill: Right, so this is the Warrant Report. So, Board, I'm requesting that we pull the current Warrants Report because I noticed another $11,000 payment being made to Jeffrey Vu. As I've discussed in prior board meetings, Mr. Vu is the person Superintendent Triplett has awarded numerous no-bid contracts for video production services. As I mentioned, Mr. Vu is a full-time employee at the Oakland Unified School District and is in violation of numerous contract requirements laid out in NUSD's Standard Independent Contractor Agreement. First, the preamble to our contract references government code 53060, which states that the district is authorized to, quote, contract for the furnishing of special services and advice in financial, economic, accounting, engineering, legal, and administrative matters with persons specially trained, experienced, and competent to perform such services, end quote. Mr. Vu has provided no such documentation that he is specially trained, experienced, and competent to be performing the services he has been contracted for. Secondly, under Section 9 of our contract, contractors are required to obtain and keep in force all licenses and permits necessary for the performance of the agreement. For the past two years, we have been contracting with Mr. Vu. He has never had the required business licenses, neither in his tax domicile of Oakland, nor here in Newark, in violation of every agreement we have entered into with him. Indeed, it seems that the only qualification Mr. Vu has had for this work is the fact that he is personal friends with Superintendent Triplett. This is not only unethical, but illegal. The board may be curious as to why I am pressing this issue. In the end, it comes down to guidance from California's Public Contracting Code, Section 100, which requires the board to implement procurement processes which, quote, eliminate favoritism, fraud, and corruption in the awarding of public contracts, end quote. The funds we oversee are public funds, and we have a duty to ensure that no conflicts of interest interfere with or undermine their proper disbursement. More importantly, however, establishing competitive bidding procedures with qualified vendors ensures that the public gets quality services at the best prices. Our recent middle school class scheduling debacle is an example of what happens when you don't bring in qualified vendors. As the board may recall, over the past two years, I have been requesting that Superintendent Triplett bring in a qualified project manager to manage the integration of the middle school and that we have a robust project plan in place to make sure we understand all things that need to be put in place and deadlines for completion. These requests, however, fell on deaf ears. Instead, Superintendent Triplett brought in another one of his personal friends, Dr. Jeanette Hernandez, to run this effort. And as was the case with Mr. Vu, Ms. Hernandez had no qualification to perform this work. The result, as we all know now, has been a botched opening day rollout. Class schedules and orientation for parents and students were haphazardly delivered at the 11th hour, and sometimes not at all. On the first day of school, some children sat on the floor without desks, and apparently some others wandered around schools trying to figure out where they should be. This is not acceptable. We need to stop this practice of hiring and paying unqualified vendors based on favoritism. In the end, the only people who are enriched are cronies with inside connections versus kids, parents, and the community who are paying for and receiving substandard services. For this reason, and given the clear violations of our independent contractor agreement, I am requesting that we do not award the 11-Q warrant payment to Mr. Vu, but approve the other warrants in the warrant report. And that's my motion.

[18533] Phuong Nguyen: He has a motion.

[18538] SPEAKER_38: President Nguyen, at this point, is there a second?

[18541] Phuong Nguyen: It does not seem so. Thank you. Member Grindel?

[18546] Terrence Grindall: I'll move approval of the warrant report.

[18550] Phuong Nguyen: May I get a second? Second. Motion made by Member Grindel, seconded by Member Marquez. How do you vote?

[18578] SPEAKER_38: Thank you. We have three yeas with one no from Member Hill and Member Zong absent.

[18584] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. On to item 18.1, Board of Education Recognitions and Announcements. Member Marquez.

[18594] SPEAKER_26: Thank you. One of the things that I wanted to go over is just some information that I had looked up and I was able to find it when it comes to the effectiveness of the board. So I'll just take a second. Effective board members participate in professional development and commit the time and the energy necessary to be informed and effective leaders. You should understand your school system's vision, the goals and the policies, its current successes, challenges and opportunities, and the educational environment for your community. So the one thing that I find is that, for the most part, what I've seen is that we've been on track. What my concern is, is that oftentimes we get, not oftentimes, but what is reoccurring is that we get caught up on something. And instead of following the same governance that governs us and tells us this is the next process or this is what we do, we continue to bring up the same items. And I say we, because we are a whole. So if I act a certain way, it's a reflection of my board. present myself in a certain way, it's also a reflection. So it all falls back to what it is that a board member and the board as a whole is responsible for. There are processes. So we could sit here and continually hear the same topic over and over and over again, but if the processes are not followed, we're beating a dead horse. So we as a board need to be professionally developed so that we understand the steps and the process that govern us so that we can get the questions, the things, the doubts, the information that we're looking for properly handled. And don't mistake our silence. That is key. And people in the community need to understand that. I can sit here, and if I wanted you to count the amount of blasphemous, because that is the correct terminology and description of some of the texts and information I receive. I don't own that. That's someone else's thoughts or misinformation, because they have bought into something that is clearly misinformed. But if I buy in, I own it, and I don't own it. Because why? As a professional board member, we continue to professionally develop ourselves and learn the processes and the steps that need to be taken to rectify or to clarify any questions that we may have. And I want to make that extremely clear to the public. Do not mistake the silence. Thank you for your time.

[18767] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Member Marquez. I really appreciate your statement tonight. Member Hill?

[18775] Aiden Hill: So I'm just a little bit confused. What agenda item are we on?

[18780] Phuong Nguyen: We're on item 18.1, Board of Education Recognition and Announcements.

[18786] Aiden Hill: All right. Yeah, so I want to just, OK, that's where we are. Thank you. I appreciate Member Marquez's input, and I believe in free speech, and I believe that we all should be sharing our opinions, and that's what makes our democracy beautiful. But the one thing where I think that there is some misconception is that our Board governance documents, the bylaws, education code, government code, et cetera, they all ultimately roll up to the state constitution and then the federal constitution. And we have a system which is basically an elected representative republic democracy. And the whole idea of this is that we get elected by our constituents to come forward and to advocate for their interests. And oftentimes we're elected by different people and that may have different perspectives. And again, we have to try to represent everybody. But there may be some things that we feel more strongly about. And that's just how our democracy works. And I think that we have to be comfortable with that. The only areas where you see unanimity in voting is usually in totalitarian states. So seeing dissent is actually a sign of a healthy democracy, not a troubled one. And so I think that we need to feel comfortable with the fact that we may have different points of view and that sometimes we're not going to be able to bridge those gaps. And I would like to remind the board to think about some of the key issues that we faced in our country. Most recently, Roe v. Wade, how long has our country been arguing about this? And quite frankly, even after the Supreme Court has recently made a decision on that, there continues to be arguments. And there should be, right? Because, you know, again, that's what that's what our democracy is about. And at the end of the day, we vote for what we want to have happen. So I think we just need to feel comfortable with that. But other than that, we're recognitions. And so I guess that was my announcement. And thank you, Member Marquez, for raising this. I think it's an important topic. And then again, I just want to recognize everybody who's making back to school happen. And thank you. And we're off to the races. Thank you.

[18961] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Member Hill. Member Grindel?

[18965] Terrence Grindall: Yes, I want to welcome all the students and teachers and other staff and administrators back to school. It's exciting. It was really captured by the blacklight ceremony that I had the pleasure of attending. So much energy, so much positivity. The principal riding out on a skateboard was a highlight. So just really excited by that. The, you know, the middle school transition, you know, I'm troubled to hear that there were some problems with seating and schedules. But given the enormity of the task and how quickly those issues were addressed, I do appreciate that. And I want to thank you for addressing those things and making that middle school transition happen. Again, very exciting time, very exciting new school year. I could really sense it in those kids. And I'm looking forward to being able to go to more and more events and visit more and more schools. And again, thanks to staff, teachers, students for bringing this new year to fruition.

[19046] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Member Grindel. I just want to echo my fellow board members' comments, all three of them, and also wanted to really recognize our IT staff for all their hard work and dedication to our students and our staff in general. I know that they've had some major projects, along with getting our students ready for the school year with schedules and parent view and student view, but they had a major phone system upgrade also, and that is no feat, and I was very amazed that they were able to do it in such a short time, considering I know how long these IT projects can span out, and for them to be able to get the district up and running, even with some initial problems with the start of the school, and we'd like to apologize to our community for not planning it out a little bit better, but sometimes these situations, you know, they just happen and we have to roll with it and adjust as they come along. And I think our staff did a wonderful job trying to mitigate some of those issues. So I really wanted to commend our staff and to commend our IT staff for doing all they can, especially with them being shorthanded, and so I just really wanted to appreciate Mr. Paul Rose and his staff, so thank you. And welcome back, everyone. Really excited. The high school was amazing, full of energy. The new administrative staff there is really embracing our students and, you know, and really, you can feel a really great energy there. And at the junior high, yes, there are some mishaps, but I think for us to come in and think that there's not gonna be any issues with the start of the new school year, with the transition, I think that is a mistake in itself for parents to have really high expectations, thinking that everything's gonna go off. To go off without any issues, but of course, that's what we want, but we also have to anticipate that there's going to be some challenges. And yes, the first few days of the new school year, all the parents want to be able to drop off their kids. And so there's going to be traffic. There's going to be those kinds of things. And as parents, we should anticipate those kinds of things and that we should anticipate that there's going to be issues, but also have faith in our staff that they will be able to mitigate and problem solve on the fly. And I know that our staff has done that. And I really wanted to appreciate them for doing that and for stepping up and also our teachers who are filling in for classrooms that don't have permanent teachers yet. We appreciate you so much for doing that because you care about the students and you want to make sure that their lesson plans are going to continue without any issues. So thank you so much for that. With that, we'll go on to 18.2, Board of Education Committee Reports. Are there any report out from Mission ROP?

[19258] Terrence Grindall: They've been in their recess, so no.

[19259] Phuong Nguyen: Okay. And is there anything from SELPA? None. Anything from EBIC?

[19269] Marie dela Cruz: None.

[19270] Phuong Nguyen: Audit Committee? Member Hill?

[19273] Aiden Hill: Yes, so we had an audit committee meeting last week. We had the auditor come in, and they shared some preliminary findings. And I apologize, I forgot Ms. Dela Cruz to ask you, but they did actually provide a document that was their preliminary findings, and obviously they're going to be providing. But if we could actually post that document out on the audit part of the website, since it is a public document, that would be great if people are interested in looking at it. But basically, they had preliminary findings. They're going to, I think that they're targeting trying to have the audit complete in the September, October timeframe. But then they get, they're doing audits for everybody, so they're not going to be providing really the final version until, December, you know, or January. But we are going to be having another Audit Committee meeting in October. The dates are on the website. And we have been having a discussion around internal controls and what needs to be put in place. So that will be on the next agenda. Thank you.

[19339] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Member Hill. And there is no report out on the Bond Parcel Tax Committee. And Member Grindell, can you please update us on the Liaison Committee?

[19350] Terrence Grindall: It'd be my pleasure. We had a very productive meeting with two city council members and two board members and staff from both agencies. We had a very, I thought, a very inspiring presentation from Joe Stoner, who's the library manager, really seems to understand the connection, the potential connection and the connections between libraries and education and really thrilled that we'll be able to continue to work together to have the library help to support what we're doing and for us to support what they're doing. In addition, we got a report on the police officer at the high school, the SRO. And the SRO that's been a long time at the high school has retired. The city is looking to fill the position in the interim. They're increasing their patrols. And we were happy to hear that they were aware of the issue and that they were on it. And so very encouraging meeting. And we hope to have more and more discussion with the city about how the city and the district and the library and Mission ROP and Ohlone College can all work together to improve the educational experience for our children and adults. So, thanks.

[19452] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Member Grindel. We move on to item 18.3, Board of Education requests. Member Marquez, do you have any requests at this time? None at this time. Member Hill?

[19465] Aiden Hill: Yes, so my only request is related to our new agenda format. And it's just ironic that in this particular agenda item, 18.3, under the background, it says here, the following derives directly from the board approved governance team handbook. Authorities 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. So, you know, carrying along the lines of what Member Marquez was stating earlier. And by the way, this language here that's coming from the governance handbook, also you can find the same thing in the bylaws and you can find the same thing in Ed Code. And so, again, we as a body make a decision. So if we're going to decide to change the format of the agenda, we need to agendize that, we need to have a discussion as a board, and we need to vote on that as a board. And I think that there's pros and cons to what we're doing, but again, I think that we need to follow the process. And I did like the recommendation that I heard from public comment about, I do agree that having everybody, all the public comments kind of front loaded, and then we, like two hours later, we're on this topic where we hear something that's hard to remember, and I think that that's important. And so I think it would be great to provide flexibility, I think we should talk about it, where people can make their comment at that time, or maybe if they want to wait and make it at the time that we're talking about it. But regardless, my request is that we bring this back, our agenda format, formally, we discuss it as a board, we agree with what we think the format should be, and then we vote to adopt. So that's my request. And I would like to remind my fellow board members that if we say that we're about process and we say that all actions come from the board and that we don't want to violate the process, then I would be expecting to see lots of hands raising seconding my motion because otherwise we're not following our own rules.

[19614] Terrence Grindall: My reading of the Governor's handbook puts this setting of the agenda under the direction of the President. Who was elected by by the membership to take on those kind of administrative functions?

[19627] Aiden Hill: That's that's my reading of it That's not what the governance handbook says that's not what the bylaws say and that's not what it could say again as you indicated before this there's

[19637] Terrence Grindall: And people can have differing opinions. That's my opinion. I believe, reading the government's handbook, that it's the president's prerogative to organize the agenda. And so that's why I'm not seconding. That's why I'm not raising.

[19651] Aiden Hill: Could you read that section in the government's handbook so we're all on the same page?

[19654] Terrence Grindall: No, I will not do that.

[19658] Aiden Hill: OK, so this is just speculation.

[19661] Terrence Grindall: That is incorrect. It is my interpretation, but I'm not going to be lectured by you about this.

[19666] Aiden Hill: Please, please provide us the facts.

[19670] Terrence Grindall: I decline.

[19672] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. We do not have a majority on this request, so on to Member Crandell. Do you have a request?

[19682] Terrence Grindall: I do. Understanding the superintendent's desire to go through a long process and community process with the renaming of the junior high school to a middle school, I'm uncomfortable with stumbling over that for the next year. So I would like for the board to look into changing the name simply from Newark Middle School to, I'm sorry, Newark Junior High School to Newark Middle School and that can be the name while this longer process goes on because I really find it awkward that we're going to be stumbling over this misnamed school. Frankly, I'd like to celebrate the change. I think it's going to be good for our students. I've already seen the innovations that were brought forward. I see the excitement and I'd like to celebrate it and really put that to rest. So obviously I need the support from other members to get that brought forward.

[19751] SPEAKER_26: Mr. Grinnell, if I understand correctly, so the change that you're requesting is that it states that it's Newark Middle School while we do the research if we want to change to a different name, correct?

[19764] SPEAKER_27: You have my second.

[19767] Phuong Nguyen: Did you want to clarify?

[19768] Mark Triplett: Just to be clear, this is your proposing, are you requesting that we bring this to the board for a vote?

[19774] Terrence Grindall: Correct. It's a board member request to bring it to the board to provide further direction.

[19786] Phuong Nguyen: OK. We have three. Thank you. We have four.

[19794] Terrence Grindall: That's it.

[19795] Phuong Nguyen: OK. I do not have any requests at this time, other than for our staff to have a wonderful weekend coming up. On to 19.1, superintendent concluding comments, updates, and future agenda items.

[19815] Mark Triplett: Thank you so much, President Nguyen. First of all, I want to, I was remiss earlier During the donations report, I neglected to thank and call out Supervisor Richard Valle, who was responsible with the County Board of Supervisors for this incredibly generous donation of $20,000 to Coyote Hills for Science Camp last year. So I wanted to just really applaud that, thank that. It meant so much to the Coyote Hills community, so thank you. I also just want to conclude with a few comments about the middle school. One, despite some comments previously, I just want to celebrate how successful the rollout of the middle school was from day one of school. It was neither botched nor debacle. It was wonderful. And I was there, I had the privilege Being there, I wanted to make sure that it really went well. And, of course, any time you transform a school and turn and add 350 students, there are going to be things that don't go exactly right on day one. And, of course, we had that. But I do want to be a little bit clearer. We were never short on chairs. So, there's plenty of chairs at the middle school. We never didn't have enough chairs. There was a situation in a class where because of confusion around which class students were supposed to be in, I think about four or five students went to the wrong class. And I think there was a little bit of a mishap on how it was reading in their Synergy master schedules. And so while they were in that class, there was not enough seats. And I personally, when I saw that in there, I went to the custodian and said, hey, can we get some more chairs in here? He said, no problem. He was about to go get all the chairs. And I went back to that room and the students were already, yeah, they'd already figured it out. They were already off to the next room. So this notion of not enough chairs, I just want to just be clear about that. I will say, that the amount of work on the part of that middle school team, I just, I really, I'm troubled by how we're hearing the maligning of all of their hard work. The counselors and the assistant principals and the principal, the incredible hours, overtime, unpaid overtime, where they were figuring out the master schedule. They were printing out, redoing schedules for students. It's what actually happens every year. And then in a year of transition, for them to be putting in all those hours to make sure that a really innovative schedule was able to be put into place is so fantastic. And it wasn't botched, and it was not a debacle. I just, I was left with, when I first got there on the first day of school, watching all those sixth graders enter the school, nervous, not super freaked out, but a little nervous. You could just see it in their eyes, asking for help. And so many people there guiding them, including our eighth graders who stepped up. They had these little badges on and they were guiding the kids. It was beautiful. And at the end of the day, I remember I was like, OK, I want to see how parents and kids find each other and interact. And lots of parents there, anxious kids coming out. And I just asked almost everyone I could, how was your day? And they were so excited and joyful. And they're sixth graders, so they're also like, good. It was good. But it was just a wonderful day. And so, I just want to applaud. That's not something I did. That's something that an incredible team did. And so, I really appreciate it. And I'm excited about this transition. I really think that it is going to be an incredible thing for our young people. So, thank you.

[20091] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you, Dr. Triplett. With that, may I get a motion to adjourn the meeting?

[20099] SPEAKER_27: Motion adjourned at 1132.

[20100] Phuong Nguyen: Thank you. Member Marquez, may I get a second?

[20105] Terrence Grindall: I'll second.

[20106] Phuong Nguyen: Motion made by Member Marquez, seconded by Member Grindel. Please vote. Meeting adjourned at 1132. Thanks, everybody.

1. CALL TO ORDER

Meeting Practices and Information

Type 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.

2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA

Approval of the Agenda

Type Action

Recommended The recommendation is 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 The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the agenda for this meeting, except for 12.3.

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

Roll Call

Type Procedural TRUSTEES:

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

STUDENT BOARD MEMBER:

Member Estaina Resendiz Ortiz

3. CLOSED SESSION

Public Comment on Closed Session 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. 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 legal firm Dannis, Woliver, Kelley, Attorneys at Law 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, Discussion, Procedural PURPOSE:

Information may be provided by the agency negotiator, the Executive Director of Human Resources, and the Superintendent. Assistance from legal firm Dannis, Woliver, Kelley, Attorneys at Law may be provided.

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

CONFERENCE WITH LABOR NEGOTIATORS (Gov. Code, � 54957.6, subd. (a)): Employee Group - NEWMA, Contracted Management, and Unrepresented Employee(s) [Assistant Superintendent]

Type Action, Discussion, Procedural PURPOSE:

Information may be provided by the agency negotiator, the Executive Director of Human Resources, and the Superintendent. Assistance from legal firm Dannis, Woliver, Kelley: Attorneys at Law may be provided.

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

Information may be provided by the agency designated representative: Superintendent

Unrepresented employee(s): Assistant Superintendent of Education Services

RATIFICATION AND APPROVAL OF TK ENROLLMENT: (Ed. Code, �� 48000 & 35146)

Type Action, Discussion, Information PURPOSE:

The Board will review student information for approval of newly registered Transitional Kindergarten students who shall reach age 5 after February 2, 2023. This process will continue on a case by case basis for students who register within the extended window.

BACKGROUND:

Education Code sections 48000 and 48010, and District Administrative Regulation ("AR") 5111, requires the District to enroll any otherwise eligible student who turns age five or six on or before September 1 of a given school year into kindergarten or first grade, as applicable. In addition, if a student turns age five between September 2 and December 2 of a school year, then that student shall be offered an opportunity to enroll in TK. The District may additionally admit younger children to TK "on a case by case basis".

Education Code section 4800 specifically provides as follows: (c)(1)(C) [A] child who will have their fifth birthday between September 2 and February 2 shall be admitted to a transitional kindergarten program maintained by the school district or charter school. (c)(2)(A) In any school year, a school district ... may, at any time during a school year, admit a child to a transitional kindergarten program who will have their fifth birthday after the date specified for the applicable year ... but during that same school year, with the approval of the parent or guardian, subject to the following conditions: (i) The governing board of the school district or the governing body of the charter school determines that the admittance is in the best interests of the child. (ii) The parent or guardian is given information regarding the advantages and disadvantages and any other explanatory information about the effect of this early admittance.

Consistent with the Education Code, the District's AR 5111 provides: On a case-by-case basis, a child who will turn five years old in a given school year may be enrolled in kindergarten or TK at any time during that school year with the approval of the child's parent/guardian, provided that: (Education Code 48000)

1. The parent/guardian is given information regarding the advantages and disadvantages and any other explanatory information about the effect of this early admittance.
2. The Governing Board determines that admittance is in the best interest of the child.

Beginning in the 2022-2023 school year, the birthday cut off will be extended to February 2, and will continue being extended by two months each school year, until the 2025-2026 school year, when any student with a birthday after September 1 must be admitted to TK

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

Type Action, Discussion, Procedural PURPOSE:

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

CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL � EXISTING LITIGATION (Gov. Code, � 54956.9, subd. (d)(1))

Type Action, Information, Procedural PURPOSE:

To discuss the following case(s):

Bretz vs Newark Unified School District Keenan Claim # 569505

Burkhead vs Newark Unified School District Keenan Claim # 609447

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.

4. 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.

5. RECONVENE TO OPEN SESSION

Pledge of Allegiance

Type Procedural PURPOSE:

The Governance Team will recite the Pledge of Allegiance

6. STUDENT REPORT

Student Reports from Newark Junior High School, Alternative Education, and Newark Memorial High School

Type Information PURPOSE:

At regular Board of Education meetings, a spokesperson of each secondary school may make a brief presentation.

Discussion items may include updates, celebrations, and upcoming events.

1. Newark Memorial High School - Diego Torres

7. RECOGNITIONS AND CELEBRATIONS

Staff Spotlight

Type Information PURPOSE:

To recognize the wonderful accomplishments of our NUSD Team.

BACKGROUND:

The presentation will be provided by the Superintendent.

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 COMMENT ON AGENDA ITEMS

Public Comment on Agenda Items

Type

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

10. 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: Maria Huffer

3. NEWMA: Vicenta Ditto

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

Absolute Date Aug 18, 2022

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

PURPOSE:

The purpose is for the Board of Education to ratify the Personnel Report as presented.

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 08-18-2022.pdf (360 KB)

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

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

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:

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

Revision of the Reclassification Criteria for English Learners

Type Action

Fiscal Impact Yes

Budgeted Yes

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the revision to NUSD Action Reclassification criteria for K-12th graders. PURPOSE:

This item is being presented to the Board for approval of the NUSD Reclassification Criteria for the current school year (2022- 23).

BACKGROUND:

Reclassification is the process by which a student is reclassified from English Learner (EL) to fluent English proficient (RFEP). Per California Education Code (EC) Section 313 and Title 5 California Code of Regulations (5 CCR) section 11303, LEAs must use the following four criteria to establish their own reclassification policies: 1. Assessment of English language proficiency (ELP), using an objective assessment instrument, including, but not limited to, the state test of English Language Performance Assessment of California (ELPAC) or Alternative ELPAC; 2. Teacher evaluation, including, but not limited to, a review of the student's curriculum mastery; 3. Parent opinion and consultation; and 4. Comparison of student performance in basic skills against an empirically established range of performance in basic skills of English proficient students of the same age.

For criteria 1 above, the statewide standardized ELP is an Overall Performance Level (PL) 4 in the ELPAC. LEAs are to use the Overall PL 4 to determine whether a student has met that criteria. The other three criteria are for the LEAs to determine and establish local measurements. NUSD's approved reclassification criteria align with the state's first three criteria. For criteria 4, NUSD determined to use the following, which were revised in 2/18/21 due to interruptions in state testing:

Elementary (K-5th): District Benchmark Assessment in ELA: I-Ready score On or Above grade level, or SBAC ELA score within 5% of English Proficient average

Secondary (6th - 12th): CAASPP: Most recent SBAC ELA score within 5% of English Proficient average, or PSAT Scores in Illuminate in Yellow or Green (only applies to 10th and 11th graders) District Benchmark Assessment in ELA: I-Ready score On or Above grade level

We proposed the following change to the last criteria to ensure that all students have access to an empirical assessment at every grade level. The PSAT and SBAC assessments are not given at each grade level and the grade level writing assessments cannot be validated empirically.

Additionally we would like to add the following language to support the reclassification of students that are dual identified as English Learner and requiring special education services.

RECLASSIFICATION OF ENGLISH LEARNERS WITH DISABILITIES

Considering all guidelines, criteria, resources, and the individual needs of each dual-identified English learner, the IEP team will determine the following:

    Appropriate measures of English language proficiency (ELP)
    Appropriate measures of performance in basic skills
    Minimum levels of proficiency that would be equivalent to an English proficient peer with similar disabilities in accordance
    with district reclassification policies

In accordance with federal and state law, the IEP team may address the individual needs of each English learner with a disability using multiple criteria in concert with district reclassification criteria:

 1. Assessment of English language proficiency (ELP), using an objective assessment instrument, including, but not limited to,
    the state test of English Language Performance Assessment of California (ELPAC) or Alternative ELPAC;
 2. Teacher evaluation, including, but not limited to, the student's classroom performance information based on his or her IEP
    goals for academics and ELD
 3. Parent opinion and consultation; and
 4. Comparison of student performance in basic skills
        a. The IEP team should specify in the student's IEP an assessment of basic skills to meet the guidelines for
           reclassification (e.g., the California Alternate Assessment)
        b. Other assessments may be considered that are valid and reliable and designed to compare basic skills of dual-
           identified ELs to native speakers of English with similar disability

Using this information the IEP team, including the parent and EL Site Contact, will decide whether or not to reclassify a student with disabilities. Other criteria may be used to supplement the four required criteria listed above to ensure the most appropriate decision is made for each student.

File Attachments Reclassification Criteria 2022-23 Proposal.pdf (218 KB)

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the revision to NUSD Reclassification criteria for K-12th graders.

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

Newark Jr. High 2022-2023 School Site Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA)

Type Action

Fiscal Impact Yes

Budgeted Yes

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the Newark Jr. High 2022-2023 Action School Plan for Student Achievement. PURPOSE:

This 2022-23 School Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA) is coming forward for Board approval. The SPSA serves as the organizer for an individual school's improvement process. The plan is developed with a deep understanding of the root causes of student academic challenges and identifies and implements research-based instructional strategies to raise the achievement of students who are not yet proficient by state standards.

The plan: Builds on a premise that students are capable of learning with effective instruction. Includes school goals aligned with activities and goals included in the LCAP to maximize school reform efforts. Is based on verifiable data analysis. Focuses on student achievement and academic interventions. Implements high leverage school improvement actions. Directs resources where they will most directly improve student academic achievement. Ensures all resources are aligned to serve identified students' needs. Uses research-based strategies. Implements strategic coordination of resources.

BACKGROUND:

The School Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA) is a plan of action to improve student academic performance by coordinating all educational services and resources. Pursuant to California Education Code Section 64001, schools that receive state and federal funds are required to consolidate all school plans into an SPSA.

It is the goal of the Newark Unified School District (NUSD) to provide equitable opportunities to each of our students and school sites. Each site-specific SPSA and the district-wide Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) is a roadmap created in partnership with all district stakeholders to achieve our vision and mission:

NUSD Vision: The Newark Unified School District, in partnership with the community, will be a model of world-class education that develops the unique abilities of every student.

NUSD Mission: The Newark Unified School District will inspire and educate all students to achieve their full potential and be responsible, respectful, and productive citizens.

Each school site aligns its SPSA action items to our 3 LCAP goals:

    Goal 1: Promote a culture of instructional excellence and continuous improvement that results in students achieving their
    full potential and graduating college and career-ready.
    Goal 2: Promote a culture of community and partnership among the parents, students, staff, and NUSD community as a
    whole that results in an increase in parent involvement, student participation, and a positive school climate.
    Goal 3: Establish exceptional learning conditions and an environment that promotes trust, respect, and acceptance, and
    results in students and families feeling safe, welcomed, and valued members of NUSD.

Data Analysis: School-level goals are informed by data. Each goal area includes data analysis on current measures across student subgroups, and on outcome measures to determine progress. Local and State data are used to develop each goal.

Evaluating Progress: The SSC agendized a meeting to review Dashboard data and measure the impact of actions on student achievement. The principal and staff evaluate academic progress a minimum of three times a year through an academic Professional Learning Community (PLC) model with benchmark data.

Role of School Advisory Committees: California Education Code Section 64001 requires that the School Site Council (SSC) develop the SPSA. The SSC's responsibilities include approving the plan, recommending it to the local governing board for approval, monitoring its implementation, and evaluating the effectiveness of the plan at least annually. The SSC must seek the review, advice, and certification of applicable advisory committees, including the English Learner Advisory Committee (ELAC).

File Attachments 2022_School_Plan_for_Student_Achievement_Newark_Junior_High_School_20220814.pdf (837 KB)

John F. Kennedy Elementary 2022-2023 School Site Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA)

Type Action

Fiscal Impact Yes

Budgeted Yes

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the John F. Kennedy Elementary Action 2022-2023 School Plan for Student Achievement. PURPOSE:

This 2022-23 School Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA) is coming forward for Board approval. The SPSA serves as the organizer for an individual school's improvement process. The plan is developed with a deep understanding of the root causes of student academic challenges and identifies and implements research-based instructional strategies to raise the achievement of students who are not yet proficient by state standards. The plan: Builds on a premise that students are capable of learning with effective instruction. Includes school goals aligned with activities and goals included in the LCAP to maximize school reform efforts. Is based on verifiable data analysis. Focuses on student achievement and academic interventions. Implements high leverage school improvement actions. Directs resources where they will most directly improve student academic achievement. Ensures all resources are aligned to serve identified students' needs. Uses research-based strategies. Implements strategic coordination of resources.

BACKGROUND:

The School Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA) is a plan of action to improve student academic performance by coordinating all educational services and resources. Pursuant to California Education Code Section 64001, schools that receive state and federal funds are required to consolidate all school plans into an SPSA.

It is the goal of the Newark Unified School District (NUSD) to provide equitable opportunities to each of our students and school sites. Each site-specific SPSA and the district-wide Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) is a roadmap created in partnership with all district stakeholders to achieve our vision and mission:

NUSD Vision: The Newark Unified School District, in partnership with the community, will be a model of world-class education that develops the unique abilities of every student.

NUSD Mission: The Newark Unified School District will inspire and educate all students to achieve their full potential and be responsible, respectful, and productive citizens.

Each school site aligns its SPSA action items to our 3 LCAP goals:

    Goal 1: Promote a culture of instructional excellence and continuous improvement that results in students achieving their
    full potential and graduating college and career-ready.
    Goal 2: Promote a culture of community and partnership among the parents, students, staff, and NUSD community as a
    whole that results in an increase in parent involvement, student participation, and a positive school climate.
    Goal 3: Establish exceptional learning conditions and an environment that promotes trust, respect, and acceptance, and
    results in students and families feeling safe, welcomed, and valued members of NUSD.

Data Analysis: School-level goals are informed by data. Each goal area includes data analysis on current measures across student subgroups, and on outcome measures to determine progress. Local and State data are used to develop each goal.

Evaluating Progress: The SSC agendized a meeting to review Dashboard data and measure the impact of actions on student achievement. The principal and staff evaluate academic progress a minimum of three times a year through an academic Professional Learning Community (PLC) model with benchmark data.

Role of School Advisory Committees: California Education Code Section 64001 requires that the School Site Council (SSC) develop the SPSA. The SSC's responsibilities include approving the plan, recommending it to the local governing board for approval, monitoring its implementation, and evaluating the effectiveness of the plan at least annually. The SSC must seek the review, advice, and certification of applicable advisory committees, including the English Learner Advisory Committee (ELAC).

File Attachments 2022_School_Plan_for_Student_Achievement_John_F._Kennedy_Elementary_School_20220814.pdf (681 KB)

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the John F. Kennedy Elementary 2022-2023 School Plan for Student Achievement.

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

Contract with Solstice Residential Treatment Center (RTC)

Type Action

Absolute Date Aug 18, 2022

Fiscal Impact Yes

Dollar Amount $218,875.96

Budgeted Yes

Budget Source Resource 6500 - Special Education, Resource 6546 - Special Education Mental Health

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the contract and individual Action service agreement with Solstice Residential Treatment Center (RTC). PURPOSE:

To ratify the contract and the individual service agreement with Solstice Residential Treatment Center (RTC) for residential treatment services for the 2022-2023 school year.

BACKGROUND:

Newark Unified School District requires a highly intensive individualized residential program in order to meet this student's unique needs per the consented Individualized Education Program (IEP).

As part of the U.S. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the least restrictive environment is identified as one of the six (6) principles that govern the education of students with disabilities and other special needs. By law, schools are required to provide a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment that is appropriate to the individual student's needs.

To determine what an appropriate setting is for a student, an IEP (Individualized Education Program) team reviews the student's needs and interests. The types of educational settings for students with disabilities will vary. With the differences in needs and interests among students with disabilities, there is no single definition of what an LRE will be for all students.

File Attachments Solstice Contract 22-23.pdf (447 KB) Solstice ISA 23-10a redacted.pdf (279 KB)

Contract with Ed Sped Solutions for Special Education Services

Type Action

Absolute Date Aug 18, 2022

Fiscal Impact Yes

Dollar Amount $1,849,598.00

Budgeted Yes

Budget Source Resource 6500 - Special Education, Resource 6546 - Special Education Mental Health

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the contract with Ed Sped Action Solutions. PURPOSE:

To ratify the contract with Ed Sped Solutions for Special Education services for the 2022-2023 school year in the amount of $1,849,598.00

BACKGROUND:

The District contracts with nonpublic agencies when necessary to provide related services to students with Individual Education Programs (IEPs). Ed Sped Solutions will provide the following personnel to support related services to Students With Disabilities (SWDs) needed for unfilled positions for the 2022-2023 school year including the Extended School Year (ESY):

6 FTE Behavioral Aides 7.5 FTE Instructional Aides 1 FTE Assessment Teacher 0.5 FTE Case Manager 3 FTE Mental Health Counselors Psychologist (60 Psycho-Educational Assessments as needed)

File Attachments Ed Sped Contract 22-23.pdf (447 KB)

Contract with Ascend Rehab Services Inc. for Special Education Services

Type Action

Absolute Date Aug 18, 2022

Fiscal Impact Yes

Dollar Amount $1,809,322.00

Budgeted Yes

Budget Source Resource 6500 - Special Education

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the contract with Ascend Rehab Action Services Inc. PURPOSE:

To ratify the contract with Ascend Rehab Service Inc. for Special Education services for the 2022-2023 school year in the amount of $1,809,322.00

BACKGROUND:

The District contracts with nonpublic agencies when necessary to provide related services to students with Individual Education Programs (IEPs). Ascend Rehab Services, Inc. will provide the following personnel to support related services to Students With Disabilities (SWDs) needed for unfilled positions for the 2022-2023 school year including the Extended School Year (ESY):

8.4 FTE Speech Therapists 0.6 FTE Occupational Therapists 3.75 FTE Instructional Aides 1 FTE Special Education Teacher

File Attachments ASCEND_NUSD Contract 22-23.pdf (490 KB)

Contract with AchieveKids, Non-Public School (NPS)

Type Action

Absolute Date Aug 18, 2022

Fiscal Impact Yes

Dollar Amount $105,380.00

Budgeted Yes

Budget Source Resource 6500 - Special Education

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the contract and the individual Action service agreement with AchieveKids. PURPOSE:

To ratify the contract and the individual service agreement with AchieveKids for day treatment services for the 2022-2023 school year.

BACKGROUND:

NUSD student's least restrictive environment per IDEA was determined to be placed in a Non-Public School (NPS) setting due to a significant disability, behavioral or programmatic need that has impacted their current ability to be successful within the general education setting.

File Attachments AchieveKids Contract 22-23.pdf (447 KB) AchieveKids ISA 23-06a redacted.pdf (287 KB)

Contract with Anova Center for Education, Non-Public School (NPS)

Type Action

Absolute Date Aug 18, 2022

Fiscal Impact Yes

Dollar Amount $60,690.00

Budgeted Yes

Budget Source Resource 6500 - Special Education

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the contract and the individual Action service agreement with Anova Center for Education. PURPOSE:

To ratify the contract and the individual service agreement with Anova Center for Education for day treatment services for the 2022-2023 school year.

BACKGROUND:

NUSD student's least restrictive environment per IDEA was determined to be placed in a Non-Public School (NPS) setting due to a significant disability, behavioral or programmatic need that has impacted their current ability to be successful within the general education setting.

File Attachments Anova Contract 22-23.pdf (447 KB) Anova ISA 23-05a redacted.pdf (258 KB)

Contract with Seneca, Non-Public School (NPS)

Type Action

Absolute Date Aug 18, 2022

Fiscal Impact Yes

Dollar Amount $103,790.00

Budgeted Yes

Budget Source Resource 6500 - Special Education, Resource 6546 - Special Education Mental Health

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the contract and the individual Action service agreement with Seneca Family of Agencies. PURPOSE:

To ratify the contract and the individual service agreement with Seneca Family of Agencies for day treatment services for the 2022-2023 school year.

BACKGROUND:

NUSD student's least restrictive environment per IDEA was determined to be placed in a Non-Public School (NPS) setting due to a significant disability, behavioral or programmatic need that has impacted their current ability to be successful within the general education setting.

File Attachments Seneca Contract 22-23.pdf (586 KB) Seneca ISA 23-03a redacted.pdf (236 KB)

Contract with Welldom Inc. for Special Education Services

Type Action

Absolute Date Aug 18, 2022

Fiscal Impact Yes

Dollar Amount $109,688.00

Budgeted Yes

Budget Source Resource 6500 - Special Education

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the contract with Welldom Inc. Action PURPOSE:

To ratify the contract with Welldom Inc. for physical therapy services and assessments for the 2022-2023 school year in the amount of $109,688.00.

BACKGROUND:

Welldom Inc. provides physical therapy services and assessments to ensure compliant practices in supporting students' Individual Education Programs (IEPs). Physical therapy services and assessments are legally mandated per the Individual Disability Education Act (IDEA). Without Welldom Inc.'s services, Newark Unified School District would be out of compliance.

File Attachments Welldom Inc. Contract 22-23.pdf (483 KB)

Contract with Cinnamon Hills Youth Crisis Center

Type Action

Absolute Date Aug 18, 2022

Fiscal Impact Yes

Dollar Amount $204,474.44

Budgeted Yes

Budget Source Resource 6500 - Special Education, Resource 6546 - Special Education Mental Health

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the contract and the individual Action service agreement with Cinnamon Hills Youth Crisis Center. PURPOSE:

To ratify the contract and the individual service agreement with Cinnamon Hills Youth Crisis Center for residential treatment services for the 2022-2023 school year.

BACKGROUND:

Newark Unified School District requires a highly intensive individualized residential program in order to meet this student's unique needs per the consented Individualized Education Program (IEP).

As part of the U.S. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the least restrictive environment is identified as one of the six (6) principles that govern the education of students with disabilities and other special needs. By law, schools are required to provide a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment that is appropriate to the individual student's needs.

To determine what an appropriate setting is for a student, an IEP (Individualized Education Program) team reviews the student's needs and interests. The types of educational settings for students with disabilities will vary. With the differences in needs and interests among students with disabilities, there is no single definition of what an LRE will be for all students.

File Attachments Cinnamon Hills Youth Crisis Center Contract 22-23.pdf (623 KB) Cinnamon Hills ISA 22-07a redacted.pdf (220 KB)

Amendment to the contract with Ed Theory

Type Action

Absolute Date Aug 18, 2022

Fiscal Impact Yes

Dollar Amount $5,490.00

Budgeted Yes

Budget Source Resource 6500 - Special Education

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the amendment to the contract Action with Ed Theory. PURPOSE:

To increase the daily work hours and the total compensation to the contract with Ed Theory, previously approved by the Board on August 4, 2022.

BACKGROUND:

This is an amendment to the contract with Ed Theory. The original contract is attached. The amendment to the contract increases the daily work hours from 7.5 to 8 hours per day, increasing the total compensation amount for the 2022-2023 school year to $131,040.00.

File Attachments Ed Theory_NUSD Contract 22-23 fully executed.pdf (487 KB) Ed Theory Contract Amendment 8.18.22.pdf (31 KB)

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the amendment to the contract with Ed Theory.

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

Amendment to the contract with Shalom Staffing

Type Action

Absolute Date Aug 18, 2022

Fiscal Impact Yes

Dollar Amount $5,185.00

Budgeted Yes

Budget Source Resource 6500 - Special Education

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the amendment to the contract Action with Shalom Staffing.

PURPOSE:

To increase the daily work hours and the total compensation to the contract with Shalom Staffing, previously approved by the Board on August 4, 2022.

BACKGROUND:

This is an amendment to the contract with Shalom Staffing. The original contract is attached. The amendment to the contract increases the daily work hours from 7.5 to 8 hours per day, increasing the total compensation amount for the 2022-2023 school year to $123,760.00.

File Attachments Shalom Staffing_NUSD Contract 22-23 fully executed.pdf (292 KB) Shalom Staffing Contract Amendment 8.18.22.pdf (54 KB)

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the amendment to the contract with Shalom Staffing.

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

Amendment to 2022-23 MOU with Mark Bishop, Mental Health Clinician

Type Action

Fiscal Impact Yes

Dollar Amount $12,400.00

Budgeted Yes

Budget Source General Fund

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the amendment to the 2022-23 Action Memorandum of Understanding with Mark Bishop, Mental Health Clinician for Newark Memorial High School. PURPOSE:

To amend the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Mark Bishop, Mental Health Clinician.

BACKGROUND:

This is an amendment to the MOU for Mental Health Clinician, Mark Bishop, at Newark Memorial High School. The original MOU was approved by the Board on August 4, 2022. The amendment increases the total compensation and hourly rate. The hourly rate has not changed since 2020-21. It also updates the contact information for Newark Memorial High School.

File Attachments Mark Bishop-NUSD Agreement 2022-23_fully executed.pdf (406 KB)

Mark Bishop_Amendment 1.pdf (18 KB)

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the amendment to the 2022-23 Memorandum of Understanding with Mark Bishop, Mental Health Clinician for Newark Memorial High School.

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

Resolution 2022.23.04 Declaring Surplus Equipment

Type Action

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves Resolution 2022.23.04 - Action Declaring Surplus Equipment. PURPOSE:

The purpose of this item is to obtain Board approval of Resolution 2022.23.04 - Declaring Surplus Equipment, which lists items to be declared as surplus equipment as recommended.

BACKGROUND:

Surplus materials will be disposed of per Board Policy and Administrative Regulation 3270 Sale And Disposal Of Books, Equipment And Supplies. Education Code, Section 17546 states that if the Governing Board, by a unanimous vote of those members present, finds that the property, whether one or more items, does not exceed the value of $2,500, it may be sold at private sale without advertising, by a District employee empowered for that purpose by the Board; the property may be donated to a charitable organization, or it may be disposed of in a public disposal facility.

The property as described in Resolution 2022.23.04 includes equipment used at Newark Adult School. Staff determined that items are obsolete and/or beyond economical repair.

File Attachments Resolution 2022.23.04 Declaring Surplus Equipment-1.pdf (18 KB)

S&H Construction Change Order No. 1 HVAC Replacement Project

Type Action

Fiscal Impact Yes

Budgeted Yes

Budget Source Bond Measure G

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves Change Order No. 1 for S&H Action Construction for the HVAC replacement project.

PURPOSE:

To approve Change Order No. 1 for S&H Construction for the HVAC Replacement Project. This will result in a $2,777.76 credit for contract allowance not used.

BACKGROUND:

On August 5, 2021 the Board approved the S&H Construction contract for the HVAC Units Replacement Project at Birch Grove Primary, Kennedy Elementary, Coyote Hills Elementary, and Schilling Elementary. The HVAC replacement project was part of the Board approved list of projects for the balance of the Measure G Bond funds.

The original contracted amount was for $2,993,000.00. This change order decreases the amount to $2,990,222.24.

File Attachments S&H Construction, Inc_Agreement HVAC_CO 1_fully executed-1.pdf (177 KB)

Warrant Report for July 2022

Type Action

Fiscal Impact No

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the Warrant Report for July Action 2022 as presented. PURPOSE:

The purpose of this item is to present warrants, for the total amount of $4,592,364.79, made from District funds for July 2022.

BACKGROUND:

The warrant registers represent a complete listing of all payments made from District funds for a month. Because Newark Unified School District is a fiscally dependent District, each warrant must pass through two separate audits; first by the District's Fiscal Services department, and second by the County Office of Education. No warrant can be paid until such time as it is examined and approved by the County Office of Education.

File Attachments Warrant Report_July 2022.pdf (594 KB)

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the Warrant Report for July 2022 as presented.

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

Donations Report

Type Action

Fiscal Impact Yes

Budgeted Yes

Budget Source General Fund (Fund 010) Donations

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education accepts the Donations Report as Action presented. PURPOSE:

The purpose is to acknowledge receipt of donations to the District.

BACKGROUND:

Throughout the year community members, groups, parents and other individuals make monetary and in-kind (supplies and equipment) donations to NUSD. The exact nature of the source of the donation is submitted to the Business Office on a standard form. It is critical that any restrictions on the funding be indicated and the budget developed based on the donor restrictions. If there is no indication of the school or use of the funding, any proceeds or cash donations received are placed in the NUSD local revenue in the unrestricted general fund. It is recommended that the donations be processed through the Business Office and ultimately approved by the Board so that the funding can be publicly acknowledged and budgeted properly according to donor restrictions. There is acknowledged and budgeted properly according to donor restrictions. There is acknowledgement at the public Board meeting and a letter of thanks is sent ot the donor by the Business Office for NUSD.

File Attachments Donations Report 8-18-2022-1.pdf (34 KB)

Minutes of the August 4, 2022 Regular Meeting of the Board of Education

Type Action, Minutes

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the minutes of the August 4, Action 2022 Regular Meeting of the Board of Education

PURPOSE:

For the board to review and approve the minutes of the August 4, 2022 Regular Meeting of the Board of Education

BACKGROUND:

The attached minutes are reflective of the August 4, 2022, Regular Meeting of the Board of Education. The meeting may be viewed on the NUSD YouTube Channel HERE

13. SUPERINTENDENT REPORT

Superintendent Report

Type Information

PURPOSE:

The superintendent will provide the Board of Education with district information, updates, news, or anything in the jurisdiction of the board or the superintendent.

BACKGROUND:

The presentation and information will be provided by the Superintendent

File Attachments Superintendent's Report 8.18.22.pdf (2,183 KB)

14. STAFF REPORT

Newark Jr High School and Newark Memorial High School Swimming Pool Reports

Type Discussion, Information PURPOSE:

Dennis Berkshire of Aquatic Design Group will present assessment reports of the Newark Junior High School and Newark Memorial High School swimming pools.

BACKGROUND:

The Newark Junior High School Pool has not been used for several years. It is a six lane x 25 yard swimming pool. The existing pool is in poor condition with several code violations and needed maintenance repairs. The following are preliminary costs which do not include all soft costs or costs for accessibility and locker room upgrades which may be required by the Division of the State Architect.

Eliminate Pool with Asphalt $375,000 Eliminate Pool for New Construction $475,000 Modernize Pool $1,785,063 New Replacement Pool $2,528,925

The Newark Memorial High School Pool is a 13 lane x 25 yard swimming pool that is currently in use. The existing pool has several code violations and needed maintenance repairs. The following are preliminary costs which do not include all soft costs or costs for accessibility and locker room upgrades which may be required by the Division of the State Architect.

Modernize Pool $2,222,527 New Replacement Pool $4,939,837

File Attachments Newark Junior High School Needs Assessment_Final Rev2 07.12.22.pdf (826 KB) Newark Memorial HS Needs Assessment Rev.1 07.12.22.pdf (480 KB)

Preliminary 2021-2022 CAASPP & CAST Data Overview

Type Information PURPOSE:

To share an overview of the preliminary 2021-2022 CAASPP & CAST results and implications.

BACKGROUND:

Districts have been granted preliminary California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) data for the 2021- 2022 academic school year. This data includes preliminary data from the following state assessments: Smarter Balanced English Language Arts/Literacy (ELA) assessment, Smarter Balanced Mathematics assessment, and California Science Test (CAST).

Due to distance learning and the pandemic, the California State Board of Education provided school districts the flexibility to administer alternative assessments to the CAASPP as a way to measure student progress. Consequently, CAASPP assessments were not conducted in the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 academic school years in lieu of more localized, formative assessment tools. This presentation provides a brief overview of the last five years of NUSD CAASPP results, comparing our preliminary 2021-2022 CAASPP results to previous 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 results, as well as the implications for the 2022-2023 academic school year.

File Attachments Staff Report_ Preliminary 2021-2022 CAASPP & CAST Data Overview 8.22.pdf (836 KB)

15. NEW BUSINESS

Citizens' Bond Oversight Committee (CBOC) 2020-21 Annual Report

Type Action

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education accepts the 2020-21 Citizens' Bond Action Oversight Committee Annual Report as presented. PURPOSE:

The Citizens' Bond Oversight Committee (CBOC) Chair, Richard Watters will present the Annual Report for the 2020-21 school year.

BACKGROUND:

Measure G requires an annual report from the Citizens' Bond Oversight Committee.

File Attachments

2020-2021 - CBOC Annual Report.pdf (461 KB)

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education accepts the 2020-21 Citizens' Bond Oversight Committee Annual Report as presented.

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

Increase Daily Rate for Substitute Teachers

Type Action

Absolute Date Aug 18, 2022

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the increase in the daily rate for Action substitute teachers. PURPOSE:

To consider increasing the daily and long-term substitute (guest) teacher rates for the 2022-2023 school year to $220 per day (day-to-day assignments) and $250 per day for long-term positions (beginning on Day 6 of the assignment).

BACKGROUND:

Newark Unified's current substitute (guest) teacher rates are $180 daily rate and $200 per day for long-term positions (beginning on Day 6 of the assignment). Neighboring districts currently offer $200-215 daily and up to $250 for long-term assignments (beginning on Day 11 of the assignment).

Due to the nationwide teacher and substitute teacher shortages, Newark Unified's goal is to stay competitive within our area.

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the increase in the daily rate for substitute teachers.

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

Approval of Addendum to Assistant Superintendent's Employment Agreement

Type Action

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the addendum to the Assistant Action Superintendent of Educational Services' employment agreement. PURPOSE:

For the Board of Education to approve the addendum to the Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services' employment agreement following the Assistant Superintendent's evaluation.

BACKGROUND:

The Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services' current employment agreement states that if the Assistant Superintendent receives a satisfactory annual written evaluation for the 2021-22 school year, with Board approval, she shall receive a 2% salary increase effective July 1, 2022. Following the Assistant Superintendent's receipt of a satisfactory annual written evaluation, through this item, the Board will consider approval of the 2% salary increase effective July 1, 2022 pursuant to the employment agreement.

NOTE: An incorrect addendum was attached and will not be acted upon by the Board. A corrected addendum is attached for the Board to consider when taking action.

File Attachments Assistant Superintendent Contract 03.2021-signed.pdf (269 KB) (CORRECTED) Addendum and Amendment #1 to Assistant Superintendent Agreement 8.18.2022.pdf (15 KB) (INCORRECT) Addendum #1 to Assistant Superintendent Agreement (Newark USD) 8.18.22.pdf (13 KB)

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education approves the addendum to the Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services' employment agreement.

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

Approval of Executive Cabinet Salary Schedule

Type Action

Recommended The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the 2022-23 Executive Cabinet Action Salary Schedule. PURPOSE:

For the Board of Education to approve the 2022-23 Executive Cabinet Salary Schedule to be consistent with the compensation provided for in the contracts with members of Executive Cabinet.

BACKGROUND:

The District's Executive Cabinet includes the Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services, and Chief Business Official. Individuals serving in those positions are employed with the District by way of individual employment contracts which establish their compensation. The District also maintains a salary schedule for these positions.

On February 23, 2022, the Board of Education approved an amended employment agreement with the Chief Business Official. On August 4, 2022, the Board of Education approved an amended employment agreement with the Superintendent. At this meeting (August 18, 2022), the Board of Education will consider an addendum to the employment agreement with the Assistant Superintendent. This item would revise the Executive Cabinet Salary Schedule to be consistent with the compensation provided for in the addendums to these contracts.

File Attachments NUSD Salary Schedule of Contracted Employees 8.14.2022.pdf (15 KB)

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education approve the 2022-23 Executive Cabinet Salary Schedule.

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

16. BOARD MEMBER REQUESTS

CSBA Training

Type Discussion, Information PURPOSE:

For the Board to review the various training options offered by the California School Boards Association.

BACKGROUND:

At the August 4, 2022, Regular Board of Education meeting, Member Hill requested to agendize a discussion of the various training options made available by the CSBA. The request was agreed upon by Members Grindall and Zhang.

File Attachments CSBA Training Board Presentation 2022.08.16.pdf (682 KB)

Public Release of Legal Memos

Type Discussion PURPOSE:

For the Board to discuss the possible public release of legal opinions regarding independent contractor agreements and a conflict of interest claim.

BACKGROUND:

At the August 4, 2022, Regular Board of Education meeting, Member Hill requested to agendize a discussion regarding the possible release of two specific legal memos . The request was agreed upon by Members Grindall and Zhang.

17. CONSENT AGENDA: PULLED AGENDA ITEMS

PLACEHOLDER - Pulled Consent Agenda Items

Type Action

PURPOSE:

This is specifically a placeholder, and will only be used if agenda items from the consent categories are pulled for additional discussion.

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. Those items pulled will be discussed and voted on here.

Motion & Voting

18. 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 2022-23

Board Adopted on 12/16/21 Representative Alternate

Mission Valley Regional Occupational Center/Program (ROC/P) 1. Terrence Grindall 1. Bowen Zhang 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. Alicia Marquez 1. Aiden Hill

Audit Committee 1. Alicia Marquez2. Aiden Hill1. Terrence Grindall

Bond/Parcel Tax Committee 1. Terrence Grindall2. Phuong Nguyen1. Bowen Zhang

                                                                    1. Phuong Nguyen

City of Newark � NUSD Liaison Committee 2. Terrence Grindall 1. Bowen Zhang

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.

19. 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.

20. 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.

Motion & Voting The recommendation is that the Board of Education extends the meeting to 12:00 am.

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

No minutes available.